Federal bills to legalize marijuana and allow drug testing of people seeking unemployment benefits get filed, the presidential commission on opioids issues a preliminary reports, the NFL offers to work with the players' union on medical marijuana, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Corey Booker Files Federal Marijuana Legalization Bill. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) filed the Marijuana Justice Act on Tuesday. The bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, punish states for disproportionately arresting or imprisoning poor people or minorities for marijuana offenses, prevent deportation for marijuana offenses, provide for resentencing of federal marijuana prisoners, and create a $500 million "Community Reinvestment Fund" for communities most negatively impacted by the war on drugs.

South Dakota Legalization Initiative Imperiled by Wording Error. A legalization initiative sponsored by New Approach South Dakota could be in trouble over a wording error. The way the measure is worded, it would, according to Legislative Council analysts, only legalize pot paraphernalia, not marijuana itself. The campaign said the problem is only a "typo" and can be fixed. Friendly legislators have offered to author a legislative fix if the initiative passes. Because of state initiative deadlines, it is too late for petitioners to start over in time to get on the November 2018 ballot.

Medical Marijuana

NFL Offers to Work With Players Union on Marijuana for Pain Management. The NFL has sent a letter to the NFL Players Association offering to work together with the union to study the possibility of marijuana as a pain management tool for players. The NFLPA is already conducting its own study and has yet to respond to the league's offer.

Ohio Medical Marijuana Rules Get Settled. A bipartisan legislative panel has decided not to modify more than a hundred separate rules proposed by the state Pharmacy Board and Department of Commerce to govern the state's nascent medical marijuana industry. That means medical marijuana growers, processers, sellers, testers, and users can now begin to get down to business. Growing operations are expected to start being licensed next month, and the whole system is supposed to be up and running by September 1, 2018.

Utah Poll Finds "Supermajority" Support for Medical Marijuana. Nearly four out of five (78%) Utahns favor a medical marijuana initiative now in the signature gathering phase of its campaign, according to a Dan Jones & Associates poll commissioned by the Salt Lake Tribune. The campaign is headed by the Utah Patients Coalition, which is acting after the state legislature baling at approving medical marijuana.

Drug Testing

Federal Unemployment Drug Testing Bill Filed. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-SC) has filed the Ensuring Quality in the Unemployment Insurance Program (EQUIP) Act, which would require people applying for unemployment assistance to undergo substance abuse screening and possible drug testing to receive benefits. "Unemployment is not for people who are abusing drugs and using that money to buy drugs but instead to help them get back on their feet," said Rep. Carter. "And we want to make sure that is what they are doing with it." People applying for those benefits have been laid-off from jobs for lack of work, not let go for drug abuse.

Heroin and Prescription Opioids

Presidential Commission Issues Belated Preliminary Report, Calls for Declaration of National Emergency. The presidential Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis led by Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) issued a preliminary report on Monday whose lead recommendation is for the president "to declare a national emergency under either the Public Service Act or the Stafford Act." The report largely takes a public health approach to the issue, calling as well for expanding drug treatment capacity under Medicaid, increasing the use of medication-assisted treatment for opioid disorders, mandating that all police officers carry the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone, broadening Good Samaritan laws, and encouraging the development of non-opioid pain relievers.

A congressional panel ripped into Philippines President Duterte and his bloody drug war Thursday, Kamala Harris and Rand Paul file a bail reform bill, a South Carolina Republican congressman files a bill to allow drug testing of unemployment applicants, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Maine House Approves Bill Requiring Marijuana Be Tested for Safety. The House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would require the state Agriculture Department to set up testing facilities for marijuana before it could be sold. This is the first bill from a special select committee of legislators charged with creating a regulatory regime for legal pot. It goes against the wishes of Gov. Paul LePage (R), who wants the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations to be in charge of all legal marijuana regulations.

Criminal Justice

US Sens. Kamala Harris, Rand Paul File Federal Bail Reform Bill. Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) filed the Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act of 2017 on Thursday. The purpose of the bill is "to encourage states to reform or replace the practice of money bail, the requirement that individuals awaiting trial remain in jail unless they pay for their release." Without being able to make bail, people charged -- but not convicted -- with a crime can spend weeks or months behind bars, with devastating consequences for employment, finances, and families. The bill is not yet available on the congressional web site.

Drug Testing

South Carolina Rep Files Federal Unemployment Drug Testing Bill. US Rep. Buddy Carter (R-SC) filed a bill on Thursday that would let states screen unemployment applications for drug use and force them to undergo drug testing in some circumstances. The bill would deny unemployment benefits for 30 days to anyone testing positive for drug use, and a second positive drug test would result in a year-long ban. The bill is not yet available on the congressional website.

International

US Lawmakers Rip Philippines Drug War Abuses. At a hearing of the Congress's Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on Thursday, American lawmakers ripped into Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte over drug war abuses, including the killing of thousands of drug suspects, and called on President Trump to condemn Duterte -- and to rescind an invitation to visit the White House. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said she was "troubled" by the invite, while Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said he would "lead the protest" if Duterte shows up. "President Duterte, by all accounts, seems to not have a high regard for human rights," McGovern said. "The United States government cannot afford any degree of complicity with the kinds of human rights violations that are occurring," he said. "No other country -- I repeat that, 'no other country' -- comes to mind where people are assassinated on the streets in the name of fighting drugs, and leaders brag about it as a good thing," he added.

UN Says Bolivia Coca Cultivation on the Rise. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has expressed concern about what it says is a 14% increase in land under coca cultivation. "This increase is a concern for us," said UN Drugs and Crime Representative of Bolivia, Antonio De Leo. Bolivian President Evo Morales expressed regret at the report, but noted that much more illicit coca is being grown in Colombia and Peru.

Houston police will quit using faulty field drug tests that sent hundreds of innocents to jail, a Colorado appeals court rules a drug dog alert on marijuana in a vehicle is not sufficient grounds for a vehicle search, the Massachusetts high court sides with an employee fired for medical marijuana use, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Alaska Regulators Advance Social Consumption Proposal. At its meeting last week, the state Marijuana Control Board voted 3-2 to approve draft rules for on-site marijuana consumption at retail outlets. Now there will be a 60-day public comment period before the rules come back to the board, most likely at its November meeting.

Colorado Appeals Court Rules Marijuana Scent Not Enough to Search Vehicle. An appeals court ruled last Thursday that a drug dog's detection of the scent of marijuana in a vehicle does not give police the authority to search the vehicle. "Because Amendment 64 legalized possession for personal use of one ounce or less of marijuana by persons 21 years of age or older in Colorado, it is no longer accurate to say, at least as a matter of state law, that an alert by a dog which can detect marijuana -- but not specific amounts -- can reveal only the presence of "contraband,'" he wrote.

Medical Marijuana

Massachusetts High Court Rules for Woman Fired for Using Medical Marijuana. The state Supreme Judicial Court ruled Monday that a woman fired after testing positively for legally recommended medical marijuana can sue her former employer for handicap discrimination. The employer had argued that the use shouldn't be allowed because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but the high court disagreed. If a doctor concludes medical marijuana is the most effective treatment for a debilitating condition, "an exception to an employer's drug policy to permit its use is a facially reasonable accommodation" and "the fact that the employee's possession of medical marijuana is in violation of federal law does not make it per se unreasonable as an accommodation."

Nevada Medical Marijuana Patients Facing Higher Prices With Legalization. Medical marijuana patients are complaining of "price gouging" in the wake of the advent of legal recreational marijuana sales in the state. "Our prices have almost doubled in some places," patient Emily Wilson said. Some patients are reportedly resorting to the black market because of high legal prices.

Drug Testing

Houston Cops End Use of Field Drug Tests That Sent Innocent People to Jail. Police in the nation's fourth largest city have ended the use of $2 chemical field drug tests, whose use have led to hundreds of wrongful convictions in recent years. Police announced the move as an officer safety measure in the face of dangerous new drugs, but did not mention the faulty tests' role in the recent scandal over convictions based on false positives.

It's been less than four years since the first legal recreational sales in the United States took place in Colorado, but since then, the US marijuana industry has been creating jobs at rapid pace, and there are now more people employed in the pot industry than there are working in a number of common professions.

That's according to a new report from the Marijuana Business Daily's Marijuana Business Factbook 2017, which pegged the size of the cannabis labor force at somewhere between 165,000 and 230,000 full- and part-time workers.

That's compared to 169,000 massage therapists, 185,000 bakers, and 201,000 dental hygienists. And marijuana industry workers are on a path to shortly exceed the number of telemarketers (238,000) and pharmacists (297,000).

Granted, the legal marijuana industry begins with a base of several tens of thousands of workers producing and selling medical marijuana products, especially in California, with its loose medical marijuana law, but the boom is being propelled by growth in the recreational market, and that is only set to continue and accelerate as more legal states come online next year, including California, Maine, and Massachusetts. Nevada joined the ranks of the legal pot selling states on July 1.

California's recreational pot market by itself could generate around $5 billion in annual retail sales within a few years, doubling the size of the current legal weed market and creating a massive impact on job creation there.

In arriving at its numbers, Marijuana Business Daily included employment figures for retailers, wholesale growers, edibles and concentrates producers, testing labs, and ancillary firms, such as companies providing legal, marketing, security or other services to marijuana companies. The industry daily used a variety of methodologies, including survey data, on the average number of employees for each kind of company in the business, and that data was then applied to the estimated number of companies in each sector to arrive at final estimates.

One important caveat: The employment numbers mentioned here cover only a fraction of the people involved in the marijuana business -- those involved in the legal marijuana business. Even when California, Maine, and Massachusetts begin legal retail sales next year, the legal pot states will only amount to about one-fifth of the US population, and people are growing and selling marijuana in all the other states, too. From black market growers to clandestine dabs lab workers to cross-country couriers to dorm-room dealers, the number of people making a living in the illegal pot industry undoubtedly still dwarfs the number doing it legally.