When the bill to legalize marijuana use in the CNMI was still being crafted, the CNMI Department of Commerce was pretty much in the thick of it and was involved in helping provide input on the measure.<\/p>\n
Now that it is law, the department would like to get involved with helping the CNMI Cannabis Commission in regulating this potentially new industry in the Commonwealth. At least according to acting Commerce secretary Mark O. Rabauliman.<\/p>\n
The commission was formed to control and regulate marijuana use in the CNMI, as embodied in Public Law 20-66 that was enacted last year.<\/p>\n
Rabauliman said that Commerce was pretty much involved when the bill to create the cannabis industry was still being written. \u201cWhen [P.L. 20-66] first started, when it was in its draft format, there was a heavy involvement in terms of the Department of Commerce.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there has been a major shift since the creation of the commission and he would like Commerce to get involved anew. \u201cRight now we are in a wait-and-see mode in terms of the commission now doing the regulation. \u2026Commerce is\u2026ready\u2026[but], at this point, it is up to the commission that has been appointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that Commerce can help the commission in regulating and issuing licenses to those who want to either grow, produce, process, keep or store homegrown cannabis, whether in a house or cultivation site.<\/p>\n
Commerce usually works with businesses, gathers demographical data to be used by the government in its decision-making policies to create jobs, helps improve the standard of living of the community, and find ways to grow the economy.<\/p>\n
Rabauliman said that there\u2019s also a possibility that Alcohol, Beverage, and Tobacco Control\u2014one of the five divisions under the Commerce Department\u2014would be involved in the commission\u2019s implementation of the regulations involving cannabis.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, I think, we would be participating. It has not been defined yet, until the commission comes out with the regulations. That\u2019s where our involvement would be more apparent,\u201d added Rabauliman.<\/p>\n
Nadine Deleon Guerrero and Matt Deleon Guerrero (Saipan), Valentino Taisacan Jr. (Northern Islands), Lawrence Duponcheel (Tinian), and Thomas Songsong (Rota) are the commission\u2019s members.<\/p>\n
Still illegal<\/strong> \u201cAgain, for everybody, it is a trial and error. We\u2019re going to try our very best to create and make policies for the best of the community. At the same time, it is not yet legal to start planting and I hope you don\u2019t start planting. Even smoking it is illegal,\u201d said Torres.<\/p>\n House floor leader Rep. John Paul P. Sablan (R-Saipan) introduced House Bill 21-13, which would make changes to the parts vetoed by Torres in P.L. 20-66.<\/p>\n Torres added that they would also need to identify how much funding the commission needs to operate as his administration wants to make sure they do things right to regulate and control the new industry in the CNMI.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve met with the commission and told them that we wanted to do it expeditiously but at the same time slowly enough to make sure that we understand what we\u2019re getting ourselves into,\u201d said Torres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the bill to legalize marijuana use in the CNMI was still being crafted, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTorres again reminded the community that cannabis or marijuana remains illegal in the CNMI, whether for cultivating or smoking, until the commission comes out with the regulations.<\/p>\n