DEA won’t register dispensaries that sell both medical and recreational cannabis

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The DEA told a Minneapolis dispensary it can’t register businesses operating under Minnesota’s dual license, which covers medical and recreational sales. In other words, if one license covers both, the DEA won’t give you federal protection on the medical side.

The dispensary has 30 days to request a hearing or submit a corrective action plan.

Minnesota doesn’t have a standalone medical license. Medical is an add-on to a regular retail license, and this year the state merged its medical and recreational supply chains. Ohio and Maryland also run dual licenses. The DEA hasn’t said whether the same reasoning applies there.

The same day, the DEA registered more than 900 dispensaries, all in medical-only states except Virginia, which legalized recreational sales this year but hasn’t started licensing them.

“For DEA to sanction or bestow the imprimatur of legitimacy upon such conduct by granting a registration would be inconsistent with the [Controlled Substances Act] as well as United States’ treaty obligations,” said DEA Diversion Control Assistant Administrator Cheri Oz in the order.

Under new guidance, registered businesses and timely applicants can only trade medical cannabis with each other starting Nov. 29. That structure favors vertically integrated medical-only multistate operators.

Broader rescheduling is still before a DEA judge. The agency asked him to give “no weight” to a Government Accountability Office report that found neither the DEA nor the FDA has written procedures for scheduling drugs. Replies are due Nov. 5.

So for now, rescheduling only applies to medical cannabis.

-JB

“I think there’s some things that look a little differently now with the federal-level rescheduling,” Democratic candidate for Kansas governor Cindy Holscher said in an interview published by KOAM-TV. “That does create a little bit of a difference of attitude among some of my peers.”

Progress toward federal rescheduling has forced some Republicans to rethink their position on cannabis, she continued. 

Illinois’ hemp THC ban takes effect Nov. 12, and beverage brands are slashing prices and pulling back to get ahead of it. 

Green Thumb is selling its Señorita drinks by the pallet, with 624 four-packs going for $7,421.23. “Be Iconic. Buy a Pallet,” said Green Thumb CEO Ben Kovler on X.

Smaller brands are worse off. PlayDate trucks its wine from California to the Midwest just to make its product, and Skinny Canna has stopped production altogether.

Not everyone is mourning. Many licensed operators lobbied for the crackdown, which limits hemp THC to dispensaries under the same testing, packaging, and age rules as licensed cannabis. $GTBIF

Read Chris Casacchia’s full story for Cultivated members. 

-JB

SAM Action, a Virginia nonprofit that opposes recreational cannabis, has put up more than $3.7 million, nearly all the money behind the repeal, while the campaign against repeal has spent more than $2.8 million, CommonWealth Beacon reported. Voters head to the polls tomorrow.

The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration seized more than $26 million in illicit cannabis and tobacco products from July through September, more than double the $12 million seized in Q2, the agency said. The total includes $13.3 million from a single unlicensed Los Angeles County warehouse and $2.6 million in cannabis taken from cannabis and tobacco retailers.

Catch up on Friday’s This Week in Cannabis Live as the crew unpacked Tuesday’s election, and where the industry may stand on Wednesday:

University of Colorado Boulder researchers tracked 771 high-risk people before and after Colorado’s 2014 recreational launch and found those with cannabis use disorder showed no more impairment once high-THC products arrived, and met fewer diagnostic criteria than before, according to a study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. Most participants were longtime daily users with high tolerance, so the results may not apply to casual consumers.

Manitoba cannabis company TobaGrown acquired Vancouver Island micro producer Great Gardener Farms. TobaGrown says it will keep the team and bring GGF’s genetics to Manitoba.

Curaleaf graduated the first class of its free New York incubator for independent dispensaries, built with Terp Bros, and will open applications for the next cohort in December. $CURLF ( ▼ 3.7% )

The Fight Over Massachusetts Cannabis Repeal Comes to Belmont | The Belmont Voice

Missouri marijuana businesses await IRS rules on promised federal tax relief | Missouri Independent

They Pick Up Cash From Weed Stores. Up to $250,000 a Day. | New York Times

From mental health to DUIs, fact-checking pro-Question 8 claims | The Worcester Guardian