WeedLife News Network

Prohibiting marijuana hurts the legitimacy and credibility of the criminal justice system. Such prohibitions are undemocratic, racially discriminative, costly, ineffective and a blatant waste of resources.

Cannabis users and enthusiasts always want to focus solely on the medicinal and recreational benefits of the plant, which is excellent, but there is more to understand about marijuana.

For example, you cannot separate marijuana usage from the policy-making process, including legalization and the criminal justice system. These governmental aspects are fundamental because they affect how we all use cannabis.

Photo by Esther Kelleter/Getty Images

If the government in your state is hostile towards cannabis use by setting up policies limiting your access to this super plant, you will feel frustrated. So always pay close attention to what goes on in the legislative and governmental sectors regarding cannabis.

Three bills revising marijuana laws passed their final reading in the Montana House Thursday afternoon.

House Bills 701, 707 and 670 are all measures generally revising laws relating to the taxation and regulation of recreational and medical marijuana.

HB 701 would give licensing, cultivation and sales authority of medical marijuana to the Department of Revenue, as well as create separate license categories for cultivation, manufacturing, dispensing and transporting marijuana.

HB 707 would provide taxation for marijuana at the wholesale level and create wholesale licenses.

HB 670 would create a marijuana revenue trust fund, increase the medical marijuana tax rate to 5% and decrease the adult-use marijuana tax rate to 15%, among other things.

When Nevadans buy marijuana at local dispensaries, it must be consumed at home.

Tourists are not allowed to do it in public, most hotels ban it, and it can’t be used in the dispensary where it is purchased.

Social use legislation would change that and create two new categories for cannabis consumption lounges: retail (attached to existing dispensaries) or independent

Existing retailers could let people buy their products and consume them on-site. Independent lounges, places not permitted to sell cannabis on their own like barber shops or nail salons, could have marijuana products delivered or people could bring it in on their own.

Oasis Cannabis Dispensary, near downtown Las Vegas sees on average about a thousand customers per day.

Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifted the ban on growing industrial hemp in 2018, companies developing sustainable products can look forward to a future supply of hemp fiber and oil. The plant material works in numerous industrial applications, including paper making, textiles, bioplastic packaging, flooring, and even a form of concrete.

Long History Of Usefulness

Hemp is the non-intoxicating variety of the cannabis or marijuana plant. For thousands of years, human civilizations have cultivated hemp for fiber. Historians have evidence that people grew hemp in 8,000 B.C. It was also a common crop in Colonial America. As recently as the 1930s, the state of Kansas was one of the biggest hemp producers in the world.

The CBD market has always been a tough place to succeed. And companies experienced yet more hurdles in 2020, as a pandemic and an assortment of lawsuits gripped the industry.

In the face of such strong headwinds, it seems like it’ll also be hard for CBD businesses to grow in 2021. But it won’t be impossible. Despite obvious difficulties, the industry still provides opportunities for well-run companies to establish themselves and prosper.

There are several strategies companies can employ to develop a successful brand in this ever-changing market. But before discussing them, it’s important to understand the challenges that CBD entrepreneurs face.

More women are buying cannabis, which could lead to shifts in product demand. Women still make up a minority of adult-use marijuana purchasers – 33.6 percent in February – but that’s increased almost a full percentage point from 2020. While that trend might not be a dramatic shift in the gender makeup of retail marijuana sales, it could have a lasting effect because men and women shop differently for cannabis products.

For example, female buyers are more likely to purchase products other than flower when compared to their male counterparts. Both men and women spend the most on flower, but women spend less on it, according to analysis of wallet share (the percentage of a customer’s spend on specific categories) from February 2021.

The demographic information, including age and gender, was self-reported by participants in customer-loyalty programs and collected by Seattle-based cannabis analytics firm Headset. The biggest gap was in California, where women spend $36.30 of every $100 on flower compared with $43.90 spent by men, an almost $8 difference.

Other states saw a similar breakdown in flower spending:

Women most likely spend the difference on non-flower products such as edibles, where they outspent men in each state analyzed:

Chronic pain patients who used cannabis saw sustained improvement in their condition over time, according to the results of a recently released study. An abstract of the research, “No pain, all gain? Interim analyses from a longitudinal, observational study examining the impact of medical cannabis treatment on chronic pain and related symptoms,” was posted online last month prior to publication by the journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology.

To complete the study, researchers working with the Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Boston evaluated the use of medical cannabis (MC) by chronic pain patients, most of whom had either musculoskeletal pain or neuropathy. Patients were evaluated for factors including pain, clinical state, sleep, quality of life, and conventional medication use before the onset of treatment, as well as after three and six months of using medical cannabis. The data revealed a sustained improvement in the participants’ symptoms.

“Relative to baseline, following 3 and 6 months of treatment, MC patients exhibited improvements in pain which were accompanied by improved sleep, mood, anxiety, and quality of life, and stable conventional medication use,” the researchers wrote. “Reduced pain was associated with improvements in aspects of mood and anxiety.”

Different Effects Noted For THC, CBD

The research also revealed potential differences in the effects of increased exposure to the cannabinoids THC and CBD on different symptoms experienced by the participants, writing that “findings highlight the potential efficacy of MC treatment for pain and underscore the unique impact of individual cannabinoids on specific aspects of pain and comorbid symptoms.”

An Irish start-up has just raised $5.3 million (€4.5 million) in financing to provide loans to farmers in Ireland and across the world to encourage them to grow hemp for use in cannabidiol (CBD) products.

Co Meath-based Greenheart CBD, which was founded by Paul Walsh and Mark Canavan two years ago, uses drones and artificial intelligence to help maximise crop cultivation by continually monitoring plant health.

For many, the jolt of caffeine and the mellowing effects of cannabis make a perfect combination. When the two meet in the body and mind, they can amplify one another, but research is limited as to how they interact on a chemical level.

Scientific studies on what happens when your morning joe meets your morning joint are scattershot and inconclusive, but they provide a rough map of what to expect of this mental terrain. But culturally, caffeine and cannabis seem like natural bedfellows, with everyone’s favorite (legal) upper most likely to be paired with cannabis from a retail perspective.

Murky Conclusions

For starters, we know caffeine operates in the endocannabinoid system – the same brain region that makes weed do its thing. Both substances have been shown to cause an uptick in dopamine activity, and some report that the kick from caffeine creates a brighter, more euphoric cannabis high.

In many ways, however, the two seem to be awkward dance partners, canceling out certain effects and amplifying others.  Caffeine can have an anxiety-producing effect, while THC can make one mellower in low doses and freaked out at high doses (CBD seems to generally have a calming effect at any dosage). It’s possible for coffee jitters to add to cannabis shakes, paranoia or couchlock for an unpleasant cocktail. But it’s also easy to find individual reports of just the opposite effect, with the two mixing for a relaxed yet upbeat feeling. As always, it is advisable to take it slow when trying new combinations and pay attention to one’s own body.

Though coffee has been shown to enhance one’s cognitive powers, combined with weed, the overall effect may actually be the reverse from coffee alone: Some studies suggest that coffee and cannabis combine to inhibit memory. Others have shown that caffeine can partially protect against the forgetfulness associated with high doses of CBD.

As many states are doing, New York fully embraced the concept of social and economic equity by setting a target goal of 50% of licenses issued to social and economic equity applicants.

After years of fits and starts, New York finally legalized adult-use cannabis and expanded its previously restrictive medical cannabis program. As the nation’s third largest economy and fourth most populous state, New York has the opportunity to set the gold standard for state cannabis industries.

New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (“MRTA”) establishes industry governing bodies — the Cannabis Control Board (“CCB”) and the Office of Cannabis Management (“OCM”), creates license types across the commercial cannabis activity spectrum, sets up a social and economic equity plan, and allocates a significant portion of tax revenue from cannabis sales to social and economic equity programs.

An important political catalyst for the New York legislature’s passage of the MRTA was the expectation that tax revenue generated from cannabis sales will reduce the state’s significant budget deficit and repair of some of the economic damage caused by COVID. Another political objective was correcting social and economic injustices caused by decades of inequitable enforcement of marijuana laws.

Commercially, the MRTA aims to prevent anti-competitive behavior among licensees, creating adult-use licenses for cultivators, processors, cooperatives, distributors, retail dispensaries, microbusinesses, deliveries, cultivation nurseries, and on-site consumption. Industry rules and regulations will be created and implemented by the CCB and OCM, including those related to the number of licenses issued per license type and by geographic area.

Cash-strapped governments around the country have found a silver lining in the pandemic-caused loss of tax revenue. Legalized marijuana has provided millions to state and local governments - in some cases, millions more than anticipated.

The ability to raise tax dollars has been a selling point for marijuana legalization from the beginning. Long before the state legislature approved adult-use sales, Illinois politicians hoped marijuana could help the state pay off some of its massive debt. Other states, such as Colorado, have used sales tax dollars to fund schools and public improvement projects and programs.

The cannabis plant is one of the oldest medicines on earth, with humans having used it for medical purposes for thousands of years.

It wasn’t until the better part of a hundred years ago that medical cannabis became prohibited on a global scale.

Cannabis is medicine, as proven by tens of thousands of peer-reviewed studies and countless personal experiences of patients that have successfully treated their condition(s) with cannabis.

Fortunately, more countries have legalized cannabis for medical use than ever before in the post-prohibition era, including in the United Kingdom.

Limited Program

As of November 1, 2018 the United Kingdom has allowed ‘expert doctors’ to prescribe the use of medical cannabis products to patients they feel would benefit from it.

Cannabis companies haven't made many deals outside of its own industry, but a couple of the more notable ones have involved tobacco. Altria (NYSE:MO) invested $1.8 billion into Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) back in 2018 to take a 45% stake in its business. And last month, British American Tobacco (NYSE:BTI) invested roughly $176 million in OrganiGram Holdings (NASDAQ:OGI), which represents a 20% stake in the cannabis company.

Not only is the cannabis industry moving further into the mainstream as more states legalize marijuana, but there's also a growing pressure on the tobacco industry to diversify its offerings. And a new projection could put pressure on tobacco companies to act sooner rather than later.

Could all the smokers disappear?

According to analysts at Jefferies, conventional smokers could be gone from many markets around the world within just two decades. This isn't because smokers won't still demand the products, but instead that countries are trying to move away from smoking and tobacco companies by offering reduced-risk products (RRPs). Analysts point to vaping and oral nicotine as alternatives that smokers may end up turning to. 

Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM) sells IQOS, an electronic cigarette that heats tobacco rather than burns it. However, it still has a long way to go in proving it can be a meaningful alternative for smokers. One quarter of the $28.7 billion in net sales that Philip Morris generated last year was related to RRPs. And of that total, IQOS accounted for just 7%. Switching to other products likely isn't all about safety, either, as tobacco companies also need to find more avenues to grow. Philip Morris' 2020 revenue was down from 2019's tally of $29.8 billion, and its top line is nearly unchanged from what it was in 2017. British American Tobacco's sales also declined in 2020 and over two years are up just over 5%.

Why cannabis may be the ideal option for tobacco

A big reason why industries are hesitant to get involved with cannabis is that it's risky. Federal prohibition means that products can't be transported into the U.S. from abroad or across state lines, and some businesses aren't willing to risk damaging their wholesome images. That's what Berkshire Hathaway executive Charlie Munger pointed to in a 2019 interview, saying it would be a mistake if soft drink giant Coca-Cola were to ever attempt to mix marijuana with its products.

The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) has published a lexicon to support the standardization of terminology used in the hemp industry.

As new industries develop, so does associated language and jargon. Sometimes words and terms used have different meaning when applied in other sectors, which can lead to confusion and mistakes being made.

Developed by a working group of the AHPA Cannabis Committee, the lexicon seeks to cover terms used in the cultivation, processing, manufacturing and labeling of hemp, and products derived from it.

If Washington wants to be as competitive as possible, it has to drop the cottage cloak around ownership at some point — and eliminating it for financiers just isn’t enough.

I absolutely loved Washington State when I lived there. I lived in Seattle for seven years and was one of the first attorneys in the state to take on medical cannabis business clients in 2010 and then again with adult use clients in 2012 when I-502 passed. Our law firm is a pioneer in the cannabis space, but particularly in Washington State where our cannabis practice first began many years ago.

I also think Washington has a top notch cannabis program when it comes to its regulations. They are clear and comprehensive, setting up licensees for success as industry understands what it is getting most of the time from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (“LCB“). Of course, there are ambiguities with Washington’s administrative code and cannabis (like with all states), and there always will be because different licensing analysts will give competing interpretations of the law and rules on everything from label review submissions to analyses of true parties of interest. I certainly don’t agree with every LCB rule on the books, but I respect the heck out of Washington for the cannabis program it created and has maintained over the years.

Photo by Flickr user Tanya

All of the foregoing is why I was incredibly excited and honored to testify at a Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee Legislative Work Session on March 26. You can watch the entire hearing here. I moved to Los Angeles in 2017 and have really focused on California’s cannabis scene for a while now, but I keep up with Washington’s cannabis marketplace and our firm continues to maintain its cannabis practice out of Seattle.

Hemp cultivated for seed and grain comprised approximately ten percent of 2020 total U.S. acreage, approximately 14,000 acres, according to data provided by Hemp Benchmarks.

By comparison, Canadian cultivators grew more than five times that acreage, beyond 75,000 acres, the vast majority of which were exported to the United States.

The cannabis industry has seen some players make big bets on beverages, but so far it hasn’t paid off. The market is definitely growing, just not at the rate many had hoped for. Plus, the slow growth of this form factor is not an indication that it won’t continue to increase and eventually gain even more market share. Cannabis tracking firm  Headset recently released a report on the cannabis beverage industry and found that in the US, “The beverage category’s market share has held fairly steady between 0.85 percent and 1.1 percent over the last several years. In fact, market share to the category was slowly decreasing through late 2019 and early 2020 before maintaining just below 0.9% during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Despite the consumers tapping the brakes on beverages, the category has begun a turnaround and Headset believes the products are poised to reach an all-time high as pandemic restrictions ease. The report also noticed that consumers are at least giving the products a try as basket data is showing more people are tossing some beverages in the bag. The report said, “We can see a relatively steady march upwards over time rising from 1.6 percent in January 2018 to 2.8 percent in February 2021. Even though market share hasn’t drastically increased, Beverages are making their way into more and more baskets each month, indicating that more customers than ever are trying THC-infused Beverages.” Only a little over 20 percent of the shopping carts are filled with only cannabis beverages, meaning the other almost 80 percent are adding beverages to a larger order. By contrast, a third of edible consumers are buying just edibles when they go to the dispensaries. 

It’s A Girl Thing 

What has been learned is that women are the big buyers of cannabis beverages. In every single age category, women outspent men when buying cannabis-infused beverages. So, hands down, the main consumer for cannabis-infused beverages are women.

Where things get even more interesting in the report is when Headset dives into dosage. The two main categories for purchases are on either side of the spectrum – either low like a microdose or very high for maximum effect. The report stated, “In fact, most of the growth in the 10mg or lighter section over the last few years has come from the 0-5mg ‘microdosed’ cohort of Beverages, which has risen from 14.4 percent category share to more than 18 percent of sales this year to date.” For example, so far in 2021 beverages with over 100mg accounted for 59.8 percent of the market share, while products with less than 5mg were the second-largest category with a 19.5 percent market share. 

California Drinking

The report stated that “California Beverage sales in January 2021 clocked in at $15.5M, nearly six times greater than the $2.7M recorded during January 2018, the first month of recreational sales.” Also, since the competition is heating up and there are more beverages to choose from, the top three selling in 2018 brands have seen their market share decline. The data showed that some brands, like Kikoko and Cannabis Quencher have held firm in the market even though new brands have entered the space. “Legal Beverages, on the other hand, was unable to keep up, falling from the third top selling Beverage brand in 2018 to a market exit in 2020.”