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Highlight: Mississippi Poised to Legalize Medical via Legislature
Golden Nug: Can Cannabis Breathalyzers Ever Test Intoxication??
More?!?=: Lawsuit Stirs Up the Curious Case of The Cops Confiscating Cash from the Cannabis Cash Carrying Car + RI One Issue Away from Legislative Adult Use?
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.
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:
Welcome to the January 24th episode of cannabis last week from global cannabis times. We’re about to actually drop our first interview episode. Just want to have a brief announcement about that. I’m calling the series can notable because. Puns as always. And we’re very excited because the first guest that would be Jamie Pearson, CEO of bang, the edibles company, that’s kicking butt in many markets out there.
So welcome to the show. Hybrid news and analysis extracted from over 420 sources each week. I’m your host, John Pierro and our highlight stories this week, Mississippi wholeness in the deep south bound to legalize medical marijuana and in our golden nugget story of the. Breathalyzers for cannabis may actually never be effective.
Now, before we get down to business, I need to make my standard. By day, I practice cannabis and or IP law at the law firm of Uber Lawler by night, as you know, I fight crime as a mass vigilante, but anyways, I need to note that any views I express during this podcast are my own and not those of Zuber Lawler.
For example, if I was to say, That I am a golden God, a Wordle. That would be my own view and not that as Zuber Lawler, unless they started competitively playing against me and realized that too. And I also need to note this podcast is not legal advice, so don’t be a dumb, dumb, and pretend that it is. And as always, if you have any feedback, shoot me an email@jpatglobalcannabistimes.com or subscribe.
If you want to feed my ego, which needs constant sustenance. All right.
HIGHLIGHT STORY
And the news in our highlight story, Mississippi is actually about to legalize medical marijuana. I’ll do the super fast ACE Ventura type of recap. Back in 2020 voters and Mississippi voted to legalize medical marijuana, but then it was bought on the courts on a BS technicality, and they made it illegal.
Sorry. The court decided to strike it down and then they decided legislatively, they’re going to try and pass it. And so legislators move forward. And the governor said that he was going to get it done, but they didn’t get approved during the regular session. So the governor is going to call it festival classroom, but he kept on moving the goalpost and then it didn’t get done enough.
Finally, we’re back on this year and this legislative session and. All right. That’s the recap. So what I’ve been recently is I think last week, the Mississippi state Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill that mimics a lot of the items from the, uh, ballot initiative that was passed by voters. And then moving on.
In the state house of representatives, they voted 104 to 14 in favor of the bill. Now, the important thing about that overwhelming voting margin is that Mississippi governor rotate Reeves, who moved the goalposts and held up the entire bill and passing it in the special session based on the amount that people would be allowed to have and carry it legally in the medical program.
The Senate and the house representatives in the state passed by margins. That would be super majorities. Basically sending a message to the governor. This is happening, whether you’re on board or not. So governor Tate Reeves time to get on the cannabis or hit your eye later and get none of the credit. So deep south state making moves medical marijuana. So that’s very, very nice.
GOLDEN NUGGET
Moving on to our golden nugget story about. This actually came up, uh, last week and an interesting story about brain scans and their capability to determine if someone is actually intoxicated in the moment from cannabis. And in that story, there was a line talking about how breathalyzers may actually never be effective because while they might measure the presence of cannabis and that someone had done something in the past couple hours, it doesn’t actually measure intoxication.
And I said, huh, middleman. Lo and behold, the next week, there is already another story that talking about this in a little bit more detail, and it’s starting to get a little bit of traction, right? So breathalyzers were meant to be a silver bullet to fight prohibitionists. Who’s one of their arguments essentially is if you legalize and they’re going to be a bunch of stone people driving, and they’re going to be more car accidents, but if their breath that allows us to effectively enforce the strict cut down on it, however.
This article also talked about it. And the bottom line is the breathalyzers for alcohol work. Cause there’s a clear cut. There’s a direct correlation between the concentration in your blood and impairment. There’s not necessarily the same thing when it comes to cannabis. So all these think tours, three companies that have been moving forward with this that have been putting all this confidence in not necessarily going to be the silver bullet.
We intent hound labs, which is a main company I’ve been paying attention to in terms of. The progress with their breathalyzer is actually knowledged, right? That their breathalyzers designed to examine if someone has consumed cannabis, but it doesn’t tell the level of impairment. So something very, very important to keep an eye out.
FEDERAL NEWS
All right, moving over to federal news slow week. Don’t really have anything to report outside of. I guess, the poll of Americans that thought that Biden disappointed them in terms of what he promised with marijuana reform and has not been. That’s about it.
STATE NEWS
Moving over to states in Rhode Island, um, where I went to college and love and visit.
Anytime I can. The governor has actually put legalization in his budget again, but here’s the brass tax of where we are in this, right? There were two competing bills, one forwarded by the governor. One by the legislature, actually I think two out of legislature. So there were multiple competing bills and over a process of a year in 2021, they were able to narrow this down to one single issue that they need to compromise, figure out in order to move forward with adult use legalization.
That issue is. Which regulatory body will govern the industry, the governor and the legislature. Can’t agree. So seriously, seriously. Uh, Seth Meyers in Amy Poehler would say on weekend update, seriously, that’s, what’s holding this up. Could someone please cave already? I mean, cause this is just stupid and I guess I should say that that’s my opinion and not the opinion of zebra Lawler.
So we’re close, we’re getting there and hopefully it will happen soon. I mean, I, I mean, if I was playing Toker, Damas, I don’t know if I mentioned Rhode Island, but this will go down in 2020 to legislate. Moving over to Georgia. This is kind of ridiculous. And I, it makes me feel furious, anger like Samuel L. Jackson in pulp fiction. The governor of Georgia signed a bill to recap, permitting the use of cannabis oil for chronically ill people for sick people in Georgia, seven years. Seven. And yet there is no program in place because amongst other issues and even the hat, it has like THC caps that are absurd and you could only have it in very, very specific forms regardless.
Right. So in Georgia, what’s holding the process up right now is that there’s actually litigation because there were 70 applicants. And then a couple of years ago and six licenses were. However, it wasn’t even a blind process. It was out there. And so there are certain people who did not get licenses, who unsurprisingly feel that it was kind of arbitrary and they ended up suing about it.
So that is, what’s holding everything up right now. And the reason why I mentioned it as current news is that there is a hearing coming up, which will hopefully we’ll make some progress in the law. And I mentioned it because this is a trend that we’ve seen in the industry about the prevailing lawsuits, basically in every single state, throughout the licensing process, cause the hiccups or anything.
And I’m also flagging it because in wonderful New Jersey where I currently reside. And there is unfortunately a complicated process of rolling applications with parties that can cut the line effectively for noble reasons that, you know, I think that this could end up in litigation. So, you know, I would hold my breath and say that that’s not going to happen in New Jersey, but I probably ended up dead.
Which I mean, I, I mean, I guess my wife has some nice life insurance, so, you know, I mean, at least there’s that. So moving on to California, I’m not going to classify this as actual a news, you know, headline or development. But there was one article that I saw in this is, as I said, one of the largest stories in the entire nation.
California’s battle to fight. The illicit market happens in every other country. Getting get really, really interesting in New York, my home state, well, my birth state, um, to really figure out I’m gonna refer to New Jersey in New York, because at some point I’m going to have to admit to myself that I am actually a resident of New Jersey anyways.
So. The interesting thing about this article that I saw, which, you know, kick something off in my head is one of those suggestions about how to potentially fight the illicit market is to grant amnesty, to participants in the illegal cannabis space. Right now I know that there are many, many parties that have their elicit grow and their legal grow, their license grow.
And essentially this would be. Perhaps, you know, cut a big check to pay off taxes from all this money you’ve been making illegally. If you haven’t been reporting, it will give you immunity, which is not so crazy considering that there has been expungements of the number of marijuana convictions in different states.
You know, to try and right. Some wrongs, but to make progress on that front and then come over to the legal market and pay taxes. So this is something really interesting, especially because I’ve heard about similar ideas moving forward in New York. And so going to keep an eye on.
BUSINESS NEWS “GREEN NEW DEALS”
Now in terms of business or green new deals, as I like to call them circling back to the curious case.
So the cops confiscating cannabis cash from an armored car. Uh, I guess the one with the Boston accent on that last one from the Ahmed car, as I did that episode, when I couldn’t be clever and I just, you know, mock new England accents for the fun of it. Cause I’m a Yankees fan. Anyways, circling back to this story.
There’s a little bit of an interesting development here. Just to recap, this was an armored car that crossed state lines, I think to Colorado in order to pick up money from dispensary’s there and then was driving, I think back to go to Missouri. Where the companies had their banking setup. And as they were driving through Kansas, where there is no legal program, they were pinched.
I think some state cop pulled them over there on the way to Colorado flagged what they were going to do. And on the way back. They actually arrested them. And there were ties to the federal government and federal agencies that essentially targeted them already. As, I mean, I think that was how the Kansas cops knew to be there, to pick them off when it was an unmarked car.
Now the armored car and FinTech company has actually sued. Law enforcement because Imperial, the name of the company says that they’ve been stopped by police five times since may 20, 21 and three times alone in the past two months in San Bernardino county. And so the defendants in the lawsuit actually are they’re suing the federal government, the department of justice, the FBI, the DEA, the San Bernardino county Sheriff’s office in California.
And to be thorough, the reanimated corpse of George Washington. I might’ve made the last one off, but Hey, I’m a lawyer. We litigate. We kind of do that. Throw the kitchen sink in there in terms of who you see. So that’s an interesting story to keep an eye on because of seeing how federal agencies are poking their toes in randomly, sometimes to enforce against actions like this.
FINANCIAL NEWS
Moving over DAMA financial, the nation’s largest provider of access to banking and payment solutions for the cannabis industry.
As entered into an agreement to acquire a growth flow Corp whose business management and compliance tools have processed more than $3.3 billion for cannabis retailers. So that is one deal right there. Moving over to cure leaf, one of the largest, if not the largest MSO in the. They’re actually facing a consumer complaint about inconsistent cannabis product prices across states, which is interesting.
And we could keep an eye on it because you certainly can’t change. The fact that different states have very, very different taxation rates and also. Finished up the acquisition of bloom dispensary’s, which is a vertically integrated Arizona company, moving over to silver spike investment Corp. They announced plans that they’re going to raise 125 million and they want to use that money to make loans or invest in quote unquote, middle market cannabis company.
PSYCHEDELICS NEWS
Moving over to psychedelics and there’s so much action on this front, then we might need to rename the entire podcast. I am very, very pleasantly surprised by all the stuff that’s happening already with the new legislative side systems across the country via V psychedelics. First in Virginia, there’s actually a bill to decriminalize psilocybin, and it got bipartisan support.
Uh, this was just an, a committee and the Virginia Senate judiciary committee. However it actually got support from the Republican Senate minority leader. So something to really keep an eye on. Moving over to a spec psychedelic company. Ah, speaking of silver spike, it’s got us back for psychedelics and as Adam Sandler and opera man would say, oh Sean, yes.
I love that. As much as puns and. You know, terrible acronyms, but also fun. So these silver spikes back signed an agreement apparently to make, uh, looses, uh, addresses, uh, E L E U S I S for those who want to Google, how to actually pronounce it or what. So they are a clinical stage life science company, and they’re trying to pursue psychedelics and the pharmaceutical model and looses is looking to use that money to continue the process with ELD silo, LSI.
They’re leading drug candidate, which they’re trying to use to treat depression. And they’re actually going to be entering into phase one trials in 2022, so early in the process there. But the other thing that they do is they actually have clinics. So they have clinics, I think, under the name. And so the clinics are you used to address the quote unquote last mile challenge of psychedelics in order to have places where these drugs are going to be done, or perhaps the lines up with programs like Oregon, where there’s going to be guided psilocybin or ketamine or different type of psychedelic.
So silver spike acquisition Corp, just to give you an idea of their size, there are 287.5 millions back. So they are moving forward with that in Utah, Ultimaker actually introduced the bill to explore psychedelic drugs, to treat mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD. This was just recently introduced.
And so that’s interesting to see, and certainly a more conservative state, some progress being made there as well.
MISCELLANEOUS NEWS
Moving over to miscellaneous news. Apparently in ancient China cannabis was a staple food crop for a long, long time. So that’s pretty cool. All right. There you go. We love, you know, it’s a miracle, how much this was in everything throughout history.
It was in tonics at the turn of the century. And then for political expediency, you know, Anslinger and the Nixon made the war on drugs and we lost so much time that could have been better spent on medical research and other stuff. But yes, going back to ancient China, there was cannabis usage, and last and potentially least in our celebrity cameo section.
Cresco labs. The large MSO has announced that they’re going to an exclusive partnership agreement with multi-platinum selling Grammy and golden globe award nominated recording artist with Khalifa to spread his brand of cannabis, Khalifa Kush. And with that, hopefully tune in for my interview episode when we post it.
But with that, I will give you my traditional sign-off stay grassy, my buds, and I will see you next.
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