Cannabis consumption in hospitality establishments

Five long years after the state’s first recreational dispensaries opened, Colorado tokers will finally have a place to consume cannabis publicly. Governor Jared Polis (D) signed HB 1230 into law on Wednesday, legalizing licensed marijuana hospitality spaces in which cannabis can be consumed on site.

Before signing the social consumption bill into law, Polis said, “Colorado has many tourists and residents who choose to participate [in legal cannabis use]. Up until this bill, there’s been no way to have safe public consumption. I’ve smelled it walking my dog. For many of us with kids, we want to make sure we don’t have that in our neighborhoods.”

The new rules open the door for a variety of businesses to cash in on cannabis consumption, including hotels, spas, art galleries, cafes, lounges, and more. After purchasing medical or recreational cannabis at a dispensary, tourists and residents will be able to try out their purchases at on-site marijuana tasting rooms. The law will make an exception to the Colorado Clean Air Act, which prohibits indoor smoking.

The law won’t go into effect until 2020, and cities and counties have the option of banning social-use establishments. Local governments will have the option of adjusting the regulations to allow vaping, for example, but not smoking.

House Bill 1230 passed in the state legislature on May 2 and was signed into law on May 29. Last year, then-Governor John Hickenlooper (D) vetoed similar legislation.

 

Don’t leave home, get your marijuana delivered

Polis had a busy day of signing marijuana legislation into law Wednesday, including HB 1234, which allows licensed marijuana dispensaries to deliver cannabis to private residences.

Medical marijuana deliveries would be allowed to begin starting Jan. 2, 2020, and recreational cannabis deliveries would be allowed to start on the same date in 2021. Deliveries cannot be made to college campuses, and private residences can only have cannabis delivered once per day. A $1 surcharge will be added to each delivery and go towards local law enforcement costs related to marijuana enforcement.

Licensed transporters will undergo marijuana delivery training and will be protected from criminal prosecution for making cannabis deliveries.

The sponsors of HB 1234 argued that the bill would help stamp out black-market cannabis delivery as well as help patients who can’t always leave home for medical marijuana.

“This is a bill of compassion [for medical marijuana patients],” said Polis.

 

Cannabis Delivered to Your Door

There’s renewed hope for marijuana delivery in Colorado as a new bill that would legalize the service received approval from a state House committee. HB1234 would allow home delivery of medical marijuana starting in January 2020. Recreational marijuana delivery would be delayed until January 2021.

Rep. John Singer (D), one of the bill’s sponsors, said that the legislation is “an opportunity to stamp out a black market and provide a service for people who are sick.”

The bill includes a $1 delivery surcharge that will go to local law enforcement, and cities and counties must opt-in to the program. Delivery vehicles would be tracked by GPS and follow state-mandated safety rules. Medical marijuana dispensaries already in operation would have the first opportunity to apply for delivery permits. After a year, delivery permitting would open up to third-party transporters.

Matt Kahl, a veteran who uses medical cannabis, told lawmakers, “There are a lot of people out there who really need it. They have no other way to get cannabis.”

Last year, a similar measure was defeated in the Senate, but advocates of HB1234 hope that changes to the bill and Colorado’s new weed-friendly governor will improve its chances of becoming law.

“We have bipartisan support on this bill. We also have bipartisan opposition on this bill,” said Rep. Singer.

 

Medical Marijuana for Autism

On Autism Awareness Day, Governor Jared Polis (D) signed a bill that adds autism spectrum disorder to the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana. The new law enables children under the age of 18 with autism to be treated with medical cannabis, provided they have the approval of two physicians.

“It’s National Autism Day today, and we are acting by expanding patients’ access to cannabis products that help those with autism,” Polis said before signing the bill. “We know that not just anecdotally, but with a mounting amount of good scientific data that is coming in.”

Colorado’s former governor, John Hickenlooper (D) vetoed several cannabis bills last year, including one that would have given access to medical cannabis to people with autism.

 

The California Department of Public Health’s Food and Drug Branch (CDPH-FDB) has announced that hemp-derived CBD cannot be used in edibles (both food and drink) for either humans or pets. The rule change is a huge blow to the state’s industrial hemp industry and has left much confusion in its wake.

In the FAQ announcing the policy change, the CDPH-FDB said, “Although California currently allows the manufacturing and sales of cannabis products (including edibles), the use of industrial hemp as the source of CBD to be added to food products is prohibited. Until the FDA rules that industrial hemp-derived CBD oil and CBD products can be used as a food or California makes a determination that they are safe to use for human and animal consumption, CBD products are not an approved food, food ingredient, food additive or dietary supplement.”

For cannabis retailers licensed through the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the rule change means that they cannot sell hemp-based CBD products, though they will still be able to sell CBD products derived from psychoactive cannabis. Hemp and cannabis are the same species of plant, but hemp contains more CBD and negligible amounts of THC.

The restriction on CBD from hemp makes even less sense considering the overabundance of CBD products available outside of retail marijuana dispensaries. Plus, the US Food and Drug Administration approved CBD-based medication, Epidiolex, to treat seizures earlier this year.

“While I disagree with the state of California’s position and approach to hemp-derived CBD – given that it is the same molecule – the law is clear and the FAQ released by the CDPH-FDB confirms the hemp-derived CBD cannot be lawfully added to a food, food product or dietary supplement,” said Dana Cisneros, an attorney with Cannabis Corporate Law Firm.

“This is devastating for small businesses in California that rely on hemp-derived CBD. This is devastating for patients that cannot afford to purchase cannabis-derived CDB products sold in BCC licensed retail establishments.

“And it is nonsensical,” she said.

On Wednesday, President Trump signed the “Right to Try” bill into law. Legislation was first introduced by Republican lawmakers in March.

The new law allows terminally ill patients to try experimental treatments and drugs that have not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–including medical marijuana.

According to Forbes, terminal patients wishing to access medical cannabis must be in “a stage of a disease or condition in which there is reasonable likelihood that death will occur within a matter of months, or a disease or condition that would result in significant irreversible morbidity that is likely to lead to severely premature death.”

In addition, patients would need to have “exhausted approved treatment options” and not be eligible to otherwise participate in ongoing clinical trials on the drug because they don’t meet inclusion criteria or live within geographic proximity of where the study is taking place.

In order for a drug to qualify under the new law, it must have completed a Phase 1 clinical trial. Luckily, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has been studying cannabis since 2010 and marijuana is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials.

In an interview, Brad Burge, the director of strategic communications for MAPS, said, “Making medical marijuana available for terminally ill patients would certainly be a significant step forward for federal policy. If MAPS’s current Phase 2 clinical trial of marijuana for symptoms of PTSD in military veterans qualifies marijuana for use under the proposed Right to Try Act, then the trial will already have helped a lot of people.

“Still, only making marijuana available for those on the verge of dying isn’t nearly enough, and the best thing the federal government can do for patients is to end the federal monopoly on marijuana for research currently being upheld by Jeff Sessions.”

New Mexico’s medical marijuana program launched in 2007, but this year the state has seen a record number of enrollees. The state saw a 77 percent increase registered medical marijuana patients, bringing the total number of patients to 45,347 as of Nov. 30. That’ a net gain of 19,650 patients.

It’s the largest increase in the number of registered patients over a one year period, and the number could easily reach 50,000 by the end of the year.

This is despite the ongoing confusion surrounding enrollment numbers from the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH). Over the past three years, thousands of patients have been disenrolled from the medical marijuana program. Department of Health officials blame so-called “legacy data” that needed to be removed from the state database. The NMDOH and the vendor responsible for program data have confirmed the ongoing reporting concerns.

“The challenge we run into, as we have stated several times, is these reports keep having staggering changes in numbers,” Andrea Sundberg, NMDOH Patient Services Manager, told the Las Cruces Sun-News. “Last year we had a change of 5,000 active enrollees in a one month period that nobody could ever explain. Then last month (September 2017) we ran the report and the numbers by county and condition were different than the active count by over 7,000,” Sundberg said. “These type of issues two years into the system are not appropriate and only lead to greater confusion about our valid data.”

In April, New Mexico’s medical cannabis board voted to expand the list of eligible medical conditions beyond the current 20 acceptable ailments. The addition of qualifying conditions would expand the patient pool significantly, which could be a boon for the state’s cannabis businesses, but disagreements between the New Mexico Medical Cannabis Advisory Board and New Mexico Health Secretary Lynn Gallagher.