Announcing the High Times Cannabis Cup New Mexico: People’s Choice Edition 2023

What has a plentiful landscape of natural beauty, is famous for hatch green chiles, is the birthplace of Neil Patrick Harris, is the current residence to author George R.R. Martin (seriously, he has a day held in his honor annually on March 29), has a multitude of culture, and is also home to a bustling cannabis scene? We are proud to announce that we’ll be expanding our popular cannabis competition to New Mexico for the very first time! Welcome to the High Times Cannabis Cup New Mexico: People’s Choice Edition 2023.

New Mexico adult-use cannabis sales launched on April 1, 2022. On that day alone, consumers swarmed nearby dispensaries with a huge $3 million in sales during its first weekend and has kept a steady rise in sales ever since. Nearly one year later, the industry is thriving, and we know you’re ready to dive into some of the state’s best products.

For New Mexican consumers, here’s the deal: you have the power! Pick up one of our judge kits from our retail partners at Pecos Valley Productions (more to be announced soon) starting on June 17 through Aug. 20. We have 11 categories available for this cup:

Entry Categories:

  1. Indica Flower (2 entries max per company)
  2. Sativa Flower (2 entries max per company)  
  3. Hybrid Flower (2 entries max per company) 
  4. Pre-Rolls (2 entries max per company) 
  5. Infused Pre-Rolls (1 entry max per company) 
  6. Solvent Concentrates (2 entries max per company) 
  7. Non-Solvent Concentrates (2 entries max per company) 
  8. Vape Pens & Cartridges (2 entries max per company) (category may split) 
  9. Edibles: Gummies & Fruit Chews (2 entries max per company)
  10. Edibles: Chocolates & Non-Gummies (2 entries max per company)
  11. Sublinguals, Capsules, Tinctures + Topicals (3 entries max per company)

After you pick up your judge kit, log in to our online judge’s portal and let your comments be known. Depending on the category, judges are invited to carefully analyze their products with numerous criteria in mind. The aesthetics of a product and its packaging, aroma/scent, taste/flavor profile, and effects/effectiveness are just a few things we ask judges to consider. Depending on each product’s overall scores, we calculate which ones were most praised by judges, and will announce winners via a digital awards show on Sept. 3.

The goal of our People’s Choice Edition competition is to help put the spotlight and some of the most unique and one-of-a-kind products throughout the state. For those who want to enter the competition, you can submit your products to our intake partner, Pecos Valley Productions, between June 5-7. There are some rules for entry though, so please review the following information carefully:

Entry Requirements:

  • Flower: (228) 1-gram samples. We will not accept any 3.5-gram entries.
  • Pre-Rolls & Infused Pre-Rolls: (228) samples: Pre-Rolls will be capped at 2g flower-only each; Infused Pre-Rolls will be capped at 3g flower equivalency or 1g concentrate equivalency each.
  • Concentrates & Vape Pens: (228) .5-gram samples. We will not accept any 1-gram entries. Batteries required for carts.
  • Edibles: (100) samples with 50mg THC max.
  • Sublinguals, Capsules, Tinctures + Topicals: (60) samples with 100mg THC max.

The price for one entry is set at $250, which is non-refundable. Two entries are marked at $100 each, also non-refundable. However, if you submit three or more entries, each entry is $100 and it is a refundable deposit per entry held. You can get refunded when all entries are successfully submitted, and those fees are waived if you choose to become a sponsor of our event.

As a reminder for competitors, email competition@hightimes.com ASAP for information on how to compete, and for judges, please visit cannabiscup.com/preregister to sign up for updates on how to be a judge.

A special thank you to our partners and sponsors!

Official Intake Partner: Pecos Valley Production

Powered by: Fusion Promotions

The post Announcing the High Times Cannabis Cup New Mexico: People’s Choice Edition 2023 appeared first on High Times.

Bill Seeks To Ease Medical Cannabis Restrictions for New Mexico Firefighters

The proposed legislation “would narrow the definition of ‘safety-sensitive position’” under the state’s medical cannabis law, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. That provision has precluded first responders and firefighters from entering the New Mexico medical marijuana program, which launched in 2007.

“As proposed, the definition would only include employees who are required to carry a firearm or operate a vehicle with a commercial driver’s license and ‘whose performance under the influence of drugs or alcohol would constitute an immediate or direct threat of injury or death to the person or another.’ State law currently defines a ‘safety-sensitive position’ ineligible for the medical cannabis program more broadly, barring firefighters from using medical cannabis without their employer’s permission,” the publication reported. 

The legislation is being backed by local firefighters unions.

“We would use responsible policy to address everything just like about alcohol, and not only alcohol but other prescribed medications that we’re not allowed to use when we’re working on the job,” Miguel Tittmann, the president of  International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) 244, told local news station KOAT.

“We would not be able to use medical marijuana so many hours prior to the shift if we were able to negotiate responsible policy.”

Christopher Johnson, the president of IAFF 2362 in Las Cruces, echoed those sentiments.

“I think a lot of our hope was that that would be able to be cleared up at the state level, which would kind of open up the door for the municipalities to start making that distinction and allow them to allow us to use that as well,” Johnson told KOAT.

The bill is currently being considered by a committee in the state House of Representatives. 

Democrats hold majorities in both chambers of the New Mexico legislature.

The state’s Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, has also proven to be pro-cannabis.

In 2021, she signed legislation that made adult-use marijuana legal in New Mexico, which she hailed as an economic coup for the state.

“The legalization of adult-use cannabis paves the way for the creation of a new economic driver in our state with the promise of creating thousands of good paying jobs for years to come,” Grisham said at the time. “We are going to increase consumer safety by creating a bona fide industry. We’re going to start righting past wrongs of this country’s failed war on drugs. And we’re going to break new ground in an industry that may well transform New Mexico’s economic future for the better.”

“As we look to rebound from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, entrepreneurs will benefit from this great opportunity to create lucrative new enterprises, the state and local governments will benefit from the added revenue and, importantly, workers will benefit from the chance to land new types of jobs and build careers,” Grisham added.

Grisham said the measure was “a major, major step forward for our state.” 

“Legalized adult-use cannabis is going to change the way we think about New Mexico for the better – our workforce, our economy, our future. We’re ready to break new ground. We’re ready to invest in ourselves and the limitless potential of New Mexicans. And we’re ready to get to work in making this industry a successful one,” the governor said.

Medical and recreational cannabis sales in New Mexico totaled more than $40 million in December.

The post Bill Seeks To Ease Medical Cannabis Restrictions for New Mexico Firefighters appeared first on High Times.

From the Archives: Grass in the Joint (1981)

By Evan Dawes

I hadn’t seen David since I got sent down. He was waiting in the visitor’s room, looking like he was afraid he’d catch bad luck. We went through the preliminary how-you-beens, then I asked him if he’d brought me anything to smoke. He started. He reminded me of the many signs he’d driven by after passing the prison entrance that declared it a felony to bring alcohol, firearms or drugs onto the reservation. “And besides,” he said, “this is a prison. I mean, after all… uh, drugs? In the joint?”

I figured I’d have to show him how it was done. I indicated another prisoner a dozen yards away busily chatting with a pretty young woman. “Keep your eye on him,” I told him. “He’s about to go with something.” And sure enough, not ten minutes later, we watched him shove his arm down the back of his pants and rummage around. The second time this happened Dave asked me what was going on.

“See, he palms the balloons out of his ol’ lady’s bra, picks his shot when The Man isn’t lookin’, and keesters ’em, one at a time.”

Balloons? Keesters? “Yup” I grinned. “Up the ol’ rooty-poop chute, quick as a wink. No muss, no fuss, Burma Shave.”

Still tentative, Dave asked what the guy’s chances were. Did this happen often, or was it a one-shot deal?

“Just business as usual,” I assured him. “It’s probably weed, ‘cuz that’s the biggest seller. But that guy—I nodded at another inmate a bare ten feet away—he’ll be bringin’ in smack. Rougher crowd, y’know.”

Almost any high you can buy on the street is for sale in the yard too: pot and hash and ludes and smack and booze and glue and speed. Sometimes even a bit o’ the blow. LSD, too, if you’re of a mind. What’s more, The Man knows it. I was initially leery of writing about prison traffic, fearful I would be treated as an informer—by both inmates and authorities. And this article is definitely not intended to teach prison officials how to more effectively impede the flow of drugs into their institutions. But very few schemes escape the notice of prison officials for very long anyway usually due to the widespread use of informants. What is so heartening to the schemers, and frustrating to the officials, is that, short of a complete overhaul of the security systems in most prisons, there is little or nothing that can be done to stop this.

Most prisons in the United States follow a basic order of priorities: House the offender securely (which is to say “lock his ass up tight so society can sleep at night”); offer training for the offender so that he can return to society as a “productive member,” though oftentimes training programs are merely a guise to secure ever-larger budgets; and—more important to the prison officials than anything else—never ever allow the offender to use drugs to escape the tedium and monotony of his imprisonment.

About half of the drugs that enter most prisons come in through the visiting room. It should logically follow, therefore, that where there is no physical contact between the prisoner and his visitor, the likelihood of drugs being introduced into that prison is severely reduced.

The procedure at the Texas Department of Corrections, for example, prevents physical contact—but not smuggling. There inmates sit on one side of a room-length table and their visitors sit on the other. Guards sit on elevated platforms at each end of this table. Partitions above and below the table ensure that nothing is surreptitiously passed from visitor to con. The only time this restriction may be breeched is when the visitor buys a soft drink or some fruit juice for the prisoner. The visitor who is sharp eyed and nimble fingered may be able to slip something into the opened can without being seen before handing it to the guard to pass to the prisoner. If so, the “lucky” convict in Texas may go back to his cell having drunk a couple of ‘ludes or maybe some acid. Plainly though, the circumstances hardly conduce to a good high.

Thankfully most prisons are not afflicted with so great a degree of paranoia as the TDC. In New Hampshire, for instance, the visiting policy permits “limited contact”: Inmates and their visitors are separated by an ordinary table, fingertips touching; an embrace is allowed at the beginning and at the end of the visiting period. At the end of the visit the prisoner is not skin-searched—but merely frisked—and his shoes are inspected. Prisons in Washington State conduct visiting in much the same manner, except there is no separation by a table; the prisoner and visitor sit facing each other, holding hands if desired. Again, only a pat-search at the end of the visit.

All California prisons have contact visiting. The word contact is here given a very wide latitude. As one prisoner at the California Men’s Colony near San Luis Obispo (site of Timothy Leary‘s Weathermen-abetted escape) tells me: “Hell, man, babies have been conceived in the visiting room here.” That’s close contact.

Clearly the opportunities to smuggle drugs in situations such as these are almost infinite.

You cannot simply arrive at a prison with a baggie full of marijuana and hope that your convict friend will be able to take it from there. Recently I spoke with a man who had just been released from [name of institution deleted to prevent any harassment of the men there upon disclosure of this information]. His wife packaged pot for him to smuggle back into prison after she visited each week. First, she cleaned all the seeds and stems out of the grass. Then she stuffed an ordinary balloon with cleaned weed until it was about an inch in diameter, making sure to pack it tightly. After tying the balloon closed, she wrapped it in still another balloon and sealed that one, too. He explained that stomach acid is sometimes strong enough to eat through one or even two layers of balloon, so whenever she brought him any substances other than pot, she always gave it at least three wraps. (His caution is understandable. Careless packaging has been responsible for the death of many cocaine and heroin smugglers outside, and the same danger lies for the unsuspecting convict who swallows or keesters a poorly wrapped balloon from an otherwise well meaning friend.) He told me of one prisoner who OD’d right in the visiting room: “Man, he just nodded out and never came back! That’s why I always emphasized to the ol’ lady how important it was to be careful. She always did good, though, God love her. She knew those little balls of pleasure would keep the frown off my face—and they did!”

Adding to the supply feeding high-hungry cons are guards who pack—though it should be stressed here that probably less than 25 percent of the drug traffic in any given prison originates thusly. The reasons a guard would hazard his livelihood, and possible prosecution if discovered, in order to introduce drugs into the place where he works are many: the need for supplementary income, the excitement of risk, and sometimes just plain friendship or compassion. Relates a former California convict: “In ’71 I was at Soledad. Yeah, George Jackson, the Soledad Brothers, the whole thing was happenin’ then. Me, I was just lookin’ to get high. About this time I got in real good with this Chicano guard. After a few weeks o’ listenin’ to him talk about all the dope he was smokin’, I hit on him to bring me somethin’ to smoke, too. At first he was hesitant, but I kept drivin’ on him till he broke down and brought me some grass. What he’d been smokin’ was shit Mexican—he only paid fifteen dollars a bag for it—so after a couple o’ weeks I offered to have my brother send him a quarter-pound of some real kickass; he’d keep an ounce and bring me the other three. Once it arrived and he got a taste of that good, rich Colombo, it was all gravy after that. Until I left the ‘Dad in ’75, ol’ Paco kept me fat. What he didn’t know was that I was selling some o’ them ounces for tall bucks. A forty-dollar bag from my brother brought almost two hundred on the yard. Hell, a balloon the size of an English pea went for five dollars; figure it out for yourself.”

Prisoners who have no family or friends depend on what they can buy or trade for inside the prison. In some institutions the medium of exchange is cigarettes or coffee. Some inmates trade hobbycraft items, such as leatherwork, or paintings. Some men receive visits only from their parents and can get only money from them. As easily as drugs can be smuggled in, green can be smuggled in also. Green will usually net you a larger amount of drugs than an equal value in cigarettes or oil paintings.

Convicts often find the U.S. Postal Service to be the most reliable courier. Most people know that postage stamps are good for more than ensuring that a letter is mailed. Similarly LSD (and in some cases, heroin) can be dissolved and stationery soaked in it prior to mailing. Green can be stashed in greeting cards. The inventiveness of the correspondent is the only limitation.

Many maximum and medium-security prisons have camps nearby for men who are approaching release. These camps seldom have fences and the men there are, in many instances, free and unsupervised. At the federal prison near Lompoc, California, the laundry for camp inmates at one time was done inside the maximum facility. Since the drug situation at the camp has always been very relaxed, the men there had ample opportunity (until the scheme was discovered) to secrete drugs for those inside in their cleaned clothing.

In every institution there are men who receive what is termed “controlled” medication, usually various forms of downers: Thorazine, Dilantin, Mellaril, Prolixin and phenobarbitol. It takes very little practice to learn to palm these pills, which can then be saved up for a real bang or sold.

However, the most ingenious system for copping inside that I’ve ever heard is used by my friend Nick, who is a prisoner in one of the larger prison systems on the East Coast. A few months ago he called me in California and asked—in an informal code we use—if I could send $50 to an address he gave me. I agreed, and as the conversation unfolded, I learned that the money would be going to the family of another convict who received regular visits. As soon as the money arrived, this man would give Nick a prearranged quantity of pot. I put the money in the mail the next day and my friend was smoking later that week. I’ve since done this three or four times for him. What did Nick get for the $50? About a quarter ounce of marijuana. Not much, to be sure, but it is, after all, a prison. And from what he told me, this is about the going rate there.

Far and away the drug of preference in the yard is pot or hash, followed next by downers, then speed, then heroin. Cocaine is almost last, not for lack of desire, but because of the corresponding problems of price and availability. Coke simply is not worth the extravagant cost to most convicts, when the same amount of goods or green will net you a much larger amount of marijuana or hash. (One of those times I mailed money for Nick, he received three grams of hash for $50. And that was a bargain! Usually hash goes for $25 to $30 a gram, he told me.) LSD is also a low-preference drug. While a bit o’ the blow heightens the senses and makes enjoyable an otherwise apathetic day, acid often sharpens the perception of being imprisoned, mutating routine mediocrity into apprehension and paranoia.

Even booze and glue, the bastard children of the drug subset, find a market inside. At any time, in most prisons, someone will have a batch of homebrew going. It’s never very strong, packing about the same alcoholic punch as wine—but in sufficient quantity even prison vintage produces one hell of a buzz. To concoct alcohol, very little is needed that cannot be obtained through regular channels inside a prison. Except yeast. Because of its scarcity many convict brewers make a starting mixture of raw-fruit and raw-vegetable pulp, which is mixed and allowed to ferment for two to three days. This kicker is then added to a premixed base of fruit pulp or juice, sugar and water. The base determines how the end product will taste; however, the choice of fruit is more often the result of availability than desire, since most batches of ”pruno” or ”raisin jack” or “orange wine” are prepared for effect more than taste. Once the kicker is added to the base mixture, the fermentation of sugar into alcohol begins. Within five to seven days, depending on the ingredients, a liquid is produced that is anywhere from 10 to 20 percent alcohol (again, depending on the base). A sizable portion is usually strained off for immediate consumption at this point, fresh fruit pulp and sugar water added, and the whole thing started over. However, neither that step nor a starting mixture is necessary if yeast is available.

The advantage to using yeast is that it cuts the time factor, often critical in a prison setting, by about one-third. In place of actual yeast, a fistful of raw dough may be dissolved in warm water and used immediately in place of a kicker. No matter how well hidden the container, though, smell is the worst enemy of convict pruno makers, who usually “cook up a batch” five gallons at a time. In some cases, a vent hose is forced behind the trap in a toilet and the fumes safely exhausted. Or a sponge soaked in a deodorant can be placed over the vent hole on the container itself, thereby masking the giveaway odor. Inventiveness and ingenuity however, are on the convict’s side. Rarely does The Man bust more wine than is drunk.

I have been told by men at several different institutions that many guards nowadays are reluctant to “beef” you—write a disciplinary report—for reefer. But the same pot-lenient guards will seldom give you a pass for alcohol. Because of its reputation for producing monsters from mild-mannered men, prison-brewed hooch is feared more by staff than any other drug. Witness the brutal bloodiest at New Mexico’s Santa Fe prison in February 1980. Documented evidence now points to a batch of raisin jack as the trigger—although not the cause—of this riot.

Way down on the list of preferences— somewhere between “Fuck that shit!” and “You must be crazy, sucker!—is glue, or any of the petroleum distillates containing toluene or carbon tetrachloride. An interesting aside, which comes from the Federal Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington (now closed), is that, of the Indian prisoners there, glue was the drug of preference. Considering its status with the general population, the reader may draw his own conclusions.

Prisons create their own drug market. Drugs bring a sense of relief—relief from boredom, escape from the “dead zone” (as Stephen King calls it) of enforced numbness that encases a man in prison like an insect embedded in amber. Of course, set and setting figure into this to an extraordinary degree in prison.

Virtually all prisons are constructed so that the housing units consist of either multitiered rows of cells, or a dormitory. In most instances, the line officer patrols periodically checking for prohibited behavior and making his presence known to maintain order In the conflict between the desire to get high in a relaxed and comfortable setting—one’s own “house”—and the necessity for precaution in order to prevent a trip to The Hole, the very expenditure of energy to reconcile one with the other detracts from the fullness of the high. Conversely, in a situation where set and setting are complementary an otherwise meager high can blossom into something memorable. Most prisons have a yard where, even under the watchful eyes of the guards in the towers, the careful convict can easily blow a joint with little or no danger of being caught.

Another place of relative security is the auditorium or gymnasium when a movie is being shown. Rarely do guards venture into this area after the lights are dimmed and in many prisons there is a tacit understanding between staff and inmates that smoking will be condoned as long as there is no violence. In the words of one prisoner: “When you know The Man isn’t interested in busting anyone during the flick, it makes getting high there just that much sweeter.”

A good deal of the violence in most prisons is drug related, and although much of this can be attributed to the traffic in heroin, no category of drug is blameless. Because of the ridiculously inflated prices of drugs, and the corresponding scarcity of money or resources available to the average convict, conflicts inevitably arise. In the early ’60s, at the California Medical Facility near Vacaville (which presently houses Juan Corona and Charles Manson), one of the heroin dealers inside the joint was found out to be a rat, supplying information to The Man in exchange for immunity. One day shortly after a visit, he was attacked and killed in his cell. Wasting no opportunity in their bloody business, his attackers slit open his stomach and scooped out the balloons he had earlier swallowed. In 1975, a prisoner at Joliet State Prison in Illinois had his eyes gouged out by a man to whom he owed money for drugs. After he fingered his assailant and was locked up in “protective custody” he was gang-raped for becoming a snitch. Seldom, however, are methods this unusual employed. Most often the offending party is dealt with swiftly and lethally. Convicts have a name for it: steel poisoning. As recently as 1980, in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, an inmate was stabbed to death because he failed to pay for less than a half ounce of marijuana. The medical report stated that his head was “almost severed from [his] torso” because of the “number and intensity of [his] wounds.” Obviously prison is no place for the deadbeat.

The other side of this coin is that if there were no drugs available at all, the strain of living day to day with so many others in such a butthole-to-bellybutton environment would quickly breed just as much and perhaps even more violence than the drug-related kind. About the only solution that would not create more problems is for the prisons to dispense drugs on demand. Since this is hardly in the works for the near future in any U.S. prison, most inmates will have to be content with whatever schemes they are using presently.

Sometimes I can’t help but marvel at the convoluted maze set up to assure a delivery of drugs. The following story comes to me from a man who is presently incarcerated in one of the federal government’s maximum security prisons: It seems in late ’79 a guard at one of the federal correctional centers (jails) near a major metropolitan area was flashing his paycheck around, taunting the inmates with how much he was sucking up from the government teat. In revenge, one of these men was able to successfully snatch this check right out of the asshole’s shirt pocket without being seen. As soon as the loss was discovered, the entire facility was locked down and every inmate and his cubicle was searched. Nothing was turned up. A few weeks later this check was successfully spirited to the previously mentioned prison. From there it was smuggled out and mailed across the country to a major department store to be cashed. (Uncle Sam’s checks are as good as gold anywhere in the country for up to 90 days.) After being cashed, 60 percent of the original amount was sent back to the convict’s confederates, who used this money to purchase a kilo of marijuana that was then smuggled into the prison. Uncle treated all around. Justice could never have been more poetic.

High Times Magazine, June 1981

Read the full issue here.

The post From the Archives: Grass in the Joint (1981) appeared first on High Times.

New Mexico December Cannabis Sales Total More Than $40 Million

Regulated sales of cannabis in New Mexico topped more than $40 million for the month of December, with recreational marijuana sales setting a new record of $28 million for the month. Sales of medical marijuana totaled about $15.1 million for the last month of 2022, up from about $14 million in November, according to data released this week by the state’s Cannabis Control Division. The increase over the previous month reverses a trend of declining medical marijuana sales posted over the preceding four months, going back to August.

Andrew Vallejos, the acting director of the Cannabis Control Division (CCD), said that the record-breaking month for adult-use cannabis sales coupled with an increase in medical marijuana purchases was a welcome surprise for the state’s cannabis industry and regulators.

“I don’t know exactly what attributed to certainly the increase both in medical and recreational, as a bump up in December, but it was kind of surprising to us to see how robust those numbers were,” Vallejos said in a statement quoted by the Albuquerque Journal, adding “The sales (numbers) are interesting in and of themselves, but what I’m encouraged by is the fact that it means a steady cash flow for (businesses) to stay open and to make a profit.”

Recreational Marijuana Sales Launched In April

In April 2021, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Cannabis Regulation Act into law, legalizing the use of marijuana for adults and creating a framework for regulated sales of adult-use cannabis. Only a year later, in April 2022, licensed sales of recreational marijuana began at regulated dispensaries in the state.

Since the April launch, sales of recreational marijuana in New Mexico totaled more than $214 million in 2022. For the same time period, medical marijuana sales totaled about $144.2 million, according to state data. At the current rate of sales, recreational marijuana sales in New Mexico are likely to top $300 million in the first full year of regulated adult-use cannabis sales.

Ben Lewinger, the executive director of the New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, said that December’s recreational sales numbers illustrate how small towns are taking advantage of the economic opportunities associated with the state’s newest industry.

“This is very impressive on a statewide, macro level, but I think what’s more indicative of the early success of this industry is when you look at smaller, rural communities,” Lewinger said. “Places like Alto, Cloudcroft, Raton and Tularosa each boast more than 10,000 total transactions for the month of December. That’s tax revenue for those municipalities and their counties, as well as for the state.”

New Mexico’s small towns, particularly those that are near the Texas border, have shown strong gains in monthly recreational marijuana sales since the April launch. Sunland Park had its best month so far in December, eclipsing $2 million in recreational marijuana sales for the first time. Hobbs also posted strong numbers, with a record-breaking $1.7 million in recreational marijuana sales last month. Nearly $832,000 in recreational cannabis sales were rung up in Clovis in December, the highest ever reported in the town of 38,000.

Albuquerque leads the state in recreational cannabis sales, posting about $8.4 million in sales for December, a new record for the city. Medical marijuana sales added another $6 million to the city’s overall total for December, bringing it to more than $14 million. Two cities saw about $2 million in recreational cannabis sales in December, with Santa Fe posting the strongest showing to date and Las Cruces seeing its second-highest monthly total.

Sales of recreational marijuana have dominated New Mexico’s cannabis industry since the April launch, representing about 65% of total sales dollars and about 68% of all dispensary transactions. But medical marijuana patients spend more money per visit, with the average medical cannabis transaction in the state coming to $52.57. By comparison, the average recreational marijuana sale came to $45.31 over the past nine months.

CCD director Vallejos said last month that recreational marijuana legalization in New Mexico is not just about destigmatizing the use of the plant. More importantly, cannabis policy reform presents new economic opportunities for the state.

“I think there was a push by the people who wanted to have legalized, adult-use cannabis,” Vallejos said. “But there was also opportunity for economic growth. … I don’t want to pretend like cannabis is going to be oil and gas — the state isn’t going to rely on cannabis profits to fund massive amount[s] for schools — but as we diversify our economy, it’s just another arrow in the quiver.”

The post New Mexico December Cannabis Sales Total More Than $40 Million appeared first on High Times.

New Mexico Company Supports Medical Pot Patients With Workers’ Compensation Access

Bennabis Health recently announced that its medical cannabis program is now available to patients living in New Mexico. The company has partnered with AltaVida Dispensary, located in Albuquerque, to help aid medical cannabis patients, specifically with workers’ compensation cases involving a patient seeking to use cannabis as medicine for chronic pain.

“This is a tremendously exciting step in the growth of Bennabis Health as a visionary company clearing a path for those who can benefit most from medical cannabis where coverage is not otherwise available,” said Bennabis Health president Don Parisi. “Opening our network in New Mexico with AltaVida helps us progress in our mission to achieve medical cannabis benefits across the country.”

New Mexico’s Workers’ Compensation states that medical cannabis can be used by an injured worker “when deemed ‘reasonable and necessary care’ under the Workers’ Compensation Act.” However, patients have to pay out of pocket and are later reimbursed.

“In certain states like New Mexico and New Jersey, workers’ compensation claims cases can require medical marijuana costs be reimbursed by the carrier when it offers reasonable and necessary treatment as an appropriate alternative to opioids,” a Bennabis Health press release states. “However, in these cases the injured worker would have to pay out-of-pocket a substantial amount per month for their medical marijuana, and then seek reimbursement from their payor.”

Bennabis Health offers what they call a “layer of protection between the dispensary and the payor” through its membership program and a team of health insurance and cannabis industry professionals. One of its founders, Anne M. Davis, originally discovered cannabis as a treatment for her multiple sclerosis but her health insurance didn’t cover her switch to medical cannabis because it’s a federally illegal substance and Schedule I drug.

Earlier this year in March, the company partnered with a New Jersey dispensary to offer similar benefits prior to its expansion into New Mexico.

Adult-use sales began in New Mexico on April 1, 2022, but the state has had its medical cannabis program in place since 2010 (technically, its earliest cannabis-related legislation was established in 2007, called the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act). Since then, state law has undergone a few revisions, such as addressing shortages of supply in 2018 by increasing the plant cultivation limit from 450 to 2,500. In 2019, the state expanded patient rights, and also added new qualifying conditions for medical cannabis use.

Most recently, the New Mexico Cannabis Control Division reported on sales for the month of November, which shows a decrease in medical cannabis sales and a steady increase in adult-use sales. Medical cannabis sales were recorded at $14 million, which was $660,000 less than was collected in October. Back in April 2022 when adult-use sales began, medical cannabis sales were recorded at $17 million.

As of Dec. 5, the state has also begun issuing medical cannabis cards digitally.

On Dec. 6, the University of New Mexico (UNM) announced that one of its engineering professors, Nathan Jackson, is a principal investigator on a project that aims to create a way to make cannabis-based vaping safer. “Every vaping tool functions by heating the liquid to greater than 200 degrees Celsius, which creates toxic byproducts, which then enter the aerosol droplets that are inhaled,” Jackson said. “Our technology uses a different mechanism to create the aerosol that does not require heating, so it could potentially eliminate the harmful byproducts.” The project is called “Droplet and Metal Particle Analysis of ENDS,” which received a pilot award from the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“Our technology uses a silicon substrate, where no metal is in contact with the liquid and it uses less heat, so potentially we can reduce the health risks associated with vaping,” Jackson explained. “Also, our technology can generate micro-scale droplets instead of the nano-scale droplets found in current vaping tools, so that means that droplets are less likely to enter the blood stream and cluster together, which could also result in safer aerosols.”

The post New Mexico Company Supports Medical Pot Patients With Workers’ Compensation Access appeared first on High Times.

New Mexico Pot Sales Hit Record in October

Regulated sales of cannabis hit record levels in New Mexico during October, with licensed sales of marijuana totaling nearly $40 million for the month, according to data released last week by the state’s Cannabis Control Division (CCD). October was the fourth straight month of record-breaking weed sales in New Mexico, where dispensaries launched regulated sales of adult-use cannabis in April.

Monthly sales of cannabis in October totaled $39.8 million, with recreational marijuana sales topping $25 million in New Mexico for the first time, according to CCD data updated on Thursday. Medical marijuana sales, however, saw a decline, dropping to $14.7 million last month, a new low since adult-use cannabis sales began earlier this year. Since April, dispensaries have sold a total of $161 million in recreational marijuana.

New Mexico Regulators Launch New Online Data Portal

The updated cannabis sales figures were provided via the state’s new Cannabis Reporting Online Portal, which began operating on Thursday afternoon. In addition to providing data on cannabis sales, the portal also offers other information on New Mexico’s cannabis industry, such as the number of licensed dispensaries operating in the state.

“A few months ago, CCD saw an opportunity to provide greater information about the New Mexico cannabis industry through a data portal similar to other states,” said Bernice Geiger, a spokeswoman with the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department. “We were able to capture data from our seed-to-sale software to further disseminate data in intuitive, customizable graphical form.”

Sales of adult-use cannabis were particularly strong in towns close to New Mexico’s border with Texas, where recreational marijuana is still illegal. In Sunland Park, sales of recreational marijuana topped $1.5 million in October, a new record for the town of only 20,000 residents. Hobbs, which sits along the border with west Texas, also saw a record-breaking month with $1.47 million in adult-use cannabis sales. Dispensaries in Clovis, also on the west Texas border, rang up $731,00 in recreational marijuana sales last month.

Reilly White, an associate professor with the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management, told the Albuquerque Journal that cannabis sales are likely to remain strong in New Mexico’s southern and eastern border towns as long as recreational marijuana remains against the law in neighboring Texas.

“We’re likely going to see continued growth in month-to-month cannabis sales as the market becomes more mature,” White said, noting that border towns in Colorado have seen a dip in sales since recreational marijuana sales began in New Mexico earlier this year.

Adult-use cannabis sales were also helped, White said, by the influx of tourists visiting New Mexico for the 50th Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which brought thousands of visitors to the state during the first nine days of October. Albuquerque sales of recreational marijuana came to $8.1 million in October, a new record for the city.

“The Balloon Fiesta did result in a positive increase in sales for local cannabis firms, as greater tourism traffic boosted recreational use,” he said. “The big test ahead for the industry will likely be macroeconomic conditions in 2023 – if we have a recession, how will consumers cut back on recreational cannabis?”

Medical Marijuana Sales Decline

Despite the strong sales of adult-use cannabis, sales of medical marijuana in New Mexico continued to decline. Duke Rodriguez, president and CEO of medical cannabis provider Ultra Health, said that the drop in medical marijuana sales can likely be attributed to patients who are now obtaining cannabis from recreational marijuana dispensaries.

“Medical sales are reclassified into adult-use sales,” Rodriguez said. “They’re just being transferred from one bucket to the other.”

Ben Lewinger, the executive director of the New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, said that other states have also seen a decline in medical marijuana sales following the legalization of adult-use cannabis. According to data from the New Mexico Department of Health, the number of medical marijuana patients in the state has dropped by 473 patients in the span of a year, with the total number of patients declining to 123,990 in September.

“We knew that the number of enrolled medical patients was going to contract, as it has in every other medical state that has shifted to adult use,” Lewinger said. “What’s important is that we continue to invest in the medical program by continuing to add more qualifying conditions so that more people can receive cannabis treatment, without paying taxes on their medicine.”

In August, after the state began its four-month run of record-breaking cannabis sales, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham commented on the economic opportunities presented by regulated adult-use cannabis.

“These numbers show that the impressive sales generated in the first month of legalized recreational cannabis sales were no fluke – and this is only the beginning,” Grisham said in a statement from the governor’s office. “We’ve established a new industry that is already generating millions of dollars in local and state revenue and will continue to generate millions more in economic activity across the state, creating thousands of jobs for New Mexicans in communities both small and large.”

The post New Mexico Pot Sales Hit Record in October appeared first on High Times.

New Mexico Regulators Say 31 Cannabis Businesses are ‘Non-Compliant’

New Mexico’s recreational cannabis industry is barely six months old, but regulators say there are already more than two dozen businesses that are not in compliance with state rules.

Local television station KRQE reported last week that the state’s Cannabis Control Division has conducted 100 inspections since adult-use pot sales kicked off in April, finding that “31 businesses are not in compliance.”

The station reported that the division’s inspectors “go out with a checklist and look for any issues,” and that the “list includes control of waste, fire safety, and making sure businesses have security measures.”

“For retailers, they don’t typically have as extensive of a checklist because they’re not growing,” New Mexico Cannabis Control Division Director Andrew Vallejos told KRQE.

According to the station, the state “has not cited any recreational marijuana licenses since it became legal,” and regulators are not taking a punitive approach to the inspections.

“One of the grounds for suspension; is if businesses don’t enter their product in the state’s seed to sale software,” KRQE reported. “Plants are tracked whether they come from New Mexico or out of the state. However, even if businesses slip up on rules, the goal is to get them back on track.”

But per the station, New Mexico officials are “looking to hire two more compliance officers,” given that the “cannabis control division currently has eight compliance officers to inspect 478 businesses that have a recreational marijuana license.”

New Mexico legalized recreational pot for adults in 2021, when Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill into law.

“The legalization of adult-use cannabis paves the way for the creation of a new economic driver in our state with the promise of creating thousands of good paying jobs for years to come,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement at the time. “We are going to increase consumer safety by creating a bona fide industry. We’re going to start righting past wrongs of this country’s failed War on Drugs. And we’re going to break new ground in an industry that may well transform New Mexico’s economic future for the better.”

Adult-use weed sales officially began on April 1 of this year, with sales eclipsing $3 million on the opening weekend.

In July, adult-use cannabis sales in New Mexico exceeded $40 million, which was a new record for the state’s fledgling recreational pot market.

“These numbers show that the impressive sales generated in the first month of legalized recreational cannabis sales were no fluke – and this is only the beginning,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement at the time. “We’ve established a new industry that is already generating millions of dollars in local and state revenue and will continue to generate millions more in economic activity across the state, creating thousands of jobs for New Mexicans in communities both small and large.”

When she signed the legalization bill into law back in 2021, Lujan Grisham framed the measure as a potential economic boon for a state that, like many others, was still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As we look to rebound from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, entrepreneurs will benefit from this great opportunity to create lucrative new enterprises, the state and local governments will benefit from the added revenue and, importantly, workers will benefit from the chance to land new types of jobs and build careers,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement.

“This legislation is a major, major step forward for our state,” the governor continued. “Legalized adult-use cannabis is going to change the way we think about New Mexico for the better — our workforce, our economy, our future. We’re ready to break new ground. We’re ready to invest in ourselves and the limitless potential of New Mexicans. And we’re ready to get to work in making this industry a successful one.”

The post New Mexico Regulators Say 31 Cannabis Businesses are ‘Non-Compliant’ appeared first on High Times.

New Mexico Cannabis Sales Hit $40 Million in July

State officials in New Mexico announced this week that sales of regulated cannabis topped $40 million in July, setting a new record since legal sales of recreational pot began in the state earlier this year. The Cannabis Control Division of the Regulation and Licensing Department noted the figure tops the monthly purchases of regulated cannabis recorded every month since April, when licensed sales of recreational weed kicked off in the state.

During the month of July, licensed retailers throughout New Mexico reported more than $40 million in cannabis sales, with sales of adult-use cannabis alone topping $23 million. Cannabis sales totaled more than $39 million in April, the first month of legalized recreational sales and the state’s previous record high, with April adult-use sales totaling just over $22 million. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said that the figures show that a strong market for regulated recreational marijuana is being created in the state.

“These numbers show that the impressive sales generated in the first month of legalized recreational cannabis sales were no fluke – and this is only the beginning,” Lujan Grisham said on Thursday in a statement from the governor’s office. “We’ve established a new industry that is already generating millions of dollars in local and state revenue and will continue to generate millions more in economic activity across the state, creating thousands of jobs for New Mexicans in communities both small and large.”

State officials noted that the strongest sales of cannabis were reported in New Mexico’s most populated areas including Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Hobbs, and Rio Rancho. Albuquerque saw the highest cannabis sales in the state, with combined adult-use cannabis and medical marijuana purchases topping $14 million in July. Santa Fe was next in line, with just under $3.5 million in combined sales last month. Sunland and Hobbs, two cities on the border with Texas, where recreational pot is still illegal, each recorded more than $1 million in adult-use cannabis sales.

New Cannabis Products Helping To Drive Sales

Rusty Poe, the manager of Sol Cannabis in Las Cruces, told local media that sales at his shop keep increasing.

“Sales have actually been steadily increasing for us, the more product we bring in the more sales we have,” said Poe, noting that new products on the dispensary menu including cannabis-infused beverages and edibles have helped fuel the uptick in sales.

New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ben Lewinger said that the state’s cannabis sales figures are a victory for New Mexico and its growing industry.

“I couldn’t be prouder of my home state,” said Lewinger. “The Cannabis Regulation Act presented what felt like an impossible timeline to stand up a brand new adult use cannabis industry, yet here (we) are – four months into legal cannabis for folks over 21 and we have record sales, for not only adult use but also our cherished medical cannabis program. …Best of all, no one city or county owns this success — the industry will continue to grow across the entire state.”

Since regulated sales of adult-use cannabis began in April, dispensaries have rung up more than $88 million in recreational pot sales. The Cannabis Control Division releases sales numbers monthly, with data made available at the beginning of each month for the previous month.

New Mexico’s rising sales of adult-use cannabis are a boon for the public coffers as well as the state’s cannabis industry. New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department spokesman Charlie Moore said cannabis excise tax returns totaled close to $2.5 million in June. The amount of tax generated by sales of cannabis in July will be released by the agency in late August.

The post New Mexico Cannabis Sales Hit $40 Million in July appeared first on High Times.

Cannabis’ Big Impact on Border Towns

Since its founding in 1862, the town of Trinidad, CO has regularly cycled through identities, and economic raisons d’etre. The discovery of rich coal deposits in the rugged mountains along the Santa Fe trail between Denver and New Mexico meant the frontier village started as a mining town (and the way mining conglomerates worked meant Trinidad was also a company town). After the mines slowed and closed, between the 1960s and 2010, a single surgeon’s successful (and controversial) practice earned Trinidad the unofficial title of “sex-change capital of the US.” In the cannabis legalization era, another boom-and-bust cycle has come and gone in Trinidad: a cannabis “border town” that is no longer.

Boom…

Home to about 8300 people, Trinidad saw dozens of cannabis shops open for business after adult-use cannabis sales began in Colorado in 2014. Along with businesses on the town’s main street, an entrepreneur from Denver sold local authorities on permitting the world’s first “marijuana mini mall.” There was so much weed for sale in Trinidad that the community boasted “one pot shop for every 300 people,” according to Amanda Korth, the board president of the Trinidad-Las Animas County Chamber of Commerce. 

This had nothing to do with Trinidad itself—they don’t smoke more weed there than they do in Pueblo—but everything to do with geography. About three hours’ drive from Santa Fe, Trinidad is the closest city in Colorado to New Mexico along Interstate-25. That meant Trinidad was an obvious destination for anyone in New Mexico wanting to buy legal weed—and anyone heading south wanting to make a final pit stop before entering dry country.

In Trinidad, the cannabis border-town boom lasted more than eight years. On April 1, legal cannabis sales began in New Mexico, with the full backing of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who encouraged New Mexico cannabis entrepreneurs to “knock the socks off of this industry” and—somehow—sell more cannabis per year than even Colorado, a more populous state. Cannabis isn’t as heavily taxed in New Mexico as it is in Colorado, and customers can purchase up to two ounces per day—twice Colorado’s one-ounce limit. And unlike California and Colorado, localities can’t opt-out of sales.

…And Bust

As NPR reported, from the beginning, cannabis dispensaries sprung up throughout the southern and eastern parts of the state, in small towns such as Clovis, in classic truck-stop cities such as Las Cruces—anywhere within driving distance of Texas, where cannabis is still illegal. 

The Las Cruces location of R. Greenleaf, a dispensary chain owned by Colorado-based Schwazze, is now the company’s “highest grossing store,” with visitors from Texas comprising about half of the customer base, said Justin Dye, Schwazze’s CEO, in a recent telephone interview. 

“We’re not there just for the border,” he added, but as data from the first half of the year published by BDS Analytics showed, sales have slowed and plateaued in Colorado overall as they boom in New Mexico. This spells trouble for border towns along the Colorado-New Mexico line—and the beginning of the end for Trinidad’s latest boom.

“You wouldn’t want to buy a store in Trinidad right now,” Dye said. “You wouldn’t want to be an operator there. It’s contracted substantially.” For now, Schwazze and Dye don’t have to worry: Most of their Colorado dispensaries are located in the Denver metro area. Sales are slowing there, too, but at least there’s no concern about out-of-state competition—or a tectonic shift in geography that, such as a factory closing or oil-well going dry, threatens a settlements’ economic vitality. 

This isn’t to say that there’s now nothing doing well in Trinidad—just that the “marijuana mini-mall” and the concentration of dispensaries may have outlived their moment.

Life in the New American West

For Korth, the Trinidad Chamber of Commerce president, this is just another cycle, along with mining, sex changes, and now cannabis. 

“Those industries left, and so it was boom or bust, feast or famine,” she said. “When the marijuana shops came in, it was a great big boom.” But, she added, offering a counterpoint to the boosterism from New Mexico’s Gov. Lujan Grisham, “they said a lot about the taxes and what the taxes would do for schools and roads, etc. And I haven’t really seen a lot of that.”

As for how long the border bet will last elsewhere, it’s a matter of time and politics—and the bizarre situation of rooting against the march of legalization in red states including Texas and Utah, the latter of which is within a short drive from Dinosaur, CO, on that state’s western edge. There are 183 people in Dinosaur, according to Census figures—and there are three dispensaries, an even higher ratio than Trinidad’s.

Dye thinks Texas will remain dry for a while. “I don’t see Texas having a major program for some time,” he said, a situation owing to the Lone Star State’s deep-red conservatism. “I think this is going to be something for a long time around border towns.” 

But there are rumblings to the contrary. Sid Miller, Texas’s ten-gallon-hat-wearing, Trump-supporting agriculture commissioner, recently became the state’s highest-ranking Republican to call for medical-cannabis legalization. If Texas moves even half as quickly as New Mexico, border towns in that state could find their time in the sun shorter even than Trinidad’s — but still part of the same predictable rhythm in the new American west.

The post Cannabis’ Big Impact on Border Towns appeared first on Cannabis Now.

New Mexico Lawsuit Seeks Insurance Coverage for Medical Cannabis

A New Mexico cannabis company and a group of six medical marijuana patients have filed a class-action lawsuit that seeks insurance coverage for medicinal cannabis. The legal action was filed on Friday in Albuquerque state district court, with the plaintiffs arguing that medical cannabis should be covered because it is a valid behavioral health service.

The plaintiffs in the suit are New Mexico Top Organics-Ultra Health and six medical cannabis patients including state Sen. Jacob Candelaria. Documents filed in the case note that Candelaria has been a medical cannabis patient since 2019, when his physician recommended that he use medicinal cannabis to treat post-traumatic stress disorder after antidepressants failed to provide relief. Candelaria pays between $500 and $1,000 per month out of pocket for his medication because his insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico, fails to cover medical cannabis for its customers, according to the lawsuit.

With the legal action, the plaintiffs in the case are seeking “recovery for themselves, and for every other similarly situated behavioral or mental health patient unlawfully subjected to paying for the entire cost of medically necessary cannabis, in violation of state law.”

The lawsuit names Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico, True Health New Mexico, Cigna Health and Life Insurance Co., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico, Presbyterian Health Plan, Presbyterian Insurance Co. and Western Sky Community Care as defendants in the legal action. The lawsuit is based on legislation passed last year, Senate Bill 317, which requires insurers to cover 100% of the costs for behavioral health services, including treatments prescribed for behavioral health conditions. The measure was passed in April 2021 and went into effect on January 1 of this year.

“The idea of health insurance plans paying for medical cannabis may seem like an impossible dream, but all the foundational elements have already fallen into place,” Ultra Health president and CEO Duke Rodriguez said in a statement to the Albuquerque Journal on Monday. “Revolutionizing behavioral health care in New Mexico will take only a few small steps, rather than a giant leap.”

February Letter Sought Coverage for Medical Cannabis in New Mexico

In February, Ultra Health sent a letter to insurers and the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance seeking coverage for medical cannabis recommended to treat behavioral health conditions. The letter included data provided by the New Mexico Department of Health in April that indicates of the 134,307 patients enrolled in the state medical cannabis program, 73,000 have been diagnosed with PTSD.

“Ultra Health acknowledges that the idea of health insurers paying for medical cannabis may seem novel at first blush,” the company wrote in its letter to Presbyterian Healthcare Services. 

“However,” the letter continues, “it is actually a rational, reasonable notion when considered in light of other New Mexico law. New Mexico already requires workers compensation insurers to pay for medical cannabis, and New Mexico already treats medical cannabis the same as conventional prescription medications. The fact that health insurers should—and will—pay for medical cannabis is not revolutionary at this point. It is the next logical step, and it is a small step, not a giant leap.”

True Health New Mexico and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico declined to comment on the case, according to media reports. Molina Healthcare of New Mexico, Western Sky Community Care and Cigna did not immediately respond to requests for commentary. Presbyterian Health Plan and Presbyterian Insurance Co., which are overseen by the same management team, also declined to comment on the case but issued a statement on the companies’ policies.

“Presbyterian Health Plan is committed to ensuring that New Mexicans can access the behavioral health services they need,” spokeswoman Melanie Mozes said. “We have not yet been served with the lawsuit and will reserve comment for the appropriate venue.”

Rodriquez said that the lawsuit was filed after the insurers and state regulators failed to respond to the letter sent in February. He also noted that other patients who have been impacted by the insurers’ failure to cover medical cannabis prescribed as a behavioral health treatment are welcome to join the legal action.

“There will be more patients identified who have been harmed by insurers not lawfully abiding to the statutory duty of eliminating any cost sharing related to behavioral health services,” Rodriguez said. “Insurers have not acted in good faith.”

In an interview, Candelaria said that medical cannabis has helped him cope with PTSD and positively affected his life. He added that he joined the legal action to help all “New Mexicans who are struggling to pay for their health care.”

“Senate Bill 317 was transformational,” Candelaria said. “This suit, you know, it becomes necessary to actually make that transformation happen.”

The post New Mexico Lawsuit Seeks Insurance Coverage for Medical Cannabis appeared first on High Times.