This is our short weekly review of what’s going on in cannabis in the week of 08/06/2022. To check out our upcoming events visit our EVENTS tab.
This week in review WNBA star Brittney Griner has been sentenced to 9 years in Russian Penal Colony and advocates are voicing out. The City of San Marcos will see decrim on the ballot in November. The federal government is looking for a agency capable of doing breath and blood samples for when people consumer cannabis. Audio player embedded below for those that are on the go.
This week in cannabis news Brittney Griner was sentenced to 9 years of prison at a Russian penal colony. Griner was convicted for bringing a marijuana vape cartridge into the country. Advocates have noted that the laws in Russian for concentrates to an extent mirror those laws currently enforced in Texas for the same item.
Upon the news being released, advocates in the cannabis space have been divided on the sentencing of the WNBA star. Some are taking the position that Griner broke another country’s law and that she faces the penalties for it, while others are claiming that if one is advocating for the law to change here, why do they not have the same feelings about elsewhere.
Learn how to become a medical cannabis patient in Texas
A recurring theme across those wanting Griner to face penalties in Russia are claims that she deserves it because of her stances against recent political issues such as police brutality and systemic injustices in the United States of America.
The issue is only compounded by the ongoing press releases from politicians, to include the White House, that Griner be released. Given the current US President’s stance on the substance in the past, coupled with the failure to deliver on campaign promises that would decriminalize marijuana has advocates calling out Biden.
Senator Ted Cruz tweeted out that he thought Griner was being unjustly detained, while being the senator of a state with similar penalties to Russia. In the past Cruz has been against bills that would promote progression on the marijuana issue at a federal level.
The City of San Marcos will see marijuana decriminalization on the ballot in November. The San Marcos city council convened this past Tuesday, deciding to send a marijuana decriminalization ordinance to the ballot in November.
Mano Amiga along with other advocacy groups such as Ground Game Texas and Texas Cannabis Collective gathered signatures of registered voters across several months. Those signatures were delivered to San Marcos City Hall at the end of May, and were verified just this past week. The San Marcos City Council was then required to decide on whether to pass the measure themselves or send it to the November election ballot.
“Our team is thrilled with city council’s decision to allow the voters to approve this measure at the ballot box themselves,” Sam Benavides of Mano Amiga told the Texas Cannabis Collective.
Benavides noted that it is showing their community the change they’re capable of creating when they show up for one another & steadily work towards a cause. Benavides also stated that the people are the reason they got to this point and they will be the ones to take this over the finish line.
The measure will appear on the city ballot for the residents of San Marcos during the November 8th election.
The federal government seeks to find a contractor to study cannabis breathalyzer methods. The government will spend over $1.4 million to study how marijuana chemical concentrations in people’s breath changes over time after consumption. The test is an effort to analyze how recent drivers have used cannabis products.
In a notice posted last week, the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), said it’s looking for a vendor with capabilities of collection of breath samples, collection of blood samples, and collection of observational data. The agency will then test those samples for evidence of recent cannabis use—things like delta-9 THC, other cannabinoids and their metabolites.
Read more about Delta-8 in Texas
The notice says the agency will be taking both baseline and experimental samples from subjects. The testing will be performed before and periodically after consuming cannabis. The tests are aimed to account for the issue that cannabis users sometimes retain THC in their breath even after periods of no use.
A concern in the industry though is that this is being used to create a per se test regarding intoxication. There has been no established baseline to define whether a specific amount of cannabis creates an intoxicated person, as it can widely vary from person to person. For one person 10mg of THC concentrates may create inebriation, but it may take 50mg for another person of size and weight.
