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New York’s Cannabis Control Board takes shape.
As Cannabis Wire recently reported, the New York Senate confirmed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominations of Chris Alexander as executive director of the Office of Cannabis Management, and Tremaine Wright to chair the state’s Cannabis Control Board (CCB).
The state’s adult use law allows the Senate Majority Leader and the Assembly Speaker to each pick one member of the CCB. Following Hochul’s nomination, on the Senate side, Andrea Stewart-Cousins picked Sen. Jen Metzger, and on the Assembly side, Carl Heastie picked Buffalo-based attorney Adam W. Perry. Hochul will fill the remaining two seats, which do not need confirmation in the legislature.
Metzger tweeted that she is “excited to get to work with my new colleagues to create a thriving industry and a model of social equity and sustainability!”
The US Hemp Roundtable swiftly celebrated the appointment, tweeting, “Great to see that our industry will have someone on that important board who knows and cares about our issues.”
Letter urging cannabis clemency delivered to President Biden.
On Tuesday, a group of activists, celebrities, lawmakers, and academics, ranging from Drake to Illinois Senate Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford, signed on to a letter to President Joe Biden “requesting a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all persons subject to federal criminal or civil enforcement on the basis of a nonviolent marijuana offense.”
WADA to review “cannabis status on the Prohibited List.”
Relatively few people paid close attention to the placement of cannabis on the Prohibited List of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) before it led to the removal of Sha’Carri Richardson from the recent Olympics.
As Cannabis Wire reported at the time, this prompted wide-ranging debate over the list, including among members of Congress and in the White House.
That list was on the agenda of the Agency’s executive committee meeting (its third this year) in Istanbul, Turkey, on Tuesday.
WADA announced on Tuesday that “following receipt of requests from a number of stakeholders, the [executive committee] endorsed the decision of the List Expert Advisory Group to initiate in 2022 a scientific review of the status of cannabis. Cannabis is currently prohibited in competition and will continue to be in 2022.”
CANNRA gets its first executive director.
The Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA) has named as its first executive director Gillian Schauer, a research scientist at the Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute at the University of Washington.
CANNRA also expanded its executive committee and board to include: Michele Nakata, supervisor of the Medical Cannabis Dispensary Licensing Program at the Hawaii Department of Health; Chris Tholkes, director of the Office of Medical Cannabis at the Minnesota Department of Health; Steve Marks, executive director of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission; and Andrew Turnage, executive director at the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission.
New member states and territories also joined, including: Arizona, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, the District of Columbia, and Guam.
