Missouri Marijuana Legalization, New Jersey Home Grow, Pot Taxes In Hawaii, Weed Sales In Illinois

Marijuana Legalization In Missouri: Black Leaders Divided Over Ballot Measure

Recently, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones (D), who supports legalization, announced she would oppose the measure appearing on the November 8 ballot as Amendment 3. According to Jones, she doesn’t support etching what she believes is a potentially inequitable legalization process into the state’s constitution where “it can be difficult to alter.”

“If we choose the path of a constitutional amendment to resolve the matter of legalization, it would have to be forward-thinking, flexible and most of all, equitable,” Jones said in a statement. “This amendment fails to meet that lofty aim. Simply put, legalization does not equal decriminalization.”

Black leaders and organizations in the state are divided over a push to legalize cannabis in the state.

Rep. Ashley Bland-Manlove (D), chair of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus, began advocating against Amendment 3 early on. Last month, the Missouri NAACP announced its opposition as well. Both argue the amendment will create the “permanent exclusion” of minorities from the marijuana industry, reported Marijuana Moment.

However, Freedom Inc., a Black-led civil rights organization in Kansas City is supporting the amendment. “Every day that goes by where cannabis is still illegal in Missouri, is a day when justice is not being served,” said Rodney Bland, president of Freedom Inc.

John Payne, campaign manager for Legal Missouri 2022, said: “If the world is changing and voters overwhelmingly believe marijuana should be legal, then clearing past convictions is a moral imperative."

One of the measures that amendment 3 proposes is to establish a program to review and automatically expunge those with criminal records for non-violent marijuana-related marijuana offenses.

Rosetta Okohson, campaign manager for St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, recently said the mayor remains concerned about an established licensing system for medical marijuana that has resulted in few successful applicants from Black and Latino communities. Since current licensees are the first to get new recreational licenses, Okohson said Amendment 3 reinforces inequity.

After Market Matures, New Jersey Should ‘Revisit’ Cannabis Home Grow Ban

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) recently said the state should “revisit” its current criminalization of homegrown cannabis for personal use.

However, he thinks that conversation should happen at a later point after the commercial market has matured, he said during a Q&A session on WNYC radio, adding that he doesn’t think the time is right to enact an additional reform.

"The current policy makes it seem, respectfully, that it’s that the plant itself is not really legal—but the ability to make money off of the plant is legal," Murphy responded to a question about when, in the marijuana plant’s life cycle, it actually becomes legal.

“I think we need to get the industry probably either more on its feet or completely on its feet,” the governor said. “It’s going really well. The good news is it’s going really, really well. But we don’t have enough locations yet and I want to see a little bit more maturity in the market.”

When the WNYC host asked him if the problem is that “individual people who want to grow their own don’t really have the presence—they don’t have a lobbyist, they don’t have the ability to get the legislature to move the way the cannabis industry can.”

Murphy responded that “could be” the case, but he pivoted to saying that the administration and regulators are “doing a very good job” of standing up the market, and he pointed to the issuance of conditional cannabis business licenses as an example of how the state is working to reach a level of acceptable maturation, reported Marijuana Moment.

“I want everybody, particularly the folks who are impacted so badly by the war on drugs,” to be able to participate in the cannabis marketplace, Murphy concluded.

How About Tax Revenue In Hawaii? Will It Cover the Costs of Legal Recreational Marijuana?

According to a recent report from the Hawaii state Tax Department, legalizing adult-use cannabis in the state would generate about $50 million per year in tax revenue, far eclipsing the $2.5 million in medical marijuana taxes collected over the past fiscal year.

State Tax Director Isaac Choy, speaking at a Hawaii Cannabis Dual-Use Task Force meeting, reported $2.557 million in tax revenue from medical cannabis sales, corporate income taxes, and employee withholdings from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022.

The agency also projected that tax revenue from legalizing recreational marijuana would be about $50 million.

However, one state lawmaker believes the taxes collected won't cover the costs of implementing recreational cannabis legalization. State Representative Ryan Yamane, chair of the House Health, Human Serv­ices Committee, recently, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser's "Spotlight Hawaii " Livestream program that the projected tax revenue would likely not be enough to pay for the regulatory costs associated with legalizing adult-use cannabis.

“There’s not much that $50 million can pay for,” Yamane said. “So there is not … this huge windfall that will be able to subsidize education or health services.” The Democratic lawmaker also said that the amount would make it difficult to fund the infrastructure required to provide oversight of a statewide recreational marijuana industry, reported the High Times.

“That is difficult to use in order to establish a new program,” Yamane concluded. “Hire employees, do monitoring, do all the different aspects of adult recreational use, with $50 million annually.”

Illinois Weed Sales In October

Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation recently reported that the state's recreational marijuana sales of $131.5 million in October "increased 0.7% sequentially and 6.6% from a year ago."

Image by New Cannabis Ventures

"2021 adult-use sales of $1.38 billion increased 106% over 2020 in Illinois, and year-to-date sales of $1.28 billion have increased 14.1% so far in 2022," wrote Alan Brochstein, CFA and founder of New Cannabis Ventures and 420 Investor. "During October, sales to non-residents decreased from 31.5% in September to 30.9% of total sales."

Brochstein also noted that the state separately releases sales from its medical program, "which showed that they were up 1.6% sequentially in October at $28.5 million. This was down 10.6% from a year ago," he said.

According to the report, "total cannabis sales were $160.0 million, which was up 0.8% sequentially and up 3.1% from a year ago."

"For the first ten months of the year, total sales have been $1.57 billion. This is up 8% from the first ten months of 2021. In 2021, combined cannabis sales grew 72% for the full year," concluded Brochstein.

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Photo: Courtesy Of Matteo Paganelli On Unsplash