Fifty-seven percent of Oregon voters believe cannabis retailers and processors should have labor peace agreements as a prerequisite for state licensure, but that public position is now moot.

The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) announced May 29 that, effective immediately, it will no longer require cannabis companies to submit labor peace agreements to apply for or renew their licenses. The commission had adopted that requirement in December 2024, following the previous month’s passage of ballot Measure 119.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555 filed the ballot measure, in part, “due to ambiguity in federal law” that, according to the international labor union, has led to cannabis workers being denied rights, resulting in “unsafe workplaces, wage theft and other abuses.”

“Something that’s rampant in the industry is toxic chemicals, unchecked safety concerns and lack of proper PPE,” Local 555 spokesperson Miles Eshaia told the Oregon News Service in the leadup to November’s election. “Employers often cut corners. They compromise both worker and consumer safety, and you can avoid all that with a collectively bargained agreement and a collectively bargained safety agreement.”

The OLCC’s U-turn on no longer upholding voter-approved Measure 119 comes after U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Michael H. Simon ruled on May 20 that the ballot measure is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and violates cannabis companies’ rights to freedom of speech.

“Given this ruling and in consultation with the Oregon Department of Justice, the OLCC will no longer require labor peace agreements as part of cannabis license applications and license renewals,” according to an OLCC news alert released on May 29.

Initially, it was unclear whether Oregon’s Justice Department would appeal Simon’s May 20 ruling.

Before getting overturned, Measure 119 had required cannabis business licensees or license applicants to “remain neutral” with respect to a bona fide labor organization’s representatives communicating with their employees, which Simon ruled was an abridgement of their First Amendment rights.

“Measure 119 is not limited to restricting only threatening, coercive, false, or misleading speech, but instead prohibits all speech by employers that is not ‘neutral’ toward unionization,” Simon wrote in his opinion and order. “Therefore, Measure 119 violates plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to free speech.”

Cannabis retailer Ascend Dispensary and cannabis processor Bubble’s Hash, both licensed in Portland, Ore., filed the lawsuit in February, naming Gov. Tina Kotek, state Attorney General Dan Rayfield and a pair of OLCC officials as defendants.  

The defendants, in part, argued that the NLRA might not apply to state-sanctioned cannabis businesses, which operate in a federally illegal marketplace under the Controlled Substances Act. This presented a “threshold question” in the case that Simon answered.

“The NLRA does not limit its jurisdiction to ‘lawful commerce’ or ‘legal substance,’ as some other federal laws do,” the judge wrote. “The NLRB has issued advisory memoranda dating back to 2013, in which it has stated that the medical marijuana industry is within the NLRB’s jurisdiction if the business meets the NLRA’s jurisdictional monetary requirements.”

With states like California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York already requiring certain cannabis businesses to enter into labor peace agreements for licensure, a common assumption is that cannabis workers don’t have the right to organize under the National Labor Relations Act and therefore need state statutes.

Jeff Toppel, a partner at Bianchi & Brandt, told Cannabis Business Times in December 2023 that that assumption doesn’t hold.

“The premise of [Oregon’s] statute, and I think a lot of the other statutes that seek to require labor peace agreements, is this false premise that [cannabis workers are] not given the full gamut of federal law, of federal protections, because they’re in cannabis,” Toppel said.

One example is when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in December 2022 that Curaleaf acted unlawfully when the multistate operator refused to come to the bargaining table and recognize that its dispensary workers in Chicago voted to join the UFCW.

Toppel, who has argued countless union cases before the NLRB, said that forcing labor peace agreements through state statutes often leads to employers shopping around to get the best deals, which doesn’t always benefit the employees.

Although cannabis companies are no longer required to strike labor peace agreements in Oregon, nothing is stopping the state’s dispensary workers from organizing on their own.

Simon’s ruling in Oregon, however, collides with a March 2025 decision in the U.S. District Court of Southern California, where Judge Todd W. Robinson dismissed a challenge to California law that requires cannabis business applicants or licensees with 10 or more employees to enter into labor peace agreements.

That lawsuit was filed in April 2024 by Ctrl Alt Destroy LLC, which, according to the California Department of Cannabis Control’s (DCC) licensing database, does business as Embr, a dispensary in La Mesa, San Diego County.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and DCC Director Nicole Elliott, as plaintiffs, argued that the court should not grant Ctrl Alt Destroy its requested relief because doing so would directly facilitate federally illegal conduct.

Robinson agreed, tossing Ctrl Alt Destroy’s challenge on the conclusion that the federal court could not lend its judicial power to a plaintiff “who seeks to invoke that power for the purpose of consummating a transaction in clear violation of [federal] law.”

In Oregon, a UFCW Local 555 spokesperson pointed out the conflicting federal rulings in a statement provided to KOIN 6 News.

“We now have conflicting federal rulings, with a judge in Oregon putting Measure 119 on hold while a California judge has upheld a similar law,” the spokesperson said. “One of these rulings is destined to be overturned on appeal. Our strong suspicion is that Judge Simon’s opinion, which flaunts Supreme Court precedent, will be the one reversed.”

Colorado’s medicinal psilocybin program is set to launch soon after officials said they have licensed and inspected a testing facility, which was the last type of business required to properly run the program, Marijuana Moment reports.

The Colorado Department of Revenue’s Natural Medicine Division (NMD) said in an email Tuesday that officials are “excited to announce that the first licensed testing facility is fully certified by the Department of Public Health and Environment” (CDPHE).

Colorado voters approved the legalization of psychedelic mushrooms in 2022. Under the proposal, people aged 21 or older can grow and share psychedelic mushrooms, and the state is establishing regulated “healing centers” where people will soon be able to make appointments to consume psilocybin in a controlled environment.

In addition to the testing license, regulators have also approved five separate healing center licenses, three cultivation licenses, and two manufacturing licenses. Dozens more licenses are still pending.

“Now that the Colorado Department of Revenue has licensed cultivators, manufacturers, healing centers, and testing facilities, CDPHE has certified a testing facility, and the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies has licensed facilitators, natural medicine can start to be transferred from a cultivator or manufacturer to a lab for testing, then eventually to a healing center where a facilitator can oversee administration.” — CDPHE statement, via Marijuana Moment

The Colorado psychedelics program follows in the footsteps of Oregon, where voters approved a medicinal psilocybin program in late 2020, and the program launched in early 2023.

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Shortly after Minnesota lawmakers passed a bill to end the criminalization of bong water containing trace amount of drugs, Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) has signed the measure into law.

The change addresses an existing policy that had allowed law enforcement to treat quantities of bong water greater than four ounces as equivalent to the pure, uncut version of whatever drug the device was used to consume.

Four ounces of bong water used to consume methamphetamine, for example, could have been charged as a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

The new bong water provision is part of a sweeping judiciary and public safety bill, HF 2432, which Walz signed into law last week. In relevant part, it clarifies that a mixture of drugs “does not include the fluid used in a water pipe or any amount of a controlled substance that is dissolved in the pipe’s fluid.”

The existing policy was the result of a 2009 state Supreme Court decision, and though it was rarely used by authorities, critics said it allowed prosecutors to selectively go after defendants with the threat of outsized penalties.

Last year, for example, a prosecutor brought first-degree drug charges against a Fargo woman over water allegedly found in her bong.

The new law is retroactive, applying back to August 2023, the same time a separate drug paraphernalia decriminalization bill took effect. That means the Fargo woman’s case is now moot.

According to the local outlet Minnesota Reformer, the state “became the butt of national jokes” following the 2009 high court ruling, which relied in part “on the testimony of a Minnesota State Patrol officer who claimed that drug users keep bong water “for future use…either drinking it or shooting it in the veins.’”

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) vetoed an earlier attempt by lawmakers to decriminalize small amounts of bong water.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, a Native American tribe last weekend opened the state’s first-ever legal recreational marijuana store outside of a reservation. The new shop, in Moorhead, will be followed next month by another location in St. Cloud that will also be operated by the White Earth Nation.

The launch of the new shop comes after Walz signed of a landmark agreement earlier this month to allow the tribe to operate up to eight retail marijuana stores across the state.

Minnesota’s 2023 cannabis legalization law allows tribes within the state to open marijuana businesses before state licensing of businesses begins. Following the law’s enactment, a number of tribal governments, including White Earth Nation, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, made early moves to enter the market.

Separately, as the state’s adult-use cannabis market gets up and running, more than a dozen cities and counties are seeking to open their own government-run stores.

At least 13 cities and counties have applied for licenses to operate their own marijuana stores. The city of Anoka, for one, broke ground last week on a new $2.7 million facility, though the city’s liquor and cannabis operations manager says they’re still waiting on final approval from the state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM).

Other municipalities seeking licenses to run their own dispensaries include St. Joseph and Osseo, which are reportedly waiting to secure licenses before breaking ground on the facilities.

Minnesota’s deadline to apply for local government cannabis licenses was March 16, beginning a 90-day approval window. An OCM representative said the agency expects municipal stores to begin opening this summer.

By law, Minnesota allows local governments to limit the number of retailers in their jurisdictions, though it requires leaders to allow at least one marijuana store for every 12,500 residents.

Separately in Minnesota, a state appeals court is set to decide whether state officials have the authority to prosecute tribal members for cannabis crimes committed on tribal land. The case centers on a White Earth citizen who allegedly sold cannabis from his tobacco store on reservation land in Mahnomen.

Last month, meanwhile, state officials moved to delay a separate drug reform—the opening of safe drug consumption sites, meant to allow people to use drugs in a safer, supervised setting.

“More work needs to be done on a state and federal level before these services can be implemented in a way that is safe for participants and Harm Reduction programs,” a representative for the Department of Human Services (DHS) Behavioral Health Administration said at the time.

In March, lawmakers also filed legislation that would create a system to allow legal access to psilocybin for medical purposes. That came just days after the introduction of a separate bill that would legalize personal psilocybin use and possession among adults.

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