NM Cannabis Businesses Sound Alarm on Unstable Marketplace

Cannabis biz owners seek pause on licenses

New Mexico’s nascent cannabis businesses face too much competition and a “flourishing” illicit market, nearly 100 owners of such businesses say in a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. The letter asks the governor and state Regulation and Licensing Superintendent Linda Trujillo to help stabilize the marketplace by creating “safety valves” on new license issuance, and criticizes lawmakers for leaving such a provision out of the law. According to the letter, as of last month, the Cannabis Control Division had issued more than 1,000 retail licenses, with the number of licenses issued increasing by 65% in just the last three months alone, coupled by just a 10% increase in sales during the same time period. “This is not a sustainable competitive market for cannabis operators, businesses are closing or reducing employee count as a result,” the letter reads. “Others are selling their products into the illicit market to avoid paying taxes or incurring banking fees.” The letter also notes the New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce’s prior advocacy for the state’s ability to limit licensure. “I am going to work very hard to get that piece back in there,” Chamber Executive Director Ben Lewinger tells SFR, “because if that were part of the Cannabis Regulation Act that passed, I’m fairly certain that the Cannabis Control Division would have paused new licensing already.”

Feds: new missing/murdered Indigenous people effort

The US Justice Department yesterday announced the creation of the Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Regional Outreach Program, which will permanently place 10 attorneys and coordinators in five designated regions across the US to help with the prevention and response to missing or murdered Indigenous people. US Attorney for the District of New Mexico Alexander M.M. Uballez announced the new initiative yesterday during the Not Invisible Act Commission’s public hearing hosted in Albuquerque. New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona will all receive specialized support under the new program. “Together, we will meet the case of each missing and murdered Indigenous person with urgency, transparency and coordination,” Uballez said in a statement. “Everyone deserves to feel safe in their community and confident that law enforcement will be vigilant in the investigation of missing community members.” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland described the new program in a statement as mobilizing “the Justice Department’s resources to combat the crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons, which has shattered the lives of victims, their families and entire Tribal communities. The Justice Department will continue to accelerate our efforts, in partnership with Tribes, to keep their communities safe and pursue justice for American Indian and Alaska Native families.”

State announces settlement on WIPP permit renewal

The state environment department this week announced a settlement agreement with numerous organizations opposing the draft 10-year renewal permit for the federal Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad. The organizations opposing the permit included: Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Conservation Voters New Mexico, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Southwest Alliance for a Safe Future and Southwest Research and Information Center, along with former state WIPP Program Manager Steve Zappe. A CCNS news release notes the organizations “claimed victory” that the US Department of Energy is “now required to provide an annual report about establishing another repository for plutonium-contaminated radioactive waste in a state other than New Mexico.” WIPP, the news release notes, “was never supposed to be the only repository for this waste, called transuranic, or TRU, generated by the production of nuclear weapons.” The state news release also says the agreement includes “modified conditions that provide greater regulatory oversight, improve safeguards, and authorize disposal of waste in two new underground panels over the next ten-year permit term.” The modified conditions prioritize legacy waste from cleanup activities, including from Los Alamos National Laboratory. “Communities in New Mexico and around the US benefit from the clean-up of legacy waste and its disposal at WIPP,” NMED Cabinet Secretary James Kenney says in a statement. “The new permit conditions affirm New Mexico’s authority and position that all roads lead from WIPP—we are no longer the last stop for clean-up but the driving force in that process that begins here.”

Virgin Galactic science mission set for liftoff this morning

As of press time, a livestream for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight was scheduled to start at 9 am this morning on the company’s website. According to a news release, for Galactic 01, a three-person crew from the Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy will board VSS Unity for a 90-minute flight to conduct a series of suborbital science experiments. The “mission objectives” include: “13 human-tended and autonomous experiments which examine biomedicine thermo-fluid dynamics, and the development of innovative and sustainable materials in microgravity conditions.” The crew also will “collect data through wearable payloads and sensors, and by autonomous payloads mounted in the cabin on Virgin Galactic’s payload rack system.” Read more about the experiments here. “Galactic 01 is our first commercial spaceflight, and we’re honored to have been selected by the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council to support their first space research mission,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier says in a statement. “Virgin Galactic’s research missions will usher in a new era of repeatable and reliable access to space for government and research institutions for years to come.”

Listen up

Award-winning Iñupiaq-Inuit poet dg nanouk okpik, who lives in Santa Fe and is a Lannan Foundation Fellow at the Institute of American Indian Arts (and an alumna of the school), joins the Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast to discuss fellow Santa Fe poet Layli Long Soldier’s 2017 collection Whereas with Windham-Campbell Prizes Director Michael Kelleher. Last month, as we noted at the time, okpik won the 2023 Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry; the eight-series podcast is showcasing the winners in each awarded genre. Listen via LitHub here. okpik also will read live and via Zoom from her collection Blood Snow, a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, at 6 pm this evening at Collected Works Bookstore and via Zoom.

Manson on Manson

American Songwriter talks to Santa Fe-based musician Jono Manson on the heels of his latest release, the 11-track Stars Enough to Guide Me. The album came about, Manson says, as he hit his 60s and felt “a desire to bring all these different parts of my musical life together in one place.” That musical life, American Songwriter notes, incorporates a career that began in the 1970s in New York, and included stints with Joey Miserable and The Worms in the 1980s, and collaborations with Blues Traveler, T Bone Burnett, Amanda Palmer, Ray Wylie Hubbard and others. His latest album, Manson says, turned out to be more autobiographical than he initially expected, so he didn’t shy away from telling my story in a more direct manner. “Songs like ‘Lights Go Out,’ ‘Late Bloomer,’ ‘The Further Adventures of Goat Boy and the Clown,’ ‘Timberline’ and ‘On the Downlow’ definitely fit into this category,” Manson says in the interview. “They all contain underlying themes of perseverance in the face of adversity and looking back at life with the perspective that comes from growing older.” Manson also discusses his older work, and his development as a songwriter: “My move from New York to New Mexico over 30 years ago definitely created a big shift in my trajectory as an artist,” he says. “Put simply, I was no longer writing in the context of ‘bar band’ rock and roll and was being exposed to a very different set of stimuli, both musically and environmentally.”

Picture the puppet

As we write this brief, a mere 64 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes and seven seconds remain until this year’s burning of Zozobra on Sept. 1. But before the big burn, ZozoFest awaits, the annual pre-show where attendees can grab a sneak peak of Old Man Gloom, stock up on gear and, of course, view the myriad artistic representations of Santa Fe’s favorite puppet. The Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe yesterday put out a call for artists to participate in ZozoFest, which runs from Aug. 25-27 at Santa Fe Place Mall. All media accepted—paintings, drawings, collage, sculpture, jewelry, digital art, ceramics, beads, tile, fabric etc. “Artwork in the ZozoFest Art Show must be primarily of Zozobra, but other characters from the Zozobra tradition, including the Fire Spirit, Gloomies and Torchbearers are also welcome,” the news release notes. Images inspired by or representing creator Will Shuster or his circle of writer/artist friends Los Cincos Pintores will also be considered. This year marks the final one in the Decades Project—in advance of next year’s 100th anniversary—so “artwork that honors the unique style, design and colors of the 2000-2010s is highly encouraged.” All submissions must be received by 5 pm, Aug. 4. Find all the details about how to enter—it’s free!—and more here. Email questions to Zozobra Art Chairman Ama Ortiz at art@burnzozobra.com.

Come on rain!

The National Weather Service forecasts a 20% chance for precipitation today, via isolated rain before noon, then scattered rain and thunderstorms between noon and 3 pm, then isolated showers and thunderstorms after 3 pm. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds. Otherwise, it will be partly sunny, with a high temperature near 88 degrees, and north wind 5 to 15 mph becoming south in the afternoon.

Thanks for reading! The Word has no intention of buying a bunch of books about cats, but is nonetheless enjoying this New York Review of Books essay about said books, particularly the sentence: “Cats are not dogs, of course, any more than night is day or a martini is a glass of milk.”