By Natalie Jones
Capital News Service
Creating and selling edible medical cannabis products, allowing inmates to receive medical cannabis treatment and prohibiting employers from asking about cannabis use could become law in Maryland under bills being pushed in this year’s General Assembly.
Marilyn Mosby has added Baltimore to a growing list of major cities adopting a more progressive approach to policing cannabis, announcing today that her office will no longer pursue cases for possession, and that they’ll also seek to vacate thousands of convictions dating back to 2011.
Vicente Sederberg and Offit Kurman recently entered into an agreement under which they will collaborate to better serve the cannabis law needs of companies and individuals in the marketplaces they collectively serve. The collaboration will provide each firm’s clients with access to high quality legal representation in new markets and service offerings.
While decriminalization in Maryland has significantly reduced the number of cannabis-related arrests, data indicate the Baltimoreans still being arrested for cannabis remain almost entirely and disproportionately black.
During 2015, 2016 and 2017, Baltimore police arrested 1,448 adults and 66 juveniles for cannabis possession, according to Baltimore Police Department data supplied by the FBI.
Of those arrestees, 1,450 were black. That’s 96 percent.
Stevensville cannabis producer ForwardGro has been ordered to pay $125,000 in fines, toss out all cannabis products made before May 31 and remain under probation for the next two years after a state investigation found the company used unauthorized pesticides on the weed it was growing.
Sixteen months ago, Iggy Stefanski began a grueling journey to kick his addiction to opioids. Suffering from Crohn’s disease, sciatica and other health issues that give him chronic pain, Stefanski’s physician wrote him a prescription for oxycodone. But, as with many users, the painkiller’s efficacy quickly wore off. He told the doctor, but little changed.
Maryland’s medical marijuana pipeline is set for growth—and hopefully, more equitable racial representation–following the Senate’s passage of a bill Monday that would create 20 new growing or processing licenses and update the business-application process to account for race.
Singling out the right seedling to become the matriarch, or “mother plant,” for a full-fledged cannabis-growing operation is a lot like a family competition, says Wendy Bronfein, marketing director for Curio Wellness in Lutherville.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ revealed that he’ll roll back an Obama-era protection for cannabis-legal states, leaving Maryland’s future with legal cannabis up in the air.
A seasoned health executive has been tapped for the top job at Maryland’s regulatory agency for medical marijuana.
