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2022 marked yet one more profitable 12 months for the development of marijuana coverage reform in america. Three further states – Maryland, Missouri, and Rhode Island – took motion to legalize adult-use marijuana possession and regulate the retail hashish market. Two of those states did so through voter initiative whereas the opposite state (Rhode Island) did so legislatively. A complete of 21 states – comprising slightly below half of all US residents – now have legal guidelines on the books regulating adult-use marijuana consumption, manufacturing, and retail gross sales.
Public officers and lawmakers continued to take steps to offer authorized cures for these tens of millions of Americans with marijuana-related convictions on their information. President Joe Biden announced in October that he was pardoning a number of thousand individuals with federal marijuana possession convictions. On the state stage, Oregon Governor Kate Brown introduced her intent to pardon over 45,000 people with low-level hashish convictions. In January, Colorado Governor Jared Polis equally provided mass pardons aid for these with prior convictions. In Pennsylvania, the governor and Board of Pardons announced a new effort in September to expedite pardons to hundreds of low-level hashish offenders. In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order promising pardons to those that possess and use hashish for medicinal functions. (Medical hashish will not be legally accessible in Kentucky.) These actions comply with these of governors in Illinois, Nevada, Washington, and elsewhere who’ve equally issued mass pardons to these with marijuana convictions.
California lawmakers enacted laws additional facilitating the assessment and expungement of cannabis-related prison information. Below current regulation, officers have already taken steps to vacate an estimated 200,000 information. The brand new regulation is anticipated to lead to an extra 220,000 expungements. In Massachusetts, a Supreme Court docket decision in September opened the door for mass marijuana-related expungements in that state. Each Maryland and Missouri’s new legalization legal guidelines additionally comprise provisions offering for the expungement of previous information. Illinois lawmakers in 2022 expanded their current expungement regulation in order that officers might now not deny aid to eligible petitioners over a failed drug take a look at for hashish. Two-dozen states now have legal guidelines on the books facilitating the sealing or expunging of marijuana-related convictions. Calculations by NORML estimate that over two million People have had their marijuana-related convictions vacated in recent times on account of these insurance policies.
As has been the case in previous years, lawmakers in a number of states enacted legal guidelines in 2022 increasing sufferers’ entry to hashish. In February, Missisipppi grew to become the 37th state to legalize and regulate the manufacturing and shelling out of medical hashish to approved sufferers. Legislators handed the regulation following a court docket resolution nullifying a 2020 voter initiative that sought to legalize it. Different states enacted legal guidelines increasing the pool of sufferers who might legally entry medical hashish merchandise, amongst different associated modifications. Louisiana, Utah, and Missouri enacted legal guidelines defending approved medical customers from being discriminated in opposition to within the office, whereas lawmakers in California, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. prolonged office protections to all adult-use customers.
This state-level legislative progress as soon as once more reaffirms the truth that almost all of the general public helps significant marijuana reforms and that lawmakers are responding accordingly. In response to recent polling, practically seven in ten People, together with majorities of all main subgroups by gender, age, revenue and schooling, and including majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, consider that using marijuana ought to be made authorized. Public and political assist for legislative modifications in marijuana legal guidelines will proceed rising in 2023 and past. As we look forward to subsequent 12 months’s state legislative classes, we anticipate to see lawmakers proceed to advance with many of those identical points in different states. As at all times, NORML shall be monitoring the progress of those legislative efforts and offering alerts and standing updates.
Your assist helps guarantee hashish customers are represented within the political course of and powers our motion to finish prohibition as soon as and for all. Become a NORML member and be a part of our efforts.
Grownup Use Legalization
Maryland
House Bill 1: Maryland Home Invoice 1 (Query 4) amends the State’s structure, establishing that, on or after July 1, 2023, a person within the State who’s not less than 21 years previous might use and possess hashish. Read more.
House Bill 837: This laws compliments HB 1 by defining marijuana possession limits and facilitating the assessment and expungement of low-level hashish convictions. The laws permits adults to own as much as 1.5 ounces of hashish and/or 12 grams of hashish concentrates starting in July 2023. (Between January 1, 2023 and July 1, 2023, civil penalties will apply.) Adults will even be permitted to develop as much as two hashish crops of their properties for their very own private use. Possessing quantities between 1.5 ounces and a couple of.5 ounces shall be topic to civil fines, whereas the possession of better portions will stay topic to current prison penalties. These with previous information for marijuana-related crimes also can start petitioning the courts for expungement aid starting subsequent 12 months. Read more.
Missouri
Amendment 3: Missouri Modification 3 legalizes the acquisition, possession, consumption, use, supply, manufacturing, and sale of marijuana for private use for adults over the age of 21. It facilitates a assessment course of in order that people convicted of non-violent marijuana-related offenses might have their information expunged, and it enacts a six % tax on the sale of marijuana. Read more.
Rhode Island
H 7593: The “Rhode Island Hashish Act” permits adults within the state of Rhode Island (21 years and up) to own, home-cultivate, and buy restricted quantities of hashish. The Act has a number of fairness and expungement elements as effectively, together with the re-investment of tax income from hashish gross sales into communities most harmed by prohibition, and applications to assist social fairness candidates wishing to enter the market. It moreover facilitates the automated assessment and expungement of previous prison information. Read more.
Expungement
California
Assembly Bill 1706: This regulation facilitates current efforts to assessment and expunge the information of these Californians with sure cannabis-related convictions on their information. It supplies the courts with a March 1, 2023 deadline to replace their case information and transmit them to the Division of Justice (DOJ), which maintains the state prison historical past database and responds to background checks. AB 1706 additionally requires the division to conduct a public consciousness marketing campaign highlighting this system to these communities more than likely to learn from it.
Colorado
Senate Bill 22-099: The regulation streamlines the present computerized report sealing course of for marijuana offenders and extends it to all marijuana-related offenses, together with civil infractions. It additionally supplies employment and tenant protections for these with a sealed prison report.
Illinois
House Bill 4392: This amends state regulation in order that the courts can now not deny petitioners’ requests to have their prison information expunged solely due to a failed marijuana drug take a look at. Read more.
Medical Marijuana
California
Senate Bill 1186: The regulation preempts native bans on medicinal hashish supply, thereby increasing sufferers’ entry to authorized, regulated hashish merchandise.
Assembly Bill 1954: The regulation prevents physicians and surgeons from routinely denying both therapies or drugs to sufferers solely as a result of they eat medical hashish or as a result of they’ve examined constructive for THC on a drug display screen. AB 1954 additionally ensures that using medical hashish doesn’t represent use of a bootleg substance if it has been advisable by a licensed doctor and surgeon, and protects physicians and surgeons from punishment for administering medical hashish to a professional affected person. Read more.
Kentucky
House Bill 604: This invoice establishes the Kentucky Heart for Hashish Analysis on the College of Kentucky. Roles of the Heart are outlined as follows: “Conduct and fund analysis, [including clinical trials,] associated to hashish and hashish derivatives, together with pharmaceutical improvement and the efficacies of hashish and hashish derivatives for the therapy of sure medical situations and illnesses; Conduct and fund analysis associated to the well being results, together with the potential dangers or uncomfortable side effects, of using hashish and hashish derivatives; (c) Conduct and fund analysis associated to the efficacy and potential well being results of varied hashish supply strategies, together with however not restricted to vaporizing, ingestibles, topical purposes, and combustion; Overview present and future hashish analysis literature, medical research, and medical trials.” Read more.
Louisiana
House Bill 190: This authorizes nurse practitioners with prescriptive authority to advocate medical marijuana to sufferers. Read more.
House Bill 135: This regulation permits the shelling out of medical marijuana to sure qualifying sufferers who usually are not Louisiana residents. Read more.
House Bill 137: This regulation supplies immunity from prison prosecution to out-of-state medical hashish sufferers. Read more.
Maine
Legislative Document 1928: This regulation expands authorized protections for the designated caregivers of medical hashish sufferers and supplies physicians with the flexibility to seek the advice of with their sufferers and challenge hashish authorizations through telehealth, amongst different modifications. Read more.
Mississippi
Senate Bill 2095: This creates a medical hashish entry program within the state of Mississippi. The Act permits certified sufferers to buy as much as 3.5 grams of hashish flower or as much as one gram of hashish focus per day from licensed dispensaries. Sufferers are restricted to buying not more than three ounces of hashish flower per 30 days. The measure locations no restrict on the variety of licensed dispensaries that could be operational at anyone time. Hashish purchases are topic to the state’s seven % gross sales tax and an extra 5 % excise tax. Read more.
Pennsylvania
House Bill 311: An modification to this regulation seeks to offer authorized protections to banks and insurers that work with licensed medical marijuana companies. Modification 5137 states that no cannabis-based enterprise may be denied any rights or privileges by a state company solely based mostly on their lawful participation within the medical marijuana program.
South Dakota
Senate Bill 6: This regulation states {that a} certified medical hashish affected person “might not be refused enrollment by a faculty or a lease by a landlord, or in any other case be penalized by a faculty or landlord solely for the particular person’s standing as a cardholder.”
Senate Bill 7: This regulation mandates that “no particular person could also be denied custody of, visitation rights with, or parenting time with a minor solely as a result of the particular person is a [medical cannabis patent] cardholder.”
Senate Bill 24: This regulation preserves the correct of certified sufferers to have interaction within the restricted residence cultivation of hashish. Read more.
Tennessee
House Bill 1747: This provides quadriplegia as a qualifying medical situation for the lawful possession of hashish oil. Read more.
House Bill 0666: The “Veterans Medical Hashish Entry Act” authorizes disabled veterans with quadriplegia or paraplegia to own and use liquid hashish extracts if such merchandise had been bought in a authorized state. Read more.
House Bill 2641: This establishes a restricted medical hashish program beneath the purview of the medical hashish fee. HB2641 additionally redefines the time period “marijuana” to exclude merchandise containing lower than 0.9 % delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol. Read more.
Utah
Senate Bill 0195: The regulation expands sufferers’ entry to medical marijuana inside the state by amending the qualifying situations to incorporate these experiencing acute ache that may in any other case be handled with opioids.
Virginia
House Bill 933: This invoice amends the definition of “hashish oil” by eradicating the requirement that solely oil from industrial hemp be used within the formulation of extract merchandise. HB 933 additionally removes most of the Board of Pharmacy’s affected person registration necessities for medical hashish, however maintains the requirement that sufferers get hold of written certification from a well being care supplier for medical hashish. Read more.
Washington, D.C.
Bill 24-0630: Amongst different modifications to the regulation, B24-0630 will increase the quantity of dried hashish a qualifying affected person might possess at anyone time from 4 ounces to eight ounces.
Bill 24-0887: This amends the Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Remedy Initiative of 1999 to permit people 21 years of age and older to self-certify that they’re using hashish for medical functions. Read more.
Bill B24-0981: This enables non-residents to self-certify as medical marijuana sufferers whereas they’re visiting Washington, D.C. with out the necessity for a health care provider’s suggestion.
Fairness
Maine
Legislative Document 1957: This removes prohibitions on participation within the hashish trade for individuals convicted of drug offenses. LD 1957 additionally replaces the time period “marijuana” with the time period “hashish” within the Maine Revised Statutes. Read more.
Massachusetts
Senate Bill 3096: The regulation promotes better range amongst these collaborating within the state’s licensed hashish trade by making a “Hashish Social Fairness Belief Fund to encourage the complete participation… of entrepreneurs from communities which have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement.” Cash within the fund “shall be used to make grants and loans, together with no-interest loans and forgivable loans, to social fairness program individuals and financial empowerment precedence candidates.” Read more.
Juveniles
California
Assembly Bill 2595: The regulation mandates that social staff who’re referred to as to research baby welfare deal with parental marijuana use the identical manner they deal with alcohol.
Trade
California
Assembly Bill 195: AB 195 consists of a number of labor and tax-based modifications, considered one of which is the imposition of the 15 % hashish excise tax on gross receipts of any retail sale by a hashish retailer starting on January 1, 2023. This alteration to the state’s tax construction is made with the hopes of decreasing limitations to the authorized hashish market and driving out the illicit market, whereas additionally stabilizing and supporting current recipients of hashish tax income. The invoice additionally provides supply of hashish to the state’s observe and hint program.
Senate Bill 1326: The regulation creates a course of for California to enter into agreements with different states to permit hashish transactions with entities exterior the state. It authorizes an individual who obtains a state license beneath The Management, Regulate and Tax Grownup Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) to have interaction in business adult-use hashish exercise pursuant to that license and relevant native ordinances.
Maine
Legislative Document 1827: The regulation authorizes licensed marijuana retailers to offer for residence deliveries to these age 21 or older. Below the regulation, retailers might ship a wide range of merchandise to clients, together with immature marijuana crops and seedlings. The measure additionally permits clients to have interaction within the curbside pick-up of hashish merchandise.
Rhode Island
House Bill 7123: HB7123 topics the retail sale of adult-use hashish to a ten % state excise tax and a 3 % native excise tax. This laws additionally creates a “Marijuana Belief Fund” composed of income from state excise taxes, in addition to quantities collected from penalties, forfeitures, and curiosity. This account helps the funding of applications comparable to schooling and public consciousness campaigns, SUD prevention, therapy and restoration providers, public well being monitoring and analysis, and coaching of regulation enforcement.
Office Drug Testing
California
Assembly Bill 2188: This invoice makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate in opposition to or penalize an individual in any time period or situation of employment if the discrimination is simply based mostly solely upon a constructive drug display screen for the presence of the carboxy THC metabolite. Read more.
Louisiana
House Bill 988: This regulation supplies employment protections for certified sufferers who lawfully eat medical marijuana whereas away from their jobs. HB 988 doesn’t alter current regulation concerning the consumption of hashish whereas at work, which is strictly prohibited. Read more.
Utah
Senate Bill 46: The regulation strengthens protections for medical hashish sufferers and makes different technical modifications to the state’s nascent medical hashish entry program. Particularly, SB 46 limits state employers from taking punitive actions in opposition to staff who eat hashish merchandise at residence in compliance with the state’s medical marijuana entry regulation. Read more.
Washington D.C.
Bill B24-0109: This regulation (a.ok.a. The Hashish Employment Protections Modification Act) prohibits employers, with sure exceptions, from “refus[ing] to rent, terminat[ing] from employment, droop[ing], fail[ing] to advertise, demot[ing], or penaliz[ing] a person” because of a person’s off-the-job use of hashish, standing as a medical hashish affected person, or because of “the presence of cannabinoid metabolites in [their] bodily fluids in an employer-required or requested drug take a look at with out further elements indicating impairment.” Read more.
Miscellaneous
Colorado
Executive Order D 2022 034: This Govt Order states that “these with prior in-state or out-of-state marijuana-related convictions will now not be denied skilled licensure in Colorado.” Read more.
Louisiana
House Bill 629: The regulation prohibits regulation enforcement from conducting a search of an individual’s residence based mostly on the odor of marijuana with out first acquiring a warrant. Read more.
Maine
Legislative Document 1195: This regulation supplies the chance for localities to obtain monetary reimbursements for the prices related to licensing and regulating hashish companies.
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