LOCAL NEWS PT. 2

>> Continued from pg. 17 ONE CRIME AT A TIME

While much of the Northeast has legalized Cannabis, there are still limits for just how much marijuana you can possess. A Maine man found this out the hard way after leaving a Massachusetts courthouse.

Forty-three-year-old Yves Duboc was in court being arraigned for driving without a license and for illegal pot possession. Duboc was released from Newburyport District Court under strict orders not to drive, as his Maine driver’s license was suspended.

It’s safe to say that Duboc didn’t learn his lesson from his brush with the law as he hopped into an SUV immediately upon leaving court and promptly drove off. Unfortunately the scofflaw was observed driving away by a Massachusetts State Trooper who quickly pulled him over and arrested him (again) for driving without a license.

While getting busted committing the same crime for which you were just arraigned in court is bad enough, it appears Duboc is unfamiliar with the old adage of only committing one crime at a time. After being removed from the SUV and getting cuffed, the trooper searched Duboc’s car and discovered Cannabis in zip lock baggies, vacuum sealed bags and duffel bags, as well as several large jars containing marijuana extract. In all, Duboc left the courthouse riding dirty with more than 70 pounds of pot, 20 pounds of concentrates, a bong and a large roll of cash.

Duboc’s mobile stash far exceeded the legal limit in the Bay State, as Massachusetts law allows adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of weed and as much as 10 ounces of Cannabis secured in their home. Those caught with more than an ounce of pot in public could face up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

SCHOOL DAZE

Photo by Elsa Olofsson

new state regulation will require Rhode Island school districts to create policies for administering medicinal Cannabis to qualified students. A Under the new rules, school nurses are charged with administering medical pot to students and the state is calling on school districts to establish the protocol.

In order to qualify for in-school Cannabis use, students are required to have a valid medical marijuana card, a doctor’s signature and a parent’s signature allowing the child to use Cannabis. According to Rhode Island’s Department of Health, there are 22 patients under the age of 18 with medical Cannabis cards in the state.

After a lengthy legislative process, Rhode Island became the nineteenth state to legalize adult-use Cannabis on May 25 when Gov. Dan McKee signed a legalization bill into law. McKee approved the landmark legislation one day after it easily passed both the Senate and the House, which put the bill on the governor’s desk.

The Ocean State’s legalization law allows adults 21 and older to purchase and possess up to an ounce of pot with as much as 10 ounces permitted to be stored in a household. Home cultivation is also allowed, with a maximum of six plants for personal use.

However, the new school regulation had nothing to do with the state’s new recreational law according to the health department. Qualified medical Cannabis use had been allowed in Rhode Island schools prior to the adult-use legislation.

In addition to establishing the pot protocol, school districts also need to select a space where medical Cannabis can be administered. Students are not allowed to administer marijuana to themselves and smoking Cannabis is strictly prohibited. Medical marijuana is also not allowed on school trips. However, students with a medical Cannabis prescription cannot be disciplined for being under the influence of pot.

The new regulations have left some nurses feeling uncomfortable with their role and the Rhode Island Certified School Nurses Teachers Association has expressed concerns regarding the new rules.

School nurses do have the right to refuse to administer medical Cannabis to students – provided that alternative arrangements are put in place to ensure that students receive their medicine.

PATIENTS FIRST IN NJ

New Jersey officials have fined five multistate operators (MSOs) hundreds of thousands of dollars for making illegal adult-use sales during times allocated exclusively for medical Cannabis patients.

Earlier this year, as New Jersey struggled to implement its adult-use retail program, officials from the Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC) expressed concerns that shops wouldn’t have enough supply to service both recreational and medicinal customers. The concerns were serious enough to jeopardize the state’s retail sales launch. While lawmakers and Gov. Phil Murphy ultimately pushed pot industry regulators to move forward with the launch, it was clear that the Commission did not want adult-use sales to come at the expense of the state’s pot patients.

At the start of retail sales in April, rules were put in place to help ensure medical patients weren’t neglected. These rules included medical patient-only hours, during which dispensaries aren’t allowed to serve recreational customers. And, in an effort to keep the MSOs honest, the Commission announced it would fine retailers $10,000 each day they prioritized adult-use customers over medical pot patients.

It turns out, this was not a bluff: According to Bloomberg News, the CRC accused five MSOs of making approximately 3,200 adult-use sales during medical Cannabis-only hours from the start of retail sales on April 21 through April 29. The companies in violation of the CRC’s medical pot rules incurred a combined $360,000 in fines. They are Chicagobased Verano Holdings (fined $90,000), Illinois-based Green Thumb Industries (fined $80,000), New York-based Ascend Wellness (fined $80,000), New York-based Acreage Holdings (fined $60,000) and Massachusetts-based Curaleaf Holdings (fined $50,000). The CRC’s Executive Director Jeff Brown explained that the adult-use sales these companies are accused of making are “to the detriment of the medicinal patient population.” Brown told Bloomberg that the Commission will continue issuing fines to companies that ignore medical patientonly hours. “Any Cannabis business that does not prioritize medicinal Cannabis patient access should expect similar action,” he said. For its part, Curaleaf has accepted responsibility for its violation of patientPhoto by Nataliya Vaitkevich only hours and has already paid its fines. A company spokesperson said Curaleaf is “living up to our promise to provide two designated hours to the medical community at each of our locations every day.”

GET WITH THE PROGRAM

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has vetoed a bill aimed at creating safe consumption sites that would allow the use of illegal drugs under medical supervision. Technically, the bill would have simply established a panel charged with developing a plan to implement safe consumption sites.

At a time when many local governments are investigating options to help reduce overdose deaths created by the country’s opioid epidemic, Gov. Scott appears resolute in his commitment to ignore safe consumption and overdose prevention plans.

In his veto statement, Scott wrote, “it seems counterintuitive to divert resources from proven harm reduction strategies to plan injection sites without clear data on the effectiveness of this approach.”

Scott touted the state’s current “harm reduction strategies, including syringe programs, distribution of Narcan, fentanyl test strips and comprehensive community education [which are] proven, evidence-based approaches to saving lives.”

However, when it comes to safe consumption sites and other life-saving measures included in the bill approved by Vermont lawmakers, Scott is not on board.

“Unfortunately, this bill proposes to shift state policy and financial resources away from prevention and toward unproven strategies such as overdose prevention sites. It’s important to note that what little data exists on this approach is for sites located in large cities, so it’s not applicable to the vast majority of Vermont,” Scott said.

Scott’s views on harm reduction are at odds with most Vermont voters, as a recent poll found that 59 percent of respondents were in favor of creating overdose prevention sites.

Photo by Nastya Dulhiier

Additionally, Scott also recently vetoed a bill that would have established a commission to explore the possibility of decriminalizing personal use amounts of illicit drugs. This, too, is at odds with the views of most Vermonters.

The same survey, conducted by Data for Progress and the Drug Policy Alliance, found that the vast majority of voters in Vermont (84 percent) support decriminalizing personal-use possession of drugs. Furthermore, 81 percent of respondents support treating drug use as a health issue and not a criminal matter – and that support went across party lines, with 91 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of independent voters in favor of a health-based approach to drug use.

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