A bill protecting medical marijuana patients advances in Louisiana, a bill broadening expungement and freeing some pot prisoners advances in Connecticut, and more.

Connecticut House Approves Bill to Broaden Expungement, Release Prisoners on Some Marijuana-Related Charges. The House last Thursday voted to approve House Bill 5457, which would require court to reduce sentences or dismiss charges for a number of marijuana-related offenses and release from jail or prison people who are currently incarcerated on those charges. The legislation would make expungement or sentence reductions automatic for offenses such as possession of marijuana drug paraphernalia, distribution of up to four ounces of marijuana, possession of up to four ounces of marijuana, and cultivation of up to six plants.

Minnesota Senate Approves Marijuana Legalization Bill, State to Become 23rd to Free the Weed. Minnesota is set to become the 23rd legal marijuana state after the Senate on Saturday approved Senate File 73just two days after the House passed it. The bill was the result of a final conference committee negotiations after the two chambers earlier approved slightly differing versions of the legislation. Gov. Tim Walz (DFL), a proponent of legalization, has vowed to sign it into law. Beginning this summer, Minnesotans will be able to grow up to eight plants at home, though only four can be flowering. Once legal marijuana commerce is up and running, people will be able to buy up to two ounces of buds, eight grams of concentrates, and 800 milligrams of edibles at one time and possess those amounts in public. The retail tax rate for marijuana will be 10 percent, and home growers can legally possess up to two pounds of marijuana from their harvests.

Medical Marijuana

Louisiana Bill Protecting Patients Seeking Unemployment Benefits Wins Committee Vote. The House Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations last Thursday narrowly approved House Bill 351, which would ensure that people with medical marijuana recommendations are not disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits. The bill's digest says it "provides that a qualifying medical marijuana patient who receives a recommendation from an authorized clinician to use marijuana for a therapeutic use shall not be disqualified for unemployment compensation benefits." The bill now heads for a House floor vote.

International

Iran Hangs Three on Drug Charges. Three men -- Shahab Mansournasab, Samad Geravand and Saeed Geravand -- were executed by hanging after they were caught with more than 39 kilograms of heroin and precursors. They were charged with "corruption on earth" after admitting they planned to sell the drugs in Tehran. Under Iranian law, anyone convicted of possessing more than 30 grams of heroin is eligible for a death sentence.

Iran used to execute hundreds of people annually, but in 2017 adjusted its laws and the number of drug executions dwindled. This year, however, the Islamic Republic has increasingly resorted to the death penalty as it faces a months-long civil uprising that began with the death of a woman at the hands of religious police for improperly wearing a hijab. It is unclear how many of this year's executions are for drug offenses, but Iran hung a man it described as the "sultan of cocaine" earlier this month. Last week, it hung a man for running a human trafficking network and prostitution ring and three men convicted of killing a police officer and two members of the paramilitary Basij during the unrest.

Ireland Drug Checking to Expand at Festivals After Successful Rollout of Pilot Program Last Year. After a pilot program to check drugs at the Electric Picnic festival last September successfully detected high-potency MDMA and new psychoactive substances, the Health Services Executive (HSE) has announced that drug checking will be expanded to more festivals this year. It is part of broader harm reduction effort by the HSE. Under the program, festival-goers can submit samples to be tested without fear of arrest and are then informed of the substances' content. HSE-trained volunteers will also be available to talk about drug treatment services, drug trends, and harm reduction practices with festival-goers.

Switzerland To Expand Marijuana Trials to More Cities. The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has given the green light to expansion of ongoing trials on legal marijuana sales to include the cities of Bern, Biel/Bienne, Lucerne, and Geneva. Such programs have already been underway since last year in Basel and this March in Zurich. The trials are supposed to produce data that will inform the government's policy on marijuana. They aim to investigate the health and social effects of tightly regulated, non-profit marijuana sales in pharmacies and will involve a thousand participants -- only half of whom will be allowed to buy the regulated marijuana in pharmacies.

The FOPH has also approved a pilot program in Vernier, where a single authorized dispensary called the "Cannabinotheque" will sell marijuana under a membership model. It will last for three years and also includes a thousand participants. Currently, recreational marijuana remains illegal in the country, although it legalized medical marijuana last year.

A major civil and human rights group comes out against one federal fentanyl bill, bipartisan senators and representatives file another one, and more.

Fentanyl. The deadly drug continues to generate bills in Congress. (Creative Commons)

Minnesota Marijuana Legalization Bill Ready for Final Votes This Week. House and Senate conference committee negotiators have resolved the remaining differences between the House and Senate marijuana legalization bills and ready to send the final bill to floor votes in both chambers this week. The final sticking points were on the marijuana tax rate and appropriating revenue. Negotiators agreed to the 10 percent retail sales tax in the Senate bill (the House had voted for 8 percent to be adjusted every two years) and agreed that 80 percent of marijuana revenues will go to the state and 20 percent to local governments to cover expenses related to implementing legalization.

Medical Marijuana

Nebraska Activists File Papers for 2024 Medical Marijuana Initiative. The group Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana has filed papers to mount petition drives to put a pair of medical marijuana initiatives on the 2024 ballot. One would set up the doctor/patient system, while the other would regulate the industry. Activists have been trying for eight years to get the legislature to pass a medical marijuana bill, to no avail. Last year, a signature-gathering effort for a medical marijuana initiative came up short because financial problems blocked the group from hiring professional petitioners.

"We have no choice but to keep petitioning our government," said group spokeswoman Crist Eggers. "The legislature refuses to act despite the will of over 80% of Nebraskans, from all parties, regions, ages, etc., supporting this."

Asset Forfeiture

New York Senate Committee Passes Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeiture and Opt State Out of Federal Forfeiture Program. The Senate Codes Committee on Monday approved a bill that would end civil asset forfeiture, Senate Bill 2192. Under the bill filed by Sen. Jamaal Bailey (D) forfeiture could only occur if the "prosecuting authority secures a conviction of a crime that authorizes the forfeiture of property and the prosecuting authority establishes by clear and convincing evidence the property is an instrumentality of or proceeds derived directly from the crime for which the state secured a conviction." The bill would also address "policing for profit" by requiring that forfeiture proceeds go to the state general fund. Currently, the seizing agency gets to keep up to 60 percent of the proceeds. And the bill would opt the state out of the federal "equitable sharing" program that allows law enforcement agencies to skirt state asset forfeiture laws by handing cases off to the feds, who then return most of the money to the seizing agency. The bill now heads to the Senate Finance Committee.

Drug Policy

Bipartisan Bill Aims to Counter National Security Threat of Illicit Drug Trafficking. US Reps. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) and Stephanie Bice (R-OK) and Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) are leading a bipartisan effort directing increased federal attention to fentanyl trafficking by utilizing the tools of the Department of Defense (DoD) and involving Mexico as an active partner to combat this crisis and disrupt drug cartel and trafficking activity.

The Disrupt Fentanyl Trafficking Act of 2023 would attempt to address cross-border drug trafficking by:

• Declaring fentanyl trafficking a national security threat stemming from drug cartels and smugglers,
• Directing the Pentagon to develop a fentanyl-specific counter-drug strategy, including enhanced cooperation with foreign nations,
• Requiring the Secretary of Defense to increase security cooperation with the Mexican military, and
• Addressing coordination efforts between the military and federal law .enforcement agencies.

Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Opposes HALT Fentanyl Act. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights on Wednesday sent a letter to the House leadership to express its "strong opposition" to H.R. 467, the HALT Fentanyl Act.

"This bill permanently schedules fentanyl-related substances (FRS) on schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) based on a flawed class definition," the letter says. "Additionally, it imposes mandatory minimums and fails to provide an offramp for removing inert or harmless substances from the drug schedule. The class wide scheduling that this bill would impose would exacerbate pretrial detention, mass incarceration, and racial disparities in the prison system, doubling down on a fear-based, enforcement-first response to a public health challenge. Under the class wide control, any offense involving a "fentanyl-related substance" is subject to federal criminal prosecution, even if the substance in question is helpful or has no potential for abuse."

The Leadership Conference represents more than 230 national organizations.

International

Singapore Executes Marijuana Offender for Second Time in Three Weeks. For the second time in three weeks, Singapore has hung a man for trafficking marijuana. The unnamed 37-year-old Malay Singaporean was executed at dawn Wednesday at Changi Prison for trafficking about 3.3 pounds of pot. On April 26, Singapore executed Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, for trafficking 2.2 pounds of pot despite an international outcry. Under Singapore law, trafficking more than 1.1 pounds of pot can garner a death sentence. The city-state halted all executions during the coronavirus pandemic, but hanged 11 people last year -- all for drug offenses.

"If we don't come together to stop it, we fear that this killing spree will continue in the weeks and months to come," said Kokila Annamalai of the Transformative Justice Collective, which campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty in Singapore.

A jealous North Carolina deputy cooks up a plot to frame his ex-girlfriend's new beau, and more. Let's get to it:

In Wadesboro, North Carolina, a former Anson County sheriff's deputy pleaded guilty last Friday to planting heroin and other drugs in his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend's car. Former deputy David Burroughs led a plot involving three other deputies, one of whom pulled over the boyfriend, claiming he had been speeding and that he smelled marijuana inside the vehicle. The boyfriend was then handcuffed and put in a patrol vehicle, which made a mysterious stop outside a nondescript building near an airstrip on the way to the sheriff's office.

The boyfriend was told by deputies that a narcotics investigator had to pick something up, and what that something was was the drugs used to frame him. At the sheriff's office, he was told he was about to be charged with drug dealing offenses, but that same night, other deputies released him and gave him back his vehicle. A month later, the State Bureau of Investigation told him that Burroughs had planted the drugs in his car.

Burroughs was arrested in 2019 and charged with making a false police report, obstructing justice, breaking and entering a motor vehicle and possession of heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. He pleaded guilty to only obstruction of justice and possession of heroin and was sentenced to two years' probation. But he and the other three deputies involved now face a civil suit.

Kansas becomes the latest state to legalize fentanyl test strips, the Arizona Senate folds psilocybin research funds into a budget bill, and more.

They were talking marijuana and banking on the Hill Thursday. (Creative Commons)

SAFE Banking Act Gets Senate Committee Hearing. The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing Thursday to discuss marijuana banking issues with a focus on the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act (S.1323). No votes were taken at the hearing, which was announced as "Examining Cannabis Banking Challenges of Small Businesses and Workers." Testifying before the committee were bill sponsors Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT), as well as representatives of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC), United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), Dama Financial and Smart Approaches To Marijuana (SAM).

"The cannabis landscape looks far different than it did a few short years ago," Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said in opening remarks. "Cannabis has been legalized or decriminalized in almost every state. States and localities have established licensing and social equity programs to ensure that small businesses and communities impacted by the War on Drugs are part of the growing legal cannabis industry."

Harm Reduction

Kansas Governor Signs Fentanyl Test Strip Legalization Bill into Law. Gov. Laura Kelly (D) on Thursday signed into law Senate Bill 174, which legalizes fentanyl test strips by removing them from the state's definition of drug paraphernalia. Last year, a similar bill passed in the House only to stall in the Senate.

"Overdoses caused by fentanyl have devastated communities across Kansas and the nation," Gov. Kelly said. "By decriminalizing fentanyl test strips, we are providing the resources needed to combat the opioid and fentanyl epidemic so that families and loved ones no longer have to feel the pain of a preventable death."

The bill also increases criminal penalties for those who manufacture or distribute fentanyl.

Psychedelics

Arizona Senate Approves Psilocybin Research Grants as Part of Budget. The Senate on Wednesday approved an appropriations bill that includes $5 million in funding for psilocybin research. A standalone bill introduced earlier this year would have also funded psilocybin research at a higher level, but Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and top lawmakers agreed to slide the provision into the budget bill. Another budget measure that passed the Senate Wednesday contains detailed requirements for the clinical trials funded by those dollars. The House has already given initial approval to a companion version of the legislation, with a final vote coming soon.

International

Iran Hangs Three Cocaine Traffickers as UN Warns of Rising Number of Executions. Iranian state media reported that three men who were members of the "largest cocaine distribution cartel" were hung for cocaine trafficking on Wednesday. Their names are Hossein Panjak, Abdolhossein Emami Moghadam, and Babak Aghaei. They had been arrested in a 2014 raid in which 2.2 pounds of cocaine, methamphetamine, and opium were seized.

A day earlier, UN human rights chief Volker Turk criticized Iran's "abominable" record of executions this year, saying that it had hanged an average of 10 people a week so far this year. If the current rate of executions continues through the year, it would reach the highest number since 2015 when 972 people were hung. Back then, a large number of executions were for drug offenses, but Iran changed its drug laws in 2018, radically reducing the number of drug executions. It is not clear how many of this year's executions were for drug offenses, but the regime has been executing political opponents amid months of sustained civic unrest.