Study Finds Weed Cases Are Clogging Pennsylvania Courts

Marijuana-related criminal cases are clogging local courts in Pennsylvania and putting an unnecessary burden on scarce law enforcement resources, according to a new study from a justice reform advocacy organization.

The Lehigh Valley Justice Institute, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, reviewed 27,826 criminal cases of all kinds prosecuted in Lehigh County and Northampton County between January 2018 and March 2021. The group’s analysis found that “marijuana criminalization slows our criminal justice system” and puts a strain on “understaffed public defenders” in the two jurisdictions.

According to the report, a total of 4,559 (about one in six) of the cases included a marijuana charge. Among those cases, 96% also involved an additional nonviolent offense, or co-charge. The analysis also found that marijuana-related court cases took an average of nearly five months (162 days) to reach a conclusion. The report noted that the longest-lasting marijuana-related case took 1,129 days, or more than three years, to be resolved in the courts. The case also included one additional charge of disorderly conduct that was eventually withdrawn by the district attorney’s office.

A Waste Of Public Resources 

Joe Welsh, the executive director at the Lehigh Valley Justice Institute, said the report illustrates how prosecuting marijuana cases is expanding scarce public resources that could instead fund efforts to address “real crime.” Welsh also noted that nearby states including neighboring New Jersey have legalized adult-use cannabis, further illustrating the futility of continued prohibition. Regulated sales of adult-use cannabis began in New Jersey in April after Governor Phil Murphy signed recreational marijuana legislation into law in February 2021.

“Police are spending time charging people with marijuana offenses. That’s time taken away from serious crimes like rapes, murders and assaults,” Welsh said. “Particularly, considering that you can walk across the Northampton Street Bridge between Easton and Phillipsburg and purchase marijuana.”

Under Pennsylvania state law, marijuana possession is classified as a misdemeanor offense carrying penalties of up to $500 and a jail sentence of up to 30 days. However, local laws passed in Allentown and Bethlehem in 2018 reduced such charges to summary offenses, which do not require a suspect to be arrested. Instead, those convicted of a summary offense can avoid jail time and pay a fine as low as $25 for a first offense.

The local reforms were designed to give law enforcement officers more discretion when enforcing marijuana prohibition laws. But Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin has circumvented the local reforms by requiring police officers in the county to file state charges for marijuana offenses.

“Local city councils do not have the power or authority to deviate from state law,” Martin told lehighvalleylive.com in an email. “The state law preempts the field. I took an oath to uphold the U.S. and Commonwealth constitutions; therefore, I don’t decide to enforce only the laws I choose to enforce. I enforce the law as written.”

Pennsylvania Governor To Pardon Marijuana Convictions

The report from Lehigh Valley Justice Institute comes at a time of increased focus on the impact of marijuana-related convictions in the Keystone State. In September, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced that he would pardon convictions for eligible marijuana offenses, including some cases that include a nonviolent co-charge. 

“Pennsylvanians convicted of simple marijuana charges are automatically disqualified for so many life opportunities: jobs, education, housing, special moments with family. This is wrong,” Wolf said in a statement from the governor’s office. “In Pennsylvania, we believe in second chances – I’m urging those eligible to apply now, don’t miss your chance to forge a new path.”

At a recent appearance in Monroe County, Wolf reiterated his support for legalizing marijuana despite a lack of attention on the matter from lawmakers, noting the good that comprehensive cannabis policy reform can foster in the state of Pennsylvania.

“To date, there has been no movement to advance legislation,” Wolf said last month. “So, I’m here today to ask again, and to focus on two particular benefits of legalization – potential economic growth and much-needed restorative justice.”

The post Study Finds Weed Cases Are Clogging Pennsylvania Courts appeared first on High Times.

from News – High Times https://ift.tt/yaHsMO7
via IFTTT

Will LA’s Social Equity Retail Licensing Be Stopped?

This Thursday, December 8, 2022, the City of Los Angeles will open Phase 3, Round 2 of storefront retail licensing. The City will only accept applications from verified social equity applicants. It will select winners via a “triple-blind” lottery, awarding up to 100 retail licenses. But a guy in Michigan is trying to prevent the lottery from moving forward on constitutional grounds. Let’s look at what’s going on.

Law360 recently reported on a case filed by a Michigan resident seeking to halt LA’s program. The same plaintiff successfully halted licensing in parts of New York on similar grounds, and has also filed claims in other jurisdictions to varying degrees of success. His claims boil down to one key question: do LA’s social equity violate the Dormant Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution?

Before analyzing LA’s retail licensing program, let’s look at why the Dormant Commerce Clause is important. As we wrote in a recent post:

[I]n general the [Dormant Commerce Clause] prohibits states from enacting laws that place substantial burdens (discriminate) on interstate commerce. This means that when a state enacts a law that regulates interstate economic activity by favoring its own residents, as with Maine’s residency requirement, it must be “narrowly tailored”.

Broadly speaking, this means the state must be able to justifiable the discriminatory law. That’s the rub: Maine’s (and many other states’) requirement that medical marijuana licensees be state residents is clearly discriminatory against non-residents. In this case, Maine did not dispute that the law was not narrowly tailored and as a result the First Circuit found it unconstitutional.

States often try to stack the deck in favor of locals by implementing residency requirements, which we have noted for quite a while violate the Dormant Commerce Clause (see here from all the way back in 2015 and here from more recently). In virtually any other industry, challenging laws like this would have yielded a clear victory. But since cannabis is federally illegal, many folks didn’t raise Dormant Commerce Clause challenges until much more recently. And as mentioned above (in the case of Maine and New York, for example), they are starting to win.

Now turning back to LA’s social equity retail licensing program, LA required social equity applicants to meet the following criteria.

• A qualifying California Cannabis Arrest or Conviction* prior to November 8, 2016; and,
• At least one other eligibility criteria:
  • 10 years of cumulative residency in a Disproportionately Impacted Area, as defined by police reporting districts; or,
  • Low Income in the 2020 or 2021 calendar year.

In other words, to qualify, one must have an arrest in California. The plaintiff here claims he meets all of the above criteria except that he had an out-of-state conviction. So he alleges a Dormant Commerce Clause violation.

The plaintiff’s claims are very interesting from a legal point of view. LA did not adopt a residency requirement. Instead, it just required evidence of an in-state conviction, not an in-state residence.

Technically, nothing would prevent someone who lived in Los Vegas, London, or Beijing from applying so long as they had been convicted in California. So the city has some leeway to argue that there are no Dormant Commerce Clause issues in play. It’s less clear how the case will play out.

Stay tuned to the Canna Law Blog for updates on the Dormant Commerce Clause and cannabis licensing.

The post Will LA’s Social Equity Retail Licensing Be Stopped? appeared first on Harris Bricken Sliwoski LLP.

from Canna Law Blog™ https://ift.tt/Pm6NqCe
via IFTTT

Delivery is in the works for New York’s new legal weed stores

New York's first day of recreational sales remains unknown, but the Office of Cannabis Management announced delivery will start while NY waits for physical dispensaries to open.

The post Delivery is in the works for New York’s new legal weed stores appeared first on Leafly.

from Leafly https://ift.tt/96vftIm
via IFTTT

New Yorkers may soon be buying weed from union budtenders. Here’s why

New York established the nation’s first cannabis market with labor peace agreements. Here’s how that could affect the entire industry for years to come.

The post New Yorkers may soon be buying weed from union budtenders. Here’s why appeared first on Leafly.

from Leafly https://ift.tt/5xRT0jd
via IFTTT

Ohio Bill Would Allow Record Sealing, Expungement for Paraphernalia Convictions

The Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 288 on Nov. 30 with a 27-2 vote. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Nathan Manning, spoke to the Senate about his goals for this 975-page measure. “We have done a lot of work on this bill. And, really, the goal of this—we talk about criminal justice reform, we talk about tough-on-crime, soft-on-crime—really what we want to do is improve our criminal justice system and lower crime in our society and make our society a safer place,” said Manning. “And to do that, we did a lot of work here.”

Manning explained that “a lot of this bill is long-term, making sure that people that have entered our judicial system exit the judicial system as better people, and to lower recidivism rates, to improve their quality of life and to make sure that we have less victims in the future.”

Among many proposed changes, SB-288 would consider possession of cannabis paraphernalia a minor misdemeanor. “Arrest or conviction for a minor misdemeanor violation of this section does not constitute a criminal record and need not be reported by the person so arrested or convicted in response to any inquiries about the person’s criminal record, including any inquiries contained in any application for employment, license, or other right or privilege, or made in connection with the person’s appearance as a witness,” the current bill text states.

Those who receive a cannabis paraphernalia possession conviction would be allowed to seal their record from the public after six months have passed, and records would be eligible to be expunged after three years. The current draft notes that the application fee would cost “not more than $50.”

SB-288 now heads to the House of Representatives for further consideration. The 134th congressional assembly will end on Dec. 21, and if the bill is not passed in the House and then signed by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine then it will need to be reintroduced in the next legislative session.

Earlier this year in May, Ohio advocates decided to delay a ballot proposal for adult-use cannabis legalization to 2023. At the time, Republican state officials refused to consider the ballot proposal, so the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol sued them. The organization had already collected 140,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot, but the lawsuit settlement will allow them to keep those signatures going into next year.

“We expect that we’ll be able to do it,” Attorney Tom Haren said about the adult-use cannabis effort. “We’ll have staff get ready. Our intention is to give Ohio voters an opportunity to weigh in if the General Assembly continues to ignore them.”

It’s been two years since Ohio legalized medical cannabis, and as of March 2022 the state has collected $725 million in sales revenue. The state allows resident patients to use medical cannabis as a treatment for 22 conditions, but this number may change if the general assembly passes a current proposal if “the patient’s symptoms may reasonably be expected to be relieved from medical marijuana.”

Recently, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order to allow medical cannabis if it has been purchased in a state that has legalized medical cannabis. Although Ohio borders Kentucky, patients would not be legally allowed to buy medical cannabis in Ohio because it only allows residents to purchase cannabis as medicine. Currently, this only leaves Illinois as an option, with Missouri and Virginia to possibly open up later on when their medical cannabis programs take effect.

The post Ohio Bill Would Allow Record Sealing, Expungement for Paraphernalia Convictions appeared first on High Times.

from News – High Times https://ift.tt/Y0Oz9Qv
via IFTTT

Don’t Miss! New York Retail Dispensary Guidelines: What Every CAURD Applicant Needs to Know

Register Here

Date: December 7th, 2022

Time: 2 – 3pm EST

---

New York recently released its adult-use cannabis retail dispensary guidelines and there is a lot to unpack. We will likely see additional changes to New York’s rules and regulations, but the released guidelines provide a robust initial framework for applicants (past and future) to follow.

Join Harris Bricken’s lead New York cannabis attorneys, Simon Malinowski and Matthew Schwartz as they analyze the recently released regulations.

Simon and Matt will cover operating requirements, employee training, and marketing rules, among many other topics covered in New York’s retail dispensary guidelines.

---

Check out some of our past Canna Law Blog posts on New York’s cannabis regulation updates:

1. BREAKING: NY Federal Judge Blocks CAURD Licensing in Five Regions
2. New York’s Cannabis Retail Dispensary Regulations Are Here!
3. New York’s Cannabis Retail Dispensary Regulations, Part 1: Dispensary Operations

The post Don’t Miss! New York Retail Dispensary Guidelines: What Every CAURD Applicant Needs to Know appeared first on Harris Bricken Sliwoski LLP.

from Canna Law Blog™ https://ift.tt/YVJKrIl
via IFTTT

How to safely dry and store psychedelic mushrooms

Do shrooms go bad? How long can you store shrooms? Leafly experts explain the best ways to store magic mushrooms so you're ready for your next trip.

The post How to safely dry and store psychedelic mushrooms appeared first on Leafly.

from Leafly https://ift.tt/LXvorGB
via IFTTT