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: Maryland Medical-Pot Businesses’ Political Donations, Amended

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 23, 2109

FSC’s first look at the Maryland cannabis industry’s donations to state political campaigns focused on licensed growers. Adding processors and dispensaries to the mix expands the picture, but only slightly. Since 2015, 19 cannabis businesses licensed by the Maryland Medical Marijuana Commission (MCC) have given a total of $124,850 to 48 Maryland political campaign committees.

The top recipients were House Speaker Mike Bush (D-District 30A, Anne Arundel County) with $13,000; Gov. Larry Hogan (R) with $12,000; Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller (D-27th District, Prince George’s, Charles and Calvert counties) with $10,000; state Sen. Bobby Zirkin (D-11th District, Baltimore County) with $9,600; and recently retired state Del. Dan Morhaim (D-11th District, Baltimore County) with $7,975. The top-donating businesses were Holistic Industries ($48,500), ForwardGro ($26,375), Curio ($13,500), SunMed Growers ($12,500), and GTI Maryland ($11,250), the only dispensary licensee to jump so deeply into the political game.

GTI is a national cannabis company operating dispensaries under the RISE chain, and its Maryland entity operates as RISE Silver Spring. GTI Maryland’s biggest beneficiary, with $7,000, was Maryland Alliance for Progress PAC, described by the Washington Post as a “developer-funded super PAC” that, as noted by Seventh State blog, largely has undwritten efforts in support of Laurel mayor Craig Moe. Last year, Moe ran unsuccessfully for the First District seat on the Prince George’s County Council.

 

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: Like other tightly regulated industries, Maryland’s medical-cannabis growers are playing the political money game

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 19, 2019

Since late 2015, nine of Maryland’s 14 licensed medical-cannabis growers have given a total of $106,700 to 40 Maryland political campaigns, according to online records maintained by the Maryland Board of Elections and analyzed by Free State Cannablawg. The industry was borne of legislation, and will live and thrive based on a politically malleable regulatory regime, so growers’ voices are now heard with the clink of antes dropped on lawmakers’ kitties.

The top recipients were House Speaker Mike Bush (D-District 30A, Anne Arundel County) with $13,000; Gov. Larry Hogan (R) with $12,000; recently retired state Del. Dan Morhaim (D-11th District, Baltimore County) with $7,725; and state Sen. Bobby Zirkin (D-11th District, Baltimore County) with $7,600. The top-donating growers were Holistic Industries ($48,500), ForwardGro ($26,375), Curio ($13,500), and SunMed Growers ($12,500).

The political investments of Maryland’s cannabis growers appear to be assertively bipartisan, a nod perhaps to the state having a Republican governor and a Democratically controlled legislature. One grower, Kind Therapeutics, gave $2,500 to Change Maryland PAC, which is dedicated to boosting the GOP’s proportion of legislative seats to hamper Democrats’ control. Holistic Industries, meanwhile, tipped the Republican State Central Committee of Maryland’s hat to the tune of $4,000.

The donations FSC analyzed were only those made in the names of the growers’ corporate names of record, as entered in the Board of Elections database. Not included are the likely additional donations made by owners and employees of those businesses. Even this first, broad-brush analysis, though, shows the industry is actively adapting to the political reality of its existence.

Cannapress: Doyle Murphy chronicles illegal-weed deal that unhinged St. Louis-based tanning-salon mogul, to brutal effect

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 19, 2019

While my chainsaw–dismemberment pot-dealing stories of a few years back may have had more horrific facts, the Riverfront Times‘ Doyle Murphy‘s longform deconstruction of tanning-salon tycoon Todd Beckman’s descent into torturous violence over an illegal-weed deal gone awry spares no details. The St. Louis reporter unspools a timeline of repercussions started by the theft of a safe containing $15,000 and 24 pounds of weed, as the thief suffers a series of beatings and tasings administered by a cast of dangerously flawed characters led by Beckman, who quickly undid his towering legit-biz empire by exacting the sadistic tribute. With pot laws changing in state after state, creating a fast-growing medical-cannibis industry, this serves as another reminder that the illegal stuff moves in treacherous corners of society.

Cannabizness: Analysts assume Maryland medical-cannibis sales will reach $440 million by 2024

By Van Smith

Baltimore, Jan. 18, 2019

The Maryland Department of Legislative Services (DLS), analyzing the fiscal effect of granting standard business deductions to the state’s medical-cannibis industry, sees a very fast-growing sector of the state’s economy. Sales in 2018 were about $100 million – but DLS is working on the assumption that sales will reach $250 million in 2020, and $440 million in 2024. Read the report here.

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.

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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.