ith 4/20 upon us, it’s a new year for cannabis. While you make merry this weed holiday, it’s a good time to reflect on the last momentous 12 months for the Arizona pot scene and to peer through the haze to anticipate more changes in the year to come. The 4/20 celebration lands at a time when market disruption is imminent and a year where several cannabis-related bills in Congress would seem to make federal legalization closer to reality than ever before. The party begins days after the Arizona Department of Health Services doled out the last remaining dispensary licenses. Voters created these social equity licenses to right some of the wrongs of excessive enforcement during the w during the war on drugs. The state granted 26 of them on Friday after a ocess. tate widely criticized process. Around two-thirds of the licenses ent to applicants of some of the s s bigges t 18 winning went to applicants who had the backing of some of the state’s biggest cannabis companies, as predicted. Our initial analysis found that 18 winning applicants worked with big cannabis companies like Mohave Cannabis Co., Copperstate Copperstate e Cannabis Co., Farms, or major investors. Five were backed jointly by two shell companies registered in Wyoming, whose true owners are unknown. This year’s 4/20 also arrives when access to cannabis is as important to consumers as the quality of their product, and where cannabis events have shifted from fringe occurrences to mainstream yearly celebrations. With upcoming events like Buds-A- Palooza and Cannival this month, the Phoenix Cannabis Awards Music Festival in May, and the much- celebrated Errl Camp in September, marijuana enthusiasts have much to look forward to this year. It’s all part of the mainstreaming of pot in Arizona. So too is expunging the criminal records of low-level offenders. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office reported that it so far has expunged around 10,000 minor po But many thousands more await. While expungements are on the rise, prosecutions are down. In 2019, Maricopa County prosecutors filed 2,700 marijuana possession charges. Last year, they filed such charges in 57 cases, according to MCAO’s data dashboard. ound 10,000 minor pot convictions. thousands mor ding to MC And even while possession is now legal, some la legal, some law enforcement agencies are getting creative about finding legale about finding legal loopholes. Courts in Mohave and Pinal counties heard cases about commercial drivers being pulled over on federal highways and busted for possession. Because pot remains illegal federally, local prosecutors tried to pin the drivers with violations of U.S. transportation laws. Tom Dean, the self-styled “Attorney for Cannabis” who represented the defendants, says these cases show how Arizona pot users have “a false sense of confidence that what they’re doing is either legal” or that “law enforcement isn’t going to bother anybody.” And, he quickly adds, “That’s a problem.” On the tech side, the game is shifting. There’s new cutting-edge technology that upends the extraction process, along with new synthetically processed cannabis blowing the minds of politicians and cannabis cultivators that doesn’t e debate them. That doesn’t even include consume the er the edibles market b molecules, getting consumers higher faster, and working to create the best- tasting edibles the cannabis community has ever sampled. educing the size of the THC orking to cr er sampled. nanotechnology to mak Companies like Sweet Dreams Vineyards in Phoenix are using nanotechnology to make >>p 16 pot-lovers who consume the product. Nano-emulsification technology has taken over the edibles market by force, reducing the size of the THC 15 Johny87/iStockPhoto phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES APRIL 14TH– APRIL 20TH, 2022
