Cannabuzz: Ethics bill takes aim at Maryland Medical Marijuana Commission

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Feb. 6, 2019

A measure meant to abate potential revolving-door conflicts of interest between Maryland medical-cannabis regulators and licensees is proposed this General Assembly session by Montgomery County state Sen. Susan Lee (D-District 16, Montgomery County). The star-power behind this bipartisan bill suggests it chances of reaching a floor vote with strong committee support are good.

Lee, the Senate’s majority whip, already has a host of cosponsors – seven Democrats and four Republicans – who support putting a full year between the date of leaving an agency post at the Maryland Medical Marijuana Commission (MCC) and new employment with an MCC-licensed grower, processor, or dispenary.

The bill, Senate Bill 552, is before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, where eight of eleven members – Jill Carter (D-41st District, Baltimore City), Robert Cassilly (R-34th District, Harford County), Michael Hough (R-4th District, Frederick and Carroll counties), Justin Ready (D-5th District, Carroll County), William C. Smith, Jr. (D-20th District, Montgomery County), Jeff Waldstreicher (D-18th District, Montgomery County), Mary Washington (D-43rd District, Baltimore City), and Chris West (R-42nd District, Baltimore County) – are signed on as co-sponsors, along with Senate majority leader Guy Guzzone (D-13th District, Howard County).

Cannabuzz: Six-license limit per investor proposed for Maryland med-pot dispensaries

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Feb. 4, 2019

Baltimore County Republican state Sen. Chris West (42nd District) has proposed clarifying the law of Maryland medical-marijuana dispensary licenses to allow investors to hold interests in up to six dispensaries each.

Currently, the legislative intent of the dispensary-licensure regulations is to limit investors to one dispensary license only, as previously reported by Doug Donovan of the Baltimore Sun, but national firms that have already invested in multiple Maryland dispensaries have argued that restriction applies only during the application process.

West’s proposal would settle the debate in favor of the national chains rather than force divestments from existing dispensary-management agreements that have taken force since the legal loophole was found and exploited.

Cannabuzz: Cannabis-in-cars bill gets bipartisan boost

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Feb. 1, 2019

Harford County state Sen. Robert Cassilly (R-34th District) today introduced in the Maryland General Assembly the Senate version of the Democrat-filed House Bill 350 that would add cannabis to the law prohibiting open containers of alcohol in passenger areas of vehicles on highways. Cassilly’s sponsorship of Senate Bill 418, which is assigned to the Judicial Proceedings Committee, makes it a bipartisan proposal. The House version is scheduled for a hearing on Feb. 19 at 1pm before the Judiciary Committee.

Cannabuzz: Cannabis-in-cars bill scheduled for hearing

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 31, 2019

Prince George’s County state Del. Geraldine Valentino-Smith (D-District 23A) and three fellow Democrats, with House Bill 350 before the Maryland General Assembly, have proposed penalizing those found with cannabis in their motor vehicles on Maryland highways the same as for open containers of alcohol: a $500 misdemeanor crime on their records, or prepayment of a $530 fine without taking the case to court. Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee advanced the bill to a hearing scheduled for Feb. 19 at 1pm.

Cannabizness: Maryland bill would make pot subject to vehicular open-container law

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 30, 2019

That cannabis and cars don’t mix well is a foregone conclusion, but how best to penalize those caught using pot in vehicles is open for debate. In Maryland, one possible scenario – adding pot use to the state’s existing law governing open booze containers in a motor vehicle’s passenger area – is back in play during the General Assembly’s 2019 session, having last year languished in the House Judiciary Committee and, in 2017, having passed the House and died in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

The lead sponsor this year, as it was last session, is Prince George’s County state Del. Geraldine Valentino-Smith (D-District 23A), and signing on as co-sponsors are Baltimore City state Del. Curt Anderson (D-43rd District), Howard County state Del. Vanessa Atterbeary (D-13th District), and Calvert and Prince George’s’ counties state Del. Michael Jackson (D-District 27B). House Bill 350 (HB 350), “Vehicle Laws – Smoking Marijuana in Vehicles – Prohibition,” currently awaits being scheduled for a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, where no further action was taken last year after a hearing was held.

If HB 350 passes into law, someone who is caught using cannibis in the passenger area of a vehicle that is on a highway, whether it is moving or not, can be found guilty of a misdemeanor crime and be subject to a fine of up to $500, according to the fiscal note prepared for last year’s bill by the Department of Legislative Services. However, if that person chooses not to appear in court for a hearing over the violation, he or she can prepay a $530 fine. Either way, a point is added to a violator’s driving record, or three points if the violation is tied to an accident.

Cannabizness: Bill to Expand Rolls of Maryland Med-Pot Certifiers, Explained

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 25, 2019

Just out is the Maryland Department of Legislative Services “fiscal and policy note” for this session’s House Bill 18 18 (HB 18) to expand the list of licensed professionals allowed to certify patients for the Maryland Medical Marijuana Commission (MCC) program. In it, policy analyst Kathleen Kennedy – fresh from giving the treatment to HB 17, proposing cannibis for opiate-addiction treatment – explains how the measure would include physical therapists, psychologists, and physician assistants in the MCC’s administration of the state’s legal-weed regime.

Currently, physicians, dentists, podiatrists, nurse practitioners, and nurse midwives undergo MCC registration so that they can assess patients’ medical conditions and deem them qualified for medical cannibis, and as of Jan. 9 there were 1,243 of them. HB 18, as Kennedy’s note explains, would add physical therapists, psychologists, and physicians assistants to the rolls, while adding representatives of those professions to the mix of the MCC’s roster.

To become a certifying provider under HB 18, an active, in-good-standing license would be required of physical therapists, psychologists, and physicians assistants, the note continues, and the latter must also have “an active delegation agreement with a physician who is a certifying provider.” While current certifying providers must have a Maryland controlled dangerous substances (CDS) registration, members of the proposed professions would not have to meet this requirement, though, as the note points out, “physician assistants can prescribe CDS under the CDS registration of their delegating physician.”

HB 18 is one of three bills sponsored this session by Baltimore City state Del. Cheryl Glenn (D-45th District), a leader in creating and reforming the MCC, that would expand the scope of Maryland’s medical cannabis program.

Cannabizness: Analyst explains Maryland bill to allow opioid sufferers access to legal weed

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 24, 2019

Maryland’s opioid-related death rate is more than twice the national average, a morbid background to a bill before the Maryland General Assembly this session, House Bill 33 (HB 33), that would allow those suffering from opioid use disorder (OUD) to qualify for the state’s medical-marijuana program.

Much of Department of Legislative Services policy analyst Kathleen Kennedy’s just-published note on HB 33 is dedicated to explaining Maryland’s opioid epidemic, and policy responses to it, while summarizing the recent report by Maryland’s Medical Cannabis Commission (MCC) that cast a seemingly skeptical eye on the proposal.

Last year, the House Health and Government Operations Committee (which has scheduled a hearing on HB 33 at 2pm on Jan. 29) voted down the measure, while the Senate version languished after a Finance Committee hearing. This year, now that Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York have blazed the trail for allowing legal weed to help treat OUD, the bill’s sponsor, Baltimore City state Del. Cheryl Glenn (D-45th District), is trying again.

While our mid-Atlantic neighbors to the north are giving pot-for-OUD a try-out, three other states – Hawaii, Maine, and New Mexico – passed legislation only to see it vetoed by their governors “following significant pressure from health care providers, health care organizations, and addiction specialists,” Kennedy writes. Her note also points out that the federal cannabis ban is frustrating “a significant need for high-quality clinical research” on the use of legal weed to treat OUD – a point that is made in many corners on this issue.

(For those interested in reading an apologist’s first-hand account of how weed helps in opiate recovery, try this, by Elizabeth Brico in The Fix.)

Questions about how medical cannibis fits into society’s addiction-management rubric are likely to continue. What’s on the horizon? Hop Chronic, a THC-laced non-alcoholic beer produced by Flying Dog Brewery and Green Leaf Medical, both based in Frederick, Md., is set to be released this year, assuming the laws and regulations are in place to allow it, and “Will it help or hurt if you’re a teetotaler?” is a question sure to prompt lively discussions.

Cannabizness: Del. Glenn’s bills to expand Maryland’s medical-cannibis program scheduled for hearing

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 23, 2019

Medical cannabis available in food and drink and for treating opioid addiction, with a larger group of licensed professionals allowed to certify patients – these expansions of Maryland’s legal-pot industry are envisioned by three bills now set for hearings before the Maryland General Assembly. Introduced before the start of this year’s session by one of the state’s pro-cannibis legislators, Baltimore City state Del. Cheryl Glenn (D-45th District), yesterday all three were set for hearings at 2pm on Jan. 29 before the House Health and Government Operations Committee in Annapolis

As previously reported by FSC, House Bill 17 would allow dispensaries to sell cannibis-laced food and drink to qualifying patients or caregivers under Maryland’s Medical Cannibis Commission (MCC). Physical therapists, psychologists, and physicians assistants would join the list of licensed professions represented on the MCC under House Bill 18, which also would allow members of those professions to certify MCC patients. Under House Bill 33, the MCC would be encouraged to approve patients with opioid use disorder for medical-cannibis certification – a proposal that may meet resistance, given the MCC’s official report, summarized recently by the Sun‘s Doug Donovan, which found only anecdotal evidence that cannibis helps opioid addicts.

Cannabizness: Supporters, with No Opposition, Testify at Senate Tax Bill’s Hearing in Annapolis

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 17, 2019

Cannabis businesses, like all other legal enterprises in Maryland, would be able to write off standard business deductions on their taxes if state Sen. Ron Young’s Senate Bill 9 (SB 9) makes it into law. At today’s hearing on the bill before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, the lack of controversy over such a proposal was apparent: no naysayers came to testify, and the supporting testimony prompted no questions from committee members.

State Sen. Ron Young (D-TK District, Frederick County) after giving testimony today in support of his tax bill to allow cannabis businesses take standard business deductions. (Photo: Van Smith)

Young stressed to the committee that Maryland medical cannabis growers, processors, dispensaries, or independent testing laboratories comprise the “only business in the state that is not allowed to take business deductions,” and the added cost “affects the price of cannabis.”

Young told two stories – one of a family with twins, now nine years old, whose survival of a form of fatal childhood epilepsy is attributed to cannabis; and another about his family dog, who was starting to show signs of age until “we put him on cannibis, and he’s acting much younger now.” – before casting SB 9 as “a matter of fairness” to a “growing business” that is “helping a lot of people” and “employing a lot of people.”

Carissa Cartelemi of Baltimore’s Starbuds dispensary – billed as “the first Starbuds location in Maryland” for the Colorado-based company – told the committee that her business is “really struggling” from not having the tax write-downs like other Maryland businesses, a situation she characterized as “a punishment.” Passing SB 9, Cartelemi added, “helps the thousands of patients who rely on us.”

The two lobbyists who spoke – Ashlie Bagwell for the Maryland Medical Dispensary Association and Joseph Bryce on behalf of the Maryland Wholesale Medical Cannibis Trade Association – stressed that, as Bagwell put it, SB 9 “does not create any kind of special treatment” for cannibis businesses, while Bryce said, “very simply, this is not a special break.”

Cannabizness: Bill to Aid Gun-Owning Medical Cannibis Users Gets Another Look in Maryland

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 15, 2019

Regulated firearms owners in Maryland who seek certification as medical-cannibis patients are in a pickle: a handgun license requires that holders are not presently habitual users of controlled dangerous substances such as cannibis. A bill attempting to rectify this, by establishing that a person may not be denied firearms rights solely due to being a certified medical-cannibis patient, was introduced in the Maryland Senate yesterday.

The bipartisan bill – Senate Bill 97 – is co-sponsored by state Sen. Michael Hough (R-4th District) of Frederick and Carroll counties and state Sen. Bobby Zirkin (D-11th District) of Baltimore County. The two men tried it last year, too, with Senate Bill 602, but after being scheduled for a hearing nothing more came of it in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

The “Fiscal and Policy Note” for last year’s bill – the analysis of it, conducted by the Department of Legislative Services – concluded that “the bill’s changes are inconsistent with provisions of State law and may result in a violation of federal law.” Free State Cannablawg is reaching out to Hough and Zirkin, asking if they have reason to believe this year’s bill has the legs that last year’s lacked, and will update if they respond.