Cannabis regulators in New Mexico are pressuring elected officials to pass legislation to create a task force dedicated to stamping out illicit cannabis operations in the state, KRQE reports.
Lawmakers first discussed giving “police power” to the New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) last November. Now, the agency is supporting House Bill 10, which would task six law enforcement officials with investigating and stopping individuals caught doing illegal cannabis business. The bill would also authorize CCD officials to seize and put administrative holds on cannabis products, the report said.
Currently, regulators who encounter illegal activity in the cannabis industry can only report what they discover to law enforcement — officials say the task force would help unburden police and expedite the investigations, which they say would benefit the industry.
“Currently, we only have administrative powers, so we can fine, suspend, revoke licenses. But if we stumble across products or illicit activity, we then are limited in that power…. [The task force] would allow us to continue down that path while following due process, going to courts, getting search warrants or injunctions, and then being able to act on those with the orders from those courts.” — Todd Stevens, CCD Director, via KRQE
“These illicit, illegal, gray market products, producers, dispensaries, they burden our regulated, good faith, good operators, and it makes them very difficult to operate in a legal space,” Stevens said.
The New Mexico adult-use cannabis law took effect in July 2021, and the state’s first regulated sale took place in July 2022.
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