By David Abbott
Here we are again at the end of another calendar year that left about 80% of us scratching our heads while the other 20% still don’t know who is the elected leader of this Great Land of Ours. (Hint: his name rhymes with “ridin’” as opposed to “rump”).
Here at the Weedly satellite office, we are slightly addled as well and not just from an overabundance of THC-infused product.
While the pandemic surges around us for another holiday season, here is our look back on the year that was, with the vaguely uneasy hope that we will not continue to make the same mistakes in 2022 and that maybe something will make some kind of sense as Western Civilization shudders and rattles out a giant, ragged breath from its bed in the cosmic ICU.
And always remember: Reality is a crutch for people who don’t have enough gummies.
Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money
The biggest pot news of the year was the kickoff of adult-use, recreational sales in January, less than three months after the passage of Proposition 207 by 60% of Arizona voters.
While weed watchers in and out of the biz were expecting legal sales to begin in March or April, the Arizona Department of Health Services gave the green light to recreational pot sales on Jan. 22, catching most people in the industry off guard.
Harvest Enterprises, Inc. was first in line, with its 15 statewide dispensaries pulling the trigger on sales weeks ahead of everyone else.
The Harvest location in Scottsdale logged the historic first legal sale in the state. For several days, Harvest’s Tucson location, and its neighbors, dealt with long lines outside the midtown location while customers waited for hours to purchase legal herb.
Harvest was founded by Tempe native Steve White, who spent nearly $2 million advocating for weed legalization in 2020. White heaped praise on ADHS for its “bang-up job” to get the program underway in a stunningly short amount of time.
“This has been really surprising and gives an opportunity for us to have a conversation about how we don’t say a lot of good things about government,” he said.
Each application cost $25,000, so White shelled out $375,000 to get to the front of the line.
By the end of the first week, 86 licenses had been approved, but it would be weeks before anyone else opened up sales.
While not exactly “Big Weed”—yet—White further cashed in when he announced the sale of his company to Florida’s Trulieve Cannabis Corp. for the modest sum of $2.1 billion, creating a network of 126 dispensaries and weed shops operating in 11 states.
The announcement was made in May, but it was not until October that it was finally consummated. The Harvest board voted to move forward with the deal, after a roller coaster of public relations headaches that never threatened the deal, but were troubling enough for Trulieve to mention in an SEC filing in January.
In 2015, the U.S. Grand Jury for the North District of Florida started investigating T.J. Burnette, husband of Trulieve’s President and CEO Kim Rivers, in connection with alleged corruption by officials in Tallahassee, Florida.
Rivers was not the target of the investigation nor charged with any crimes, but in August, Burnette was convicted of five of nine federal corruption-related charges.
In addition to the Florida kerfuffle, Harvest was at the receiving end of a handful of investor lawsuits that were all dismissed prior to the conclusion of the deal.
As the initial insanity of the legal market subsided, reports of increasing tax revenues and record sales appeared on a regular basis.
By the end of October, Arizonans had purchased more than $1.1 billion in cannabis products and paid more than $175 million in taxes, according to Arizona Department of Health Services. That number included roughly $641 million in sales from medical consumers and $466 million in sales from recreational users.
Certification Blues
While dispensary sales exploded, the trend on the patient certification side saw the number of applications drop precipitously.
Between Jan. 1 and April 30, fewer than 14,000 patients applied for medical cards, compared to the first four months of 2020, when nearly 95,000 applied.
Among the benefits of carrying a cannabis card are higher possession limits, employment and housing protections, and a break in cost, as cardholders pay a lower sales tax rate.
Testing Testing
Arizona’s weed testing program entered its first full year in 2021, and shortly thereafter, the Arizona Cannabis Lab Association appealed to ADHS to delay the program until rules could be adjusted to accommodate the reality of recreational sales and ensure a continuous supply of cannabis.
Ryan Treacy, co-founder of the Association and owner of C4 Laboratories in Scottsdale, said business was slow in the beginning, but spiked when dispensaries were allowed to sell recreational weed. In the following months, the lab business went on a roller coaster ride as the industry righted itself.
Testing added huge operational costs to the dispensary side, with an additional $20,000 to $50,000 in expenses per month.
Arizona was the last medical marijuana state to mandate testing for medical cannabis with the passage of a new law in 2019.
Over the summer, cannabis tested by OnPoint Laboratories in Snowflake was recalled following results that showed salmonella and mold. The contamination was discovered after the facility failed to detect either contaminate, but a verification of the test results uncovered the issue.
Expungement and Social Equity
Expungement and social equity were two of the biggest weed stories of 2021 and were inextricably linked thanks to Prop 207.
Expungement, the sealing of pot-related convictions for minor offenses, was a condition for applicants of 26 social equity licenses meant to help people in communities that were most affected by the “war on marijuana.”
According to an analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union, Black people are 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession.
It was estimated that about 190,000 convictions statewide were eligible, but in the months following the July 12 start, only a small fraction of those convictions had been sealed.
The Medical Marijuana Fund provided $4 million to help facilitate expungement with the task eventually going to the Arizona Justice Project and a group of nonprofits specializing in social justice issues.
The lion’s share of the work has been done by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which, on its own initiative, expunged about 9,000 records through November.
Pima County Attorney’s Office Senior Counsel Jack Chin said in Pima County, one problem with expediting expungements is the difficulty in tracking down records—online records go back to 1995—and even if the records can be found, there is often insufficient information to move forward.
Fewer than 50 records in Pima County have been expunged.
Throughout the summer and fall, Arizona NORML and a handful of dispensary owners and private individuals hosted expungement clinics to help those who qualified, but the clinics often acted as magnets for investors to “poach” potential social equity applicants.
ADHS reported more than 1,500 applications were submitted before the Dec. 14 deadline.
From May through October, ADHS rewrote social equity rules several times. Each time a new version was released, the state received complaints from the public.
After draft rules dropped in May, a group of cannabis advocates protested the rules governing the issuance of a license said to be worth $10 million to $15 million.
The initial version allowed the new licensees to immediately sell, which would give non-qualified businesses the opportunity to snatch up the “golden tickets.”
ADHS released the final rules in October. Social equity advocates were still not happy and in December, the Greater Phoenix Urban League, a nonprofit aimed at helping minority communities, and Acre 41, a group of four “influential female Black, Indigenous, and people of color,” filed the lawsuit to try to stop the process until the rules could be rewritten.
“Our number one objective is to get rid of the non-transferability of licenses so that 51% ownership cannot be transferred,” said Acre 41 spokeswoman Celeste Rodriguez.
Ultimately, the judge did not issue an injunction, scheduling a hearing for Jan. 28, 2022. ADHS is seeking to have the case dismissed.
The winners will be picked via lottery next year.
Tucson Expands Marijuana Footprint
In April, after months of discussions, Tucson City Council unanimously voted to amend its Unified Development Code Related to Medical and Adult Use Marijuana Dispensaries to expand cannabis business opportunities and be more into line with codes in other states.
The changes to the UDC included an increase in the maximum size allowed for dispensaries and off-site cultivation facilities; odor mitigation amendments to address enforcement issues; removal of drive-thru restrictions, and reducing “setbacks” from “sensitive use” areas (churches, schools etc) among other changes.
The reduction of setbacks will open up several thousand parcels for cannabis-related businesses, up from fewer than 2,000, in locations that may be more appropriate, such as strip malls or other business districts with ample parking and amenities.
Public Consumption
Prop 207 also opened the door to public consumption, guided by Arizona’s public smoking laws. There is no likelihood that Arizona will follow the lead of Amsterdam with its hazy coffee shops, but expect the occasional odor of cannabis from the patios of 420-friendly businesses.
Harambe Café & Social Club on the site of the former Nimbus Brewery & Restaurant at 6464 E. Tanque Verde Road is one such place.
Owner and manager Adriana Kittrell, whose family owns both PurpleMed and GreenMed, is creating a spot for users of legal pot to gather socially.
Southern Arizona NORML hosts its monthly meetings there and Kittrell has a calendar of events that include vendor fairs, tasting events, parties and even pot-infused yoga.
For a schedule of events, go to instagram.com/harambecafe.
Another local business owner and cannabis advocate is Arte Bella owner Jen Christiansen, whose Buds and Brushes class is bringing art and cannabis together for the creative stoner.
The second Arte Bella location, at 340 N. Fourth Ave., offers art classes and a safe place for pot consumers to get together. Attendees can enjoy a beverage and smoke on the patio, while they explore their creativity, or just enjoy the vibe.
“As soon as it went recreational, I was like, this is it!” Christiansen said. “We’re gonna do this and it’s gonna be mainstream.”
For information about events at Arte Bella, go to www.artebellaon4th.com.
Veterans Battle With VA Over Weed Access
The year 2021 saw increased efforts by veterans advocating for access to medical cannabis.
As an Air Force veteran, Arte Bella’s Christiansen is a believer in the power of pot as medicine. She came to cannabis in the wake of a military career that left her reeling from prescription drugs.
She eventually sued the Veterans Administration for benefits.
“They were giving me pills on pills,” she said. “They make you into a drug addict and then they make you fight them to get the benefits.”
Likewise, Zsa Zsa Simone Brown, a board member of Southern Arizona NORML and part of the Acre 41 group seeking a social equity license, was treated much the same way by the U.S. Army.
“It was not a good experience—it’s usually not for women—so I think that’s why I love to work with other veterans and advocate for veterans,” Brown said. “I think about the things that you have to endure as a veteran, whatever you endure within the military, then you come home and you got to fight them to get your benefits.”
Both Brown and Christiansen are part of a growing legion of veterans fighting for legal access to medicinal weed.
Army veteran Ricardo Pereyda, a Tucson native and longtime medical marijuana advocate, is a founding member of Veterans Action Council, a worldwide group of veterans taking the fight to the halls of the U.S. government, the World Health Organization and even the United Nations.
Pereyda survived several injuries in his six years of service and came home 100% disabled due to injuries sustained in Iraq. The VA prescribed a heavy drug regimen—a common theme for injured returning warriors—but he found relief in cannabis.
Early in 2021, the VAC published its “2021 Green Paper: A Call to Action,” a white paper that lays out the case to end the U.S. “prohibition of medical cannabis.”
About 22 veterans commit suicide every day according to some estimates, and since 2001, about 30,000 veterans have take their own lives, while 7,032 have died on the battlefield, according to the Department of Defense.
Despite increasing legal access to medical and recreational cannabis in states across the U.S., veterans face unfair treatment and stigmatization because the VA refuses to recognize marijuana as a viable treatment option.
While VA policy does not allow discrimination against veterans with medical cards in states where it is allowed, those who do have to use their own resources and at their own risk.
In late April, a bipartisan bill that would require the VA to conduct clinical trials on the efficacy of cannabis for treatment—the VA Medical Cannabis Research Act, sponsored by Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK)—was reintroduced into the Senate. A month later in a Senate committee hearing, VA officials declined to discuss the bill, but offered written testimony in opposition, stating that the Biden Administration is against the reform.
A bill proposed by Sen. Mark Schatz (D-Hawaii), the Veterans Medical Marijuana Safe Harbor Act, was also introduced in April and would allow the VA to legally prescribe and provide marijuana to veterans in states where it is legal.
Who Needs Science Anyway?
Reefer Madness is still alive and well, as evidenced by Bank of America kneecapping one of the best-known cannabis research institutions in the U.S.
In October, BA terminated the banking privileges of the Scottsdale Research Institute, founded by former UA professor Dr. Sue Sisley.
“There was no negotiating, no warning, no ability for us to speak to somebody who could review our operating agreement with DEA,” Sisley wrote via text. “We have been [marijuana] plant-touching since our start with Bank of America 10 years ago and have always been transparent about that.”
Earlier this year, SRI entered into an agreement with the Drug Enforcement Agency to grow high-quality cannabis for the Food and Drug Administration.
In March, Sisley released a clinical study on the effects of cannabis as a treatment for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, after more than a decade of work that was slowed by frustrating delays.
The study was likely adversely affected by the low-grade weed legally available for research.
Often referred to as “lawnmower clippings,” University of Mississippi weed has been derided for years as sub-standard, full of stems and seeds and oftentimes mold. THC content caps out at about 9% potency compared to the 20% to 30% pot found in your local dispensary.
“I’ve been taking care of military veterans for about 20 years in my medical practice, and I was super anti-cannabis my whole life,” Sisley said. “But I became very sympathetic with them when I saw the shitty meds that were available. The FDA has not approved a single new med for PTSD in 19 years now. So that sucks.”
Although it cannot allow studies with actual cannabis to take place in its ivy covered halls, the University of Arizona has allowed other types of studies.
In July, the Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center released a paper titled “Cannabis sativa terpenes are cannabimimetic and selectively enhance cannabinoid activity,” utilizing behavioral studies and synthetic terpenes.
As an institution dependent on federal research funds, UA has to obey the overarching cannabis laws of the land.
“This isn’t a scientific question, it’s a political question, so we just have to live with it unfortunately,” lead researcher John Streicher, PhD. “So even though it’s legal in Arizona, I still have to get a Schedule I license if I want the plant or if I want THC, which has been frustrating because getting that is a pain.”
In August, UA announced another study into the effects of pain on nurses and what they do to relieve both physical and emotional pain, particularly during the COVID pandemic.
The data is thin on how nurses cope with pain and stress, so assistant professor Jessica Rainbow, PhD. RN, has embarked on a study to find out the prevalence of drug use in the nursing community, focusing on cannabis and how it might affect nurses’ mental health and patient care.
“I’ve seen reports about how suicide rates are getting higher among nurses. It’s not really looking good,” Rainbow said. “I feel like it’s hard, because there’s so much discouraging news about continuing to not pass mask mandates and people not getting vaccinated, and the difficulties a lot of healthcare providers find themselves in.”
Good Bills, Bad Bills, You Know We had Our Share
The year 2021 saw the passage of several cannabis-related pieces of legislation.
One new law allows ADHS to provide proficiency testing and remediate problems with third-party testing labs. Another new law allowed for unannounced dispensary inspections and requires that every dispensary get at least one unannounced visit a year; it also has a clause stating that a third-party testing company cannot be in a “familial or financial relationship” with any kind of dispensary or other marijuana business.
Lawmakers also devoted $25 million to marijuana research over the course of five years. The bill allocates $5 million annually for clinical research on the efficacy of cannabis to treat pain and a myriad of other ailments.
Sisley said the bill’s passage could make Arizona a top-tier center for cannabis research.
“HB 2298 makes Arizona the first in the nation to require medical cannabis funds be allocated only for FDA-controlled trials, objectively studying cannabis as a potential medicine for treating pain, autism, PTSD and other intractable illnesses,” Sisley said.
Lawmakers also devoted $250,000 of the MMJ fund to finding a link between cannabis use and various horrible outcomes, including but not limited to psychoses, violence and mental illnesses. The legislation was pushed by House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R-LD25), who has also sponsored legislation to place a THC cap of 2% on cannabis products.
Both Arizona NORML and conservative Christian organization Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism supported state legislation to allow autism as a qualifying condition for a MMJ patient card, but the bipartisan House Bill 2154 stalled.
On the federal front, a lot of noise was made, but not much action took place, even as public support for legal weed increases every year.
Congressional Democrats are still trying to advance the legalization of cannabis on a federal level, despite opposition by most Republicans at all levels of government.
The Veterans Medical Marijuana Safe Harbor Act gained the support of Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly.
“Sen. Kelly wants veterans suffering from chronic conditions such as cancer and PTSD to be able to get the same medical advice and treatment at the VA that other Americans get from their own doctors,” Kelly spokesman Jacob Peters said, via email.
The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act also made its fifth appearance. In a change of tactics, Democrats attached the bill to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2022.
The law would have allowed licensed cannabis businesses to operate like any other legal business, with unfettered access to banking services, including the use of credit cards, access to loans and the ability to make deposits and write payroll checks.
The bill passed through the House as part of the NDAA funding package but was stripped out before NDAA went up for a vote.
Growing Pains
Arizonans past the age of 21 now have the right to grow their own, but cannabis experts are skeptical there will be a sudden rush of Johnny Reeferseeds who will start gardens and wipe out the expanding marijuana industry.
With the passage of Prop 207, those of age can legally grow up to six plants individually or 12 to a household with two or more adults.
“People were worried before that it’s going to hurt the market and the industry,” said Moe Asnani, owner of Tucson’s Downtown and D2 dispensaries. “I absolutely don’t believe that idea. The best thing we did is giving home grow rights to people.”
Cultivation must take place “within a closet, room, greenhouse or other enclosed area on the grounds of the residence, equipped with a lock or other security device that prevents access by minors,” in an area “where the marijuana plants are not visible from public view without using binoculars, aircraft or other optical aids.”
Growers who don’t own their property must get permission from the owner.
The expansion of grow rights led to an explosion of businesses offering classes on how to grow your own.
In April, Weedly profiled a class at Tucson’s Growershouse called “Growing Legally 101.” The class was taught by military veterans Jimmy Graham and Bruce Laird from Seed2Sail, who boast 15 years growing experience between them.
Likewise Green Lady Hydroponics at the iconic Green Things Nursery jumped on the bandwagon as well.
“There’s been an unbelievable response and increased demand in the last year and everything kicked in,” Green Things employee and master grower Tower Crist said in May.
Crist, along with fellow employee Francisco Carmona, have been growing their own for years and hope to create a community of growers in the Tucson area.
An edited version of this report was published in the Dec. 29, 2021 edition of Tucson Weekly.
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