The Week In Weed: April 5, 2024 –

Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at
what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana.
This week, Virginia Governor Youngkin took action on the retail
market bill. The Florida Supreme Court handed down their decision
on a ballot initiative. The Kansas legislature determined how to
proceed on a medical marijuana measure. Federal legislators asked
the Department of Justice to develop a successor to the Cole
Memorandum. And finally, there’s a new reality series in the
works that involves cannabis.

VIRGINIA

In news that should come as a surprise to no one, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed
legislation that would have set up a retail market in the state.
Advocates of the measure had hoped the bill might become a
bargaining chip in the debate over a new stadium complex in
Northern Virginia, but that was not to be. Now, it appears that a
retail market will have to wait until a new governor is elected in
2025. Virginia’s governors cannot serve consecutive terms, so
someone other than Youngkin will take over. Of course, there’s
no guarantee that person will be interested in signing such a bill,
or that the legislature will pass one in the first place.

FLORIDA

A ballot measure seeking to legalize adult-use cannabis in Florida will appear on the November ballot.
The state’s Supreme Court decided this week to allow voters to
weigh in on legalization, over the objections of the state’s
Attorney General, who argued that voters might forget that cannabis
is illegal on the federal level. The measure will need at least 60%
of the vote in order to pass, so there’s no guarantee that the
measure will meet that threshold.

KANSAS

Virginians aren’t the only ones who will have to wait until
2025 for action on cannabis. The Kansas Senate decided to delay action on a
medical marijuana proposal until the next legislative session.
Although the law would have been extremely restrictive, legislators
cited fear of organized crime and violence in rejecting the bill.
Proponents of legalization were also dissatisfied with the measure,
as it would have allowed for only four licensed producers.

COLE MEMORANDUM

Regular readers will doubtless recall the Cole Memorandum, a
Department of Justice (DOJ) guidance that protected state-legal
marijuana markets from federal interference. You will also recall
that this guidance was repealed by then-Attorney General Jeff
Sessions in 2018. Now, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Earl
Blumenauer (D-OR) have written a letter to current Attorney General Merrick
Garland asking him to reinstate those protections for state-legal
programs. We’ll have to wait and see if their correspondence
meets with a favorable answer.

AND FINALLY

If you’re a fan of reality television, Jimmy Kimmel has a
show in the works that may be your new favorite binge-watch. High Hopes follows the ups and downs of
two brothers running a cannabis dispensary in Los Angeles. The show
will appear on Hulu, and it premieres on…wait for it…April
20.

Be well everyone – we’ll see you next week.

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