The Miami-Dade State Attorney\u2019s office will no longer prosecute minor cannabis cases \u2014 a significant policy shift spurred by Florida\u2019s newly enacted hemp law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While prosecutors in\u00a0places like New York<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Baltimore<\/a>\u00a0are now declining to pursue such cases in recognition of the social and racial injustices of cannabis prohibition, in Miami-Dade County the motivating factor is an unanticipated dilemma created by the U.S. Farm Bill, which last year\u00a0legalized<\/a>\u00a0industrial hemp and hemp-derived CBD.\u00a0<\/p>\n States are now passing bills to bring their own laws into conformity with the new federal policy, and\u00a0Florida did so<\/a>\u00a0on July 1.<\/p>\n But, in a reality that\u00a0has authorities consternated<\/a>\u00a0in conservative states like Texas, law enforcement often lacks the technical ability to distinguish between newly legal CBD and still illegal THC in confiscated samples of herbaceous cannabis. So, at least until this problem is resolved, Miami-Dade has essentially instated a\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0decriminalization where small quantities are concerned. And, as the\u00a0Miami Herald<\/a>\u00a0wryly puts it, for amounts large enough for felony charges, \u201cpolice will now be required to get lab tests to confirm that marijuana is, well, actually marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n The decision was announced Aug. 8 in a memo sent to Miami and Dade County law enforcement agencies. \u201cBecause hemp and cannabis both come from the same plant, they look, smell and feel the same,\u201d State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle wrote. \u201cThere is no way to visually or microscopically distinguish hemp from marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s really a matter of semantics. While hemp and marijuana are distinct categories (a question of THC content, which part of the plant is used and for what purposes), they are both cannabis sativa.<\/p>\n This\u00a0semantical confusion<\/a>\u00a0is seen nationwide, and exacerbates an already confused legal situation.<\/p>\n Adding more confusion still, some media accounts have failed to distinguish between the\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0decriminalization by failure to prosecute and the\u00a0de jure\u00a0<\/em>decriminalization of changing the law to actually remove criminal penalties. For instance, in a report on this dilemma,\u00a0Green Entrepreneur<\/a>\u00a0uses the misleading headline \u201cFlorida and Texas Decriminalize Marijuana Possession.\u201d Neither state has passed any decrim bill, and in both cases the suspension of prosecutions is happening at the local level, not statewide.<\/p>\n Miami-Dade is not alone, however. Tallahassee\u2019s State Attorney Jack Campbell has also announced that prosecution for cannabis possession is on hold, at least until protocols are in place for distinguishing between legal and illegal varieties.<\/p>\n With the prosecutions suspended, meanwhile, signs are fast mounting of a cultural consciousness shift in local perceptions of cannabis. In a significant leap for the plant\u2019s normalization,\u00a0Miami Dade College<\/a>\u00a0has announced new classes on cannabis science and cultivation, along with a certificate program to prepare students for careers in the medical marijuana industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n For now at least, students will learn about cultivation and extraction mostly from a \u201ctheoretical standpoint,\u201d Mark Meade, chair of the school\u2019s\u00a0Biology, Health & Wellness Department<\/a>, told the\u00a0Miami New Times<\/a>. That is, there won\u2019t be hands-on instruction in cultivation techniques. But classes to be offered include biology of cannabis, chemistry of cannabis, and Florida cannabis policy and regulation. A certificate program, cannabis industry science specialist, is planned, to be developed over the next academic year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur main goal, the way we look at it, is we simply want to be the epicenter for cannabis education, not only in Florida but nationwide,\u201d said Efrain Venezuela, the associate dean of faculty.<\/p>\n And the\u00a0Miami Beach Convention Center last week hosted the\u00a0USA CBD Expo<\/a>, with some 700 brands represented.<\/p>\n However, the\u00a0Miami Herald<\/a>, in its coverage of the CBD confab, also noted a cautionary development. Just as the trade show opened, the federal Food and Drug Administration\u00a0sent a warning<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Curaleaf<\/a>, one of the country\u2019s top medical marijuana companies and operator of 25 dispensaries in Florida. The FDA scolded Curaleaf for illegally selling unapproved products that made \u201cunsubstantiated claims to treat cancer, Alzheimer\u2019s disease, opioid withdrawal, pain and pet anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n This is also a somewhat confused statement, however; whatever unfounded clams are being made about cancer or Alzheimer\u2019s, \u00a0the analgesic properties of cannabis are\u00a0well established<\/a>.<\/p>\n The industry is\u00a0still waiting on the FDA<\/a>\u00a0to issue regulations for food and drug products that contain hemp-derived CBD.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think cannabis testing confusion will lead to more official decriminalization?<\/p>\n The post Miami-Dade Prosecutor Latest to Halt Pursuit of Minor Cannabis Charges<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Miami-Dade State Attorney\u2019s office will no longer prosecute minor cannabis cases \u2014 a significant policy shift spurred by Florida\u2019s newly enacted hemp law.\u00a0 While prosecutors in\u00a0places like New York\u00a0and\u00a0Baltimore\u00a0are now declining to pursue such cases in recognition of the social and racial injustices of cannabis prohibition, in Miami-Dade CountyContinue 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":[50,94,484,6846,388,296,5014,230,90,3662,11758,420],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37601"}],"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=37601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37602,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37601\/revisions\/37602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sativa Semantics & the Law<\/h4>\n
Cultural Normalization<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Miami-Dade Prosecutor Latest to Halt Pursuit of Minor Cannabis Charges<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"