As the state's lawmakers contemplate making recreational marijuana
legal, new Federal Bureau of Investigations data shows nearly 5% of all
arrests in New York are for possession of the drug.
Overall, approximately 6% of arrests nationwide resulted
from marijuana possession, according to recently released county-level
Federal Bureau of Investigations data for 2016, the most recent
available. The data tracks arrests, not individuals and reporting is
typically made for the most serious allegation.
Columbia County was among the highest rates in the state, though other Hudson Valley counties were closer to the average.
As is the case across the country, there's wide disparity
among New York's counties when it comes to marijuana possession
arrests, reflecting differing levels of enforcement. Medical use has
been legal in the state since 2014.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pledged that New York will pass a
law to legalize recreational pot before the Legislature adjourns in
June. Plans to include such legislation in the recently-passed $175
billion state budget fizzled, as lawmakers could not resolve issues over
how much to tax it, where the revenue would go, who could grow it, how
previous marijuana arrests would be handled and which communities could
opt out of allowing sales within their borders.
Among the state's 62 counties, Dutchess and Ulster
Counties were above the state average of 5%, but not by much. Marijuana
arrests comprised 7.11% of total arrests in Dutchess for 2016, and 7.51%
in Ulster. Orange County was slightly higher at 12.04%. Meanwhile the
lowest percentage of marijuana arrests comes in Suffolk County on Long
Island, where just 3% of arrests were for cannabis possession.
Here are the top five counties for marijuana possession arrests in New York:
Hamilton County
This 1,808 square-mile county in north-central New York
tops the state's marijuana arrest list.
Nearly half — 44% — of all
arrests in the county in 2016 were for possession of the drug.
Hamilton's numbers are the second-highest in the nation, coming behind
only Dooley County, Georgia, where 55% of all arrests were for marijuana
possession.
Columbia County
In this 63,000-resident county north of Dutchess,
marijuana possession arrests accounted for about 23% of all arrests in
2016. Of 1,729 total arrests that year, 378 were for possessing
cannabis.
Washington County
In this rural Capital District county bordering Vermont —
where recreational marijuana became legal last summer — nearly 18% of
arrests in 2016 were for possession.
Livingston County
In this Finger Lakes county, which comprises 640 square
miles of land and includes the campus of the State University College at
Geneseo, about 15% of arrests were for cannabis possession.
Livingston
County Sheriff Thomas Dougherty has been a vocal opponent of marijuana
legalization, citing significant concerns with public safety.
"We are in opposition of marijuana," Dougherty said on
behalf of the state Sheriffs and Police Chief's associations during a
press event in February. "We understand that drugs exist and when
controlled by a doctor or in a controlled environment, they are useful,
but making a recreational drug legal is dangerous for highway safety —
and that is the message today."
Scoharie County
This peripheral Capital District county has a population
of about 32,750 people. In 2016, about 15% of 775 arrests made there
were for marijuana possession.
Hoping to become a citizen? Immigration authorities warn they take a dim view of cannabis.
(Creative Commons photo illustration by Chuck Grimmett)
Pakalolo Oceanside, a cannabis shop in downtown Anchorage, looks like
a pleasant place to work.
It’s clean. It happens to be right across the
street from Anchorage police headquarters. And manager Mark Hoffman
seems a decent guy.
“Oh absolutely. Yeah, I don’t question my moral character because I work in the cannabis industry at all,” Hoffman said.
But if you’re an immigrant — maybe you’re a legal resident, with a
green card — and you work here or even shop here, it could end your
dream of becoming an American citizen.
That’s because applicants who want to naturalize have to prove to the
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, that they have
“good moral character.”
A new USCIS guideline
says buying or selling marijuana, even at a state-regulated cannabis
shop, shows you lack “good moral character.” The April 19 “policy alert”
caused a stir among Alaska immigration attorneys and exposes a gulf
between federal policy and Alaska values on what constitutes good
morals.
“I think it’s fairly ridiculous,” said Anchorage attorney William Brattain, whose law firm is called Alaska Immigration Law Center. “To
me it’s an example of where federal law is not keeping pace with the
concepts of what’s really going on in society. And the reason that it’s
not is purely, 100% political.”
Brattain said the policy seems to add cement to a stumbling block on
the path to citizenship, one that he said trips up a lot of his clients.
He mentioned one client, a woman in her 30s, who Brattain said is
hardworking and lives with children and a husband, who are American
citizens.
She’s a “responsible person who has done it the right way, who has
followed the law every step of the way,” Brattain said. “Now (she) finds
herself in this political battle on this marijuana issue.”
The problem is, she admitted that she smoked two joints as a teenager
in Mexico. Brattain said the authorities are using it to say she lacks
good moral character.
Attorney
Bill Brattain calls the naturalization service’s policy on cannabis
“fairly ridiculous.” (Photo by Liz Ruskin/Alaska Public Media)
“Under what possible theory is that?” Brattain asked. “There are very
few teenagers in the United States who have not experimented with
marijuana. And to say every teenager, or a substantial number of them,
lack good moral character may confirm the view of many conservatives but
has no basis in reality.”
Brattain said it seems to him it’s the new immigration officers in Anchorage who tend to ask about marijuana use.
“The old guard people who’ve been around and gone through the
marijuana experience in Alaska really don’t give a rip,” he said. “They
really understand that it’s not useful, really, for the ultimate
question, which is, ‘Is this person the kind of person you’d like to
join us as a U.S. citizen?’”
A spokeswoman for USCIS declined an interview request but sent a
statement saying the agency has to decide cases based on federal law,
under which marijuana remains illegal.
Anchorage immigration attorney Nicolas Olano points out that federal regulations say judgments about “good moral character” should take into account the standards of the average citizen in the community where the person lives.
“We live in Anchorage, Alaska. It is legal here,” he said. “People
enjoy marijuana. They enjoy the recreational drug. It’s not a problem.
It’s not a moral issue.”
The regulations allow an exception for a single case of simple
marijuana possession. If you’ve used pot more than once, denying it
might seem like a good option, but federal rules say giving false
testimony in an immigration proceeding is also proof you lack “good
moral character.”
Olano advises that refugees, green card holders or anyone here on a
work visa that taking a job in the cannabis industry could radically
complicate their case for a change in visa status or naturalization.
“I think they should be able to work wherever they want. It’s legal,”
Olano said. “But just as a blanket advice? No. Stay away. Absolutely.”
Ultimately, Olano predicts, a federal judge will resolve the conflict between federal policy and local standards on marijuana.
“Congressman Young continues listening to his constituent
stakeholders and working on legislation that helps reduce potential
conflicts between Federal and state-level cannabis policy,” Young’s spokesman emailed in response to a question about the new policy alert.
During his 36 years in the
Senate, Joe Biden helped craft some of the strictest anti-drug laws of
the 1980s and 1990s. But drug reform advocates say his own children were
able to avoid the brunt of these laws because they were white and
wealthy.
The 76-year-old former vice president's daughter Ashley,
now 37, was arrested for marijuana possession at age 17. Records show
the prosecutor declined to pursue the charges. A decade later, a
"friend" of Ashley Biden attempted to sell the New York Posta 43-minute hidden-camera video purportedly showing Ashley snorting cocaine. The police did not get involved.
Biden’s son Hunter, now 49, joined the Navy Reserves in
2012 after receiving two special waivers, one because he was three years
over the age limit of 40 and another for a
"drug-related incident when he was a young man." A month into his
service, he tested positive for cocaine during a random drug test and
was discharged.
In 2017 divorce papers, Hunter Biden's then-wife Kathleen stated he
spent "extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol,
prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual
relations)." The same year, it emerged that Hunter Biden was in a
relationship with his late brother Beau's widow, Hallie. Hunter Biden
separated from Kathleen five months after Beau's death from brain cancer
at age 46 in May 2015.
Criminal justice reform advocates say the Bidens, none of
whom have served any jail time for drug offenses, are a clear example of
how racial and economic privilege play a role in drug enforcement.
"Whatever kind of privilege Biden’s children experience in
those interactions, they certainly are representative of what happens
every day in America,” said Betty Aldworth, executive director of
Students for Sensible Drug Policy. “The discretion allowed to
prosecutors and the police when deciding who to charge and who not to
charge is far too often based on factors like race and economic power.”
Michael Collins, national director for Drug Policy Action,
described a “double standard in how we approach drugs in this country.”
He said: “Drugs are used by people of all shapes and sizes, all
backgrounds, but the negative impact, especially when it comes to
incarceration, especially comes on people of color."
Biden’s daughter Ashley was arrested in New Orleans for
possession of marijuana while attending Tulane University on Sept. 22,
1999. She was released on a $1,000 bond, according to court records.
The
case was never prosecuted because the district attorney declined to
pick up the charges, according to an administrator at the Orleans Parish
Magistrate Court.
She was also arrested on July 13, 2001, for underage
drinking in Howard County, Md., and was issued a bench warrant for
failing to appear at a hearing on Oct. 31. She pleaded guilty and was
fined $125, according to court records. In August 2002, she was arrested
again on a misdemeanor charge for allegedly obstructing police officers
who were responding to an altercation at a bar in Chicago.
According to
reports, Ashley Biden “blocked the officer’s path and made intimidating statements” after a patron threw a bottle at the police.
Hunter Biden joined the Navy Reserves as an officer in
2012. Friends say the move was part of a plan for a political career he
believed might take him to the White House. After his discharge, a Navy
spokesperson declined to comment on whether it was “honorable,” “general
under honorable conditions,” or “other than honorable.” After his
divorce from Kathleen, to whom he had been married 23 years and had
three children with, Hunter Biden said that one of the lessons had been:
"Love people and find a way to love yourself."
Stephen Karns, an attorney who specializes in defending
members of the military, said service members who are thrown out due to
failed drug tests usually receive either “general” or “other than
honorable” discharges. He said the U.S. Air Force is known to court
martial members for failed drug tests, but this is less common in the
Navy.
Joe Biden was one of the most prominent political
supporters of the drug war in the 1980s and 1990s, helping to institute
mandatory minimum prison sentences and drug testing of federal
employees, and backing military-style prison camps for inmates who
failed drug tests. He also helped draft the 1994 crime law that
implemented mandatory life sentences for repeat offenders and increased
funding for prisons by nearly $10 billion.
Biden recently distanced
himself from those positions, saying in January that he had made a “big
mistake” by pushing for tougher prison sentences for crack cocaine
possession. “We thought, we were told by the experts, that crack, you
never go back; it was somehow fundamentally different.
It’s not
different,” said Biden during an event honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. in January.
Kara Gotsch, director of strategic initiatives at the
Sentencing Project, said she believes Biden has genuinely changed his
mind on the issues. She said she worked with him on eliminating the
100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine
possession, a law that Biden had previously helped institute, in the
mid-2000s.
"My experience working with his office, when he was a
senator in the mid-2000s, and after he joined the Obama administration,
he definitely had a change of heart,” said Gotsch. Biden introduced a
bill to end the sentencing disparity for crack cocaine while running for
president in 2007. After he became vice president, Biden continued to
lobby congress for similar legislation and eventually helped get a bill
passed that reduced but did not eliminate the sentencing disparity.
Gotsch said Biden’s staffers “were the ones during the White House meetings saying we have to get this done.”
But Biden’s apology hasn’t reassured all drug law reform
advocates. Collins said Biden appeared to be “blatantly doing it for
political gain.”
He said: “He’s far and away the worst candidate in the
field on drug policy. You could take the worst positions of all the
candidates put together and they don’t even come close. He now has to
atone for the sins of the past, but I don’t think it’s genuine. I think
it’s opportunistic.”
Aldworth, the executive director of Students for Sensible
Drug Policy, said her organization also has reservations about Biden’s
philosophy and wants to see more details about his proposals.
“While he has recanted on some of those policies, we
continue to have concerns about the philosophy that drove them,” she
said. “I think that in order for an organization like ours to feel
comfortable with the positions he might take as president, we would be
looking at concrete proposals about dismantling the harms he has
created.”
The House vote Monday is the
first time the lower chamber approved such a measure, marking
significant progress. But the opposition of the lieutenant governor
remains a major hurdle.
by Alex Samuels
The vote was lauded as a win by those eager for the state to take its
first major step toward loosening its staunch marijuana laws. Marjorie Kamys Coterfor The Texas Tribune
The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state
budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it
all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial
legislative session.
After a brief discussion, the Texas House gave preliminary approval
Monday to a bill that would reduce the penalties for low-level
possession of marijuana — a move lauded as a win by those eager for the
state to take its first major step toward loosening its staunch
marijuana laws.
But hopes of turning the bill into law remain slim. After the House
grants final approval for the bill — usually just a formality — it will
head to the Senate, where presiding officer Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has expressed opposition to the idea of loosening marijuana possession penalties.
The lower chamber voted 98-43 in favor of House Bill 63 by state Rep. Joe Moody,
D-El Paso, after he changed it on the chamber floor from a
decriminalization measure to one that reduces the penalties for
possession. The bill lowers possession of 1 ounce or less from a Class B
to a Class C misdemeanor, which is the same classification as a traffic ticket.
After state Rep. Jonathan Stickland,
R-Bedford, who applauded Moody for spearheading the bill, asked the
Democrat why his measure had been “watered down,” Moody said he did so
in the hopes of getting it to the governor’s desk.
“I’m not going to sacrifice the good for the perfect. If this is what
we can do, then this is what we must do,” Moody said. “We can’t keep
hauling 75,000 Texans to jail every year.”
Those found to possess 2 ounces or less or marijuana but more than 1
ounce would be charged with a Class B misdemeanor — punishable by a fine
of up to $2,000, jail time or both.
“When I first proposed changing our criminal penalty for personal use
of marijuana to a civil penalty, there was some support and even more
caution,” Moody told other representatives.
The revised version of HB 63 would make it so Texans caught with 1
ounce or less of marijuana can’t be arrested. Instead, judges would
automatically put those offenders on deferred adjudication probation. If
an offender successfully completes the terms of his or her probation
and does not commit more than one offense in a calendar year, his or her
record would be expunged, Moody said Monday. The bill would also ensure
that Texans possessing 1 ounce or less of marijuana will not have their
driver’s licenses suspended.
Ten states and the District of Columbia have legalized small amounts
of marijuana for personal use.
Thirteen other states have made
possessing small amounts a civil offense rather than a criminal
infraction, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In Texas, possession of any amount of marijuana is illegal, but some
district attorneys in larger Texas counties, including Dallas and
Harris, have already pledged not to prosecute first-time, low-level offenders.
Moody has tried in the past several sessions to get this legislation
to the governor’s desk, but to no avail. The House vote Monday marks
significant progress for Moody; it's the first time the lower chamber
approved such a measure. But the opposition of the lieutenant governor
remains a major hurdle.
In a previous statement
to The Texas Tribune, Patrick spokesperson Alejandro Garcia said the
lieutenant governor is “strongly opposed to weakening any laws against
marijuana [and] remains wary of the various medicinal use proposals that
could become a vehicle for expanding access to this drug.”
Law enforcement officials, too, have raised alarm bells on Moody’s
bill. Many are wary that relaxing the state’s marijuana laws by any
means would eventually lead to the state legalizing the drug for
recreational use.
Moody disputed that claim on the House floor.
“There are some people who have drawn a line in the sand and refuse
to take any step forward whatsoever on reform,” he said. “They say it’s a
full-on slippery slope to full-on legalization. The [bill] in front of
you is not legalization. It’s not even decriminalization.
“We can’t legislate in fear of what some future legislators might do.
We’re here to solve the problems of today. It’s not about whether
marijuana is good or bad; it’s about whether what we’re doing on
enforcement right now is good policy, and we all know it’s not.”
As originally proposed by Moody, HB 63 would’ve replaced the criminal
penalties for people caught with an ounce or less of marijuana and
replaced it with a civil fine of up to $250. Only those fined more than
three times would face misdemeanor criminal charges.
When laying out his original bill to a House committee earlier this
year, Moody said his bill would save the state money since counties
wouldn’t have to allocate resources toward prosecuting Texans found to
possess small amounts of the drug.
Debate on the House floor was relatively tame. A handful of lawmakers lauded Moody for authoring the bill, but state Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, said that any lawmaker who voted in favor of it was “voting to legalize marijuana.”
Bell was met with yells of “no” from other lawmakers on the House floor.
Decriminalizing marijuana or lessening the criminal penalties for
Texans found with small amounts the drug has broad bipartisan support.
In its most recent platform, the Republican Party of Texas approved a plank for the first time in support of making it a civil, rather than a criminal, offense to possess an ounce or less of marijuana.
During a gubernatorial debate in September, Gov. Greg Abbott wouldn’t go that far — but he opened the door to reducing the penalty for low-level possession from a Class B to a Class C misdemeanor.
Other bills at the Capitol aimed at reducing the criminal penalties
for Texans found with small amounts of marijuana include similar
measures by Democratic state Reps. Gene Wu and Harold Dutton
— both of whom represent the Houston area. Dutton’s bill was voted out
of a House committee but has not yet reached the House floor for a full
debate.
Despite the last-minute changes to Moody’s bill, marijuana advocates
largely applauded its passage from the lower chamber Thursday.
“Like a majority of Texas voters, Democratic and Republican lawmakers
agree that marijuana laws need to change,” said Heather Fazio, the
director for Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy.
“Representative
Moody’s bill will preserve valuable public safety resources and keep a
marijuana charge from derailing someone’s life.”
In what was billed by study authors as “the first insight into marijuana and opioid use over time in people with cancer
across the United States,” investigators concluded that throughout a
recent 10-year period, the rate of marijuana use in patients with cancer
had increased, while the use of opioids by this cohort remained
relatively unchanged.
Research has suggested that the use of marijuana for pain
could potentially reduce the number of opioids that are administered, and could
potentially influence the incidence of opioid overdose-related deaths. But a
new study showed that even as marijuana use increased across study respondents
between 2005 and 2014 — a population that included 826 people with cancer and
1652 matched controls within the United States from the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) — the use of opioids for pain remained
flat during this period.
The researchers found that compared with respondents who did
not have cancer, those with cancer were significantly more likely to report
using opioids (odd ratio [OR], 1.82; 95% CI, 1.17-2.82; P =.008). They also found that among patients with cancer, almost
half (40.3%) reported using cannabis “within the past year,” whereas only 8.7%
used marijuana “currently” (within 30 days of when the survey took place). The
rate of cannabis use within the past year in patients with cancer was similar
to the rate of use among respondents without cancer during the same time period
(38%).
Prescription opioid use reports were collected from
respondents as well, but these reports only measured recent opioid use, or use
within 30 days of the survey date. It appears the “ever-use” variable
for opioids — that is, data informing about any previous opioid exposure — was
not collected by investigators. Nor were data presented on opioid use during
the year prior to the survey date, making it difficult to assess if any
respondents had ever used opioids during any point in their life or in the year
prior, and then had stopped using drugs from this class.
Interestingly, the proportion of participants with cancer
using marijuana increased 118% from the period of 2005 to 2014. In comparison,
the increase in cannabis use among those without cancer during the same time
was just 12.2%. The use of opioids in those with cancer versus those without
cancer during this period increased from 9.6% to 14.4% and 5.0% to 7.8%,
respectively.
Comparing opioid use and cannabis use is complex. Although
research has demonstrated that opioid prescribing patterns are associated with
the risk of opioid overdose death, very little is known about how prescribing or
recommendation patterns are linked, if at all, to the risk of overdose death
from cannabis. For that matter, there is uncertainty surrounding whether it is
still true that no deaths have been directly linked to the use of cannabis;
which was the conclusion from a comprehensive report published in 2017 by the
National Academies of Science.
Commenting on the new research, Richard Saitz, MD, MPH, of the
Boston University School of Public Health and the Grayken Center for Addiction
at the Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts, said, “I’m not sure that it is
that informative except it does suggest that more cannabis use didn’t obviate
the need for or use of opioids for pain.”
Although this observation appears to support the claim that
cannabis use does not (and perhaps, would not) supplant opioid use for pain in
patients with cancer — especially when one considers that a cancer diagnosis,
specifically, wasn’t associated with cannabis use among individuals included in
the NHANES cohort — some caveats about the comparison of the 2 substances may
be worthwhile.
The fact that opioid use stayed flat is “congruent with
results from other studies, which suggest that medical cannabis legalization is
associated with lower opioid prescribing,” according to Kevin F. Boehnke, PhD,
a research investigator in the department of anesthesiology and the Chronic
Pain and Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“However, it could also be due to tightening opioid prescribing standards in
the age of the opioid crisis.”
Similarly, the increase in marijuana use across the entire
cohort likely reflects state legislative changes and increased access to
cannabis.
Plus, the analysis didn’t specifically look at the use of
cannabis in a controlled setting, where patients could be monitored by a
physician or an oncologist, specifically. It included self-reports of all
substance use (including illicit drugs other than marijuana, such as cocaine,
heroin, and methamphetamines) in anysetting.
“It would have been nice to see whether medical cannabis use (rather than just
cannabis use) affected odds of opioid use among individuals with cancer, but
that’s a limitation of this dataset, as the authors mention,” noted Dr Boehnke.
Plus, “there are likely differences in use patterns (eg, administration routes
and cannabinoid preferences) between younger and older individuals using
cannabis,” Dr Boehnke observed. “In any case, it is clear that more research is
needed to better understand how to effectively use cannabis in the cancer
context.”
The current study included respondents aged 20 to 60 years,
but according to the National Cancer Institute, the median age of a cancer
diagnosis is 66 years — so, nearly half of all cancer cases may not have been
captured in this sample as a result.2 The study’s age parameter specifically
eliminates inclusion of the approximately one-quarter of new cancer cases that
occur in the population of individuals aged 65 to 74 years.
It also does not include some of the most vulnerable populations,
such as children and adolescents younger than 20 years who are diagnosed
with cancer. Although individuals in this age subgroup have a low
incidence of all cancers, they have higher risks of bone cancer and
leukemias, specifically.
Mayor Shawn Pankow of Smith Falls welcomed the Tweed marijuana factory as he would any pharmaceutical company.
“If Pfizer or Abbot or some pharmaceutical company wanted
to come into town and open up something, of course, we would be totally
supportive of that,” he tells Christian Borys in episode two of the compelling documentary “The Cannabis Complex.” Borys has put together a historical, first-draft document detailing the rise of the legal cannabis industry in Canada.
“It’s given us a global spotlight on our community,” Pankow
continues, telling Borys how the Canopy Growth subsidiary became the
centerpiece of Smith Falls’ revitalization.
The cannabis-industrial-complex is a cross-section of stock
quotes and political battles, with the occasional fight for social
justice thrown into the mix. But as Borys reminds viewers with his
riveting documentary, whole swaths of Canadians have a part to play in
this story as well as a dog in this fight.
Smith Falls grew up around a Hershey Chocolate plant, and,
as many such towns do, when the plant closed, despair and desperation
set upon the residents.
“This whole new industry comes in and just says we're going
to set up shop here,” Borys told PotNetwork News recently, speaking
over the phone. “We're going to infuse a whole bunch of cash.
We're
going to create jobs and everything and like from what I understand and
what I saw it brought life back [to the] place.”
For American readers, Borys compared what’s happening in
Canda to President Trump’s continued promises to bring back the coal
industry in the U.S. — except in Canada the cannabis industry is
delivering on its promises.
What that means, more than a growing cannabis industry is a
stabilized sense of community.
As Borys told PotNetwork News, residents
of Smith Falls and towns like it are no longer forced to find refuge in
cities like Toronto. There’s no need to move on to search for work, as
cannabis has become the New Deal for The Great Recession.
“If you were on a really deep downward trajectory or just
been downtrodden for a while and the cannabis companies are coming in
and basically, like — maybe bringing it back to life is a little too
dramatic. But like they're giving people a chance,” Borys said.
“China owns half the world patents on cannabis...”
Borys started his career at Shopify before becoming a
world-class journalist in his own right, traveling across the globe to
cover stories in Ukraine, Venezuela, Poland, and more. His work has been
featured on the BBC, CBC, The Guardian, Washington Post, and Al
Jazeera, to name a few.
At one point, he was the Executive Producer of
an English program at a Ukrainian media startup that ended up becoming
its own national channel called Hromadske.
Now, he owns his own press company, where he does commercials, branded documentaries, and the like.
When it comes to weed his story is rather typical in many
ways. A smoker at 16 years old, his Eastern European parents caught him
one time and, in his own words, it was like the end of the world.
“It was akin to being their kid, like shooting heroin
thinking that it was like the worst thing imaginable for them,” he told
PotNetwork News.
But legal cannabis really caught Borys’ eye, and it became the impetus for “The Cannabis Complex,”
a small idea now which he’s hoping to turn into a pitch for something
more substantial, something in which Netflix or Amazon may find some
interest.
“China owns half the world patents on cannabis,” said
Borys. “I’d like dive into what that means for a 20 or 40-minute episode
[that] would be incredible.”
“The Cannabis Complex” is more than just random stories and
facts about the industry, however.
It’s an opportunity for Borys to
document the rise of the legal cannabis space, or, as he put it, the end
of prohibition. A connoisseur of the medium, he immediately talked up
the Ken Burns documentary “Prohibition,” the tale of America’s misguided
attempt to force its citizens to become teetotalers.
Burns, of course, is the gold standard when it comes to
documentary filmmaking. But for Borys, telling the story of the final
days of cannabis prohibition has the added bonus of immediacy.
Whereas
Burns film came 100 years after-the-fact, Borys documentary can be
filmed as it happens.
“That's kind of the whole point of that is just to put out
content that helps people understand how legalization is growing around
the world,” he said. “I think that there's a lot of people doing
interesting things around the world.”
“...that it’s illegal is just ridiculous.”
About halfway through episode one of “The Cannabis Complex,”
Christian Borys' failed attempts to secure medical marijuana through
legal channels sends him to a black market shop in Canada.
Without a
proper script from a Licensed Producer in the country, he still manages
to secure himself some product quickly.
“Although black market businesses are popular because they
offer the easiest access point for cannabis, they’re frustrating for
entrepreneurs who’ve invested to become part of the legal industry,” he
narrates at the midway point of episode one.
According to Borys though, now that recreational cannabis
is legal in Canada, he’s confident that things will change for the
better. After all, this is an experiment, and it’s early days. As he
told PotNetwork News, Canada has government-regulated alcohol, but
consumers would be hard-pressed to find underground moonshine stores
across the provinces.
“I'm sure that the black market will always exist to an
extent, but I think that as more options or more good options become
available to consumers, they'll go to government-run or
government-regulated stores and websites, and that's where they're going
to get their product from,” he stated. “But it's just like, the
infrastructure still being developed.”
“It's going to take some time,” he continued.
But make no mistake about it, Borys said, the dominoes are
falling. And the documentary-maker in him noted that the reason those
dominoes began to fall so fast was that both Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau and the people of Canada realized one simple thing — that
cannabis wasn’t going anywhere.
As the conversation turned to Canada specifically, and the
country’s quick rise to the top of the cannabis food chain, Borys
concluded that legalization became possible the citizenry smartly
realized that cannabis was going nowhere — rather than fight the drug,
it was time to embrace it.
“Trudeau made the decision and Canadians made the decision
that [cannabis] existed,” Borys said, continuing the conversation over
the phone. “We’re fine with having cannabis on the streets, being a
legal thing like alcohol and cigarettes.”
He paused. “But it existed completely underground, and the
government had no part in it, right? They obviously have no tax revenue
coming in for that.”
And this is the story that “The Cannabis Complex” aims to
tell, a first-hand account of when Canada chose to say cannabis exists
and if the penalties for fighting against it aren't keeping anybody from
doing it then just legalize it. Because those stories are so much more
than the daily fluctuations in the share price of a given Licensed
Producer or the next fight over a piece of legislation.
“It already exists in the black market, people can already
get it,” Borys said, reflecting on the old way of thinking. “They always
have been able to get it, that it’s illegal is just ridiculous.”
He continued: “I think that Canada making that move and
saying hey we're going to build an actual commercial industry that meant
that money just flooded into the market and that's why you have massive
companies like super well-capitalized companies that are able to do
incredible things…
Canadian companies are everywhere now, and it's
amazing how companies like Canopy and Aurora are opening places like
Poland, which is where my parents are from, is now selling medical
marijuana, and I never in my lifetime doubt that that was going to be
possible because it's the future of this country.”
Borys paused for a moment again. “But people are opening their eyes and seeing that, hey there is therapeutic value to this.”
A $9 million
gift will allow experts in fields of neuroscience and biomedicine at
Harvard Medical School (pictured) and MIT to conduct independent
research on the science of cannabinoids.
Photo by Jenna Lang
HMS, MIT alum’s donations will fund independent research on the drug’s influence on brain health and behavior
ByHMS Communications
Charles R. Broderick, an alumnus of MIT and Harvard University,
has made gifts to both alma maters to support fundamental research into
the effects of cannabis on the brain and behavior.
The gifts, totaling $9 million, represent the largest donation to
date to support independent research on the science of cannabinoids. The
donation will allow experts in fields of neuroscience and biomedicine
at MIT and Harvard Medical School (HMS) to conduct research that may
help unravel the biology of cannabinoids, illuminate their effects on
the human brain, catalyze treatments, and inform evidence-based clinical
guidelines, societal policies, and regulation of cannabis.
With the increasing use of cannabis both for medicinal and
recreational purposes, there is a growing concern about critical gaps in
knowledge.
In 2017, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report calling
upon philanthropic organizations, private companies, public agencies,
and others to develop a “comprehensive evidence base” on the short- and
long-term health effects — both beneficial and harmful — of cannabis
use.
“Our desire is to fill the research void that currently exists in the
science of cannabis,” said Broderick, who was an early investor in
Canada’s medical marijuana market.
Broderick, who is known as Bob, is the founder of Uji Capital LLC, a
family office focused on quantitative opportunities in global equity
capital markets. Identifying the growth of the legal cannabis market in
Canada as a strategic investment opportunity, Broderick took equity
positions in Tweed Marijuana Inc. and Aphria Inc., which have since
grown into two of North America’s most successful cannabis companies.
Subsequently, he made a private investment in and served as a board
member for Tokyo Smoke, a cannabis brand portfolio, which merged with
DOJA Cannabis in 2017 to create Hiku Brands, where he served as
chairman. Hiku Brands was acquired by Canopy Growth Corp. in 2018.
With the gifts to HMS and MIT’s School of Science (through the
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the McGovern Institute for
Brain Research), the Broderick funds will support independent studies
of the neurobiology of cannabis; its effects on brain development,
various organ systems, and overall health, including treatment and
therapeutic contexts; and its cognitive, behavioral, and social
ramifications.
“I want to destigmatize the conversation around cannabis — and, in
part, that means providing facts to the medical community, as well as
the general public,” said Broderick, who argues that independent
research needs to form the basis for policy discussions, regardless of
whether it’s good for business. “Then we’re all working from the same
information. We need to replace rhetoric with research.”
HMS: Mobilizing a community of scientists and clinicians to solve an acute biomedical challenge
The Broderick gift provides $4.5 million to establish the Charles R.
Broderick Phytocannabinoid Research Initiative at HMS, funding basic,
translational, and clinical research across the School community to
generate fundamental insights about the effects of cannabinoids.
The research initiative will span basic science and clinical
disciplines, ranging from neurobiology and immunology to psychiatry and
neurology, and taking advantage of the combined knowledge of around 30
experts across the School and its affiliated hospitals.
The epicenter of these research efforts will be the Department of
Neurobiology under the leadership of Bruce Bean and Wade Regehr.
“I am excited by Bob’s commitment to cannabinoid science,” said
Regehr, a professor of neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.
“The research efforts enabled by Bob’s vision set the stage for
unraveling some of the most confounding mysteries of cannabinoids and
their effects on the brain and various organ systems.”
Bean, who is the Robert Winthrop Professor of Neurobiology in the
Blavatnik Institute, Regehr, and fellow neurobiologists Rachel Wilson
and Bernardo Sabatini focus on understanding the basic biology of the
cannabinoid system, which includes hundreds of plant and synthetic
compounds as well as naturally occurring cannabinoids made in the brain.
Cannabinoid compounds activate a variety of brain receptors, and the
downstream biological effects of this activation are astoundingly
complex, varying by age and sex, and complicated by a person’s
physiologic condition and overall health. This complexity and high
degree of variability in individual biology has hampered scientific
understanding of the positive and negative effects of cannabis on the
human body. Bean, Regehr, and their colleagues have already made
critical insights showing how cannabinoids influence cell-to-cell
communication in the brain.
“Even though cannabis products are now widely available, and some are
used clinically, we still understand remarkably little about how they
influence brain function and neuronal circuits in the brain,” said Bean.
“This gift will allow us to conduct critical research into the
neurobiology of cannabinoids, which may ultimately inform new approaches
for the treatment of pain, epilepsy, sleep and mood disorders, and
more.”
To propel the findings from lab to clinic, scientists from HMS will
partner with clinicians from Harvard-affiliated hospitals, bringing
together experts from disciplines including cardiology, vascular
medicine, neurology, and immunology in an effort to glean a deeper and
more nuanced understanding of cannabinoids’ effects on variou sorgan
systems and the body as a whole, rather than just on isolated organs.
For example, Bean and his colleague Gary Yellen, who are studying the
mechanisms of action of antiepileptic drugs, have become interested in
cannabinoids’ effects on epilepsy, an interest they share with Elizabeth
Thiele, director of the pediatric epilepsy program at Massachusetts
General Hospital. Thiele is a pioneer in using cannabidiol, also known
as CBD, to treat drug-resistant forms of epilepsy. Despite proven
clinical efficacy and recent FDA approval for its use on rare childhood
epilepsies, researchers still do not know exactly how CBD quiets the
misfiring brain cells of epileptics. Understanding its mechanism of
action could help in developing new agents to treat other forms of
epilepsy and other neurologic disorders.
MIT: Focused on brain health and function
Broderick’s gift to MIT will provide $4.5 million over three years to
support independent research for four scientists at the McGovern and
Picower Institutes.
Two of the researchers — John Gabrieli, the Grover Hermann Professor
of Health Sciences and Technology, a professor of brain and cognitive
sciences, and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research,
and Myriam Heiman, the Latham Family Career Development Associate
Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute — will separately
explore the relationship between cannabis and schizophrenia.
Gabrieli, who directs the Martinos Imaging Center at MIT, will
monitor any potential therapeutic value of cannabis for adults with
schizophrenia using fMRI scans and behavioral studies.
“The ultimate goal is to improve brain health and well-being,” said
Gabrieli. “And we have to make informed decisions on the way to this
goal, wherever the science leads us. We need more data.”
Heiman, who is a molecular neuroscientist, will study how chronic
exposure to the phytocannabinoid molecules THC and CBD may alter the
developmental molecular trajectories of cell types implicated in
schizophrenia.
“Our lab’s research may provide insight into why several emerging
lines of evidence suggest that adolescent cannabis use can be associated
with adverse outcomes not seen in adults,” said Heiman.
Gabrieli also hopes to investigate whether cannabis can have
therapeutic value for autism spectrum disorders, and Heiman whether it
has therapeutic value against Huntington’s disease.
MIT Institute Professor Ann Graybiel has proposed studying the
cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptor, which mediates many of the effects of
cannabinoids. Her team recently found that
CB1 receptors are tightly linked to dopamine, a neurotransmitter that
affects both mood and motivation. Graybiel, who is also a member of the
McGovern Institute, will examine how CB1 receptors in the striatum, a
deep-brain structure implicated in learning and habit formation, may
influence dopamine release in the brain. These findings will be
important for understanding the effects of cannabis on casual users, as
well as its relationship to addictive states and neuropsychiatric
disorders.
Earl Miller, Picower Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower
Institute, will study the effects of cannabinoids on attention and
working memory. His lab recently formulated a model of working memory and
unlocked how anesthetics reduce consciousness, showing a key role in
the brain’s frontal cortex for brain rhythms, or the synchronous firing
of neurons. He will observe how these rhythms may be affected by cannabisuse — findings that may be able to shed light on tasks such as driving, in which sustained attention is especially crucial.
Behind a tall security fence and countless coded keypads, the future of the Delavan economy is growing under bright lights.
There
are around 60 workers at this Revolution Enterprises medical marijuana
cultivation facility.
The 75,000-square-foot building does production
from start to finish—from seed to packaging.
This
story is part of a weeklong series from Illinois public radio stations
focusing on the potential impact of marijuana legalization.
During
a recent tour, what was striking is how much of it is done by hand—not
automated. That means high quality, and that means jobs.
“Obviously
the most care is taken in the grow (stage),” Revolution Senior Vice
President for Operations Todd Cesek. “But we still have to continue that
same delicate care throughout trimming, and cure, and packaging, to get
that end product to the customer as highest quality as possible.
The state’s medical marijuana program has only around 61,000 patients.
But it's injected a lot of life into the local economy in places like
Delavan, a town of 1,600 people south of Peoria and west of
Bloomington-Normal.
That's economic impact could grow with demand
if Illinois legalizes recreational marijuana. A report from the
Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class
Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign forecasts that legalization will create 23,000 new jobs at more than 2,600 businesses in Illinois.
Revolution
now has around 110 employees in Illinois. Revolution CEO Mark De Souza
said they’ve already bought 70 more acres in Delavan and want to build
another 650,000 square feet of growing and processing space. That
investment is “more than” tens of millions of dollars, he said,
declining to say an exact figure for competitive reasons.
“I can see that workforce (in Delavan) on a rotational level being as high as 300 to 350 people,” De Souza said.
Delavan is located south of Peoria and west of Bloomington-Normal.
Credit Jeff Smudde / WGLT
City
officials say Delavan is already getting over $300,000 in new tax
revenue from Revolution, plus another $70,000 for the school district.
De Souza said he sees it as a partnership he hopes will continue pay off.
“It’s
making sure that they have stronger broadband. Making sure we get them …
a grocery store down there. Maybe even a rotational doctor’s office.
Things that community has kind of been missing for many years as the
economy has waned. We look at this as a very serious relationship with
the town and the mayor. We want to be a long-term and strong and
positive impact,” he said.
Delavan Mayor Liz Skinner says
Revolution has been a good neighbor. Speaking recently on The 21st,
Skinner said she has reservations about legalizing marijuana but thinks
it's inevitable.
“So if it is going to happen, I would certainly want Revolution in our community to be a part of that,” said Skinner.”
MEETING RISING DEMAND
State law currently allows for one medical marijuana cultivation facility for each State Police district, so up to 22.
A
new report commissioned for the Medical Cannabis Alliance of Illinois
found that existing cultivation capacity could meet demand for both
medical and recreational use for the first two to four years. That's
space already running or approved by the state.
But five years
after legalization, it says another million square feet of cultivation
space will be needed to meet demand from Illinois residents and
tourists.
Revolution
gets its water from Delavan, but it's thoroughly cleaned before it's
used on plants. The pH levels have to be just right.
Credit Jeff Smudde / WGLT
Delavan isn't the only small town hoping to reap the benefits of expansion.
Cresco
Labs has a cultivation facility just outside Lincoln in Logan County.
Officials say it employs a few dozen people, though Cresco did not
respond to requests for comment.
Logan County Board member Dr.
David Hepler sees them as 21st century agriculture jobs. He was County
Board chair when Cresco came to town.
“We’ve had, like most
communities, some losses,” said Hepler. “A Kroger store had to close. A
bottle plant that’s owned internationally—it’s been here a long
time—also closed. This has been a way to actually create new jobs that
weren’t there before but probably have a long lifespan, but also fit the
culture of this community very well.”
There are many unknowns
with legalization. The social costs could be more impaired driving—maybe
more crashes. Some even speculate about reduced workplace productivity.
But
in small towns looking for jobs—any jobs—the Not In My Backyard folks
are hard to find. Half of Lincoln residents don’t even realize the
facility is there, said Mayor Seth Goodman.
“I just sold a house
located right next to it,” said Goodman, also a real estate agent. “The
guy didn’t even think twice about it being in his backyard. It wasn’t
even something that was discussed.”
This month, a judge
in California cleared thousands of criminal records with one stroke of
his pen. He did it thanks to a ground-breaking new algorithm that
reduces a process that took months to mere minutes. The programmers
behind it say: we’re just getting started solving America’s urgent
problems.
Piero Salazar is sitting at a wooden table, swamped by paperwork. His anxious family looks on.
He’s
one of around 50 or so people who have come to this community centre in
San Fernando, near Los Angeles, to take part in an “expungement clinic”
- a free service for those looking to get their criminal records
removed or reduced. A team of lawyers, working pro bono, sit behind a
long counter and call people forward when their number is up.
On
this Saturday morning, most here, Mr Salazar included, are seeking to
have cannabis-related convictions expunged under California’s
Proposition 64, a measure passed in 2016 that made marijuana legal in
the state. As part of the new law, those with prior convictions could
now seek to have them struck off their record. “It makes me feel better to know I’m not a felon,” says Mr Salazar, filling in his forms.
Monique Herrera is here with her young son.
“I want to just get this off. Get clean. Do what I have to do and have a better life.”
It’s
estimated there are a million people in California with a
cannabis-related charge in their past, an invisible shackle that blocks
opportunities to get housing, jobs and thousands of other things most of
us would regard as necessities.
Yet, fewer than 3% of people thought to qualify have sought to have their records cleared since the passing of the new law.
It’s
thought many are overwhelmed or intimidated by the complex expungement
process. The clinic may only come to town once every few months, if at
all. Others simply don’t know expungement is possible.
But now, work to automate this entire ordeal has begun - with remarkable results.
The district attorney's plan
“I formed the opinion that this is really our responsibility,” said George Gascon, San Francisco’s district attorney.
Though almost 10,000 people in the city were predicted to be eligible for expungement, just 23 had come forward.
So in January 2018, Mr Gascon pledged to proactively review past marijuana cases - but there was a snag. “When we started to do this by hand, we recognised very rapidly that this was going to take a long time.”
He
enlisted Code For America, a non-profit organisation that works on
creating Silicon Valley-esque solutions to problems within the many
antiquated systems powering the US government.
The group had made
Clear My Record, a tool that can analyse text in court files, using
character recognition to decipher scanned documents.
It discards
any record involving a violent crime, as such records do not qualify.
For those that remain, the tool automatically fills out the necessary
paperwork. In other words, the algorithm replaced the process being done
manually at the expungement clinics.
Working with San Francisco’s
raw data, Code For America was able to identify 8,132 eligible criminal
records in a matter of minutes - in addition to the 1,230 found
manually already. They dated as far back as 1975, the year in which the
city started digitising its files.
And so it was, on 3 April,
that San Francisco judge Samuel K Feng signed them all off - reopening
life opportunities for thousands of people.
Human review
For cases it wasn’t sure about, the algorithm would refer up to a human.
“It
isn’t an algorithm doing something in isolation,” explained Evonne
Silva, who helps lead Code For America’s work with the criminal justice
system.
“It is actually very much a partnership with the government - the policy, the technology and the process combined.” For Mr Gascon, who is standing stand down this year
in order to care for his ailing 90-year-old mother, the move will form a
core part of his legacy.
“We created this war on drugs,” he said.
“We
- the criminal justice system and society in general - harmed many
communities throughout the years. I felt that we had an obligation to
right that wrong.”
'The worst of government'
You’ll
find the Code For America offices in downtown San Francisco, on a
street where some of the city’s most visible problems - drug addiction,
homelessness - are well out in the open.
The people working for
Code For America’s founder Jennifer Pahlka could (and often did) work
for the mega corporations of the technology industry. But, instead,
they’re here.
“What we can bring is a challenge to the
conventional wisdom that says anything in government technology is going
to take many years and cost many millions of dollars,” said Ms Pahlka,
who served as deputy chief technology officer under President Obama.
“It
just requires having a little bit of technology competence. To run an
algorithm on a large database, for instance - that's not difficult,
technically, and we shouldn’t make it so.” Code For America’s work expands beyond criminal
justice and into other areas of need. Ms Pahlka’s team has simplified
the system for families to get quickly gain access to social support in
an emergency - such as a single mother becoming suddenly unemployed.
In
37 California counties, the process for applying for food stamps has,
thanks to a Code For America initiative, been reduced from almost an
hour to just eight minutes.
“We work for people who need the
government to work the most, because those are also the people who often
get the worst of government,” Ms Pahlka said.
“We've got a lot of
people in the country right now who need a real safety net. They need
to sort of get bounced back when they hit a hard spot. They need the
criminal justice system to not pull them down into a cycle of what can
become persistent poverty and incarceration.”
'We're not moving quickly enough'
This
way of thinking is gathering pace. Earlier this month, prosecutors in
Los Angeles County announced they too would adopt Clear My Record. They
estimated that 50,000 records could be automatically identified for
reduction or removal. San Joaquin County, also in California, will use
the tech to clear around 4,000 more. Code For America says it aims to
help clear 250,000 cannabis convictions this year alone.
“The only
downside is that we’re not moving quickly enough,” said Jay Jordan,
executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, an advocacy
group campaigning for justice reform. Image caption
Following San Francisco's lead, other counties in California are now adopting the technology
“We live in a technological age. This is the way
that we're supposed to be doing business. And if it streamlines
government, saves taxpayers money, and makes us safe… it's a no
brainer.”
Mr Jordan says that clearing records is a vital part of
rehabilitation, a move that reduces the risk of so-called generational
poverty. There are said to be 40,000 “collateral consequences” for those
living with a criminal record - more than half relate to employment.
“It
affects large swathes of our community,” Mr Jordan said. “People from
communities of colour, and urban communities around this country, are
riddled with folks with convictions.”
'Asking the world to forgive you'
Back
in San Fernando, the co-host of the expungement clinic knows these
restrictions intimately.
As a teen, Anthony Turner committed a number of
crimes, including car theft, drink driving and drugs charges. It meant,
at 19, he started what would become 12 years in prison. Image caption
Anthony Turner says having a criminal record removed is like "asking the world to forgive you"
Now 40, he’s an image of reformation. He co-owns a
charming community cafe with his wife, Cherokee. He has a 15-year-old
son who loves baseball - but Mr Turner isn’t allowed to coach his little
league team.
Even though he himself isn’t eligible for criminal
record expungement, Mr Turner has devoted his free time to helping
others get that help - through running clinics, and lobbying alongside
advocacy groups.
He acknowledges some people feel a criminal
record is the consequence you bear for committing a crime. But he urges
people to look beyond that.
“I say to those who feel that it's
tough luck, what they should do is look into themselves and ask what
they have wanted to be forgiven for in their lives.
“Because
that's what you're doing - you're asking not just for a specific
person’s forgiveness, you’re asking the world to forgive you.”
Can cannabis laws lead the way toward ending a lucrative — and devastating — business?
Don Pittis
The
results of a drug bust by Chatham-Kent police in Ontario are shown. An
unintended effect of drug crackdowns is that a risk premium pushes up
the price of illegal drugs, making the returns higher for those who
avoid getting caught. (Chatham-Kent police)
Economists have been among the most insistent that the prohibition of drugs and alcohol doesn't work.
In
what many have observed as a perverse symbiosis between enforcement
agencies and the producers of illicit drugs, cracking down on the
substances people use to addle their brains only makes producing them
more lucrative.
U.S. economist Peter Reuter, a scholar known for
his early research on the illegal drug market, observed
this relationship when it came to cannabis and cocaine.
"The
relatively high prices of these drugs historically are a consequence of
enforcement," he wrote in the abstract for a 1986 paper titled Risks and Prices: An Economic Analysis of Drug Enforcement.
More
than 30 years later and despite billions spent to stem their use,
illegal drugs, especially opiates, continue to devastate communities.
The death toll in Canada — more than 10,300 in less than three years — is large enough that health experts warn it may be having an effect on Canada's overall life expectancy.
Facing
a deadly opioid epidemic, British Columbia is facing pressure to
decriminalize drugs. There may be lessons to be learned from cannabis. (Rafferty Baker/CBC)
Now an
increasing number of experts are observing Canada's legalization of
cannabis for lessons — a kind of trial run for getting drugs out of the
hands of organized crime.
There are plenty of critics who say
that, so far, Canada's legalization has been a failure, partly because
governments refused to learn from the experience of places like Colorado
that led the way. Among them are Ian Irvine, an economist at Montreal's
Concordia University.
"The
illegal market is really being wiped off the map in Colorado," said
Irvine. "There were two things necessary for that: One is
accessibility and the other was price. But here we still have high
prices and have low accessibility."
Government missteps
Government
bungling may be partly to blame. In Ontario, for example, after many
delays, 25 retail licences were granted by the province, but to date, nearly half have failed to open.
That
lack of access is helping to keep the illegal drug sellers in business.
Irvine says similar mistakes are being made across the country.
Just as with tobacco and
alcohol, governments can use taxes to set prices low enough
to dissuade consumers from seeking other sources, but high enough to
discourage consumption.
When
it comes to legal cannabis, Quebec offers legal prices lower than other
provinces. But the variety of retail models playing out across Canada
offers an interesting opportunity for those looking to learn what works
and what doesn't. (Don Pittis/CBC)
While critical of Canada's stumbling cannabis legalization process, Michael Armstrong, a business professor at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ont., says that recent data from Statistics Canada shows people are willing to pay more for a legal product.
While
the illegal market will never disappear entirely, Armstrong predicts
that once legal shops have expanded enough, offering enough of the right
product, at the right quality to satisfy demand, illegal pot will be
about as common as illegal wine.
"I expect it will be very much the same, eventually," he said.
Cannabis vs. opiates
Armstrong
also suggests that busting illegal dispensaries before people have a
legal alternative will be a waste of police resources — and will merely
drive the illegal trade deeper underground.
But once there are enough
pot shops in operation, a crackdown could push illegal prices close
enough to their legal alternatives, making the black market not
worthwhile.
Then, with the legal price as a ceiling, the symbiosis between enforcement and criminal income will be broken, he says.
Despite
the obvious differences between cannabis and street drugs like heroin,
there are many lessons to be learned from marijuana's legalization,
said Rebecca Jesseman, with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and
Addiction.
People from around the world are coming to Canada to
study the different provincial and territorial legalization models as
they develop, she said, to see what works and what doesn't.
For
instance, the issue of quality control, which has attracted some buyers
to legal cannabis stores, applies even more so when it comes
to opiates, which are now so often adulterated and made deadly with
substances like fentanyl.
In
some places in Canada, including Vancouver's Crosstown Clinic, patients
are provided with medical-grade heroin for supervised injection. Other
places offer testing for purity and strength.
As with cannabis, access is crucial, especially for those with addiction.
And
while we must wait until the legal cannabis market develops further to
be sure, Jesseman believes Canada's experience may show that legal
sources really do drive out illicit producers by removing the risk
premium.
What's more, when even the most brutal and expensive means of rooting out illegal drugs fail, legal cannabis offers an example of what may be possible.
"There
are many different distribution models we can look at, and I think the
important thing is to consider each substance on its own properties,
merits and impacts," said Jesseman.
The use of marijuana has increased lately according to
statistics. This drug is used as a way to relief stress and pain. Yet,
due to its negative side effects this drugs is considered illegal in
large portions of the world. Just recently many different incidents in
the United States were seen with the illegal use of marijuana.
A recent study conducted by a team of researchers, create a survey in
Washington State for drivers.
The survey contained questions which will
study the use of marijuana between drivers. Results showed that almost
14.1% of drivers who have their children in the car will still use
marijuana in the car. These results were published in the Journal of
Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
The study was led by PhD holder Angela Eichelberger who works at the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, together with PhD holder Eduardo
Romano who works at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.
They commented on the results saying, “Currently, there are a number of
different tests being developed and validated to detect whether drugs
are present, including saliva and even breath tests for THC. However,
there is still a need for reliable, valid measures of impairment.
Encouragingly, we . . . found that among those with children [in the
car], most did not drink and drive.”
This study recommends drivers to stop the use of illegal substance
while driving. Furthermore, refraining from using marijuana when
children are present in the car.
Business interests and public opinion clearly favor ending prohibition but the status quo still has a lot of momentum.
by Marijuana Business Daily
Jeffrey L. Smith
U.S. cannabis reform efforts have seen movement recently with a
House committee’s endorsement of a banking bill and Attorney General
William Barr’s comments that a federal shift would be preferable to the
current “intolerable” situation.
But
the progress that marijuana businesses have awaited remains an uphill
battle -- with Senate leadership a key hurdle -- and experts say a
narrowly tailored bill remains most likely to pass – such as the SAFE Banking Act, which would protect financial institutions that serve state-legal marijuana businesses.
“That,
to me, is one of the lowest pieces of hanging fruit,” along with a
measure to provide veterans access to medical marijuana, said Douglas
Berman, director of Ohio State University’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center.
Even
if no marijuana bills pass this year, cannabis firms find themselves in
a new world where the U.S. political environment appears receptive to
reform that eventually will boost opportunities and bottom lines.
For example:
The SAFE Banking Act,
which hadn’t seen the light of day in six years, received a hearing and
flew through the House Financial Service Committee with a 45-15
vote and could receive a full House vote within six weeks.
Barr said an approach to protect state-legal cannabis programs such as the STATES Act would prove preferable to the current “intolerable” conflict between federal and state laws.
The STATES Act was reintroduced in both chambers with at least some bipartisan support.
Those add to positive developments last November, when:
The U.S. House flipped to the Democrats, which experts told Marijuana Business Daily should improve the likelihood of passage of pro-cannabis legislation benefiting MJ businesses.
New potential markets opened as
Missouri and Utah approved medical marijuana, and Michigan voters OK’d
adult-use – which made it the first Midwest state to pass recreational
marijuana.
Not so fast
Despite encouraging
signs, leaders of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate hold the key on
any measure that will get a hearing or vote in that chamber, industry
watchers note. That will be the biggest challenge, Berman said, and he
is skeptical that major reform will occur this year. “I just think the
political forces facilitating the status quo are still so strong,” he
said.
While the cannabis industry would like to see broad reform
such as federal protections for state-legal businesses through the
STATES Act or marijuana descheduling, banking is perhaps the most
pressing issue.
“I
still work with many cannabis businesses who are unbanked, and the
complications of running a cannabis business in all cash in the age of
electronic banking is mind-boggling,” Denver cannabis attorney Rachel Gillette said.
Here are some recent developments that may help change the political appetite for reform:
1. The AG is open to reform.
Barr
doesn’t like marijuana, but he also dislikes the current conflict
between federal and state laws. At a hearing earlier this month, he said
the STATES Act would be better than the status quo.
The cannabis
industry took notice. “Attorney General Barr’s comments are pretty
consistent with his statements during confirmation, but it is still huge
that a sitting AG wants to let states determine their own cannabis
policies without fear of federal interference,” said Morgan Fox,
spokesman for the National Cannabis Industry Association.
Neal Levine, CEO of the Cannabis Trade Federation,
which has lobbied for the STATES Act, expressed similar sentiments,
adding that he is optimistic “that we can finally end the conflict
between federal and state cannabis law during this Congress.”
Don Murphy, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), called Barr’s comments a “refreshing departure” from his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, who alarmed the industry by rescinding the Cole Memo, an Obama-era protection of state-legal businesses.
But,
Murphy added, the “STATES (Act) is getting fragged by advocates on the
Hill and candidates on the campaign trail who now say that no marijuana
policy reform can advance without restorative justice and equity
provisions.”
The STATES Act is broadly written and doesn’t address
specific issues such as criminal justice and social equity. But other
bills do.
2. The SAFE Act has progressed but faces barricades.
In
what appears to be a bipartisan effort, the House version collected
more than 165 co-sponsors, including 17 Republicans, and a Senate
companion bill with more than 20 co-sponsors. Perhaps as critical, the
financial industry and other key groups joined in support. That includes
the American Bankers Association, the Credit Union National
Association, banking supervisors from two dozen states, Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin and, last week, the National League of Cities.
U.S.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Colorado Democrat and a key sponsor of the
legislation for the past six years, expressed cautious optimism in a recent interview. Although
noting “we’ve got work to do,” Perlmutter said he expects a full House
vote within a month to six weeks and “I think the momentum is there” to
get it passed.
The Senate is iffier and will depend on whether key Senate leaders will allow the bill to be heard.
3. Other pressure points may make a difference.
There
are now 34 states and Washington DC with full-fledged MMJ programs as
well as 10 adult-use states, along with DC. Recent polls show that two-thirds of Americans now
support marijuana legalization. Additionally, many Democratic
presidential candidates are articulating a decidedly pro-marijuana
stance although much of the focus is on criminal justice.
But
where is the tipping point for federal reform? It’s important to note
the MJ industry has increased its lobbying in efforts to nudge the
needle. The Cannabis Trade Federation has 15 DC lobbyists and New York-based multistate operator Acreage Holdings co-founded a new lobbying group called the National Cannabis Roundtable.
Former U.S. House speaker John Boehner, who “evolved” into being pro-marijuana a year ago and joined Acreage’s board, is an adviser to the Roundtable. Canada-based Canopy Growth’s $3.4 billion deal to buy Acreage is contingent on the U.S. legalizing marijuana at a federal level.
While the deal itself likely won’t lead to reform, it could have some influence in DC, MPP’s Murphy said.
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