In the days of the Armada, a fleet of warships, the scuttlebutt was the rumor or gossip that would spread throughout the ship. Today, Armada Law Corp presents The Scuttlebutt, a daily summery of news articles that people within the cannabis, hemp and plant medicine industries are chatting about along with links to the full articles.
In today’s news:
#cannabispolitics – “On Tuesday, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol had collected more than 123,000 valid signatures from registered voters to put the adult-use cannabis legalization initiative on the ballot for an election to be held in November. However, he said that the results of the signature verification and tabulation “indicate that petitioners filed an insufficient number of valid signatures,” adding that the campaign would have 10 days to obtain and submit the additional signatures needed to hit the goal of 124,046 valid signatures.”
https://hightimes.com/news/ohio-pot-legalization-initiative-fails-to-collect-enough-signatures/
#hempindustry – “A group of hemp processors and retailers whose businesses heavily relied on delta-8 products sued Maryland regulators on Monday, claiming that the state is boxing them out of the new recreational cannabis industry….
Under the new law, anyone who sells a product with THC above the cap will need to get a Maryland cannabis license, but the state restricts the number of cannabis business licenses and new licenses are not expected to be issued until Jan. 1 or later…
According to the lawsuit filed by the hemp businesses, these rules may appear designed to diversify the industry but actually will create relatively small changes. That’s because the current industry already is dominated by existing cannabis companies, the lawsuit said.”
https://www.times-news.com/news/local_news/maryland-hemp-industry-sues-state-over-new-cannabis-rules/article_72f699e2-2bd6-11ee-82e8-ebff88cd78a1.html
#cannabispayments – “
Mastercard has told payment processors and banks to stop allowing marijuana transactions on its debit cards.
Following cease-and-desist letters sent by Mastercard last week, companies that facilitated PIN debit payments for cannabis have been attempting to provide alternatives to the dispensaries that were using them, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 26).
A spokesperson for Mastercard told Bloomberg: “As we were made aware of this matter, we quickly investigated it. In accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that offer payment services to cannabis merchants and connect them to Mastercard to terminate the activity.””
https://www.pymnts.com/mastercard/2023/mastercards-cease-and-desist-letters-halt-cannabis-debit-card-transactions/
#cannabisindustry – “Those who want to organize a showcase must
apply to the OCM. To be eligible, the organizer must partner with at least three or more Adult-Use Conditional Cultivators (AUCC) and a CAURD (CGS vendor). For every three AUCCs, the showcase may also include an Adult-Use Conditional Processor (AUCP) and sell cannabis products the partner AUCP produced and distributed to the vendor. For every three AUCC partners in the showcase, an additional CAURD may participate as an additional vendor.
For showcases to be held before September 5, 2023, applications must be submitted at least 10 business days in advance. Applications for a showcase to be held after September 5, 2023, must be submitted at least 20 business days before the showcase date. OCM will allow for application amendments up to 5 business days in advance of the showcase.”
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/office-of-cannabis-management-releases-4571765/
#cannabislawsuit – “The Tuesday lawsuit accuses The Harvest Foundation LLC owners Larry Lemons and Donnie Burton of trashing the company by violating state regulations to the point that Nevada’s cannabis authority suspended its licenses in 2021.
“MariMed learned that the [Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board] had suspended all of Harvest’s cannabis licenses due to the negligent and willful actions of the defendants in violation of Nevada law,” the lawsuit says. “Among other things, NCCB accused Harvest of having failed to report break-ins at its facilities, allowing under-age workers into its facilities, and failing to inform NCCB of missing cannabis.”
Even though MariMed Inc. technically paid for the Nevada-based company, the deal was slow to finalize. Its two owners failed to mention the suspensions, the lawsuit says. Now, the NCCB is “in the course of selling the Harvest assets.””
Nevada Pot Co. Owners Reneged On Sale, Suit Alleges: https://www.law360.com/articles/1704363?utm_source=android&utm_medium=android&utm_campaign=android-shared
