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Colorado representatives intro bill to shield state marijuana laws from federal preemption

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By , The Cannabist Staff

Colorado Reps. Diana DeGette and Mike Coffman have introduced a bill to protect states’ marijuana laws from federal enforcement.

The Respect States and Citizens Rights’ Act of 2017 aims to insert a provision into the Controlled Substances Act that would ensure against federal preemption of state law:

“(b) SPECIAL RULE REGARDING STATE MARIHUANA LAWS.–In the case of any State law that pertains to marihuana, no provision of this title shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to occupy the field in which that provision operates, including criminal penalties, to the exclusion of State law on the same subject matter, nor shall any provision of this title be construed as preempting any such State law.”

Related: Why the federal government still calls cannabis “marihuana”

The bipartisan bill is a reintroduction of legislation proposed by DeGette, a Democrat, and Coffman, a Republican, following Amendment 64’s passage in 2012.

Passing the bill “is now more important than ever before,” DeGette said in a statement, referring to signals that the Trump administration may bring greater enforcement against state marijuana laws.

“My colleagues and I — along with our constituents — spoke out frequently during the Obama administration to make clear we didn’t want the federal government denying money to our states or taking other punitive steps that would undermine the will of our citizens,” DeGette said in the statement. “Lately, we’ve had even more reason for these concerns, given Trump administration statements. This bill makes clear that we’re not going back to the days of raids on legal dispensaries, of folks living in fear that they’re not going to get the medical marijuana they need, or that they might get jailed for using it.”

Coffman, in a statement, argued that this issue is a matter of states’ rights:

“While I have opposed the legalization of marijuana, the people of Colorado voted for an initiative in 2012 that legalized marijuana and placed it in our state’s constitution. … Since this is clearly not a matter of interstate commerce, I believe that the people of Colorado had every right, under the U.S. Constitution, to decide this issue for themselves and as their representative in Congress, I have an obligation to respect the will of the people of Colorado and that’s why I’m reintroducing this bill with Congresswoman DeGette.”

The Cannabist has requested interviews with DeGette and Coffman.

This story is developing and will be updated.

Alicia Wallace joined The Cannabist in July 2016, covering national marijuana policy and business. She contributes to the Denver Post’s beer industry coverage. In her 14 years as a business news reporter, her coverage has spanned topics such as the…

Analysis: U.S. marijuana policy will make it NAFTA’s biggest loser as Canada and Mexico cash in

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By Luis Gómez Romero, The Conversation

Luis Gómez Romero is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory University of Wollongong

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, prides himself on his business acumen. But his protectionism may get America a truly bad deal when it comes to North America’s next big market: marijuana. The Conversation

Fulfilling a campaign promise, on April 13 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented a bill to legalize cannabis for recreational uses (medical marijuana has been legal in the country since 2001).

Two weeks later, Mexico’s Congress followed suit, passing a bill to authorize cannabis use for medical and scientific purposes.

Two of three North American countries are now well positioned to unlock an industry that, according to Forbes magazine, was worth an estimated US$7.2 billion in 2016 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 17%.

In the US, on the other hand, a protectionist administration has threatened to withdraw from the “terrible” North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and actively relaunched the US drug war. It looks like America’s businessman president may allow his country to miss out on the cannabis boom.

Prohibition is a commercial disaster

Medical marijuana research is a growth industry. Cannabinoids, a main (non-psychoactive) chemical component in marijuana, hold significant prospects for development in the pharmaceutical industry, as potentially does tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the ingredient that makes users feel high.

Marijuana has been scientifically proven to soothe the effects of chemotherapy, treat glaucoma and ease some chronic pain. But many fields of inquiry remain untapped, thanks in large part to stringent US laws that classify cannabis as a Schedule I drug. That’s the most tightly restricted category, reserved for substances with “no currently accepted medical use.”

Pharmaceutical companies are keen to further disprove that thesis, knowing they will soon be able to patent cannabis-based medicines in both Mexico and Canada. Patients and doctors, too, have pleaded for restrictions on medical marijuana research in the US to be eased.

In the US, eight states and Washington, DC, have also legalized recreational marijuana. A total of 29 states plus the nation’s capital have legal medical cannabis.

But US Attorney General Jeff Sessions (who has declared that he “rejects the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store”) and Homeland Security chief John Kelly (who has erroneously called marijuana a “dangerous gateway drug“) consistently overlook this fact.

The Trump administration is determined to revamp prohibitionist policies. In a radical rollback of Barack Obama’s compassionate approach to nonviolent drug offenders, Sessions has actually ordered federal prosecutors to charge suspects of any drug-related crime with the “most serious, readily provable offence”, or whichever crime entails the harshest punishment.

This move will have well-documented implications for law enforcement. In 2015, marijuana arrests outweighed those made for all violent crimes combined, including murder and rape, 574,000 to 505,681, according to the NGO Human Rights Watch.

Now America’s drug war will have commercial consequences too. In the US, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has developed research mainly on the negative effects of cannabis, only marginally considering its potential medical uses.

Medical trials conducted on human beings require permission from several federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, and, when it comes to illegal substances, the Drug Enforcement Agency. That makes getting clearance for cannabis trials unduly complicated.

The inconsistencies between federal and state legislation also discourage research because they do not offer a secure legal ground for patenting cannabis-based medicines. Potential investors in medical cannabis are forced to consider not only corporate competition but also criminal prosecution.

Likewise, because budding American cannabis producers struggle to access investment funding, the industry’s growth potential remains stunted.

Outsmarting Trump

If all of this sounds bad for American investors and patients, it’s good news for Mexico and Canada.

The Mexican medical marijuana bill championed by President Enrique Peña, who is not a bold politician, is quite limited. It emerged in response to the story of Grace, a profoundly epileptic eight-year-old girl for whom cannabis oil, illicitly administered by her desperate mother, proved a literal lifesaver.

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David Clarke, who says he’s taking a top post at Homeland Security, thinks marijuana is gateway to heroin

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By , The Cannabist Staff

The Associated Press reports that Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who has built his career on talking tough on crime, drugs, and illegal immigration, says he’s accepted a job as an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Clarke said in an interview with WISN-AM Wednesday that he will work as a liaison in the Office of Partnership and Engagement, coordinating with state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies.

Clarke frequently appears on conservative talk shows and Fox News to state his views on crime in the United States, and doesn’t shy away from controversial statements about crime and African Americans.

A strong critic of former President Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement, and a strong supporter of Donald Trump, Clarke spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, rallying the crowd with the phrase “Blue Lives Matter” and calling protests in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland a “collapse of social order.”

Clarke includes marijuana in the category of dangerous drugs. In a House Judiciary Committee hearing in 2015, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) asked Clarke, “You said that illegal drug use is the scourge of the black community and it is a problem and leads to a great deal of violent crime… Would you agree that marijuana possession is not the scourge of the Black community, and does not lead to violent crime the same way that meth, crack cocaine or heroin do?”

Clarke responded, “No, I wouldn’t agree with that at all.”

In case that double-negative-filled Q&A was unclear, Clarke took to Twitter late in 2015 to express his feelings about marijuana as “a gateway drug to heroin use”:

In April 2016, Clarke posted a sarcastic tweet critiquing recreational marijuana in response to a New York Times article on Ohio murders connected to an illegal marijuana grow operation:

Clarke had recently praised his apparent new boss, newly-installed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, John Kelly, for meeting with survivors of crime, contrasting him to former President Obama, who visited convicted felons in federal prison:

According to the Associated Press, Craig Peterson, a Clarke spokesman, said the sheriff would not comment further and that “he felt the need to tell folks he had accepted the position so the governor could get the ball rolling” on appointing a replacement.

DHS spokeswoman Jenny Burke issued a statement that “such senior positions are announced by the Department when made official by the Secretary. No such announcement with regard to the Office of Public Engagement has been made.”

Clarke would be leaving office with several pending lawsuits against him, including one filed by relatives of 38-year-old Terrill Thomas, an inmate who prosecutors say was deprived of water as punishment.

Associated Press Reporting from Ivan Moreno

Polly joined The Cannabist in December 2016 as a digital producer. She has been creating print, web and video content for a couple of decades. She returned to her home town of Denver in 2012 after living in eleven other cities in four countries, and…

Federal appeals court dodges ruling on California dispensary owner convicted of federal marijuana charges

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By The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has sidestepped making a ruling on whether U.S. prison officials can hold people who were convicted of marijuana offences that were legal under state medical marijuana laws.

In a decision Wednesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals focused instead on a narrower issue.

The court was considering a legal challenge by prisoner Matthew Davies, who was convicted of federal marijuana charges. Davies said he ran medical marijuana dispensaries that complied with California law.

He argued that the Bureau of Prisons could not hold him because of a federal regulation that restricted interference by U.S. officials in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.

The 9th Circuit avoided the issue, ruling instead that Davies’ plea agreement did not allow his legal challenge. Davies’ attorney, Cody Harris, said he is analyzing the ruling.

Job applicants failing drug tests for marijuana and other drugs at highest rate in 12 years

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By Danielle Paquette, The Washington Post

Workers at McLane drive forklifts and load hefty boxes into trucks. The grocery supplier, which runs a warehouse in Colorado, needs people who will stay alert – but prospective hires keep failing drug screens.

“Some weeks this year, 90 percent of applicants would test positive for something,” ruling them out for the job, said Laura Stephens, a human resources manager for the company in Denver.

The state’s unemployment rate is already low – 3 percent, compared to 4.7 percent for the entire nation. Failed drug tests, which are rising locally and nationally, further drain the pool of eligible job candidates.

“Finding people to fill jobs,” Stephens said, “is really challenging.”

Job applicants are testing positive for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine and heroin at the highest rate in 12 years, according to a new report from Quest Diagnostics, a clinical lab that follows national employment trends. An analysis of about 10 million workplace drug screens from across the country in 2016 found positive results from urine samples increased from 4 percent in 2015 to 4.2 percent in 2016.

The most significant increase was in positive tests for marijuana, said Barry Sample, the scientist who wrote the report. Positive tests for the drug reached 2 percent last year, compared with 1.6 percent in 2012.

Although state laws have relaxed over the past four years, employers haven’t eased up on testing for pot, even where it’s legal.

California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada moved last year to legalize recreational marijuana, joining Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washingtona. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia, meanwhile, permit medical marijuana.

Under federal law, however, weed remains illegal – and employers in the United States can refuse to hire anyone who uses it, even if they have a prescription, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

In the oral fluid testing category, which picks up on recent drug use, and is typically used to test workers on the job, positive drug tests for marijuana surged about 75 percent in the United States over the past four years – from 5.1 percent in 2013 to 8.9 percent in 2016, according to Quest. The data show smaller increases in urine and hair testing (a 4.2 percent increase over the past year).

Colorado and Washington, which became the first two states to legalize weed in 2012, showed the largest growth in positive tests. Urine screens that detected pot rose 11 percent in Colorado and 9 percent in Washington, the first time either state outpaced the national average since residents could lawfully light up a joint.

Quest noted that employers are also increasingly encountering job applicants who take other illicit substances. Tests that turned up cocaine increased 12 percent in 2016, hitting a seven-year high of 0.28 percent, up from 0.25 percent in 2015. Positive test results for amphetamine jumped 8 percent.

The culture change in pro-marijuana states hasn’t broadly altered the way employers screen applicants, said Sample, the scientist. “Ninety-nine percent of drug panels we perform in Colorado and Washington,” he said, “still test for marijuana.”

Companies such as McLane, where employees operate heavy machinery, keep testing for marijuana out of concern for everyone’s safety, said Stephens, the human resources manager. The firm conducts follicle tests, which can catch traces of weed for up to three months after someone smokes.

She said the company saw “a big spike” is failed tests after pot became legal.

Meanwhile, Colorado’s legal marijuana business is booming. By 2016, Colorado had 440 marijuana retail stores and 531 medical dispensaries, one report showed last year – double the number of McDonald’s and Starbucks stores in the state.

Curtis Graves, the information resource manager at the Mountain States Employers Council, a business group in Colorado, said a small number of his members have dropped THC testing from drug screens, but others don’t have that option,

Truck and school bus drivers, for example, are required by law to prove they don’t have marijuana in their system before taking a job. Same goes for pilots, subway engineers and security guards. The Department of Transportation does not recognize medical marijuana as a “valid medical explanation” for failing a drug test.

“Some employers are extremely worried about filling jobs,” Graves said. “Work that is considered ‘safety sensitive’ typically requires that test, and that’s not changing.”

Instead of legalizing marijuana, Rhode Island might just study the concept

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By

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island lawmakers who aren’t ready to legalize marijuana might try to study it instead.

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote this week on a bill that would create a legislative commission to study the effects of legalizing pot for recreational use.

The 15-member commission would review how marijuana legalization has affected residents of states such as Colorado and Washington and how it’s affected fiscal conditions in those states. The group would report its recommendations back to Rhode Island legislators by March 2018.

Legalization proponents have been opposed to forming a commission, saying it would further delay taking action on an issue that’s been studied and debated for years. They believe there is enough support in the General Assembly to legalize recreational marijuana if lawmakers voted on it.