Newsletter
Senator accuses FDA of nefarious cannabis legalization plan (Newsletter: Feb. 4, 2019)
Denver psilocybin measure approved for ballot; POTUS candidate Cory Booker on marijuana; Michael Moore wants USPS to deliver free joints
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/ TOP THINGS TO KNOW
Denver, Colorado officials confirmed that activists collected enough signatures to place a measure decriminalizing psilocybin mushrooms on the city’s May 7 ballot.
Marijuana Moment’s latest analysis looks at the marijuana and drug policy reform record of presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who has been pushing to end the war on drugs for well over a decade—much longer than other contenders for the Democratic nomination.
In a bizarre Senate floor speech, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) seemed to lay out a conspiracy theory postulating that the Food and Drug Administration’s move to ban menthol cigarettes is part of a ploy to eventually legalize marijuana—following in the footsteps of Canada, which made the two moves in succession.
- “Well, Mr. Commissioner, you are only fueling my fears that you are following the roadmap Canada followed—that this is all a bait-and-switch situation.”
/ FEDERAL
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold a hearing on the National Drug Control Strategy on February 12.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) tweeted, “Where marijuana is available for medicinal purposes, opioid use goes down.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said that he encouraged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to make a more far-reaching move to drop the state’s appeal of a lawsuit challenging the ban on smoking medical cannabis than he ultimately did.
Rep. Ro KHanna (D-CA) tweeted, “Any law that legalizes marijuana for recreational use is incomplete unless: “✅ Prior low-level offenses are expunged ✅ Current charges are dismissed ✅ Profits and investments go to the communities impacted by decades of failed drug war policies.”
/ STATES
Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero (D) is supporting a newly filed marijuana legalization bill.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) said he supports legislation to expunge certain past marijuana convictions.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said he’s not giving up on trying to include marijuana legalization in the state budget, but that he’s open to delaying in order to make sure lawmakers “get it right.”
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) said the we’re “seeing evidence that the new system [of marijuana legalization] is intrinsically better” than prohibition. Separately, a jury found a co-founder of the International Church of Cannabis guilty of public consumption of marijuana and violating the state Clean Air Act.
The New Hampshire House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will hold a hearing on a bill to legalize marijuana on Tuesday.
Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Advisory Board voted in favor of adding anxiety and Tourette syndrome as medical cannabis qualifying conditions, and to recommend that lawmakers allow edibles.
Maine regulators are ordering stores to stop selling edible products containing CBD.
Michigan regulators announced another medical cannabis product recall.
The Iowa Senate’s assistant minority leader is calling for marijuana legalization.
Arkansas regulators are investigating whether state Democratic Party chairman’s affiliation with a medical cannabis company violates state rules.
Maryland lawmakers will consider legislation to allow supervised drug consumption facilities.
The Idaho State Police are being sued over their seizure of what the company in question says is legal hemp.
Here’s a look at the prospects for Minnesota marijuana legalization.
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/ LOCAL
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) spoke about his marijuana legalization plans on Bill Maher’s HBO show.
Denver, Colorado officials released guidance on sanitation issues for marijuana businesses. Separately, the district attorney published an op-ed about clearing cannabis convictions.
/ INTERNATIONAL
South Africa regulators are warning that a recent Constitutional Court ruling allowing cultivation and possession of marijuana for personal use doesn’t mean people can legally manufacture and sell cannabis medicines.
Peru’s health minister met with medical cannabis advocates and tweeted about it.
/ ADVOCACY
Marijuana Policy Project founder and former executive director Rob Kampia is serving as political director for a new organization called Decriminalize Sex Work.
/ SCIENCE & HEALTH
A study on marijuana-impaired driving found that “significantly more driving faults were committed directly after consumption” but that “three hours after consumption, no significant increase of driving faults was seen” and “six hours after consumption (during the so-called subacute phase), an increase of driving faults could be noted although not significant.”
A review concluded that “THC- and CBD-based medicines, given as adjunct to pharmaco- and psychotherapy, were associated with improvements of several symptoms of mental disorders, but not with remission.”
/ OPINION & ANALYSIS
The Baltimore Sun editorial board cheered the local top prosecutor’s decision to no longer pursue marijuana possession cases and to erase past cannabis convictions.
The Los Angeles Times editorial board wants California lawmakers to slow down as they consider changes to marijuana taxes.
The Tulsa World editorial board criticized legislation that would remove some protections in Oklahoma’s medical cannabis law.
/ BUSINESS
MedMen Enterprises’s former CFO is suing the company, alleging that executives forced him to “choose between complying with his fiduciary duty to the company and its shareholders or turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to improper and unlawful behavior.”
Weekend Unlimited Inc. won a random lottery for the ticker symbol POT on the Canadian Securities Exchange.
North Bay Credit Union said it has been serving marijuana businesses in California for about a year.
Here’s a look at the growth of Colorado’s hemp industry.
/ CULTURE
Filmmaker Michael Moore said that if he were president he would direct the U.S. Postal Service to deliver two joints to every mailbox in America on a weekly basis, “compliments of your federal government.”
Actor Susan Sarandon tweeted about Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) longtime support for marijuana policy reform.
The creators of HBO’s High Maintenance spoke about how they conceived of the show.
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