Police End Sting Operations
MINNIAPOLIS- Police will no longer conduct sting operations targeting small-scale marijuana sellers since a wide racial disparity has been uncovered in the practice.
Everyone being arrested was black, exactly 46 out of the 47 people arrested this year in these stings have been black. What sets the Minneapolis police department apart from most others is they actually decided to do something about it.
According to the Star Tribune, in a series of announcements on June 7th, law enforcement officials made it clear that the targeting of low-level sales will end. To improve on the problem further, the charges against all 47 people arrested in the first five months of 2018 will be dismissed.
The complete about face came after Hennepin County’s chief public defender, Mary Moriarity, contacted Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and criticized what appeared to be unabashed racial profiling. “Approaching black men and women who are low-income and homeless and then having the county attorney charge them with felony drug sales makes me very angry and disappointed,” Moriarity stated.
Mayor Frey took it up with Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, ordering that the stings be stopped.
“I believe strongly that marijuana should be a lowest-level enforcement priority and that it should be fully legalized at the state level,” Frey stated. “The fact that racial disparities are so common nationwide in the enforcement of marijuana laws is one of the reasons I support full legalization.”
The 47 people who were arrested so far in 2018 were approached by undercover officers posing as buyers. They were all charged with felonies. Some were put in diversion programs, according to the news site, while some were convicted. At least one man went to prison. And the amount they were selling can only be described as minuscule at best.
“Almost all of those cases involve a sale of 1-2 grams of marijuana for a total of $10-$20,” Assistant County Public Defender Jess Braverman wrote in a May 31 court document.
Nonetheless, Arradondo defended his officers, saying that they were not targeting black people because of their race. According to a police spokesperson, while the undercover stings have been put to an end, the police would still be making arrests for marijuana sales.
Medical Marijuana Protected in Justice Department Bill
WASHINGTON DC- For the first time ever, a provision protecting state medical marijuana laws is being included in base funding legislation for the U.S. Department of Justice.While the provision in question has been federal law since 2014, in years past its enactment has required votes on the House floor or in a Senate committee. But now, in a dramatic sign of the rapidly changing politics of cannabis, the budget rider is part of the initial spending bill for the Justice Department as introduced by Republican Senate leaders.
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies approved Fiscal Year 2019 spending legislation including the measure on Tuesday. A full committee vote on the overall bill is expected on Thursday.
“It’s taken years of hard work by patients and their advocates, but we’ve finally reached the point where even in a U.S. Senate controlled by Republicans, a medical marijuana provision is not considered a poison pill and its support requires no further debate,” said Don Murphy, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project.
The House Appropriations Committee inserted the medical marijuana protections into its version of the Justice Department bill by a voice vote last month. That means the provision is all but certain to end up in the final FY19 appropriations legislation that is sent to President Trump for his signature later this year, clearing the way for states to keep implementing medical marijuana programs without federal interference through at least September of next year.
“The Senate Appropriations Committee finally read the writing on the wall and accepted the inevitable, that allowing the Department of Justice to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana programs is bad policy and losing politics,” said Justin Strekal, political director of NORML. “Looking at the scorecard, today it’s medical freedom: 1; Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his reefer madness ways: 0.”
While the rider does not protect recreational marijuana consumers or the businesses that serve them, it does continue to shield patients and medically-focused providers in the 46 states that now allow some form of legal cannabis for therapeutic use. And that is a much-appreciated measure of relief in light of the fact that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this year rescinded Obama-era protections that generally allowed states to implement cannabis laws without harassment from the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, Republican and Democratic lawmakers are teaming up on separate legislation to change federal law to permanently let states set their own marijuana laws without fear of federal intervention.
The legislation, the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Entrusting States (STATES) Act, would exempt state-legal marijuana activity from the provisions of the federal Controlled Substances Act. It would also protect banks that work with legal cannabis businesses and allow industrial hemp cultivation.
“This bill again contains language preventing the Justice Department from interfering with states that have medical marijuana laws, ensuring that the prescribing and dispensing of medical marijuana in those states is both legal and regulated,” Senate Appropriations Committee Democrats wrote in a summary of the provision, somewhat overstating its impact because it actually only prevents federal officials from spending money to enforce the prohibition on medical cannabis without actually repealing it. ”Patients and doctors in states that have approved medical marijuana need to know that they are safe from arrest and prosecution by the federal government.”
Marijuana Decriminalization & Reclassifying Cannabis at Federal Level
TEXAS- While the Democratic Party in major states like New York has come out in support of marijuana legalization in recent months, the Republican Party continues to stay silent on the issue. But now one state's GOP is taking a major stand on the issue.
The Republican Party in Texas passed four marijuana related planks for their official platform. The GOP delegates approved planks that included the decriminalization of cannabis possession, an expansion of the state's limited medical marijuana program, support for hemp farming and they called on the federal government to change cannabis' status as a Schedule I controlled substance.
Over 10,000 delegates voted on these policies this weekend, making it the official platform of the Texas Republican Party.
Of course, while Republican delegates may support these ideas, that doesn't mean their candidates will. Senator Ted Cruz is up for re-election this November, and he's repeatedly opposed marijuana legalization, although he has signaled that he will support states who decide to legalize it. And Congressman Pete Sessions is considered one of the most anti-marijuana politicians in America, and he will also be up for re-election this November.
So while it may be a great sign that Republicans in a deep red state like Texas support loosening marijuana laws, it still won't really matter if they continue electing pro-Prohibition candidates.
49 Applications for Medical Cannabis Licenses
VIRGINIA- The “Old Dominion” has received 49 applications from medical-cannabis companies hoping to be among the first to set up shop in the state, giving officials plenty of options as they prepare to hand out five licenses this summer.The applications, which required a modest $10,000 filing fee, were due last week to the Virginia Board of Pharmacy, which is planning to issue licenses to allow one medical cannabis oil dispensary in each of the state’s five health service areas.
When they open, the facilities will be limited to selling cannabis oils. But the first wave of licensees could have a bigger role in the future if the state relaxes medical marijuana laws further or legalizes marijuana for recreational purposes.
“It takes a significant amount of money to build this infrastructure, plus know-how,” said Dave Albo, a former state delegate turned lobbyist representing a Northern Virginia business group, Nova Pharma Processors LLC, that has applied for a license.
Over the next few months, state officials will review the applications and award conditional approvals in mid-August. The chosen applicants will then undergo criminal background checks before final approval in late September.
Under the state’s evaluation system, each applicant will receive a score based on several criteria, including financial standing, expertise growing cannabis, building plans, security measures and marketing efforts. The guidelines note that marketing material should not promote recreational use of the oils or marijuana.
Albo, a Republican who in 2015 sponsored one of the first bills to sanction CBD oil use, said that when advocates first approached him to talk about loosening marijuana laws, he thought Virginia’s tough-on-crime past meant it would never happen. He said he asked the advocates to come back to him with hard medical evidence that it can help people, and they did.
“This is not snake oil,” Albo said. “From our standpoint, it’s about manufacturing medicine.”
