Lawmakers and activists pushing for the legalization of recreational cannabis during last year’s legislative sessions said they likely will have to come back to tighten up the law in the future.
So it should be no surprise that they’re back this year.
But the lone cannabis bill making its way through this year’s 30-day legislative session — Senate Bill 100 — would involve more than just minor technical tweaks, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday.
It also would allow those opening micro cannabis businesses to increase the number of plants they can grow from 200 to 1,000.
And it would allow existing nonprofit agencies that grow medical cannabis to convert their status to for-profit.
The proposed changes to the Cannabis Regulation Act speak to the complexity and unanswered questions about an industry that, its champions say, will create thousands of jobs and provide a jolt of financial vitality into the state.
“We always hear we have technical fixes from the last session,” Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, said during Sunday’s hearing. “Some of these are. Some are substantive changes in our policies.”
Cervantes, chairman of the committee, was one of the more critical, or dubious, legislators to question the laws creating the Cannabis Regulation Act last year.
“Less than a year later we’re already changing it,” he…
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Lawmakers and activists pushing for the legalization of recreational cannabis during last year’s legislative sessions said they likely will have to come back to tighten up the law in the future.
So it should be no surprise that they’re back this year.
But the lone cannabis bill making its way through this year’s 30-day legislative session — Senate Bill 100 — would involve more than just minor technical tweaks, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday.
It also would allow those opening micro cannabis businesses to increase the number of plants they can grow from 200 to 1,000.
And it would allow existing nonprofit agencies that grow medical cannabis to convert their status to for-profit.
The proposed changes to the Cannabis Regulation Act speak to the complexity and unanswered questions about an industry that, its champions say, will create thousands of jobs and provide a jolt of financial vitality into the state.
“We always hear we have technical fixes from the last session,” Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, said during Sunday’s hearing. “Some of these are. Some are substantive changes in our policies.”
Cervantes, chairman of the committee, was one of the more critical, or dubious, legislators to question the laws creating the Cannabis Regulation Act last year.
“Less than a year later we’re already changing it,” he…
