Medical Cannabis Program

Businesses grow around NM medical cannabis producers

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As New Mexico lawmakers try to come up with a legislative proposal to legalize recreational cannabis that might ease the apprehension of some of their colleagues, there is already a group of business owners already laying the groundwork for a post-legalization world. 

Sometimes they’re called ancillary cannabis companies, other times they’re called cannabis adjacent businesses. Regardless of what they’re called, there is a network of New Mexico businesses that provide services to medical cannabis producers. Some of those businesses, which range from real estate to technology companies, have come up with innovative ways to help the medical cannabis industry, prepare for legalized cannabis and even break out into the non-cannabis industry. 

Jeff Holland and Siv Watkins are the partners behind 11Biomics, a company which specializes in protecting cannabis plants from powdery mildew. Holland, who is from Albuquerque, said the business got its start with a business incubator in California’s Bay Area. Despite offers to keep the company on the west coast, the company opted to bring its technology back to New Mexico to help medical cannabis growers and hopefully stimulate the economy. 

“We really want New Mexico to be the leader in this area,” Holland said. 

That area, specifically, is soil treatment to combat harmful plant diseases instead of spraying plants with pesticides.

Education

A chill in the air: The problem of teen suicide

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Just before dawn, as the Albuquerque sky filled the house with thin, pale blue light, 16-year-old Aurra Gardner took the small handgun out from behind the bed in her mother’s bedroom. Kerianne Gardner, Aurra’s mother, sat in the living room, typing an email, listening idly as her other daughters tied their shoes and packed their lunches. She heard what sounded like a door slam and assumed it was Aurra’s cello case falling over. She walked down the hall and tried the door of the bedroom. It was locked.

Los Alamos Republican PArty

State agency says political parties can’t hold raffles

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A northern New Mexico county political party last week learned they could not raffle off a long-range rifle during a fundraising dinner this fall. But it’s not because of the gun, according to the state department that oversees gambling events like bingo and raffles. 

Earlier this month, an agent with the New Mexico Gaming Control Board told members of the Los Alamos Republican Party they would have to cancel their scheduled raffle and refund all of the ticket sales. On its surface, it may seem that the raffle was cancelled because of the grand prize, but the Gaming Control Board said it’s simply because political parties don’t qualify under state law to have raffles. 

Not a ‘qualified organization’ 

On August 6, Gaming Control Special Agent Robert Zajac told Los Alamos Republican Party Chairman Bill McKerley in an email that the party did not qualify to hold a raffle. 

“Upon a review of the Los Alamos GOP, it does not fall under the definition of a ‘qualified organization,’” Zajac wrote. 

In an email days later, Zajac’s boss, Commander Terry McGaha responded to concerns from the Los Alamos GOP that they did indeed fall into the “qualified organization” category. “Based on state law as a whole, it does not appear that a political organization or a political committee meets the statutory definition for being qualified as a civic or service organization,” McGaha wrote. “Since the Bingo and Raffle act has not included political organizations as a permissible category of nonprofit organizations that are permitted to conduct games of chance under the Bingo and Raffle Act, we must insist that you immediately cease and desist from further sales or activity with respect to the raffle you are currently conducting.”

New Mexico Republican Party Vice-Chair of the 3rd Congressional District Anise Golden-Morper told NM Political Report that the party is still considering their options, and that they hope the issue is just about the raffle, not the rifle. 

“We hope that this is not an attempt to control the citizens to freely purchase a raffle ticket that involves a rifle,” Golden-Morper said.  

Richard Kottenstette, a spokesman for the Gaming Board, said the county party’s giveaway was shut down simply because they’re not qualified to hold a raffle. 

“The gun’s not the issue,” Kottenstette said.

News

Trump administration’s latest asylum rule allowed to stand in Texas, New Mexico

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“Trump administration’s latest asylum rule allowed to stand in Texas, New Mexico” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. Asylum-seeking migrants who cross into Texas or New Mexico can be barred from receiving asylum protection if they passed through another country before arriving at the U.S. border, a federal court ruled Friday. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a partial victory for the Trump administration, which announced a policy last month that would disqualify most asylum seekers from receiving protection in the United States if they crossed through another country and didn’t first apply for asylum there. A federal district judge in San Francisco initially halted the measure, aimed at blocking asylum claims from Central Americans, but Friday’s decision by the 9th Circuit let the policy stand in Texas and New Mexico while halting it in Arizona and California, which are in the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction. The ruling could change the fate for thousands of people waiting to apply for asylum in Mexican border cities like Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

Health

Going down fighting: Dying activist champions ‘Medicare For All’

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When Santa Barbara lawyer-turned-activist Ady Barkan settled in to watch the second round of the Democratic presidential primary debates late last month, he had no idea his story would be part of the heated discussion. Barkan, 35, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, watched from his wheelchair as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren described how he and his family had to raise money online to help pay for roughly $9,000 a month in health care costs not covered by his private health insurance. https://twitter.com/AdyBarkan/status/1156365277749305344

“The basic profit model of an insurance company is taking as much money as you can in premiums and pay out as little as possible in health care coverage,” Warren said. “That is not working for Americans.”

But for Barkan, the moment was not about him. “Elizabeth Warren’s point wasn’t just to mention my name, it was to call attention to the ways our broken health care system is hurting people across the country,” he said in an email interview.