Authorities easing up enforcement of low-level pot crimes as medical marijuana law takes effect – Argus Leader

Recreational marijuana is still illegal in South Dakota, but in the state’s largest population center, possessing small amounts of cannabis won’t land you behind bars anymore.

And state cops patrolling South Dakota highways are also easing up enforcement to a degree.

South Dakota’s new medical marijuana law takes effect at midnight Thursday, making possession of three ounces or less of cannabis legal for people with a qualifying condition. But authorities in Minnehaha County on Wednesday told the Argus Leader that they will no longer arrest or prosecute any low-level marijuana laws due to the impact the medical marijuana law will have on law enforcement’s ability to efficiently and effectively enforce recreational cannabis laws.

More: Sanford doctors cleared to recommend medical marijuana, Avera holds breath for state rules

„Even if you don’t have a medical marijuana card, the decision was made that on low level, low quantity offenses, it’s a waste of resources to try and enforce the very, very complicated version of medical marijuana that was passed by the voter,” Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead said.

Under the state statute that takes effect Thursday, medical marijuana card holders or anyone with a recommendation to use cannabis from a medical professional can possess up to three ounces of cannabis at once. It also allows someone arrested for marijuana possession to have charges dismissed if they can obtain a doctor’s recommendation after the fact.

Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Daniel Haggar said those provisions are expected to lead to lots of dismissals in jurisdictions where low level cannabis prohibitions continue to be enforced.

That coupled with the wishes of South Dakota voters conveyed at the ballot box last November — a recreational marijuana law was also approved but is invalid while a court challenge is resolved — it’s in the best interest of Minnehaha County taxpayers not to pursue convictions for low-level marijuana crimes, he said.

More: Flandreau tribe’s cannabis outfit has 10,000 plants, expected to generate $1M a month

„That being said, juveniles possessing marijuana, individuals who are driving under the influence of marijuana, and individuals unlawfully distributing marijuana will continue to be prosecuted,” he said.

The Sioux Falls Police Department and the Lincoln County State’s Attorney’s Office confirmed Wednesday evening their organizations are also taking that approach to marijuana enforcement.

On a state level, the Highway Patrol won’t be making as many arrests when encountering cannabis in the field either. However, that agency isn’t going quite as far as ceasing simple possession arrests entirely.

According to a news release issued by Gov. Kristi Noem’s office Wednesday, state troopers will not arrest people found to be in possession of three ounces or less if a suspect can produce evidence that they have a recommendation from a medical professional to use cannabis.

Non-resident marijuana ID cards will also be honored, and tribal members who have a tribal-issued medical marijuana ID card will also be protected from arrest if they possess three ounces or less of cannabis. 

The Argus Leader is reaching out to other county law enforcers and prosecutors across the state about how they intend to adjust enforcement practices as a result of medical marijuana laws taking effect this week.

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SD medical marijuana: What to know after it’s legalized on July 1

Medical marijuana will be legalized in South Dakota on July 1 after voters passed IM 26 in 2020. From ID cards to dispensaries, here’s what to know.

Wochit

Springfield auditor will examine cannabis business selection process; consultant says focus was on fairness – MassLive.com

SPRINGFIELD — The city’s internal auditor said this week he will examine the process for selecting cannabis companies, as requested by City Councilor Justin Hurst.

Hurst said he hopes the audit “will shed light on any improprieties that may have taken place.”

Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and consultant Julie E. Steiner said the process was fair to all applicants.

Internal auditor Yong No, meeting with councilors Tuesday, said he will review whether the process complied with city ordinances, cannabis regulations and procurement laws. In addition, he will determine if “impartial and equal treatment” was given to all applicants. The audit will include interviewing members of the review committee and others involved in the process, he said.

Earlier this year the city launched its second round of applications for marijuana businesses. Twenty-four applications were reviewed and ranked by a city committee, and in May Sarno chose nine companies with which to negotiate host community agreements, one of the requirements for any marijuana-related business looking to open in Massachusetts.

Steiner, a professor at Western New England University School of Law, told councilors Tuesday that the review commission followed “a very careful and very deliberate process.”

She said she welcomes the audit, and is confident the committee and other city officials strove to be fair in their evaluation of the proposals. She said she assures councilors that “no one was playing games to my knowledge.”

“Due process and fairness is what I’m all about,” Steiner said. “Never ever would I be involved, or put my reputation in any way aligned with folks who were not acting in the best interest of the public.”

City solicitor Edward Pikula said he believed it is “quite unusual” for such an audit request to be made while the city is still in the middle of the process.

Hurst, in formally requesting the audit this week after a prior verbal request, said it may help in finding any improprieties but could also serve to “save the city from future litigation and provide recommendations for how the selection process can be improved in future rounds.”

Earlier in June, Hurst said he was asking the state attorney general and Cannabis Control Commission to investigate the city’s selection of Page Cultivate, which plans a cannabis cultivation business at 299 Page Blvd. The property is the former Smith & Wesson Shooting Sports Center, a portion of which is already used by the Springfield Police Department as a shooting range and training facility.

Hurst and attorney Brian G. Shea, representing another applicant, Diem Springfield LLC, said they do not believe Page Cultivate met buffer restrictions for cannabis cultivation but was still ranked high by the review committee and selected by Sarno for negotiations. Shea and his clients listened in on Tuesday’s meeting.

Diem’s proposal for retail marijuana sales on the first floor of the former Macy’s store at the Eastfield Mall was selected for negotiation of a host community agreement, but its application for cultivation on the second floor was not selected.

Hurst said Tuesday he was not going to discuss specific applications, just the selection process.

In a recent press release, he said the selection process raised “some serious red flags,” and “we owe it to all the other applicants who were not selected to get this right.”

E-cigarettes more effective than nicotine replacements: study – New York Post

As health experts continue to scrutinize the viability of e-cigarettes as a safe approach to smoking cessation, a new study funded by top cancer researchers in the UK has determined that vaping can be “more effective” than patches, gum and other nicotine replacement products for quitting.

That’s good news for the estimated 21.5 million adult smokers — over half of all adult smokers in the US — who will attempt to quit smoking this year, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study is considered the first to pit the success rate of e-cigs against conventional treatments, including nicotine patches, chewing gum, nasal or mouth spray and inhalators, which have been marketed for decades as the only practicable tool to help smokers quit — that is, until e-cigarettes were popularized.

While these time-tested methods do work, especially in tandem with behavioral therapy, they’ve nonetheless held a weak reputation as less than 3 million adult smokers each year can say they successfully quit.

The nicotine vaporizer, or electronic cigarette, was invented in the early 2000s, but it would take another decade or so before it exploded on the market. Since then, its safety has been called into question as some vaping products were implicated in a rash of hospitalizations of patients with vaping-associated lung injuries, including or bronchiolitis obliterans — aka “popcorn lung” — notably occurring in young, healthy individuals.

Juul, the preeminent industry leader in nicotine vaping, was heavily implicated in these cases, and publicly answered for its role in the marketing of e-cigarettes to teenagers. However, researchers would later learn that the source of this spike in lung illnesses could be “strongly linked” to some THC-containing vaping products — not nicotine — containing a potentially harmful vitamin E acetate additive. Research has continued on the long-term health effects of all forms of vaporizing devices.

To find out if the promise of e-cigarettes was legit, researchers at the Queen Mary University of London enlisted 135 smokers who were struggling to quit through conventional methods, then randomly prescribed an eight-week supply of either an e-cigarette starter pack or another various nicotine replacement of the users’ choice.

After six months — four months beyond the date of their initial free supply — 27% of participants in the e-cigarette group had reduced their smoking habit by at least half, and another 19% had successfully quit altogether (confirmed with a carbon monoxide breathalyzer reading). Compare that to the mere 3% in the control group who quit cigarettes and 6% who managed to cut back.

The findings were published in the Addiction on Wednesday.

“This study shows e-cigarettes can be a very effective tool for people who want to stop smoking, including those who’ve tried to quit before. And research so far shows that vaping is far less harmful than smoking,” said Michelle Mitchell, CEO of Cancer Research UK, which backed the study, in a statement.

“But e-cigarettes aren’t risk-free,” she warned. “And we don’t yet know their long-term effects, so people who have never smoked shouldn’t use them.”

Medical cannabis bill gets favorable committee vote – Port City Daily

A Wilmington-based company hopes to bring a high standard of professional standards and practices to the state's hemp industry -- and, ultimately, the legalized marijuana industry. (Port City Daily photo / Courtesy CIJ Holdings, Inc.)
Republican Senators Bill Rabon and Michael Lee are on a quest to bring a tightly-regulated medical marijuana market to North Carolina. (Port City Daily/Courtesy CIJ Holding Inc.)

Momentum is ramping up for a medical cannabis bill championed by two Cape Fear Republicans who are joined in support by a contingent of Democrats. The group of senators are eager to see North Carolina follow the example of most other states by exerting control over medical weed enterprise within its borders. 

The N.C. Compassionate Care Act, SB711, is spearheaded by Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, and Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, along with Sen. Paul Lowe, D-Forsyth. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted favorably on the bill Wednesday afternoon, marking a historic moment for the consideration of cannabis reform in N.C. and the clearing of the first hurdle in a long fight for the bill’s sponsors. 

From here, the bill moves to three additional committees: finance, healthcare, then rules and operations. 

“As we move forward, we plan to tighten up everything and all loose ends if there are any,” Rabon said during Wednesday’s committee hearing. “The time has come that this needs to be discussed and we need to compassionately care for our fellow man.”

READ MORE: Rabon and Lee’s medical cannabis bill earns bipartisan praise, gets spotlight in committee

Last week, after Rabon, Lee and Lowe first overviewed the bill in the judiciary committee, Senate Majority Leader Kathy Harrington, R-Gaston, added her name to the list of bill sponsors. She noted Wednesday that her husband’s recently diagnosed medical condition and the distress he faces spurred her support for the bill. 

SB711 differs from previous attempts at cannabis reform, not only due to its bipartisan backing but also because of its proposed tight grip on any business operations. The bill’s language spells out a strict regulatory framework that will oversee cannabis cultivation from “seed to sale,” with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and new political boards playing integral roles in the proposed cannabis bureaucracy. 

As chairman of the Rules and Operations Committee, Rabon — a self-identified “top five” Senate power player — brings an edge of authority to the medical cannabis scene. Prior to SB711, cannabis proposals were typically the work of Democrats. 

A cancer survivor himself, Rabon has said individuals with debilitating medical conditions deserve every available opportunity for a better quality of life: including cannabis. (Read the list of “debilitating medical conditions” that qualify patients for medical cannabis cards at the end of this article). 

Lee, an accomplished practicing attorney in land-use law and other scenes, has emphasized the strict guidelines to be imposed on dispensaries, if the bill becomes law. 

“There are some states that have medical marijuana, that in my opinion is tantamount to recreational, to be honest with you,” Lee said at the hearing. 

Multiple anti-legalization advocates spoke out against the bill Wednesday, calling it unscientific and a stepping stone to recreational cannabis. Pro-cannabis public speakers said the bill doesn’t do enough; they implored senators to widen the scope of the bill and include more approved debilitating medical conditions. Veterans, too, spoke on the hardships of returning to civilian life and their desire to see medical cannabis legalized to ease that transition.

Bill sponsors have emphasized at hearings that SB711 is among the most regulated cannabis bills to be proposed in the United States. Its language enumerates a tight list of qualifying conditions, excluding those like chronic pain, opioid dependency and anxiety. 

Cannabis bills of all stripes have long been silenced in the North Carolina legislature, which has stood by as nearly 40 states across the country have adopted some sort of medical cannabis system through legislation or ballot referendums. 

Prospective cannabis entrepreneurs would be required to own both production facilities and dispensaries, according to the bill. The number of suppliers statewide will be capped at 10, and those businesses are limited to four dispensaries each at most. (A previous version of the bill allowed the suppliers up to eight dispensaries each). Suppliers will pay a $50,000 license fee to North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, and a $10,000 annual renewal fee. NCDHHS also gets a 10% cut of all gross revenues. 

This is the list of conditions that would allow one to procure a medical cannabis prescription pursuant to the Compassionate Care Act. The Medical Cannabis Advisory Board would have the power to add new conditions to the list with a majority vote. “Chronic pain,” was deliberately excluded from the list. (Port City Daily/Courtesy NCGA)

Send tips, comments and criticisms to preston@localdailymedia.com or (910) 478-6511

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Couple Earns Patent for THC- and CBD-Infused Chewing Gum: Here’s How – Cannabis Business Times

When Ben Telford showed up for work June 23 at the Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center in Portsmouth, R.I., he was shocked to learn that his employment was terminated.

In April, Greenleaf Portsmouth employees became the first cannabis dispensary workers in the state to unionize after a 21-1 vote to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 328. The organized Greenleaf team includes budtenders, keyholders, online team members and delivery associates.

Employed by Greenleaf since May 2020, Telford was a keyholder at the Portsmouth medical cannabis retail facility in Portsmouth, where his responsibilities included opening and closing the store, cash management and day-to-day operations, as well as performing other duties in the absence of management. He was also a member of Greenleaf’s union bargaining committee, a role he retains.

Courtesy of UFCW Local 328

Ben Telford, second from right, had his employment as a keyholder at the Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center in Portsmouth, R.I., terminated on June 23. 

“I was definitely shocked,” Telford said of his termination. “I’m a hard worker, both on the job, at the site, and then off the job as far as the effort to unionize and get our team together and get a contract negotiated.”

While his termination came as a surprise, Telford said he had thought about the possibility.

“I’ve been a very loud voice for myself and for others on the team that worked there,” he said. “But the reason I was given the day I was terminated … was that my services were no longer required. And when I asked for further explanation, I was told that there was none needed to be given at the time, so I gathered my belongings and left for the afternoon and said goodbye to everybody.”

Telford was informed of his termination by Greenleaf’s chief of staff and director of retail operations, but he said it’s his understanding that the decision came from Greenleaf CEO Seth Bock. Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary reached out to Bock for comment but as of June 30 have not yet received a response.

According to a UFCW Local 328 press release, Telford’s termination is only the latest in a string of firings by Bock. “In the last six months, the Greenleaf CEO has fired the director of retail operations, the head of delivery, the human resources manager and the chief operating officer.”

In addition, Telford said the director of inventory at a Greenleaf cultivation facility was also terminated recently.

“It depends on the person, but, overall, it’s been very retaliatory,” Telford said. “The owner, Seth Bock, has been allowed to move as he pleases. And, overall, when people get the skills that require higher pay and have had a long tenure, he’s been known to just kind of clear house and get some fresh faces that are happy to be there, because getting in the cannabis industry is something that a lot of people want to do.”

The UFCW Local 328, which represents more than 11,000 workers in a range of industries throughout Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, is now filing unfair labor practices charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over what the Local 328 called the illegal retaliatory firing of a Greenleaf employee.

The Local 328 release also claims Bock has exhibited a history of retaliation against employees.

Jeffery Dieffenbach, former finance director and general counsel for Greenleaf, was fired in January 2020. In September, Dieffenbach filed a lawsuit against Greenleaf to remedy and seek relief for unlawful employment practices arising under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other U.S. labor laws.

Dieffenbach, a 71-year-old Newport resident at the time he filed the lawsuit, worked for Greenleaf for six years. When he was first hired by Greenleaf as a part-time independent contractor, he was paid $30 per hour for 10 hours a week. By October 2018, Dieffenbach was being paid $90,000 per year as the finance director and general counsel, according to the lawsuit.

In a subsequent interview with WJAR-TV, a local NBC affiliate, Dieffenbach said, “I was never reprimanded. I was never given any negative comments or reviews of my work.”

While Greenleaf’s workers unionized in a 21-1 ballot count on April 5, 2021, they had filed for their union election in early March, citing concerns about job security and lack of workplace protections.

More specifically, contributing factors leading workers to organize included Greenleaf’s elimination of an employee sales incentive program that included weekly and monthly cash bonuses offered to sales associates, budtenders and delivery employees, Telford said. In addition, the company also reduced worker benefits such as a discount program for employee patients who also purchased medical cannabis from the center, he said.

“That came during the time of them kind of clearing house at the top end and getting rid of a few employees,” he said. “But it followed the history of abusive behavior and discriminatory practices from management.”

Amidst Telford’s termination, Greenleaf attempted to reinstate a new employee incentive program last week but then had to rescind that effort because it was not part of a union-negotiated contract, UFCW Local 328 Director of Organizing Sam Marvin said.

Theoretically, if such an incentive program is not in a contract, then the CEO can take it away at any time, he said.

“I don’t know what Greenleaf’s intent was, if it was a tactic,” Marvin said. “But they are required, and they have to come to the table and negotiate good faith over it, and they have to provide additional details like how it’s going to impact the workforce, who’s going to be eligible, who is not—really, they need to explain their proposal and why they’re proposing it, and they have to give their workers the chance to respond.”

Local 328 currently represents workers from four cannabis businesses, also including the Ocean State Cultivation Center (OSCC) in Warwick, R.I.; the Curaleaf medical dispensary in Hanover, Mass.; and the Cresco Labs cultivation and processing facility in Fall River, Mass.

RELATED: Unionization Efforts Are Under Way in the Cannabis Space

After Greenleaf workers filed for their union election in March, the company hired Government Resources Consultants of America Inc., a counter-union organization based out of Illinois, according to an LM-20 Agreement and Activities Report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.

The consultants’ objective? “To persuade employees to exercise or not to exercise, or persuade employees as to the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing,” according to the report.

The out-of-state, union-prevention consultants held mandatory meetings and distributed flyers to employees at the Greenleaf dispensary, according to UFCW Local 328.

“Doing what we do, we encounter union-busters all the time,” Marvin said. “It doesn’t really matter what company or what industry you’re trying to organize. And they all say the same thing. They’re all going to try to use the same kind of tactics.”

Anti-union consultants often change their tactics based on what they think will work, but the underlying intention remains the same, Marvin said.

“They’ll talk about dues, they’ll talk about strikes, they’ll talk about, ‘Give us another chance,’” Marvin said. “They’ll talk about how long the process might take. So, they kind of throw everything against the wall and they hope that it sticks.”

The Greenleaf workers remained united with their nearly unanimous vote. Telford said his voice in favor of organizing remained active throughout the process.

After he was terminated last week, union representation reached out to Greenleaf’s lawyers for further explanation. They responded that his sales performance was subpar during the month of May, according to Telford.

“And I am not a sales associate,” he said. “Now we’re working with the National Labor Relations Board to file unfair labor practice charges and seek justice for wrongful termination.”

On Saturday, June 26, the UFCW Local 328 held a one-day strike near Greenleaf’s Portsmouth care center to protest Telford’s termination. The union employees at Greenleaf voted unanimously to authorize the strike.

“I don’t even have the words to describe the gratitude I feel and the appreciation I have for everyone, and the patients that came by while we were picketing [to] express their support too— that’s something I’ll never forget,” Telford said. “It was the most humbling experience I ever had.”

The unionized Greenleaf cannabis workers released the following joint statement in the Local 328 release:

“We want to first recognize our patients and thank them for the support we have received throughout this process of unionizing. We understand that this action may have disrupted some people’s ability to purchase their medicine, which is something we take very seriously. As workers, we strive to provide the highest quality services and products that we can, because we believe in cannabis and its medicinal benefits.

“Over these past few weeks, ownership at Greenleaf has continued to make decisions that impede us from providing that quality of work. After the wrongful termination of one of our best team members, we collectively decided that we had no choice but to take this action.

“We’re proud to work in this industry and will continue to stand together in solidarity as we progress towards our goal of negotiating a contract that helps in establishing a standard within our dispensary that supports our growth as professionals and helps bring the focus of our work back to the people that matter the most, our patients.

Prenatal exposure to THC, CBD in mice affects offspring’s responsiveness to Prozac – Mirage News

Scientists at Indiana University have found that significant amounts of the two main components of cannabis, THC and CBD, enter the embryonic brain of mice in utero and impair the mice’s ability as adults to respond to fluoxetine, a drug commonly used to treat anxiety and depression and known by the brand name Prozac.

The study suggests that when the developing brain is exposed to THC or CBD, normal interactions between endocannabinoid and serotonin signaling may be diminished as they become adults.

“Hemp-derived CBD is a legal substance in the U.S., and we are in a time of increasing state-level legalization of cannabis. Therefore, use of cannabis components have increased across most levels of society, including among pregnant women,” said Hui-Chen Lu, author of the study, director of the Linda and Jack Gill Center and a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences. “The study marks the beginning of an effort to understand the effects of THC and CBD on the endogenous cannabinoid system in the developing brain and body.”

The study was published in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research and will be a part of the upcoming 2021 Gill Symposium, which will focus exclusively on the topic of cannabis.

Researchers studied four groups of pregnant mice. Some received daily moderate doses of either THC, CBD, or a combination of equal parts THC and CBD; a control group was given placebo injections throughout pregnancy. Using mass spectrometry, IU psychological and brain sciences professor Heather Bradshaw tested embryos and found that CBD and THC both could reach the embryonic brain, determining that the drug was making it past the placenta.

“The surprising part is that maternal exposure to CBD alone — a drug that is often considered as safe and harmless and is a popular ‘natural’ therapy for morning sickness — resulted in a lasting impact on adult mice offspring,” Lu said. “Both prenatal THC and CBD exposure impaired the adult’s ability to respond to fluoxetine. The results suggest taking a cautious approach to using CBD during pregnancy.”

There is some evidence for CBD’s effectiveness in treating chronic pain and anxiety, though the only FDA-approved indication for CBD to date is the treatment of severe seizure disorders.

“We still know very little about the effects of CBD on the developing brain,” Lu said.

The new paper is one of the first studies to see the potential negative impact of CBD on the developing brain and later behaviors.

Study co-author Ken Mackie, Gill Chair of Neuroscience at IU Bloomington, said researchers know that prenatal cannabis exposure may increase the risk for anxiety and depression, so it is important to evaluate the response to a class of drug used to treat anxiety and depression.

While many of the tests reflected normal mouse behaviors, one test — to determine their response to stress — stood out strongly as atypical. The mice in all groups responded normally to a stressful situation. As expected, fluoxetine increased stress resilience in mice whose mothers had received the placebo. However, the drug was ineffective in mice whose mothers had received THC, CBD or their combination.

Fluoxetine works by increasing the amount of serotonin available at brain synapses, an effect known to require the endocannabinoid system. This internal system of receptors, enzymes and molecules both mediates the effects of cannabis and plays a role in regulating various bodily systems, such as appetite, mood, stress and chronic pain.

To test if maternal exposure to THC and/or CBD impaired endocannabinoid signaling in the adult offspring, the researchers tested whether giving a drug to boost the endocannabinoid system would restore fluoxetine’s effectiveness. They found that enhancing the endocannabinoid system restored normal fluoxetine responses in mice that had received THC or CBD while their brains were developing.

Additional authors on the study are Izaque de Sousa Maciel, Gabriel de Abreu, Clare Johnson and Rida Bonday, all in the Gill Center and the IU Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

The study was funded by the IU Responding to the Addictions Crisis Grand Challenge, startup funds from the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences and the Gill Endowment fund, as well as by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

IU Research

Indiana University’s world-class researchers have driven innovation and creative initiatives that matter for 200 years. From curing testicular cancer to collaborating with NASA to search for life on Mars, IU has earned its reputation as a world-class research institution. Supported by $854 million last year from our partners, IU researchers are building collaborations and uncovering new solutions that improve lives in Indiana and around the globe.

/Public Release. This material comes from the originating organization and may be of a point-in-time nature, edited for clarity, style and length. View in full here.

Couple Earns Patent for THC- and CBD-Infused Chewing Gum: Here’s How – Cannabis Dispensary

When Ben Telford showed up for work June 23 at the Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center in Portsmouth, R.I., he was shocked to learn that his employment was terminated.

In April, Greenleaf Portsmouth employees became the first cannabis dispensary workers in the state to unionize after a 21-1 vote to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 328. The organized Greenleaf team includes budtenders, keyholders, online team members and delivery associates.

Employed by Greenleaf since May 2020, Telford was a keyholder at the Portsmouth medical cannabis retail facility in Portsmouth, where his responsibilities included opening and closing the store, cash management and day-to-day operations, as well as performing other duties in the absence of management. He was also a member of Greenleaf’s union bargaining committee, a role he retains.

Courtesy of UFCW Local 328

Ben Telford, second from right, had his employment as a keyholder at the Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center in Portsmouth, R.I., terminated on June 23. 

“I was definitely shocked,” Telford said of his termination. “I’m a hard worker, both on the job, at the site, and then off the job as far as the effort to unionize and get our team together and get a contract negotiated.”

While his termination came as a surprise, Telford said he had thought about the possibility.

“I’ve been a very loud voice for myself and for others on the team that worked there,” he said. “But the reason I was given the day I was terminated … was that my services were no longer required. And when I asked for further explanation, I was told that there was none needed to be given at the time, so I gathered my belongings and left for the afternoon and said goodbye to everybody.”

Telford was informed of his termination by Greenleaf’s chief of staff and director of retail operations, but he said it’s his understanding that the decision came from Greenleaf CEO Seth Bock. Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary reached out to Bock for comment but as of June 30 have not yet received a response.

According to a UFCW Local 328 press release, Telford’s termination is only the latest in a string of firings by Bock. “In the last six months, the Greenleaf CEO has fired the director of retail operations, the head of delivery, the human resources manager and the chief operating officer.”

In addition, Telford said the director of inventory at a Greenleaf cultivation facility was also terminated recently.

“It depends on the person, but, overall, it’s been very retaliatory,” Telford said. “The owner, Seth Bock, has been allowed to move as he pleases. And, overall, when people get the skills that require higher pay and have had a long tenure, he’s been known to just kind of clear house and get some fresh faces that are happy to be there, because getting in the cannabis industry is something that a lot of people want to do.”

The UFCW Local 328, which represents more than 11,000 workers in a range of industries throughout Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, is now filing unfair labor practices charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over what the Local 328 called the illegal retaliatory firing of a Greenleaf employee.

The Local 328 release also claims Bock has exhibited a history of retaliation against employees.

Jeffery Dieffenbach, former finance director and general counsel for Greenleaf, was fired in January 2020. In September, Dieffenbach filed a lawsuit against Greenleaf to remedy and seek relief for unlawful employment practices arising under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other U.S. labor laws.

Dieffenbach, a 71-year-old Newport resident at the time he filed the lawsuit, worked for Greenleaf for six years. When he was first hired by Greenleaf as a part-time independent contractor, he was paid $30 per hour for 10 hours a week. By October 2018, Dieffenbach was being paid $90,000 per year as the finance director and general counsel, according to the lawsuit.

In a subsequent interview with WJAR-TV, a local NBC affiliate, Dieffenbach said, “I was never reprimanded. I was never given any negative comments or reviews of my work.”

While Greenleaf’s workers unionized in a 21-1 ballot count on April 5, 2021, they had filed for their union election in early March, citing concerns about job security and lack of workplace protections.

More specifically, contributing factors leading workers to organize included Greenleaf’s elimination of an employee sales incentive program that included weekly and monthly cash bonuses offered to sales associates, budtenders and delivery employees, Telford said. In addition, the company also reduced worker benefits such as a discount program for employee patients who also purchased medical cannabis from the center, he said.

“That came during the time of them kind of clearing house at the top end and getting rid of a few employees,” he said. “But it followed the history of abusive behavior and discriminatory practices from management.”

Amidst Telford’s termination, Greenleaf attempted to reinstate a new employee incentive program last week but then had to rescind that effort because it was not part of a union-negotiated contract, UFCW Local 328 Director of Organizing Sam Marvin said.

Theoretically, if such an incentive program is not in a contract, then the CEO can take it away at any time, he said.

“I don’t know what Greenleaf’s intent was, if it was a tactic,” Marvin said. “But they are required, and they have to come to the table and negotiate good faith over it, and they have to provide additional details like how it’s going to impact the workforce, who’s going to be eligible, who is not—really, they need to explain their proposal and why they’re proposing it, and they have to give their workers the chance to respond.”

Local 328 currently represents workers from four cannabis businesses, also including the Ocean State Cultivation Center (OSCC) in Warwick, R.I.; the Curaleaf medical dispensary in Hanover, Mass.; and the Cresco Labs cultivation and processing facility in Fall River, Mass.

RELATED: Unionization Efforts Are Under Way in the Cannabis Space

After Greenleaf workers filed for their union election in March, the company hired Government Resources Consultants of America Inc., a counter-union organization based out of Illinois, according to an LM-20 Agreement and Activities Report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.

The consultants’ objective? “To persuade employees to exercise or not to exercise, or persuade employees as to the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing,” according to the report.

The out-of-state, union-prevention consultants held mandatory meetings and distributed flyers to employees at the Greenleaf dispensary, according to UFCW Local 328.

“Doing what we do, we encounter union-busters all the time,” Marvin said. “It doesn’t really matter what company or what industry you’re trying to organize. And they all say the same thing. They’re all going to try to use the same kind of tactics.”

Anti-union consultants often change their tactics based on what they think will work, but the underlying intention remains the same, Marvin said.

“They’ll talk about dues, they’ll talk about strikes, they’ll talk about, ‘Give us another chance,’” Marvin said. “They’ll talk about how long the process might take. So, they kind of throw everything against the wall and they hope that it sticks.”

The Greenleaf workers remained united with their nearly unanimous vote. Telford said his voice in favor of organizing remained active throughout the process.

After he was terminated last week, union representation reached out to Greenleaf’s lawyers for further explanation. They responded that his sales performance was subpar during the month of May, according to Telford.

“And I am not a sales associate,” he said. “Now we’re working with the National Labor Relations Board to file unfair labor practice charges and seek justice for wrongful termination.”

On Saturday, June 26, the UFCW Local 328 held a one-day strike near Greenleaf’s Portsmouth care center to protest Telford’s termination. The union employees at Greenleaf voted unanimously to authorize the strike.

“I don’t even have the words to describe the gratitude I feel and the appreciation I have for everyone, and the patients that came by while we were picketing [to] express their support too— that’s something I’ll never forget,” Telford said. “It was the most humbling experience I ever had.”

The unionized Greenleaf cannabis workers released the following joint statement in the Local 328 release:

“We want to first recognize our patients and thank them for the support we have received throughout this process of unionizing. We understand that this action may have disrupted some people’s ability to purchase their medicine, which is something we take very seriously. As workers, we strive to provide the highest quality services and products that we can, because we believe in cannabis and its medicinal benefits.

“Over these past few weeks, ownership at Greenleaf has continued to make decisions that impede us from providing that quality of work. After the wrongful termination of one of our best team members, we collectively decided that we had no choice but to take this action.

“We’re proud to work in this industry and will continue to stand together in solidarity as we progress towards our goal of negotiating a contract that helps in establishing a standard within our dispensary that supports our growth as professionals and helps bring the focus of our work back to the people that matter the most, our patients.

What Would Federal Cannabis Legalization Look Like? – Forbes

While cannabis is legal for medical or adult-use in 36 states and 4 territories, it’s still classified as an illegal, Schedule I drug at the federal level. As a response to these varied political frameworks, states have defined their own respective paths for governing cannabis, and the industry has become one of the most nimble sectors in the United States today.

The conversation around federal legalization is gaining momentum and has Americans on the alert for what it might look like in its initial form. On one hand, the conflicted status of cannabis in America makes policymaking challenging for state and local governments, and oftentimes can put undue burden on patients and consumers. On the other hand, federal legalization could disrupt existing state frameworks and leave local and tribal concerns unresolved.

Our nation’s capital has had one of the more challenging paths towards legalization. Washington, D.C.’s regulated industry is a microcosm of how cannabis policy is impacted by the federal government’s engagement in legalization. When D.C. passed an adult-use legalization initiative in 2014, Congress put language in its Appropriations bill to all but prohibit the District from setting up its own legal cannabis market. Congress was able to maneuver this because, as a federal territory, D.C.’s funding comes from the federal budget that Congress controls.

D.C.’ s relationship with the federal government adds ambiguity to its cannabis framework that otherwise is not present in state programs. And President Biden recently doubled down on the restriction to keep it from establishing legal, adult-use cannabis sales. What this means in practice is D.C. is unable to fully tax and regulate its voter-approved program. Instead, the gap in federal policy forces it to operate in a confusing “gifting economy,” putting the burden on consumers to discern what is safe to consume and which businesses and brands to trust.

Federal legalization could make local oversight easier in D.C. It could also allow for states – and D.C. – to implement their own regulatory schemes and give the District more support from Congress during the budgeting process. Overall, District officials estimate they’re missing out on up to $20 million in revenue each year.

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Federal legalization could help alleviate some of the confusion for Native American tribes that legalized cannabis in states including California, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Washington. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice released the Wilkinson memo, which calls for the protection of cannabis businesses on tribal lands from federal prosecution in the same way that states are treated. However, it is not an enforceable law and doesn’t fully solve for how tribal lands should participate in existing state frameworks.

In states such as California, tribal nations are concerned that participating in the regulatory licensing program could amount to waiving their sovereignty. And in South Dakota, the Oglala Sioux nation legalized adult-use cannabis on its land and is currently setting up those regulations, all while the state fights to strike down its voter-passed adult-use cannabis program.

Legalization is also creating interest in how cannabis gets transported between states and to other countries. Current state regulations become more complicated the moment you step off dry land. And prohibition of interstate commerce means moving cannabis products – even between locations where its legal – is illegal.

In other words, any U.S. location that must be reached by air or sea – such as Alaska, Hawaii, or even the ferry from Massachusetts to Martha’s Vineyard – puts patients and consumers at risk of prosecution because those open spaces are under federal jurisdiction. In 2019, Hawaii Governor David Ige even vetoed a bill which would authorize patients to transport their medical cannabis between islands. And between the U.S. and Canada, the border is under the purview of U.S. Customs and Border Control, which has already made clear it’s “the nation’s first line of defense in preventing the illegal importation of narcotics, including marijuana.”

Until the federal government provides a clear stance on cannabis, the gap in policy will continue to complicate legalized state programs. In the meantime, it will be fascinating to follow the various interests and nuances that need consideration in what federal cannabis legalization looks like.

Cannabis Is A Visionary Plant, Not A Panacea – Forbes

A writer I respect gave me some constructive criticism that got me thinking. “How is it,” she asked, “that I can advocate for cannabis to change people, when the January 6th insurrectionists were smoking weed in the Capitol? Where was my precious panacea known as the cannabis plant to save the day then?” 

Her insight blew a giant hole in much of my recent writing and advocacy. I felt panic set in. It’s the kind of panic you get when you suspect you got something wrong or incomplete. After some rumination, I thought maybe I would sit down and try to make sense of the riddle. 

The first thought that came to mind was the weed those folks were smoking wasn’t any good or they hadn’t smoked enough of it. Or perhaps they needed a more powerful visionary plant than even cannabis. My ego told me that the weed could not possibly be to blame. The plant did not have enough time to work her magic from the inside out. I’ve had about 35,000 cannabis sessions in my life and those folks simply didn’t. They’ll come around in time. 

The second thought that came to mind was that the first thought might be naïve. Bad people doing bad things smoke weed, too. This truth must be acknowledged if I’m to try building bridges between cannabis people and everyone else. Cannabis can cause harm when humans interact with it in a negative way. There are giant, illegal cartel grows in the forests of California polluting rivers and streams. There are violent criminals in the weed trade. And, yes, a bunch of fools storming the Capitol earlier this year had joints a-blazing as they tried to steal an election. They are more than lucky they didn’t get shot through the heart, as any Black or brown American can tell you. We’ll see if any of them get charged with weed possession on top of everything else, given the federal laws against it. Our community certainly would have faced such charges, assuming we survived the bullet.

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The truth may be that plants can’t really work their magic on people unless people want some magic worked on them. And those same plants can work some dark magic on people who want that. They’re called visionary plants for a reason and if your vision is evil, well, the plant will be there for that, too. I like to think these plants are smarter than people because there are more people consuming cannabis today than ever before. On balance, my experience informs me that most of these interactions have ultimately yielded a more gentle person. I know the cannabis plant has arrived at a much different place within the people than when I was growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s. The plant is inside more minds and bodies than ever before despite a trillion dollar effort to stop it that continues to this day. There’s something happening here and what it is may not exactly be clear. Like everything in American life, it’s complicated. 

In the end, the struggle for cannabis rights and freedom is a multi-level chess game. One of those levels involves advocacy and transcendence to mainstream society. Another level is in the streets and our community stands ready to resist when it comes to that. The arena of public policy has been another battleground and will continue to be a place cannabis people need to show up strong. This is the only way to get our pioneers and warriors out of prison and back to work in the trade. 

Sometimes bad people will do bad things in the name of weed, and our community will have to respond in a good way. Other times we can celebrate heroic acts of triumph as legalization sweeps the globe. And there will be moments of bitter defeat where we have large wounds to heal and big lessons to learn. We can count on all of these outcomes and more for this has been our path for many generations now. 

Cannabis is not a panacea, but I haven’t found another issue to advocate with greater impact on the people and communities. The only panacea in life is our dependence on others, and the love and hope that inspires humanity to carry on despite the darkness all around us. One good joint being passed between us can help illuminate the earth as we walk down the long path home. That same joint can be used to plan all kinds of things I don’t subscribe to. All of us have to be wide open to that fact and understand that even visionary plants are complicated by the folly of human beings.