The agency released a notice in December 2016 clarifying the rules around CBD oil. It’s still a federally illegal Schedule I substance, even if it comes from hemp. But is the new rule legal?
Read more: New DEA Rule Says CBD Oil is Really, Truly, No-Joke Illegal | Leafly
This week, Politico.com summarized the status and fear of the cannabis industry following last months election when 8 states voted to legalize cannabis (bringing the total to 29 states) and this months nomination of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III for attorney general, by President-elect Donald J. Trump.
“In Florida, medical marijuana won nearly 2 million more votes than Donald Trump. Added up, 65 million people now live in states that authorize adult recreational use; more than half of all Americans have access to medical marijuana; and almost everyone else lives in a state that permits CBD, a non-psychoactive component of cannabis that helps treatment of juvenile epilepsy. It’s easier now to identify the six states that have done nothing to end the prohibition on marijuana than the ones that are breaking away from the federal law that treats marijuana the same as heroin…
…As a U.S. Attorney in Alabama in the 1980s, Sessions said he thought the KKK “were OK until I found out they smoked pot.” In April, he said, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” and that it was a “very real danger” that is “not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized.” Sessions, who turns 70 on Christmas Eve, has called marijuana reform a “tragic mistake” and criticized FBI Director James Comey and Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch for not vigorously enforcing a the federal prohibition that President Obama has called “untenable over the long term.” In a floor speech earlier this year, Senator Sessions said: “You can’t have the President of the United States of America talking about marijuana like it is no different than taking a drink… It is different….It is already causing a disturbance in the states that have made it legal…
…There’s little to stop the attorney general nominee from ignoring the will of millions of pro-pot voters.
…With little more than the stroke of his own pen, the new attorney general will be able to arrest growers, retailers and users, defying the will of more than half the nation’s voters, including those in his own state where legislators approved the use of CBD. Aggressive enforcement could cause chaos in a $6.7 billion industry that is already attracting major investment from Wall Street hedge funds and expected to hit $21.8 billion by 2020.”
You can read the full article from the Source here: Jeff Sessions’ Coming War on Legal Marijuana.
We have our work cut out for us in the cannabis industry to ensure the new Attorney General does not push this agenda item, ignoring the will of the people in legalized cannabis states.
The marijuana industry fought hard for progress and didn’t make it out of the shadows until 2013. The recent major growth of the industry is based on the embracement of simply a memo, put out by he Obama Administration, which does not have any support in Federal Law under the new administration.
The more government, scientists and consumers learn more about cannabis, the more the argument’s provided by people like Jeff Sessions seems like unvalidated propaganda.
The Politico Article also present the threats to the adoption of state amendments to allow for legalization of cannabis, such as legislation that restricts the Justice Department from using funds to go after state-legal medical marijuana programs.
“Like the Cole Memo, the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment in California is not yet the law of the land, and because of new rules implemented by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, amendments related to guns, abortion, LGBT issues and marijuana will no longer be permitted—a change that Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, sponsor of a bill to protect industrial hemp programs, considers “an affront to regular order” and “a travesty to our democracy.”
Like all things related to this election and President-elect Donald Trump, what will happen once in office seems unpredictable. However, while the industry is use to keeping our heads low and our aims high, we will certainly be more on defense in 2017 than we have been in years. James Higdon says it best:
“Without any protection from Congress, every marijuana grower and dispensary owner who came out of the shadows to become a taxpaying member of the legal recreational cannabis industry in Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and Alaska has exposed himself to potential criminal prosecution by a DOJ run by Sessions.”
And all of the people with an eye on a recreational cannabis license in California, Nevada, Main and Massachusetts will enter the industry at a time riskier than ever before. It seems we have a lot to loose and the odds stacked higher against us.
On Friday, in response to a growing outcry from Oregon’s marijuana producers, processers, and retailers, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) released new temporary rules for marijuana product testing in the Oregon industry, acknowledging in a press release that “testing costs are driving up consumer prices, creating product shortages, and causing some processors to temporarily cease operations and furlough employees.”
… it appears that OHA moved ahead and filed for a temporary amendment and suspension of certain cannabis testing regulations with Oregon’s Secretary of State, as permitted by state law.
Trista Okel, who publicly vented in November about the unsustainable cost of testing for her small-batch cannabis topicals under state requirements, told the Oregonian that the temporary rules will actually increase the amount of testing she’ll need to do, from 12 to 32 samples per batch. She’s now exploring “how to ride this out” by looking into licensing agreements in states with legal marijuana and “reasonable regulations”. Don Morse, a Portland dispensary owner andoriginal supporter of the new rules, because he thought they’d help legitimize the industry, who later realized his error and decried the supply shortages and cost increases the regulations caused, says that the temporary amendments are “smoke and mirrors,” adding “We were hoping for more to alleviate the backlog of testing and we don’t see that this really does that.”
Source: Update: Oregon Regulators Intervene in Malfunctioning Marijuana Market
New York is loosening restrictions in its nearly year-old medical marijuana law but, to the dismay of some cannabis advocates, there is no sign the state is in any hurry to join eight other states in embracing full legalization.
[…] Gov. Andrew Cuomo remains a skeptic of outright recreational use and legalization faces challenges in the Legislature too. New York’s medical marijuana law still has some of the strictest rules among the more than 20 states that allow medical pot. The state is considering authorizing home deliveries and this past week announced plans to add chronic pain to a list of 10 qualifying conditions that also include cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.
Source: Marijuana policy easing, but no full legalization yet – Times Union
The hope Maine marijuana proponents had of growing their own pot by the Yuletide is going up in smoke because a recount of the Marijuana Legalization ballot question to legalize the practice will likely drag into next year.
The recount began Monday in Augusta. Maine residents last month approved legalizing marijuana by a narrow 4,073-vote margin in an election that attracted more than 750,000 votes.
The hotly debated referendum question asked if voters wanted to legalize recreational pot use by adults at least 21 years old. Legalization would require a regulatory structure that would take months to implement.
Maine voted in the marijuana referendum on a busy day for pot laws nationwide. California, Nevada and Massachusetts all legalized recreational marijuana. Arizona shot down a similar law.
Maine also has a medical marijuana law, which allows for patients to cultivate up to six mature marijuana plants. Proponents of recreational marijuana have pledged that the medical program will be unaffected by full legalization.
Source: Homegrown Pot for Christmas? Only in Your Dreams, Mainers
There are deadlines and other provisions within the law. But the Massachusetts Legislature and Gov. Charlie Baker, one of the top opponents of the measure, hold the power to rewrite the law. So with the governors help, Massachusetts passed marijuana legalization, but what happens next?
Many of the state’s elected officials and policymakers have largely been opposed to legalization and repeatedly called the ballot question flawed. They’ve sent signals that they plan to make changes to the ballot question, calling the proposed tax too low.
Under the law approved Tuesday, marijuana products and retail sales would be subject to the state sales tax and a 3.75 percent excise tax, and cities and towns can add a 2 percent tax, bringing the total to 12 percent.
Lawmakers could also seek to pare back the “home growing” provision – how much people are allowed to possess inside their residence — as well.
The hemp industry benefits from marijuana legalization in Massachusetts, as well. The ballot measure has a small section that also regulates the cultivation, processing, distribution and sale of hemp, which is part of the marijuana family.
Source: Massachusetts just passed marijuana legalization. What happens next?
WASHINGTON — California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada voted to end marijuana prohibition and Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota adopted medical marijuana laws Tuesday in the most momentous election to date for marijuana policy reform. Montana approved an initiative to re-establish patients’ access to medical marijuana providers, which was hindered by state lawmakers, and create a more regulated system of medical marijuana production and distribution.
As of 4:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, an initiative to end marijuana prohibition in Arizona was trailing 48-52, and an initiative to improve Montana’s medical marijuana system was leading 56-44.
Eight states have now voted to legalize and regulate marijuana for adult use, and 28 have approved comprehensive medical marijuana laws.
Read the full story from the Source: Four States End Marijuana Prohibition, Three Adopt Medical Marijuana Laws in Historic Election – MPP
And congrats to MPP and Thank You for all your hard work! Adilas420 looks forward to helping to start marijuana businesses nation wide in 2017!
For information about each of the ballot initiatives:
Arizona Proposition 205 – https://www.regulatemarijuanainarizona.org
California Proposition 64 – http://www.yeson64.org
Maine Question 1 – https://www.regulatemaine.org
Massachusetts Question 4 – https://www.regulatemassachusetts.org
Nevada Question 2 – https://www.regulatemarijuanainnevada.org
Arkansas Issue 6 – http://bit.ly/2f1Ygpe
Florida Amendment 2 – http://www.unitedforcare.org
North Dakota Measure 5 – http://www.yesonmeasure5.com
Montana Initiative 182 – http://www.yeson182.org
Contact Us today for more info!
Massachusetts voters on Tuesday approved a ballot question legalizing marijuana for recreational and commercial use, a decision that creates a major pot market on the U.S. eastern seaboard.
Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. But in more than half of the United States, before the Nov. 8 election, marijuana has been legal in some form, whether it’s for recreational or medical use. Recreational marijuana use is allowed in four states — Colorado, Alaska, Washington and Oregon – along with the District of Columbia.
Source: Marijuana legalization ballot initiative, Question 4, passes in Massachusetts | masslive.com
Voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 64, which would make California the most populous state in the nation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.The approval of the ballot measure, which led in recent polls, would create the largest market for marijuana products in the U.S. It comes six years after California voters narrowly rejected a similar measure. Activists said passage would be an important moment in a fight for marijuana legalization across the U.S.
The amendment inserts language into the Florida Constitution allowing those with cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy and a host of other conditions to use marijuana if it is recommended by their doctor.
| November 08, 2016 – 09:15PM ET | |
| Florida – 4831 of 6027 Precincts Reporting – 80% |
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Source: Florida voters approve broad use of medical marijuana | Miami Herald
