Restrictive Laws Power Indoor Cannabis in California
Restrictive Laws Power Indoor Cannabis in California, Cannabis is a multibillion dollar industry in California, but travel through any of the grand stretches of agricultural land that line the state’s highways and chances are you won’t glimpse a single outdoor cannabis crop. https://greenweedfarms.com/2019/03/17/cannabis-101-at-the-university-of-connecticut/
Only 12 municipalities in the state allow for outdoor cultivated cannabis. Instead, most cannabis is grown indoors, under high-intensity industrial lighting, which comes with a serious carbon footprint. The few outdoor operations that do exist face expensive regulatory fees and high taxes compared to indoor grows.
According to a 2011 article in the Journal of Energy Policy, the electricity used in indoor cannabis operations adds up to 1% of the nation’s power, equivalent to the amount needed to power 2 million average homes in the US. Additionally, the high-intensity bulbs used in most operations contain about 30mg of mercury each—the EPA considers mercury emissions to be among the most serious air quality threats to human health.
With indoor grows, there are also issues of water use (especially in a state that just came out of a long drought) and potential water pollution from water waste produced by large industrial grows that often use nitrate-rich fertilizers.
Meanwhile, sustainable outdoor operations rely solely on sunlight and rainwater, using little-to-no irrigation, and employ organic farming practices that don’t use polluting fertilizers.
With large corporations like Marlboro in the cannabis industry, small, sustainable farms are likely to face even more steep competition in coming years.
“What we can see with cannabis is kind of the same thing that’s happening with so many other commodity crops, where huge industrial agricultural organizations move in and displace small family farm ecosystems that are planned in a much better way,” says David Bronner, CEO of the popular sustainable soap brand Dr. Bronner’s. “We need to shift away from industrial, chemical, and energy-intensive agricultural methods that diminish soil and the surrounding ecosystems.”
Nevedal has been working for farmers rights, education, and sustainability in the cannabis industry for more than a decade, and says the reason outdoor cultivators in the state face so many regulatory hurdles today is likely due to the environmental destruction caused by large trespass grows during prohibition.
Those grows wreaked serious environmental havoc—illegal and toxic chemical pesticides were used, water systems were dammed and polluted with synthetic fertilizers, forests were cleared, and waste was left behind.
But today’s regulations don’t account for most legal outdoor cannabis operations, which by and large are small family homesteads, many of which have been pioneers in organic, sustainable farming.
Dr. Bronner’s has contributed $5 million to the cannabis legalization movement and to the scientific study of cannabis (and of psychedelics, by way of the MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies). The company also plans to donate $2 million more throughout the 2020 election cycle, Bronner said.
Why Is Indoor the Go-To Growing Model?
How did a grow method with a serious carbon footprint become the standard in California’s cannabis industry?
According to Kristin Nevedal, cannabis industry pioneer and founder of the International Cannabis Farmers Association (ICFA), the popularity of indoor grows has to do with leftover symptoms of prohibition. Before adult-use legalization, cannabis grows had to stay hidden and indoor operations were the easy-to-follow, cookie-cutter model already in place. This, combined with a lingering public stigma surrounding the plant—like people worried about the smell of outdoor crops—led to indoor becoming the standard, she says.
“From a cannabis industry perspective, if we aren’t going to really start paying attention to putting this plant back into the ground, we aren’t going to be able to manage our environmental impacts as an industry,” she said. “Not just in CA, but on a global level, we can’t necessarily afford the greenhouse gas associated with cultivation under high intensity discharge lighting in a yearlong manner when, really, this plant can go in the ground and be farmed using natural sunlight.”
The Sun and Earth Certification
Michael Steinmetz, CEO of Flow Kana—California’s largest distributor of sungrown organic cannabis from small craft farmers—says he founded the company based on the core belief that “cannabis can be a catalyst for social, economic, and environmental change. Cannabis is an agricultural crop, and agriculture—specifically the practices of mass industrial agriculture (Big Ag)—is one of the greatest perpetrators of climate change,” he said.
He and his company have been working to make consumers aware of the burgeoning craft cannabis industry, and the potential it has to mitigate cannabis’ environmental costs.
“Sungrown cannabis, cultivated on a small farm that uses beyond organic practices, yields a high-quality, craft product,” he says. “These stewards of the land have spent their lives balancing a unique and harmonious relationship between the farm, the genetics and the terroir. The result is an unparalleled product that simply cannot be found anywhere else. Further, by being a consumer-activist that choses a sungrown product, one can help combat climate change and the threat of Big Ag on this community.”
One of the major hurdles to sustainable cannabis farming practices on a wide scale is the fact that cannabis farms aren’t yet federally legal, so they can’t apply for organic or other certifications through the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). https://greenweedfarms.com/blog/
To address this issue, Flow Kanna partnered with Dr. Bronner’s and a coalition of companies and organizations to develop the Sun and Earth Standard for cannabis growing operations. The certification holds farmers accountable to organic, regenerative practices as well as standards of human empowerment and community engagement.
“The goal here is basically to create the consumer basic standard for the really high level regenerative, organic cultivation of cannabis,” said David Bronner.
David Bronner also recently launched a nonprofit cannabis brand platform called Brother David, which will give 100% of its profits to increase awareness of the Sun and Earth certification and sustainable cannabis practices.
Brother David will use its profits to cover the actual costs of farmer certification, and fund organizations like Kirstin Nevedal’s ICFA “and all their really rad advocacy on behalf of small farmers,” Bronner said, as well as anti-prohibition advocacy.
Bronner says it’s time to transition our farming landscapes—which he notes now makes up 40% of the earth’s surface—to reflect nature.
“If you look at a wild ecosystem, there is no external chemical input. It’s all completely self-regenerating,” he said. “We want to help transition cannabis farming, generally, to a regenerative, sustainable practice.”
Kern County Just Became California’s Worst Cannabis Desert
Kern County Just Became California’s Worst Cannabis Desert, Just in time for Memorial Day, a rural California county is shuttering its medical cannabis dispensaries and making its residents—many of them military veterans—drive at least 150 miles round-trip to the nearest legal store.htt
Friday, May 24 marks the end of limited immunity for unincorporated Kern County’s 28 medical cannabis dispensaries. They had been grandfathered in for years, and amassed tens of thousands of patients. But come midnight tonight, those business risk being raided by the local sheriff, and having their property, cash, and medicine seized.
In a state where medical dispensaries and adult use stores are opening up by the dozens, Kern County—which is the size of New Hampshire—is going backward.
“This is the most regressive county I can think of,” said California NORML coordinator Ellen Komp.
At The Crop medical dispensary outside of Bakersfield, manager Jacob Gonzalez said the law-abiding, tax-paying shop will cease serving its 9,800 patients after today. The ban is only hurting the most vulnerable, he said. That includes senior veterans getting off opioids or fighting chronic illness, the type of people who don’t have a hookup in the local illicit market.
“Younger kids looking for cheap deals and dabs—they go to other places,” said Gonzalez. “It is hurting a lot of people here. I’ve just seen the reaction on patients’ faces—they’re not happy at all.”
“We’re seven to ten years behind everyone else,” said Gonzalez, who graduated from a local high school and worked his way up from security guard to manager. “It’s like going back in time.”
The Edge of Freedom
If you’re looking for the avatar of recalcitrance to cannabis law reform, look no further than the arid, low-income wastelands northeast of Los Angeles.
Across California, more than 800 licensed medical or adult-use stores or delivery services generated more than $350 million in tax revenue in 2018. Not in Kern.
More than 23 years after Proposition 215, the first licensed stores are coming to big coastal cities like San Leandro, Emeryville, and Alameda. The adoption of medical regulations in 2015, and Proposition 64 in 2016, have given local cities a legal scaffold on which they can develop retail ordinances.
More stores are also opening in California’s longtime cannabis deserts than ever before—places you’ve never heard of: Pt. Hueneme, Adelanto, Needles, and Sylmar.
These new shops are the low-hanging fruit. Roughly 75% of jurisdictions in the state still ban stores.
California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, but Kern County has never regulated medical dispensaries. Its 800,000 people, though, most certainly use them.
In 2016, voters in Kern County sided against the state’s adult use legalization ballot measure by a wide margin, 53% to 47%.
Reefer Madness Country
In 2017, the Board of Supervisors—faced with contracting oil taxes, and at least $20 million in county deficits—considered allowing a local legal cannabis industry worth 8,750 jobs and $37 million in estimated taxes.
Local prohibitionists proved louder than supporters, however. Some critics even invoked the gateway theory.
“Do our county officials want to make it easier for our families to fall into a lifetime of drug addiction — is that what they want? Hopefully the answer is no,” said longtime Bakersfield city councilmember Jacky Sullivan.
Komp noted that the gateway theory has been rejected by the federal government, and cannabis use rates by teens have fallen amid adult-use commercialization in California. This May, Gov. Gavin Newsom budgeted $26 million in 2019 and 2020 for public health messaging in cities that license stores.
Other critics said essentially ‘not in my back yard.’
“Now that it is legal, statewide, Kern county does not need to provide that service,” said local resident Carol Bender in a letter to officials that concluded with a Bible passage about greed.
But Komp said there are tens of thousands of Kern locals who’ll prefer safe, tested, taxed cannabis, instead of the illicit market—which is expected to thrive under the ban.
“It’s already pretty easy to get,” said one local. “The high school I went to 90% of people smoked before there was even stores.”
Still, Supervisors rejected the legal market in 4-1 vote and gave the 28 grandfathered shops a hard deadline to close up shop.
Kern County voters are more divided than ever. In 2018, a countywide ballot measure to allow adult-use stores lost at the ballot box by just 9,243 votes, just 2.4% of all registered voters.
“It was so close,” said Gonzalez.
The Clock Runs Out
Now the clock has run out on the grandfathered dispensaries, adding to the county’s tough economic and environmental conditions, Gonzalez said.
The local oil industry is laying off people, and homelessness is rising. Kern has atrocious air pollution, chronic drought, and an economy reliant on drilling, farming, prisons, and the military.
The population center of Bakersfield’s nearest licensed outlet is 80 miles south to Sylmar, 76 miles north to Woodlake, 273 miles east to Needles, or 132 miles west to San Luis Obispo, the beach.
“I’ve been here all my life and it’s tough to stay here,” Gonzalez said. “I would love to tell you there’s a lot keeping me here. But when I think about having my family here, the past ten years I’ve been out of high school it’s gotten considerably worse.”
“The thing that’s been keeping me here the most is this shop,” he said. “If I have the chance to leave, I would take it.”
What About Delivery?
Lastly, licensed delivery is legal only in name in Kern County. Kern is so remote, most state-legal delivery services won’t drop there.
In April, the city of Tehachapi in Kern County joined 23 California cities and one county suing the state to overturn the legality of licensed couriers.
Eric Sklar, member of a new alliance of legal cannabis businesses called Californians for Equal Access, said “the situation in Kern County is an example of why we need cannabis delivery to be available in every county in the state. Prohibition is over. Restricting a legal product from being delivered is as ridiculous as banning Fedex from delivering a case of wine.”
And by the way, illicit couriers are definitely serving Kern.
When I called a licensed delivery service and asked if they dropped in Kern, they said no, too far. When I asked if they knew of any licensed couriers out that way—the service rep pointed me to a website listing 17 unlicensed delivery services serving Kern.
Marijuana is a Psychoactive Drug. But is it Really a Medicine? . https://greenweedfarms.com/blog/
Marijuana is a Psychoactive Drug Marijuana laws are changing rapidly, but as of now, adults can use it recreationally in just 10 states.
So which is it: A pleasure drug or a pharmaceutical one? And what difference does that make when it comes to regulating cannabis?
These are questions to consider as states like Illinois explore moving from a medical program to a more open-ended recreational one.
Chicago-based Cresco Labs grows some 30 strains of marijuana at its main cultivation center, in a manufacturing area in suburban Joliet.
While the marijuana leaf may be the unofficial, international symbol for weed – that’s not where the plant’s power resides.
“So if you look closely at this flower part, you can see that it has a dusting or a frosting of trichomes. Those are little oil glands that do contain the cannabinoids,” explains Jason Nelson, Cresco’s vice president for production.
Those cannabinoids contain the power that Creso seeks to harness and sell to patients in Illinois who are looking to marijuana to alleviate their symptoms.
Patients like Adrienne Aaronson, a 78-year-old grandmother and artist from Highland Park who suffers from fibromyalgia.
“Fibromyalgia is constant pain throughout your body. And there’s no way of stopping it, it’s just – it’s there,” she said. “Pain in my joints. Swollen hands. Achiness. Sometimes down in my leg. It just hurts.”
Aaronson had never smoked weed. Until two years ago.
She tried acupuncture but says, “I thought it was silly.”
When those didn’t do the trick, she followed her physician’s advice to visit another doctor – a specialist in integrative medicine who somewhat unwittingly has become an international expert in medical marijuana after Illinois’ law passed in 2013.
“I knew nothing about this as a physician and I read further into it and I saw that the qualifying conditions described my medical practice,” said Dr. Leslie Mendoza Temple. “Fibromyalgia, people with cancer, multiple sclerosis, seizures – and these are the kinds of patients who seek out integrative therapies. And I thought, I better learn a lot about this so that I know more when the patients ask me, ‘cause I knew they would ask me.”
And they did, in increasing numbers. Temple, who went on to become the first chair of Illinois’ Medical Cannabis Advisory Board, says her waiting list has ballooned since she became one of the doctors willing to certify that a patient has a qualifying condition.
Though hesitant at first, Aaronson says weed is working. She says when she first visited Temple, on a scale of 1-10 her pain used to measure an 8.
“The last time I went to see her, she said, ‘How do you feel?’ I said, ‘I feel great! I feel fabulous!’ And I did, I really did,” Aaronson said.
She takes her medicine every night, religiously: a chunk of cannabis-laced mango candy she keeps tucked in the fridge.
She says it helps her sleep; and a good night’s sleep helps her with the pain.
“They’re 25 milligrams of THC. Whatever that is. And I probably … will bite off about so much,” she said, pointing to a chunk about the size of a fingernail. “And I’m not going to do that now, because I’m not ready for bed.”
It may taste and look like candy, but Cresco’s Nelson believes in the healing power of these pot gummies, and the other products his company makes – the cannabis gel tablets, oils and tinctures.
“I used to think of myself as something like a tobacco grower or distiller, in that I’m essentially making a vice – at worst – or a lifestyle choice for someone who is of age and can make that choice,” Nelson said. “But what we’ve been really pleasantly surprised with is that now that more research has been enacted from a medical perspective, that there really are true medical benefits from either the whole plant itself or the individual compounds within the plant.”
But how does it work? What magic might these pungent, leafy green plants hold in helping to stem nausea and seizures?
“Our body actually has an endogenous, our own homemade system that creates cannabis-like looking substances. And they help us do five things: they help us eat, sleep, protect ourselves from harm, forget pain when we need to and relax. So you can imagine from moment to moment, when it’s time to eat you get a burst of cannabinoids that, say, drive the appetite and then you eat. When it’s time to sleep you get a little burst there – and this is happening in every cell,” Temple said. “We have this plant from the outside world which we can ingest or smoke that influences this system … The way that cannabis works is that it influences those systems in a way to either enhance one of those functions – to help us forget pain, to get us to eat, to relax, to sleep.”
Still, details on how and whether marijuana does this are elusive, even in the medical community.
Because the federal government classifies cannabis as an illegal drug, researching it has been difficult.
Dr. Stephen Hanauer, the medical director of Northwestern Medicine’s digestive health center, is going about it in a roundabout way.
He’s studying patients already on marijuana.
“Crohn’s disease, which is what I deal with, is one of the autoimmune diseases (of which) we do not yet know the cause or have a medical cure,” Hanauer said. “As soon as you tell a patient that you’ve got a condition that we don’t know what causes it and we don’t have a cure, they’re looking elsewhere. They’re looking for other approaches and that’s obviously nowadays using social media and going online, and there’s a great deal of usage of alternative therapies – not just cannabis.”
He’s about a year into a study, funded by the Digestive Health Foundation, that’s comparing Crohn’s disease patients’ personal evaluations of how they’re feeling with blood and stool samples that can detect intestinal inflammation.
The study won’t be compete for another six months, but Hanauer has a hypothesis.
“My suspicion, is that it makes the patient feel better, but it doesn’t really change the disease activity,” Hanauer said.
Making pain subside sounds great, but that isn’t the same thing as a cure. Hanauer said marijuana could actually pose a problem for people with chronic diseases like Crohn’s if it merely masks the symptoms.
“They go on for essentially a lifetime. They can progress into complications such as narrowing within the bowel that can lead to bowel obstruction and even cancers develop in the presence of ongoing inflammation,” he said. “So we don’t want the patient to be fooled and think that because their symptoms are controlled they’re out of the woods as far as inflammation and the prognosis for the disease is concerned.”
Hanauer warns his Crohn’s patients who choose to go the cannabis route to steer clear of smoking pot, as that can aggravate the disease.
And while pot is often regarded as an anti-nausea remedy, people who rely on it too much may experience Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome, in which they’re unable to stop vomiting.
Temple said she tells patients to follow a motto: Go low and go slow in their cannabis doses.
“What matters to me most is it has helped my patients,” she said. “Most of them, not all. And that it is a good medicine, definitely not a perfect one, and that we have to have a very balanced viewpoint of what medical cannabis can do. It’s not the miracle that many people will tout that it’s a cure-all, and it’s also not this evil vice that everyone should avoid. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and the truth is going to be different from person to person.”
Temple says it isn’t as simple as writing a prescription for a pharmaceutical drug that’s gone through the rigors of FDA testing. It’s trial and error.
“CBD, THC, CBG, CBN – so there’s an alphabet soup of these different chemicals that have activities on your brain and on your body that can be given in so many different routes,” Temple said. “It can be smoked, vaped, ingested, the oil can be rubbed on the gum, there’s creams, patches and suppositories … You add that times the infinite combinations of cannabinoids and terpenoids and other chemicals that occur naturally in this plant – there’s really no way to determine how I should be dosing every patient.”
That’s precisely why Hanauer says marijuana is not a “medicine.”
After all, it isn’t approved by the FDA (and so insurance won’t pay for it) and it hasn’t been through rigorous studies.
“Every drug that I prescribe to a patient, I know the dose, it has been approved based on studies demonstrating how it’s effective, in what conditions it’s effective and it’s safety profile. We don’t know that for cannabis,” he said. “We don’t know what dose patients would be using, we don’t know what dose is going to be effective, and we don’t know what dose is going to cause them harm.”
Illinois’ medical marijuana program is still technically in the pilot stages, and it’s tightly regulated – so much so that our cameras aren’t allowed into any of the dispensaries where products are sold.
Temple says anyone using marijuana – for medical reasons or otherwise – needs to be careful.
“We have to be really cognizant of that dark side of cannabis, because I’m concerned that the legitimizing of this as a medicine sends a message to the community that it’s a free-for-all and let’s just use it willy-nilly without any restraint. And that is a big concern of mine.”
Temple’s patient Adrienne Aaronson is busy prepping for an art show.
She’s thankful she’s virtually free from fibromyalgia pain, and she’ll tell friends who ask, “’Yeah, I’m taking pot.’ I just love to be able to say that!” she said.
She also appreciates that Illinois could use every penny if weed brings about a windfall of revenue.
Even so, she doesn’t think people should be free to smoke a joint, or pop a cannabis candy, just because they feel like it.
She said she wouldn’t take it, if she didn’t have to.
“I’m not in favor of that. Isn’t that terrible? Here I am using it, and I feel that it can be abused,” she said.
Should Illinois legalize marijuana for recreational use, Aaronson’s friends – and anyone else 21 years or older – could take pot too.
In anticipation, Illinois-based marijuana companies have been growing like weeds.
Follow Amanda Vinicky on Twitter: @AmandaVinicky
Everything You Need to Know to Buy Legal Weed in California
Everything You Need to Know to Buy Legal Weed in California :https://greenweedfarms.com/blog/
Recreational cannabis use is legal in California—and now, shops are licensed to sell it. But who can buy it? Where can you smoke it? We answer all your burning questions.
Everything You Need to Know to Buy Legal Weed in California Can you legally buy a beer? Congratulations! That means you can also legally buy cannabis (pot, weed, marijuana) in California. Decriminalization came into effect on January 1, 2018, after voters passed Proposition 64 in November 2016. California joins Oregon, Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, Alaska, Maine, and Nevada in legalizing recreational cannabis use, making the state the largest legal marijuana market in the country.
Here’s what you need to know about getting high in the Golden State.
Who can buy?
You have to be 21 or older to buy recreational cannabis products (we’ll get to them in a bit) and present a valid ID—a driver’s license or a passport will do just fine—upon entering a marijuana dispensary. People with a medical marijuana card issued by a doctor must be 18.
Potany 101
Marijuana plants come in two main branches, indica and sativa. Indicas bring the body buzz, promoting relaxation. They are typically lower in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels and higher in cannabidiol (CBD) levels. THC is pot’s psychoactive element that fosters a feeling of higher energy levels and euphoria. CBD doesn’t cause a person to feel high and has a muting effect on THC. Sativas are typically the inverse of indicas, having higher THC levels and lower CBD levels, causing a trippier high. A third branch, hybrids, are crossbred plants that produce effects of both indica and sativas.
What products can I buy?
Cannabis products are broken down into four main categories: flower, concentrates, edibles, and applications.
Flower refers to the plant itself—the dried buds of a marijuana plant—and comes in a seemingly endless variety of strains, each with clever monikers such as LA Confidential, Granddaddy Purple, or Nina Limon. Leafly is an excellent app and online resource to better know your strains. Flower is meant to be smoked either in joints or out of a pipe or bong.
Concentrates include a range of products made from trichome extractions taken from a pot plant. (Trichomes are those sparkly little crystals that cover mature plants.) Concentrates pack a more powerful punch than flower and are sometimes used to top off flower in a joint or bowl. The extracts come in a variety of forms, including kief, wax, and oils. One of the easiest ways to enjoy an extraction is with a vape pen. They’re sold in a nifty kit that includes a cartridge containing the oil, a rechargeable battery that powers the pen, and a charger that plugs into your laptop. Popular cartridge brands include Bloom Farms, Legion of Bloom, and Dosist.
Edibles are just that: food that has extractions incorporated into their manufacturing process. Look for cookies, gummy candies, lollipops, chocolate-covered anything (dried fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, and raisins are popular), and even cannabis-infused drinks such as sodas, hot cocoa mixes, and cold-brewed coffee. While smoking brings on immediate effects, the effects of an edible can take as long as two hours to be felt and last much longer than simply smoking. Because it can take some time, people sometimes make the rookie mistake of over-consuming edibles. Don’t be that person. Kiva and Satori manufacture low-dose edible products. Start with those if that’s your thing.
Applications use extractions to target medical conditions primarily. High CBD products such as tinctures and patches are used to alleviate physical pain, anxiety, and even depression.
Where do I buy?
In California, you’ll need to visit a licensed dispensary to buy cannabis products. If you’re at a dispensary to purchase recreational weed, remember that it’s a medical facility first and foremost, so don’t whip out your phone to take a selfie. Respect patients’ right to privacy.
Also, bring cash. Although some dispensaries do accept credit cards, many do not.
When you get to a dispensary (use an app or site like Weedmaps to locate one near you), you’ll have to check in at the front desk with your ID to prove you’re of age, then you’ll need to wait your turn. Since recreational marijuana became available in California, long lines have formed at dispensaries, especially on weekends, overwhelmed by demand. Patience is key.
Once your name is called by one of the “budtenders,” take as much time as you need to discuss what kind of experience you’re looking for. Do you want to mellow out, or do you want to laugh and explore? The people behind the counter are well-informed and can talk in-depth about different products and will direct you to the item that’s right for you.
An alternate method for purchasing is using an app-based delivery service like Eaze. Go online or download it to your phone, create a brief user profile, upload your ID, then order away. Typically your product is delivered within an hour after placing your order, a convenient service for travelers staying at hotels or people who aren’t quite ready to come out as a cannabis user. Some dispensaries also offer delivery services. In the San Francisco Bay Area, places like the Apothecarium publish their full daily menu online and offer both delivery and in-store pickups, the latter helping to cut down on wait times.
Where can I smoke my weed?
Here’s the tricky part. While it’s legal to have recreational marijuana, it’s not legal to consume it in public places, just like alcohol. That being said, enforcement is a low priority for police, and, if enforced, a ticket comes with a relatively low $70 penalty.
While the law doesn’t allow it, societal norms in major cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco do foster public consumption. Visit any urban park on a sunny weekend day, and the scent of marijuana will come wafting by at some point. Discretion is key.
Another option is to stay in an Airbnb that allows it. Even though they don’t have a filter for it (yet), a search of Airbnb for “420 friendly” will bring up listings of properties that allow guests to consume. Two sites, TravelTHC and Bud and Breakfast, market accommodations targeted specifically at pot enthusiasts.
Finally, consider a cannabis tour. Currently operating tours in San Diego, West Coast Cannabis Tours offers half-day jaunts that include visits to dispensaries and breweries, all on groovy, decked-out private buses on which you’re allowed and encouraged to enjoy your purchases. The company is developing new tours in LA and Orange County, set to launch later in 2018. In the Bay Area, Emerald Farm Tours offers a seed-to-sale tour, where participants visit a cannabis farm, a manufacturing plant, and a retail shop all in one day. The company plans to expand its tour offerings.
But what about the feds?
While medicinal or recreational cannabis use is legal in the majority of states, it is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government. In fact, it’s still a Schedule I drug on the federal level, putting it in the same category as cocaine or heroin. You can’t ship it or send it in the mail, and you absolutely cannot fly with it. For more details on federal law concerning cannabis, Americans for Safe Access is a great resource.
If you want to make sure you know every little detail on recreational marijuana use in California before you consume, visit GreenState, an online publication dedicated solely to the subject. But if you’re ready to explore the world of legal recreational cannabis, it’s high time you get to California.
Where can I legally buy recreational marijuana in California?
Anyone 21 and older can now legally buy marijuana in California with just an ID.
However, only shops with both local permits and state licenses to sell recreational cannabis can open their doors to customers who don’t have doctor’s recommendations for medical marijuana.
Special report: Cannabis Eve in California
The Bureau of Cannabis Control on Dec. 14 started issuing temporary licenses for recreational marijuana sales. Here’s a map of shops that are sanctioned to sell cannabis to adults. The map will be updated frequently, with new state licenses issued each day.
Marijuana is legal in Massachusetts, but your boss doesn’t have to allow it — yet
Marijuana is legal in Massachusetts, but your boss doesn’t have to allow it — yet Using marijuana is legal in Massachusetts — but that doesn’t mean your boss has to allow it.
https://greenweedfarms.com/blog/
Business advocates say company policies about marijuana use are currently all over the map. But a bill sponsored by Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Winchester, would change that.
Lewis’ bill, S.978, would forbid employers from penalizing or discriminating against an employee or potential hire for marijuana use outside the office and off company time, as long as the employee is not impaired while working.
“I think that we shouldn’t be discriminating against adults who want to make their own decision to responsibly consume cannabis on their own time, in the same way they can consume other legal products like alcohol,” Lewis said.
Lewis’ bill would not affect employers who are required to drug test due to federal requirements. For example, trucking companies or defense contractors are federally regulated, and their employees can be subject to drug testing for marijuana use.
An employer could still fire someone who commits a marijuana crime, such as selling to minors, or who cannot perform their job or maintain certifications needed for their job due to marijuana use.
The bill is pending before a legislative committee.
Lewis, a previous vice chair of the Legislature’s marijuana policy committee, said he was swayed by Bernadette Coughlin’s story.
Coughlin oversaw kitchen staffers at a hospital Methuen. She fell and broke her wrist and was sent for a drug test. She had used a vape pen three days earlier and tested positive for marijuana. The company fired her.
Coughlin has been lobbying the state to pass a bill to protect workers from being fired for using marijuana on their personal time.
“It just seemed like something that was unfair,” Lewis said. “And if this is happening to other people, or could happen to other people in Massachusetts, we should probably take steps to prevent that from happening.”
The Supreme Judicial Court, in a 2017 decision in Cristina Barbuto vs. Advantage Sales and Marketing, ruled that an employer cannot fire or discriminate against someone for using medical marijuana.
But the court has not yet ruled on any cases related to workplace protections for marijuana for non-medical use.
Chris Geehern, a spokesman for Associated Industries of Massachusetts, which represents businesses, said company policies today are “all over the place.”
Federally regulated companies have not changed their drug testing policies, since marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
Most other companies, Geehern said, “are taking a wait and see attitude at this point.”
Geehern said some companies still drug test, but not for marijuana. Others continue to test for marijuana.
The difficulty with testing for marijuana is there is no scientifically accurate test to measure marijuana-related impairment, and THC can linger in someone’s body for days.
“You can drug test someone and you may come up with a trace of marijuana that somebody used a couple of days ago,” Geehern said. “So the real question is, is it impairing that person’s ability to run a … machine or drive a forklift or other safety specific occupations?”
Geehern said employers must figure out how to measure impairment — for example, in a person who uses marijuana in the morning, then comes to work. “That’s the uncharted territory that employers are dealing with,” he said.
Tamsin Kaplan, an employment attorney at Davis, Malm & D’Agostine in Boston, said she thinks Massachusetts employers are becoming more comfortable dealing with marijuana, since medical marijuana has been legal since 2012.
“Really the same common sense approach applies in this situation as it did with medical marijuana,” Kaplan said. “In many ways, it’s similar to dealing with alcohol, which we’ve been dealing with for a long time.”
Kaplan said she tells clients it is appropriate to test for marijuana if there is a safety concern — for example, if a job involves driving or operating heavy equipment.
Otherwise, she tells employers to consider whether an employee is living up to expectations in performing their job. “If they do, it’s a non-issue whether they’re off premises, off work time, using recreational marijuana,” Kaplan said.
If a worker is sleeping on the job or behaving inappropriately, Kaplan says she tells company officials to address that behavior.
Under state law, there are limited circumstances under which a company can drug test employees. One of the allowed times is when an employer has a “reasonable suspicion” that an employee is using drugs.
Employment attorney Erica Flores of Skolar Abbott in Springfield said since marijuana became legal, she has seen employers beefing up their policies regarding what constitutes a “reasonable suspicion,” training human resource workers on those policies and reminding employees that they can be drug tested if they act high while on the job.
“Just like with alcohol, it’s not okay to be intoxicated where you’re working,” Flores said.
Flores added that “reasonable suspicion” policies ensure that no one is tested unless an employer already has evidence to suspect they are impaired.
Trump Agriculture Secretary Accepts Invitation To Tour Hemp Farms
Trump Agriculture Secretary Accepts Invitation To Tour Hemp Farms The head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has accepted an invitation to tour hemp farms in Oregon, telling Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) that it would help him learn about the industry as a whole.
In the latest in a series of lawmaker queries about hemp for federal officials during congressional hearings in recent weeks, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was again pressed on the issue when he appeared before a Senate appropriations subcommittee on Thursday, with two members imploring him to “speed up” the rulemaking process to enact regulations that are required under the 2018 Farm Bill.
Perdue said that he would “love to” expedite the regulations but that the department was currently prioritizing the dairy industry and it was more likely that the rules would be implemented in time for the 2020 planting season.
“This is obviously a new issue. It requires a lot of complexities because of its uniqueness in its product and similarities and things that many states and the federal government considers illegal,” Perdue said, referring to marijuana.
Merkley, the ranking member of the subcommittee, then extended an invitation to join him in Oregon for a “little tour of our hemp industry.”
“I welcome that actually,” Perdue said. “We need to know more about the industry as a whole. I probably know less about that than I do most of the crops, and certainly I would welcome that.”
“There’s no lack of enthusiasm for sure for the CBD oil and the others, and I’m interested really in what the fiber utilization is, because what are all of those industrial uses? Because as productive as an American producer is, I’m fearful that we can crash this market before it gets off the ground,” he said.
Later in the hearing, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) asked Perdue if he was able to approve state regulatory plans for hemp and claimed that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was blocking Montana farmers from importing hemp seeds from Canada because of the 2018 Farm Bill.
Perdue said that farmers are able to continue cultivating the crop under the rules of the prior 2014 Farm Bill that allowed limited research programs focused on hemp while the department develops new regulations for a commercial market. USDA is currently accepting state regulatory plans, he said, and it’s “news to me” that the DEA is interfering in hemp seed imports.
The head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has accepted an invitation to tour hemp farms in Oregon, telling Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) that it would help him learn about the industry as a whole.
In the latest in a series of lawmaker queries about hemp for federal officials during congressional hearings in recent weeks, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was again pressed on the issue when he appeared before a Senate appropriations subcommittee on Thursday, with two members imploring him to “speed up” the rulemaking process to enact regulations that are required under the 2018 Farm Bill.
Perdue said that he would “love to” expedite the regulations but that the department was currently prioritizing the dairy industry and it was more likely that the rules would be implemented in time for the 2020 planting season.
“This is obviously a new issue. It requires a lot of complexities because of its uniqueness in its product and similarities and things that many states and the federal government considers illegal,” Perdue said, referring to marijuana.
https://greenweedfarms.com/blog/
Merkley, the ranking member of the subcommittee, then extended an invitation to join him in Oregon for a “little tour of our hemp industry.”
“I welcome that actually,” Perdue said. “We need to know more about the industry as a whole. I probably know less about that than I do most of the crops, and certainly I would welcome that.”
“There’s no lack of enthusiasm for sure for the CBD oil and the others, and I’m interested really in what the fiber utilization is, because what are all of those industrial uses? Because as productive as an American producer is, I’m fearful that we can crash this market before it gets off the ground,” he said.
Later in the hearing, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) asked Perdue if he was able to approve state regulatory plans for hemp and claimed that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was blocking Montana farmers from importing hemp seeds from Canada because of the 2018 Farm Bill.
Perdue said that farmers are able to continue cultivating the crop under the rules of the prior 2014 Farm Bill that allowed limited research programs focused on hemp while the department develops new regulations for a commercial market. USDA is currently accepting state regulatory plans, he said, and it’s “news to me” that the DEA is interfering in hemp seed imports.
Watch the video of Perdue’s hemp comments at about 32:50 and 48:02 into the video below:
A spokesperson for DEA told Marijuana Moment that she was unaware of any ongoing involvement by her agency in hemp imports, noting that the 2018 Farm Bill removed hemp and hemp-derived products from the Controlled Substances Act and shifted regulatory responsibility for the crop from the Justice Department to USDA. The crop is “not our problem” anymore, the spokesperson said.
During the hearing, Tester also complained that, without USDA regulations in place, individuals can’t develop various aspects of the hemp market and he touted the longevity of hemp materials.
“I have a hemp hat that I’ve been trying to wear out for 20 years that I got out of Canada,” Tester said. “You can’t wear the stuff out.”
Perdue made similar comments about the timeline for USDA hemp regulations when asked about it during a House appropriations subcommittee hearing on Tuesday.
Indiana Lawmakers Amend Hemp Bill To Allow Smokeable Flower
Indiana Lawmakers Amend Hemp Bill To Allow Smokeable Flower, as Indiana lawmakers consider a bill to legalize the production and sale of hemp, the state House of Representatives approved an amendment allowing people to smoke the flower of the plant.
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Currently, low-THC CBD products are legal in Indiana, but there are no clear processes in place to allow local licensed farmers to grow and manufacture the cannabis extract for commercial purposes.
The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp on the federal level, but left the responsibility of how to regulate the crop to states. Indiana Senate Bill 516, which aims to create those necessary systems passed a second reading in the House on Monday. The Senate approved the bill in February with a vote of 47 to 1.
To the dismay of many hemp advocates, the original text of SB 516 banned smokeable hemp flower.
Law enforcement have expressed concerns about officers’ inability to distinguish it from marijuana flower, which looks and smells similar. But Rep. Jim Lucas (R) proposed a motion amending the bill to allow smokeable hemp. The change was approved by the House in a narrow vote of 49-47, as first reported by TheStatehouseFile.com.
The amended bill now heads to a third reading vote, before which legislators will continue to debate its merits.
“The hemp flower, whether you agree with its medicinal benefits or what not, it’s still the easiest way for Hoosier farmers to enter this really emerging hemp market with the least amount of overhead,” Rep. Christy Stutzman (R) told Indiana Public Media.
Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) has said he is “supportive of efforts to establish a hemp program” and is expected to sign SB 516 into law.
Shawn Hauser is one of the lead authors of the American Hemp Campaign’s model plan for state hemp programs. She told Marijuana Moment in a phone interview that the move to allow hemp flower in Indiana is “a positive development” for the industry, especially as other states work to create their own systems for regulating hemp.
A hemp bill in Texas, for example, passed out of committee on Tuesday without allowing smokeable hemp.
Smokeable hemp is a popular product in other countries, Hauser explained, and one that concerns law enforcement because of its likeness to marijuana. “There is still a lot of education happening with enforcement and regulators as to the difference,” she said. “We’re coming out of decades of hemp and marijuana being lumped together, which is why we haven’t been able to grow hemp in the United States for all these years.”
“It is important for hemp and hemp-derived products to be regulated and seen differently than marijuana,” she continued.
Not only are these plants different, but they have historically been consumed for different reasons. “A hemp cigarette and a marijuana cigarette are not used for the same purpose,” Hauser said.
With the right regulations in place—including those covering packaging and labelling—consumers and law enforcement will be better equipped to clearly distinguish between the two products, she said.
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/indiana-lawmakers-amend-hemp-bill-to-allow-smokeable-flower/
Illinois Senate committee OKs pot legalization bill without releasing details
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Pritzker told Capitol News Illinois in a podcast interview last week that there will have to be new entrants into the market, as well as added licensing fees for existing growers.
Illinois Senate committee OKs pot legalization bill without releasing details, SPRINGFIELD —There are no details filed yet for a bill to legalize recreational adult-use marijuana in Illinois, but that did not stop the state Senate Executive Committee from voting on the measure Wednesday.
As it stands now, Senate Bill 7 is what is referred to as a “shell bill,” or a vehicle to be amended with substantial language in the future. The shell bill passed committee by a 12-4 vote, with all four Republicans present voting against.
“We’re going to be coming back to the committee with the full amendment,” said state Sen. Heather Steans, the bill’s sponsor. “Hopefully we’re going to file it by the end of April and we’re going to have plenty of time to hear it and debate it.”
The actual details of the bill are being negotiated privately by lawmakers, the governor’s office and cannabis industry advocates who say the existing medicinal growing market has the capacity to meet the initial demand of adult-use marijuana legalization.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget contains $170 million in projected revenue from legalization. His office has said that projection is entirely dependent on licensing fees, not tax revenue.
If those revenue projections are to be realized, fees for cultivation centers and dispensaries would have to be exponentially larger than those in the medicinal program or hundreds of new licenses would have to be granted.
Steans, a Chicago Democrat, has said the program could include additional licenses for processing and transportation of cannabis and for craft cultivation centers.
Pritzker told Capitol News Illinois in a podcast interview last week that there will have to be new entrants into the market, as well as added licensing fees for existing growers.
“Some of them will be new entrances, no doubt about it,” Pritzker said. “Some of them will be existing growers that want to get into the adult-use side of the business, but they’ll all have to pay a licensing fee to get into the business.”
But it is unclear how much those licenses would cost, how many would be granted, when they would be made available, or in which fiscal year the revenue resulting from them would be realized.
Pro-legalization lawmakers and Pritzker’s office have also said criminal justice reforms would be included in the package for those incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses.
“The legalization of adult-use cannabis will bring fairness into a criminal justice system that has been unfair in particular to people of color more often than to others,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker also said it will be important for the state to regulate potency and purity of cannabis, as it is already being purchased, potentially unsafely, on the black market in the state.
MARIJUANA NEWS: Local Governments Sue to Stop Statewide Cannabis Delivery in California
Local Governments Sue to Stop Statewide Cannabis Delivery in California LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a major challenge to regulations that govern California’s marijuana market, Beverly Hills and 24 other local governments sued Friday to overturn a rule allowing home deliveries statewide, even into communities that banned commercial cannabis sales.
The League of California Cities and police chiefs had complained that unrestricted home deliveries would create an unruly market of largely hidden cannabis transactions, while undercutting local control guaranteed in the 2016 law that broadly legalized marijuana sales in California and created the nation’s largest legal cannabis marketplace.
Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Chairman Ryan Coonerty said in a statement that the state rule damages local marijuana businesses and “betrays the promise made to the voters” in 2016.
The significance of the lawsuit goes beyond home deliveries. It represents an important early court test of Proposition 64, the law that broadly legalized sales for adults. There have been numerous disputes over precisely what parts of the law mean, including the size of cannabis farms.
The state Bureau of Cannabis Control, which drafted the rule, had no immediate comment on the lawsuit, which was filed late Thursday in Fresno County Superior Court.
The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate the rule and prohibit state regulators from enforcing it.
Marijuana companies and consumers had pushed for statewide home deliveries because vast stretches of the state have banned commercial cannabis activity or not set up rules to allow legal sales, creating what’s been called pot “deserts.” Residents in those areas were effectively cut off from legal marijuana purchases.
The rule cleared by state lawyers in January sought to clarify what had been apparently conflicting regulations about where marijuana can be delivered in California.
The 2016 law said local governments had the authority to ban nonmedical cannabis businesses. But state regulators pointed to the business and professions code, which said local governments “shall not prevent delivery of cannabis or cannabis products on public roads” by a licensed operator.
The cannabis bureau had said it was merely clarifying what had always been the case: A licensed cannabis delivery can be made to “any jurisdiction within the state.”
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In addition to Beverly Hills and Santa Cruz County, plaintiffs include the cities of Agoura Hills, Angels Camp, Arcadia, Atwater, Ceres, Clovis, Covina, Dixon and Downey. Also participating are McFarland, Newman, Oakdale, Palmdale, Patterson, Riverbank, Riverside, San Pablo, Sonora, Tehachapi, Temecula, Tracy, Turlock and Vacaville.