New Mexico
“Recreational cannabis will be the next frontier of our economic expansion, creating 11,000 jobs across New Mexico and true economic potential for every part of the state,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced, as her state seems well on its way to become the next one to legalize adult-use marijuana.
Senate Bill 115 and House Bill 160, also known as the Cannabis Regulation Act, have been introduced as soon as the 2020 legislative session opened and are blazing their way through New Mexico’s legislature. The state has a very short legislative session, only one month long; bills must be fully voted on before Thursday, Feb. 20, and be effective by the end of May.
“These 30 days are, in fact, the final stages, not the starting point, of a conversation about cannabis,” said Grisham, who also promised to sign the bill as soon as it hits her desk, thus fulfilling one of her campaign promises. “We can get in on the ground floor, or we can try to play catch-up. Now, I know which one I prefer,” she said in her state of the state address on Tuesday, Jan. 21. “It’s high time we stop holding ourselves and our economy back. Let’s get it done this year,” she added.
If it passes, New Mexico’s Cannabis Regulation Act would fully legalize the possession of cannabis and create a tightly regulated system of licenses allowing the commercial sale of cannabis products in the state starting in 2022. The bill plans a 9% excise tax on the sale of recreational marijuana, which will be largely reinvested in education, training and programs designed to help communities in need throughout the state. The new cannabis industry would be mainly handled by small, local actors, as the regulatory authorities the act plans to create would ensure the economic boon is fairly distributed.
In theory, the bill can still potentially fail, but it will likely be rubber stamped. Although it needs to go through several committees before being subjected to a floor vote in the House and Senate, New Mexico’s standing committees are massively dominated by Democrats. The Senate Public Affairs Committee—which is the only one wherein Republicans have a fighting chance—already approved the Cannabis Regulation Act. In every other committee the bill must clear, Democratic members outnumber Republicans two-to-one. The same holds true both in New Mexico’s House of Representatives and Senate, where Democrats hold a large majority of seats.
Even if the bill fails to go through this month, the overwhelming domination of the Democratic Party in New Mexico, as well as the personal commitment of Grisham to this reform, all but ensure legalization is just around the corner in the state.
The Importance of a Good Leader
Before becoming governor of New Mexico in January 2019, Grisham was a lawyer providing free services to the elderly; then, she served as head of the state’s Department of Health. Her commitment to marijuana reform started long before she was elected to the state’s highest office. In 2014, Grisham helped pass an amendment prohibiting the use of taxpayer money to prevent states from running their own medical marijuana programs. In just her first year as governor, she signed several cannabis reform bills into law. She has also decriminalized possession of half an ounce of cannabis, opened up the door to the expungement of criminal records of people convicted of low-level cannabis infractions and greatly expanded the state’s medical marijuana program.
If anything, the only reason why Grisham took an entire year in office to push for full legalization was because she was making sure to do things the right way. She appointed the Cannabis Legalization Working Group—composed of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, industry experts, health and law professionals, activists and citizens—to study the question of legalization and best practices to roll it out.
‘New Mexico Is Ready’
The group’s findings were clear: 75% of New Mexicans support legalization, it would be the greatest job-creating initiative in a decade, cannabis would become the state’s 15th-largest industry overnight (twice the entire statewide food manufacturing industry), and the group estimates that $620 million in sales and nearly $100 million in tax revenue could be reached every year after year five, when the industry becomes fully installed. “New Mexico is ready,” the experts concluded.
If the Cannabis Regulation Act goes through, New Mexico will become the second state to fully legalize cannabis through the Legislature (the first being Illinois). Nine of the 11 states where it is currently legal pushed reform through ballot initiatives, while Vermont did it thanks to legislative action but failed to make commercial sale of marijuana products legal. As such, New Mexico and Gov. Grisham—just like Illinois and Gov. J. B. Pritzker before them—are proving to be a leading force in the fight for cannabis reform.
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the leading authority on the matter, recently graded every governor based on their marijuana-friendly initiatives and comments; as expected, both Grisham and Pritzker scored an A. In fact, all the As were earned by Democratic governors, while all the Fs were reaped by Republicans.
