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Rhode Island Cannabis Legalization Bill Passed by Senate

Rhode Island Cannabis Legalization Bill Passed by Senate

Rhode Island cannabis legalization bill passed in Senate

The Rhode Island Senate approved legalizing recreational cannabis use for adults on Tuesday, marking the first time either chamber of the state Legislature has voted on a bill to legalize cannabis.

The proposal was introduced by longtime proponent Sen. Joshua Miller, a Cranston Democrat who chairs the chamber’s Health and Human Services Committee. It now heads to the state House of Representatives.

House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, a Warwick Democrat, has said the Democratic-controlled Legislature will likely end up taking up the question on how to structure a legal cannabis industry in a special session later this year.

Gov. Daniel McKee has his own plan for legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis, but legislative leaders didn’t include it in their proposed $13.1 billion state budget for the coming fiscal year.

Miller’s proposal would impose a 20% tax on cannabis sales, create an independent cannabis control commission to license and oversee cannabis operations, and allow for home cultivation. It would also create a “Cannabis Equity Fund” to help cannabis businesses from disadvantaged communities.

McKee’s proposal would have the state Department of Business Regulation oversee the industry and ban home growing cannabis, among other differences.

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C. have legalized cannabis for adults over the age of 21, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

 
Trump Clemency Recipient Says MORE Act Will Leave Many Prisoners Behind

Trump Clemency Recipient Says MORE Act Will Leave Many Prisoners Behind

MORE Act may not help cannabis convictions

Advocates are eager for a House vote on a recently reintroduced bill to federally legalize marijuana—but some others are sounding the alarm about provisions related to resentencing that might not help to repair the harms of the war on drugs in the way lawmakers are aiming for.

The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), would remove cannabis from the list of federally controlled substances. But it also has a concerted focus on social equity, which includes providing for resentencing for people convicted over certain federal marijuana offenses.

To many advocates and legislators, there’s a necessity to couple legalization with equity. And that’s what the resentencing language, along with other provisions, is supposed to achieve. But in a letter to congressional lawmakers, a pro-reform individual who received clemency for a cannabis conviction from President Donald Trump warned that the bill, as written, would not have the impact that the sponsors intend.

Because the legislation gives significant deference to the courts to make decisions on resentencing petitions—but also declines to resolve cases where there are aggravating factors such as possession of a firearm or sums of money at the time of an arrest—relief could be out of reach for a large number of federal inmates, the letter states.

Craig Cesal, who is serving a sentence of supervised release after being granted clemency by Trump over a federal cannabis trafficking case, said in the letter that many people incarcerated for marijuana “would receive no relief from their conviction at all” under the MORE Act, and some would “continue to serve life sentences for conduct which would no longer be considered illegal.”

He pointed to three specific parts of the legalization legislation that could keep people incarcerated over marijuana based on the language.

First, it would give “discretion to the sentencing court as to whether the marijuana conviction or related conduct would be expunged.” The bill states that people would be eligible for expungement only if their case was non-violent, and courts have frequently disagreement about what constitutes a violent offense.

Second, it does not “provide relief for additional counts of conviction inextricably relying on the criminality of the marijuana offense.” For example, if a person who was convicted on a cannabis charge was in possession of a firearm that would’ve otherwise been lawful if marijuana wasn’t illegal, that could complicate resentencing processing.

Finally, those “whose offense involved five or more people, which is most marijuana offenses, would be specifically excepted from relief under the MORE Act,” Cesal said.

A spokesperson for the Judiciary Committee did not respond to Marijuana Moment’s requests for a reaction to Cesal’s concerns about the chairman’s bill.

Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Guarantee Cannabis Insurance Services

Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Guarantee Cannabis Insurance Services

A bipartisan cannabis insurance bill has been introduced in the Senate

A bipartisan bill to guarantee insurance services within the cannabis industry was introduced last week in the U.S. Senate. The legislation, aptly named the Clarifying Law Around Insurance of Marijuana (CLAIM) Act of 2021, is sponsored by Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Jeff Merkley (D).

According to a press release from Sen. Menendez’s office, the bill was introduced in response to the fact that only six states in the U.S. still lack some form of medical or adult-use cannabis law. However, due to cannabis’s designation as a Schedule I narcotic under the Controlled Substances Act, these otherwise legal businesses are not generally insurable.

Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-NY) introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives on Monday, her office announced in a press release.

The voters in New Jersey spoke loud and clear this November when they overwhelmingly approved of recreational marijuana use, the governor and state legislature have acted, and now it’s time for the federal government to take the shackles off of state-authorized cannabis businesses, allowing this burgeoning industry to thrive.” — Sen. Menendez, in a statement

The CLAIM Act would allow cannabis firms in states with adult or medical cannabis to obtain insurance products like workman’s compensation, property, casualty and title insurance, the press release says. The Act has both private and public stipulations designed to protect insurers as well as the insured.

“Current federal law prevents these small business owners from getting insurance coverage, and without it, they can’t protect their property, employees or customers,” said Sen. Menendez. “Our legislation simply levels the playing field for legal cannabis businesses, allowing them to fully operate just as any other legal small business would by permitting insurance companies to provide coverage to these enterprises without risk of federal prosecution or other unintended consequences.”

The proposal is particularly timely as the House and Senate are set to reconsider the widely popular SAFE Banking Act, which would legalize the cannabis industry’s access to traditional banking and other financial services.

Areas With More Marijuana Dispensaries Have Fewer Opioid Deaths

Areas With More Marijuana Dispensaries Have Fewer Opioid Deaths

States with legal cannabis have seen decreases in opioid related deaths

Increasing access to marijuana dispensaries is associated with a significant reduction in opioid-related deaths, according to a new study.

“Higher medical and recreational storefront dispensary counts are associated with reduced opioid related death rates, particularly deaths associated with synthetic opioids such as fentanyl,” the paper, published on Wednesday in the British Medical Association journal’s BMJ, concluded.

It’s a finding that “holds for both medical and recreational dispensaries,” the study says.

Researchers looked at opioid mortality and cannabis dispensary prevalence in 23 U.S.states from 2014 to 2018 and found that, overall, counties where the number of legal marijuana shops increased from one to two experienced a 17 percent reduction in opioid-related fatalities.

Increasing the dispensary count from two to three was linked to an additional 8.5 percent decrease in opioid deaths.

Further, the study found that this trend “appeared particularly strong for deaths associated with synthetic opioids other than methadone, with an estimated 21 percent reduction in mortality rates associated with an increase from one to two dispensaries.”

“If consumers use cannabis and opioids for pain management, increasing the supply of legal cannabis might have implications for fentanyl demand and opioid related mortality rates overall.”

“While the associations documented cannot be assumed to be causal, they suggest a potential association between increased prevalence of medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries and reduced opioid related mortality rates,” the researchers wrote. “This study highlights the importance of considering the complex supply side of related drug markets and how this shapes opioid use and misuse.”

This is far from the first piece of research to draw a connection between legal cannabis access and reduced harms from opioids. Multiple studies have found that marijuana effectively treats conditions like chronic pain for which opioids are regularly prescribed, and surveys show that many patients have substituted addictive painkillers with cannabis.

“Cannabis is generally thought to be a less addictive substance than opioids,” the new study says. “Cannabis can potentially be used medically for pain management and has considerable public support.”

“Our findings suggest that increasing availability of legal cannabis (modeled through the presence of medical and recreational dispensary operations) is associated with a decrease in deaths associated with the T40.4 class of opioids, which include the highly potent synthetic opioid fentanyl,” it continues. “This finding is especially important because fentanyl related deaths have become the most common opioid related cause of death.”

Earlier this month, a separate study determined that medical cannabis use is associated with significant reductions in dependence on opioids and other prescription drugs, as well as an increase in quality of life.

Read the full story from Marijuana Moment

New Mexico legalization bill moves into the Senate

New Mexico legalization bill moves into the Senate

Will New Mexico legalization happen in 2021?

“It being exactly 4:20 (p.m.), we go to House Bill 12,” Rep. Daymon Ely, D-Corrales, quipped Friday, Feb. 26, to begin the debate over legalization of marijuana.

Hours later, the New Mexico House of Representatives passed marijuana legalization for the second consecutive time in a 60-day session. HB 12 passed on a 39-31 vote Friday, a wider margin than the two-vote victory in 2019.

It now moves to the Senate, which will have more than three weeks left in the session to consider the bill. The 2019 bill reached the Senate Finance Committee with two days left in the session, but never made it to a vote of the full Senate.

New Mexico legalization bill

HB 12 would legalize the sale and possession of marijuana to those age 21 and older. It is estimated that by the third year, sales would produce more than $44 million in state revenue and nearly $24 million in local revenue.

A new state agency called the Cannabis Control Division would be created to regulate the new industry. It would also take over management of the existing medical marijuana program and establish cannabis education and training programs that are required under the bill.

The law would allow consumers to purchase up to two ounces of cannabis plant and up to 16 grams of extract each day. They would also be allowed to grow their own plants. There would be a limit on how many mature plants a private person could have, but no limit on commercial growers.

Local governments would be able to regulate conditions, such as hours of operation or store location, but would not be allowed to pass a local ban. There would be an 8 percent excise tax that would go to the state, and local governments would have the option of an additional tax up to 4 percent.

There is also a provision in the bill for expungement of past criminal convictions for offenses that would be legal under the new law. But there would be new penalties for those selling to or employing anybody under the age of 21.

Revitalizing local economies

In the fiscal impact report on the bill, the state Economic Development Department estimates that nearly 1,600 new jobs would be created if the bill becomes law. But it also notes that many of the provisions of the bill are in direct violation of existing federal law.

“We are embarking on the creation of a brand new multi-million-dollar industry,” sponsor Rep. Javier Martinez, D-Albuquerque, said. He described marijuana legalization as a snowball rolling downhill, with 14 states now included and more joining every year.

But Martinez said his motivation was not the money that could potentially be made in both tax revenue and tourism, but rather stopping the harm that has been done to minority communities by the enforcement of marijuana laws, both in the Albuquerque neighborhood where he grew up and along the southern border.

“When you get to the core of why I’m doing this, it’s because I have seen the faces of the people who have most been impacted by this fake and terrible and un-winnable war on drugs,” he said.

Martinez said HB 12 would protect the existing medical marijuana program, ensure equity and diversity in the new industry and set tax and licensing rates that would generate new revenue but still allow local entrepreneurs to participate.