Maryland has not legalized cannabis, but now allows cultivation for the medical market. This very limited medical marijuana law, adopted in 2013, is bringing a burgeoning cannabis industry to the state.<\/p>\n
And Baltimore has been moving towards\u00a0the kind of\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0decriminalization now being instated in other eastern cities such as New York, with state attorneys declining to prosecute for low-level cannabis offenses.<\/p>\n However, political obstacles \u2014 from state law enforcement and a certain slice of its population \u2014 continue to roadblock these attempts at progress in the Chesapeake Bay State.<\/p>\n Back in January, the State\u2019s Attorney in Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby,\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that her office would no longer prosecute for cannabis possession \u2014 regardless of the quantity or the arrestee\u2019s criminal history. The famously progressive Mosby cited the \u201cdisproportionate impact that the war on drugs has had on communities of color.\u201d She stated flatly: \u201cThere is no public safety value in prosecuting marijuana possession.\u201d<\/p>\n But Baltimore\u2019s police have resisted the change, openly asserting they will continue arresting those caught with more than 10 grams of weed, even if prosecutors will not press the charges.\u00a0The stalemate has resulted in what urban affairs website\u00a0CityLab<\/a>\u00a0terms a \u201ccatch-and-release\u201d situation. Cops continue to arrest for cannabis possession, only to have the arrestees freed when prosecutors drop the charges.<\/p>\n \u201cArresting people for marijuana possession is an infrequently used, but sometimes important, law enforcement tool as we focus on violent crime and violent criminals in Baltimore,\u201d a police department spokesperson told CityLab in an emailed statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Community activists are upset at the absence of a clear policy from the authorities. \u201cThe prosecutor and the commissioner, the police department, they need to come together, they need to converge and be on the same page,\u201d Walker Gladden, a youth coordinator at East Baltimore\u2019s Rose Street Community Center, told CityLab.<\/p>\n And the stubbornness comes from the city\u2019s already\u00a0scandal-plagued<\/a>\u00a0police force that is concurrently pursuing an aggressive crackdown on gangs and the trade in hard drugs. Federally coordinated raids on \u201cviolent fugitives\u201d have nabbed 264 this month, per a\u00a0Baltimore Sun<\/a>\u00a0report, with 140 grams of heroin and 106 grams of cocaine seized. There was no mention of cannabis seized in these raids, but gang crackdowns elsewhere on the East Coast have\u00a0resulted in cannabis convictions<\/a>, even if pot isn\u2019t what made the headlines at the time of the arrests.<\/p>\n One roadblock on Maryland\u2019s march toward cannabis equity was removed March 29, when a medical marijuana company agreed to drop its lawsuit against state authorities following a vociferous outcry.<\/p>\n As the\u00a0Baltimore Sun<\/a>\u00a0earlier reported, the Maryland cannabis company Curio filed its lawsuit just four days earlier in Baltimore County Circuit Court, charging that the\u00a0Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission<\/a>\u00a0was in violation of its own regulations by seeking applications for more growing licenses without completing a supply-and-demand analysis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s simply not true this lawsuit was intended to challenge the effort to improve diversity in our industry,\u201d\u00a0Curio Wellness<\/a>\u00a0founder and CEO Michael Bronfein told the\u00a0Baltimore Sun<\/a>. \u201cIn fact, Curio has always supported this effort and will continue to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n The report noted that Bronfein is a prominent donor to the Democratic Party. But certainly the company\u2019s suit had been perceived by many as part of a backlash to Maryland\u2019s equity policy.<\/p>\n Regulations governing the state\u2019s medical cannabis industry say the commission may seek to license more marijuana growing companies than the original 15 that were approved \u201cto meet the demand for medical cannabis by qualifying patients in an affordable, accessible, secure and efficient manner.\u201d<\/p>\n Curio stated in the suit that it had spent more than $10 million to build its cultivation business based on regulations that promised a \u201cstrictly limited number\u201d of such licenses. To grant more licenses would jeopardize the investments of Curio and 13 other companies already approved to cultivate in the state, the case charged.<\/p>\n But the licensing had been extended to address concerns about racial justice in the state\u2019s new cannabis sector. Cheryl Glenn, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates for Baltimore and an advocate for minority participation in the industry, said the state\u2019s medical marijuana law always gave the commission the right to award new licenses as needed. She told the Sun that a \u201cdisparity study\u201d conducted by the state to assess the industry found that African American firms had been effectively excluded from the program.<\/p>\n Based on the findings of the disparity study, the General Assembly passed compromise legislation last year to expand cultivation licenses to give Black-owned firms a second chance.<\/p>\n The study was carried out by Jon Wainwright of\u00a0NERA Economic Consulting<\/a>, who had earlier undertaken an analysis of the state\u2019s minority contracting system. He wrote that the findings of the disparity study supported \u201cthe use of race- and gender-based measures to remediate discrimination affecting minority- and women-owned businesses in the types of industries relevant to the medical cannabis business.\u201d<\/p>\n The study was met with enthusiasm among the Black Caucus in the House of Delegates. \u201cI\u2019m ecstatic Maryland can move forward and be a beacon of light and show it is a serious issue, that everyone should be concerned about having diversity in a multibillion-dollar industry,\u201d Glenn\u00a0told the Sun<\/a>\u00a0last January.<\/p>\n The deal was\u00a0finalized in the statehouse<\/a>\u00a0last April.<\/p>\n Glenn, of course, was vindicated by the dropping of the lawsuit. \u201cNo one wants in 2019 to have a trillion dollar industry be controlled by all white men,\u201d she\u00a0told the Sun<\/a>\u00a0on March 29. \u201cWe have had widespread support.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, how do police where you live treat cannabis smokers?<\/p>\n The post Police Play \u2018Catch and Release\u2019 With Cannabis Offenders: Roadblocks to Progress in Maryland<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Maryland has not legalized cannabis, but now allows cultivation for the medical market. This very limited medical marijuana law, adopted in 2013, is bringing a burgeoning cannabis industry to the state. And Baltimore has been moving towards\u00a0the kind of\u00a0de facto\u00a0decriminalization now being instated in other eastern cities such as NewContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2112,50,94,5189,443,549,1593,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34164,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34163\/revisions\/34164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Baltimore Police Play \u2018Catch and Release\u2019 With People Who Possess Cannabis<\/h4>\n
Backlash to Equity?<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Police Play \u2018Catch and Release\u2019 With Cannabis Offenders: Roadblocks to Progress in Maryland<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"