WeedLife News Network

Oklahoma cannabis users are on pace to spend twice as much this year compared to 2019. As of June, Oklahomans spent more than $385 million this year on medical marijuana. That's nearly the entire amount spent during 12 months last year, according to an analysis of data from the Oklahoma Tax Commission. Much of that boost came during the early days

Ten years ago, when Bill Esbensen first began working with activists to push for some form of legal marijuana in Idaho, someone threatened to beat him up for it. He was at a Willie Nelson concert in Boise, trying to collect signatures to get an initiative to legalize marijuana on the ballot. As he remembered it, the man who wanted to attack him for

A new kind of vending machine is coming to Massachusetts — a self-checkout kiosk for cannabis dispensaries. Boston-based anna, which also has a presence in Colorado, announced this week that it would deploy its self-checkout products in two Colorado dispensaries this week. The company is expected to launch in Massachusetts in September, deploying 1

An Oregon hemp processor claims a Washington farm violated a contract by failing to deliver hemp of sufficient potency and quality to fully repay a loan. New Earth Biosciences, a processor in Salem, Ore., has filed a lawsuit seeking repayment of about $800,000 advanced to Terra Ridge Farms of Othello, Wash., for seeds, growing supplies and drying s

Hemp has thousands of uses including paper, textiles, building materials, food, cosmetics and more. One application that might not immediately come to mind is hemp’s usefulness in the manufacture of musical instruments. Entrepreneur Morris Beegle may be better known as the producer of the world’s largest hemp-centric conference and trade show, NoCo

The American Heart Association says marijuana should be removed from the USA’s Schedule I controlled substance category – but not to encourage wider use. Not all cannabis is equal in the eyes of the law in the USA. Hemp and marijuana are both cannabis, but are treated very differently. The 2018 Farm Bill removed hemp’s Drug Enforcement Administrati

One year after the Canadian government created a program to quickly and affordably clear cannabis possession charges from people’s criminal records, just 265 records have been cleared.  Applicants can have small cannabis possession charges suspended from their criminal record so a background check for a job or housing comes up clean.  The Liberal P

Quite a few adults in the United States have consumed marijuana in the past year. This is according to a new study published in the journal BMJ Open and epublished by the U.S. National Institute of Health. The study is titled Retrospective cross-sectional analysis of the changes in marijuana use in the USA, 2005-2018. According to the study, almost

As automation continues to change the way we get our cannabis, the future of this booming industry is growing even more exciting.  Due to COVID-19, social distancing is crucial. That’s why so many people prefer contactless options, particularly for items like groceries or take out. Why can’t we do the same with cannabis? Exciting new developments i

Consuming cannabis can provide numerous wellness benefits to consumers and patients as a growing body of peer-reviewed research demonstrates. Countless people around the world use cannabis for medical or recreational purposes, as people have done for many centuries. Cannabis has been found by at least one peer-reviewed study to be 114 times safer t

By the end of 2020, the legal cannabis industry is expected to surpass US$15 billion. But the money that weed generates on the illicit market far exceeds that amount. Tracking exact figures is tricky because anonymous dealers and criminal networks aren’t exactly sharing sales data with the media. But estimates approximate the illicit market is more

South Dakota has submitted its industrial hemp plan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval.  The plan lays out how the state will regulate industrial hemp, and South Dakota farmers will be able to begin growing industrial hemp once the USDA gives final approval.  The South Dakota Department of Agriculture will continue to develop its pr

Adults residing in states where retail marijuana sales are legally regulated tend to hold a positive impression of the marketplace, according to data published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. Investigators affiliated with the University of Waterloo, School of Public Health in Canada surveyed 5,530 respondents residing in Alaska, California, Col

June marks the first month in Colorado history that recreational marijuana shops sold more than $150 million worth of products as cannabis consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic continues to set industry records. Recreational marijuana consumers spent $158,102,628 at Colorado shops in June, according to data from the Department of Revenue’s Marij

There’s no rule that says legal markets have to be bigger or smaller than black markets. In life, legal markets and black markets form counterparts that can change and vary in size and growth. In the case of cannabis, the black market wins out easily, and for very good reason. Legal markets are your above-board markets. Products or services that ar

After nearly a year of next-to-no deal-making, cannabis companies are gearing up for mergers and acquisitions as realistic stock valuations and the prospect of U.S. legalization attract buyers to a sector that has been decimated by oversupply and other issues, executives and investors say. Profitable cannabis companies want to buy their way into ni

A U.S. senator has asked the Department of Agriculture to delay issuing final hemp rules under the 2018 Farm Bill until 2022, to delay costs associated with the new U.S. Domestic Hemp Production Program. New York Sen. Charles Schumer called for the delay in a letter to the USDA last week. If implementation of the new rules is postponed, hemp grower

One clear outcome of the coronavirus pandemic is explosive growth in cannabis sales in every major market around the country. Even in places like Illinois, which just started legal adult-use sales about two months before the coronavirus hit the United States, sales continue to make records. If 2020 is one of the worst years in recent history, peopl