Author: Ben Adlin
[ad_1] In a letter sent to the heads of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) this week, 29 former U.S. attorneys are urging the Biden administration to leave cannabis in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), arguing that “marijuana has only become more dangerous, potent, and addictive” since the government last reviewed its scheduling in 2016. The correspondence comes as DEA continues its review of marijuana’s scheduling after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended in August that the substance be moved, reportedly to Schedule III. “Almost no one has benefitted…
[ad_1] A Pennsylvania House committee held a second informational hearing on marijuana legalization this week as momentum builds in the state to enact the reform. After Ohio voters’ decision last month to legalize recreational cannabis, both Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) have said it’s time for Pennsylvania to make the change, too. “It’s just so simple and so easy—just give people what they want,” Fetterman said late last month. “Make it safe, make it pure and make jobs.” At the hearing of the House Health Subcommittee on Health Care on Wednesday, state lawmakers heard…
[ad_1] The commission that oversees Georgia’s medical marijuana program held a special meeting on Wednesday to discuss recent letters from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warning pharmacies that dispensing THC under a state-authorized program could put their businesses at risk. Officials at the meeting generally said the letters stand in the way of expanding medical marijuana access to patients, with one calling on supporters to contact Congress about the issue and another alluding to potential litigation the state may file against DEA over the dispute. Georgia is the first state in the nation to pursue a plan to distribute medical…
[ad_1] Pennsylvania’s legislature has sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would allow the more of the state’s medical marijuana growers and processors to act as retailers—and let more of the state’s retailers grow and process cannabis. The Senate signed off on House changes to the bill on Tuesday, and it now goes to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D). Under current state law, no more than five of the state’s 25 grower-processor license holders can also hold dispensary licenses. Others must sell their products to a licensed dispensary, which in turn can sell products to patients. As proposed in the…
[ad_1] Lawmakers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, voted this week to adopt a resolution in support of decriminalizing the use, possession and noncommercial sharing of psychedelic plants and fungi. It’s the seventh municipality in the state to deprioritize arrests for entheogens. The statement also calls on the county district attorney to cease prosecutions for psychedelics-related activity as well as for simple possession of all drugs. Further, it urges state lawmakers to amend a pending proposal that would legalize psychedelics in all of Massachusetts and could end up on the 2024 ballot. The Provincetown Select Board passed the resolution on a 3–1 vote…
[ad_1] If the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reschedules marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), experts say the change would not only have big implications for cannabis at the federal level, but could also cause series of legal adjustments in states. As the result of so-called “trigger laws,” most U.S. states would either automatically reschedule marijuana to follow a change in its federal status or would begin a process to reclassify the substance. The ripple effect could impact politics, criminal justice and medical marijuana, among other issues. Broadly, states fall into one of three categories in terms…
[ad_1] Sales of adult-use marijuana in Maryland totaled nearly $56 million in November, yet again setting a consecutive record for monthly commercial cannabis activity since the recreational market opened in July. Legal marijuana sales overall across the state dropped slightly last month, however, totaling roughly $89.7 million, including $33.7 million in medical marijuana receipts. That’s down from a total of about $90 million in October, and about $2 million less than August’s record overall high of $91.7 million. The latest figures, released this week by the Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA), also include a breakdown of sales by product category. Just…
[ad_1] Legal marijuana sales in Connecticut set a new record in November, with nearly $25.7 million in total sales for the month. That figure includes $15.4 million in sales to adult consumers—the highest amount since the recreational market opened in January. Medical marijuana sales, meanwhile, held steady in November at about $10.3 million after months of consistent declines. All told, state-licensed retailers have reported nearly a quarter of a billion dollars worth of total cannabis sales so far in 2023, according to latest numbers from the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. The adult-use market also saw the purchase of more…
[ad_1] New Hampshire lawmakers have now pre-filed a dozen marijuana-related bills for the 2024 legislative session, including measures to legalize the cannabis for adults, annul prior convictions, expand the list of qualifying conditions for the state’s medical program as well as increase possession limits and allow home cultivation for patients and caregivers. Ten of the 12 bills were pre-filed in the past week, following two others—regarding home grow for patients and eating disorders as qualifying conditions, respectively—earlier this month. The pre-filed legislation includes some proposals from members of what one lawmaker described to Marijuana Moment earlier this month as “sort…
[ad_1] Missouri officials have expunged more than 100,000 marijuana cases from court records during the first year of legalization, according the latest state numbers. But some courts missed Friday’s deadline for felony expungements as clerks work to review decades of old cases. “The courts are going to need more time to finish the job, and in fact, it might be years before all the cases from the past century are expunged,” lawyer Dan Viets, a Missouri NORML coordinator and co-author of Missouri’s 2022 constitutional amendment legalizing marijuana, told FOX affiliate KVTI in St. Louis. “We’ve had more than 100 years…
[ad_1] A Virginia state senator says he’s “confident” that lawmakers can send a bill to tax and regulate marijuana sales to Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) in the coming year. The question now is whether supporters can build enough bipartisan support to avoid a potential veto. “I am confident, with Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, that we can get a bill to the governor’s desk,” Sen. Adam Ebbin (D) said in a local TV news interview that aired over the weekend. “The challenge is going to be we want to make that bill bipartisan anyway. We want the…
[ad_1] New Jersey’s governor and attorney general have announced the recipients of a violence-intervention grant program funded in part with revenue from state-legal marijuana. Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin (D) said last week that $15 million—of which $5 million state’s Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Fund—will be distributed to 29 organizations to support and expand New Jersey’s Community-Based Violence Intervention (CBVI) program. The fund, which was established through the state’s marijuana legalization law, consists of monies from taxes on legal sales, industry fees and civil penalties. In NJ, we know that communities grow stronger…