A U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) senator has filed a pair of payments to legalize marijuana within the territory and facilitate expungements for individuals with prior hashish convictions.
Sen. Janelle Sarauw (I) filed the laws months after Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. (D) included a hashish legalization income in a price range proposal he despatched to lawmakers and indicated that he may convene a particular session to enact the coverage change. He’s criticized Sarauw, who’s working for lieutenant governor this yr, for delaying the introduction of her invoice.
The senator stated on Monday that counsel for the U.S. territory’s unicameral legislature accomplished its overview of her legalization and expungement payments earlier this month, clearing the best way for his or her submitting.
“It has been a really cumbersome course of to get these payments to the place they’re right this moment,” she stated in a press launch, including that the legalization measure was crafted in a means that’s meant to advertise fairness and incorporate classes discovered from authorized marijuana states like Colorado, which USVI lawmakers visited for a hashish summit this yr.
“To disregard these classes can be silly,” Sarauw stated. “As a political scientist, however most significantly as an elected consultant of the individuals, it’s my job to do the due diligence to guard the lots and the most effective curiosity of our residents by creating fairness in alternative.”
For his half, the governor has repeatedly pushed for legalization over current years and launched his personal reform proposal in 2019 that stalled within the legislaure. He informed voters earlier this yr to name Sarauw and ask her why she’s delayed her invoice introduction.
“Janelle Sarauw has been sitting on the hashish laws for 2 years, saying she has a chunk of laws,” he said final month. “We’ve waited. She hasn’t produced any laws.”
It’s unclear whether or not that stress amidst the approaching election affected the senator’s choice to file the laws. However whereas the legalization invoice comprehensively addresses points like trade licensing, there’s a notable lack of language that instantly addresses the principles for shoppers like possession limits or residence cultivation coverage.
Listed below are a number of the principal provisions of the legalization invoice:
The laws would create an Workplace of Hashish Regulation (OCR), tasked with issuing marijuana enterprise licenses, overseeing the trade and setting guidelines on points like promoting, packaging and labeling.
There can be eight license and allow sorts, together with for hashish producers, retailers, cultivators, micro-cultivators, testing laboratories and on-site consumption entities.
There can be caps on what number of licenses OCR may grant for every of the territory’s principal islands. Regulators may situation extra after January 1, 2023 in the event that they conduct a research demonstrating that the growth is required to satisfy shopper demand.
People who use marijuana for sacramental functions may apply for their very own cultivation permits.
The invoice lays out licensing charges and requires a 50 cent per gram tax on hashish cultivators who promote marijuana to different licensees.
Tax and charge income, which OCR would management, would go into a brand new hashish fund and first be used to cowl administrative prices of implementing this system, with further {dollars} funding a territory testing facility, grants for micro-lending to micro-cultivators, low- and no-interest loans for social fairness candidates, a job coaching program, substance misuse remedy and analysis into the medical efficacy of marijuana.
There can be a track-and-trace program for hashish merchandise.
There are additionally a number of fairness parts within the legalization invoice, together with prioritized utility scoring for minority, girls and service-injured entrepreneurs.
The laws units a objective of making an trade the place no less than 51 p.c of the companies are owned by social and financial fairness candidates, together with these from areas disproportionately impacted by the drug battle and distressed farmers.
It additionally calls on retailers to purchase 10-50 p.c of their hashish product inventory from social fairness manufacturers.
There can be a 100 milligram THC cap on edibles, and every serving may comprise as much as 10 milligrams.
Moreover, there are residency necessities for marijuana enterprise possession. Majority house owners should reside in USVI; if there aren’t majority house owners, no less than 50.1 p.c of the entities holding the license have to be run by residents.
There are packaging and labeling restrictions, with the invoice stipulating that labels should embody well being warnings and be designed in a means that doesn’t enchantment to individuals beneath 21.
The whereas part of the invoice says that “the legalization of Hashish for grownup use can alleviate social injustices skilled by individuals subjected to the prison justice system for easy possession of Hashish.”
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“By establishing a regulated system, this chapter supplies oversight of the hashish trade to guard public security and create financial alternatives for the Virgin Islands and its bona fide residents,” it says.
“This act is meant to strengthen the assist supposed to native farmers, small enterprise house owners, medicinal and sacramental customers, and the tourism trade by recognizing cultural and sacramental makes use of, creating enterprise possession and monetary alternatives for native Virgin Islanders, rising income to the Authorities of the VI by enabling gross sales to vacationers.”
The invoice sponsor stated that “there have been many politically pushed false narratives about this hashish laws,” however she’s “pleased with the work executed to make sure that locals and minorities usually are not locked out of the trade and have a chance to take part within the financial potential of the trade—from farming, to dispensaries, to incentives for boutique labs, and micro vitality suppliers.”
The complementary bill on expungements from Sarauw is considerably shorter, with simply three pages of textual content that lays out a course of the place individuals can petition the courts to clear prior convictions involving as much as two ounces of marijuana.
There can be no ready time to course of the expungements for individuals with eligible convictions who submit a petition.
Whereas the governor has sharply criticized Sarauw over the delayed introduction of the legalization measure, it appears seemingly that he’d be keen to signal the laws into regulation if it’s authorized by the legislature. That stated, Senate President Donna Frett-Gregory (D) indicated that it seemingly received’t be taken up till subsequent session, which begins in January.
Bryan, who has additionally talked about marijuana as a safer different to opioids for ache remedy, stressed in Might that it’s “been three years now transferring” the problem, and so lawmakers must “get it by means of the legislature so we will get some cash going.”
He signed a medical hashish legalization invoice into regulation in 2019.
There was a listening to on the governor’s adult-use legalization proposal in 2020, with a number of authorities companies testifying in favor of the reform and outlining how a regulated hashish market may assist the territory, particularly given its financial wants.
Bryan has additionally emphasised the necessity to legalize, tax and regulate hashish to generate income amid the financial downturn attributable to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the meantime, different U.S. territories have additionally moved forward with hashish reform.
The governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) signed a invoice to finish prohibition in 2018.
The next yr, the governor of Guam signed legalization into regulation.
A senator in Puerto Rico, the place medical hashish is authorized, filed a invoice this month to take away penalties for low-level marijuana possession.
Learn the text of the USVI marijuana legalization and expungement payments under:
Picture courtesy of Philip Steffan.