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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. In what was apparently not an April Fool's joke, last Friday, April 1st, House Democrats, along with some Republicans voted 220 to 204 in favor of cannabis reform legislation. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, also known as the MORE act for those initials, passed the house back in 2022, but stalled in the Senate then. Might this time around be different?

While the fate of that federal bill is unclear, separate proposals in the house in the Senate would at least expand cannabis research. The substance is highly regulated and therefore difficult for scientists to access legally to study risks and benefits.

Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey are moving forward with legalization of recreational weed at the state level or at least they're attempting to. In New York, both the State Senate and the Assembly have included tax incentives for cannabis businesses in the budget that's still being negotiated. The measures would allow cannabis providers to deduct business expenses, which is currently not allowed at the federal level because cannabis is still illegal on the federal level, and on Monday, the New York State Office of Cannabis Management rolled out a public education campaign called Cannabis Conversations.

In New Jersey, Senate President Nicholas Scutari called the delays in legal recreational sales to remember that vote in a state referendum was a good year and a half ago now and they still don't have any open dispensaries and the state senate president called those delays totally unacceptable.

The state's Cannabis Regulatory Commission, however, has pushed back on the criticism, telling Politico that New Jersey is moving at an average pace, citing the experience of states like Arizona and Illinois, which legalized in a matter of months. The Cannabis Regulatory Commission of New Jersey chair Dianna Houenou told Politico that both states experienced supply crunches by legalizing too quickly and they're trying to learn from that.

Here, to go into more detail and explain what's happening with cannabis regulation in New York, New Jersey, and Washington DC is Alyson Martin, co-founder of Cannabis Wire and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Hi, Alyson. Welcome back to WNYC.

Alyson Martin: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for having me. That was quite a mouthful. It's a very, very busy brawl in the cannabis beat.

Brian Lehrer: I guess so. Well, let's start with the national news. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement act or MORE, would, among other things, remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act altogether. Remind us again, how is cannabis classified by the government right now and why do proponents of legal recreational cannabis think this is an important step in DC even though the states are legalizing one by one?

Alyson Martin: Sure. It's quite a mess in some ways but, very simply put, cannabis is still federally classified in the strictest category of the Controlled Substances Act. While there are a handful of proposals in Congress right now, most proponents of cannabis law reform agree at the very base level that cannabis should be decriminalized because it's been shown time and time again that people of color overwhelmingly bear the brunt of that enforcement.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about expungement. That's part of that law. How would the MORE Act address the topic, and with this only be for convictions on federal marijuana charges? Of course, so many people have faced state charges all over the country, at the local level.

Alyson Martin: Sure, it would be applicable only to federal cannabis crimes but, if something like the MORE Act passes, it would, by extension, open up some of those benefits that people with cannabis crimes on the records have been blocked from access to housing if they received federal subsidies or access to student loans and those sorts of things. There are many areas of state and federal law dissonance that, really stay with people who have records, over the course of their lives. That's where the expungement would really come into play.

Brian Lehrer: The opportunity reinvestment part, that's part of the law's name, the Opportunity Reinvestment Act. It's not a law yet, it's a bill that passed the House and may never pass the Senate. We've talked a lot on the show about how people of color have borne the brunt of the war on drugs and been disproportionately imprisoned for cannabis-related offenses, compared to so many white people who use cannabis at the same rate but don't wind up in situations that get them busted. Does this bill take on restitution in any way?

Alyson Martin: It would create an opportunity trust fund that would be used to start to repair the harms caused by the war on drugs through things like job training, small business loans, and those sorts of things and just to give it a little bit of context, for listeners who might not know just how big those disparities are in arrests, while Black and white folks use cannabis at similar rates, Black people are more than three times more likely to be arrested for their use.

Brian Lehrer: It's such a shocking stat for people who don't know it, and it is just so begging for a forum and some kind of restitution. The bill would replace "statutory references to marijuana," and another spelling of marijuana with an H instead of a J, with the word cannabis, statutory references to marijuana and marihuana with cannabis. Why would that language change matter?

Alyson Martin: People are of different minds on the word marijuana. Cannabis Wire, when we were founding it, we made a very deliberate choice to use the word cannabis. One, because we wanted to side with science and go with what scientists use but also marijuana was specifically used to link negative associations with cannabis use to Mexican immigrants.

While some people have chosen to reclaim the word, we've chosen, at Cannabis Wire, to go with cannabis. A lot of people are also-- lawmakers, policymakers are also choosing to go with cannabis as well.

Brian Lehrer: The house debated this bill at length last week. You wrote in a recent piece, another topic that came up several times during the house debates was that, with so much going on in the world, including inflation, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, why should lawmakers spend time on cannabis legislation? Can you talk a bit more about that? How are lawmakers justifying this move right now?

Alyson Martin: Yes. First of all, I listened to probably more hearings than I would like to admit, but this comes up a lot. It comes up a lot when lawmakers want to say, "Why are we talking about this right now? There's much else we should be talking about. There's many other important issues." I think Steny Hoyer said it best when he said, "I'm tired of hearing this argument that 'Oh, my goodness, we're doing this, we ought to be doing something else'".

He said, "We're all working on the issues of great concern, not only to us, but to the global community." You see bills that come up in the state legislature and in Congress, and everybody has their pet projects and their bills that they really want to see through. I think cannabis often gets this kind of, "Why are we talking about cannabis, this kind of haha topic when we could be talking about 'important issues.'

We were just talking about people with cannabis crimes who, for example, might lose custody of their child. They might not be able to access a federal loan to go back to school. It's not really a haha topic of little importance to many Americans and also polling and voting shows that Americans support at least some type of cannabis law reform.

Brian Lehrer: There was actually some bipartisanship on some of this, like the Senate and House bills that seek to expand cannabis research, your colleague Nushin Rashidian reports that the bill that cleared the House on Monday is more expansive than the bill that cleared the Senate in March. The House bill would allow researchers to steady state-legal cannabis products that is illegal weed that's sold at the state level in states that have legalized and it would expand the amount of growers who have the federal approval for research.

Meanwhile, one of the Senate's aims is to study the impact of THC on adolescent brains. One interesting political development of these bills, I guess, is that expanding cannabis research passed the house with a two-thirds majority after, to quote your colleague, again, less than 20 minutes of discussion. The Senate bill which was sponsored by Democratic California Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who opposes legalization was passed unanimously weed as a bipartisan issue. Is it that the Democrats think that research will show how benign it is, and Republicans think research will show how dangerous it is?

Alyson Martin: That's an interesting theory actually. It's fascinating. I think a cannabis research might be one of the few areas that Democrats and Republicans agree, maybe period, I don't know. There is a lot of support for cannabis research across the board in Congress. I think one interesting  point about all of this, there's one place for years, for decades where it's been legal at the federal level to grow cannabis for research. The cannabis that was grown there wasn't really what was matching and it still isn't what's matching what's being sold in state dispensaries.

I think that part right there is really important because as we're seeing, states are these laboratories of experimentation right now. They're tinkering. There's research and development happening within state borders. This would really open up research on some of that, some of the vaporizers, some of the tinctures, some of the edibles, which is not what has been churned out of the federal farm at Ole Miss.

Brian Lehrer: Let's turn to the state level now. I think New Jersey is more interesting than New York. We're going to go there first and probably primarily. Senate president Nicholas Scutari is demanding explanations as to why the state's legal recreational sales aren't up and running yet. They were supposed to start in February according to the first blueprint.

Scutari report is aiming to "form a bipartisan special committee" that will include an accounting from the state's Cannabis Regulatory Commission. What's going on there?

Alyson Martin: As of this morning, I learned that those hearings haven't yet been scheduled, the ones that Senator Scutari called for. The main issue here is over when specifically the first adult-use sales will start in New Jersey. There's a lot of pressure from the existing medical cannabis operators to get those sales up and rolling. They're calling the current situation a "delay."

Regulators disagree and say they're just doing their jobs but also they're doing their job to protect medical cannabis patients and also equity. It's a balancing act for sure. I expect that New York regulators will also feel some of this pressure later in the year when New York sales are expected to go live. There's a pretty serious balancing act going on right now in New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: Is part of the issue, and the CRC, the regulatory commission's concern about supply? I remember seeing stories from Massachusetts when they first opened with, I think, one dispensary Great Barrington or something, a few years ago. There were these long, long lines because there wasn't enough supply to meet the demand. I don't think that's the case anymore in Massachusetts.

Is one of the issues here that because marijuana, cannabis, is federally illegal, you can't grow in one state and then sell it in another state, and so a whole marijuana agricultural industry has to grow up in every state that legalizes at the state level and that takes time?

Alyson Martin: Oh, for sure. You said earlier New Jersey's a little more interesting than New York. I certainly want to be on the record saying that but New York always being interesting. I do think that the grass is going to be greener in New Jersey this summer if the sales--

Brian Lehrer: So to speak.

Alyson Martin: Yes, so to speak. Sorry for the pun, terrible. If the sales go live in New Jersey soon, especially summer months are coming, people are going to the shore.

It's very easy to grab a rental car and drive across the GW. I do think that that place is a little bit of pressure on New York regulators to speed things up and it's a peer pressure in the Northeast that I think is going to happen as these markets go live also.

I do think that there's valid concern though about patient supply, meaning if the flood of adult-use consumers, folks who are 21 and over who decide, "Hey, we're going away for the weekend in New Jersey. Let's pick something up for the weekend." If those shops are flooded, there are concerns that patients who have ALS who have cancer, who have any of these ailments for which they've been recommended medical cannabis, they might have access issues.

Brian Lehrer: I only said New Jersey is more interesting than New York because it looks to me like there's more conflict. Tell me if I'm wrong because this is your beat as a journalist but it seems to me that there's more conflict in New Jersey right now. New Jersey is further along because they passed their legalization before New York but there's more acrimony now while New York is just still figuring out how to ramp up. Do you think that's wrong though?

Alyson Martin: I don't think it's wrong. I was mostly just poking a little bit of fun. For sure, New Jersey has a head start and there is more tension there. I expect that there will be tension points in New York as well. We're already starting to see some of them. I think that, as these markets get closer to going live, that's when a lot of these bubbles will surface naturally.

The CRC meetings are very, very well attended. There are many folks who sign up for public comment, which I love. It's democracy in action. People sign up, they say what's on their minds. One of the big issues in New York, of course, is about home grow, New Yorkers will be able to grow cannabis at home. In New Jersey, if you listen to any of those meetings, you're going to have a half dozen people, their hands are going to be raised and they're going to say, "Why can't we grow at home?"

Brian Lehrer: Why can't they grow at home?

Alyson Martin: It's just the way the law was passed and the way the law was written. In New York, it was a priority. It was also seen as an equity provision. Cannabis products are expensive. If you look at the bill that a lot of medical cannabis patients have, it's hundreds of dollars a month.

It's not covered by insurance em dash yet, it may be that's the case in the future but it's seen by some to be an equity measure to allow folks who want and can do so to grow at home to be able to do so.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We have a few minutes for phone calls and people are calling in. I think it'll be interesting to hear from people trying to get into the business and people who think that the business aspect of this is being rolled out well or not in either New York or New Jersey or if anybody's listening from already legal states where things are up and running who want to call in with some advice for New York and New Jersey.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for Alyson Martin from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Cannabis Wire which is news organization that covers all this cannabis news around the country. Peter in Mount-- Oh, I thought Mount Vernon. No. Is it Mount Vernon? Peter, I'm sorry. Oh, you're at Mount Visions P-H-A-M Pham. Go ahead.

Peter: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. We are a licensed hemp farm since 2019-

Brian Lehrer: Hemp farm, yes.

Peter: -which did qualify us first round of state activation licenses. We currently have our license in our application for our license and we are waiting back as well as all the others. While this is happening, I'm receiving word from friends and family talking about weed truck dispensaries selling adult-use cannabis and all asking me, "Where's your brand?"

Trying to explain to them we are actually following the rules. We've applied properly. We are jumping through the hoops. As a small farm, I'm not corporately backed. I'm a sole proprietor. It can be pretty difficult to meet the requirements on this long list from the OCM to move forward with this. Not only that but we're finding a little bit of difficulty planning and preparing because, one, we have not been approved.

They're really waiting to last minute, talk about seed in the ground last minute. They're not giving us any information as far as retail outlets except for the fact that we cannot be a retail outlet which can be difficult planning moving forward. If you got a field full of good cannabis and you don't know where it's going to, how are you going to plan it?

Brian Lehrer: Alyson, do you want to talk about this because this is your bid and you probably understand these issues better than me. It sounds like that New York does not allow vertical integration. The growers can't be the sellers.

Alyson Martin: What I'd like to chime in on here is, we talked before on the show about unlicensed operators and the really unfair advantage that they have. The caller here, and thanks so much for calling in with this, it's an important topic.

What we're talking about here is following the rules when it comes to cannabis and hemp is hard, and there are a lot of rules and there are a lot of hoops to jump through. These brick-and-mortar shops that are showing up and popping up, they almost look like converted food trucks that are popping up throughout the city and throughout the state and the sticker shops.

Yesterday, the Office of Cannabis Management told me previously they had issued roughly two dozen cease and desist letters to these operators. They told me yesterday they've issued, I think, 52. It's a little bit of a game of Whac-a-mole for them, I think. They're popping up and they're closing down. They're popping up and they're moving and they're closing down. Hopefully, these--

Brian Lehrer: It's such an interesting phenomenon and just to explain it to people, let me see if I've got this right, you tell me. That these pop up trucks or storefronts under New York law though there are not these legal dispensaries yet the stores, it's legal now to give up to three ounces of marijuana to another person, it's not legal yet to sell it to another person. These vendors set up these front operations where theoretically you're buying some little thing and then they throw in, as a gift, the cannabis that you're really paying for.

Alyson Martin: Exactly. They're really stretching and exploiting a loophole under the "gifting provision" which regulators have been very clear, there are no legal adult-use sales allowed in the state of New York yet but it's a wink nudge situation where you pay $100 for a sticker and you get a sticker and some cannabis on the back end. This is what's making it tough for folks who are trying to do things above board though right now.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Peter, good luck with your business Mount Visions Phams. I think I got the name of that right now. Here's Emily in Union who says she's been hired as a budtender, it's like bartender but for a legal weed dispensary. Emily, you're on WNYC.

Emily: Hey, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. You're hired as a budtender, does that mean there's a storefront about ready to go?

Emily: There is, it's actually a medical and now supposed to be recreational dispensary like you said that there is a pushback, the sales are supposed to start in February. There's now pushback and supposedly I'm going to start towards the end of April but it's really been a hassle. I think that the medical and recreational differentiation has been a little bit muddled with all of that, especially with the amounts that they said, like, "Look, we don't have enough weed to really start it right now."

It's been like a hassle but I'm personally very excited to see this new change in the state and to see this new change in the stigma. I'm excited to be a part of that community so I just wanted to come on and let you guys know I listen to you guys every day. Very cool.

Brian Lehrer: Emily, thank you so much. Call us again once your dispensary opens for recreational use and let us know what it's like. We're just about out of time. I'll read one tweet and get your reaction. "Allison," a listener writes, "My wife is a medical cannabis user in Florida. It's an all-cash business which seems problematic." I think that's accurate because the banking system is federal and it's still federally illegal.

Does that present obstacles? Especially to the people-- If we were trying to make this a racial justice thing, primarily, not just a place where people can go and buy stuff to get at them high, does that make it harder to get poor people or people with criminal backgrounds even if those records have been expunged into the business?

Alyson Martin: Access to capital is one of the steepest and highest hurdles for folks who want to start a cannabis business period. For sure, equity applicants face that hurdle but it's a little bit higher. Access to capital is just a nightmare for many many people who are trying to start a cannabis business. The Safe Banking Act, you could probably have a whole show entirely on that but that bill would-- and I'm I really giving shorthand here, but it would basically allow financial institutions to more directly work with cannabis businesses.

The cannabis industry right now is largely cash only. There are some workarounds, some businesses have figured out how to have some ATM or credit card purchases. The cash-only nature or presents all kinds of issues. Also, I recently covered a story out of Washington where there have been a number of pretty violent robberies related to cannabis dispensaries, they're sitting ducks. There's an issue where there's cannabis product but also often a lot of cash at the same spot. There's a sizable push for the safe banking act among these other bills in Congress. We'll see where it ends up this year.

Brian Lehrer: Alyson Martin is co-founder of Cannabis Wire and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Thanks as always for coming on with us.

Alyson Martin: Thank you so much.

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