Author: Chris Roberts
[ad_1] If Florida legalizes adult-use marijuana later this year, a Republican state lawmaker wants to ensure that only the weakest legal cannabis in the U.S. will be allowed in stores. On Friday, Florida Rep. Ralph Massullo introduced a bill that would impose a potency cap on any future voter-approved adult-use cannabis market. Massullo’s bill proposes a 10 percent cap on THC for cannabis “in a form for smoking” and a 60% THC cap for concentrates. Marijuana edibles would be capped at 200 milligrams of THC per package and 10 milligrams of THC per serving. Massullo’s bill faces uncertain prospects in…
[ad_1] An Alabama judge this week halted the state’s latest efforts to issue medical cannabis licenses. After issuing a temporary restraining order blocking the issuance of dispensary-only permits in late December, Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson on Wednesday also stopped regulators from handing out so-called “integrated” licenses ahead of an anticipated Jan. 9 award date, AL.com reported. And there’s a “serious question” whether the state might need to abandon the current licensing round and start over for a fourth time, the judge wrote in his ruling. Alabama legalized medical marijuana through its Legislature in 2021, but there’s still no…
[ad_1] The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is currently “conducting its review” of an earlier recommendation that the agency reschedule marijuana, a DEA official recently told a federal lawmaker. The potential rescheduling of marijuana started with President Joe Biden’s October 2022 executive order that federal cabinet-level agencies reexamine the drug’s status under U.S. law. Biden’s edict led to an Aug. 29 recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services that the DEA should move marijuana from its current status in Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act. Such a move would unlock significant federal tax reform for…
[ad_1] Alabama regulators ended 2023 with a promise that the first legal sale of medical marijuana will happen sometime in 2024. But MMJ sales in the state cannot begin until dispensary licenses are issued, a process that an Alabama circuit judge temporarily blocked last Friday, the Associated Press reported. Alabama legalized medical marijuana in 2021, but a series of challenges to how the state judged license applications and awarded permits have kept MMJ businesses and patients waiting. After two earlier attempts to award permits were thwarted, the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) issued 20 licenses on Dec. 1, including four…
[ad_1] With the cannabis industry eagerly awaiting the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest move in the rescheduling process, the new year promises the biggest development in U.S. marijuana policy in 50 years. If the rescheduling odyssey launched by the Biden administration in October 2022 stays on track, as expected, marijuana will be moved to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) sometime in 2024. Though it wouldn’t happen overnight, rescheduling would deliver tax reform, as Section 280E of the federal tax code would no longer apply. That IRS provision has hit state-legal marijuana retailers particularly hard and contributed to…
[ad_1] (This story has been updated to clarify the changes in Pennsylvania law.) Up to 30 new medical marijuana dispensaries could open in Pennsylvania under a bill signed into law by the state’s Democratic governor, a potential expansion of 20%. Under Senate Bill 773 – which Gov. Josh Shapiro signed into law Dec. 14, as promised – as many as 10 independent MMJ growers now qualify to apply for a dispensary license. Until now, Pennsylvania law capped the number of dispensary license holders at 50. That arrangement led to a market controlled by out of state big cannabis company that…
[ad_1] (This is the second installment in an occasional series that will examine questionable cannabis laboratory testing results. The previous installment is available here.) Despite widespread acknowledgement from cannabis industry observers that commercial testing laboratories across the country routinely inflate THC potency results, consequences are rare, according to a review of recent state regulatory actions. Critics say this demonstrates that state regulators have been too slow to wrestle with dubious THC-potency results and other questionable data and behavior from state-licensed marijuana labs, allowing the problem to grow worse. The pervasive lab-fraud problem in turn deals a serious blow to the…
[ad_1] The day before the grand opening of the first legal adult-use store in Brooklyn, New York state officials celebrated what they vow will be the final shutdown of a longstanding illicit marijuana operation in the borough. Using the courts to permanently shutter Big Chief Smoke Shop, an unlicensed cannabis retailer in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of southern Brooklyn, is a sign that New York is “turning the corner,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a Monday statement. Big Chief is the ninth illegal operator to be shut down by the state, according to Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James. “We…
[ad_1] Missouri regulators could revoke up to 11 of the 48 marijuana social equity licenses issued earlier this fall after discovering the applicants were ineligible. In October, the state issued 48 microbusiness licenses reserved for “marginalized and under-represented individuals” who were selected by lottery from a pool of more than 1,600 applicants. Applicants needed to meet at least one of several criteria to be eligible. But after an eligibility review, Abigail Vivas, chief equity officer for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, “identified indications of ineligibility for two microbusiness wholesale licenses and nine microbusiness dispensary licenses.” Vivas disclosed…
[ad_1] A flurry of potential December grand openings means New York is on track to have 37 adult-use cannabis stores in operation statewide by the end of the year, Gov. Kathy Hochul said. As many as 12 recreational marijuana retailers across the state could start sales this month, Hochul said Thursday, including the first legal retailer in Brooklyn, New York City’s most populous borough. That’s still a far cry from the retail density seen in other states. New Jersey, for example, has 65 adult-use stores open for business, according to state data. Meanwhile, multistate operators with medical marijuana licenses in New York…
[ad_1] Earl Blumenauer was a 25-year-old “child legislator” in the Oregon House of Representatives in 1973, as he recalled it, when he realized there was something wrong about marijuana. Not that he knew this firsthand. “At that point, I don’t think I’d ever seen anybody even smoke marijuana,” said the Democratic U.S. representative, now 75 and a year from his recently announced retirement after 50 years in public life, the past 27 representing the 3rd District of Oregon, including deep-blue Portland, in Congress. And not that he knows that now, at least not in a firsthand way: The co-chair and…
[ad_1] Pennsylvania state lawmakers this week approved a bill that would end what they call a “near-monopoly” in the state’s medical cannabis market currently controlled by major multistate operators. The bill now goes to Gov. Josh Shapiro, according to The (Harrisburg) Patriot-News, and the Democrat is expected to sign the legislation into law. That would help “small Pennsylvania businesses to compete against large multistate operators that have come into this state and attempted to take over an entire industry, Republican state Sen. Christopher Gebhard said, according to Lancaster Online. Up to 10 growers and four dispensaries statewide would meet criteria…