Lawsuit Against US Attorney General And Record Cannabis Sales, Two Of Many 2023 Marijuana Milestones

Though another year has slipped away without cannabis legalization or rescheduling on the federal level, the SAFE Banking Act still lingering somewhere in the halls of Congress and with precious few long-anticipated reforms enacted…other milestones took place in 2023.

Health and Human Services (HHS) provided scheduling recommendations to the DEA, Ohio became the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana use and President Joe Biden pardoned thousands convicted of cannabis possession.

Not to mention Georgia which became the first state in the nation to allow pharmacies to sell medical marijuana even though the DEA recently acted against it. Whatever happens to medical marijuana sales in Georgia drug stores, the state’s decision to allow it marks a historic milestone for US cannabis.

Benzinga wanted to learn more about what industry veterans think of 2023, so we reached out to Patrick Rea, managing director of what is thought to be the longest-running cannabis investment fund, Poseidon Investment Management. We also talked with Socrates Rosenfeld, CEO and co-founder of Jane Technologies, an online ordering platform service for cannabis dispensaries, which this year inked a deal with a payment giant Square owned by Block Inc. SQ. In the end, we included the most insightful quotes from other big players in the space.

"Despite the headwinds experienced by the industry in 2023, there was a noteworthy increase in legal access to the plant, fostering renewed optimism for the eventual end of federal cannabis prohibition,” Rosenfeld told Benzinga. “Perhaps the biggest highlight of all is the fact that at the end of 2023, more consumers are shopping in the legal cannabis market than ever before."

New Front In The Fight For The Legal Cannabis Industry

For Rea among the most important milestone this year was a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland by cannabis operators and investors. This “opened a new front in the fight for the legitimacy of the legal cannabis industry,” Rea told Benzinga. “The lawsuit asserts that the federal government has no basis for enforcing the Controlled Substances Act against intrastate, state-regulated cannabis operations. In my opinion, this suit reflects a shift by some in the cannabis industry that legitimacy must also be pursued through channels outside the Legislative and Executive branches of government.”

Among the biggest challenges in the marijuana industry for Rea is the continued failure of lawmakers to legalize cannabis nationally after 10 years of state-legal adult use. “The impacts are far-reaching,” he said, adding that “at the highest level the federal government’s inaction dissuades many of the largest organizations from buying their way into the cannabis sector and providing liquidity to the market. Without regular and predictable exits, the cost of capital increases and mutes startup innovation, a major driver of our growth.”

Rea noted that the biggest challenge the industry has been, and still is, the lack of capital which is directly tied to federal reform.

Cannabis Justice

Stephen Post, strategic communications manager at Last Prisoner Project (LPP), a non-profit cannabis justice reform organization, believes that “2023 marked a historic year for cannabis policy.” With 24 states having legal weed as of this year, it makes marijuana more accessible to the majority of people in the U.S. Post added that Kentucky became the 38th state to legalize medical marijuana use.

“In addition to legalizing, Maryland and Minnesota are working to have past criminal records cleared and to have sentences reconsidered for certain cannabis-related offenses. While Delaware included a process for record clearance, they unfortunately did not include one for resentencing. Similarly, Ohio fell behind the trends of other recently legalized states and failed to offer any meaningful relief for individuals with past cannabis offenses,” Post continued.

According to LPP’s State of Cannabis Justice Report, 24 states have enacted cannabis-specific record clearance laws, and 10 states have enacted cannabis-specific resentencing laws. “While progress has been made, much more work remains to achieve cannabis justice,” Post concluded. 

Photo: Benzinga edit with images by Pete Linforth, ChiaJo , Clker-Free-Vector-Images, OpenClipart-Vectors, nneem from Pixabay and Rick Proctor on Unsplash