A Rhode Island House Committee on Tuesday discussed a bill to legalize marijuana in the state, as well as the governor’s separate budget proposal that includes provisions to end cannabis criminalization and create a regulated market. The hearing on the pieces of legislation from Rep. Scott Slater (D) and Gov. Dan McKee took place in the House Finance Committee, one week after a separate Senate panel took testimony on an identical companion version of the Slater bill that’s being sponsored by Sen. Joshua Miller (D). The lawmaker-driven bill was introduced earlier this month following months of negotiations between legislative leaders. McKee released his budget proposal with the legalization components in January. “I’ve been supporting the legalization of cannabis for a number of years,” Slater told fellow lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing. “I just think it’s the best public policy” and is “long overdue.” Referring to Rhode Island’s neighboring states that have already enacted legalization, he called Rhode Island “kind of an island of prohibition, surrounded by legal cannabis around us.” “We’re already dealing with it,” he said. “We might as well take the revenue in” by legalizing sales.

Kyle Jaeger, Marijuana Moment, 03/22/2022 19:12:00

Open article: https://www.marijuanamoment.net/rhode-island-house-panel-discusses-competing-marijuana-legalization-proposals-from-lawmakers-and-governor/

Cannabis dispensary employees in Manistee, Mich., a Lake Michigan coast city in the northwest part of the state, unionized earlier this month with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 876. The organized workers at the Authentic 231 retail facility in Manistee operate under vertically integrated cannabis company Left Coast Holdings (Heritage Farms), which owns multiple dispensaries throughout the state. Left Coast ownership initiated the unionization, according to a UFCW press release. Local 876 President Dan Pedersen said the Authentic 231 workers represent the first cannabis dispensary in the state to organize. “UFCW 876 looks forward to building a strong relationship with both owners and workers of Authentic 231, in providing job guarantees and protections to this rapidly growing industry,” Pedersen said in the release. “It is UFCW 876’s goal this effort serves as a model for sustaining unionizing efforts, by building stronger communities with stronger jobs.”

Cannabis Business Times, 03/21/2022 16:31:00

Open article: http://www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/article/michigan-cannabis-workers-unionize-with-ufcw

The six bills bring a host of changes to the new cannabis law in South Dakota, including one that places a limit on the number of plants a patient can grow. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem last week signed a number of bills dealing with the state’s fledgling medical cannabis program that voters approved at the ballot in 2020. Noem’s office said Friday that the first-term Republican had “signed six medical cannabis and hemp bills into law,” and that implementing those measures “will be part of Governor Noem’s focus on implementing a safe and responsible medical cannabis program that is the most patient-focused in the country.” Perhaps most notably, one of the bills signed into law by Noem will place a limit on the number of cannabis plants a patient can grow at his or her home at four––two of which “can be the state of growth at which they produce marijuana buds, while the other two plants cannot be beyond seedling stage,” according to the Argus Leader newspaper. As the Associated Press noted, the “voter-passed law placed no maximum cap on the number of plants that may be grown in patients’ homes, but lawmakers moved this year to limit the number to four: two flowering and two non-flowering,” a compromise that came “after the Republican-controlled House proposed banning homegrown cannabis entirely, and Republicans in the Senate pushed a six-plant cap.”

420 Intel – Marijuana Industry News, 03/22/2022 20:00:00

Open article: https://420intel.com/articles/2022/03/23/south-dakota-governor-signs-handful-mdical-cannabis-bills

The tribe may beat state recreational sales by up to a year New York’s Cayuga Nation Native American tribe is preparing to launch an adult-use cannabis cultivation enterprise, months before state-licensed recreational pot retailers begin serving customers. Under the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA) passed by lawmakers last year, possession of cannabis became legal for adults in September. But regulators are still working to manage and license adult-use cannabis businesses, with retailers not expected to open until spring of 2023. As sovereign nations, however, Native American tribal governments have the power to regulate cannabis production and sales on tribal lands. Last summer, the Shinnecock Nation on Long Island announced that it was beginning a commercial cannabis operation on its land. And now the Cayuga Nation, which is already the home of hemp and CBD brand Arrowhead Hemp, is also delving into the recreational weed industry.

High Times, Marijuana Retail Report – News and Information for Cannabis Retailers, 03/22/2022 01:23:00

Open article: https://marijuanaretailreport.com/new-yorks-cayuga-nation-to-sell-recreational-cannabis/

An unlikely Senate duo — a conservative South Georgia farmer running for higher office and a liberal Atlanta preacher — have teamed up to help cannabis farmers with a bill allowing more hemp products in a state where marijuana remains illegal. The Georgia bill got as far as the floor of the state Senate before opponents killed it. Few people initially noticed their bill would have authorized a hemp derivative called Delta-8 THC, a product already sold in stores that gives users a recreational high. Retailers are selling Delta-8 under a federal hemp law that doesn’t specifically ban it. No one mentioned Delta-8 when the bill was debated, nor did the legislation’s broad language make the change clear. State Sen. Tyler Harper, a Republican from Ocilla, said he supported the bill’s attempt to promote Georgia’s fledgling hemp farming industry. The cannabis plant is primarily used to create CBD oil, a popular product used for anxiety and sleeplessness that can contain trace amounts of THC, the compound that gives marijuana users a high.

420 Intel – Marijuana Industry News, 03/21/2022 20:00:00

Open article: https://420intel.com/articles/2022/03/22/georgia-senate-almost-voted-cannabis-product-without-realizing-it