{"id":4820,"date":"2022-03-14T14:36:06","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/CBMiOGh0dHBzOi8vZmlsdGVybWFnLm9yZy9uZXctbWV4aWNvLW1hcmlqdWFuYS1sZWdhbGl6YXRpb24v0gEA"},"modified":"2022-03-14T14:36:06","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:36:06","slug":"new-mexico-marijuana-legalization-key-innovations-big-equity-questions-filter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/?p=4820","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico Marijuana Legalization: Key Innovations, Big Equity Questions – Filter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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N<\/span>ew Mexico will open its first adult-use cannabis dispensaries to the public on April 1. It legalized through its legislature in April 2021, in a major victory for a state movement dating back decades. And unlike New York, New Jersey or Virginia\u2014all of which approved legalization measures last year, but won\u2019t open sales until at least 2023\u2014New Mexico has rolled out its cannabis market remarkably fast.<\/p>\n

Notably, cannabis sales will be allowed everywhere in New Mexico. The law does <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> allow city or town governments to ban sales locally, <\/span>whereas most other legal states <\/span>give municipal governments that power<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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New Mexico\u2019s law has features that may benefit small businesses over big players.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps unexpectedly, police had a hand in this. \u201cThere were some law enforcement who expressed they didn\u2019t want a \u2018checkerboard\u2019 enforcement of cannabis, so it made it easier to not have unequal laws across this huge state,\u201d Emily Kaltenbach, the New Mexico state director for the Drug Policy Alliance, told <\/span>Filter<\/span><\/i>. She helped lobby lawmakers to ultimately approve the cannabis legalization bill.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think also people recognized the economic driver for local communities that really don\u2019t have much of an economic base,\u201d she added. \u201cFor example, a lot of border communities with Texas, I think they are going to see a lot of traffic coming from there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s law has features that may benefit small businesses over big players. There is no limit to the number of cannabis business licenses the state can issue, for example. <\/span>That\u2019s in contrast to states like Connecticut<\/a>, which is rolling out its cannabis market with only 56 licenses total available for all businesses to compete over. In many states, established medical cannabis businesses that already operated before full legalization are privileged for a portion of available licenses, squeezing their availability for everyone else. <\/span><\/p>\n

In another potential plus for entrepreneurs with limited resources, New Mexico will let businesses apply for whatever type of license they can handle and wish to pursue\u2014whether that\u2019s an industrial-sized grow operation or a simple delivery service.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kaltenbach also described the state\u2019s planned cannabis social equity program. \u201cThere is language mandating the department to come up with a plan to ensure that communities most impacted by cannabis prohibition have the support and technical assistance get into the industry,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The social equity program is not fully operational yet, and there\u2019s no clear timeline. That\u2019s a significant shortcoming.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The state has loosely defined<\/a> who may be eligible\u2014including people of certain races or ethnicities, people with marijuana convictions and people with low incomes, to name a few. And the benefits they will receive\u2014including assistance in the licensing process, reduced fees and access to a \u201csocial equity fund\u201d\u2014are also outlined.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, New Mexico\u2019s social equity program is not fully operational yet, and there\u2019s no clear timeline for when it will open for applications. That\u2019s a significant shortcoming, given how fast the state moved to open dispensaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Returning to licensing, Kaltenbach further explained that she and other advocates wanted to avoid some of the problems that New Mexico has faced in its alcohol industry. <\/span>\u201cAlcohol licenses are capped and therefore they\u2019re very expensive and they can be transferred,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you have a very coveted alcohol license you can sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars and transfer it to another entity. That\u2019s not allowed under the NM law, so these licenses don\u2019t become a commodity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One option for small businesses is to apply for a \u201cmicrobusiness\u201d license, and in fact a majority of licenses granted so far are for microbusinesses. Such license-holders <\/span>are eligible<\/span><\/a> for a special $5 million loan program<\/span> to help them acquire start-up finances and equipment. State officials estimate that individual loans under this program will average about $100,000 each.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Kaltenbach also warned of a potential problem facing microbusinesses: plant counts. State law limits mico-growers to grow only 200 plants at a time, and that can only be changed if lawmakers and the governor approve a new bill.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other licensed growers can currently grow<\/a> up to 16,000 plants depending on their license type, and these limits can be changed at any time by state officials. In fact, since legalization passed, the largest growers have already been pressuring state officials to dramatically increase plant limits\u2014even threatening to sue<\/a> to get their way.<\/span><\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a bigger issue that can\u2019t be fixed until lawmakers come back to the negotiating table: where tax money will go.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cHaving the smaller craft cannabis producers is really key in a market like this,\u201d Chad Lozano, a cannabis grower and host of NMCannacast<\/a>, told ABC 7<\/i>. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have this corporate cannabis. It\u2019s probably going to be very cheap.\u201d Despite this concern, micro-growers will benefit from not having to pay \u201cper-plant\u201d fees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet there\u2019s a bigger issue that also can\u2019t be fixed until lawmakers come back to the negotiating table: where tax money will go. Currently, cannabis taxes raised by the state will go to its general fund, to be spent however the state government wants. That\u2019s unlike New York<\/a>, for example, where the law requires 40 percent of all cannabis tax dollars to go into a special fund to help reinvest in disadvantaged communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to know where that money is going. In states like California<\/a>, cannabis tax revenues have helped fund more policing to enforce cannabis laws\u2014which is exasperating, considering the whole point of legalization is, or should be, to end the criminalization of this drug.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite promising aspects to New Mexico\u2019s model, then, serious questions remain about how it will shake out, and much work remains to be done if the goal is an equitable market.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEarlier versions of the legislation that we worked on included funds that would support equity licenses, go back to housing, supporting people who are formerly incarcerated,\u201d Kaltenbach said. \u201cWe are going to have to advocate and organize to try to get some of the general fund money reinvested back into communities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photograph by Add Weed<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Influence Foundation, which operates <\/em>Filter, previously received a restricted grant from the Drug Policy Alliance to support a Drug War Journalism Diversity Fellowship.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Mexico will open its first adult-use cannabis dispensaries to the public on April 1. It legalized through its legislature in April 2021, in a major victory for a state movement dating back decades. And unlike New York, New Jersey or Virginia\u2014all of which approved legalization measures last year, but won\u2019t open sales until at least 2023\u2014New Mexico has rolled out its cannabis market remarkably fast. Notably, cannabis sales will be allowed everywhere in New Mexico. The law does not allow city or town governments to ban sales locally, whereas most other legal states give municipal governments that power. New… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/new-mexico-marijuana-legalization-key-innovations-big-equity-questions-filter.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thcinct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}