Virginia's GOP governor indicates he is not interested in legal marijuana sales, a New York city has to pay for firing a medical marijuana patient, and more.

Pennsylvania Poll Has Declining but Still Majority Support for Marijuana Legalization. A new poll from the Muhlenberg College Public Health Program has support for marijuana legalization at 50 percent, but that number also marks the a decline in support for legalization. Support peaked at 58 percent in 2021 and dropped to 56 percent in 2022. But the survey also has a relatively high margin of error, +/- 6 percentage points, meaning the drop could be a polling artifact instead of revealing a true decline.

The poll comes on the heels of the announcement last week that a bipartisan pair of state senators have introduced a marijuana legalization bill, Senate Bill 846.

Virginia's GOP Governor Says No to Legal Marijuana Sales. In 2021, Democratic lawmakers approved marijuana legalization but failed to reach an agreement on a legal marketplace, deferring resolution of the issue to the next legislative session. But that session flipped control of the legislature and the governorship to Republicans, who are much less interested in legalizing sales.

Now, the administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has given its clearest indication yet that he is not interested in getting a retail market up and running. "Governor Youngkin has stated that he is not interested in any further moves towards legalization of adult recreational use marijuana," Joseph Guthrie, Youngkin's commissioner of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Safety, said during a recent state meeting on marijuana.

Medical Marijuana

Minnesota Adds 19 New Qualifying Conditions, Waives Fees for Patients. Irritable bowel syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder are among the 19 different medical conditions just added to the state's very lengthy list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana. That went into effect July 1.

Also in effect as of July 1 is the waiving of registration fees for patients. Until now, it cost $200 a year. And patients can now be certified by a health practitioner, expanding the number of medical personnel who can make recommendations.

"They will enter that into our patient registry and then you are sent a link to go ahead and register for the medical cannabis program," said Office of Medical Cannabis Director Chris Tholkes. "As of July 1st, there is no longer an annual fee of 200 dollars. It's now zero to participate in our program."

New York Town Must Pay $200,000 After Firing Medical Marijuana Patient. The city of Amsterdam must pay almost $200,000 to a city worker fired after failing a drug screening for marijuana. A jury found that the city discriminated against Thomas Apholz, a wastewater treatment plant worker who was first suspended and then fired after the drug test.

The state legalized medical marijuana in 2014. State law grants registered medical marijuana patients disability status, which gives protection from employment discrimination for using medical marijuana.

After he was fired, he filed suit in state Supreme Court in Montgomery County, alleging unlawful employment discrimination and failure to accommodate his disability as required by the New York Humans Rights Law. And now he has won.

A bipartisan marijuana legalization bill is filed in Pennsylvania, New York puts legal weed sales at farmers markets on hold, and more.

A farmers market. There is no weed for sale at New York farmers markets -- at least not yet. (Pixabay)

Senate SAFE Banking Act Committee Vote Could Come This Month. Key senators have said they want to hold a vote on the long-awaited Safe and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act (S. 1323) this month as the Senate reconvenes after the 4th of July holiday. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said he would "like" to hold a vote this month but that "it depends" on whether unrelated bills the committee has already passed make it to a Senate floor vote.

Similarly, bill sponsor Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said legislators were "going to do a deep plunge now and try to set the stage, hopefully, for a markup when we return from break."

The bill, which repeatedly passed the House in previous years only to die in the Senate, would provide state-legal marijuana businesses with access to the financial system. Currently, the industry must deal almost exclusively with cash, leaving workers and owners vulnerable to theft and robbery.

New York Governor Delays Plan to Allow Legal Weed Sales at Farmers Markets. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is pausing a program to allow licensed marijuana growers and retailers to sell marijuana at farmers markets before it even got started. The Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) had announced the plan last month as part of an effort to help legal growers sitting on a mountain of weed -- more than 300,000 pounds -- because of the extreme slowness of opening up state-licensed retail outlets. Only 16 retailers and delivery services are open across the state.

But the Hochul administration made clear Wednesday that farmers market sales were not happening yet. "We are committed to the success of New York's equitable cannabis industry, and are always open to considering opportunities to strengthen the program. No final decisions have been made with respect to farmers markets," said Office of Cannabis Management spokesman Aaron Ghitelman.

The industry isn't happy: "The failure to roll out the farmer's market program is just the latest in OCM's long list of broken promises," said Rev. Kirsten John Foy, spokesman for the Coalition for Access to Regulated & Safe Cannabis. OCM has been ineffective at every turn; growers, CAURD licensees, disabled veterans, workers, consumers, medical cannabis patients and individuals harmed by cannabis prohibition are paying the price for its ineptitude -- all while the illicit market booms."

Pennsylvania State Senators File Bipartisan Marijuana Legalization Bill. Sens. Dan Laughlin (R-49) and Sharif Street (D-3) have introduced bipartisan legislation, Senate Bill 846, to legalize adult use of marijuana in Pennsylvania.

"Legalized adult use of marijuana is supported by an overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians and this legislation accomplishes that while also ensuring safety and social equity," said Laughlin. "With neighboring states New Jersey and New York implementing adult use, we have a duty to Pennsylvania taxpayers to legalize adult-use marijuana to avoid losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of new tax revenue and thousands of new jobs."

The legislation would grant licenses to sell marijuana to social and economic equity applicants while providing room for new and existing licensees to ensure demand in Pennsylvania is met. Moreover, it expunges non-violent marijuana convictions for medical marijuana patients, which has also been championed in a bipartisan fashion, and goes further to expunge all nonviolent marijuana convictions.

Harm Reduction

Delaware Begins Pilot Program to Test for Both Fentanyl and Xylazine. State health officials have launched a pilot program to test substances for the presence of both fentanyl and xylazine, the veterinary tranquilizer known as "tranq" that has now made its way into unregulated drug markets. The testing strips used detect the presence of either drug.

The test strip is the new HARMGuard FX test strip and cost about $3 each -- although the price could go down with bulk orders. The state initially ordered 500 of the test strips.

Amsterdam wants a city district to be part of a national regulated marijuana supply experiment, Florida's attorney general challenges a marijuana legalization initiative, and more.

Florida becomes the latest state to decriminalize fentanyl test strips. (Creative Commons)

Florida Attorney General Files Challenge to Marijuana Legalization Initiative. Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) this week filed a challenge to the Smart & Safe Florida marijuana legalization initiative with the state Supreme Court, arguing that it should not appear on the November ballot.

In her brief filed with the court, Moody argued that the measure misleads voters because it fails to make plain that marijuana is and would remain illegal under federal law. Moody also told the court that although it had approved similar language in other marijuana legalization initiatives, it was wrong to do so: "In previously approving similarly worded ballot summaries, the court erred," she wrote.

The ballot summary does say that the initiative does not change federal law, but that statement is "inadequate to resolve the confusion," Moody wrote.

Supreme Court approval is the last step for the initiative before it can appear on the November ballot. If it does, it will need 60 percent of the vote to be approved.

Harm Reduction

Florida Governor Signs Fentanyl Test Strip Bill into Law. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed into law Senate Bill 164, which decriminalizes fentanyl test strips by removing them from the state's definition of drug paraphernalia. Some 6,000 Floridians died of fentanyl overdoses in 2020, but a test strip decriminalization bill was defeated last year after some lawmakers said the move encouraged drug use.

International

Luxembourg Lawmakers Approve Marijuana Legalization Bill. Deputies approved limited marijuana legalization bill, Bill 8033, on Wednesday. The bill allows people to grow up to four plants at home and consume the fruits of their harvest at home. But use or possession of up to three grams outside the home can bring a fine of between 25 and 500 Euros, and offenses involving more than three grams can bring fines of up to 2500 Euros and jail terms ranging from eight days to six months.

The Pirate Party criticized the bill as "false legalization" because it does not address black market dealing.

Amsterdam Wants City District to Be Part of National Marijuana Cultivation Trial. Amsterdam has nominated the Amsterdam-Oost district to take part in a national experiment to regulate the supply of marijuana to coffeeshops, the city announced Wednesday. uring the experiment, which is expected to run for four to five years, coffeeshops will sell regulated, quality-controlled marijuana produced by selected growers.

Mayor Femke Halsema and city aldermen argued for the city to be included in the experiment because "the results of the experiment may eventually lead to changes in the tolerance policy, which may greatly affect the coffeeshops and cannabis market in Amsterdam." The city had initially been excluded from the trial because it had too many coffeeshops, but the cabinet recently decided to allow city districts to participate. With 100,000 inhabitants and 10 coffeeshops, Amsterdam-Oost now meets the qualifying conditions.

But the Ministers of Justice and Security and Health, Welfare, and Sport will have to decide whether the Amsterdam-Oost district can be included in the experiment. The other municipalities set to participate are Groningen, Almere, Arnhem, Nijmegen, Zaanstad, Hellevoetsluis, Breda, Tilburg, Maastricht and Heerlen.

A pair of senators file a bill to allow Mexican troops to be trained by the US military to fight drug cartels, the FDA issues its first draft guidance on psychedelics, and more.

GOP presidential contender Ron DeSantis does not want to free the weed. (florida.gov)

Federal Ban on DC Weed Sales Advancing Again in This Congress. A Fiscal Year 2024 spending bill that includes a ban on legal marijuana sales within the District of Columbia advanced in Congress last week. The spending bill was approved last Thursday by the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. The ban on DC weed sales was included as a rider to the spending bill, a move Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) denounced as "outrageous."

DC voters approved marijuana legalization in 2014, but Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) has used riders ever since to block the District from allowing sales by barring the use of any federal funds to do so. The riders survived even when Democrats controlled the House and now, under Republican control of the House, is included in the base spending bill.

Ron DeSantis Says He Would Not Decriminalize Marijuana if Elected President. President Ron DeSantis would not decriminalize marijuana, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said at a campaign event last Thursday. DeSantis was responding to a question from a person representing wounded veterans who asked him to "please" decriminalize the plant.

"I don't think we would do that," DeSantis responded, then pointed to Florida'' medical marijuana program, saying it "actually allowed access" for veterans to use marijuana, but that it was "controversial because obviously there's some people that abuse it and are using it recreationally."

He also made familiar claims about marijuana potency and repeated unfounded assertions that marijuana is being adulterated by other drugs such as fentanyl.

Psychedelics

FDA Issues First Draft Guidance on Clinical Trials with Psychedelic Drugs. The US Food and Drug Administration last Friday published a new draft guidance to highlight fundamental considerations to researchers investigating the use of psychedelic drugs for potential treatment of medical conditions, including psychiatric or substance use disorders. This is the first FDA draft guidance that presents considerations to industry for designing clinical trials for psychedelic drugs.

There has been growing interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs in recent years. They are being evaluated for use in the potential treatment of conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders and other conditions. However, designing clinical studies to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of these compounds presents a number of unique challenges that require careful consideration.

The purpose of the draft guidance is to advise researchers on study design and other considerations as they develop medications that contain psychedelics. Within the draft guidance, the term psychedelics refers to "classic psychedelics," typically understood to be drugs such as psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) that act on the brain's serotonin system, as well as "entactogens" or "empathogens" such as methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA).

Foreign Policy

Cornyn, King Introduce Bill to Increase US-Mexico Military Cooperation to Combat Cartels. US Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Angus King (I-ME) introduced the Partnership for Advancing Regional Training and Narcotics Enforcement Response Strategies (PARTNERS) Act, which would allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to train Mexican military forces in the United States to combat cartels in Mexico.

The PARTNERS Act would create a military-to-military pilot program through the DoD to bring Mexican military forces to the US to receive tactical training that they can employ in Mexico to counter transnational criminal organizations (TCO), including cartels, weapons dealers, drug traffickers, and human smugglers.

(This article was prepared by StoptheDrugWar.org's 501(c)(4) lobbying nonprofit, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also pays the cost of maintaining this website. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)