The head of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus has been busy, a Massachusetts panel recommends allowing pot cafes, a bipartisan Kentucky medical marijuana is filed, bipartisan Michigan asset forfeiture reform bills get filed, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Blumenauer Announces Co-Chairs of Congressional Cannabis Caucus for 116th Congress. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), a leading advocate for cannabis policy reform and founder and co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, today announced the launch of the Caucus for the 116th Congress. The Caucus leadership team includes Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who will become the first woman of color to Co-Chair the Caucus; Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), who newly joins the leadership team; and returning Co-Chair, Rep. Don Young (R-AK-At-Large). The bipartisan Caucus provides a forum for members of the U.S. House of Representatives to discuss, learn, and work together to establish a better and more rational approach to federal cannabis policy.

Blumenauer Files Bill to Treat Marijuana Like Alcohol -- House Bill 420. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) has filed a bill to treat marijuana like alcohol by removing it from the list of controlled substances. Although it is not yet up on the congressional website, the bill will be numbered HB 420 in a nod to cannabis culture. The bill would put the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in charge of regulating marijuana.

Massachusetts Panel Recommends Marijuana Social Consumption Sites. The Cannabis Advisory Board's public safety subcommittee voted Wednesday to allow on-site consumption of marijuana at designated cafes. The subcommittee also voted to allow delivery services. The Advisory Board is just that: it makes recommendations to the Cannabis Control Commission, but the Commission is not bound by its decisions.

Virginia Marijuana Legalization Bill Filed. Delegate Steve Heretick (D-Norfolk) has filed a marijuana legalization bill, HB 2371. It would legalize the possession and sale of marijuana by adults and would decriminalize pot possession for minors. The bill would also allow for limited home cultivation. Marijuana would be regulated by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Medical Marijuana

Kentucky Medical Marijuana Bill Filed. A bill with bipartisan support to legalize medical marijuana was filed Wednesday. SB 80 would set up a fully functioning production and distribution system and allow for home cultivation, but its prospects for passage this year are dim. House Majority Floor Leader John Carney has said he would not call for a vote on it if the Senate didn't support it, and Republican Senate President Robert Stivers is still calling marijuana "a gateway drug" that has no medicinal value other than "it makes you feel good."

Asset Forfeiture

Michigan Bills to End Civil Asset Forfeiture Filed. A pair of bills to end civil asset forfeiture in the state, HB 4001 and HB 4002, were filed with bipartisan support Wednesday. The bills would require a criminal conviction before property valued at less than $50,000 could be permanently seized. Laws would also be tightened for seizures involving larger sums of money. The bills were rolled out with Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield joining Democrats, including Attorney General Dana Nessel, to back the bills.

International

Canada's Black Market Weed is Cheaper, More Prevalent Than Legal Weed. Stats Canada has reported that Canadians bought twice as much black market marijuana last year as legal marijuana, and paid less for it. The average price for a gram of legal pot last year was $9.70 per gram, while black market grams were going for $6.51. Stats Canada blamed legal pot shortages, delivery delays, and issues with delivery web sites.

A national coalition of civil rights, labor, and civic groups calls for descheduling marijuana; New Jersey isn't quite there yet, France takes a step toward allowing medical marijuana, and more.

Marijuana Policy

National Coalition Calls for Marijuana to Be Descheduled. A coalition of civil rights groups, labor unions, and other groups is calling not only for Congress to deschedule marijuana but also for it to ensure that communities most harmed by pot prohibition see benefits. The coalition includes AARP, the AFL-CIO, and the League of Women Voters. "Pass legislation de-scheduling marijuana with racial equity and justice reform components," the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said in a letter outlining priorities for the coalition in the 116th Congress that begins in January.

New Jersey Legalization May Not Happen Until Next Year. Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin met with Gov. Phil Murphy (D) Thursday for a closed-door meeting to discuss marijuana legalization but made no decision. The lawmakers now say a vote may not take place until next year, even though Murphy wanted it in the first 90 days of his term.

Asset Forfeiture

New Mexico Appeals Court Rules Against Albuquerque Asset Forfeiture Law. The state Court of Appeals has ruled that Albuquerque's municipal vehicle seizure program is not only pre-empted by the state's law governing seizures, it "completely contradicts it." The city can only seize vehicles after a criminal conviction, the court held. "While the language of the NMFA does not prohibit municipalities from enacting and enforcing criminal forfeiture proceedings, it restricts forfeiture to criminal proceedings, and imposes specific requirements on any criminal forfeiture proceedings that must comport with… the NMFA."

International

France Moves Toward Allowing Medical Marijuana. A government-appointed committee has given initial approval for the use of medical marijuana. The Agency for Drug Safety has concluded that it is "relevant to authorize the use of cannabis for therapeutic purposes for patients in certain clinical situations." If a patient is receiving insufficient relief from current therapeutics, cannabis represents a viable alternative, the committee decided.It said people with chronic pain, cancer patients, epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis sufferers and patients in palliative care could all benefit from cannabis use.

 A Washington Post columnist calls for prescription heroin, the federal hemp bill will apparently ban the participation of people with drug felonies, Denver joins the movement to expunge old pot convictions, and more.

Marijuana Policy

Denver Becomes Latest City to Expunge Low-Level Marijuana Offenses. Mayor Michael Hancock announced Tuesday that his administration will "move to vacate low-level marijuana convictions for Denver residents." The move comes after months of preliminary work by the Office of Marijuana Policy and the City Attorney's Office. "For too long, the lives of low-income residents and those living in our communities of color have been negatively affected by low-level marijuana convictions," Hancock said in a press release. "This is an injustice that needs to be corrected, and we are going to provide a pathway to move on from an era of marijuana prohibition that has impacted the lives of thousands of people."

Industrial Hemp

Federal Bill to Legalize Hemp Bans Drug Felons from Participating. Congressional negotiators have agreed on compromise language for the hemp provision of the farm bill that would ban people with felony drug convictions from participating in the hemp industry. The ban was inserted into the Senate version of the bill late in the process and over the objections of drug policy reformers. It's not quite a done deal—the language could be changed in conference committee—but at this point, it looks like the ban is in.

Heroin and Prescription Opioids

Washington Post Columnist Calls for Prescription Heroin. In a piece published Tuesday, Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle has called for access to prescription heroin in a bid to prevent fentanyl-related overdose deaths. In the column titled An Incredibly Unpopular Idea That Could Stem Heroin Deaths, McArdle notes that "most people don't want addiction made safer or easier; they want it stopped, cold…but you don’t free slaves by killing them, and as long as fentanyl suffuses the illicit drug markets, that’s what a 'tough love' policy amounts to." Harm reduction measures and increased access to treatment would help, McArdle writes, but "lowering the death toll may well require a more drastic step: legalizing prescriptions of stronger opiates. Prescription heroin? Remember, I said you might not like the solution. I don’t like it, either — and frankly, neither do the drug policy researchers who told me it may be necessary. But when fentanyl took over the U.S. illicit drug markets, it also got a lot of addicts as hostages. We’ll never be able to rescue them unless we can first keep them alive long enough to be saved."

Asset Forfeiture

Nashville Bends to Police Pressure, Extends Federal "Equitable Sharing" Program. Under pressure from local law enforcement and seeking to avoid raising taxes, the Nashville Metro Council voted 25-5 to renew its participation in the federal asset forfeiture equitable sharing program, which allows state and local law enforcement agencies to divert drug-related cash seizures to the federal government, which in turn returns 80% of the booty back to the seizing agency. 

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced out of office Wednesday after less than two years in office, and while there is intense concern about the impact the move could have on ongoing investigations of Trump campaign and administration misdeeds, for drug and criminal justice reform advocates that concern is leavened by joy and relief at the forced exit of a man who staunchly promoted harsh and repressive drug and criminal justice policies.

Even as marijuana reform spread across the land and support for the tough sentencing practices of last century's drug war waned, Sessions strode bravely backward as attorney general. Among the lowlights of his tenure:

• He escalated the war on drugs by ordering federal prosecutors to seek the toughest charges and sentences for drug offenses, a harsh return to some of the worst excesses of the drug war, one quite out of the mainstream of even Republican sentencing policy thinking these days.

• He escalated the war on drugs by undoing Obama-era restrictions on federal asset forfeiture and restarting destructive asset forfeiture practices. His actions on asset forfeiture basically gave state and local law enforcement agencies a green light to evade state forfeiture laws by handing cases off to the feds in return for a massive cut of the proceeds.

• He at least formally reversed the Obama administration's "live and let live" approach to marijuana reforms in the states, undoing the Cole memo that directed federal prosecutors to leave state law-compliant pot operations alone. But Sessions' anti-marijuana crusade ended up a quixotic quest, with even President Trump suggesting an openness to legal weed and leaving Sessions spinning in the wind.

• He ignored harm reduction principles and best practices aimed at reducing drug overdoses and the spread of blood-borne disease by threatening to crack down on safe injection sites, facilities where drug users can shoot up under medical supervision that also serve as a nexus between problematic users and treatment and social services.

• He undermined the work of the department's Civil Rights Division, particularly by moving to end the use of consent decrees that subject police departments troubled by brutality or discrimination to federal oversight.

Even some key Republican senators rejected his retrograde approach on marijuana and sentencing reform and have criticized his resort to civil asset forfeiture. While in the Senate, Sessions was one of the biggest obstacles to sentencing reform, and since he left, bipartisan support for drug policy reform has continued to grow. It's probably too much to expect progressive policies from anyone Trump appoints to replace Sessions, but it's hard to see getting someone more regressive.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) minced no words in its assessment of Sessions.

"Attorney General Jefferson Sessions was a national disgrace," said NORML director Erik Altieri. "NORML hopes that he finds the time during his retirement to seek treatment for his affliction of 1950s reefer madness."

The Trump administration needs to replace Sessions with someone more in tune with popular sentiment on marijuana, added NORML deputy director Paul Armentano.

With 33 states now recognizing the medical use of cannabis, and with 10 states having legalized the use and sales of marijuana for all adults, it is pivotal that the next US Attorney General be someone who recognizes that most Americans want cannabis to be legally regulated and that they oppose any actions from the Justice Department to interfere with these state-sanctioned efforts," he said.

The Drug Policy Alliance echoed that call.

"While Trump's dismissal of Sessions raises questions about the president's motivations, the Justice Department and Senate should seize this opportunity to right Sessions' wrongs," said DPA executive director Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno. "The US public understands that the drug war has failed spectacularly and needs to be replaced with a health-centered approach. It is critically important that the next attorney general be committed to defending basic rights and moving away from failed drug war policies."

Jeff Sessions: A man whose time has come -- and gone.

This article was produced by Drug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Drug Policy Alliance is a financial supporter of both Drug Reporter and Drug War Chronicle.