Trump Releases Statement of Signing on Marijuana Funding Bill for Medical Purposes

Confronted by a growing number of lawmakers across the country, lawmakers in New Mexico's Republican states want recreational marijuana to be legally sold in stores, but with a major government twist: what appears to be a first in the United States, they propose that the state government owns and operates cannabis dispensaries.

Marijuana for medical purposes has been legal in New Mexico for more than 10 years, but with the encouragement of the new Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, the legal cannabis trade is growing considerably – and is accompanied by a growing movement in favor of legalization pure and simple.

A bill in the Democratic-backed House of Representatives, which would legalize marijuana for all adults aged 21 and over, was recently approved by a committee.

As reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican, a concurrent proposal to legalize marijuana in the Senate, presented Thursday by Senator Mark Moores (R) and co-sponsored by two colleagues, including a Democrat, would follow a similar pattern to that of the sale of alcohol. in at least two other US states.

In Utah and New Hampshire, hard liquor is only available at state-run liquor stores, Moores told the newspaper. New Mexico is adjacent to Colorado, where recreational cannabis has been legal for half a decade and border towns like Trinidad, Colorado, home to dozens of retail marijuana retail stores. Other states like his, observed Moores this legalization is inevitable.

"It's just a question of how we do it," he said. "We should do it intelligently."

It was not immediately clear which advantage, aside from seriously considering the prospects for a marijuana industry in New Mexico, that Moores hoped to provide by limiting sales to government-run outlets.

In Canada, where recreational marijuana went on sale in October, some provinces, including New Brunswick, only allow sales at government-run outlets, according to the CBC. Other provinces allow private commercial operators to sell marijuana online and at physical sites, with no significant adverse effect.

In Uruguay, legal sales of marijuana are limited to private pharmacies as opposed to separate retail stores exclusively for marijuana.

The New Mexico proposal would be a new model for the United States. In neighboring Nevada, as well as the states of California, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, where recreational marijuana is legal and available in stores, it is sold to private, regulated companies. by the government.

The closest analog seems to be found in North Bonneville, in the state of Washington, which is the first and only city to open a government-run dispensary in the country. Faced with bankruptcy, the mayor of the city inaugurated the cannabis store with the ultimate goal of raising essential income.

In New Mexico, excluding entrepreneurs like Duke Rodriguez, president of Ultra Health LLC, the state's largest medical marijuana business, seems questionable to a seemingly business-friendly Republican.

New Mexico has been a reliable blue state in recent presidential elections, but like many other Western states, it also has a deep libertarian small-government bias.

In this spirit, Rodriguez is not sure that the New Mexico government is up to the task of managing what has become a billion-dollar industry in other states.

"The state has problems sending [medical cannabis] cards at the hour, "he told New Mexican. "Are they really ready to build and open a few hundred stores across the state?"

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