The White House has delivered an annual drug enforcement report to Congress that highlights a number of concerns from regional police partners about state-legal marijuana legalization\u2014including what they believe are the implications for drug trafficking, environmental issues related to illicit grows and demand for high-potency THC products.<\/p>\n
Advocates and experts have been critical of the past reports from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program (HIDTA), which are not peer-reviewed and are facilitated through the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). They argue that the information is biased, given ONDCP\u2019s statutory mandate to oppose efforts to legalize<\/a> Schedule I drugs like marijuana.<\/p>\n While the key cannabis sections of the new 2022 report comprise a compilation of summaries from regional cohorts and are not a direct reflection of where ONDCP or the administration falls on the issue, the document doesn\u2019t seek to push back on any specific narratives. It\u2019s also being released a couple of months after President Joe Biden issued a mass cannabis pardon and directed an administrative view into marijuana\u2019s federal scheduling status.<\/p>\n Still, it compiles a long list of law enforcement complaints about cannabis legalization.<\/p>\n The Northern California HIDTA, for example said in the report that illicit cannabis \u201cremains readily available\u201d in the region despite the state\u2019s legalization law\u201d and that \u201cconsequently marijuana use remains extremely high and prices remain stable.\u201d<\/p>\n The California officials cited by the White House argue that state-level marijuana legalization \u201chas likely invited more criminality connected to the production and transportation of the drug, especially by [drug trafficking organizations] and organized criminal groups\u201d and that criminal groups \u201chave created or partnered with ostensibly legal businesses to conduct illicit production and trafficking\u201d in the state\u2019s \u201chighly accessible and lucrative cash-sales commodity.\u201d<\/p>\n They also claim that violent incidents and \u201cweed rips\u201d in which products are stolen \u201chave become more common since legalization,\u201d citing further concerns about\u00a0human trafficking and smuggling related to the cannabis trade.<\/p>\n Illegal growing on public lands like state and national parks \u201ccontinues to pose a serious environmental threat, polluting and diverting water sources, and poisoning wildlife,\u201d the section of the report<\/a> says, adding that \u201cTHC extraction labs are a significant public safety hazard\u201d with the propensity for explosions. There are now \u201cmany large labs selling manufactured products to legitimate storefronts,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n Separately, the North Central HIDTA, which covers parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, said that \u201cdemand for higher-potency marijuana and marijuana-related products has remained high over the past several years,\u201d claiming that illegal trafficking groups \u201csource the majority of marijuana and THC products from Colorado and West Coast states that have legalized\u201d cannabis for recreational and medical use.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is continued concern over the relationship between marijuana trafficking and distribution and firearms and violent crime associated with these activities,\u201d the regional outfit said. \u201cIn addition, the demand for and use of high-potency edibles, oils, and vaping products has remained high, creating a serious health risk to the user community.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Ohio-based division of HIDTA had additional negative comments to make about the implications of state-level reform, arguing that the state\u2019s medical cannabis program \u201chas led to an even greater amount of marijuana usage\u201d and that marijuana \u201cremains the number one recreational drug used in the\u201d region.<\/p>\n But it also said that other states with broader recreational legalization are source points for cannabis that\u2019s being consumed in the Ohio area.<\/p>\n \u201cNearly all of the respondents to the 2020 Ohio HIDTA Drug Threat Survey reported the majority of marijuana consumed in their area was coming from the Western Region of the United States. It is not uncommon to see bulk shipments of high-grade marijuana products being brought into Ohio from states that have legalized marijuana such as California, Colorado, and Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n Cannabis vaping \u201chas become one of the most common forms of illegal use of marijuana,\u201d it said, expressing concern that such vaping products contain exceptionally high concentrations of THC. It added: \u201cEdibles are becoming more popular with the legalization of recreational marijuana in Western States and medical marijuana in Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n The South Florida HIDTA, meanwhile, said that cannabis poses a \u201cmaterial threat\u201d to the region, expressing concern that \u201cthe perceived danger of marijuana by the public is diminishing in scope due to the legalization of medical marijuana\u201d in the state.<\/p>\n \u201cIn addition, marijuana grow operations and the parcel shipment of commercially packaged marijuana from states where it is legal to Florida, where these activities are prohibited, are vast,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The Texoma HIDTA, which covers parts of Oklahoma and Texas, similarly cited concerns about drug trafficking organizations that \u201cspecialize in distribution of high-grade marijuana obtained from states with legalized forms of marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese controlled substances are every bit as destructive as other \u2018hard-core\u2019 drugs and negatively impact the quality of life and safety of communities throughout Texas and Oklahoma,\u201d the report submitted to federal lawmakers by the White House says.<\/p>\n Advocates have consistently pushed back on regional HIDTA reports in recent years, and the new 2022 release is no exception.<\/p>\n \u201cThe primary reason large-scale illicit cannabis cultivation persists is prohibition, not legalization,\u201d Toi Hutchinson, president and CEO of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t see illegal production of tobacco and alcohol because both are legal in every state and under federal law,\u201d she said. \u201cFederal prohibition drives up the costs of state-legal cannabis products in a myriad of ways\u2014including by preventing tax deductions for business expenses\u2014and makes it harder to compete with unregulated sales.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMeanwhile, 100 percent of adult-use sales in prohibition states, counties, and cities are supplied by the underground market\u2014with all the environmental degradation, violence, and exploitation of labor that sometimes entails,\u201d Hutchinson said.<\/p>\n Again, the new report isn\u2019t necessarily indicative of how the White House views the state-level legalization movement. Biden has said that he supports letting states set their own policies, regardless of his own ongoing opposition to adult-use legalization, and his recent scheduling review and pardons directives have earned him applause from many advocates, even if they still want the administration to do more.<\/p>\n ONDCP Director Rahul Gupta, for his part, has touted the president\u2019s \u201chistoric\u201d recent moves. And he\u2019s emphasized that there are \u201cclearly\u201d medical benefits of cannabis\u2014which he says shouldn\u2019t be ignored because of separate concerns about youth use.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, as the administration works to conduct the review into the marijuana\u2019s federal scheduling, a bipartisan coalition of congressional lawmakers recently asked the president to officially get on board with outright legalization<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra recently tweeted a link to a Marijuana Moment article<\/a>\u00a0that discusses the president\u2019s administrative cannabis scheduling directive.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to take a look at what science tells us and what the evidence tells us,\u201d Becerra, who has a\u00a0considerable record supporting cannabis reform<\/a>\u00a0as a congressman and as California\u2019s attorney general, said at the recent overdose prevention event. \u201cThat will guide what we do\u2014and we hope that will guide what the federal government does.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the president\u2019s cannabis pardons and scheduling announcement, the secretary said that the department\u00a0would \u201cwork as quickly as we can\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to carry out the scientific review. And\u00a0he\u2019s already discussed the issue<\/a>\u00a0with the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to that end.<\/p>\n Like HHS, DOJ has similarly\u00a0committed to quickly carrying out the separate scheduling review<\/a>\u00a0the president directed, which could result in a recommendation to place cannabis in a lower schedule or remove it altogether, effectively legalizing the plant under federal law.<\/p>\n Separately, Biden recently\u00a0cheered a move by Oregon\u2019s governor<\/a> to grant tens of thousands of marijuana pardons in November, which followed his own federal clemency action. And he says other states should \u201cfollow Oregon\u2019s example.\u201d<\/p>\n The president also officially\u00a0signed a marijuana research bill into law<\/a> last month, making history by enacting the first piece of standalone federal cannabis reform legislation in U.S. history.<\/p>\n A series of polls have shown that Americans\u00a0strongly support the president\u2019s pardon action<\/a>, and they also don\u2019t think that marijuana should be federally classified as a Schedule I drug.<\/p>\n GOP Congresswoman Files Bill To Provide Federal Tax Relief For Marijuana Businesses By Amending IRS\u2019s 280E Code<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis \/\/ Side Pocket Images.<\/em><\/p>\n The post White House Highlights Police Concerns About Marijuana Legalization In New Report To Congress<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The White House has delivered an annual drug enforcement report to Congress that highlights a number of concerns from regional police partners about state-legal marijuana legalization\u2014including what they believe are the implications for drug trafficking, environmental issues related to illicit grows and demand for high-potency THC products. Advocates and expertsContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60240"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60241,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60240\/revisions\/60241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: White House Highlights Police Concerns About Marijuana Legalization In New Report To Congress<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"