New Mexico legislators tighten cannabis laws

SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – Now that it has been two years since recreational cannabis sales began in New Mexico, lawmakers are taking a second look at what they want to tweak with the laws surrounding the drug.

“Now that we’ve had a couple of years to see how recreational cannabis is working in New Mexico, we now know where we need to make adjustments cause we have the benefit of that bug testing,” said Senator Katy Duhigg (D-Albuquerque).

KRQE’s Legislature Coverage

In a mammoth bill from the Albuquerque Democrat, Duhigg is looking to tighten up the laws surrounding cannabis in the state. “This is looking to make adjustments based on kind of the lived experience of folks in the industry in New Mexico,” Duhigg said.

She said a lot of what her bill is doing is addressing the illegal market for cannabis—which she says is thriving in New Mexico because of the plant coming in from surrounding states. The illegal market right now is about 1/3 of the retail business that’s happening right now,” Duhigg said, “We are looking to tamp down on that illegal market so that the folks who are here participating and following all the rules aren’t disadvantaged for doing so.”

Principally, by creating a definition for what illegal cannabis is under the law and increasing penalties for people trafficking it. “If someone is bringing… let’s say eight pounds of cannabis in their backpack and they come across our border, and they’ve only done that one time or they are bringing trucks of eight tons of cannabis over and over and over again across our border, right now that’s the same penalty,” Duhigg said, “We’re increasing the penalties so that folks who are repeat offenders have a more severe consequence.”

ACLU New Mexico, advocates wants lawmakers to avoid ‘quick-fix’ for crime

This bill also gives the Cannabis Control Division (CCD) the power to seize any illegal cannabis they come across during their investigations. “Because right now, if they find some illegal products and they don’t have the ability to seize or embargo them, those products get right into the black market before CCD can really do anything about it,” Duhigg said.

Duhigg is also trying to loosen the restrictions on licensing—allowing people to have both a cannabis and liquor license, which they currently can’t under the law.

“When we first passed the bill, we said ‘you can’t have both a cannabis license and a liquor license.’ And the intention was that people are not served both of those things at the same time. Because what we know from research is that the fatality of accidents skyrockets when folks have both those things on board,” Duhigg said.

“But, unfortunately, that was a little too restrictive because that did more than say you couldn’t serve both at the same place; that said you couldn’t even have a license for each! So you couldn’t have, maybe have something where you’re serving alcohol on one side of town and cannabis on the other side of town,” Duhigg said.

“So, we’re fixing that here and we’re saying you can have both licenses but you still can’t serve them together because it’s just too much of a public safety risk to do so,” Duhigg said.

Other provisions in the bill include restrictions on advertising on packaging, so as not to appeal to children; changes like prohibiting cartoon images and making packaging opaque.

Even though this is a short session, Duhigg is optimistic about this bill: “This is a still a really important issue because there’s a lot of people in New Mexico now who this is how they’re making a living. And we want to make sure they can continue to do so.”

The 30-day session begins Tuesday.