Minnesota Supreme Court Reverses Vape Liquid Conviction

As Minnesota approaches the legalization of marijuana, the Minnesota Supreme Court has just ruled on a case we covered in September 2021.  The case involves the difference between hemp and marijuana and a state prosecutor’s burden to prove what side of the line a leafy or liquid cannabis substance falls. As we explained two years ago, the ruling impacted manufacturers, processors, sellers, distributors, and consumers of any liquid form of Hemp/CBD. Back then we predicted an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court by the Minnesota Public Defender’s Office on behalf of the defendant. Notably, the Minnesota Industrial Hemp Association and the Minnesota Cannabis Association both filed amicus briefs the in light of the terrible practical effects of the Court of Appeals’ ruling on the hemp industry.

Our summary of the case from our earlier coverage

State troopers executed an arrest warrant at a home in Brainerd, Minnesota. The officers found the defendant at the home and observed cannabis smoking paraphernalia (a pipe, rolling papers, a grinder, and a torch lighter) and a plastic tote box. The officers then obtained a search warrant and found three pounds of a “leafy plant material” and 89 vaporizer cartridges containing an “amber-colored liquid.”

The defendant was tried and convicted of possession of a controlled substance. But his trial occurred after enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill, which defined hemp as “[t]he plant species Cannabis sativa L. and any part of that plant . . .  with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.” It also imposed a controversial “total” THC testing requirement.” The Farm Bill also removed hemp from the definition of marijuana. Not long after, Minnesota adopted an industrial hemp program in 2019.

The state’s expert at trial testified the plant material was “marijuana” based on her visual inspection. And she testified that the liquid in the vape cartridges contained THC. But the expert did not provide any testimony regarding the THC concentration of either the liquid mixture in the vaporizer cartridges or the plant material in the plastic bags.

The defendant appealed arguing, among other things, that the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either the plant material or the vape liquid was (illegal) marijuana instead of (legal) hemp because there was no evidence as total THC concentration.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals agreed with defendant as to the plant material and reversed the conviction. Oddly, however, it affirmed his conviction for the vape liquid, concluding that Minnesota’s criminal code applied to liquids (but not plant material) without regard for the THC concentration.

Supreme Court reverses vape liquid conviction

Nearly two years later, the Minnesota Supreme Court has reversed that portion of the Court of Appeals’ decision. The court held:

Because Minn. Stat. § 152.01, subd. 9, explicitly excludes “hemp” from the definition of “marijuana” and these substances are distinguished based on their delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of a substance exceeds 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis to obtain a conviction for a fifth-degree controlled substance crime under Minn. Stat. § 152.025, subds. 1(1) and 2(1) (2022).

So the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the vape liquid conviction because the State offered insufficient evidence to establish “that the delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of the plant material and liquid mixture in vaporizer cartridges found in the defendant’s possession exceeded 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.”

Going forward, the decision may not mean much in Minnesota if enacts legislation permitting adult use marijuana. But this is certainly welcome news for this defendant and an important precedent for persons in other states where “hemp” is legal and “marijuana” is illegal. This case establishes that the government bears the burden of proving a substance is the latter, not the former. Feel free to email me if you’d like a copy of the decision, Minnesota v. Loveless, Case No. A20-1254 (Mar. 22, 2023).

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U.S. Conservative Group Calls for Prince Harry to be Deported Over Past Drug Use

Prince Harry’s visa should be denied and he should be deported from the U.S., a conservative group is demanding.

When Prince Harry detailed his history with pot and other drugs in his autobiography, he made heads roll, especially in conservative circles on both sides of the Atlantic. The Heritage Foundation—a conservative think tank in operation for over 50 years—called for the deportation of Prince Harry over his admissions to past drug use including pot and cocaine. 

The Duke of Sussex, 38, is currently living in Los Angeles with his wife Meghan Markle and son, Archie. But Harry is living on a visa, and has no plans of seeking permanent U.S. residency or U.S. citizenship, despite being eligible. The couple quit the Royal Family and moved to California in January 2020, where they continued to be a focal point for tabloids and aggressive paparazzi.

A representative from The Heritage Foundation said the organization is in arms with the U.S. State Department, as they are refusing to release any details about Prince Harry’s visa application, The Mercury News reports. 

The power couple is often the target of conservative media, which often sides with the Royal Family instead of Prince Harry. The Heritage Foundation entered the arena by challenging his visa status.

“This request is in the public interest in light of the potential revocation of Prince Harry’s visa for illicit substance use and further questions regarding the Prince’s drug use and whether he was properly vetted before entering the United States,” Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, told the Daily Mail.

In Prince Harry’s controversial autobiography Spare, which was published this past January, he revealed that he first snorted coke at age 17 and again on a few other occasions. He also toked up after his first date with Meghan Markle. “I started doing it recreationally and then started to realize how good it was for me,” Harry said. “I would say it is one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with the traumas and the pains of the past.”

Prince Harry also detailed his adventures with shrooms, talking to the toilet and having strange visions. High Times has been following reports of his pot use since at least 2017. (Tyler Dooley, Meghan’s nephew and the son of Meghan’s half-brother Thomas Markle Jr., got into the cannabis industry back in 2015 and released the Markle Sparkle strain.)

Is Prince Harry’s Visa Truly at Risk?

But according to law, visa records are considered confidential. “Visa records are confidential under Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said. 

Legal experts aren’t sure if Harry’s past drug use actually could threaten his visa status, allowing him to stay in the United States to live and work. “An admission of drug use is usually grounds for inadmissibility,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Page Six. “That means Prince Harry’s visa should have been denied or revoked because he admitted to using cocaine, mushrooms and other drugs.”

New Jersey-based attorney James Leonard, disagreed with Rahmani and said that Prince Harry’s visa status is not at risk.

“Absent any criminal charge related to drugs or alcohol or any finding by a judicial authority that Prince Harry is a habitual drug user, which he clearly is not, I don’t see any issue with the disclosures in his memoir regarding recreational experimentation with drugs,” Leonard said.

The post U.S. Conservative Group Calls for Prince Harry to be Deported Over Past Drug Use appeared first on High Times.

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Czech Republic Cannabis Magazine Editor in Chief Found Guilty for Publishing Weed Content

Robert Veverka is editor in chief and publisher of a Czech Republic publication called Legalizace, which has been publishing since 2010. According to Volteface, it often contained content relating to how to obtain cannabis illegally, how to grow the plant, and how to process and use it. It would also occasionally contain seed packets, as sale and possession of cannabis seeds is legal, as well as advertisements for fertilizer or seed banks.

It began five years ago when a local Czech grower was caught growing 38 cannabis plants using seeds contained in Legalizace. Although the grower intended to use cannabis to make a topical cream for himself, law enforcement began to look more closely at the Veverka and his magazine.

Veverka was taken to court starting in summer 2020. By November 2021, the District Court of Bruntál fined Veverka 50,000 Kč (or Czech Koruna, which equates to approximately $2,200 USD). According to presiding Judge Marek Stach, Veverka was guilty of producing more than 200 articles, published between 2010-2020, which could tempt readers to conduct illegal acts relating to cannabis. Stach added that “even one single article with the potential to incite readers is enough for the Legalizace magazine to constitute the crime of inciting and promoting toxicomania,” according to a press release from Legalizace and covered by the International Cannabis Business Conference.

Veverka chose to appeal that initial ruling, claiming that he was sentenced under a “rubber law.” “It is very flexible, [and] includes a paragraph that says that the promotion of illegal substances, with the exception of alcohol, can be considered a crime,” he said in an interview with CannaReporter about the law.

Most recently in March, Veverka was convicted in a regional court in Ostrava, the third largest city in the Czech Republic, for “inciting the abuse of addictive substances” and “spreading drug addiction through his magazine.” The next step would be for Veverka to appeal to the Supreme and Constitutional Court. “I will try to take this further to the highest courts to protect not only myself but any other media outlet that chooses to write about cannabis,” Veverka told Prague Morning.

In an interview with Cannabis Therapy on March 13, Veverka spoke about the most recent verdict. “I feel branded, damaged, and personally disgusted,” Veverka said. “Unfortunately, the verdict lends credence to the prosecution’s case, which reflects an ignorance of cannabis legislation and is based on a general repressive view that positive information about cannabis is unacceptable to the establishment. Moreover, according to my three-year prosecution and the court’s verdict, publishing is even an illegal activity.”

“The court’s judgement refers to a section in the law on the propagation of “toxicomania”—toxic addiction—a Bolshevik relic from the days of the totalitarian communist regime, which also prosecuted and punished people for inappropriate opinions,” he continued.

The current verdict leaves Veverka the choice to either pay CZK 250,000 (approximately $11,000 USD) or go to prison. “I definitely do not agree with the verdict: I consider the punishment for disseminating objective and comprehensive information—even on such a controversial topic as the regulation and use of cannabis—to be a systemic error of judgement and punitive bullying,” Veverka said.

However, he ended the interview by stating that this won’t stop him from advocating for cannabis and eventually publishing his magazine in the future. “I still have commitments to my readers, so I am not giving up on the idea of relaunching [Legalization] magazine,” he said. “Therefore, I sincerely hope that I will read in the reasoning of the judgement exactly what the facts are regarding where and with what I have committed said crime of ‘dissemination of intoxication,’ so that I can avoid any unlawful acts in the future. Otherwise, continuing to publish will be a very difficult thing, because one cannot do business within a cloud of legal uncertainty.”

Next, he plans to attend the 2023 Million Marijuana March demonstration that is being planned for the end of May.

Cannabis has been decriminalized in the Czech Republic since 2010, and medical cannabis became legal in 2013. Recreational cannabis use and possession is not legal, but the Czech government is drafting a bill to regulate the industry, which was originally expected to be presented in March 2023, according to Forbes. In October 2022, Czech Republic drug commissioner Jindřich Vobořil explained that the Czech Republic is coordinating with German officials to create a similar approach to adult-use cannabis legalization.

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How to think about cannabis and cardiac health

Far more research needs to be done.

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New York Cannabis: Potential Tax Changes

As New York move steadily closer to a fully rolled out adult-use cannabis industry, two New York state legislators recently proposed legislation that would significantly simplify the tax structure for adult-use cannabis. Under the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA), New York would have charged a potency THC tax on all adult-use cannabis, plus an excise tax of 9%. The proposed legislation would change the tax structure to a flat 16% excise tax, with no potency tax.

The proposed legislation was announced by Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and state Senator Jeremy Cooney. As a reminder, Assembly Majority Leader Peoples-Stokes was one of the sponsors and chief proponents of the MRTA and Senator Cooney has been integrally involved in legislating cannabis since the passage of the MRTA.

As part of announcing the proposed legislation, Assembly Majority Leader Peoples-Stokes stated:

“After careful consideration, it became clear that we need to simplify the tax structure of adult-use cannabis. As the state continues to build out licensed cannabis operations, a simpler tax structure will be better for businesses and consumers. It is imperative to establish the licensed cannabis marketplace as the best option for consumers and stamp out the illicit cannabis operations popping up all over the state. This new tax approach will ultimately lead to thriving cannabis businesses at all levels of the supply chain. We will see higher tax revenues, which will result in more funds being reinvested in communities and invested in education and other important programs.”

The bill’s justification similarly emphasizes that a flat tax “will better shift the costs away from businesses and consumers while facilitating a cannabis market in New York State that is flourishing and will provide real economic benefits for all.”

It is noteworthy that the justification also references the legislators’ review of “a large amount of data now available from other cannabis-legal states,” which highlights New York’s data-driven approach to forming the adult-use cannabis market. We’ll keep our eyes out for information on the proposed legislation as it moves towards passage. Stay tuned!

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Petition Launched To Legalize Shroom-Assisted Therapy in Canada

Advocates for the medical use of psilocybin mushrooms in Canada launched a petition to call upon the federal government to take action. Interest in psilocybin-assisted therapy continues to grow to combat end-of-life anxiety, depression, addition, and PTSD, among many other conditions.

Petition e-4334 was launched on March 16—an online “Petition to the Government of Canada,” which, according to law, will have to be presented in the House of Commons if it meets certain conditions, Microdose reports. Petitions must be certified by the Clerk of Petitions, for instance, in order to be presented to the House. They also must be signed by at least 500 residents of Canada, and a Member of Parliament must authorize them. 

Advocates want to green-light therapeutic psilocybin in any form, and listed several specific conditions that can be improved.

“We, the undersigned, compassionate Canadians, call upon the Government of Canada to allow Canadians to have timely unrestricted access to therapeutic psilocybin in any form as needed to alleviate their suffering via Section 56 exemptions,” the petition reads.

The petition provides three reasons why psilocybin-assisted therapy should be legalized, including the mushroom’s low potential for harm:

• Strong medical evidence exists that access to psychedelic-assisted therapy can effectively treat existential suffering in dying, depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD, and other mental health conditions, improving quality of life;
• Psilocybin required for psilocybin-assisted therapy is currently only available in clinical trials and by special individual permission from Health Canada despite its low potential for harm; and
• It is paradoxical and unethical to allow physicians to provide MAID for their patients while preventing the same physicians from treating their end of life distress with psilocybin.

In order to sign the petition, signers must be a Canadian citizen or a resident of Canada.

Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy in Canada

Meanwhile, one particular case is drawing attention to the issue of psilocybin-assisted therapy.

Saskatoon-based Thomas Hartle was the first person in Canada to undergo a legal psychedelic-assisted therapy session to treat his end-of-life anxiety. However a year later, his permission from Health Canada expired in October 2021 and he had to reapply. 

Thomas waited for over 500 days for approval, but his exemption to continue to use psilocybin for medical purposes was denied by Minister Carolyn Bennett. Health Canada denied Hartle’s permission to continue psilocybin-assisted therapy, which attracted a lot of attention and criticism from the psychedelic community. Hartle believes Health Canada and the Ministers of Health are just waiting for him to die.

Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy is the only thing that has helped him deal with his end-of-life anxiety and he says that he needs safe, legal access to it.

It’s stories like Hartle’s that are fueling the effort to legalize psilocybin-assisted therapy in Canada.

Research about the potential of psilocybin’s benefits continues to unfold. North America’s first take-home psilocybin trial was approved in Canada. A pharmaceutical company called Apex Labs announced on Nov. 1, 2022 that it will be conducting the first North American take-home multi-dose psilocybin clinical trial. Apex Labs is a patient-driven pharmaceutical company that specializes in psilocybin treatments for military veterans.

Apex Labs will launch a trial that will explore the efficacy of APEX-52 (psilocybin) for veterans suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Apex Labs received a “no objection letter” from Health Canada on Oct. 24, 2022.

Dispensaries providing psilocybin have sprung up in Canada. Two men were arrested, and mushrooms were seized following a raid at west Toronto psilocybin mushroom dispensary last November.

The push to legalize psilocybin-assisted therapy in Canada, and explore its benefits, continues its march.

The post Petition Launched To Legalize Shroom-Assisted Therapy in Canada appeared first on High Times.

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7 trends coming to your cannabis from Spannabis

More seeds, Zkittlez, live rosin, and dope collaborations.

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