WeedLife News Network

A new analysis of employee turnover in cannabis retail includes input from workers in Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

AM LLC (AM), a public health solutions and health IT firm, announced the launch of their new service line, AM Bioscience℠. Designed to help state and local governments achieve cannabis regulatory requirements and consumer health protection goals, AM Bioscience service offerings include laboratory testing, compliance and regulatory support, research development and peer review, market analysis, and social equity programming.

"AM remains committed to working with government agencies to safeguard public health as cannabis legalization continues to expand nationwide," said Dan Gabriel, CEO.

"AM Bioscience builds upon our network of talented researchers and top experts, enhancing AM's capabilities to help our clients navigate compliance complexities, ensure cannabis safety, and proactively protect the health of our communities."

While there are endless opportunities to license, tax, and regulate medical and adult-use cannabis, responsible regulatory strategy must ensure consumer safety through comprehensive quality assurance. Recognizing that successful implementation requires input from a wide range of specialties, AM assembled a multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts adept at addressing the intricacies of cannabis regulatory frameworks. With AM Bioscience, government agencies gain access to the full complement of cannabis regulatory services from some of the nation's top cannabis researchers, laboratory directors, policy analysts, and public health professionals.

The government is looking at legalizing industrial hemp production in Fiji by sourcing hemp seeds from Canada.

Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says industrial hemp is a lucrative and largely untapped resource in the global economy due to misconceptions about what it really is.

Sayed-Khaiyum says they will be engaging with the United Nations office on drugs and crime to arrange for the Fiji National University and its Agriculture School to grow these industrial hemp seeds, following which the seeds will be distributed to local farmers.

No, you can’t make up for your bad eating habits just by working out. Here’s what a new study says will actually work.

New research highlights a sad reality — no matter how much you work out or how healthy you eat, a longer life will only occur if you do both of these things together.

The large study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine and counters the popular belief that working out eliminates some of the risks of eating an unhealthy diet or that eating healthy things counteracts staying in bed all day.

Researchers had a lot of data at their disposal, allowing them to publish a study that was thorough and that shed some light on a lot of issues. The data belonged to UK Biobank and came from over 350,000 people with a median age of 57, who filled out questionnaires about their diets and habits. At the start of the study, participants were healthy.

The study made some expected discoveries, like learning that participants who eat healthily and work out often had a lower mortality risk. Still, results highlighted that a healthy diet and frequent exercise were important independently.

“Physical activity is important. And whatever your physical activity is, diet is important,” said Dr. Melody Ding, lead author of the study.

“We require many of the same types of machinery and outfitting — strong security systems, clean rooms, testing facilities, laboratories."

Vireo Health International, Inc. leased a former Pfizer site in Barceloneta, Puerto Rico to set up cannabis cultivation and processing operations several years back, seemingly one of the earlier weed companies to recognize it’s not always necessary to reinvent the wheel.

Per Fierce Pharma, a Pfizer spokesperson reported the company had earlier sold a site in Cruce Dávila to another company, while a Vireo Health official suggested pharma facilities are solid options for cannabis operations.

The new phase 2b trial expands on successful phase 2a findings, in which treatment with SCI-110 resulted in a 21% reduction in tics across a cohort of adults with Tourette syndrome.

SciSparc, a pharmaceutical company in development of central nervous system therapies, has begun the process of submitting an investigational new drug application (IND) for a phase 2b trial to evaluate their cannabis-derived agent SCI-110 in patients with Tourette Syndrome (TS). As part of the submission, the company is looking to expand the trial and include a site in the US.

The newly announced phase 2b trial stems from results of a previously conducted phase 2a trial, which showed that treatment using SCI-110 led to a 21% reduction of tic symptoms across a sample of patients with medically refractory TS. Additionally, the agent was proven to be safe, with no concerning AEs, and improved patients’ tic symptoms over time on the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale.

The news stems weeks after the company announced that it successfully completed the development of the formulation to be used in the multinational phase 2b study,2 along with news from January 2022 that they entered agreements to test the drug at 2 clinical trial sites in Hannover, Germany, and Tel-Aviv, Israel.3 SCI-110, currently in development for other indications, such as obstructive sleep apnea and Alzheimer disease (AD) agitation, contains a combination of dronabinol, an FDA-approved synthetic form of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), with endocannabinoid palmitoylethanolamide (PEA).

The new multinational, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial will evaluate the safety, efficacy, and tolerability of the agent in a cohort of adults aged 18 to 65 years with TS. Patients will be randomly assigned 1:1 to either study drug or placebo and evaluated on tic severity change at end points of week 12 and week 26 using commonly frequented measures. Additionally, the primary safety objective of the trial will be to assess absolute and relative frequencies of serious adverse events (AEs) for the entire population and separately for the SCI-110 and placebo groups.

"We are very excited about expanding our clinical sites to the US, especially after positive results obtained in a clinical trial led by professor Bloch MD, MS, an associate Professor in the Child Trial Center at Yale University, using our proprietary drug candidate," Adi Zuloff-Shani, chief technologies officer, SciSparc, said in a statement.

In the latest Headset report, budtender employees data exhibits the trends of new hires versus employees who work at a single location for more than 12 months.

The cannabis data collection company Headset released its latest report on July 13, which covers budtender/employee turnover rates in cannabis dispensaries.

Headset calls cannabis budtenders the “heart and soul of the industry,” because they are essentially ambassadors for the plant and the industry.

“Because of their extreme importance, budtender hiring, onboarding, and management is one of the most crucial tasks in any cannabis retail operation,” Headset writes in its introduction.

Unconfirmed reports on social media indicated the Grammy winner had been arrested at a Stockholm nightclub.

Rumours that surfaced on social media earlier this week that Drake had been arrested in Sweden on cannabis charges are false, according to Hollywood Reporter.

Members of the Canadian rapper’s team confirmed to the publication that Drake was in his hotel in Stockholm and had not been arrested.

Previous unconfirmed reports indicated the Grammy winner had been arrested at a local nightclub on cannabis charges. Following that speculation, #FreeDrake began to trend on Twitter, according to XXL.

Drake, who released his seventh studio album last month, arrived in the county earlier this week.

Cannabis remains illegal in Sweden for recreational purposes. The penalties for drug offences in the country depend on factors such as the amount of the substance and its perceived dangerousness, according to a report from the Nordic Welfare Centre.

The New York Police Department announced on Wednesday that it would continue drug testing officers for weed only hours after a memo issued earlier in the day said that most screenings for pot would end.

A New York Police Department memo made public on Wednesday advised officers that they would no longer face drug tests for cannabis, although the department quickly reversed course and announced that screenings for weed would continue while the policy is reviewed.

“The New York City Law Department has directed the NYPD to cease all random, scheduled and pre-employment testing for marijuana,” an NYPD spokeswoman said early Wednesday.

“The Department will continue to administer marijuana screenings to personnel when there is indications of impairment and is reviewing its current policies in light of this directive.”

The memo from the Law Department, which was dated July 11, said that such screenings for marijuana are inconsistent with last year’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, which bans repercussions on employees for off-duty recreational cannabis use. After receiving the directive from the city’s Law Department, the NYPD Commissioner for Legal Matters sent a memo to department heads to notify them of the policy change.

“The rationale behind this determination is that there is no test for marijuana that conclusively determines current intoxication, making it impossible to determine by drug test alone whether an employee has tested positive for marijuana because of improper use on the job or use during statutorily protected off-hours use,” reads NYPD the memo.

In recent years, France has come closer to ending its national prohibition of cannabis, which has been in place since 1970.

The rise of “CBD cafés,” the growing public calls for an end to drug prohibition and an ongoing medical marijuana pilot program signal that, in the near future, France – the European Union’s leading cannabis-consuming member state – may legalize cannabis.

But as a scholar of the centuries-old links between cannabis and colonialism, I know that the movement to legalize the drug has largely ignored the groups most impacted by France’s historical war on drugs, which, as in the U.S., has disproportionately targeted ethnic and religious minorities.

France’s hidden war on drugs

Evidence suggests that cannabis prohibition over the past 50 years has disproportionately punished France’s Muslim minority.

About one-fifth of current French prisoners were convicted for drug offenses, according to the French Ministry of Justice – a rate comparable to that of the United States. Nearly all of them are men.

There is no demographic breakdown of this population, because the French credo of “absolute equality” among citizens has made it illegal since 1978 to collect statistics based on race, ethnicity or religion. But sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, who studies France’s prison system, has found that roughly half of the 69,000 people incarcerated today in France are Muslims of Arab descent.

Re+Play products, created in partnership with Toronto-based company Avicanna, will also be sold at Walmart and Amazon.

The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) has announced a multi-year partnership with Re+Play, the performance-based wellness and recovery line founded by former player Al Harrington.

The deal makes Re+Play an official partner of the NBPA, alongside strategic partners Walmart and Amazon.

The first product release is scheduled to be a line of recovery creams, developed in partnership with the Toronto-based biopharma company, Avicanna.

A study on the effectiveness of CBD as a potential pain reliever has gotten the attention of former President Bill Clinton.

The clinical trial, conducted by researchers at the NYU Langone Health and Baptist Health/Jacksonville Orthopaedic Institute, found that an orally absorbed tablet containing cannabidiol (CBD) “safely managed pain after minimally invasive rotator cuff surgery, and did not produce side effects sometimes associated with CBD use, such as nausea, anxiety, and liver toxicity.”

Researchers randomly sorted 99 participants across the two study sites, NYU Langone and Baptist Health in Jacksonville, “between the ages of 18 and 75 into a placebo group and a group receiving oral-absorbed CBD,” who were “prescribed a low dose of Percocet, instructed to wean off the narcotic as soon as possible, and to take the placebo/CBD 3 times a day for 14 days after the surgery.”

“On the first day after surgery, patients receiving CBD experienced on average 23 percent less pain as measured by the visual analog scale (VAS) pain score compared to patients receiving the placebo, highlighting that in patients with moderate pain, CBD may render a significant benefit,” the researchers wrote in their analysis.

“On both the first and second days after surgery, patients receiving CBD reported 22 to 25 percent greater satisfaction with pain control compared to those receiving placebo. Further analysis also showed that patients receiving 50 mg of CBD reported lower pain and higher satisfaction with pain control compared to patients receiving placebo. No major side effects were reported.”

The results of the study were presented in March at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) 2022 Annual Meeting in Chicago.

The Colorado grant program is designed “to save small businesses money, foster equity and diversity in the cannabis industry, and create good-paying jobs for Coloradans.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis last week announced the first businesses to receive funding through the state’s Cannabis Business Pilot Grant.

A total of 16 aspiring cannabis retailers received the grants through a program that seeks “to save small businesses money, foster equity and diversity in the cannabis industry, and create good-paying jobs for Coloradans.”

It is likely that many more laws will be implemented before cannabis lounges take off in a major way in other states.

There is something special about a lounge experience. An intentionally designed atmosphere for strangers to meet in order to enjoy ambience and interaction is something most of us took for granted before quarantine hit. The world is back open and so are your favorite bars and cafes. In fact, there might even be a cannabis-infused meeting place coming to a community near you.

As we previously reported, the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board recently approved a measure that will allow cannabis consumption in lounges. While Alaska was the first state to approve cannabis lounges, Nevada, and specifically Las Vegas, along with some California cities, seem to have big and immediate plans for this new frontier. It is almost as if cannabis entrepreneurs are looking to take the buzz and nostalgia of Amsterdam’s weed cafes and explode them into modern American times. 

This effort may prove to be a huge new growth market, and even a shift in how Americans view and consume their weed. While this is all exciting news, there are a lot of unanswered questions about how to run and regulate a marijuana consumption lounge. If this is the future of marijuana, how will states safely take this concept to the mainstream?

Marijuana lounges are a relatively new idea in the US in the scheme of things. For context, Colorado legalized marijuana in 2012, and Alaska legalized consumption lounges in 2019. But as more states legalize marijuana and are hungry for a piece of this new enterprise after lockdown, there is a growing interest in cannabis lounges.

“The politics of pot lounges are changing along with shifting social mores around the substance,” wrote Politico, which interviewed Larry Scheffler, the co-CEO of a proposed cannabis lounge in Las Vegas. And this isn’t the boutique corner cafe you might think of when you think of a weed lounge, unless you are picturing a space fit with a giant 5-inch-deep splashing pool.

Last week, a group of six U.S. senators urged the Biden administration to use its position and remove cannabis from the list of Schedule 1 substances under federal law. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ron Wyden (D-ORE), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Edward J.Markey (D-MA) sent the urging letter on Wednesday, asking the administration to “use its existing authority to (i) deschedule cannabis and (ii) issue pardons to all individuals convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related offenses.” (Benzinga)

U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MIN) and Tina Smith (D-Min), while not being a part of this group that signed and sent the letter to President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said they are also backing recreational marijuana legalization and commuting sentences of non-violent offenders, reported Minnesota Reformer.

 “I support the legalization of marijuana on the federal level and believe that states should have the right to determine the best approach to marijuana within their borders. We must also take steps to expunge prior non-violent convictions,” Klobuchar stated.

Klobuchar previously ran for president in 2020, and prior to serving the Senate, she was Hennepin County attorney for two terms, in charge of the state’s biggest team of prosecuting lawyers.

Smith seems to be on the same page with all these politicians fighting for the same cause – legalizing the plant. Her spokeswoman, Lexi Byler, stated, “Sen. Smith believes that marijuana should be legalized, and that cannabis should be removed from the nation’s list of illegal controlled substances. She also supports expunging non-violent marijuana convictions.

The company holds A$6 million of cash that will allow it to continue to diversify away from the underperforming cannabis sector.

Hygrovest Ltd (ASX:HGV) achieved some of its goals to diversify its investment portfolio, reduce its exposure to the cannabis sector and ultimately, reduce the difference between the share price and NAV, during the financial year ended June 30, 2022.

Some of HGV’s activities during the year included:

Within a minute of one another are two Cincinnati medical marijuana dispensaries — Sunnyside (formerly Verdant Creations) at 5149 Kennedy Avenue, and Verilife, at 5431 Ridge.

When interviewed in 2019 by WVXU, Verilife customers had high hopes prices would come down since an increasing number of dispensaries were popping up in Southwest Ohio.

It’s unclear if they’ve seen much of a decrease in price, and plenty of people are still driving to surrounding states where it’s cheaper. But that might be changing.

The city of Monroe will have four dispensaries after recently being awarded three more provisional licenses.

The Journal News reports two of the provisional licenses in Monroe were granted to Shangri-La Dispensary Ohio and one to Deaver Ohio.

Strawberry Fields opened in the fall of 2019 in Monroe. It’s now called Columbia Care.

Further testing on pesticides used to cultivate marijuana is one way to ensure all the consumers are safe from harmful chemicals.

As Rhode Island gears up for its recreational sales debut this December, it now requires all of its cannabis pass pesticide testing. This process is common, as nearly all legal states have some form of pesticide testing in place. With cannabis being illegal on a federal level, however, one is left to question exactly how rigorous this testing is.

In fact, since marijuana is not technically a food product or controlled at all by any federal body, one has to wonder exactly what type of pesticides we might be consuming with our recreational, and even medical marijuana. The answer, just like with marijuana policy in general, is that it varies significantly from state to state.

Arizona is a good example of how some states are handling pesticide oversight. The state of Arizona determined that testing for pesticides in marijuana was essential before it is placed on shelves, “but unlike other states, regulators here don’t do their own testing to ensure they are safe,” wrote AZ Central. The state has a third party test its marijuana, which puts full faith in this outside company to provide accurate and reliable information. This is not an uncommon practice since marijuana policy is still enjoying its “Wild West” phase in many newly-legal states.

The fact is, pesticide testing varies significantly from state to state. In a2021 study, “six states imposed the strictest U.S. EPA tolerances (i.e. maximum residue levels) for food commodities on up to 400 pesticidal active ingredients in cannabis, while pesticide testing was optional in three states.” The study found that the action levels of regulated pesticides were very different depending on what jurisdiction it came from. 

The main reason for this inconsistency is due to the fact that the main agency that regulates and monitors pesticide use in the US is currently not at all involved in regulating marijuana pesticides. According to the EPA, they have not registered any pesticides for marijuana. This is because as a federal organization they cannot make policy for a substance that is deemed a Schedule 1 drug. Instead, the responsibility and authority is left to the states that have legalized marijuana.

Do you want to have better sex with cannabis? Join the Smoke and Poke dating site to know more and get connected.

People love to discuss cannabis and sex, and that’s where Smoke and Poke comes in.

Cannabis used during sex is often thought of as an aphrodisiac. There is evidence to suggest that it can have positive effects on sexual intimacy.

Usually, many people report feeling more relaxed and sensual after using cannabis, which can lead to improved sexual experiences. There is also additional scientific evidence to back up these claims. A study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that nearly 65% of men who used cannabis before sex reported improved erectile function. Another study found that women who used cannabis before sex were likely to reach a more satisfying climax than those who didn’t use the drug. 

A dating platform for cannabis lovers

Do you ever smoke and get aroused? Sitting at home stoned af wondering if there is someone else nearby feeling the same way? With smokeandpoke. com, you can finally find locals in your area that feel the same way you do. Try live video chat with people to make sure they are who they say they are; or you can trade pics, if you are too stoned to talk.

You can always browse the online profiles and email people you may want to meet, and/or smoke with later. If you have ever been interested in cannabis and sex, you should consider joining smokeandpoke. com. Smoke and poke offers a safe and welcoming environment for singles and couples to meet and connect.