A kid mistook the Duke of Sussex for someone else while Harry and Meghan were shopping for a tree near their California home.
The Duke of Sussex has been called a lot of things, but “Christmas lot worker” has not been on that list…until now.
While shopping for a tree with his wife, Meghan Markle, near their Montecito, CA home on Tuesday, an excited little boy ran up to Harry and “asked if he worked there,” according to one of the actual employees, James Almaguer, who Tweeted:
“Meghan and Prince Harry came into my work today and we sold them their Christmas Tree.”
“It was anticlimactic, but a very, very interesting experience.
“We had our lot empty when they got there — their agent promoted them a good time to come instead of us shutting it down. There was one family in there and their stoked little son ran through trees up to Harry and asked if he worked here not knowing who that is,” he explained.
Photo by Chris Jackson/Staff/Getty Images
According toThe Mirror, the Christmas tree lot is called Big Wave Dave’s Christmas Trees & Pumpkin Patch, “which consists of two tarpaulin tents in the car park of Macy’s department store in Santa Barbara’s North State area.”
The lot was reportedly supposed to be closed to the public so the royal couple could shop in private, but a family was still on site when they arrived.
This will be Harry and Meghan (and Archie’s!) first Christmas since they announced in January that they’d be stepping away from their royal duties. During the holiday season last year, the family rented a home on Vancouver Island in Canada with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland.
As Peoplereminds us, this isn’t the first time Meghan and Harry have been seen Christmas tree shopping. Back in 2016, just weeks after going public with their romance, they went tree shopping at Pines and Needles in London, where the couple was seen holding hands and leaving with a $70 fir tree.
ICYMI: Here are the headlines making news this week on The Fresh Toast.
Although COVID is the apparent threat in 2020, so is getting busted for marijuana possession; researchers of a new study note that CBD plays an important role in risk reduction for users of high THC cannabis; and these four groups of people will likely be the first recipients of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Let’s dive into these stories and more as we round up the top five headlines on The Fresh Toast this week:
COVID Might Be The Least Of Your Worries If Traveling With Weed During The Holidays
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Millions of Americans are still traveling this holiday season, despite the pandemic. Some of the latest data shows that COVID-19 is now responsible for more than 85,000 hospitalizations per day in the United States. Yet, nobody wants to miss turkey day or any other holiday festivity this year, so they are piling into planes, trains, and automobiles to get to their families, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that this might not be the best idea.
Many of them are under the impression that as long as they wear masks, load up on hand sanitizer and stay six feet away from others, they might escape unscathed. But none of these precautions will save them from going to jail if they happen to get caught with weed.
What Americans Can Learn From A British Study On Hashish Potency
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A U.K. think tank has published as study called Changes in delta‐9‐tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) concentrations in cannabis over time: systematic review and meta‐analysis.
A meta-analysis is a fancy word for studying studies, and generally speaking, the larger the sample, the more reliable the results will be, and the Addiction and Mental Health Group at the University of Bath “analysed data from more than 80,000 cannabis street samples tested in the past 50 years in the US, UK, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Italy and New Zealand.”
These People Are First In Line To Get COVID-19 Vaccine
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There are three promising coronavirus vaccines in the works, from Pzifer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, meaning that the release of the first round of immunizations is imminent. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) released their first guidelines on how they are making important decisions, such as who gets the first round of COVID-19 vaccines. The panel notes four groups of people who’ll likely be the recipients of these inaugural doses.
The US Is About To Be Sandwiched Between Two Countries With Legal Weed — Is It Next?
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Marijuana is legal nationwide in Canada, and it could soon be in Mexico, as well. But the United States government has all but refused to even consider marijuana legalization as part of the American way.
Although a slew of states has ended pot prohibition at the state level — allowing weed to be sold like booze — the feds do not have any interest in taking this concept to the big stage. But if the U.S. is about to be sandwiched between two countries with legal weed, could lawmakers have a change of heart? The answer is one part politics and two parts everything else.
A Deeper Dive Ahead Of A Key Day In Congress For Cannabis
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It’s time. Cannabis history is having its moment.
The election is over, cannabis had its biggest voter approval day ever on November 3, and everyone who has a stake in the cannabis industry is saying it out loud: The cannabis legalization battle is over.
In total, 15 states have now either enacted or have voted to enact adult-use legalization laws, while 36 states have either enacted or have voted to enact medical marijuana access laws.
Say goodbye to your emotional support animal. From now on, only this service animal is allowed on flights.
A new rule now allows airlines in the United States to ban a wide range of emotional support animals from riding in the cabin. This follows news of controversy over emotional support animals that includes pigs, turtles, peacocks and more, which have been allowed to accompany owners over the past couple of years and have caused trouble mid-flights.
The Department of Transportation stated that only dogs are now accepted as service animals. They also clarify that the term “emotional support animal” is no longer considered the same as that of a “service animal.”
According to the ruling, dogs must be “individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability” in order to be considered a service animal. They must also be leashed, tethered or harnessed at all times on flight and must not show signs of aggressive behavior. All other animals must be checked into the cargo hold, most likely for a fee.
Photo by Joe Caione via Unsplash
This revision was prompted by disruptions in flights caused by unusual species of animals that “eroded the public trust in legitimate service animals.” It will go in effect within 30 days and gives airlines the opportunity to choose what to do, allowing pets to board flights without paying a fee if they want to. Deciding on whether a pet is a service animal or not is a “contentious question, with strongly held views on all sides and with no perfect solution.”
Animals on planes have long been a source of stress for airlines, but it seems like a strange time to make a decision that will upset so many possible travelers, especially since airlines have been experiencing a serious lack of business. In the meantime, no peacocks or hamsters allowed on board.
Many who’ve had COVID-19 have experienced the loss of smell and taste. Here’s what experts know about how long it can last.
COVID-19 symptoms and recovery vary dramatically from person to person. While some experience the virus and recover within a couple of weeks, others experience strange repercussions, among them the loss of taste and smell which can last from weeks to months.
Medically speaking, these symptoms are known as anosmia (loss of smell) and ageusia (loss of taste), and they can affect people temporarily when they experience a strong cold or flu. They can also be side effects to smoking or some type of medication. When applied to COVID-19, these symptoms are more pronounced and tend to occur suddenly, producing a noticeable change.
We don’t know enough about the virus to explain why this is occurring, but experts have different theories. For short term cases, it’s believed that the congestion produced by infections on the upper respiratory tract can block smell. For long term losses of smell and taste, experts believe that the virus plays a role in inflaming the inside of the nose, causing the loss of olfactory neurons. There’s no known remedy for this except time and hoping that sooner or later your body will heal itself.
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The Huffington Post spoke with Chrissy Kelly, founder of AbScent, a support group for people who’ve lost their sense of smell and taste. The group was founded years before the pandemic, but it has experienced a boon of interest during the year.
“It’s estimated that around half of COVID-19 patients experience changes to their sense of taste and smell,” Kelly explained. “Most will recover within two to three weeks, but many thousands are still working towards recovery many months later.”
As a way of coping with this new condition, Kelly recommends patients create textures with foods, mixing creamy and crunchy, and to practice smell training. This consists of sniffing a panel of scents twice a day for a period of at least four months, with each session being focused and mindful. “It’s safe, anyone can do it and it’s well researched and recommended by doctors,” she said.
Individual experiences with COVID-19 change drastically, with some experiencing the return of their senses within weeks and others having to wait months in order to be able to smell and taste again.
The U.N. decision should open up more research opportunities and teach us more about the therapeutic properties of weed.
Congress, presidents, and governmental agencies have had more than enough excuses over the years for not wanting to legalize marijuana in the United States. One of the most prominent being that the United Nations drug treaties strictly prohibits it, and going against the grain of worldly laws would be a serious no-no. However, now that the U.N. has backed off its staunch opposition to the cannabis plant, one has to wonder how lawmakers will justify maintaining pot prohibition in the future.
Marijuana is in this bizarre purgatorial state right now that rests on either time (a lot more) or the outcome of the upcoming special election. Democrats could gain control of the Senate (if they win the two seats in Georgia), giving the party the power to further marijuana reform over the next few years.
In a perfect world, Democratic reign alone on Capitol Hill should be enough to bring the country closer to a taxed and regulated pot market. Yet, it’s also just as likely that the Republicans will maintain control of the Senate, and the nation will continue to wallow in a divided Congress. This outcome would almost ensure that marijuana legalization hits another brick wall.
But the wall is coming down, one way or another, since the foundation of it keeps crumbling away.
Earlier this week, the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which has considered cannabis a dangerous drug for nearly 60-years, voted to eliminate the herb from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. As far as the U.N. is concerned, marijuana is no longer as risky as heroin.
Although the cannabis industry claims the move is more symbolic than anything, the decision should open up more research opportunities and teach us more about the therapeutic properties of weed.
It will also prevent American lawmakers from using the U.N.’s anti-weed position as a reason to keep it illegal at the federal level. Sure, they’ll try, but the argument won’t have a leg to stand on.
So what excuses will they have left?
Photo by Louis Velazquez via Unsplash
As it stands, the federal drug classification states that the cannabis plant is a Schedule I dangerous drug — one with a high rate of abuse and no medicinal value. But the U.N.’s latest decision challenges this ranking. Certainly, lawmakers can still argue the need for more research before moving forward with full-blown legalization, which President-elect Joe Biden wants to get into anyway.
But considering that more than half the nation has legalized it for medicinal and recreational purposes, it may not be necessary to learn a lot more about the cannabis plant before making it legal nationwide. While it is essential to continue studying the drugs and herbs that humans put into their bodies, how those substances affect our health isn’t always an indicator of legality. After all, alcohol has been legal in the United States for decades, yet it is one of the world’s most dangerous drugs. Booze kills millions of people worldwide every year.
All in all, it’s going to get a lot harder for prohibitionists to keep weed down and outlawed for much longer. That’s not saying that the U.S. can expect legal marijuana to unfold in the coming months. Only that the cannabis naysayers are running out of reasons for continuing to uphold a prohibition standard, and that more progressive ideas are starting to gel.
While it may be easy to forecast NJ’s cannabis market from a financial perspective, things get a little hazy when trying to predict the market from a regulatory perspective.
On November 3, 2020, New Jersey voters approved an amendment to the state’s constitution to legalize recreational marijuana. New Jersey was one of five states to legalize marijuana on Election Night, joining Arizona, Montana, Mississippi (medical only), and South Dakota.
Of these five states, New Jersey is the largest by population and it borders New York, which has not legalized recreational marijuana. This creates a huge economic opportunity in New Jersey as it is poised to collect revenue from sales to New Jersey residents and to nearby New Yorkers who will venture to New Jersey as cannabis tourists.
While it may be easy to forecast New Jersey’s cannabis market from a financial perspective, things get a little hazy in trying to predict the market from a regulatory perspective. That’s because New Jersey lawmakers still must figure out how to legalize cannabis. This raises serious questions about who should benefit from legalization given the racially disparate impact of drug laws in the past. According to a report released in April 2020 by the ACLU, 2018 arrest statistics show that “Black people were arrested for marijuana at a rate 3.45 times higher than white New Jerseyans, despite similar usage.”
Following the report, ACLU New Jersey’s Policy Director commented that, “the Garden State’s path forward must include legalizing cannabis in a way that centers racial justice, including expungement of records and creating an industry with opportunities for those hit hardest by the disastrous war on drugs.” These issues have come to the forefront as New Jersey determines how to handle legalized cannabis.
There is a lot to cover, so let’s start with the actual question posed to voters.
The Ballot Language
New Jersey Public Question 1 appeared on the ballot as follows:
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA
Do you approve amending the Constitution to legalize a controlled form of marijuana called “cannabis”?
Only adults at least 21 years of age could use cannabis. The State commission created to oversee the State’s medical cannabis program would also oversee the new, personal use cannabis market.
Cannabis products would be subject to the State sales tax. If authorized by the Legislature, a municipality may pass a local ordinance to charge a local tax on cannabis products.
Public Question 1 is light on details. All we really know from the ballot language is the following:
“Cannabis” (note that New Jersey is tossing the term “marijuana” in favor of “cannabis”) is legal for use by adults over 21,
The Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC), will have regulatory authority over the recreational market,
Cannabis products are subject to state sales tax and state lawmakers can grant cities and towns the authority to charge a local tax.
Let’s take a look at how Public Question 1 made it onto the ballot in the first place.
Photo by Howard Kingsnorth/Getty Images
Resolution Language and Legislative History
New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, was elected in 2018. New Jersey Democrats also took control of both the houses of the state legislature in 2018. Murphy was an enthusiastic supporter of cannabis legalization on the campaign trail and made it clear upon taking office that legalization would be a top priority. This seemed like a perfect equation for cannabis legalization. However, these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful because Murphy and other top Democrats in New Jersey could not agree on how the state should legalize cannabis.
After efforts to legalize cannabis failed in 2018-19, leaders of the New Jersey Assembly and Senate introduced plans to place a referendum on the 2020 ballot. Despite challenges in the years prior, on December 16, 2019, New Jersey lawmakers passed Resolution No. 183 by a supermajority, which placed Public Question 1 on the 2020 ballot. The text of the Resolution provides additional details on legalization in New Jersey, including the actual language of the constitutional amendment. Here are some key points:
Municipalities who impose local taxes on cannabis must limit the tax rate to two percent of the receipts from each sale of cannabis,
The definition of “cannabis” in the constitutional amendment does not include medical cannabis, which had previously been legalized in New Jersey, or hemp,
The scope of the CRC’s regulatory authority “would be established in law by the Legislature.”
The Constitutional Amendment is effective as of January 1, 2021.
The resolution does not address major issues, such as how CRC will issue licenses, what types of licenses are available, or who will qualify for a license, or how cannabis tax revenues will be allocated. The New Jersey legislature now must figure out to move forward.
Photo by SeanPavonePhoto/Getty Images
Proposed Legislative Path Forward
On November 5, 2020, just two days after voters approved Public Question 1, Senate Bill 21 (S-21) was introduced in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly Bill 21 (A-21) was introduced in New Jersey Assembly. As of this writing, everything in SB/AB 21 is subject to change and this analysis is merely a snapshot in time. Remember, in order to be enacted into law, the Assembly and Senate must pass identical bills, which must then be signed by Governor Murphy.
The two bills would establish the following classes of licenses:
Growers,
Processors,
Wholesalers,
Distributors,
Retailers, and
Couriers.
CRC would issue these licenses and evaluate license applications based on a point scale it will develop. CRC could prioritize licenses for applicants in “impact zones” defined as cities or towns with at least 120,000 residents or more who rank in the top 40% in the state for arrests on possession of small amounts of cannabis.
However, a report by Amanda Hoover of NJ.com, outlines some key areas where lawmakers disagree. Both versions of the bill allow the CRC to impose an optional “social equity excise fee” to fund programs seeking to reduce disparities caused by the enforcement of drug laws.
The Senate version of the bill allocates 70% of sales tax revenue plus 100% social equity excise fees to these programs. The Assembly version only directs the excise fees. The Senate does not cap licenses, but the Assembly version limits the number of grower licenses the CRC can issue during the first two years. Negotiations between leaders from the Assembly and Senate are likely to continue until December 17, when the legislative session ends.
The actual constitutional amendment legalizing cannabis in New Jersey includes the following language:
The growth, cultivation, processing, manufacturing, preparing, packaging, transferring, and retail purchasing and consumption of cannabis, or products created from or which include cannabis, by persons 21 years of age or older, and not by persons under 21 years of age, shall be lawful andsubject to regulation by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission (emphasis added).
It’s key that this amendment has two components: cannabis activities are lawful, but also subject to CRC regulations. Although cannabis will be legal on January 1, it is not as if it will be a free-for-all because any commercial activities involving cannabis (e.g., growing, processing, manufacturing, selling, etc.) are subject to CRC regulations, which will not exist until the legislature empowers the CRC to regulate recreational cannabis.
Bottom Line
If lawmakers cannot agree on how to legalize marijuana by January 1, 2021, then the CRC cannot begin the process of regulating recreational cannabis despite the fact voters legalized marijuana. New Jersey’s top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Gurbir Grewall instructed prosecutors to dismiss or adjourn any pending low-level marijuana cases as of January 1, even if legislation is pending. Grewal said in a statement that, “fairness demands that we suspend prosecution of marijuana possession-related cases while we await direction from the Legislature on the parameters for decriminalization of marijuana and legalization of regulated adult-use cannabis.”
We will continue to monitor for developments in New Jersey and other states that recently legalized.
Daniel Shortt is a corporate and regulatory attorney based in Seattle, Washington who works extensively with entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry. This article originally appeared on Green Light Law Group and has been reposted with permission. You can contact Daniel at info@gl-lg.com or (206) 430-1336.
As we await the COVID-19 vaccine, we’re getting clues on what it might feel like to get one. Here’s one patient’s experience.
As the country inches closer to distributing a COVID-19 vaccine, many are wondering what it will feel like. While we’ve all had experiences with flu shots, this vaccine is one that’s been long awaited and marks a significant moment in our history.
The COVID-19 vaccines use a new technology called mRNA, which hasn’t ever been used by a US-licensed vaccine. According to the Centers For Disease Control (CDC), mRNA vaccines “teach our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.”
These vaccines require two doses. The initial one is meant to prime the body, and the second one, administered a few weeks later, is devised to boost the response. Proposed vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech are 95% effective.
Photo by Testalize via Unsplash
CNN spoke with several vaccine volunteers, who mentioned that while the vaccine was “no walk in the park,” it was definitely worth it. “The actual injection felt, at first, just like a flu shot, which is basically just a little pinch in the side of your arm,” explains 24-year old Yasir Batalvi.
“Once I left the hospital, that evening, the stiffness got a little bit worse. It was definitely manageable, but you kind of don’t really feel like moving your arm too far above your shoulder. But the side effects are pretty localized. I mean, it’s just in the muscle in your arm. And that’s about it. It doesn’t really affect anything else and you feel fine.”
Doctors say symptoms that appear after taking the first dosage are similar to the ones you’d expect when getting your average flu shot. When Batalvi received his second dosage, he explains that the side effects were more pronounced. “That evening was rough. I mean, I developed a low-grade fever, and fatigue and chills.” Still, Batalvi says that he felt normal by the following morning.
Experts explain that feeling under the weather after a dosage shouldn’t deter anyone from getting the vaccine.
“That means your immune response is working for you. You should feel good about that,” vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia told CNN. “And [there] shouldn’t really be any difficulty coming back for that second shot, knowing that you’re now in a much better position to fight off this awful virus, which has killed more than 250,000 people and can cause a lot of long term effects.”
Experts explain that people shouldn’t be scared off by mild negative side effects since this means that the vaccine is doing its job in prompting a response from your immune system. Like most vaccines, responses vary from person to person; while some people might experience chills, stiffness in the arm or even a slight fever, others will feel nothing.
During a recent podcast, Princess Di’s former butler didn’t hold back as he talked about the Queen’s row with Harry, and why he doesn’t want to see Charles take the throne.
Paul Burrell is no longer staying quiet about the falling out between Queen Elizabeth II and her grandson. During a recent interview on The Secret To podcast, the former royal butler spills tea on Queen’s falling out with Prince Harry. The Queen basically told Harry he had to choose between his royal duties and Meghan Markle.
Burrell sides with the Queen’s handling of the situation, saying, “She would have done everything she possibly could do to say to Harry stay with the working family because you are part of it and the country loves you.” Per the Express, here’s more of the exchange:
“But he wanted something else and he went with his heart not his head and he went with the woman he loves.
“You cannot blame him for that.
“The Queen gave Harry a choice at Sandringham, Harry said ‘granny can I keep my uniforms and contacts with the army?’
And she said you can’t have one foot in the camp and one foot out.”
He added, “Look how wise she was, I think she did the right thing.”
Paul Burrell, former butler of Princess Diana, Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
Burrell, who was Princess Diana’s former Butler, and not a huge fan of her ex-husband, said he thinks Prince William should take the throne after Queen Elizabeth II instead of Prince Charles. Burrell explained that Wills is simply a better fit because of his age. But also, he just doesn’t really like Charles.
“His ex-wife Princess Diana said she did not think he would ever be King because that job would give him too many limitations.
“He has a lot of baggage with him. Can I be controversial?
“I am not a fan of King Charles and Queen Camilla, I do not have an appetite for that,” adding, “I personally would like to see Queen Catherine and King William on the throne with their beautiful family.”
As a nice kick on the way out, Burrell said of the 72-year old Charles, “Will he actually get up the steps to the throne? He might be that old.”
Whoever wins the U.S. Senate seats in Georgia will determine if marijuana gets a fair shake next year in Congress.
Although the election is over for most of America, there’s still enough of one taking place to make a difference — especially when it comes to legalizing marijuana in the United States.
Interestingly enough, the fate of federal cannabis reform now rests on the outcome of a special election slated for early January. Georgia voters must decide whether Republicans or Democrats will fill the U.S. Senate seats. Whoever wins will determine if marijuana gets a fair shake next year in Congress.
A runoff election is taking place because Georgia requires at least 50% of the votes before a candidate can be declared a winner. None of the candidates claimed such a victory in the November election. This means Senator Kelly Loeffler, the Republican incumbent, and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock are back in battle again come January. And so are Senator David Perdue, the Republican incumbent, and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. The two Senate seats up for grabs could make the Democrats king of Capitol Hill at the beginning of next year. And with that crown comes the ability to further marijuana reform and end federal prohibition.
It’s no secret that Democrats are the most likely to run with a bill aimed at legalizing marijuana. In fact, the U.S. House is in the process right now of approving one that would take the herb all the way and make it part of legitimate commerce. Only the Republican-dominated Senate has stopped progress at every turn. Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, the gatekeeper to the upper chamber, has killed every pot-related measure to come out of the House. He won’t even give one a hearing. “I do not have any plans to endorse the legalization of marijuana,” McConnell said in 2018.
If the Republicans keep the two Senate seats, we can expect more of the same in 2021 and beyond. However, if the Democrats flip them, next year’s Congress will come with a whole new dynamic. Anything approved by the House would move swiftly through the Senate. Government would, for once, have an easier path to getting things done for the American people.
Even legal weed.
Honestly, we should be to the point in this country when the idea of legalizing marijuana isn’t such a daunting task. Not only has more than half the nation legalized the leaf for medicinal and recreational purposes, but the latest national public opinion poll also shows that around 705 of the population is on board. And it’s not like every Democrat and Republican are fighting over whether it is right or wrong.
Photo by Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images
Legal weed has become a mostly bipartisan issue over the past few years. It’s just that career politicians still have enough clout on the Hill to keep anything from happening. But that could all change if the Democrats find their way in control of the Senate.
There’s still no guarantee that a Democratic win in Georgia, which would make them leaders of both the House and Senate, will ensure marijuana legalization gets done. It probably wouldn’t. President-elect Joe Biden is still against moving forward with full-blown legalization, and wants to try decriminalization instead.
There are also other critical issues that need to be addressed in the next session that Democrats will want to get locked into place before potentially losing their control in the midterms. Marijuana might not get a lot of stage time in 2021, but it would fare a lot better with Democrats running the show than another split Congress.
That alone would ensure that federal marijuana legalization remains off the table until at least 2023.
The South may be quietly adjusting to the new legalization landscape. But for now, the good ol’ white guys prevail, and Christians have righteous morality straight from the Bible on their side.
As of the November elections, there are now 15 states and the District of Columbia who have legalized adult use. There are some 36 states that enacted or voted to enact medical marijuana laws.
In the years leading up to this November, voters decided affirmatively on 28 separate ballot measures legalizing cannabis (18 measures legalizing medical marijuana, 10 measures legalizing adult use), according to National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
That’s nearly 50 years of marijuana legalization efforts that now includes entire countries.
But late to the legalization party over the years have been the U.S. southern states, specifically Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Why? Blame God, the Bible, and the Christian ethics that pervade state legislatures. It’s the South’s old-school good-ol’-boys God-knows-all network that continues to hold up or minimize or otherwise confuse legalization efforts in these states.
Mississippi legalized medical marijuana this November under Initiative 65, but did so under a cloud of a “cynical effort to misdirect voters” with a similar-sounding but much more restrictive measure (Measure 65A) put on the ballot by the state legislature, by the same state lawmakers who for decades had refused to ever seriously address the issue. There have been more than 20 medical marijuana bills that have been blocked in the last decade or so in Mississippi.
And take a look at comments from one of Alabama’s elected officials, U.S. Representative Bradley Byrne, who wants jail time for possession and is against medical use: “In a country as rich and as prosperous as America, why is life expectancy going down?” said Byrne. “It’s because of suicide, alcohol abuse and drug abuse. People doing things that literally result in their own death.
“How in the world does that happen in our country? It’s because we’ve taken God out of the center of our lives. And when you try to take God out of the center of your life, you’ll keep trying to stick something else in there but nothing else will fill it — no drug, no alcohol, no power, no wealth, nothing will fill that hole.”
Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Georgia U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx said that drug addiction is one of the largest challenges in this country, and that she “will continue to oppose any effort to make it easier for people to grow and use drugs.”
In North Carolina, U.S. Representative Ted Budd commented on the SAFE Banking Act with the usual propaganda about marijuana, citing problems with lowered IQ and serious mental illness from consuming marijuana, along with the all-time favorite of anti-marijuana crusaders—the sudden rise of marijuana-impaired car accidents.
The South Carolina Medical Cannabis Therapeutic Research Treatment Act, which was signed into law in June, 2014, was very restrictive, allowing only CBD oil for treatment of epilepsy in children. The good news is that it eventually cleared the House with a vote of 92-5. On January 10, 2017, State Senator Tom Davis and fellow Republican Representative Peter McCoy introduced the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act, a comprehensive medical cannabis bill, that would allow seriously ill patients with debilitating medical conditions to obtain state ID cards to allow them to access medical cannabis from a state regulated dispensary.
But the bill hit major resistance from law enforcement. Then there was God. “South Carolina tends to be more evangelical, more Protestant than other states,” Davis said during an Americans for Safe Access conference. “They get involved in more social issues and politics than other states. The issue of marijuana is wrapped up in the thinking ‘Is this a proper lifestyle? Are you making a proper moral choices? Is this something that we are introducing into our society that is going to lead to an erosion of values?’” he said. “All of those things are very real in South Carolina. You have to respect those concerns.”
Americans for Safe Access rally / Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
Davis has had to ride a fine line in the state among lawmakers and evangelicals, even after a recent poll showed that only 18.8% of South Carolina residents are opposed to any form of marijuana legalization, medical or otherwise. The first senate subcommittee meeting discussing the Compassionate Care Act took place on Wednesday, February 27, 2019, where Davis, the subcommittee chairman, said that he wanted a “tightly-defined medical cannabis bill that empowers physicians to allow patient use of cannabis for specific debilitating conditions when empirical evidence substantiates the benefits.”
He wants to ensure that the bill is clearly a medical bill in terms of substance as well as optics, and is “not a precursor to adult use.” All good. But the state doesn’t have a citizen initiative process, and the bill has yet to receive a vote in either the state House or Senate.
Virginia is probably one of the more progressive Southern states when it comes to marijuana legalization, with the Attorney General Mark Herring, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, U.S. Representative Elaine Luria, State Senator Jennifer McClellan, State Senator Joe Morrissey and a host of other elected government officials all for legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana. Most other officials in Virginia are in favor of at least decriminalizing marijuana, which happened earlier this year.
In a move that surprised some marijuana proponents, given Virginia’s harsh history with marijuana arrests and convictions over the years, Governor Ralph Northam announced the findings of a his administration’s report on marijuana on November 30 following the state’s decriminalization legislation passed by the General Assembly earlier this year. “We will advance new laws to make sure that our Commonwealth legalizes marijuana the right way,” he was quoted as saying in a press release about the report.
Louisiana is one of the less active Southern states working on legalizing. Voters approved medical marijuana in 2016, but it took three years for regulators to approve the state’s first dispensaries. Governor Bel Edwards continues to oppose legalizing and regulating adult use, even though 55 percent of Louisiana residents support legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, according to the 2019 Louisiana Survey published by the Louisiana State University.
There are other areas of the country that are out of step with the legalization movement, such as Kansas, where highway patrol is known to target cars with Colorado plates for canine searches.
But the South is slowly coming around after years of deep denials, in part because of growing popularity of medical marijuana as a healing herb, which is more in line with Christian ethics.
There is still the argument by some Christians that legalizing marijuana is a sign of moral decline in the U.S., according to a study, which is a belief that still clearly plays out in the legalization efforts in the South. Some evangelicals even believe that the Bible prohibits consuming marijuana, and it’s a sin if you do.
Still, you can’t argue with the fact that two-thirds of Americans say the use of marijuana should be legal, which is a steady increase over the past decade, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The share of U.S. adults who oppose legalization has fallen from 52 percent in 2010 to 32 percent today.
The South may be quietly adjusting to this new legalization landscape. But for now, the good ol’ white guys prevail, and Christians have righteous morality straight from the Bible on their side.
