Langdon Brown, one of the leading pioneers to legalize medicinal cannabis for sick and dying Australians, has been nominated for the 2017 Australian of the Year Award.
Mr. Brown has led the charge to legalise medicinal cannabis and has personally provided medicinal cannabis to thousands of people in need in Australia through his company, the Don Medicinal Cannabis.
Below is the letter confirming his nomination:
A medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado, where tax revenue are expected to double initial estimates (O’Dea)
A study by the US-based Tax Foundation finds that the four US states that have legalized marijuana have collected more tax revenue than they had initially estimated. The Colorado government is anticipating revenues of $140 million, which is double the initial $70 million estimate. Washington’s state government meanwhile is estimating tax revenue as high as $270 million per year.
State governments could expect to raise between $5 billion and $18 billion in total if they all legalized and taxed marijuana, says the study.
The study says that state and federal governments could levy a number of taxes on the national marijuana market, including a federal excise tax similar to what is collected from cigarettes, which would raise $500 million in revenue and a 10 percent sales surtax, like that collected in Colorado, which would raise $5.3 billion if imposed nation-wide.
Business income from the marijuana sector would additionally raise nearly $5.5 billion in federal revenue and $1.5 billion in state and local revenue. The study cautions however that this revenue could fall as competition drives down prices and total business revenue in the marijuana sector.
Other sources of government revenue opened up by legalization include individual income and payroll taxes from employment in the marijuana industry. These sources of revenue may increase as production ramps up, the study estimates.
The study predicts that prices and profit margins will fall drastically when marijuana is legalized, as a result of the much lower risk premium attached to production of marijuana once it is legal.
While some rights activists point to the repression inherent in taxation of voluntary transactions, most welcome the shift from wholesale prohibition of marijuana, to regulation and taxation, as a lifting of the degree of repression placed on the marijuana sector. All major marijuana advocacy organizations in the US meanwhile are supportive of the growing trend toward legalization and taxation of marijuana, and regularly tout the benefit of legalization on local, state and federal tax revenues.
Industrial scale cannabis farm. Canopy Growth says its experience in the Canadian medicinal cannabis market will help AusCann develop its own medicinal cannabis production facilities to provide for Australia’s newly legal market.
Canada’s Canopy Growth Corporation, parent company of licensed cannabis producers Tweed, Tweed Farms and Bedrocan Canada, and Australia’s AusCann have announced a medicinal cannabis partnernship to produce medicinal cannabis for Australia’s newly legal market.
Canopy Growth will provide AusCann with assistance in production, quality assurance and operations, as well as strategic advisory services, in exchange for a 15% ownership stake in the Australian company.
Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton said that the company’s experience starting Tweed and its sister companies after legalization in Canada makes it experienced in facing the same “opportunities and challenges” that Australian medicinal cannabis companies can expect to encounter as the country develops a legal market for the product.
Linton will join AusCanna’s Board of Directors and share with the company the best practices Tweed Farms established over recent years. Commenting on the partnership, AusCann Managing Director Elaine Darby said:
“We chose to work with Canopy Growth because they’ve established themselves as leaders in the Canadian and global industry. We are excited to establish the same success here in Australia.”
Medicinal cannabis was officially legalized in Australia in February, and new regulations governing the legal medicinal cannabis market are in the process of being implemented.
Deputy Premier of NSW, Troy Grant, Deputy Prime Minister and local MP, Barnaby Joyce, and Lucy Haslam, at the opening of the Haslam’s new medicinal cannabis farm (Facebook)
The critique came after the first legally sanctioned medicinal cannabis farm in Australia was opened near Tamworth, NSW in a photo op that included local MP and Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and NSW Deputy Premier, Troy Grant.
Langdon Brown’s post noted that while NSW has not yet made medicinal cannabis legal, Tony Grant, who is also NSW’s Minister of Justice and Police, is overseeing the opening of a medicinal cannabis farm. Brown commended the accelerated legalization of medicinal cannabis by the NSW government, but noted the legal double standard wherein he faces criminal charges for violating the same medicinal cannabis laws that are being ignored in the case of the Haslam’s new farm.
Langdon Brown meeting Dan Haslam, whose parents began fighting for legalization of medicinal cannabis after he began using cannabis to treat the symptoms of his cancer treatment (Facebook)
Brown concluded his post by calling for the NSW state government to drop its charges against him, and live up to its mandate to provide equal justice for all:
“To those in the NSW government, please call off this abhorrent witch hunt against me by the Crown prosecution. Please drop the criminal charges against me, that threaten to take me away from my family for violating a law that the entire country, from Victoria, to the federal government, to our own state, has already repealed, or is in the process of repealing.
To date, I have currently assisted 1,532 Australians with cancer, epilepsy, MS and other life threatening conditions with medicinal cannabis.”
The full Facebook post can be read here.
Representatives of UN member states meeting at the UNGASS on the World Drug Problem in Vienna on April 20 2016 (2016 UNODC)
Canada’s Minister of Health, Jane Philpott, told a Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the World Drug Problem that Canada would be introducing legislation to legalize marijuana consumption in the country.
The special session was called after Latin American countries called on the world to change the global strategy on combating drug abuse away from the War on Drugs approach that they say is harming their countries, making Minister Philpott’s comments consistent with the theme of the meeting.
The Minister said that consultations with NGOs, lawyers doctors and activists, as well as her experience as a medical doctor in both Canada and sub-Saharan Africa informed her opinion that the current drug policy was not working.
In building the case marijuana legalization, Philpott said:
“Our approach to drugs must be comprehensive, collaborative and compassionate. It must respect human rights while promoting shared responsibility. And it must have a firm scientific foundation.”
She said that her government will “apply these principles with regard to marijuana.”
The Minister added that legislation affecting marijuana would be introduced in Spring 2017, and remarked that it would both keep marijuana out of the hands of children, suggesting age restrictions in the new law, and criminals, pointing to full legalisation of the supply, instead of decriminalization.
Philpott acknowledged that Canadian legalization would conflict with policy in many countries, but that the Canadian government believes it’s the best way forward for the country.
The announcement is part of a raft of developments toward greater legal tolerance toward cannabis and its derived products. Australia recently passed legislation legalizing medicinal cannabis in the country. That legislation would not legalize cannabis for recreational use however.
there was no increase in cannabis usage in the UK despite decreased police enforcement of anti-cannabis laws
England and Wales witnessed no increase in cannabis usage despite reduced police enforcement of laws prohibiting cannabis from 2010 to 2015, according to newly released data from police forces and the British government.
The findings call into question the public health benefits of the war on drugs, and bolster calls to legalize drug consumption, in particular of cannabis, which have picked up steam in developing countries over the last decade.
Data released this year by 32 police forces in response to Freedom of Information Requests by the BBC shows that the total number of arrests for cannabis possession by the respective police forced declined from 35,367 to 19,115 per year, a 46 percent decline, from 2010 to 2015.
Chief Constable Mike Barton justified the de-prioritization of enforcing cannabis prohibition laws by the relative unimportance of illicit cannabis usage:
“It’s freed up our staff to deal with things that are more important.”
The decriminalization shift did not lead to increased cannabis consumption as shown by study conducted by the British Home Office, which finds 6-7 percent of the population using cannabis over the timespan.
A hemp plant. The cultivation and production of medicinal cannabis was legalized in Australia on February 24 2016 (Hendrike)
Australia has become the most recent Western nation to legalize medicinal cannabis after legislation was passed on February 24, 2016 by the Australian to legalize cannabis for medicla purposes.
Health Minister Sussan Ley described the legislation as the “missing piece” needed to provide Australian patients with a reliable source of legal medicinal cannabis for managing chronic conditions.
The legislation, which received bipartisan support in Australia’s parliament, will create a national medicinal cannabis regulator to oversee the cultivation of cannabis and the manufacture of medicinal cannabis products from the cannabis plant.
Commenting on the passing of the legislation, Ms Ley said:
“This is an historic day for Australia and the many advocates who have fought long and hard to challenge the stigma around medicinal cannabis products so genuine patients are no longer treated as criminals.”
“This is the missing piece in a patient’s treatment journey and will now see seamless access to locally-produced medicinal cannabis products from farm to pharmacy.”
Ms Ley added that the amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Act are consistent with Australia’s international obligations under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
The Health Minister added that the new legislation would not make cannabis legal for general cultivation or recreational use.
News Corp published an apology to Langdon Brown this week for having published an article in the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph alleging that Mr. Brown’s company, the Don Medicinal Cannabis, had “ripped off” sick patients in Australia.
In the apology, News Corp stated that the allegations made in the article about Langdon Brown and his business “were false”, and “apologise[d] unreservedly for the hurt and upset that has been caused to him by its publication”.
The articles will remain online for 30 days.
