Minnesota blazing toward legal cannabis

According to a report released last July by the Minnesota Department of Health over 70 percent of survey respondents said therapeutic cannabis was helping to ease their post-traumatic stress and most showed “clinically meaningful” reductions in the severity of their symptoms. Republicans in Minnesota's legislature have blocked legal cannabis for all adults denying the state needed revenue and leaving a thriving black market in place to enrich the law enforcement industry so Minnesota-based Vireo Health expanded into New Mexico's therapeutic cannabis market.

Minnesota-based Xcel Energy has already tapped into Colorado's burgeoning industry selling many megawatts to grow operations but the future of value-added cannabis is grown outdoors organically, heated indoors with geothermal systems, irrigated with rainwater harvest and powered by off-grid sources of electricity.

Corey Day, a former executive director of the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party formed Cannabis for Economic Growth and has made the dollars and cents case for legalizing for all adults in Minnesota so towns like Pipestone, Luverne, Worthington, Lake Benton, Ortonville and Hendricks near the South Dakota border could reap the coming cannabis whirlwind as Governor Tim Walz urges legalization.

Tuesday, Minnesota House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, introduced legislation that would legalize the adult-use of cannabis. The bill includes the following items: 

Creates a regulatory structure focused on developing micro-businesses and a craft market 

Provides for expungement of most cannabis convictions 

Provides for a limited allowance of home grow 

Requires testing and labeling of products 

Restricts packaging based on dosage size 

Provides funding for public health awareness, youth access prevention, and substance abuse addiction and treatment 

Provides grants, loans, technical assistance and training for small business 

Uses best practices from other states to account for negative externalities.

Read the rest here.

What a simplistic view. State cannabis laws don’t get passed in a vacuum; they’re hammered out in committees and ground into legislative sausage then sold to a governor. It’s not a cottage industry; Interstate commerce demands purity and standards. https://t.co/kDlFSnzc59

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) May 3, 2020