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Forty-six days before the federal hemp deadline, the drink brands with famous names on the can are getting the headlines. North Carolina health officials sketched a state-run cannabis counter, and Sen. Cory Booker went after DEA over a Mississippi dispensary’s employees. Massachusetts regulators have a draft testing rewrite in hand, and Rhode Island stretched delivery to 11 PM. In New Mexico, licensees told lawmakers what the new tracking system has cost them.
🥤 Bigger than the label
🏬 The state behind the register
🧪 Overdue, and welcome
🚚 Delivery till eleven
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Bloomberg built its look at the December 11th hemp deadline around the drinks with famous names on the can: Willie Nelson’s Willie’s Remedy+ and the THC lines tied to Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. Under P.L. 119-103, the 0.4 milligram per container cap takes hold December 11th, a month after cannabinoids the plant can’t produce on its own fall out of the hemp definition on November 12th. The Financial Times and the Australian Financial Review report that the alcohol business is split over the drinks. There are certainly celebrity brands in hemp, and sometimes the celebrity angle is a distraction. The market is a whole supply chain, from farmers and processors to brewers and canners, and it runs through alcohol distributors and retailers, too. It helps when the person behind the name lends an actual voice to the cause, and Nelson has. “Banning hemp won’t solve problems,” he said. “Smart regulation will.” Former NFL safety Micah Hyde, who sells a THC shandy, has made the same case. Former Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill has talked publicly about giving up alcohol after confronting post-traumatic stress from his service. He partnered with hi Seltzer in February, saying THC “has been a healthier alternative.” In the end this lands on Congress, and I doubt celebrity alone carries enough weight there. (Bloomberg; Financial Times; Australian Financial Review; Cannabis Equipment News; Marijuana Moment)
📹 Pennsylvania’s Department of Health published guidance in Saturday’s Pennsylvania Bulletin on the 24-hour camera monitoring required at medical cannabis grower-processors and dispensaries. Authorized employees can now do that monitoring from another location. Notice and compliance obligations still apply, and the security coverage itself doesn’t change. (The Marijuana Herald; Pennsylvania Bulletin)
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services posted draft recommendations marked “for discussion only.” They describe privately licensed cultivation and production, possible state warehousing, cannabis retail run by the state, and room for a small-farm structure. None of it carries legal force unless the General Assembly acts. I’m always skeptical of a state-run store, starting with logistics. City-run retail is functioning in Minnesota, where Anoka opened the state’s first municipal dispensary in February, but how it holds up at scale is yet to be seen. It’s also early enough that some hiccups still need to surface. The draft doesn’t yet say who handles background checks or what happens when a compliance problem turns up. It also leaves open who the licensee actually is when the state is the one ringing up the sale. It isn’t impossible, though it may not be practical, and for now it’s to be determined. Gov. Josh Stein’s Advisory Council on Cannabis owes its recommendations by December 31st. (Cannabis Aficionado; North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services)
Nicole Huff, who runs Wildflower Medical Dispensary in Mississippi, says DEA put her to a choice over two employees with prior felony convictions. She could let them go, withdraw from the expedited process, seek a waiver or go to a hearing. “I think that’s ridiculous,” Sen. Cory Booker said. I can’t see the logic of a lawmaker complaining to the bureaucrats implementing the law. Against the backdrop of cannabis as a social and cultural issue, of course it’s illogical, and it will collide with state laws written to bring people with convictions into the workforce. That is what happens when you merge a social issue into a pharmaceutical regulatory lane through scheduling and rescheduling, and DEA didn’t get there alone. (Marijuana Moment)
🖥️ New Mexico licensees told lawmakers this month that the state’s new tracking system, NMS2S, has meant re-entering data by hand and losing operating days since September’s switch from BioTrack. Matt Kennicott, executive director of the Cannabis Association of New Mexico, carried the complaints, and one business attributed 11 layoffs to the disruption. This is what happens when you deploy a system on the fly. A tracking system follows every package from plant to sale, so what’s the worst that could happen? (KRQE via AOL; Marijuana Retail Report)
The Cannabis Control Commission’s Testing Regulatory Working Group sent commissioners an October 22nd memo with a redlined draft of 935 CMR 503.000, the independent testing rules. The memo also includes a testing protocol and related changes to the medical and adult-use regulations. It recommends labeling for metals and trace elements and sends other questions back to the group. Nothing has been adopted. This is timely and overdue, and it matters for the long-term credibility of the market. Labs have been asking for it, and some labs have exploited the gaps alongside licensees intending to game the system. Clarity helps the entire supply chain, and building enforcement in alongside it keeps everyone honest. It’s welcome. (Cannabis Equipment News; Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission)
The Cannabis Control Commission voted 2-1 on Friday to widen delivery hours from 8 AM through 8 PM to 7 AM through 11 PM. Chair Michelle Reddish said licensees had asked for the change. Robert Jacquard raised concerns about violence on late-night doorstep deliveries. The commission turned down a nearly identical proposal in September, and Massachusetts already allows the same window. I don’t think this is a big deal at all. If the market wants it and the industry can serve it responsibly, who cares? The 2-1 split is what interests me, with a new governor arriving in January after Gov. Dan McKee lost his primary. The effective date hasn’t been announced. (WJAR; Hoodline)
The Boston Herald editorial board came out against Question 8 on Friday, joining the Globe’s. The Globe also examined the repeal campaign’s driving claims. The 42 percent figure in its ads counts THC detections among drivers killed in crashes in one Ohio county, and a detection doesn’t measure impairment. The Globe also put support for repeal at about $3.8 million, much of it tied to SAM Action. The Herald’s position is interesting politically, since it tends to lean conservative, and apparently it can also read a poll. In Haverhill, where Question 10 would allow social consumption, we were excited to host Ricky Williams earlier this month. We made sure he spent his visit with actual dispensaries and residents, including Caroline Pineau’s Stem, one of the state’s first economic empowerment licensees. He saw what losing small businesses like hers would cost and the investment Massachusetts has made in social equity, and he heard the promise of social consumption. The case for voting no is at StoptheRepealMA.com. (Boston Herald; The Boston Globe; Talking Joints Memo)
🗺️ Around the map: A federal judge dismissed all three suits challenging Rhode Island’s licensing program after lawmakers dropped its residency requirement in June. The Virgin Islands Cannabis Advisory Board discussed whether elected officials can hold cannabis licenses but lacked a quorum to vote, and it meets again November 19th. Israel named four Canadian producers in an anti-dumping inquiry. A California appeals court ruled in People v. Baxter that a trial court should have weighed reducing an aggravated cultivation felony to a misdemeanor. (The Marijuana Herald; St. Thomas Source; StratCann; Davis Vanguard)
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