New Mexico is serious about being the next state to legalize cannabis. But the state has a legislative session of just 30 days in 2020, and the deadline now looms ominously.<\/p>\n
There is a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu here. Last year, New Mexico came very close to legalizing marijuana. A legalization measure was approved by the state\u2019s House, but never made it out of the Senate \u2014 despite the support of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat. As a kind of consolation prize to cannabis advocates, a\u00a0decriminalization bill did pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n After that, Lujan Grisham launched a\u00a0Cannabis Legalization Working Group<\/a>, with members from the public and private sectors, as well as representatives from activist groups including the\u00a0Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>. In October, it issued its\u00a0recommendations<\/a>, calling for a legalization model based on \u201cequity and opportunity,\u201d with low licensing fees and \u201cmicro business\u201d licenses designed to keep proceeds within local communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the session opened in January 2020, legalization bills were quickly introduced in both chambers of the statehouse. But with the finish line now just two weeks away, lawmakers are still nailing down the details.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most people expect, that if the bill passes, it will be a close call \u2014 including Pat Davis, the Albuquerque city councilor who headed the Working Group. He told the\u00a0Albuquerque Journal<\/a>\u00a0last month that he expects the measure\u2019s fate to be decided during the final days of the session, which ends on Feb. 20.<\/p>\n It\u2019s somewhat predictable that most opposition is coming from Republicans. Even Albuquerque\u2019s Sen. Mark Moores, one of three Republican senators who last year joined with Democratic colleagues on a legalization bill, is now balking at the idea of cannabis legalization. One issue is that last year\u2019s proposal would have allowed sale only through state-run stores. The new measure follows the recommendations of the Working Group for a more decentralized system based on small private operators.<\/p>\n On Jan. 28, the Senate Public Affairs Committee voted 4-3 along party lines to advance Senate Bill 115, the Cannabis Regulation Act, which would legalize personal use for those 21 years and older. It has yet to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee or the Finance Committee \u2014 where last year\u2019s version died.<\/p>\n The bill calls for a 9% tax on cannabis sales. And, as the\u00a0Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>\u00a0notes, it has plenty of elements designed to appease conservative sentiment. It requires law enforcement agencies to compile an annual report on the number of arrests, citations and other violations connected to those using cannabis. It mandates \u201ccannabis education programs\u201d for middle and high school students, and funding of additional substance abuse treatment programs. In what will certainly be a\u00a0controversial move<\/a>, it calls for police to devise an \u201coral fluid test\u201d to determine if motorists are driving under the influence.<\/p>\n Beyond compromises that may end up not pleasing either side, however, there is also a degree of sheer confusion in the proposed legislation.<\/p>\n A Feb. 5 editorial in the\u00a0Albuquerque Journal<\/a>\u00a0was unable to resist the smart-alecky headline \u201cHaze of unknowns clouds legislation on recreational cannabis.\u201d But after you get past the puns, it noted some of the confusion around SB 115 and its counterpart House Bill 160.\u00a0<\/p>\n For one thing, the \u201ctimelines don\u2019t track.\u201d Under the proposed legislation, existing cannabis retailers operating under the state\u2019s medical marijuana program (in place since 2007) will be able to start adult-market sales on Jan. 1, 2021. But that\u2019s also the deadline for the regulations overseeing the market to be issued \u2014 meaning those retailers be \u201cforced to comply on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n Complicating it further, those regs are for seed-to-sale tracking, quality control and the like. But the mandatory server training rules don\u2019t even have to be drawn up until April 1, 2021 \u2014 leaving retailers unregulated for three months.<\/p>\n And while customers have to be 21, the servers can be 18. The Journal asks: \u201cHow does that make any sense?\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the strange contradiction that \u201crecreational\u201d buyers will be able to get more product than medical patients. Current law limits medical users to eight ounces every 90 days, though recreational users will be able to buy two ounces per transaction. Retailers will supposedly be required to reserve enough product for the state\u2019s 80,000-plus medical users, but there are concerns about shortages \u2014 especially because there will be no increase in the number of plants commercial growers are allowed.<\/p>\n The closing assessment of the Journal\u2019s editorial may prove accurate: \u201cThere are simply too many unanswered questions, too many contradictions and too hard of a push to get recreational cannabis through in a short 30-day budget session.\u201d<\/p>\n It is clear that lawmakers in Santa Fe are going to have to work fast if they are to avoid a repeat of last year\u2019s narrow defeat for legal cannabis in the Land of Enchantment.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, which state should legalize cannabis next?<\/p>\n The post New Mexico Races to Legalize Pot by the End of February<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
New Mexico is serious about being the next state to legalize cannabis. But the state has a legislative session of just 30 days in 2020, and the deadline now looms ominously. There is a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu here. Last year, New Mexico came very close to legalizing marijuana. AContinue 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":[50,65,124,81,13247],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41182"}],"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=41182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41183,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41182\/revisions\/41183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Down to the Wire\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\u2018Haze of Unknowns\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: New Mexico Races to Legalize Pot by the End of February<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"