Politics
New Mexico GOP Senator Circulates Draft Marijuana Bill Ahead Of This Week’s Special Session
At least two competing proposals are taking shape as New Mexico lawmakers attempt to strike a deal on marijuana legalization during a special legislative session that begins on Tuesday.
Sponsors of HB 12, which passed the House of Representatives but ultimately stalled on the Senate floor during the final hours of the regular session, have been scrambling to retool that measure into a form they hope can win support from both chambers.
“We are working on our bill,” Rep. Javier Martínez (D) told Marijuana Moment in an interview on Friday. “I’ve been meeting with the governor’s office all week—myself, my cosponsors on the House side and cosponsors on the Senate side.”
Some reports suggest individual provisions of the plan, such as the automatic expungement of past cannabis convictions, will spin off into separate legislation, potentially creating several bills for lawmakers to consider.
Meanwhile Sen. Cliff Pirtle (R), whose own legalization bill, SB 288, failed to make it out of committee during the regular session, unveiled a separate proposal for the special session late last week.
“I thought it important to get out to the public because it is kind of a rushed special session,” he told Marijuana Moment.
Pirtle said that while he was scheduled to meet with the governor’s office over the weekend, he has felt largely left out of the ongoing negotiations. “I really thought I would have more of a hands-on role at this point,” he said Friday. “I have yet to see a version from the governor’s office or the House members.”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), who supports legalization, signaled the need for a special session as it became clear that HB 12 was unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate in its current form. “It’s important enough and we’re close enough that the governor firmly believes it will be worth an extra effort to close the deal,” her office said in a statement at the time. She officially called the special session late last week.
Martínez declined to discuss details of the forthcoming proposal but said the group was working off an amended version of HB 12, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that allows adult use and home cultivation of marijuana, establishes a legal market and creates state funds to reinvest money into communities most harmed by the war on drugs.
“We expect to have our bill ready in the next couple days,” he said. “I really can’t give you a date.”
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Critics of HB 12, including Pirtle and moderate Democrats skeptical of legalization, such as Senate Judiciary Chair Joe Cervantes, have disparaged it as poorly written and overly complicated, despite input from state-sanctioned workgroups.
A sticking point for some critics has been the measure’s social equity provisions. “It seems like the focus of House Bill 12 is social justice and not how to properly regulate cannabis,” Pirtle told Marijuana Moment last month. He suggested lawmakers take up equity in separate legislation rather than interweave it into the cannabis bill.
One expected change to the legalization proposal for the special session would do exactly that. HB 12 originally included language that would expunge past cannabis convictions and allow people with past convictions to get a business license in the legal industry—an attempt at addressing the past harms of the drug war, which have fallen disproportionately on Black, brown and Indigenous communities.
Rep. Andrea Romero (D), a cosponsor of HB 12, told the Santa Fe New Mexican last week that those provisions will be removed for the special session and repackaged in separate legislation.
Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokesperson for the governor, told the paper the matters were still being discussed.
“Those social justice issues are very important, but whether they are included in the bill or taken up as a standalone concurrent measure is a subject of ongoing conversation,” she said. “But ultimately whether it’s one bill or five or 10, the governor’s priority is a comprehensive body of law that legalizes adult-use cannabis in a safe way while attending to the social justice components that are part a well-rounded legalization effort.”
Sackett did not respond to a separate emailed request for comment last week from Marijuana Moment.
Other lawmakers have since confirmed that the proposal will indeed be split into two measures: one containing legalization, and the other focusing on social justice provisions such as expungement and equity licensing.
Rep. Macaela Lara Cadena (D), vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee, told the Las Cruces Sun News after a Democratic caucus meeting on Sunday that the legalization bill will begin in the House during this week’s special session, with the expungement bill starting its path in the Senate.
Cervantes told the paper that decoupling the social equity provisions from the legalization proposal gives politicians more options. “You can understand how some legislators might vote for the licensing bill, but be against criminal justice reforms; and conversely, some vote [for] the criminal justice reforms and against the licensing bill,” he said. “There are some Republicans who have said they support the principle of legalization, but may have problems expunging records and letting people out of jail.”
Pirtle described his new proposal, which does not contain expungement provisions, as a compromise with the House bill’s backers, saying its “basically 288 but it incorporates some of the concerns from the HB 12 folks,” specifically regarding how the new market would be regulated. Rather than create a separate commission to oversee the commercial cannabis market, for example, the industry would be regulated by the state Regulations and Licensing Department, as HB 12 proposed.
Pirtle emphasized throughout the regular session the need for commercial legalization to undercut and help eliminate the illicit market. His bill proposes a relatively low 8 percent excise rate, compared to 12 percent in HB 12, and contains no limit on license numbers or the number of plants a cultivator could grow. It would begin legal sales later this year, with licensed medical marijuana businesses able to begin sales to adults a few months before new businesses come online.
Martínez, however, stressed that a legalization bill without equity protections is a nonstarter for HB 12’s backers.
“Sen. Pirtle’s got some good ideas that have already been incorporated into House Bill 12,” he said. Asked about Pirtle’s new proposal, Martínez said it “seriously lacks lacks any type of legitimate effort towards social justice, and we are simply not legalizing for the sake of legalization. That’s been made very clear by us and by the governor.”
Legislative leaders settled on HB 12 from among a handful of legalization proposals introduced this session by both Democrats and Republicans. Over the course of the past several weeks, the bills’ sponsors have tried to unify the conflicting proposals and incorporate feedback from colleagues.
Polling indicates New Mexico voters are ready for the policy change. A survey released in October found a strong majority of residents are in favor of legalization with social equity provisions in place, and about half support the decriminalization of drug possession more broadly.
Gov. Lujan Grisham, meanwhile, included cannabis legalization as part of her 2021 legislative agenda and has repeatedly talked about the need to legalize as a means to boost the economy, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic. She said during a State of the State address in January that “a crisis like the one we’ve experienced last year can be viewed as a loss or as an invitation to rethink the status quo—to be ambitious and creative and bold.”
Additional pressure to end cannabis prohibition this year is coming from neighboring Arizona, where sales officially launched in January after voters approved a legalization ballot initiative last year. To New Mexico’s north is Colorado, one of the first states to legalize for adult use.
Cannabis is also expected to be legalized across the southern border in Mexico, with lawmakers facing a Supreme Court mandate to end prohibition by the end of April.
Before last year’s failed effort, New Mexico’s House in 2019 approved a legalization bill that included provisions to put marijuana sales mostly in state-run stores, but that measure died in the Senate. Later that year, Lujan Grisham created a working group to study cannabis legalization and issue recommendations.
In May of last year, the governor signaled she was considering actively campaigning against lawmakers who blocked her legalization bill in 2020. She also said that she’s open to letting voters decide on the policy change via a ballot referendum if lawmakers can’t send a legalization bill to her desk.
Read Pirtle’s draft legal marijuana bill for the special session below:
Pirtle New Mexico Cannabis … by Marijuana Moment
New York Marijuana Legalization Bill Is Officially Released, With Votes Planned Within Days
Photo courtesy of WeedPornDaily
Politics
New York Doctors Can Now Recommend Medical Marijuana To Patients For Any Condition They See Fit
As New York prepares the launch of its adult-use marijuana market, the state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) announced on Monday a significant expansion of the existing medical cannabis program.
Now doctors will be able to issue medical marijuana recommendations to people for any condition that they feel could be treated by cannabis, rather than rely on a list of specific eligible maladies. Physicians were granted that discretion through the state’s recreational marijuana law that was enacted last year.
The expansion is being made possible as part of OCM’s new Medical Cannabis Program certification and registration system.
“It is terrific to see the Medical Cannabis Program expand so vastly with the launch of the new certification and registration program and the ability of practitioners to determine qualifying conditions as included in the MRTA,” Cannabis Control Board (CCB) Chair Tremaine Wright said in a press release.
“The new cannabis industry is taking shape as we continue to implement the MRTA and provide greater access for New Yorkers to a medicine that we’re learning more about every day,” Wright said. “We’re continuing to move forward swiftly and today’s system launch follows our achievements that already include adding whole flower medical product sales, permanently waiving $50 patient fees, and advancing home cultivation regulations, among others.”
Medical practitioners can now certify a patient for any condition that the practitioner believes can be treated with medical cannabis, as intended by the MRTA.
— NYS Office of Cannabis Management (@nys_cannabis) January 24, 2022
Lat last year, CCB voted unanimously to advance a policy change to allow medical cannabis patients in the state to grow plants for personal use, another change made possible by the broad legalization law that was enacted.
In November, regulators also approved rules for the state’s cannabinoid hemp program, notably clarifying that flower from the crop can be sold but delta-8 THC products are currently prohibited from being marketed.
“Launching the new patient certification and registration system and expanding eligibility for the Medical Cannabis Program are significant steps forward for our program,” OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander said. “We will continue to implement the MRTA and ensure that all New Yorkers who can benefit from medical cannabis have the access they need to do so.”
“It’s important for New Yorkers to know that even as we shift the medical program to the OCM, your access will not be disrupted and the program will continue to expand,” he stressed.
While marijuana retailers have yet to launch in New York, the legalization law signed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) already permits adults 21 and older to possess and publicly consume cannabis. Meanwhile, lawmakers in the state have been working to build upon the reform.
For example, a New York senator filed a bill last month to make it so that gay, lesbian and bisexual people can qualify as social equity applicants under the state’s marijuana law.
Sen. Jeremy Cooney (D) introduced the legislation, shortly after filing a separate bill to include transgender and non-binary people in the cannabis social equity program. He’s also behind other recent marijuana reform proposals related to cannabis business tax benefits and licensing.
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Marijuana Moment is already tracking more than 1,000 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.
Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
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In July, Cooney filed a bill to create a provisional marijuana licensing category so that farmers could begin cultivating and selling cannabis ahead of the formal rollout of the adult-use program.
Cooney is also sponsoring a newly filed bill to allow licensed cannabis companies to deduct certain business expenses on their state tax returns.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who replaced Cuomo after he resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, has repeatedly emphasized her interest in efficiently implementing the legalization law.
Hochul released a State of the State book earlier this month that called for the creation of a $200 million public-private fund to specifically help promote social equity in the state’s burgeoning marijuana market.
The governor said that while cannabis business licenses have yet to be approved since legalization was signed into law last year, the market stands to generate billions of dollars, and it’s important to “create opportunities for all New Yorkers, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.”
That proposal was also cited in Hochul’s executive budget, which was released last week. The budget also estimated that New York stands to generate more than $1.25 billion in marijuana tax revenue over the next six years.
The state Department of Labor separately announced in recent guidance that New York employers are no longer allowed to drug test most workers for marijuana.
Meanwhile, a New York lawmaker introduced a bill in June that would require the state to establish an institute to research the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.
Another state legislator filed legislation last month to legalize psilocybin mushrooms for medical purposes and establish facilities where the psychedelic could be grown and administered to patients.
Colorado Meets Marijuana Industry Diversity Goal Ahead Of Schedule
Colorado officials announced on Monday that the state has achieved a “wildly important goal” of increasing diversity in the legal marijuana industry—but the data shows there’s still a way to go before cannabis business ownership is on par with the state’s population demographics.
Nearly 17 percent of the state’s cannabis businesses are now minority-owned as of January 1, the Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) reported. Colorado had set a goal of at least 16.8 percent minority ownership in the cannabis sector by June 30, 2022, and that’s already been narrowly exceeded by the beginning of the year.
When data on licensee demographics started to be collected in July 2021, there was 15.2 percent minority ownership in the marijuana market. Now it’s up to 16.8 percent.
As of January 1, the state has also approved 50 social equity licenses for communities disproportionately impacted by prohibition.
Via Colorado DOR.
As one of the first states to legalize marijuana for adult use, there’s been significant pressure on Colorado to ensure that the industry is equitable, benefitting those who have been most impacted under criminalization.
“Colorado is demonstrating that intentionally revising state marijuana laws to be more equitable gets results,” Shaleen Title, a former Massachusetts cannabis regulator and current CEO of the Parabola Center, told Marijuana Moment.
“If one of the most mature markets can make clear progress, it’s not too late for any market. And although there’s always more to go—we should all be aiming for proportional representation in ownership at the very least—Colorado is setting and reaching reasonable goals,” she said. “It’s good for transparency and it’s good for morale, and having more data on what’s working at the state level is valuable to inform federal policy.”
(Disclosure: Title supports Marijuana Moment’s work via a monthly pledge on Patreon.)
As part of Colorado’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, Social Equity Licenses are one of the many ways our Marijuana Enforcement Division is supporting diversity initiatives in the cannabis industry. To learn more, visit https://t.co/ye7c6WQJOZ @ColoradoEcoDevo pic.twitter.com/NljRlGtcuU
— CO Dept. of Revenue (@CO_Revenue) January 21, 2022
A demographic breakdown of the new data shows that while there’s been an increase in minority ownership, the percentage of black people who own a majority stake in a cannabis business (2.9 percent) is still lower than the percentage of black people who live in the state (4.6 percent).
There’s also a significant disparity when it comes to gender and marijuana licensing. MED’s report says that there are 1,535 men who own a marijuana business, compared to just 350 women.
And with respect to license type, white people have a notably more expansive portfolio compared to other races.
Via MED.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) is also working to right the wrongs of prohibition outside of licensing. For example, last month he granted 1,351 pardons for convictions of possession of two ounces or less of marijuana.
That move focused on people who were made eligible for relief under a new law that increased the legal cannabis possession limit for adults in the state, which Polis signed in May. At the time, he directed state law enforcement to identify people with prior convictions for amounts under the new, two-ounce limit.
Polis signed an executive order in 2020 that granted clemency to almost 3,000 people convicted of possessing one ounce or less of marijuana. And while earlier legislation that enabled him to do that in an expedited way applied to possession cases involving up to two ounces, his office declined to pardon those with more than one ounce on their records because that amount violated the existing state law.
As the state works to increase diversity in the marijuana industry, it’s also collecting significant tax revenue from cannabis sales.
Last year alone, Colorado generated $423 million in tax revenue from cannabis, the state’s Department of Revenue reported last week.
Nearly $500 million of cannabis tax revenue in Colorado has supported the state’s public school system so far, according to a report from the Marijuana Policy Project.
Massachusetts Marijuana Tax Revenue Now Exceeds Alcohol By Millions
Politics
Governors Across The U.S. Tout Marijuana Reform Progress In State Of The State Speeches And Budgets
Governors across the U.S. have been taking the opportunity to tout marijuana reform accomplishments as part of their annual State of the State speeches and budget requests this month.
From New York to South Dakota, the comments and proposals from state executives demonstrate how cannabis has become more mainstream and is being talked about in high profile venues alongside more traditional fare such as taxes, education and infrastructure.
It’s also part of a growing theme, as governors have increasingly brought up marijuana policy in State of the State addresses each year to kick off the new year as the legalization movement spreads.
Here’s a look at what governors are saying about marijuana policy in 2022:
New Jersey
While adult-use marijuana retail sales have yet to launch in New Jersey after voters approved a 2020 legalization referendum, the state’s top executive said in his State of the State address that he’s expecting an economic boon.
“Many jobs await in the cannabis industry ready to take off,” Gov. Phil Murphy (R) said.
The governor also said separately in his second inaugural address this month that “businesses in the new cannabis industry that we are setting up in the name of social justice” are part of efforts to “continue growing the innovation economy that will power our future and make us a model for the nation and the world.”
Businesses on the cutting edge of new technologies that will revolutionize our grasp of the possible.
Businesses in the new cannabis industry that we are setting up in the name of social justice.
In online gaming and sports betting, which we now dominate.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) January 18, 2022
As the state prepares to implement legal cannabis sales, Murphy said late last year that he’s open to giving adults the right to cultivate marijuana for personal use even though it’s not currently written into the law.
New Mexico
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) talked in here State of the State speech about the economic potential of the marijuana industry under the legalization law she signed last year.
“We’re expanding our economic footprint into every single community,” the governor said in her State of the State address. “Legal cannabis is going to create thousands of jobs and serious tax revenue for local governments to support local services in every corner of our state.”
Legal cannabis is going to create thousands of jobs & serious tax revenue to support local services.
Clean hydrogen will support thousands of jobs, especially in rural New Mexico, while helping us sprint toward our net-zero carbon deadlines and decarbonize transportation.
— Michelle Lujan Grisham (@GovMLG) January 18, 2022
New York
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) released a State of the State book earlier this month that called for the creation of a $200 million public-private fund to specifically help promote social equity in the state’s burgeoning marijuana market.
The governor said that while cannabis business licenses have yet to be approved since legalization was signed into law last year, the market stands to generate billions of dollars, and it’s important to “create opportunities for all New Yorkers, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.”
That proposal was also cited in Hochul’s executive budget, which was released last week. The budget also estimated that New York stands to generate more than $1.25 billion in marijuana tax revenue over the next six years.
The briefing book for the executive budget touts how Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has “prioritized getting New York’s cannabis industry up and running” since marijuana was legalized under her predecessor last year. That includes appointing key regulators who’ve been “creating and implementing a comprehensive regulatory framework.”
Rhode Island
The governor of Rhode Island included a proposal to legalize marijuana as part of his annual budget plan—the second time he’s done so. And time around, he also added new language to provide for automatic cannabis expungements in the state.
Gov. Dan McKee (D) released his request for the 2023 fiscal year on Thursday, calling for adult-use legalization as lawmakers say they’re separately nearing a deal on enacting the reform. It appears that an outstanding disagreement between the governor and legislators concerning what body should regulate the program remains unresolved based on the new budget proposal, however.
In general, McKee’s plan would allow adults 21 and older to purchase and possess up to one ounce of cannabis, though it would not provide a home grow option. Adults could also store up to five ounces of marijuana in secured storage in their primary residence.
“The governor recommends creating a strictly regulated legal market for adult-use cannabis in the state,” an executive summary states. “This proposal would create a weight-based excise tax on marijuana cultivation, an additional retail excise tax of 10 percent, and also apply sales tax to cannabis transactions.”
South Dakota
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) isn’t a fan of adult-use legalization, going so far as to fund a lawsuit against a voter-approved 2020 reform initiative that ultimately led to a court ruling voiding the law. Her office has even suggested that activists behind the successful legalization campaign should front the legal bills for the case.
However, she seems to recognize the popularity of the issue and has recently attempted to associate herself with the implementation of the separate medical cannabis legalization law that voters also approved, as she did in her State of the State address this month.
“I take our citizens’ health seriously. I don’t make these decisions lightly. And when we create new policy, we’re going to do everything we can to get it right from day one,” Noem said. “Our state’s medical cannabis program is one example.”
“It was launched on schedule according to the timeline passed by South Dakota voters,” she said. “I know there will be some debate about that program this session. My focus is on making sure South Dakota has the safest, most responsible, and well-run medical cannabis program in the country.”
Noem tried to get the legislature to approve a bill to delay implementation of the medical cannabis program for an additional year, but while it cleared the House, negotiators were unable to reach an agreement with the Senate in conference, delivering a defeat to the governor.
In response, her office started exploring a compromise last year, with one proposal that came out of her administration to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of cannabis, limit the number of plants that patients could cultivate to three and prohibit people under 21 from qualifying for medical marijuana.
Advocates weren’t enthused with the proposal, and now they’re taking a two-track approach to enacting broader legalization legislatively and through the ballot.
Virginia
In his final State of the Commonwealth address this month, now former-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) talked about the criminal justice implications of his state’s move to legalize marijuana last year.
“We also worked closely with you to make sure our criminal justice system reflects the Virginia that we are today. Too often, our modern-day punishments and practices have their roots in a more discriminatory and unfair past,” he said. “That’s why we’ve made marijuana use legal.”
Too often, our modern-day punishments and practices have their roots in a more discriminatory and unfair past.
That’s why we’ve made marijuana use legal. That’s also why we have ended use of the death penalty in Virginia—the first southern state to do so. #VASOTC
— Governor Ralph Northam (@VAGovernor73) January 13, 2022
He also thanked the legislators who championed the reform “for their work on this policy, which is complicated, but important.”
Meanwhile, the new governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, said recently that while he’s not interested in re-criminalizing marijuana possession, which became legal in the state last summer, but he feels there’s “still work to be done” before he gets behind creating a market for commercial sales and production.
Bipartisan Pennsylvania Senators File Bill To Let Medical Marijuana Patients Grow Their Own Plants
Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
