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:
This Senator Wants to Legalize Magic Mushrooms in Mexico
#psychedelics – “Lagunes, who is now 51, is convinced that her region’s psychedelic “medicines”, and particularly psilocybin mushrooms, which are native to Mexico and have long been used by Indigenous communities here, could be the answer to her country’s mental health woes which worsened during the pandemic.
“There isn’t a single meeting in the Senate that doesn’t mention the mental health crisis and the lack of medications to treat it,” she told VICE News in an interview. Lagunes is a member of Mexico’s Green Party but is planning to present the initiative independently.
But creating a legal framework for the use of psychedelic “medicine” promises to be a complex one to unpack in the Mexican context, in which Indigenous communities have been using them for thousands of years.”
Read More: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvj5ew/this-senator-wants-to-legalize-magic-mushrooms-in-mexico
Opening Up Pot Licensing Shakes Up NY Court Battle
#cannabisindustry – “New York’s move last week to open up applications for marijuana business licenses to all is making waves in pending litigation over whether regulators overstepped with their plan to award the first licenses to so-called “justice-involved” individuals.
That effort — the conditional adult-use retail dispensary, or CAURD, program — was largely halted by a New York Supreme Court order in August, leaving some 400 provisionally approved retailers in limbo.
New York cannabis regulators designed CAURD to reward the first batch of retail cannabis licenses to applicants who had a cannabis conviction in the state or had a close relative with a conviction, and who could also show they had experience running a successful business.
But four service-disabled veterans filed a lawsuit in New York state court alleging that regulators were required by the state’s cannabis legalization law to open applications to all social and economic equity applicants at the same time. The lawsuit argued the CAURD program exclusively privileged “justice-involved individuals” over other special interest groups, and the plaintiffs successfully moved for an injunction.”
Security Co. At Fault For Attack At Dispensary, Suit Says
#cannabislawsuit – “A father sued security company PalAmerican Security Inc. in Pennsylvania state court, alleging that it failed to prevent someone from attacking him and his son while they were picking up an order at a medical marijuana dispensary protected by PalAmerican.
According to the complaint filed Tuesday by Charles Gerstner, on May 23, 2023, he and his son went to the Sunnyside Medical Cannabis Dispensary in Butler, Pennsylvania, which is owned and operated by co-defendant Cresco Yeltrah LLC. The son, whose name and age were not specified, went into the dispensary while Gerstner waited in the car. Gerstner alleges that as his son entered the property, an unidentified customer also entered and displayed agitation toward the son.
While the assailant is not named in the complaint, Gerstner alleges that the defendants had prior knowledge of him and that he posed a threat to the premises, and failed to appropriately address the threat.”
Vegas Contractors Get Prison Time For Breaking Clean Air Act
#cannabisbusiness – “A pair of Vegas contractors have been sentenced to six months in prison for breaking the Clean Air Act after pleading guilty to releasing asbestos into the air during the renovation of a cannabis growing facility.
The Nevada U.S. Attorney’s Office said Rene Morales and Hector Vasquez’s firm, Top Rank Builders, was brought on to renovate a warehouse on Western Ave. But during the project, Morales and Vasquez caused workers to remove drywall and “ceiling texture” that they should have known would have asbestos without any abatement measures, a release from the government said.
Morales and Vasquez also copped to lying about their involvement in the renovation and taking steps to cover up the removal by claiming bags marked “asbestos” were intended for training, according to the government.
Judgments filed Tuesday show that both contractors pled guilty to negligent endangerment, netting six months in prison and a year on supervised release. Gary Modafferi, counsel for Vasquez, said that if the defendants had been going to trial, the sentence would have been more significant — “several years, probably.””