Why is it necessary to have organized crime run state cannabis programs?

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Med­ical Cannabid­i­ol Board Meet­ing, Fri­day, May 12, 2023

Amend­ed Agen­da, Vir­tu­al Meet­ing, May 12, 2023

Sep­tem­ber 10, 2017:
Des Moines Reg­is­ter:  “House Speak­er Lin­da Upmey­er, R‑Clear Lake, not­ed in a state­ment that no mat­ter what the Leg­is­la­ture had decid­ed, the state still would have been in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law.”
Sep­tem­ber 4, 2020:
The Depart­ment has deter­mined that it will move for­ward with seek­ing an excep­tion for cannabis as a sched­ule I sub­stance in Iowa from the DEA, in attempt to min­i­mize con­flict between State and Fed­er­al Law.
The Depart­ment will seek this excep­tion using Title 21 Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions 1307.03.
August 12, 2022:
Owen Park­er, Bureau Chief:  There’s a lot of peo­ple that need to be involved in mak­ing sure that’s han­dled in a way that’s fine with every­body.  I can tell you we are in dis­cus­sions with the governor’s office on the best way to han­dle the sce­nario over­all.  We cer­tain­ly haven’t for­got­ten about it, by any means.  I will, as those con­ver­sa­tions evolve, I will update the board.  But it is, again, it’s some­thing that we talk about and there will be a more for­mal update on that, if that’s okay.
Jan­u­ary 1, 2023:
Annu­al Report:  The Board rec­om­mends that a task force of legal experts be autho­rized, sim­i­lar to the cur­rent board of med­ical experts, to assist the depart­ment in nav­i­gat­ing the legal issues involved with request­ing an exemp­tion for Iowa’s pro­gram from nec­es­sary Fed­er­al agen­cies.  This is relat­ed to a rec­om­men­da­tion in the Board’s 2019 Annu­al Report and the pas­sage of HF2589 in June, 2020.
Jan­u­ary 12, 2023:
Sen­ate File 69:  Sec­tion 1.  MEDICAL CANNABIDIOL – FEDERAL EXEMPTION TASK FORCE.  The depart­ment of health and human ser­vices shall con­vene a task force of legal experts to assist the depart­ment in exe­cut­ing the department’s respon­si­bil­i­ties under 2020 Iowa Acts, chap­ter 1116, sec­tion 31.
Feb­ru­ary 10, 2023:
Vapor­iz­able Flower Peti­tion: Pre­sen­ta­tion in Sup­port of Peti­tion
Feb­ru­ary 13, 2023:
Sen­ate File 69 (Fed­er­al Exemp­tion): Sen­ate sub­com­mit­tee rec­om­mends pas­sage
Feb­ru­ary 14, 2023:
Sen­ate Study Bill 1113 (Vapor­iz­able Flower): Sen­ate sub­com­mit­tee rec­om­mends pas­sage
Feb­ru­ary 27, 2024:
Feb­ru­ary 28, 2023:
SSB 1113 and SF 69 are with­drawn by the Sen­ate Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee chair on the day of the com­mit­tee meet­ing because com­mit­tee mem­bers were uncom­fort­able with the media cov­er­age the day before.
March 30, 2023:
House Study Bill 242 (Vapor­iz­able Flower): Pro­posed by House Ways and Means Com­mit­tee Chair.

It seems like over­ly aggres­sive mar­ket­ing by a fed­er­al crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tion, 21 U.S.C. § 848, is pre­dictable when the state is pro­mot­ing crim­i­nal behav­ior.  Over two years ago, the depart­ment agreed a fed­er­al exemp­tion, 21 U.S.C. § 822(d), would bring Iowa into com­pli­ance with fed­er­al drug law.  But, the depart­ment hasn’t moved for­ward with the appli­ca­tion.  The bill to cre­ate a legal task force to assist the depart­ment, SF 69, got lost in the hubris sur­round­ing the aggres­sive mar­ket­ing scan­dal.  And now anoth­er vapor­iz­able flower bill has been intro­duced.

Ques­tion­ing the integri­ty of a crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tion is miss­ing the point.  The depart­ment is sit­ting on the solu­tion and let­ting this cor­rup­tion fes­ter.  Gov­ern­ment can­not func­tion effec­tive­ly with­out prop­er checks and bal­ances.  Agen­cies are expect­ed to imple­ment leg­is­la­tion by apply­ing their exper­tise.  The more the depart­ment embraces orga­nized crime as the only path for­ward, the worse this will get.