Biden DOJ Opposes Gun Rights for MedMJ Patients, MO Legal Pot Initiative Qualifies, More… (8/10/22)

A  Florida marijuana legalization initiative campaign aimed at 2024 gets underway, a Colorado natural psychedelic initiative comes up short, and more.

Report: Spike in Marijuana Positives Fueling Truck Driver Shortage, Supply Chain Disruptions. Amid chronic shortages of long-haul truck drivers, federal data from the Department of Transportation (DOT) shows that more than 10,000 truck drivers have been ordered off the road after testing positive for marijuana just between January 1 and April 1 of this year. That is a 33 percent increase over the same period in 2021. DOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has also doubled the frequency of drug testing of truck drivers. Under federal law, CDL licensed drivers are not permitted to consume cannabis under any circumstances, regardless of whether marijuana use is legal where they live. Currently, more than 89,000 commercially licensed truck drivers are barred from the road because of positive drug tests; more than half of them are for people testing positive for marijuana.

Florida 2024 Marijuana Legalization Initiative Campaign Launched. A group calling itself Smart & Safe Florida filed a marijuana legalization initiative aimed at the 2024 ballot Monday. The campaign is initially being bankrolled by Trulieve, the state's largest medical marijuana provider. The measure would legalize the possession of up to an ounce by people 21 and over and allow existing medical marijuana retailers to sell to the recreational market, which would benefit Trulieve. It includes a provision that allows for—but does not require—the state to issue additional retail licenses. It does not include provisions for expungement, social equity, or home cultivation. The campaign will need to come up with roughly 900,000 valid voter signatures to qualify for the 2024 ballot. Previous initiative campaigns have been rejected by the state Supreme Court, but Smart & Safe Florida says its bare-bones initiative should be able to avoid or overcome legal challenges.

Missouri Marijuana Legalization Initiative Qualifies for November Ballot. A marijuana legalization initiative sponsored by Legal Missouri 2022 has qualified for the November ballot, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft announced Tuesday. The initiative takes the form of a constitutional amendment that would remove bans on the possession, manufacturing, and sales of marijuana from the state constitution for people 21 and over. Building on an earlier medical marijuana constitutional amendment, the measure would also increase the number of retail sales licenses. It also includes a provision for the expungement of records.

Medical Marijuana

Biden DOJ Says Medical Marijuana Patients Too "Dangerous" to Own Guns. The Justice Department on Monday sought to persuade a federal court to overturn a policy blocking medical marijuana patients from buying or owning guns. The department was responding to a lawsuit filed by Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and several medical marijuana users that argues that the policy deprives patients of their 2nd Amendment rights. The Justice Department told the court that it would be too "dangerous to trust regular marijuana users to exercise sound judgment"around guns. The department also argued that gun rights are reserved for "law-abiding" people, noting that marijuana remains illegal under federal law. "This memorandum uses the phrase ‘medical marijuana’ for convenience, but Congress has found that marijuana ‘has no currently accepted medical use.'’

Psychedelics

Colorado Natural Psychedelic Decriminalization Initiative Falls Short on Signatures. Campaigners for Initiative 61, "Legal Possession and Use of Entheogenic Plants and Fungi," announced Monday that the measure would not qualify for the ballot. Monday was the last day to turn in signatures, and organizers said their all-volunteer signature-gathering campaign had come up short. Another psychedelic reform measure, Initiative 58, the "Natural Medicine Health Care Act," has already qualified for the November ballot. It would decriminalize the possession of psilocybin and allow for its use in state-regulated settings.