West Virginia Officials Still Haven’t Spent Medical Marijuana Revenue Amid Federal Concerns

*“A resolution is coming,” a spokesperson for the state treasurer said of
the ongoing issue of unspent cannabis revenue.*

*By Henry Culvyhouse, Mountain State Spotlight*

*This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight. Get
stories like this delivered to your email inbox once a week; sign up for
the free newsletter at https://mountainstatespotlight.org/newsletter.*

State Treasurer Larry Pack (R) has still not found a way to spend $34
million collected from the state’s medical marijuana program for substance
abuse treatment, law enforcement training or research.

In October, Mountain State Spotlight reported the fund collected from fees,
taxes and interest in the state’s medical marijuana program hadn’t been
spent.

Under the law setting up the program, some of the money was to be used for
research into the state’s medical cannabis program to determine whether it
was working and where it could be improved.

However, due to marijuana’s long-standing classification as a Schedule I
narcotic, the legal status of funds collected in the program has been in
limbo. Narcotics with the Schedule I designation are deemed to have no
acceptable medical use and are illegal.

That hasn’t stopped many of the 40 states with some kind of legalized
market—whether recreational or medicinal—from spending monies they have
collected. For instance, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio have all spent
monies from the funds collected in their marijuana markets.

In October, Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, said he talked to Pack about it.
The treasurer, according to Woelfel, had assembled a team of experts to
look into it.

But months later, days before another legislative session, the Treasurer’s
Office had no plan for spending the money, but said they were working on a
solution.

“A resolution is coming,” said Carrie Hodousek, spokesperson for the
Treasurer’s Office.

In December, President Donald Trump requested to move marijuana from a
Schedule I to a Schedule III, which would classify marijuana as having some
potential medical use. Hodousek said that could in-turn change the legality
of the money.

But that decision hasn’t been finalized.

And the timeline for the state treasurer to release his decision on
spending the money is up in the air as well.

“We’re just told that we know it’s coming,” Hodousek said.

Woelfel, for his part, said he hasn’t heard anything from the Treasurer’s
Office about the status of the money.

*This article first appeared on Mountain State Spotlight and is republished
here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
License.*

The post West Virginia Officials Still Haven’t Spent Medical Marijuana
Revenue Amid Federal Concerns appeared first on Marijuana Moment.