Marijuana Weekly News Roundup

Medical marijuana dispensaries in Montana will close on August 31 if a recently filed appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court is denied. Medical cannabis suppliers have been fighting against restrictions against the industry since 2011, but suffered what may turn out to be a fatal blow in 2014.

Restrictions that took effect in that year including a ban on selling medical marijuana for a profit, a ban on advertising, and a limit of three patients per provider. A federal district court judge tossed out these and some other the provisions in January of this year, but the state’s Supreme Court overturned that ruling in February.

When the restrictions were imposed in 2011 the state had about 30,000 registered medical marijuana users and more than 4,800 dispensaries. The user number has dwindled to around 12,000 and the number of dispensaries has dropped to fewer than 500.

The appeal filed with the U.S. Supreme Court claims that the Montana Supreme Court made a mistake when it concluded that marijuana is “universally” illegal under federal law. The Montana Cannabis Industry Association’s (MCIA) attorney points to the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment passed by the U.S. Congress in 2014 prohibits the U.S. Department of Justice from using federal dollars to take action against state-level medical marijuana laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court has steered clear of taking sides in disparities between state and federal marijuana laws, most recently in a case where Kansas and Nebraska filed a suit against Colorado. The MCIA has also submitted an initiative proposal for inclusion on the November ballot that would ease some of the restrictions.

Here are excerpts from other recent cannabis-related news stories.

Marijuana Legalization and Taxes: Federal Revenue Impact
Key Findings

• Marijuana tax collections in Colorado and Washington have exceeded initial estimates.
• A mature marijuana industry could generate up to $28 billion in tax revenues for federal, state, and local governments, including $7 billion in federal revenue: $5.5 billion from business taxes and $1.5 billion from income and payroll taxes.
• A federal tax of $23 per pound of product, similar to the federal tax on tobacco, could generate $500 million per year. Alternatively, a 10 percent sales surtax could generate $5.3 billion per year, with higher tax rates collecting proportionately more.
• The reduction of societal risk in being engaged in the marijuana trade, as well as the inclusion of taxes, will combine to reduce profits (and tax collections) somewhat from an initial level after national legalization.
• Society pays all the costs regardless of legality but tax revenues help offset those costs.

Read more at the Tax Foundation.

Best Marijuana Strains: Ghost OG Has Florida Roots
Don’t be afraid of no ghost. Get amped for an all-female Ghostbusters reboot this summer with the “Ghost OG” cut of the famed OG Kush — the leading West Coast cannabis family for more than two decades.

Spotted among the regular drops of clones from Northern California’s leading genetics outlet, Dark Heart Nursery, fully flowered Ghost OG conjures the best memories of OG Kush. It’s pale and sparkly, and smells like the forest locale for a slasher flick: with tart stabs of pungent pine, and a woody complexity.

The flower smokes medium to heavy-bodied with maximum flavor and potent hybrid effects reported as “super stoney, head high, and euphoric”. Such 50-50 hybrid medical cannabis flowers are versatile, and used afternoons and into night to manage dozens of indications, from nausea and migraine, to neuropathic pain, depression and insomnia.

Reportedly bred by Paperbag Gene Pool, Ghost OG has ties to some of the biggest strains of 2016 — Girl Scout Cookies, and offspring Sunset Sherbert, and Dosidos. The secret is Florida. Ghost OG is named for a grower “Ghost”, who tapped into an influential Florida line of OG Kush dubbed “Triangle Kush”. Despite draconian pot prohibition — Florida’s hot climate and vast amounts of rural and semi-rural acreage make it a hotbed of southern cultivation.

Read more at SFGate.

Prevalence of Marijuana Involvement in Fatal Crashes: Washington, 2010-2014

The purpose of this study was to quantify the prevalence of marijuana involvement in fatal crashes in the state of Washington in years 2010 – 2014 and to investigate whether the prevalence changed after Washington Initiative 502, which legalized recreational use of marijuana for adults aged 21 years and older and also created a new per se limit for driving under the influence of marijuana, took effect on 6 December 2012.

The data examined were obtained from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and comprised a census of all motor vehicle crashes that occurred on public roads in the state of Washington and resulted in a death within 30 days. This study examined the presence and concentration of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (hereafter THC), the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana, in the blood toxicological test results of drivers involved in fatal crashes. THC presence and concentration in the subset of drivers whose blood was not tested or whose test results were unavailable were estimated using the method of multiple imputation. The imputation method explicitly accounted for changes implemented during the study period in the cutoff levels used in the state laboratory for detection of THC.

Statewide, 3,031 drivers were involved in fatal crashes in years 2010 – 2014. Overall, considering both the actual blood toxicology test results and imputed results, an estimated 303 drivers—10.0% of all drivers involved in fatal crashes in Washington between 2010 and 2014—had detectable THC in their blood at or shortly after the time of the crash. Of all THC-positive drivers involved in fatal crashes, an estimated 34.0% had neither alcohol nor other drugs in their blood, 39.0% had detectable alcohol in addition to THC, 16.5% had other drugs in addition to THC, and 10.5% had had both alcohol and other drugs in addition to THC in their blood.

From 2010 through 2013, the estimated number and proportion of drivers involved in fatal crashes who had a detectable concentration of THC in their blood ranged from a low of 48 (7.9%) to a high of 53 (8.5%); the number and proportion both approximately doubled from 49 (8.3%) in 2013 to 106 (17.0%) in 2014. Analysis of trends over time before and after Initiative 502 took effect indicated that the proportion of drivers positive for THC was generally flat before and immediately after Initiative 502 took effect, but began increasing significantly at a rate of 9.7 percentage points per year approximately 9 months after Initiative 502 took effect. It was not clear whether this increasing trend was attributable to Initiative 502 or to other factors that were beyond the scope of the study.

THC is metabolized rapidly, thus, it is possible that some surviving drivers in fatal crashes may have had a detectable concentration of THC in their blood at the time of the crash but that their THC levels had fallen below the minimum detectable level by the time a blood sample was drawn. Also, results of this study do not indicate that drivers with detectable THC in their blood at the time of the crash were necessarily impaired by THC or that they were at-fault for the crash; the data available cannot be used to assess whether a given driver was actually impaired, and examination of fault in individual crashes was beyond the scope of this study.

Read the full report at AAA.