A marijuana industry group sent letters to seven governors in the Northeast on Thursday, imploring them to push for cannabis legalization to aid in economic recovery amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The National Association of Cannabis Businesses (NACB) said a regionally coordinated legalization strategy would help generate much-needed tax revenue from legal marijuana sales.
At the start of 2020, more than a dozen states seemed very likely to legalize marijuana for recreational or medical purposes by the end of the year. Now that a coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed just about every aspect of American life, it seems only a handful of states will be able to enact marijuana reform.
At the start of 2020 (a little over 90 days ago), the cannabis industry anticipated that this would be the year for major cannabis reform at the state level. Many states, including New York, New Jersey, Idaho, and Arkansas, had expressed great interest in clarifying and expanding cannabis legislation. And, as recent as January 2020, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo expressed his desire that New York's executive budget for 2021 include tax income that could be anticipated if the state allowed and taxed recreational cannabis.
Multistate marijuana operator iAnthus, partially blaming the coronavirus, said it is unable to meet interest obligations totaling $4.4 million on $157.5 million in debt.
The New York-based company also delayed announcing its quarterly earnings results.
“The decline in the overall public equity cannabis markets, coupled with the extraordinary market conditions that began in Q1 2020 due to the novel coronavirus … have negatively impacted the financing markets and have caused liquidity constraints for the company,” iAnthus said in a news release.
The nationwide coronavirus outbreak could set back cannabis legalization efforts along the East Coast and elsewhere, raising further questions about the launch of lucrative new adult-use and medical markets in New York and other states.
Those potential markets, if launched, could generate billions of dollars in business opportunities for a range of marijuana companies.
But the outlook for legalization in those places now seems up in the air.
For the first time ever, cannabis will be the theme of some exhibits at the prestigious Philadelphia Flower Show, which opens this weekend at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Three of the show’s exhibits will feature cannabis, although no cannabis plants or products will be on display.
The Philadelphia Flower Show is the nation’s largest and longest-running horticultural event, begun in 1829 by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society. Held annually, the show features displays by the world’s leading floral and landscape designers.
Today, talk of legalization knows no bounds. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have reportedly flirted with the idea of forming a "bloc" that will legalize adult-use marijuana at the same time and by imposing the same statutory scheme. Activists are pushing measures to put legalization on the ballot in 2020 in Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, and Oklahoma.
Here are three factors to keep in mind as states address either recreational or medical legalization this year:
New York will be among the first states to establish a grading program for cannabis-derived extracts assuring consumers some degree of quality control.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation Monday authorizing the Department of Agriculture and Markets to adopt standards for cannabidiol, or CBD, which is gaining wide acceptance among the public for offering relief from a variety of ailments.
As it gains in popularity, however, product quality still remains questionable in terms of potency and uncertain science about the long-term impacts of the drug.
The political turmoil over marijuana comes as five northeastern Democratic governors announced last month that they had reached an agreement to fully legalize marijuana. Three of the states — New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, where Democrats are in complete control of the government — already have spent months squabbling over the specifics of complex legislation that would legalize cannabis sales.