Cannabis Daily News
LEGALISATION
Delaware set to legalize recreational cannabis sales with newly approved bill
The Delaware Senate voted in favor of two bills that could legalize cannabis for adults and regulate its sales, reports Benzinga.
The publication notes that House Bill 1 would permit the possession of up to one ounce of cannabis for adults and HB 2 would establish a framework for regulating adult-use cannabis sales.
Currently, polling has shown that a supermajority of Delaware voters supports legalizing cannabis, and Olivia Naugle, a senior policy analyst at the Marijuana Policy Project, told the publication that she hopes Governor John Carney will consider the will of the people and allow Delaware to become the 22nd state to legalize cannabis.
NEW YORK DISPENSARIES
Ruling allows some cannabis dispensary licenses in NY to go ahead
ABC News reports that New York officials will be able to issue licenses for recreational cannabis dispensaries in some parts of the state after an appeals court on Tuesday narrowed the scope of a temporary injunction that had halted them because of a legal challenge.
A federal judge in Albany, New York, issued a temporary injunction in November against the licenses being handed out in Brooklyn, central New York, the mid-Hudson region and western New York and the Finger Lakes. The ruling now allows the state to hand out licenses in all of those areas bar the Finger Lakes region while a lawsuit continues.
In a statement, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was pleased by the decision and “for the first time, New Yorkers in nearly every region of the state will have access to safer, high-quality, adult-use cannabis products.”
COLE MEMO 2.0
Justice Department could help cannabis industry via Cole Memo 2.0 – or hurt reform
As federal cannabis reform inches forward in a Congress paralyzed by partisan gridlock, more immediate “progress” might have to come from the Biden administration, writes MJ Biz Daily.
The landmark 2013 “Cole Memo” was a four-page policy advisory that has been credited with allowing the state-legal cannabis industry to exist.
With several sources telling MJ Biz Daily that they expect the Justice Department to move this year on so-called Cole Memo 2.0, the publication points out that a policy memo by itself is unlikely to convince more banks to offer basic services to cannabis businesses and may even hurt the industry, as pro-cannabis GOP lawmakers and the lobbyists fear that unilateral action could turn off Congressional Republicans.
