Saturday, November 14, 2020

ALEC Style Lobbying Group Comes to Cannabis

        Announcing the formation of a national cannabis organization dedicated to  providing best practices for regulators around the country. In the spirit of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), The Cannabis Regulatory Association (CANNRA) is made up of regulators from nineteen states. Focusing on industrial hemp, medical cannabis and adult use cannabis, the group is non partisan and takes no formal stance on decriminalization or legalization, according to a press release. The group will seek input from research organizations, public health officials, policymakers, legal authorities, advocacy groups, and cannabis industry participants. However, advocacy groups and industry members are not permitted to join CANNRA.

       Norman Birenbaum, President of CAMRA and Director of New York's cannabis programs said in the PR,   “The Cannabis Regulators Association will provide a much needed forum for regulators to engage with each other to identify and develop best practices, create model policies that safeguard public health and safety, and promote regulatory certainty for industry participants. CANNRA’s inaugural president. He continues, "The association will strive to create and promote harmony and standardization across jurisdictions which choose to legalize and regulate cannabis." (From Norman Birenbaum quote in CANNRA PR)  

The first Cannabis Regulators Roundtable was hosted in 2017 by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB). Rick Garza, Director of the WSLCB, said in the press release, “I am proud that the nation’s first Cannabis Regulators Roundtable meeting was hosted by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) in April 2017 with just the first four states to legalize adult-use cannabis: Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska.” (From Rick Garza quote in PR)

        CANNRA is expecting more state and local regulators to join in the future. By joining members will have access to "member regulators, resources for cannabis policy development and staff training, and will have the ability to access, and participate in the development of model standards and best practices for cannabis regulation."                                                   

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Cannabis Consumption Consulting Offered at AMC

                              Advocates for Medical Cannabis offers cannabis consumption consulting (CCC). With legal cannabis expanding in 4 states and Mississippi adopting a medical cannabis system, it is more important than ever new consumers learn safe and effective consumption methods and techniques.

       Cannabis is a great medicine for a wide variety of issues, but knowing how to use it is important. AMC will put their experience to work for you to develop a plan to help you get the most out of your cannabis healing. Cannabinoids, terpenes, dosing methods and concentrations, product selection, these are just a couple things AM                    C can help with.  

                     

Click Here to contact AMC and begin learning how cannabis can work for you.

Monday, October 5, 2020

How Inequitable Access to Medical Cannabis Leads to Negative outcomes with Law Enforcement

A look at regulations in Washington State that put medical cannabis patients between law enforcement and the cannabis plant.

 

By: Lukas Barfield (From the 2020 Cannabis Summit held on September 25, 2020)

 

Hello Everyone,

           I hope everyone is well in these crazy times.  Before I get started, I want to thank the Cannabis Alliance (CA). They worked really hard to make sure the platform we're using was/is blind accessible and that I was able to access it. I also want to thank them for being strong advocates for medical cannabis in Washington State and beyond. The CA emerged at a time when the two cannabis systems in WA were being merged. They understood the new system was coming at the detriment of patients and several groups came together to start the Alliance. Their strong footprint in the medical cannabis sector shows and patients in WA are better off because of the Cannabis Alliance.

      Today I want to talk about how inequitable access to medical cannabis Leads to negative outcomes with law enforcement" in Washington.   We hear a lot, justifiably, about how the lack of access to medical cannabis effects patient's health, but there's some other consequences to having spotty medical cannabis access. We first need to define some terms. "Inequitable access" can be defined as, your access to cannabis depends on where you live, your insurance status, what disability you have, and your socio-economic level. And, we all know these issues affect the POC community more than others.  There are Three types of patients in Washington: Qualified patients who have been referred by their doctor to consume medical cannabis, Registered patients who are qualified patients on the state's "Marijuana Authorization Database”, and then, there are the patients who use cannabis as medicine, but don't' consult doctors to do so. With registry numbers in the tank, it's believed there are less than ten thousand people on the registry, The third group is clearly the largest in the state. These three groups have varying possession limits, growing rights and different degrees of access to medical cannabis. Law enforcement is everyone from police to probation officers.  Let's first look at some different access spaces and some of the challenges face by patients.  

     I know it's hard, but imagine medical cannabis access residing in three large warehouses. I know giant warehouses of cannabis, "I know it's a stretch."  If you have some paper, you can draw three squares to represent these access spaces. Warehouse 1 is the stores, Warehouse 2 is patients growing for themselves, and warehouse 3 is the ultimate access, owning a cannabis business. Each warehouse has only one door in. Let's look first at warehouse 1 and some of its access issues. 

Warehouse 1 - Stores

     Retail cannabis stores should be the first and easiest access point for medical cannabis patients. If patients can make it to the store, many patients don't/can't drive, we are then faced with a myriad of access issues. One of the first is price. Washington is the only state in the country that taxes medical cannabis. At 37%, this is also one of the highest adult use excise taxes in the country.  High quality cannabis is $40 + an 1/8. That is a lot of money to someone on Social Security.  The higher prices prompt patients to look for cheaper selections, but this becomes our second barrier, general confusion and unreliability when it comes to selection. Washington has a very small "medical cannabis" portfolio, and I've found if you don't watch out you can really come away with some bad product.   The next barrier for accessing the store is hygiene, or rather the lack thereof. The LCB doesn't require mold, heavy metal, or pesticide testing. Patients know this, and many are hesitant to access the stores at all. Another is not being able to smell or more closely scrutinize cannabis before purchase.  There are other issues like registry security, perceived lack of cannabis knowledge at the stores, and purchase amounts that keep patients from accessing medical cannabis in Washington retail stores.  

Warehouse 2 - Patients Providing for Themselves  

      In 1998 Washington voted on I-692, which basically opened it up for patients to grow their own medical cannabis. Over the years the state would attempt to regulate the practice, and by 2011  a loose regulatory structure emerged. 2012 saw the passage of I-502 (adult use), and by 2015 SB 5052, "The Cannabis Patient Protection Act," had merged medical and adult use cannabis. 5052 took a loose assortment of laws that allowed patients to grow 15 plants individually and far more on a collective basis, and scrapped them in favor of a draconian grow scheme that only allows four plants for qualified patients and six, with an option for fifteen for registered patients. One of the most efficient cultivation models in the world (Uruguay and Spain both use a "co-op" model to distribute cannabis) was snatched right out from under Washington patients in 2015. Did all those people suddenly stop growing?  Many did, but others did not.  5052 turned a large portion of WA patients into criminals overnight.

Warehouse 3 - Ownership

      Back at the beginning of 2015, SB 5052 was just introduced, a fellow activist and I went to a cannabis farmers market in Tacoma. I had not, and still haven't seen anything like what awaited me. There were venders from the POC community, men, women, old, young and people with disabilities offering their cannabis flower, concoctions and cultivars. It was amazing, but my wonder was short lived. 5052 left all those people out by outlawing the markets and countless medical cannabis entrepreneurs.  Many of them, who were patients themselves, went underground or out of business. Some were arrested later when the market was shut down.  At the moment, The LCB isn't issuing licenses, and even if you could get one, it costs a half a million dollars to open a proper cannabis business. The legislature passed a cannabis social equity bill and formed a "Social Equity in Marijuana Task Force", but the WSLCB is stalling issuing guidance and licenses. Like the other two "warehouses", the lack of access to this building is driving people right into a fourth warehouse, the underground market. This puts people right where we don't want them, between law enforcement and the cannabis plant.  

Arrests in a Legal State?      

Multiple studies show cannabis arrests went down significantly after legalization, but problems still persist. There are still RCWs on the books that allow police to interfere in your life over small amounts of cannabis.   I did a FOI request in July for Tacoma "marijuana" arrests, and there were 52 people charged with a cannabis crime in Tacoma in 2019. Most look to be possession.  A report in 2018 looked at several sources of compiled data.  The Washington Office of Financial Management filed a report that found cannabis "incidents" dropped in WA, but the types of crimes remained the same, with possession taking the top slot for arrests at 90%.  In 1999, people were charged with possession in WA, and in 2015 three years after I-502 and 17 years after Washington's original medical cannabis initiative. The report also found legal cannabis sales in a county did not correlate with lower arrest rates in that county. This is the same study that found African Americans were 2.7 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis than whites, despite an overall drop in arrests.  Unfortunately, we don't have relevant data on these arrests, so it's hard to say how many use cannabis as medicine, but with large numbers of Americans facing ongoing health issues, 1 in 4 having a diagnosed disability. Washington has such dismal registration numbers; it makes sense to say that many people arrested for cannabis in Washington are medical cannabis patients. Furthermore, there are reports of registered patients being arrested.   These interactions with police are unpredictable at best, and lead to some of our most vulnerable citizens in harm's way.   

Some Simple Solutions

       I just don't want to be all negative. The I-502 system does have a lot to offer patients and arrest rates dropping is a good thing. Our three warehouses are fixable. We have a good work crew to make the repairs, but can we muster the political will to push the legislature to make some changes?     Some solutions that I see to these problems are: lowering the 37% excise tax for registered patients, increasing the plant count for "qualified" patients from 4 to 6, and increasing access to seeds and clones for patients. This is only a fix for Warehouse 1 and 2. Retro fitting warehouse 3 by opening licenses is a much larger discussion, but following through on Washington's social equity promises would be a good start. Farmers markets, farm to patient purchasing, and increasing patient co-ops are some other solutions that would open up Washington's cannabis industry to more people.   

      By expanding access to medical cannabis in Washington, the state can begin to fulfill the promises of I-692 and I-502. Both of which are intended to chip away at cannabis' illegality. SB 5052 is called the "Cannabis Patient Protection Act." Let's actually protect patients in Washington, not from negative health outcomes, but from law enforcement.  These fixes won't be easy, but with the help of groups like the Cannabis Alliance and others medical cannabis will get better in Washington.                         

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Cannabis Advisory Council 12/17/19 Thoughts and Observations

By
Lukas Barfield

           I attended the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board's (WSLCB) Cannabis Advisory Council for the first time as the "patient representative." The agenda for the two hour meeting included a speaker covering the vaping crisis, a overview of the Boards' priorities for the upcoming session and a presentation from other groups about their priorities in the 2020 legislative session. Although the Board and other members were very welcoming, I heard little at the Council that will benefit medical cannabis patients on the horizon. Here are some of my thoughts on the meeting.  
       In terms of patient safety the vaping presentation was alarming. According to the Board only 400 out of over 4000 "ingredient disclosure" forms have been turned in. These are forms the Board is asking, a little to politely imo, vape cart processors to turn in, disclosing the ingredients to their vape carts.  If ever there was an argument for separate medical cannabis products this is one. The Board seems to be unaware how dangerous unknown contaminants can be to people with severe health issues, or not care. There really seemed to be no sense of urgency on figuring out what is in the vape carts out there in the 502.
       The next agenda item revealed the Boards plan to help patients this session. The one bill they have for patients, which still has to be given the green light by the Governor, is to allow registered medical cannabis patients to buy directly from Tier 1 producers. Sort of a good idea, the plan in theory would help struggling Tier 1's and allow patients to buy from their favorite farm. This idea is rife with problems, the least of which is how are patients, who many can't drive, going to get out to the rural farms? And, where are all the registered patients asking for this. Hint, there are none.
          The final item asked Council members to present their priorities for the coming session. The Washington Cannabusiness Association offered up some awful legislation, trying to mask a corporate capital influx with an equity bill. bad idea. They also want to allow CBD only in 502 stores, another bad idea.  I did hear the words "farmer's market" from several groups.  My priorities included removal of the 37% excise tax on medical cannabis,  better legal protections for patients, clarification on designated providers and donation limits and education. I didn't' mention it, but homegrows are also on my priority list. What's some of yours. Send over any suggestions you may have to emailmmcws@gmail.com
        Overall, I came away from the meeting feeling like I do when I interact on this level with most able bodied people. They have no idea how to communicate with, talk about, work with or help people with disabilities . To me medical cannabis is first a disability issue, then a economic or farming issue. Definitely not a law enforcement issue as the Board seems to think. In short, they just don't get it. but, that's why I'm doing this. I want to help them get it and "yes", maybe the LCB will never get it, but just having more voices speaking up for patients will help in the long run.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Alabama one Step Closer to Medical Cannabis


The Alabama Senate has passed a medical cannabis bill, which if passed will make Alabama the thirty forth sate to adopt medical cannabis. The bill will allow patients over nineteen to obtain a medical cannabis recommendation for a variety of conditions like cancer, autism, MS, PTSD and all terminal illnesses. The bill would set up the Alabama Cannabis Commission that will set up a patient registry, issue medical cannabis cards and be responsible for licensing the production, processing and dispensing of cannabis in Alabama. The legislation passed on a 17 to 6 vote and now heads to the Alabama House where a similar bill was introduced in March.   

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Washington Could be the 5th State to Allow Medical Cannabis in Schools

      The Washington State Senate has passed a bill requiring school districts to allow parents to administer CBD infused products on public school grounds, on buses and at school sanctioned events. Following a 77-19 vote in the Washington House, the bill passed easily in the Senate with a vote of 41-4 and is now headed back to the House for final approval. Students receiving the nonsmokable cannabidiol must be registered in the state medical cannabis database and only their parents are permitted to administer the CBD rich products, a provision meant to protect school district employees from issues with the Federal Government. Additionally, portions of the bill requires a review of the program if the federal Government does threaten school funding.
      The prime sponsor of the bill for the third year, Representative Brian Blake, D Aberdeen commented “We want to give the school system, the K-12 system, some comfort because they said they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. I think there was some objections in the Republican caucus about the word marijuana in the title. think it freaked people out.”
 (From Rep Brian Blake quote to Spokesman Review)
      Despite recent advances in Cannabidiol public policy and science, thirty three states and D.C. have full plant medical cannabis systems, with ~17 more having high CBD laws, the FDA famously approved the first oral CBD spray in 2018 and the University of Alabama Birmingham recently found CBD to be an effective treatment for seizure disorders, school districts around the country still struggle at the intersection of local, state and Federal cannabis laws. Remarkably, if passed Washington would only be the fifth state to require school districts statewide to allow parents to administer medical cannabis at schools.

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Tell the WSLCB to Require Terpenes on Cannabis Labels


      The WSLCB is taking public comment on packaging and labeling rules. This would be a good time to let them know medical cannabis patients would be better served in the state if  producers and processors were required to put the top 3 terpenes on their labels. This would also help adult users get away from the sativa and indica guessing game in which bud tenders and consumers basically guess about the effects of a particular strain. By listing the terpenes, educated consumers would be able to choose exactly what they need/want when it comes to the effects of their cannabis.
       To contact the WSLCB and submit your public comment concerning terpene labeling on cannabis packaging, send an email to rules@lcb.wa.gov