Poll: Nearly 70 Percent of Americans Want Congress to Allow Licensed Cannabis Businesses Access to Banking Services

Sixty-eight percent of Americans say that Congress should pass legislation so that marijuana businesses can “access banking services and products in states” where it is legal.
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New Mexico: Supreme Court Rules Against Imposition of Certain Excise Taxes on Medical Cannabis Products

“It is encouraging to see the Court take the position that medical cannabis ought to be tax exempt in a manner like other medications. Patients, many of whom may be on disability or a fixed income, should not been seen by lawmakers as a source of tax revenue.”
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Women’s History Month: A Deep Dive

By Ellen Komp
The theme of this year’s 35th annual Women’s History Month is “Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.” I can’t think of a more appropriate theme to celebrate the historical (some would say, herstorical) association between women and cannabis.
GOING BACK TO THE ANCIENTS
The connection between women and herbal medicine, spiritual practices, and cannabis goes back thousands of years. My book “Tokin’ Women: A 4000-Year Herstory of Women and Marijuana” begins with the ancient Sumerian goddess Ishtar, also called the Queen of Heaven.
Ishtar was a compassionate, healing deity associated with the Akkadian herb qunnabu (cannabis), when of plant essences into medicines was common in Sumeria. At least until the Semitic invasions circa 2600 BC, women were respected as healers in the Middle Eastern region, but after 1000 BC they were excluded from formal education. As the land of Sumer became a perpetual battlefield, Ishtar became the goddess of war and destiny, “and slowly, insidiously, there crept in more praises for her sexuality, and fewer for her healing nature,” writes Jeanne Actenberg in Woman as Healer.
In the bible, Ishtar or her mother Asherah are called Ashtoreth, the supreme goddess of Caanan and the female counterpart of the gods called Baal or Bel. In Jeremiah 44, women tell the prophet they will continue to secretly burn incense to the Queen of Heaven. In 2020, researchers tested resin found on an Judean altar from the 8th century and found cannabis, theorizing that it was used “to stimulate ecstasy.”
“Taking into account the matriarchal element of Semitic culture, one is led to believe that Asia Minor was the original point of expansion for both the society based on the Matriarchal circle and the mass use of hashish,” wrote Polish Anthropologist Sula Benet, who theorized in 1936 that the “kaneh bosm” or “fragrant cane” used in Moses’s holy anointing oil in the Bible was cannabis.
Trade routes of the time stretched to the Altai mountains of Siberia, where in 1993 the frozen remains of an elaborately tattooed “Ice Princess” were discovered buried along with a container of cannabis. She was apparently a high priestess of the Pazyryk people, who were closely related to the Scythians, the tribe that inhaled cannabis smoke ritually, as described by the Greek historian Herodotus in 440BCE.
In her book The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World, Stanford Professor Adrienne Mayor presents new archeological and DNA evidence for the existence of the once-mythical Scythian Amazon Women and their use of cannabis. Mayor points out that burial mounds found in the Altai region housed both male and female warriors, along with weapons, hemp clothing, and “personal kits for smoking hemp.”
In 2014, a team of Russian scientists found evidence of breast cancer, a bone infection, and injuries consistent with a fall from a horse in the Siberian Ice Princess. “It is likely that for this sick woman, the regular inhalation of cannabis smoke was a necessity,” wrote the researchers.
Other recent discoveries include a Viking ship buried for 11 centuries with the remains of two women, along with a small leather pouch containing cannabis seeds. One or both of the Viking women, whose ages have been estimated at 50 and 70, may have been a Volva (a priestess or seeress).
As Barbara Ehrenreich writes in her book, Witches, Midwives and Nurses, the wise women of old used many plant-derived herbal remedies, such as ergot and belladonna, to assist in childbirth, and archeological evidence points to cannabis also being used this way. The witch/healer’s methods were “a great threat” to the Church, writes Ehrenreich, “for the witch was an empiricist: she relied on her senses rather than faith or doctrine.” We know what happened to a lot of those women.
MODERN WOMEN AND CANNABIS
In more modern times, too, women have been involved with using and promoting the healing properties of cannabis.
The Dark Ages began to enlighten up in the 11th century when Hildegarde von Bingen, a prominent German abbess, mentions using hemp as an herbal medication in her writing. We don’t know for sure that Queen Victoria used cannabis medicinally, only that one of her doctors wrote a glowing account of its use, including for menstrual cramps. Victoria’s contemporary Mary Todd Lincoln, a hemp farmer’s daughter, was treated at a sanitarium where hashish—then available in pharmacies—was prescribed.
Melissa Ethridge took a brave stand in 2005 when she said publicly that she smoked marijuana to help with the side effects of chemotherapy during her treatment for breast cancer. She has since some “out” for further understanding and legalization of the plant, even starting a company that makes cannabis-infused wines.
Whoopi Goldberg has been another advocate, co-founding a company that focused on cannabis remedies for women, and working with New York legislator Linda B. Rosenthal on a bill to permit the use of cannabis for menstrual cramps in New York.
Goldberg and many others have come out in support of Sha’Carri Richardson, who arguably was using cannabis medicinally when she smoked it to cope with learning about the death of her mother from a reporter just before running in (and winning) last year’s Olympic trial in the women’s 100-meter race. Richardson’s ban from competing in the Tokyo Olympics shows us that we must keep fighting for our medicine or inebriant of choice, and our ancient herstory inspires us to never lose hope.
Ellen Komp is the Deputy Director of California NORML, the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. She blogs at https://tokinwoman.blogspot.com/.
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State Policy Weekly Update 3/4/2022

This week’s update highlights the latest drama and intrigue in South Dakota, and also includes updates on several other bills advancing across the country – some of which await their Governor’s signature.
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White House: Investing in Cannabis Stocks Could Jeopardize Federal Security Clearance Status

“The White House’s outdated, exclusionary policy is inconsistent with the rapidly changing legal landscape around cannabis in the U.S. and globally, and unnecessarily limits access to capital that small cannabis businesses desperately need.”
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Cannabis Consumers Continue to Face Employment Discrimination in Colorado

Despite being the first state in the nation to approve adult-use marijuana possession and sales, Coloradoans – including registered patients – still lack any workplace protections.
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New Mexico: Adult-Use Marijuana Sales on Track for April 1st Launch

“A robust, above-ground retail marijuana market is necessary in order to disrupt the unregulated marketplace and to assure that consumers have adequate access to lab-tested, high quality products at competitive prices.”
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Tax Reform, Enforcement, Human Rights, and Business Bills Related to Cannabis Introduced in California

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As in other years, a spate of cannabis and drug policy related bills have been introduced in Sacramento. Cal NORML is evaluating and tracking these bills, along with state budget bills (AB 1624 and SB 840) and will be alerting our membership to upcoming hearings, and actions they can take on key bills at the proper time.  SIGN UP FOR CAL NORML’S EMAIL ALERTS TO STAY INFORMED.
This year’s pending bills include:
HUMAN RIGHTS BILLS

AB 2188 (Quirk) is a Cal NORML-sponsored bill to end employment discrimination based on testing for inactive cannabis metabolites. READ MORE and TAKE ACTION ON AB 2188.
AB 1954 (Quirk) would end discrimination by doctors against pain patients and others who use medical cannabis. This bill is also sponsored by Cal NORML. READ MORE and TAKE ACTION ON AB 1954.
AB 1706 (Bonta) to expedite record clearance for past cannabis crimes. Cal NORML supports this bill, which is headed for a hearing in the Assembly Committee on Public Safety on March 8. Take Action to Support AB 1706.
AB 2595 (Jones-Sawyer) would prohibit a child from being found to be within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court solely due to the use of cannabis, possession of cannabis, possession of cannabis products, possession of cannabis accessories, or possession, cultivation, harvesting, drying, or processing of cannabis by the child’s parent or guardian or the presence of cannabinoid components or metabolites in the parent’s or guardian’s bodily fluids.
AB 2150 (Lackey/Cooley) would require the CMCR to establish a study examining the effects of cannabis products that are currently in the commercial cannabis stream of commerce and, in consultation with the Department of the California Highway Patrol, evaluating the public safety consequences of cannabis use and improving understanding of the best methods for determining related driving impairments.

TAX REFORM BILLS

AB 2506 (Quirk/Lackey) would suspend the imposition of the cultivation tax from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2028, and would increase the excise tax for the same time period to cover the revenue that would have been collected pursuant to the cultivation tax.
SB 1074 (McGuire) would discontinue, beginning on July 1, 2022, the imposition of the cultivation tax and increase, from July 1, 2025, until July 1, 2026, the excise tax by an additional percentage that the Department of Finance estimates will generate half the amount of revenue that would have been collected pursuant to the cultivation tax, and would, beginning July 1, 2026, instead increase the excise tax by an additional percentage estimated by the department to generate the full amount of revenue that would have been collected pursuant to the cultivation tax.
AB 2792 (Blanca Rubio and Cristina Garcia) would, from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2025, suspend the imposition of the excise tax upon purchasers of cannabis or cannabis products by licensees eligible for a fee waiver under the California Cannabis Equity Act. The bill would also suspend the imposition of the cultivation tax from July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2025.
SB 1281 (Bradford) would discontinue the imposition of the cultivation tax, and reduce the excise tax to 5% (from 15%).
SB 1293 (Bradford) would help equity licensees obtain a personal income or corporate tax credit that would be equal, or in some proportion, to the normal business expenses that they would otherwise have been able to write off on their federal taxes, but for federal law.

ENFORCEMENT BILLS

AB 1725 (Smith) would amend AUMA to make it a felony, punishable by 16 months or 2 or 3 years in county jail, for a person over 18 years of age to plant, cultivate, harvest, dry, or process more than 6 living cannabis plants. CAL NORML OPPOSES THIS BILL ANY OTHERS THAT TRY TO PENALIZE THE CULTIVATION OF AS FEW AS 7 PLANTS.
AB 2728 (Smith) would impose an additional civil penalty on an unlicensed person engaging in commercial activity involving various cannabis products, including cannabis plants in excess of 6 plants, cannabis product, cannabis concentrate, cannabis biomass, and cannabis flower.
AB 2421 (Blanco Rubio) would authorize, for a violation resulting from unpermitted cannabis cultivation, the civil action to be brought by a county counsel or city attorney.
AB 1426 (Caballero) would make it a felony to plant, cultivate, harvest, dry, or process more than 6 living cannabis plants, where that activity involves theft of groundwater.

BUSINESS-RELATED BILLS

AB 2210 (Quirk) would authorize the Department of Cannabis Control to issue a state temporary event license to a retail licensee authorizing onsite cannabis retail sales of cannabis or cannabis products to, and consumption by, persons 21 years of age or older at an event held at a venue that is licensed by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
AB 2691 (Wood) would require the DCC to issue temporary cultivator event retail licenses that authorize the license holder to sell cannabis or cannabis products, containing cannabis cultivated by that licensee, at cannabis events in the state.
AB 2844 (Kalra) would add acting as a cannabis caterer for a private event to the definition of commercial cannabis activity.
SB 1326 (Caballero) would authorize the Governor to enter into interstate commerce agreements with other states authorizing medicinal or adult-use commercial cannabis activity.
SB 1097 (Pan) would require cannabis or a cannabis product, other than those for topical use, to include a warning label that covers at least 1/3 of the front or principal face of a product, and require cannabis businesses to provide to consumers a brochure that includes steps for safer use of cannabis.

“Clean Up” or “Spot” bills without full language (yet) include:

SB 988 (Hueso) seems to be a clean-up bill to Ryan’s Law, passed last year to require health care facilities to allow terminally ill patients to use cannabis. It would repeal the requirement that health care facilities permitting patient use of medical cannabis comply with other drug and medication requirements, as specified, and the requirement that those facilities be subject to enforcement actions by the State Department of Public Health.

AB 2155 (Villapuda) would enact legislation to regulate cannabis beverages as a unique cannabis product.
AB 2658 (Cooley) would provide it is not a crime solely for individuals and firms to provide insurance and related services to persons licensed to engage in commercial cannabis activity.
AB 2101 (Jones-Sawyer) Cannabis: lawful actions
AB 2224 (McCarty) Cannabis: delivery
AB 2824 (Bonta) Cannabis: curbside pickup
AB 2925 (Cooper) Cannabis Control Appeals Panel: membership
SB 1148 (Laird) Cannabis industry
SB 1186 (Wiener) Medicinal cannabis: local jurisdictions

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Virginia: Republican-Led Committee Halts Marijuana Sales Legislation in Party-Line Vote

“This is a real disappointment for Virginians who were loudly calling for access to retail sales to begin earlier than 2024. This is a real failure by the legislature to provide for public and consumer safety.”
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South Dakota: Republican-Led Committee Rejects Senate-Backed Adult-Use Legalization Measure

“Lawmakers in South Dakota continue to put their own self-interests ahead of those of their constituents — the majority of whom wish to see the criminalization of cannabis replaced with a system of legalization and regulation. Lawmakers’ failure to advance this issue is a slap in the face to the majority of voters who made their voices heard in the last election.”
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