The New Mexico Senate permitted a invoice late Monday night time that goals to scrub up language of the state’s Hashish Regulation Act, improve manufacturing limits for small hashish corporations and permit these smaller corporations to wholesale hashish to and from different hashish companies.
Probably the most vital adjustments SB 100 proposes are rising plant limits for hashish microbusinesses from 200 to 1,000, permitting these varieties of companies to purchase, promote and transport hashish from different corporations and permit medical hashish corporations that have been beforehand required to be registered as nonprofits to grow to be for-profit corporations.
After an modification in a committee listening to the day earlier than, almost all the debate on the Senate ground was dedicated to water points, although the unique invoice didn’t deal with any adjustments associated to water.
Earlier this week, a Senate committee permitted an modification that stripped a water proper verification part from the Hashish Regulation Act.
Throughout a Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell, proposed eradicating the part, calling it “pointless purple tape.”
“There’s one occasion of a constituent of mine that was attempting to get licensed they usually tried to switch possession right into a separate enterprise in order that it didn’t put his farm into legal responsibility,” Pirtle stated on Sunday. “And it grew to become problematic to show who has the authorized proper, who’s alleged to have it, who’s leasing from whom.”
Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, who works as a hashish legal professional, agreed with Pirtle.
“We’ve got hamstrung this trade with the method that we took to water within the invoice final 12 months,” Duhigg stated on Sunday. “I believe we received it fallacious, frankly, final 12 months, with what we did with water.”
Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, unsuccessfully tried to additional amend the invoice to incorporate what she stated was a compromise in verifying authorized water entry. Her modification, she argued, would solely require {that a} hashish firm “exhibit” that it has authorized entry to water. However after about an hour of debate, her modification failed on a 19-20 vote, with a variety of Democrats voting towards it.
A lot of the pushback on the modification got here from Pirtle who reiterated his feedback from the day prior to this, arguing that it’s already unlawful to make use of water for any agricultural use with out authorized entry to it.
“You have got a water proper otherwise you don’t have a water proper,” Pirtle stated. “It’s not that difficult.”
After Lopez’s modification didn’t cross, Pirtle launched his personal, extra simplified modification to deal with water entry, which handed by a 20-11 vote. As an alternative of exhibiting authorized entry to water as a situation of the licensure of a hashish producer, Pirtle’s modification would permit the state to revoke a hashish license if “a licensee is utilizing water to which the licensee doesn’t have a authorized proper.”
The query of how a recreational-use hashish trade will impression the state’s water provides has been requested for years within the Legislature, however the concern got here to a head final 12 months. Throughout each the 2021 particular session, the New Mexico Acequia Affiliation efficiently advocated so as to add a provision within the Hashish Regulation Act, which legalized adult-use hashish within the state, that requires hashish growers to confirm they’ve legitimate water rights. In a letter to lawmakers final March, the Acequia Affiliation’s management criticized early variations of the Hashish Regulation Act for not together with provisions to guard community-managed water sources like acequias.
“[The proposed cannabis legislation] has a number of provisions that search to make sure that these communities affected by years of criminalization of hashish are included within the financial boon to come back,” the affiliation’s management wrote. “Nevertheless, there may be not the identical degree of consideration for conventional, land-based communities, comparable to acequias, the place a major agricultural land base and senior water rights are situated and are actually vulnerable to being misplaced to rich outdoors pursuits.”
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham finally signed a model of the act into regulation that included a requirement that hashish producers confirm they’ve authorized water entry with the Workplace of the State Engineer.
The Acequia Affiliation on Tuesday issued an announcement calling on the Senate so as to add the water language again into the invoice.
“We labored very laborious with the legislature in 2021 to enact safeguards for water sources from the detrimental impacts of the hashish trade,” affiliation director Paula Garcia stated in an announcement. “In a couple of minutes, with no alternative for public remark, all that tough work was erased.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joseph Cervantes in the course of the assembly stated nobody had signed up for public remark both in favor or towards the invoice.
Harold Trujillo, the president of the Acequia Affiliation and a member of the state’s Hashish Regulatory Advisory Committee challenged Duhigg and Pirtle’s claims that water rights verification is a significant speedbump for trade hopefuls.
“We’re involved that the reason for fairness is being misrepresented,” Trujillo stated within the affiliation’s assertion. “The foundation reason for inequity is the dearth of capital for micro-producers. Requiring validity checks for water truly ensures water fairness for rural communities comparable to mutual domestics and acequias.”
Final 12 months, John Romero, who oversees the state’s Water Assets Allocation Program, spoke with Growing Forward, the collaborative hashish podcast between New Mexico PBS and NM Political Report, about water and hashish. He stated the verification course of for hashish growers created extra work for his workers and likened it to an “unfunded mandate.” However on Monday Romero informed NM Political Report that his workers shall be confronted with much more work with out the water proper verification provision.
“It’s going to make it that rather more troublesome on the company after we’re already resource-strapped,” Romero stated.
By requiring hashish producers to first confirm water rights, Romero stated, his workplace can have a transparent image of who’s tapping into water sources for hashish cultivation, as a substitute of spending sources on investigating reported violations or ready on his workers to stumble onto one thing.
For instance of the work that goes into addressing violations after they happen, Romero referenced an agricultural water person in Southern New Mexico who has fought state sanctions for 3 years after Romero’s workplace discovered the water person didn’t have legitimate entry, requiring much more sources from the state.
“You want attorneys to work on this from the authorized finish, you want the water rights specialist and engineers to exit and do the sphere checks and doc this so the attorneys can do their work, you’ve received to have a memo with all of the info, photos, possibly some meter readings to indicate the choose, or whomever,” Romero stated.
In line with Romero, solely about 10 to fifteen % of hashish companies in search of water rights verification have proven legitimate water rights. The remainder he stated, “have offered invalid water rights, must reconfigure the water rights or plan to make use of a home effectively, which isn’t allowed for agriculture.”
SB 100 now heads to the Home the place it would undergo the committee course of earlier than going to the governor’s desk for a signature.
