New Legalization Attempts Landing on Legislature Dockets Each Day: Week in Review

As yet another round of snowfall blankets the Cannabis Business Times offices, we’re reminded of how far we are from the splendor of spring.

But, of course, we know too that time moves pretty fast in the cannabis space. There is no such thing as an off-season, per se, especially for those growers working in indoor environments. The show must go on! Everyone I’ve talked to recently—from growers to attorneys to executives at multistate operations—is hard at work, preparing for the suite of challenges emerging this year: supply chain hurdles, labor shortages, wholesale price drops, and much more.

I mention that only because the cannabis market continues to grow at a rapid clip even under those economic and social pressures. You’ll see in the links below and all over our website that more states are preparing to open the door to medical and adult-use cannabis sales.

As ever, the industry is a work in progress—regardless of how long you’ve been contributing to its development. That’s the beauty of this space.

We’ve rounded up some of the key cannabis headlines from the week right here.

• The South Dakota legalization saga is far from over, but progress has been made. As voters prepare to pass an adult-use cannabis ballot measure a second time, state lawmakers advanced a bill Feb. 17 that may save voters from their ongoing battle to be heard. Read more 
• “LETT’s Grow!” So says a new bill introduced in Kentucky. The clever legislative acronym stands for “Legalize, Expunge, Treat and Tax.” Associate Editor Tony Lange has the story. Read more 
• The New York Legislature has approved a proposal to allow hemp businesses in the state to grow and process adult-use cannabis to help get product on dispensary shelves when adult-use sales launch. Read more 
• Will California cut its cultivation tax this year? A new bill proposes just that, but the matter of tax reform is complicated. Read more 
• From Senior Digital Editor Melissa Schiller: Oregon’s cities and counties can currently levy a maximum local cannabis sales tax of 3%, but after some municipalities lobbied for higher taxes, the state Legislature is considering a bill that would allow local governments to raise the cannabis sales tax to 10%. Read more 

And elsewhere on the web, here are the stories we’ve been reading this week:

• Marijuana Moment: “A top Wells Fargo analyst says that there’s one main reason for rising costs and worker shortages in the transportation sector: federal marijuana criminalization and resulting drug testing mandates that persist even as more states enact legalization.” Read more 
• NJ.com: Interest in unionization is high among New Jersey’s cannabis workers on the threshold of the state’s adult-use market. Read more 
• Bridge Michigan: “305 Farms is licensed to grow up to 80,000 plants a year in a 350,000 square foot facility that will be more than double the average size of a Walmart.” This is happening in Lawrence, a small town in southwestern Michigan. Read more 
• KRQE: New Mexico is gearing up for its April 1 start date for adult-use cannabis sales. Business license applications are rolling in. Read more 
• New York Times: “New Jersey’s cannabis law was partly designed to remedy wrongs in a criminal justice system that disproportionately ensnares Black and Latino people. But the hurdles for small-business owners are high.” Read more