Vaping weed is supposed to be a safer alternative to smoking, but is it really? Learn about the VAPI outbreak, and new studies on vaping.
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Arkansas state officials announced last week that a proposed ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana has received enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Activists with the group Responsible Growth Arkansas, which is headed by former Arkansas Democratic House minority leader Eddie Armstrong, submitted the petitions to the secretary of state’s office last month, saying at the time they had collected more than twice as many signatures necessary to qualify the proposal for this year’s general election.
Kevin Niehaus, a spokesman for the Arkansas secretary of state’s office, said after signature counters reached 90,000 verified signatures on Thursday night they notified the Responsible Growth Arkansas campaign that the constitutional amendment initiative had been approved for the November ballot. State officials will now concentrate their efforts on verifying signatures for a separate measure to amend Arkansas’ casino gambling statute.
“Because of the time frame to get this done, they stopped at 90,000 verified signatures and now have moved on to the casino petition,” Niehaus said on Friday. “Knowing how many signatures they still had left to go and with it already reaching 90,000 signatures, they felt comfortable saying they made it.”
If the initiative is successful at the polls in November, it would legalize cannabis for use by adults 21 and over. The proposal would also allow the state’s existing medical pot growers and dispensaries to apply for adult-use cannabis licenses. Another 40 licenses, to be awarded through a lottery system, would also be issued for recreational marijuana operations. The total number of licenses statewide would be limited to 20 cultivation and 120 dispensary licenses, including those for existing medical marijuana businesses.
In July, Responsible Growth Arkansas submitted petitions containing 192,828 signatures of voters supporting the legalization amendment. Under state law, the group needed 10% of the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, or 89,151 signatures, to qualify for this year’s ballot. Officials with the campaign said that support for the initiative effort was strong across the state.
“It was across the entire state, and it really shows a broad level of support geographically,” said Steve Lancaster, counsel for Responsible Growth Arkansas. “To get that many signatures from Arkansans it can’t be all Democrats, or all Republicans, or all Independents. You need a large swath of Arkansans to get that many signatures. The people want to vote on this and make this decision themselves.”
“We are really grateful for the voters who signed our petitions and appreciative to the secretary of state’s office for verifying our signatures,” Lancaster added.
Before the measure is officially approved for the ballot, the proposal’s ballot title and popular name must be approved by the Arkansas Board of Election Commissioners. Lancaster said that a meeting of the panel is expected to take place on Wednesday.
The effort by Responsible Growth Arkansas is one of two proposals to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state. A separate measure from activists to qualify the Arkansas Adult Use and Expungement Marijuana Amendment for the ballot has been pushed back until 2024. Under that proposal, the number of business licenses would be set as a proportion of the state’s population. The proposal also includes provisions for the home cultivation of cannabis, expungement of past pot-related convictions, and assistance for low-income medical cannabis patients.
Patient advocate Melissa Fults, who opposes the Responsible Growth Arkansas measure, hopes that voters will wait until 2024 to legalize recreational pot. She is also skeptical of the number of signatures submitted by the campaign.
“It’s kind of strange,” she said. “We were told by supposedly very reliable sources they only had 79,000 signatures at the start of June. In 30 days they got 120,000 signatures during one of the hottest summers around. I am really concerned about how valid those signatures are.”
But Niehaus noted that the secretary of state’s office uses software that goes through the submitted petitions page by page to verify the number of signatures.
“It verifies if they are a registered voter and makes sure they didn’t accidentally sign a petition two or three times,” Niehuas said.
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The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) commissioned a report about educational campaigns on cannabis and driving on July 26. The GHSA partnered with National Alliance to Stop Impaired Driving to create a playbook written specifically for State Highway Safety Offices (SHSO).
Governors Highway Safety Association’s Executive Director, Jonathan Adkins, explained the need for a playbook that is up to date regarding cannabis legalization, overall acceptance of cannabis by consumers, and more. “As legal cannabis use becomes more widespread in the U.S., motorists need to know the dangers of driving under the influence,” said Adkins. “But that message won’t be heard if it’s outdated, irrelevant or insulting to cannabis consumers. This new report offers a playbook to help states develop messaging that resonates with cannabis users and prompts them to refrain from driving for their own safety and the safety of everyone else on the road.”
The report, called “Cannabis Consumers and Safe Driving: Responsible Use Messaging,” is based on a variety of surveys and interviews, and expands upon an unpublished 2021 Cannabis Regulators Association white paper with “additional strategies and recommendations about promising practices that can enhance safety partnerships and increase the effectiveness of outreach and education on cannabis use and driving.”
The report states that prior to the pandemic, approximately 21% of drivers involved in fatal vehicle crashes had THC in their systems. During the pandemic, this percentage rose to 33% (and for comparison, the percentage of people with alcohol in their systems was only 29%). In a survey conducted by AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety Culture Index, drivers view impairment of alcohol and cannabis differently. When asked about driving while under the influence of alcohol, 95% of people believed it was “very or extremely dangerous.” When asked the same question about cannabis, only 69% responded with the same answer.
The GHSA report writes that further education is key to promoting safe driving and enforcement. It reviewed educational campaigns that have been implemented in Colorado and Washington, which were the first states to legalize cannabis. It also addressed current education efforts that learn from those earlier campaigns, such as the “simple, non-judgmental” messages in Connecticut that have been promoted on social media channels, radio, TV, billboards, bus panels, and printed materials. While cannabis became legal in Connecticut on July 1, 2021, retail sales won’t begin until later this year. However, the report also examines an educational campaign in Wyoming, where cannabis is currently still illegal.
After reviewing the content, the report addresses “promising practices” that the authors view as useful for developing education campaigns, such as partnering with cannabis industry groups, receiving dedicated funding, and using specific wording in campaign messages.
In more detail, the report’s five main recommendations explore campaign success based on the presented examples.
First, it recommends that funding be derived from cannabis sales tax revenue, in partnership with local state legislators. Second, it highly recommends partnering with a variety of cannabis groups with the shared goal of consumer safety. “Working together, collaborative education campaigns can reflect the desires of all partners to help keep cannabis consumers safe,” the report explained.
Third, the report also explained the importance of the campaign messengers. Government leaders and institutions are “generally not good choices,” so it’s essential to choose respected individuals who are a part of the cannabis community to get the point across. The specific words chosen for a campaign can also lend to its success and maintain credibility, such as avoiding archaic terms such as pot or weed, or using “consumer” instead of “user.”
Finally, the report states that a campaign message should be chosen with care and respect. “Insulting or judging the target audience rarely improves message reception and turns people off, resulting in the message getting lost. Not driving after using cannabis should be the primary focus of informational campaigns, not the use of cannabis itself,” the report explains. “Messaging that appeals to the risks versus rewards of driving after consuming cannabis can be effective with the target audience, which tends to be young and male. Because it is not clear what responsible use of cannabis really is or looks like, appeals to moral sensitivity—normative choices that are considered ‘good’ or ‘right’—may have a greater effect on changing behavior than the usual ‘just don’t do it’ messaging.”
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American lives have been uprooted because of simple misdemeanor marijuana offenses—punishments for an activity that is now legal for various purposes in 38 states. But new legislation would provide the needed mechanism to help Americans clear low-level marijuana offenses at the federal level.
Congressmen Troy A. Carter, Sr. (D-LA) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) introduced The Marijuana Misdemeanor Expungement Act—bipartisan legislation that would create an expungement pathway for low-level violations of federal marijuana offenses.
It would provide “an expedited, orderly process that clears the deck of non-felony marijuana offenses” in the federal system, according to a July 29 press release.
Weldon Angelos, president of The Weldon Project, testified on behalf of decriminalizing cannabis at the federal level, and defended Americans suffering from the burden of past offenses on July 26 at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. His whole testimony can be read here. He also supported and helped to introduce the Marijuana Misdemeanor Expungement Act.
Angelos explained how federal misdemeanor charges can have the same end result as a felony when it comes to the way records impact individuals.
“One thing about the federal system is that there’s absolutely no way to expunge a record, so basically a misdemeanor in the federal system functions like a felony because it stays on your record forever—unlike most of the 50 states which have some kind of mechanism to expunge a low-level possession cannabis offenes,” Angelos tells High Times. “The federal system has nothing. So it stays on your record for life.”
Other similar bills have been introduced, but Angelos explained how the bills could potentially work together. Last December, Congressman Dave Joyce (OH-14), co-chair of the House Cannabis Caucus, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) introduced the Harnessing Opportunities by Pursuing Expungement (HOPE) Act. This bipartisan bill aims to help states with expunging cannabis offenses by reducing the financial and administrative burden of such efforts through federal grants.
“Me and Professor [Erik] Luna came up with the idea because Congress right now can’t pass something comprehensive,” Angelos says. “So we tried to find something that Republicans would be okay with, and that would still be some kind of progress, and something that also the Democrats could couple with—something like the HOPE Act or the SAFE Banking Act. It’s so that we can get something done this year, and that’s really the idea.”
“I want to thank the cosponsors for introducing this important legislation, which offers an approach to marijuana expungement that is coherent, efficient, and just—all without threatening public safety,” said Professor Erik Luna, who founded the Academy for Justice at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Angelos explained that federal misdemeanor offenses impact him personally.
“I know three people—personally—who have been charged with federal marijuana misdemeanor charges. And this is from 2003 or so, and it still shows up when they do background checks.”
“Today it still impacts them.”
Congressmen Carter and Davis applauded the bill as co-sponsors. “I’m proud to introduce The Marijuana Misdemeanor Expungement Act, bipartisan legislation that will restore justice to millions of Americans who have suffered inordinate collateral consequences associated with marijuana-related misdemeanors,” said Congressman Carter. “These misdemeanors—even without a conviction—can result in restrictions to peoples’ ability to access educational aid, housing assistance, occupational licensing and even foster parenting. Delivering justice for our citizens who have been impacted by marijuana-related misdemeanors is a key component of comprehensive cannabis reform.”
“Given the number of states, like Illinois, where marijuana has long been legalized for adult-use, we must ensure that our criminal justice system keeps pace so that individuals with low-level misdemeanor violations related to its use does not preclude them from getting jobs and participating in society,” said Congressman Davis.
In addition, broad bills to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level are making their way through the legislative process. Last April, the House passed the MORE Act, which was introduced by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), but the bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate. The House also passed the SAFE Banking Act recently to allow legal cannabis businesses to use banking services.
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State officials in Oklahoma have put a moratorium on issuing new licenses for medical marijuana businesses in a bid to allow the state’s cannabis regulators to catch up with oversight of a burgeoning medicinal cannabis industry. Under the moratorium, which was passed by state lawmakers earlier this year, no new licenses for medical growers, processors or dispensaries will be issued by the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) for a period of at least two years.
Oklahoma voters legalized the use and sale of medical pot with the approval of State Question 788 in 2018, a ballot measure that created the least tightly regulated legal cannabis market in the nation. Corbin Wyatt, owner of Likewise Dispensary, said that the state’s medical marijuana law included few barriers to entry for entrepreneurs seeking opportunities in cannabis.
“It was easy,” Wyatt told local media. “You pay $2,500 and you can open your business pretty much anywhere.”
In May, Oklahoma lawmakers passed House Bill 3208, which puts a two-year pause on issuing new licenses for medical cannabis businesses. The new restrictions under the measure were originally scheduled to become effective on August 1, but bills must go into effect at least 90 days after passage unless they gain a two-thirds majority vote in the legislature. The bill was signed by Governor Kevin Stitt on May 26, making it effective on August 26 under state law.
Applications for new medical cannabis businesses submitted before the moratorium goes into effect will be processed by the OMMA. But applications that are denied or received after the deadline will not be considered until 2024 at the earliest.
Mark Woodward, public information officer for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN), said the state already has over 2,200 medical dispensaries, making oversight of the businesses by state regulators a logistical challenge.
“That’s a tremendous amount of dispensaries,” Woodward told a Tulsa television news crew. “It’s more than California, Oregon, Alaska, Washington, Nevada and New Mexico combined.”
Woodward said that many of the businesses that have been operating in the state, even some that have been licensed by the OMMA, have been producing cannabis for shipment out of Oklahoma illegally. He added that some of the state’s 8,500 medical weed cultivators have ties to organized crime organizations from the United States, Mexico, and China that have moved into the state, many during the COVID-19 pandemic, to take advantage of Oklahoma’s inexpensive licensing fees and relatively lax cannabis regulations.
“We’ve talked to our law enforcement partners from New York to Florida, and they say we are the number one supplier of black market marijuana on the East Coast,” he said.
Woodward said that some of the state’s licensed medical dispensaries are selling cannabis that has been produced by illicit growers and processors. He added that the pause in new businesses will give regulators and the OBN an opportunity to regulate the state’s medical marijuana supply chain more closely.
“This moratorium will allow us to focus on those we already have in place and make sure they’re either following the law or going after those bad actors,” he explained.
Matt Boyd, the owner of the Green Cross Meds cannabis dispensary in Tulsa, said that the state’s saturated market has caused profits from his business to drop by two-thirds.
“In the last year, I’m not the only dispensary owner that has felt a decline in business, and it’s not because of anything we’ve done different,” he explained. “It’s just because there’s been so many dispensaries that have opened up. Just the limit of ‘no more new dispensaries’ coming into business is gonna help all of us existing dispensary owners now.”
Boyd said that the two-year moratorium on new retailer licenses will slow the impact on existing retailers.
“It’s time to allow a market that’s brand new, a brand-new grassroots industry in our state, to kinda have some balance, y’know?” Boyd said. “And that’s just what it’s gonna take.”
Oklahoma lawmakers recently passed a total of 12 bills to tighten regulations on the state’s medical cannabis industry, including a requirement that new dispensaries and cultivation operations be located at least 1,000 ft. from schools. The moratorium on the issuance of new licenses is scheduled to be in effect until August 1, 2024, or until the medical marijuana authority catches up on the backlog of pending applications. But some business owners believe that may never happen.
“Until the OMMA either feels that they are able to control everything and it’s an opportune time to issue new licenses, but most people are saying that won’t ever come,” Wyatt said.
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