⚖️ Residency gets its day at the Court

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Kenneth Gay, a Michigan resident turned away by Washington and Sacramento, has asked the Supreme Court to decide whether a state may keep its cannabis licenses for its own residents. Michigan's Cannabis Regulatory Agency fined Michigan Investment 10 LLC $2 million and closed its processor licenses nearly three years after first suspending them. High Times priced an eighth in 36 states and found that store count explains more than legal status. On Capitol Hill, the House passed Tyler's Law with marijuana still named in the text.

⚖️ Residency goes to the Court
🔒 Two million, three years on
🏷️ Count the stores
🏥 One chamber down

Kenneth Gay's companies, Peridot Tree WA and Peridot Tree, were turned down for licenses in Washington and Sacramento because Gay lives in Michigan. The Ninth Circuit sided with both governments in January, and on September 10th, Gay asked the Supreme Court to take the case. The split he's pointing to is real. The First Circuit found Maine's residency rule likely unconstitutional and the Second said the same of New York's preference, while the Ninth held that the dormant Commerce Clause has nothing to protect in a market federal law still bans. The Congressional Research Service suggested this month that the Court might wait out rescheduling before stepping in, and the petition goes right at that. Attorney General Todd Blanche's April order reached only state-licensed medical cannabis, Schedule III drugs move by prescription, and nobody buys an adult-use pre-roll with one. Rescheduling leaves the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act alone, too, so edibles, tinctures and topicals still answer to it as foods, drugs, cosmetics or supplements on any schedule. "Federal illegality does not authorize discrimination," the petition says, and the liquor cases back it up, since the Twenty-first Amendment gave states near-total control over alcohol and the Court still wouldn't let them favor their own. The justices have let this split sit for a while, and I'd be surprised if a petition arriving in the middle of rescheduling is the one that moves them. Washington and Sacramento have until October 15th to respond, or to waive and see whether the Court asks for a response anyway. (Supreme Court Docket No. 26-343; Marijuana Moment; Cannabis Business Times; Congressional Research Service)

Director Brian Hanna, who runs Michigan's Cannabis Regulatory Agency, opened Wednesday's announcement with the extraction-room camera at Michigan Investment 10, which was aimed at a wall. The penalty is a $2 million fine, a closed adult-use processor license and a revoked medical one, all taking effect September 24th. The case began with a summary suspension in November 2023 and a two-day hearing in January 2024, after which a judge lifted the suspension, and the recommendation sustaining every count of the complaint didn't arrive until this June. Twenty-nine months between testimony and a written recommendation is slow by any measure, though the Michigan Office of Administrative Hearings and Rules carries cases from across state government, and the company still has a week to find a court willing to pause the orders. (Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs)

Rolando García, a development economist, took the first full pass at High Times' revived Trans-High Market Quotations index this week, using thirteen months of register data from Hoodie, which High Times says it gets through an editorial partnership with no money changing hands. Nationally, an eighth cost $22.72 in August and $22.79 a year earlier, and that flat line hides a lot of movement. Twenty-four of the 34 states with a full year of data got cheaper, by a median of 5.2 percent. The medical premium people talk about mostly disappears once you weight by sales. The median medical-only state charges $37.86 and the median adult-use state $24.80, but the typical buyer in each pays $22.71 and $22.72. What does track price is the number of stores. Washington has 431 and sells the cheapest eighth in the country at $15.31, while Kentucky has 20 and charges $51.63. García is careful about it, noting that Arkansas gets to $19.40 with 36 stores and Alaska sits at $34.62 with 145 because so much of its supply arrives by plane or barge. Minnesota is the state to watch month to month. It went from 26 stores to 134, topped out at $59.93 last December and has mostly come down since, though August ticked back up to $54.11, and with this summer's new cultivation reaching shelves I'd bet on a number under $50 by the December cut. Virginia sells its eighth for $37.86 through 24 stores, and the law behind its July 2027 launch allows up to 350. (High Times; Trans-High Market Quotations)

🚜 The Lake County recall now covers four products, and the Department of Cannabis Control has tied two of them, Natura's Iced Infused Flower and Peace and Joy's Martini's Pre-Roll, to Joel Michaely Farms. Spokesperson Jordan Traverso told MJBizDaily the state used track and trace to find and pull every batch with the farm's material in it, which is a confident claim about a farm the department accuses of leaving required activity out of that same system. Yufang Lan died August 27th, and her cause of death still hasn't been established. (MJBizDaily; California Department of Cannabis Control; New York Post)

Tyler Shamash was 19 when he died in 2018 after taking fentanyl, and the hospital he was brought to never tested him for it. Rep. Ted Lieu's H.R. 2004, named for him, passed the House by voice vote Tuesday and gives HHS a year to study how often emergency rooms test overdose patients for fentanyl alongside amphetamines, PCP, cocaine, opiates and marijuana. HHS would then have six months to issue guidance on routine fentanyl testing and on making sure clinicians know what their standard screens actually cover. Sen. Jim Banks's companion passed in March only after the Senate swapped that list for "other controlled substances" and stretched the study to three years, so whether marijuana stays named is one of the things the chambers now have to settle. (Marijuana Moment; Congress.gov)

🗳️ Menominee printed its November ballots before anyone knew whether one of the questions on them would survive. Judge Mary Barglind put off ruling Wednesday on a challenge to the measure raising the city's cap from nine stores to 13, after the petitioners' lawyer, Jennifer Green, said her clients were never told about the suit. Written arguments are due Friday and absentee ballots go out Saturday, and a challenge built on a petition's fonts and formatting, against more than twice the signatures required, is a lot to ask a judge to grant this late. (FOX 11)

The Michigan Cannabis Industry Association endorsed John James on Wednesday, and Executive Director Robin Schneider tied the endorsement directly to James's promise to repeal or sharply cut the 24 percent wholesale tax, which sits on top of the state's 10 percent excise and 6 percent sales tax. State officials projected the levy would raise about $420 million a year for roads, Rep. James DeSana says it is bringing in less than half that as he pushes his own repeal bill, and an industry lawsuit against the tax has been allowed to proceed. Jocelyn Benson called the tax a "new and emerging issue" this month and says she wants to see where the money goes before taking a position. James's platform goes further than the association's release lets on, calling for delta-8 and THCA to come out of gas stations and smoke shops and fall under the same age, testing and labeling rules as licensed cannabis. (Marijuana Moment)

📰 Paul Armentano, NORML's deputy director, is back at the New York Times, answering an August essay on potency and an August briefing on rising use. The sharper half of his piece is about cannabis use disorder, which takes only two of eleven criteria to diagnose, counts tolerance and withdrawal, and makes no allowance for medical patients the way the opioid criteria do for people taking opioids as prescribed. The rise the Times reported comes from a JAMA Psychiatry study published in August, so his argument about the criteria lands on that study before it lands on the paper. (NORML; Cultivated News)

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