Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | Castbox | Deezer
HIGHLIGHTS: Mexico’s Draft Legalization Bill Leaks+ MORE!
GOLDEN NUG: DEA and HHS Pointing Fingers at Each Other re Research re CSA + MORE!
MORE: AOC Proposes Expungement Funding Bill + Cannabis Now 5th Most Valuable US Crop + MORE?!?
Hybrid News/Analysis Extract from 420+ Sources: Featuring all the developments this past week in the cannabis world on the federal level, state legalization/implementation, science/technology, business deals, international scene, social equity, celebrity cameos, and miscellaneous ridiculousness.
DISCLAIMER: All opinions are my own, and not those of my law firm Zuber Lawler. Even though I drop knowledge bombs, the show is NOT legal advice.
Advertisement
Send comments to: jp@globalcannabistimes.com
Transcription
WE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING TRANSCRIPT WAS CREATED BY A ROBOT THAT MAY NOT HAVE APPRECIATED THE FINE POINTS AND NAMES SPOKEN BY JON, SO PLEASE FORGIVE ANY TYPOS, OR BIAS IN FAVOR OF OUR FUTURE ROBOT OVERLORDS:
Oh, hello. Welcome to the December six episode of cannabis last week from global cannabis times hybrid news and analysis extract from over 420 sources. I’m your host, John Pirro and our highlights stories this week. Mexico’s new draft legalization, bill leaks and our golden nug story. The DEA and HHS point fingers at each other and hold up potential rescheduling.
Now, before we get down to business, I need to make my standard disclaimer, when I’m not fighting crime at night as a mass vigilante, I practice law by day cannabis and intellectual property law at the law firm, Zuber Lawler. So I need to note that any views expressed during this podcast are my own and not that of Zuber law.
For example, if I was to say Omicron sucks, that’d be my own view and not that of my law firm, but I doubt that they disagree with me. And remember this podcast is not legal advice, so don’t be a dumb, dumb and pretend it is. And if you have any feedback, please send it to me@jpatglobalcannabistimes.com.
HIGHLIGHTS
All right. Onto the news. And our highlight story this week, Mexico’s draft legalization, bill leaked before the deadline at the end of the Senate session on December 15th, just a couple things to note in the bill, which apparently was more progressive than prior versions. Possession is legal up to one ounce retail dispensary’s would open within 18 months of passage and there’s a provision for private cannabis, social clubs.
Advertisement
But people think it necessarily won’t be in the final bill, cause it’s a little bit controversial that provision. And there’d also be some odd requirement to install indoor barriers where people are smoking to prevent it from spreading. That apparently also is not going to necessarily make it into the final version of the bill.
So the timeline here and there is optimism that this is when we’ll finally pass the Senate session ends on December 15th. So there should be movement very, very soon. And if it is passed by the Senate, The lower house would have to vote on it before February and April, 2022
GOLDEN NUGS
In our golden nug story of the week.
Here’s an interesting one. So there’s a libertarian think group called competitive enterprise Institute. And what they did was they asked the white house office of management and budget to resolve an impasse between the DEA, the drug enforcement administration. And the U S department of health and human services that apparently has been holding up cannabis research for years.
So what CEI is trying to do here is to push both agencies to facilitate a peer review of scientific evidence. That’s been used to deny petitions, to reschedule marijuana on the controlled substances act from schedule one, which says it has no medical value. They say the research has flaw. And if proper people looked at it, they would be able to kind of get through that.
And so basically it’s in the two agencies pointing the finger at each other for being the one that is delaying this process. And so CIA stepping in to say, Hey, white house, why don’t you resolve this? And that gets interesting because if it does, and the research get reviewed, and we all know that there is plenty of medical benefit to marijuana, perhaps this could actually be an interesting way to get.
Rescheduled or just make some progress in that direction. So that’s a story to definitely keep an eye on.
FEDERAL NEWS
Now, moving on to federal news, a new federal expungement bill was introduced by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. My favorite representative solely because you know how much I love my acronyms, just as much as my puns and alliteration.
Advertisement
And she actually, with her 10 syllable name has her own acronym. AOC. So AOC, apparently co-sponsored with Dave Joyce, the Republican of Ohio, a new bill. And not only does she have an acronym, she also appreciates them. They forwarded the harnessing opportunities by pursuing expungement act. That’s right.
The acronym is hope. The hope bill would give $20 million to the AIG to financially help states and local governments that have been reviewing and pursuing expunging cannabis convictions. And here’s quite possibly my favorite stat in the wide world of weed. See alliteration. Since there have been some expungement provisions and state legalization bills.
There they’re 12 states that have them right now. State officials have vacated approximately 2.2 million marijuana related convictions. That’s remarkable. You can’t undo the past certainly and on equal enforcement, but that is something to be remarkably proud of. And hopefully this helps the process and this gets passed and it gets bipartisan support.
And another little piece of federal news at the house committee meeting. At Perlmutter hoop was the marijuana. Let’s call him the biggest pot proponent in Congress at Perlmutter out of Oregon as treasury secretary yelling. If she thought that giving marijuana firms access to banking would assist the IRS and collecting taxes to which she responded.
Yes, of course. Th you dumb, dumb. That’s a ridiculous question. Well, I mean, she said everything outside of calling him a dumb, dumb and saying, it’s a stupid question, but anyways, now we have a quote from the treasury secretary saying that the safe banking act provisions would help marijuana businesses and help the IRS collect taxes from them.
STATE NEWS
Moving on to state news. In Missouri, Republican representative shamed, shamed Dogan. It is actually spelled S H a M E D. I really feel that certain parents need to give consideration to whether or not they’re naming their children in ways that kids will make fun of growing up. So anyways, . Has pre-filed a joint resolution to get a ballot measure in front of Missouri voters in 2022, he did the same thing last year.
It didn’t get far, but hopefully, maybe this time we’ll have a little bit more momentum though. At the same time, activists in the state are not waiting for this to succeed and are moving on their own ballot. Moving over to California, which is always interesting to track because is the largest market there is.
And there are all sorts of interesting issues that they’ve encountered in terms of combating the black market legal market, just hasn’t developed in the way that you would think because it’s such a strong black market. So a couple of pieces of news here. First off, there’ve been a bunch of armed and violent robberies.
Advertisement
We are talking actual gunfights between the robbers and police have been popping up in marijuana businesses in San Francisco. And they’ve actually, these robberies consistently have been threatening these businesses livelihoods. So here’s a quote, cannabis businesses are being robbed year round, but no one is talking about it.
This quote is from Tuckey blunt. I need to know if that’s his real name is the owner of an Oakland cannabis shop. The store was hit last month by Robert. And he actually said, quote unquote, I was safer and have more money selling on the street illegally. So that’s not good if you have people crossing over and having this many issues in the legal market.
And in other news, actually from San Francisco supervisors there unanimously approved an ordinance to suspend the city’s cannabis business tax through the end of next year, and then attempt to curb illegal marijuana sales. So you see California on a state level. And then locality is doing different things to try and combat the black market, which is still going strong.
And the interesting thing about the robberies in San Francisco was apparently it wasn’t necessarily the fact that the businesses had cash. It was that the quality of the marijuana was so high that people robbed it because it makes so much money on the street. So that’s an interesting little wrinkle. I haven’t heard before.
Moving over to Minnesota regulators and the state made cannabis edibles legal for the first time starting next year. However, they refuse to add anxiety disorder to the list of qualifying conditions. So I just want to say I’m very, very sorry to all the Minnesota Vikings fans, you’re going to have to find some other ones.
Of a relief from your anxiety caused by your ticker is missing game winning field goal attempts for the last, um, let’s see here three decades. So sorry about that. We’ll need some other relief over in New York. What’s interesting to note is that while the adult use market is still in the process of getting running, a number of native American tribes have started selling, which includes the Mohawks, the Senecas and the cow Hugo’s and all of these cells.
On tribal land or legal, according to the office of cannabis management of New York state, also in New York, only 9% of New York towns and villages have currently opted out of allowing adult use dispensary’s and public consumption sites, the deadline to do so in terms of opting out is coming up on December 31st.
So it certainly doesn’t seem like state regulations will be announced before. So it’s going to be interesting to keep an eye on this and see if more jurisdictions, more municipalities opt out. As we get closer to the deadline, which happened in Jersey, where approximately 70% ultimately opted out because they didn’t want to sign up for something that they didn’t know what the regulations were going to be.
In Kentucky, Kentucky state representative NEMA Kulkarni on Monday, pre-filed some bills to decriminalize cannabis possession in the state and to allow voters the chance to entrench broader reforms and last but not least in the state law. And what was, I basically consider one step removed from being news.
An activist group called the Alliance for sensible markets called on the governors of Western states, Colorado, California, Oregon, and Washington, to see if they could seek guidance from the U S department of justice on how the federal government would feel if two or more of these states with legal medical and adult use marijuana.
Just decided to kind of trade across their state lines. Like, Hey, it’s legal in my state in both ways. What about yours? Let’s just, you know, let across state lines, Hey, fed government. What do you think about that? So let’s see if the governor is actually follow and take that step, because that would certainly be interesting and a push in an interesting direction.
BUSINESS NEWS
Moving over to business news very quickly. Harborside based in California, agreed to acquire UL holdings, which operates the urban leaf dispensary’s and LPF JV corporation also known as loud pack, another leading cannabis company in the state. And once the deals are finalized, Harborside is actually going to rebrand as state house.
Moving over. Schwas one of my two favorite named cannabis companies based out of Colorado raised $95 million in capital and struck a deal for $42 million for some acquisitions in New Mexico space station. One of the leaders in manufacturing cannabis beverages has merged with Nam distribution, one of the largest distributors and producers in California, some of the top brands, including heavy-hitters and Almora also Aurora cannabis named as new genetic licensing business.
AKA. Which apparently is going to be licensing genetics out of British Columbia and Canada was one of the first businesses I’ve heard like that from one of these large, large companies, also high tide completed its acquisition of an 80% interest in new leaf naturals for 31.2 million. And we’ll have the opportunity to acquire the remaining 20% at any time in the next three years.
And general MSO growth for multi-state operators though is not in the know is slowing. So most of the top marijuana companies, multi-state operators posted single digit revenue gains this previous quarter, which was down from the much larger, double digit growth in the prior quarter. And finally. Cresco labs closed this acquisition of bay LLC cure pen, which has a couple of dispensaries.
And so now it’s adding on top of Creswell labs, other five existing Sunnyside dispensary’s and Pennsylvania. So always interesting to take note when an MSO is increasing, it’s holding a dispensary’s in the medical market, in a state that is still only medical and not adult use.
SCIENCE & MEDICAL NEWS
Speaking of medical and our science and medical section, the da has decided, and this is not cannabis related, but you know, I like to sprinkle a little bit of psychedelic news and the da says we need more psychedelics.
So this past year and increased the amount of psychedelics that I wanted for research purposes. And this year it is doing it even more. So, so this year apparently has asked for more. Psilocybin MDM and DMT for research purposes. And just to give you an idea of the volume increase here in 2021, the da asks for 30 grams of psilocybin for research.
And this upcoming year, it wants 8,000 grams. So this just shows you how much more research is going on in the field of psychedelics.
SOCIAL EQUITY NEWS
Now on social equity news, two states, we want to report on California and New Mexico took some steps. So the California department of cannabis control announced some emergency regulation.
That are going to grant license fee waivers to social equity, marijuana entrepreneurs. And the lawmakers have actually said that they’re going to put $30 million towards these waivers and the state and New Mexico has decided it’s going to be giving business loans of up to $250,000 to micro businesses that were affected by the war on drugs.
So tip of the cap to California, New Mexico on these efforts, moving on.
MISCELLANEOUS NEWS
To miscellaneous news or last piece. So apparently cannabis is now the fifth, most Idaho crop in America. And that’s just looking at the 11 states where there’s legal adult use. So the, the total, there is $6.2 billion they estimate. So we apparently we beat out cotton and we beat out rice.
So all we got to catch up to now, and it’s really interesting learning the largest crops in the U S are. Hey soybeans and the king corn, $61 billion. So we just need to increase the market by tenfold. And we will finally have a chance to catch up with corn. And another last little piece, there’s actually an interesting new product.
The Canadian cannabis behemoth Tilray released a fast acting cannabis oral strip to the medical market through its brand Aphria so, yes, instead of a contact. There is now the possibility of a contact kiss. And with that, I leave you for the week, a little bit of a slow week in the news,
And I say, stay grassy my buds, And I will see you next week.
Copyright 2021 Global Cannabis Times, All Rights Reserved
