Under the new legislation, possession of less than an ounce of cannabis would be a $50 ticket.
Lawmakers in New York state have voted to eliminate criminal penalties for public possession and use of marijuana after efforts to legalize cannabis stalled.
Gov. Cuomo, a Democrat who proposed his own plan for legalization earlier this year, said he'll sign the decriminalization bill--and noted he called for a similar step five years ago.
"It's not legalization," he said on public radio Wednesday. "But it is decriminalization and it's a major, major accomplishment."
Gov. Janet Mills plans to sign a bill in the coming days to set up a legal framework for recreational marijuana sales.
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine's governor plans to sign a bill in coming days to set up a legal framework for recreational marijuana sales, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said Friday.
The state's voters chose to legalize both the use and sale of recreational marijuana among adults in November 2016, but months of delays and political squabbles have slowed the implementation of a commercial industry. The state now has a legal road map for marijuana to arrive in stores as soon as early 2020.
With U.S. legal marijuana spending set to triple between 2018 and 2024, a new report details which states will be delivering the green.
The marijuana industry is growing like gangbusters, and both investors and cannabis enthusiasts couldn't be happier. According to Bank of America analyst Christopher Carey, legal marijuana could one day become an industry capable of $166 billion in annual sales and could disrupt a number of other industries as it expands.
But when talking about global sales, we're really discussing the important role legal cannabis could play in the United States--a market that's second to no other. Carey's projection pegs the U.S. as generating more than a third of his firm's peak sales estimate, which is why the country is often viewed as the crown jewel of the marijuana movement.
The big question is: Which states will play a big role in generating legal U.S. cannabis sales?
The company filed patent applications in 2018 for specific cannabis plant descriptions.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on June 13 published a series of applications from Biotech Institute, each seeking a plant variety patent for a specific cannabis cultivar. The documents were shared by MJ Patents Weekly, a USPTO public records service maintained by patent attorney Dale Hunt.
Biotech Institute, a California company, first filed a patent application for Lemon Crush in March 2018. Then, in August 2018, Biotech Institute followed up with patent applications for Cake Batter, Primo Cherry, Holy Crunch, Rainbow Gummeez, Guava Jam and Grape Lollipop. In November 2018, Biotech Institute filed a patent application for a “cannabis plant named Raspberry Punch.”
The USPTO has not yet issued any of those plant variety patents. Typically, it takes up to 18 months for the office to do so.
The patent application for Cake Batter, as an example, provides a detailed description of the plant, one with a maximum THC content of 6.5 – 14.21 percent and a maximum CBD content of 5.36 – 9.82 percent. “Physically, there are indications that its use may prevent some cancers and may prevent and/or treat disease,” according to the application. The main terpenes found in Cake Batter are limonene, beta-caryophyllene, beta-pinene, linalool, alpha-humulene, alpha-pinene, fenchol, myrcene, alpha-bisabolol and alpha-terpineol.
See the full Cake Batter patent application below.
The cultivar was grown via cutting and cloning in Biotech’s “greenhouses, nurseries and/or fields in Salinas, Calif.; Oakland, Calif; and/or Washington, D.C.,” according to the application, and derived from proprietary genetics. The initial cross of the company’s two parental cultivars took place in April 2016; the first clone of Cake Batter occurred in February 2017. The application includes photo documentation of the plant, as required by this type of patent.
The inventors listed on Biotech Institute’s plant variety patent applications are Mark Lewis, founder of NaPro Research, and Steven Haba, operations manager at Molecular Farms (a client of NaPro Research and a licensed cannabis cultivator in Salinas).
The applications come several years after Biotech Institute began making a name for itself in the cannabis industry for its claim on several utility patents, including Patent No. 9,095,554, which describes “compositions and methods for the breeding, production, processing and use of specialty cannabis.” More specifically, the ‘554 patent recites a non-myrcene-dominant cannabis chemovar that tests at higher than 3-percent CBD content. The ‘554 patent was issued in 2015.
A steadily increasing awareness of cannabis utility and plant variety patents—and the money and intent behind them—has prompted a growing discussion over the protection and the very meaning of intellectual property claims in what is still a fragmented industry. In April, Phylos Bioscience formally announced plans to begin a cannabis breeding program, and thus received backlash from corners of the cannabis industry that had bought into the company’s database of cannabis cultivars—the Phylos “Galaxy.”
In the wake of those headlines, the questions now turn to IP protection and the shape of the cannabis industry to come. Who will own what? What will it mean to breed and propagate a unique cannabis cultivar?
The matter of patents, as a public tool and as a defense of intellectual property, is up for debate. Utility patents, like the ‘554 patent, are one thing; plant variety patents, which home in on a specific plant, offer a more narrow interpretation of what’s to be protected.
“Variety patents, which are issued for all kinds of plants under the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970, are issued only for plants that were asexually produced (clones) and are not found in nature, but rather the dedicated work of a breeder to create something new and unique,” as Kirk Miller wrote in a Cannabis Business Times article.
To date, only two specific cultivar patents have been issued. In April 2019, the USPTO issued a patent for a “cannabis plant named LW-BB1,” filed by Green Brands LLC in Denver, Colo. (doing business as LivWell, a licensed cannabis cultivation business). KUNC reported in May on the LivWell patent: “It was graded and evaluated purely on the merits of how well I described a plant,” chief scientist Andrew Alfred told the news station, “just as if it were a rose.”
Earlier, in 2016, the office issued a patent for a “cannabis plant named Ecuadorian Sativa” to a South Lake Tahoe, Calif., grower.
United States Plant Patent ... by on Scribd
Last month, the state became the first in the nation to approve a legalization and cannabis regulation measure via its legislative process.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign the state’s adult-use cannabis legalization bill into law June 25, according to a WTTW report.
With Pritzker’s expected signature, Illinois will become the 11th U.S. state to legalize and regulate adult-use cannabis, and the first to do so through its legislature.
The state’s House passed the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act (CRTA) in a 66-47 vote May 31, the last day before adjournment. The Senate passed the measure May 29.
“It’s fantastic. It’s the first legislature in the country to pass legalization,” Chris Lindsey, senior legislative counsel for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) told Cannabis Business Times upon the House’s passage of the bill. “It’s got absolutely historic equity provisions. It does an amazing amount to try to reduce the harms caused by the war on cannabis. It just hits so many of the notes. I’m extremely proud of everybody that was working in Illinois to make it possible.”
The legislation mandates that starting Jan. 1, 2020, individuals 21 and older can legally possess up to 30 grams of flower, five grams of THC concentrate and five grams of THC in a cannabis-infused product. The state will establish a regulatory structure to license and regulate cannabis businesses, and registered medical marijuana patients will be able to grow up to five plants at home, although this provision does not extend to the adult-use market.
The bill also includes expungement measures that allow past convictions of up to 30 grams of cannabis to be cleared automatically. For cases involving greater than 30 grams and up to 500 grams, individuals and the state’s attorneys can petition a court to vacate the convictions.
Cannabis Business Times’ interactive legislative map is another tool to help cultivators quickly navigate state cannabis laws and find news relevant to their markets. View More
Eric Sandy
Melissa Schiller