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ALBANY, N.Y. — New York’s governor signed a bill Monday that softens penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana and allows for the expungement of some past convictions.

The legislation signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo makes unlawful possession of marijuana a violation.

The penalty is $50 for possessing less than one ounce of pot or a maximum of $200 for one to two ounces.

The law also requires that records tied to low-level marijuana cases either be marked as expunged or destroyed. It takes effect 30 days from Monday.

“Communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by laws governing marijuana for far too long, and today we are ending this injustice once and for all,” Cuomo said in a statement.

Advocates for legal marijuana acknowledge the law is a step forward but also say it falls short of addressing a web of negative consequences that come with having marijuana as an illegal violation.

“Police have historically found a way to work around the decriminalization of marijuana,” said Erin George, of Citizen Action of New York.

People can still face probation violations and immigration consequences under the decriminalization bill, George said.

Melissa Moore, New York state deputy director for the Drug Policy Alliance, said the law will continue to allow authorities to target people of color and their communities for marijuana enforcement.

At least 24,400 people will no longer have a criminal record due to the bill, according to New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The law will prompt the sealing of more than 200,000 convictions for low-level marijuana offenses, according to the agency.

State lawmakers considered legalizing marijuana for recreational use this year, but that legislation stalled after state leaders failed to reach an agreement on key details in the final days of the legislative session.

Cuomo and the top leaders in the Legislature are all Democrats.

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WASHINGTON — Bills that would legalize and tax marijuana at the national level, and provide opportunities for people convicted of federal pot crimes to clear their records, were introduced Tuesday in Congress.

The companion legislation in the House and Senate were introduced by Sen. Kamala Harris of California and New York Rep. Jarrold Nadler, the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. Both are Democrats.

“Times have changed — marijuana should not be a crime,” said Harris, who is running for president. “We need to start regulating marijuana, and expunge marijuana convictions from the records of millions of Americans so they can get on with their lives.”

The tax revenue from legalization would support job training, substance abuse treatment, literacy programs and other services for individuals and communities hit hard by drug enforcement. Some of the revenue would also support programs designed to help “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals” start their own marijuana businesses.

While support for marijuana legalization has gained traction in Congress it’s still a longshot that a bill will pass this session. Still, Nadler’s introduction means the issue is very likely to get a hearing before his committee.

Supporters of legalization hailed Nadler’s involvement as a clear sign of momentum.

“Never in American history has the chairman of the Judiciary introduced a bill to end federal marijuana criminalization,” said Justin Strekal, political director of the Washington-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “At a time when the state you live in can determine whether cannabis can ruin your life or make you a millionaire, now more than ever we must end the national prohibition of marijuana.”

Eleven states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana since 2012 for so-called recreational use by people 21 and older. Illinois joined the list last month when that state’s governor signed legislation removing criminal penalties and allowing for expungement of past low-level pot convictions.

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Recent customers at Main Street Marijuana in Vancouver’s Uptown Village neighborhood have likely noticed a new set of signs prominently displayed in some of the store’s display cases. They’re hard to miss: a giant red OK logo on a black background.

The signs come from an industry-led program called OK Cannabis, which offers testing services to detect pesticides and heavy metals in cannabis end products — the type of fully processed and packaged goods that consumers will find on store shelves.

Retailers say the program is intended in part to educate consumers about what they characterize as a gap in Washington’s regulatory framework: the state doesn’t require recreational marijuana products to be tested for pesticides.

Big sellers participate

The OK Cannabis program is still in its infancy, with only four merchants participating so far. Main Street is the first Southwest Washington retailer to enroll.

But the participating stores are among the biggest in the state by sales volume; Main Street is ranked first, and Evergreen Market, Uncle Ike’s and Green2Go are all in the top 10. Program founder Ian Eisenberg says ideally he’d like to see every dispensary in the state sign up.

“Not many stores care (about pesticide testing), to be honest, and it’s unfortunate,” he says. “Some vendors really want to get tested, and some not so much.”

Dispensaries pay a flat $1,000 monthly rate to sign up (plus another $500 for each additional location they operate) and provide OK Cannabis with an up-to-date list of all the products on their shelves.

Once per month, OK Cannabis randomly selects a few products from the inventory for testing. A third-party service picks up the products and delivers them to a contracted testing facility, Redmond-based Confidence Analytics. The results are published on the OK Cannabis website.

If a product fails testing, the participating retailers are obligated to pull it from store shelves, offer refunds to customers and either switch suppliers or work with their existing suppliers to find the source of the contamination and fix it.

Eisenberg owns the Uncle Ike’s dispensary stores in the Seattle area, and he says the idea for the program grew out of his efforts to make sure its products were free of contaminants. Uncle Ike’s began having its products tested soon after it opened four years ago, he says, and the initial results weren’t promising, with a failure rate of 30-40 percent.

“Pretty much everything tested positive for pesticides,” he says.

The results improved over time as the store began working with its suppliers, and the staff eventually decided to expand the program beyond its own stores, renaming it OK Cannabis. They started reaching out to try to recruit other retailers about seven months ago.

Main Street enrolled in May, and its first round of products passed the tests, co-owner Adam Hamide says, but the existence of the program is still prompting growers to improve their practices to make sure they continue to pass.

“We’ve seen multiple vendors change their procedures based on this program already,” Hamide says. “It’s changing the way people are doing things, on a producer-processor level.”

The administrative side of the program is handled by Eisenberg and other staff from Uncle Ike’s under a separate corporate entity, but Eisenberg says he eventually hopes to spin it off into a nonprofit once more stores come on board.

Regulatory gap

There’s definitely a marketing angle to the program — dispensaries that pass the test are given large OK Cannabis signs that they can add to the display shelves for the tested products, and Hamide says the program serves as a selling point for Main Street, since it’s the only enrolled store in the region.

But Hamide and Eisenberg say the program also helps educate consumers by highlighting a gap in the way Washington regulates the burgeoning cannabis industry and tests its consumer products.

“There are certain things they do test for — mold and moisture content, those things are getting tested by all growers,” Hamide says. “But what’s not getting tested is heavy metals and pesticides.”

Washington does have established standards for acceptable levels of pesticides and other contaminants — referred to as action levels — but the state Liquor and Cannabis Board’s testing process is currently triggered by complaints, at least when it comes to recreational products.

“On the medical side, there are additional tests for pesticides, etc.,” said Liquor and Cannabis Board Communications Director Brian Smith.

That could change as early as next year, Smith said — the agency plans to expand the scope of its testing program, and an internal workgroup is currently studying how to do so without overwhelming retailers.

But in the meantime, most recreational products go untested, and Eisenberg and Hamide say consumers probably aren’t aware of the specific regulations for testing.

“I think a lot of people probably believe (the products) are being tested for pesticides,” Hamide says.

Eisenberg knows state regulators are working on testing, but he says there will still be room for a program like OK Cannabis, especially if the state’s expanded testing program focuses on producers rather than retailers.

There are a lot of ways a cannabis product could become contaminated between when it undergoes producer testing and when it ends up on store shelves, Eisenberg says. Flavoring added during processing could carry pesticides of its own, or metal cartridges could leach contaminants into the product. There’s an especially high risk for concentrates and extract products, Hamide says.

“You’re concentrating everything — the THC and the pesticide,” he says.

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The Clark County Council voted 3-2 to lift its ban on recreational cannabis businesses in unincorporated areas of the county at its Tuesday evening meeting. Recreational sales can begin in unincorporated areas of Clark County as early as Jan. 1, 2020.

The vote came after a roughly 1 1/2 -hour hearing where the council heard primarily from proponents of the ban who argued that the adverse social effects of making the drug easier to access would outstrip any revenue generated from its sale. They also heard from critics of the ban who said that prohibition has failed and the legal cannabis industry provides jobs and opportunity.

“Clearly, there is division in the county,” said Council Chair Eileen Quiring, who also noted that there was division on the council.

Councilors Temple Lentz, Julie Olson and John Blom voted in favor of lifting the ban. Quiring and Councilor Gary Medvigy voted against it.

Bans give way to buffers

The ban has been in place since 2014, two years after Washington voters approved a ballot initiative legalizing the drug for recreational use. Both Vancouver and Battle Ground allow recreational marijuana businesses.

In recent years, members of the county council began to question if the ban made sense. After Jeanne Stewart lost her seat last year to Lentz, a majority of the council began moving forward with rethinking the ban.

The ordinance approved Tuesday night paves the way for cannabis processors, producers and retailers to begin operating in unincorporated parts of the county. But the ban won’t go away immediately. The ordinance was amended to go into effect Jan. 1, 2020, from its initial date of July 15, 2019. Recreational cannabis businesses also must meet other licensing and permitting requirements.

The ordinance also restricts where recreational cannabis businesses can set up shop. The ordinance prohibits cannabis retailers from being located within 500 feet of the perimeter of recreation centers, child care facilities, public parks, transit centers, libraries, arcades, churches and substance abuse treatment facilities. Cannabis producers and processors will be prohibited from being located within a thousand feet of the same sensitive sites.

An earlier version of the ordinance, recommended by the Clark County Planning Commission, applied a 750-foot buffer. But the buffer was amended on the same 3-2 vote to 500 feet to give retailers more options on locations and to not cluster them together.

The ordinance applies a 1,000-foot buffer for all cannabis businesses to elementary and secondary schools as well as public playgrounds as required by state law.

The ordinance also specifies the respective zoning requirements for cannabis producers, processors and retailers. It does not allow retailers in rural centers, meaning they would only be allowed within the Vancouver urban growth boundary. Medical marijuana cooperatives would not be allowed by the ordinance.

Retail facilities will be barred from displaying marijuana plants and paraphernalia so they can be seen outside their building and will be allowed to stay open between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. Quiring unsuccessfully attempted to amend the ordinance to require retailers to close at 8 p.m.

There are currently three businesses in unincorporated Clark County that hold retail cannabis licenses. County staff has previously stated that more than a dozen businesses in Clark County hold processing or production licenses. Previous estimates have anticipated Clark County would see $650,000 to $730,000 annually in tax revenue by lifting the ban.

Divided county, council

During Tuesday’s hearing, opponents of legal cannabis pointed out that Clark County voted against legalization in 2012. They also argued that lifting the ban would add to the drug’s potentially adverse effects on public health and safety while increasing use by adolescents. Proponents of lifting the ban said that it would generate needed revenue and economic activity.

“Who will these changes benefit? They certainly will not benefit public health or safety,” said Ann Donnelly, a businesswoman and Republican Party activist. She added, “I believe you are benefiting the few to the detriment of the entire community.”

The council heard from Sticky’s Pot Shop owner John Larson. His Hazel Dell store has fought the ban and even operated in defiance of it until losing a legal battle last year. He told the council that lifting the ban will bring recreational marijuana to unincorporated Clark County under a tightly regulated system that will keep it out of the hands of kids and criminal organizations.

“I commend the council for having the courage to do the right thing and to reject the ignorance and the hysteria that has dictated recreational marijuana policy up to this point,” he said.

Medvigy, a Republican who represents a predominantly rural district, acknowledged the “hysteria” around cannabis and said there are “good people” who work in the industry.

He said that the federal government should change marijuana’s designation as a Schedule 1 drug, which places significant restrictions on its use. He said that doing so would allow needed research, “so we’re not experimenting with our people.” But Medvigy, a retired prosecutor and judge, said the drug can cause psychotic breaks and lead to harder drug use.

“I will tell you that I’ve had over 30 years in criminal justice, saw thousands of cases and this notion that it’s not a gateway drug is a false narrative,” he said.

Lentz, the council’s sole Democrat, made brief remarks that she wanted to represent her west Vancouver-based district, which she said voted for legalization. She and Olson, a Republican, also made remarks on the importance of youth education.

“I’m trying to let the data drive my decision on where we go with this,” said Olson, who noted that she voted against legalization.

Olson cited research and studies showing that legalization didn’t affect youth use, generate more crime and that pot businesses have high compliance rates with the law.

“It’s been illegal, and yet we still have all of these problems, on top of that it’s legal in the city of Vancouver,” said Blom, a Republican.

Quiring said that the county had extensive outreach before enacting the ban and that it was unfortunate that the county didn’t do more outreach before lifting it.

“I’m really sad that we’re doing that,” she said. “But that’s what it is; here we are.”

 

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Marijuana is having a moment. Experts recently dubbed cannabis the fastest-growing industry in the U.S. Legal weed generated $10.4 billion in the United States in 2018, and the number of “plant-touching” jobs is expected to pass 500,000 by 2022, according to New Frontier Data, a cannabis market research and data analysis firm.

Investors have taken note, pumping $10 billion into North American cannabis businesses last year — a good sign for budding entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the green rush.

But be warned, the cannabis industry is not for the faint of heart. Everything is harder — from opening a bank account to finding office space to hiring qualified employees — says Shane Schmitt, general manager of Wy’East Oregon Gardens, a cannabis cultivation and processing facility in Portland.

“It’s more difficult than starting a business in any other area,” says Schmitt, 43, a seasoned entrepreneur who previously worked in finance and construction. “There’s not a playbook for an industry that people still think should be illegal.”

To succeed, you need more than a solid business plan and ace team (though those are crucial, too). You need to be truly passionate about cannabis, and not in the “I like to smoke weed” kind of way.

Doing your research from the get-go can help you stave off some of that pain. Groups like the National Cannabis Industry Association can help you connect with people working in the space, including in crucial areas like legal support, consulting and insurance. And cannabis conferences — yes, those are a thing — can help you network with other “ganjapreneurs.”

These lessons from industry vets can also help you anticipate potential challenges.

DO WHAT YOU KNOW

You don’t want to jump into a new venture with no relevant experience. The cannabis industry is no exception.

“People often want to run a dispensary or set up a cultivation center and I ask, ‘Well, have you ever done retail? Are you a farmer? Are you a botanist?’ ” says Morgan Fox, a spokesperson for the NCIA.

Instead, do what you know — whether that’s accounting, public relations or plumbing — and put a cannabis spin on it.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS

The legal cannabis industry is heavily regulated, but those regulations often don’t cover every possible business application. That means business owners like Ivan and Anne Wood have to take extra precautions to make sure they’re in compliance.

The Woods run Mangia Ghanja , a cannabis-infused catering company in San Diego. Under recreational use rules, they can cater private events but they can’t charge customers for cannabis-infused food unless the client provides them with the cannabis, the Woods say.

BEWARE THE GREEN TAX

“If you’re touching the plant, everything costs twice as much,” says Schmitt of Wy’East Oregon Gardens. In reality, though, the markup can be more than double.

A regulatory license with the city of Portland, for example, is $3,500 per year for a cannabis business. That’s in addition to state licensing fees, which can be as high $5,750 per year. A traditional business might pay a few hundred dollars a year.

The so-called green tax applies to actual taxes, too. Plant-touching cannabis businesses can’t deduct any business expenses on their taxes, so they pay the full effective tax rate.

EMBRACE THE COMMUNITY

Cannabis entrepreneurs have to jump through a lot of hoops and they face a lot of uncertainty. But that has created a strong community that fledgling businesses owners can tap for advice.

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WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House has voted to block the Justice Department from interfering with states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use.

The bipartisan 267-165 vote represents a breakthrough for advocates of legalizing pot, who have unsuccessfully pressed the idea in the past under GOP control of the House. Although 11 states have legalized marijuana for personal use, possessing and selling the drug remains a federal offense. Lawmakers have already enacted protections for the 47 states where medical marijuana is legal in some form or another.

Attorney General William Barr said during his confirmation hearing in January that the Justice Department would not go after marijuana companies in states where cannabis is legal, even though the drug is outlawed under federal law.

Barr vowed not to use limited government resources to target cannabis businesses that are complying with state laws. Many of those businesses had relied on guidance from the Obama administration that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the pot trade in states where cannabis is legal. But those guidelines were rescinded by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“We are watching the growth of this industry — a multibillion-dollar industry,” said sponsor Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. “We are watching state after state move forward.”

The vote came on an amendment to a pending House bill that sets the Justice Department’s budget, and if put into place would apply for the 2020 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. There are also efforts afoot in Congress to pass permanent protections that would apply to states that have legalized cannabis for either medical or recreational use, with Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., offering a leading proposal dubbed the States Act. It has yet to advance.

“I certainly think it has support over here,” said Gardner, whose home state has a thriving legal marijuana economy. “While appropriations riders are important in the interim, we do need the long-term certainty of the States Act.”

The amendment passed over the opposition of conservative Republicans who say the benefits of medical marijuana are overblown.

“This amendment that is before us sends the wrong message about widely abused drugs in the United States,” said Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala. “The Drug Enforcement Administration says more young people receive treatment for marijuana dependency than for alcohol and other illegal drugs combined. The amendment ignores the problems with abuse and sends the false message to youth that smoking marijuana is healthy.”

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CHICAGO — Pot use in pregnancy has doubled among U.S. women and is most common during the first trimester, government research shows.

Overall, 7 percent of pregnant women, or 1 in 14, said they used marijuana in the past month. That’s from a nationally representative health survey in 2016-17 and compares with a little over 3 percent in 2002-03.

Some studies have linked marijuana use during pregnancy with increased chances of premature birth and low birthweight. Animal studies have linked high doses early in pregnancy with fetal brain abnormalities, but whether typical use in humans poses similar risks is unknown, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“Because we don’t know exactly how harmful it is, it’s better to err on the side of caution,” said Volkow, one of the authors of the government study. Marijuana use during pregnancy “is not worth the risk,” she said Tuesday.

The study was presented at a medical meeting Tuesday and published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

First trimester use jumped from almost 6 percent to 12 percent. Many women may have used pot before they learned they were pregnant, or used it to ease morning sickness, although few women said a doctor had recommended it, Volkow said.

Among women who weren’t pregnant, the rate of marijuana use increased from almost 7 percent to nearly 12 percent, or 1 in 8.

The results are based on health surveys involving nearly half a million U.S. women who were questioned during a period when rising numbers of states legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. It’s legal in 10 states for both uses but remains illegal federally.

A separate study on marijuana use among pregnant Canadian women, published in the same journal, adds to evidence suggesting that pot use in pregnancy may lead to premature birth. A journal editorial notes that like similar previous studies, the Canadian research can’t rule out whether other factors that may have contributed.

The editorial warned against relying on imperfect data to make judgments about potential harms from marijuana use and said more rigorous research is needed.

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CHICAGO — Medical marijuana company Verano Holdings was out of room at its headquarters in Chicago’s River North. It was just that simple.

Earlier this year, the company found a new home. At 9,500 square feet, the new office is almost four times larger than the previous space. It’s decorated for a cannabis company, with bright, stylized marijuana artwork and a sign that reads “Please keep off the grass” near the co-founders’ door. Verano has an option to take over more room in the building if needed.

“We just had no space. People were working at home because we had no place to go,” said Tim Tennant, Verano’s chief marketing officer, as he coordinated the delivery of an oversized leather couch for the co-founders’ office. “It was exploding faster than anybody could get their arms around.”

The marijuana industry is surging in Illinois and around the country. Cannabis companies based in the Chicago area have matured into multistate operators, gone public and been acquired. But despite all the growth, many of those companies have continued to operate in the same spaces they launched in, until now.

At least half a dozen marijuana companies in Chicago have moved or expanded their headquarters in the past several months. Some doubled their space or more. A couple moved downtown from the suburbs, a tactic deployed by companies in many industries to better woo talent.

For many operators, moving into spaces outfitted specifically for them — with marijuana art on the walls and plenty of flexible space to grow into — is a sign the industry has come into its own. But finding the best space has had more challenges than your typical office search.

Cannabis company PharmaCann looked at about 50 properties before finding a landlord that was OK leasing to a corporate marijuana company, said Chris Atkinson, director of real estate and facilities.

Banking regulations

Landlords were concerned that having a weed company as a tenant would cause issues with the banks that hold their mortgages, she said. Federally regulated banks hesitate to lend to businesses involved with a federally illegal substance. Landlords also wondered whether product would be handled in the office.

“We did get a lot of questions if we were going to be dispensing or were we going to have patients,” Atkinson said. “We had to reiterate … this was a business office and a corporate office and nothing else was going on.”

On April 1, PharmaCann moved to the Loop from a co-working facility in suburban Oak Park, Ill.

“We’re going to be in the financial district,” Atkinson said. “It really has a big impact when we’re hiring.”

Other companies said their searches for office space were smoother. Peter Slaven is partner at Centrum Realty and Development, which manages the River North building where Verano is now a tenant.

“We really just cared about the fact that this would be general office use, just like any other office tenant, and their financials were strong,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t have a preference over whether it’s a law firm, or an architect’s office or in this case, corporate offices for a cannabis company — which, as it turns out, is an extremely creditworthy tenant.”

Lots of expansion

For some companies, the move was overdue. Executives had been waiting for certainty in an industry built on sales of a still federally illegal drug.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker favors legalizing recreational use of the drug, and lawmakers introduced a bill that would do just that last weekend. They hope to pass it by the end of May.

Illinois’ medical program has also expanded, adding more than 12,500 patients since February, when the state dropped fingerprint and background check requirements for patients, allowed people prescribed opioids access to medical marijuana, and started granting provisional access while medical card applications are reviewed.

The growth track that the industry is on gave Verano the confidence to commit to larger office space.

“As soon as we knew the year was going to end right, it was like we knew we couldn’t wait any more,” Tennant said. “It’s not uncertain. … You see the whole market changing.”

As GTI’s reach has expanded, so has head count at its headquarters. The company knew it would outgrow its space eventually, Dooley said. Now, it needs a space that will give it room to expand.

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As the Clark County Council continues to reconsider its ban on recreational cannabis businesses, it’s turned its attention to where such companies would be allowed to set up as well as other land-use questions.

While the council took another step toward lifting the ban, Clark County Council Chair Eileen Quiring, an opponent of recreational cannabis, said it wasn’t a done deal and pushed for a more protracted process.

“I don’t want to assume we are lifting the ban,” said Quiring.

Recreational cannabis businesses have been banned in unincorporated Clark County since 2014, two years after Washington voters legalized the drug. Since then, cannabis businesses have proliferated in Vancouver. Earlier this year, the Clark County Council began taking a second look at the ban after last year’s elections changed the council’s composition.

Last month, the council held a work session looking at the law enforcement and public health aspects of legal cannabis. On Wednesday, the council held another work session looking at what changes to the county code would be required to roll back the ban.

A draft of code changes presented to the council would allow licensed cannabis producers and processors to operate in areas that have certain agricultural and forest zoning designations. Licensed retailers would be allowed to operate in commercial areas under the draft code.

Under state law, cannabis businesses are prohibited from setting up within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, child care centers, parks, recreation facilities, transit centers, libraries and arcades. A 2015 change to state law allowed cities or counties to make an exception to the buffer (except for elementary and secondary schools, as well as playgrounds).

Councilor Temple Lentz asked county planning staff to look into adding language that would include substance abuse treatment facilities in the buffer. She also questioned if the buffer should be measured from property line to property line, referencing a comment the council received pointing out that businesses can be located in large strip malls. In response, planning staff indicated they would evaluate using the actual premises of the business to apply the buffer.

The draft code language would allow retailers to be open between 8 a.m and 8 p.m. Councilor Julie Olson suggested changing it to allow retailers to be open until 11 p.m. to be consistent with the city of Vancouver.

Clark County Community Planning Director Oliver Orjiako told the council that making basic amendments to the county code to allow for recreational cannabis businesses could be accomplished within 90 days. He said more substantive changes to the code would trigger a more extensive process with public involvement that would require 180 days.

Lentz, Olson and Councilor John Blom have expressed a willingness to lift the ban. Councilor Gary Medvigy, who was appointed to the council in January, has said he’s undecided. Council Chair Eileen Quiring has remained steadfast against lifting the ban and has called for the more extensive process.

“As the chair of the council, I would say that going from 8 o’clock in the evening to 11 o’clock in the evening is a substantive change,” said Quiring. “I would also say that if we change any sort of distance in any sort of way that’s a substantive change.”

She pointed out that while the ballot measure legalizing cannabis passed statewide, it failed in Clark County. She also said the county should have open houses to give people a chance to weigh in on the topic. Medvigy also said he favored the more extensive process and questioned if it was premature to direct staff to draft code changes.

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LAS VEGAS — Nevada faces complaints about secrecy in awarding licenses to sell marijuana in the state’s booming legal marketplace, boiling over into lawsuits and legislation that appear poised to pry open the process.

Several companies have sued the state tax department, arguing that no one knows for sure the criteria officials use to award new licenses. They complain the state releases no information about who seeks and receives permission to sell cannabis to adults, many of them tourists, in the nearly 2-year-old market.

They will ask a judge Monday to freeze the granting of marijuana dispensary licenses, at least temporarily, until the courts decide whether it’s “arbitrary and capricious and violates the constitution,” one lawsuit says.

The hearing will focus on a second wave of dispensaries approved in December to open into an evolving regulatory environment where local lawmakers are considering allowing pot lounges on or near the Las Vegas Strip.

The companies say Nevada unconstitutionally picked winners and losers from 462 applicants for 61 new dispensary, cultivation, laboratory and production licenses.

“Licenses that admit a select few to such a lucrative enterprise must be made in a way that is open and transparent,” said attorney Vincent Savarese, who wrote the constitutional challenge on behalf of Serenity Wellness Center and 10 other companies that were turned away.

“The point is to remove the marijuana trade from criminal enterprises, cartels and mobsters and street dealers, and to ensure that they don’t have participation in the legal marijuana industry,” he said.

The court arguments come days after the state Senate unanimously passed a measure to let officials release taxpayer information now labeled confidential. The proposal heads next to the Assembly.

Plans are underway to release the names of all applicants and licensees once the measure becomes law, said Ky Plaskon, spokesman for the state Department of Taxation, which regulates the licensing process.

Gov. Steve Sisolak on Friday acknowledged “the frustrations of many marijuana license applicants with the current licensing process” and endorsed the legislation that he said “would shed light on the methodology used … in granting licenses.”

Sisolak, a Democrat, was elected last November while calling for a state marijuana regulatory program similar to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which regulates casino licensing. He has an advisory panel studying the formation of a Cannabis Compliance Board.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, and figures show that sales are booming.

In the first year after broad marijuana sales began in July 2017, 61 dispensaries statewide reported nearly $425 million in recreational pot sales. Medical marijuana sales totaled an additional $105 million.

Nevada reaped $42.5 million in taxes on adult sales, with about $27.5 million going to an account for schools.

In the last six months of 2018, all dispensaries reported $884 million in sales and the state took in almost $72 million in taxes on recreational sales, Plaskon said. There are now 65 marijuana stores statewide.

Monday’s court hearing in Clark County District Court is expected to draw attorneys involved in six lawsuits filed against the state Taxation Department on behalf of dozens of companies.

“I’m not saying anybody corruptly got a license,” Savarese said. “But I’m saying that if they had, the process is opaque enough to provide cover for it.”

His 11 clients already won some dispensary licenses in 2017, after Nevada voters in 2016 approved broad access to cannabis, and are seeking more.

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LOS ANGELES — California has entered a potentially landmark legal fight against some of its own cities over one of the most basic questions in the nation’s largest legal marijuana market: Where can you buy it?

Beverly Hills and 24 other local governments sued California regulators Friday to overturn a rule allowing home deliveries statewide, even into communities that banned commercial pot sales. Ultimately at issue is who is in charge: the state bureaucracy that oversees the market or local governments where pot is grown and sold.

When California adopted the delivery rule in January, the League of California Cities and police chiefs complained that unrestricted home deliveries would create an unchecked market of largely hidden pot transactions, while undercutting local control guaranteed in a 2016 law broadly legalizing marijuana sales.

Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Chairman Ryan Coonerty said in a statement that the state rule damages local marijuana businesses and “betrays the promise made to the voters” in 2016.

The significance of the lawsuit goes beyond home deliveries. It represents an important early court test of Proposition 64, the law that legalized pot sales for adults in California. There have been numerous disputes over precisely what parts of the law mean, including those governing the size of cannabis farms.

The state Bureau of Cannabis Control, which wrote the rule, had no immediate comment on the lawsuit, which was filed late Thursday in Fresno County Superior Court.

The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate the rule and prohibit state regulators from enforcing it.

The rule “permits commercial cannabis deliveries to any physical address in the state,” which conflicts with the authority of local governments to prohibit marijuana deliveries within their boundaries, the lawsuit said.

Marijuana companies and consumers had pushed for home deliveries because vast stretches of the state have banned commercial pot activity or not set up rules to allow legal sales, creating what’s been called pot “deserts.” Residents in those areas were effectively cut off from legal marijuana purchases.

Supporters said the problem was worse for the sick and frail, who would not be able to drive long distances to buy pot.

Because pot remains illegal on the federal level, it cannot be sent through the U.S. Postal Service. But people can get it delivered to their door in California. Under state rules, all cannabis deliveries must be performed by employees of a licensed retailer. Regulators say there are 311 active licenses to deliver pot.

The delivery rule sought to clarify what had been apparently conflicting regulations about where marijuana can be delivered in California.

The 2016 law said local governments had the authority to ban nonmedical pot businesses. But state regulators pointed to the business and professions code, which said local governments “shall not prevent delivery of cannabis or cannabis products on public roads” by a licensed operator.

The cannabis bureau had said it was merely clarifying what had always been the case: A licensed pot delivery can be made to “any jurisdiction within the state.”

In addition to Beverly Hills and Santa Cruz County, plaintiffs include the cities of Agoura Hills, Angels Camp, Arcadia, Atwater, Ceres, Clovis, Covina, Dixon and Downey. Also participating are McFarland, Newman, Oakdale, Palmdale, Patterson, Riverbank, Riverside, San Pablo, Sonora, Tehachapi, Temecula, Tracy, Turlock and Vacaville.

Associated Press writer John Antczak contributed.

via Cannabis Chronicles

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Marijuana is a gateway drug that’s associated with violent crime. But kids in Washington aren’t using the drug at higher rates since it was legalized and it has no conclusive link to mental illness.

Those were two of the claims made respectively by local law enforcement and the county’s public health officer at a Clark County Council work session Wednesday morning. Although Washington voters legalized cannabis in 2012, Clark County passed a ban on recreational cannabis businesses in the unincorporated areas two years later.

The county council previously reconsidered the ban, but backed off last year. After the council’s composition changed following November’s elections, the council is again moving toward lifting the ban.

Councilors Temple Lentz, Julie Olson and John Blom have expressed varying degrees of openness to lifting the ban while council Chair Eileen Quiring has opposed it. Councilor Gary Medvigy, who was appointed to the council in January, said after the meeting that he’s undecided.

As the council has weighed the question, it’s considered how lifting the ban would affect youth, law enforcement and social services. All these topics were considered during the work session. At the end, no councilor seemed to have changed positions as the county moves forward, which will likely involve another work session on planning and zoning, followed by a public hearing.

At the end of the session, Quiring said she wanted to get perspective from the juvenile justice system. Medvigy welcomed the idea. But Olson questioned what that would add, since it’s illegal for minors to buy or use marijuana.

“Well, yeah, it isn’t legal for teens to use marijuana but because it’s legal for adults it affects teens and I really think that’s the largest danger that we enter into with legalizing this,” responded Quiring.

Here are a few takeaways from the work session.

‘The ranch dressing of drugs’

Sgt. Alex Schoening, who was part of a panel of officials from the sheriff’s office, said that since 2003, Clark County has either been at the state average or higher for impairment-involved fatalities. He said that the state average is 50 percent of fatalities involve impairment, and Clark County is trending at about 60 percent.

He said the sheriff’s office has seen a rise in “poly-drug collisions,” meaning that they involved a driver impaired by multiple substances. He said that 2017 was the first year that about half of the impairment-involved fatalities involved “drug use of some kind.” He did not specify if those involved marijuana.

“Marijuana is affectionately known in law enforcement circles as the ranch dressing of drugs because it’s good with everything,” he said. “And that’s how we are seeing it on the road. We are not typically seeing it by itself.”

He said that marijuana tends to enhance the impairing effects of other drugs. He said that impairment caused marijuana is determined using blood tests but a seven- to nine-month backlog at the state toxicology lab is delaying prosecutions.

Olson said that because the state toxicology lab didn’t previously test for marijuana it is difficult to say statistically there is a rise in poly-drug impairment.

“I tend to agree with you. I think the data is too new,” responded Schoening.

Later in the session, Washington State Patrol Trooper Ben Taylor told the council that the data is still new and that marijuana legalization hasn’t created a huge increase in traffic fatalities.

Apples to buds to police calls

Sheriff’s Cmdr. Duncan Hoss presented numbers showing that recreational cannabis businesses in local cities generated more calls for police service than nearby businesses. For instance, Main Street Marijuana in Vancouver generated 128 calls for service since 2016. That compares with nearby businesses such as Vancouver Pizza, 34 calls, Trap Door Brewing, 18 calls, and Hopeless Tattoo, two calls.

Quiring said it was interesting that the recreational marijuana store generated more calls for service than the brewery and tattoo parlor.

Olson asked why the sheriff’s office included some businesses but not others, specifically large nearby retailers, such as WinCo Foods and Fred Meyer. Lentz said that it was important to compare “apples to apples,” specifically businesses where consumers purchase items to consume at home.

“When you look at any set of data out of context it’s easy to draw conclusions that may not necessarily reflect the entire community,” she said.

Hoss responded that large retailers do more business.

Violent crime

Sheriff’s Cmdr. John Horch, a member of the Clark-Vancouver Regional Drug Task Force, said that Sheriff Chuck Atkins opposes lifting the ban on recreational marijuana businesses. He also said that marijuana is linked to violent crime and is a gateway to abusing substances like heroin.

“The last three homicides we’ve had in Clark County, two of them involved marijuana,” said Horch. He said that in one case a suspect told investigators he had been using dabs, a highly concentrated form of the drug. He also said there was another incident in Hazel Dell where someone was shot and killed in a marijuana deal.

Horch said that marijuana is involved with almost every search warrant served by the task force. He also said that he and investigators hear from suspects that marijuana use led them to heroin.

Social services

Clark County Director of Community Services Vanessa Gaston told the council she reached out to several of the county’s largest mental health and substance abuse treatment providers. According to Gaston, they said while they have seen people come in for treatment for marijuana use, it’s not increased.

Gaston also reached out to the Council for the Homeless. According to Gaston, the organization has found that homeless people do use marijuana. She said their marijuana use could prevent them from finding stable housing if a landlord objects to it, or getting a job if a potential employer requires a drug test. But she said the Council for the Homeless sees more homeless people who abuse methamphetamine, alcohol or opioids.

The youth

Dr. Alan Melnick, public health director and Clark County health officer, presented the council data from the Healthy Youth Survey, a biennial survey conducted by the state Department of Health that gauges adolescents’ relationship to drugs and alcohol.

He pointed to positive trends in the survey such as how adolescents haven’t reported increases in marijuana use since the drug was legalized. However, the percentage of 10th-graders who’ve reported vaping has risen. Also, 10th-graders see less risk from using marijuana than in previous surveys.

Melnick was asked by Quiring about links between marijuana use to suicide and mental illness. He responded that there has been a lack of research and good studies on the topic.

He said there was some “substantial evidence” of a statistical association between cannabis use and schizophrenia. However, he said while it may be a risk factor there is not enough evidence to prove causation.

He also said there is moderate evidence that cannabis use increases the risk of suicidal ideation and attempts, as well as other mental health problems. He said there is some moderate evidence that cannabis use helps the cognitive functioning of people with psychotic disorders.

via Cannabis Chronicles

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