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It’s easy to sit back in seclusion and complain about what a difficult year 2020 has been. Yes, we have all encountered great tribulations and changes we never expected. But as an old hippy, I highly recommend you get comfortable, smoke a fatty, go with the flow and consider the benefits of living during a pandemic. There is always a silver lining, if you just take the time to look.

Of course, in the world of cannabis, the number one reward for Californians was issued last March when Governor Newsom announced that all licensed marijuana businesses in California could continue with business as usual during the imposed lockdowns, deeming it an “essential” business. Wow – from illegal to essential, thanks to COVID-19. Cannabis sales sky rocketed, although now they are primarily executed by delivery services or curbside pickup services at dispensaries. More time at home equals more time to get high.

Thinking Outside the Bowl

During these singular times, many people experiencing loneliness have undoubtedly turned to cannabis as a companion to heighten creativity and elevate their mood. While the old-fashioned art of sharing a joint may be gone forever, here at the Swami Select farm, we have been learning how to smoke out of our own bowls or personal paraphernalia. We’ve even had Zoom calls where we pretend to pass the doobie. And the cool thing is, we can do this with friends all across the globe! Having a big imagination helps a whole lot during lockdown.

It’s funny how quickly a word can become so ubiquitous. Take “Zoom” for example. It’s a noun (“Are you on Zoom?”); a verb (“Let’s Zoom”); and even an adjective (“She has Zoom burnout”). We found that Zooming is a great way to have a seshin’ with your friends, share stories and music, and even check out cannabis together. 

While the traditional December Emerald Cup is cancelled for the first time in 17 years, we do still plan to hold the contest virtually in March. Judging will happen with the help of some sort of Zoom arrangement. It’s simply the time to think outside the bowl.

Rocky Mountain Extraction Services (RMES) has come a long way since incorporating 18 months ago.

The 2018 Hemp Farming Act was the catalyst, although opening their doors wasn’t quite so simple.

“Originally, we felt like [the Hemp Farming Act] was a green light,” says CTO Jerry Van Sickle. “What we found was that it was more of a yellow light.”

Because of hemp’s association with recreational marijuana, Van Sickle and CEO Scott McWhorter discovered challenges in commercial property leasing and banking for RMES — even though they were specializing in manufacturing organically-sourced CBD extracts and distillates rather than THC.

The pandemic — and the pain that has come along with it for millions of families, small businesses, and bars and restaurants — didn't slow the stock market in 2020.

Sure, it did take a toll on the shares of some Columbus companies, but shares of other companies flourished last year as consumers began working from home and stocked up on groceries and sanitizer rather than going out to eat.

 "It's the craziest year," said Greg McBride, Bankrate.com's chief financial analyst.

COVID-19 has devastated large swaths of the economy — travel, lodging, small storefronts, spectator sports, entertainment, among them — while other parts of the economy are going gangbusters, including companies in technology and health care, said Chip Elliott, senior editor of Columbus-based investment newsletter Market Witch.

"About half the U.S. is ... unemployed, facing poverty, hunger and eviction, and about half is doing very well, adapting into a New Era, with plenty of discretionary income," he said. "I don't ever remember anything like this."

Bill Cobb uses medical marijuana to treat PTSD and chronic back pain.

“I’m a 50-year-old Black man who’s been a civil rights worker,” said Cobb, now a criminal justice activist in Philadelphia. “I smoke to have my brain slow down. But to be honest, I also smoke because I enjoy it.”

Alleviating his physical and mental pain is difficult when he feels another sting: His doctor-recommended medicine is not covered by insurance. He pays out of pocket — as much as $120 a week.

“It’s way too expensive,” Mr. Cobb said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Other marijuana users in Pennsylvania agree.

America will need to be super stoned to survive the gorilla cage that it may get stuffed inside next year. It’s not that we’re trying to be pessimistic, but there is little doubt that the population can withstand another year of lockdowns and stimulus living.

If there is one thing we’ve learned over the past several long, excruciating months, it’s that humanity doesn’t do well with handling apocalyptic turns. Not unless it can, on occasion, they jump through an escape hatch in the brain that lets them forget that they’re just weeks away from moving into a cardboard box. It’s the reason that cannabis dispensaries continue to make money hand over fist while the rest of the country tries to figure out how in the hell to live on $1.64 per day. Some argue that weed is how we fix a three-legged economy and keep on kicking through the downtrodden like a well-endowed mule. But it’s going to have to go legal at the federal level first.

It might sound like a bit of a pipe dream to think that the federal government is just all of a sudden going to legalize marijuana in the United States and end its more than eight-decade-long reign of terror against the stoner class. But there’s a decent chance legal weed could finally get some much-needed consideration next year.

Strangely, that all depends on the outcome of Georgia’s runoff election scheduled for next week. So get those bets in while you still can.

This is one race that you won’t want to miss.

When investors talk about cannabis stocks, Canadian players Aurora Cannabis (NYSE:ACB) and Canopy Growth (NASDAQ:CGC) come to mind. But in 2020, U.S. cannabis companies not only proved their potential, but outperformed their Canadian counterparts. Two such companies are Illinois-based Green Thumb Industries (OTC:GTBIF) and Florida-based Trulieve Cannabis (OTC:TCNNF).

Patients in Ohio’s medical marijuana program say the information they find on legal marijuana dispensaries, cannabis products and prices come not from the state government or marijuana industry, but from a series of third-party websites run mostly by out-of-state companies.

Sites such as WeedMaps, Leafly and IHeartJane boast directories of places to buy medicinal cannabis. They aren’t all the same; Leafly, for example, offers reviews of specific products and strains of marijuana. IHeartJane lets users search for reviews of specific brands and patients can filter dispensaries to find those owned by veterans or members of minority groups. But all of the sites provide a clearinghouse for information on marijuana products.

The cannabis-focused media site OhioCannabis.com includes a list of Ohio dispensaries along with news and other information about the industry. The site also includes a directory of doctors who write marijuana recommendations and a ratings system for dispensaries.

“That's what I've done since the beginning is be a resource for patients,” OhioCannabis.com founder Johnny Lutz said.

The sites “serve a purpose since dispensary menus often do not provide details like THC/CBD content,” Mary Jane Borden, co-founder of the cannabis advocacy organization Ohio Rights Group, said in an email.

Marijuana is now legal in more states than ever before, with medical marijuana proving an essential tool to relieve symptoms caused by chemotherapy and AIDS, or for those in chronic pain. Others just use it to relax, especially during stressful times (like the ones we're going through now). But it's important to note that smoking marijuana doesn't come without risks, particularly if you do it every day. Here is what could possibly happen, so you can be aware of the risks as well as the rewards. Read on—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had Coronavirus. 

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Daily marijuana use can lead to "feelings of fatigue or apathy; feelings of anxiety, paranoia, or panic; temporary hallucinations," says Dr. Jenna Liphart Rhoads. As well as, "trouble taking care of oneself and lack of hygiene practices; disconnecting from activities or people they once enjoyed; impaired memory and confusion."

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Drug development today is a long, arduous and expensive proposition. Since the first half of the 20th century, the standard of care in medicine and the pharmaceutical industry[1] [2] is developing medications using nationally standardized protocols for medication safety and efficacy along with precision dosing for any new drug. Formulation development of drugs is key to ensure standardized quality, control over precision dosing, safety, accurate quantities delivered as well as the delivery to the correct site of action.

Using botanically derived medicines with their high degree of variability is why most drugs today, despite them being derived originally from compounding natural substances from plants, are now chemically synthetic versions made in laboratories. For example, the drug digitalis (or digoxin) which was originally derived from the foxglove plant[3] is now synthetically made. Cannabis, like many botanicals presents challenges to drug development and formulation. One of the biggest challenges is the ability to fully demonstrate and prove consistency in its chemical composition due in part to its complexity.

Cannabis is composed of over 100 cannabinoids and about 500 other compounds such as terpenes and flavonoids. Additionally, there are over 550 different strains/chemovars of the plant all with differing ratios and combinations of these cannabinoids such as THC and CBD and compounds such terpenes.[4]  And efficacy for one chemovar does not establish efficacy for another due to the interaction of the varied and different ratios of components in each.[5] It practically requires individual testing and proof that each particular chemovar variety of cannabis be evaluated for efficacy for a specific health conditions.

Additionally, the federal illegality of cannabis does not allow for nationally systemized controlled agricultural practices and growth conditions to guarantee more consistency in the final product.  This is left to each separate state’s government requirements, therefore creating overall quality issues that make formulation development difficult but important.

When we look at cannabinoid drug development, accurate dosing is major issue. And since oral administration is usually the preferred route[6] for drug compliance and use, this is the first hurdle to overcome. All cannabinoids are lipophilic and have poor water-solubility[7]. When there is poor water solubility there is potentially slow oral drug absorption and that can cause variable bioavailability, which can become a rate-limiting step to achieve therapeutic plasma concentrations and ensuing pharmacologic response[8].

We imagine that the same reasons he has for refusing the American people money they need to stay alive is part of his motivation for wanting to stop legal marijuana from taking hold.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is perhaps the most despised person in the United States. The top Senate Republican recently sidelined an effort to provide the American people with checks for $2000 instead of the $600 stimulus approved under the latest coronavirus relief bill.

The entire nation has been screaming at McConnell for days from their computers, televisions and smartphones because the lawmaker fails to see the necessity of providing folks with enough cash to actually aid them in catching their fiscal breath. Meanwhile, the cannabis advocacy troop is presumably happy that the rest of the country is finally seeing what they’ve known for years: McConnell is anti-progress.  

When the U.S. House of Representatives passed the MORE Act (Marijuana Opportunity and Expungement Act), they knew the bill didn’t have a fighting chance at being taken seriously with this Congress. As Senate Majority Leader, McConnell determines which legislation sees the light of day and which doesn’t. Marijuana-related legislation is always something he has ignored to the bitter end.

Although McConnell was instrumental in reviving industrial hemp cultivation in 2018, the self-proclaimed grim reaper of Capitol Hill wants nothing to do with making its stoner cousin an American staple. Some think he is apprehensive because he wants to give hemp farmers a chance to thrive first, while others believe that he’s just too old school for pot’s progressive ways. Regardless of which is true, McConnell is one of the main reasons that cannabis prohibition is alive and well. So how much longer is this lawmaker going to be a problem for pot? 

Making predictions about California’s marijuana industry was a challenge even before a global pandemic changed everything.

It’s not just that the legal cannabis market, which launched three years ago in California, is so new. It’s also the singularity of an industry in which licensed, legal operators still compete against a much larger illicit market, even as the industry’s core consumer product — which is medicine for some people — remains illegal at the federal level.

Some of the trends that were expected to shake up California’s marijuana industry at the start of 2020 were overshadowed or fully sidelined by the coronavirus. Still, California’s marijuana businesses fared better than some other sectors thanks to their “essential” designation, which allowed retailers and others in the supply chain to stay open and generate revenue during lockdowns.

Will that growth continue in 2021? Experts point to four changes that figure to affect the state’s cannabis industry in the coming year.

State regulators who oversee California’s cannabis industry are gearing up for major changes in the year to come.

As of January 1, 2021, it is no longer illegal to possess small amounts of marijuana for recreational use in Montana. However, there are still a number of questions before any legal sales take place.

The legalization was approved by Montana voters, who voted in favor of two measures in the November 2020 election: Constitutional Initiative 118 (CI-118) amended the state constitution to allow the Legislature or voters to set the age at which adults are allowed to possess and consume marijuana; and Initiative 190 (I-190) legalized the sale and possession of limited amounts of marijuana and levies a 20 percent tax on the sale of non-medical marijuana in Montana. It also allows people serving a sentence for an act now legal to apply for resentencing or an expungement of a conviction and prohibits the advertising of marijuana and related products.

While the Montana Legislature is likely to reshape the state’s marijuana laws in response to the initiatives, the first provisions took effect on Friday – before lawmakers even had a chance to meet.

The newly-effective sections allow people 21 and older to possess and use up to one ounce of marijuana or eight grams of marijuana concentrates. They also allow growing up to four marijuana plants inside a private residence, with the property owner’s permission.

However, Montanans shouldn’t expect to be able to immediately buy marijuana at a retail outlet, unless they have a medical card. The sections allowing recreational sales won’t take effect until at least October 2021, and current dispensaries are still limited to serving only registered patients.

The South Carolina Department of Agriculture will accept applications for hemp farming permits for the 2021 growing season from Jan. 1 through Feb. 28, 2021.

The state's Hemp Farming Program has grown from 20 farmers in 2018 to 265 farmers in 2020 - and each year, the program has changed as state and federal laws changed. When the federal government approved South Carolina's State Hemp Plan in April 2020, the program entered a new period of regulatory stability, one that SCDA expects to continue in 2021. The agency now has six full-time staffers devoted to hemp regulation.

Requirements to receive a hemp farming permit include:

The year 2020 dawned with thousands of people lined up, some overnight, waiting to be among the first to buy legal recreational marijuana in Illinois.

As the long, strange year comes to an end, people are lined up at food banks, to get coronavirus nasal swabs and in some cases, to be among the first to receive a vaccine that may mark the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And people are still buying weed. Lots of it.

With much to fight for, marijuana advocates say that people can and should do their part however possible. Here’s how.

Cannabis reform continues to make progress in America. With several states passing legislation on Election Day, and several more on the verge of doing the same soon, some may think that the fight is winding down. That isn’t the case when talking to those involved in the movement.

While much of the decades-long heavy lifting to earn back the public’s support for cannabis is already complete, there is much more to get done. Be it legalization or other policy reforms, advocates across the U.S. can and should still get involved in the fight. Even the most progressive of states continue to suffer pain points that advocates hope to address in a bid to create a fair and equal market for patients, consumers, marginalized communities and everyone else in the space. 

Jordan Isenstadt is the senior vice president of New York-based PR firm Marino. Isenstadt, who has worked in the administration of several New York State Senators and the Governor, spoke about the importance of advocacy in the community. He calls cannabis reform “one of the great social challenges of our time.” 

Isenstadt described the previous century of cannabis policy as failed and racist. “Being an advocate for cannabis today is about righting the wrongs of a century of failed policymaking,” said Isenstadt. He added, “Cannabis advocates have an opportunity to make history over the next few years.”

Now more than ever before, brands across all industries are attuning to the fact that an in-depth understanding of their audience’s interests and lifestyles is key to robust sales and longevity. The cannabis industry posted that message loud and clear this year, with one online cannabis marketplace, Jane Technologies, Inc. (which partners with over 1,600 dispensaries and brands across 33 states), seeing online Green Wednesday profits for 2020 up 241% over 2019.

In advance of the 2021 legislative sessions, NORML will be providing a more detailed break down of legislative efforts in various states across the nation that are poised to enact significant marijuana reforms next year. This is the latest in a series of blogs examining where state-specific reform efforts stand.

Republican lawmakers in South Carolina are looking ahead to 2021 with hopes of passing a bill to legalize medical cannabis access. Earlier this month, State Rep. Bill Herbkersman (R) acknowledged, “It is unacceptable that South Carolinians with serious illnesses have to break the law to alleviate their suffering.”

Rep. Herbkersman, along with Senator Tom Davis (R) have pre-filed separate House and Senate versions of the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act in advance of the 2021 legislative session, which would allow qualifying patients to access medical cannabis under a physician’s supervision.

The South Carolina Compassionate Care Act was previously approved by a subcommittee vote in April 2019.

Ahead of the 2021 legislative session, Sen. Davis is optimistic that “there is a very good chance we get something passed this session,” but if that does not happen, Davis indicated that he will  “work on a bill to send the question to the people.”

The best marijuana stocks to invest in for 2020 might actually be a surprise to some investors watching cannabis stocks. In the past year pot stocks on your December 2020 watchlist have been delivering gains for shareholders since the March crash. In fact, the American cannabis industry is going into 2021 with strong revenue growth and more expansion opportunities in states that are establishing legalization. Currently, there are 9 MSOs with market caps above $1 billion and more IPOs coming in 2021. Along with a surge of newly public companies is also the increasing mergers and acquisitions that are taking place this year and into 2021.

Allergies are no fun and the impact millions of people around the world. There are some common allergens out there like grass, pollen, and dust – but what if you find yourself allergic to something less common, something you enjoy or that may be therapeutic for you… what if you were allergic to cannabis?

As unfortunate as that sounds, yes, you can be allergic to cannabis. With weed becoming more mainstream throughout the world, reports of allergic reactions are also on the rise. Budtenders and growers, recreational users, and medical patients have all experienced allergy symptoms after using cannabis. Does it have to do with the pollen? Is it just certain strains? And what can you do if you’re affected?

What are Allergies?

Allergies are simply the bodies immune reaction to certain foreign substances. When you have an allergic reaction to something, that’s your immune system making antibodies to fight a particular allergen that is has categorized as harmful, although that may not be necessarily be the case. Like peanuts, which trace amounts of can cause severe reactions in some people, but peanuts are not normally a dangerous substance.

Allergic reactions vary from person to person and can range in severity from mild irritation all the way to life threatening reactions, typically anaphylaxis which includes symptoms such as dizziness, tightness in the chest, and trouble breathing.

Most allergies don’t get cured, per se, but they do change over time and can disappear in some cases. Many people develop allergies as infants or children and eventually grow out of them. For example, it’s very common for babies to have lactose allergies and leave them behind by the time the turn one year old.

Every Sunday, EZ’s Dispensary sends its weekly menu of bud via text message, offering strains like AK-47 and Girl Scout Cookies, to thousands of people in New York City. Customers respond with their order—quarter, half, full ounce—and their address. Pretty soon, a dealer in a rental car pulls up to complete the sale.

All of this is illegal, but weed delivery is part of the city’s fabric—some New Yorkers can get cannabis delivered to their door faster than a pizza. Naturally, as states have legalized marijuana sales, legal delivery services have followed, from Snoop Dogg-funded Eaze to Lantern, which is owned by alcohol delivery and e-commerce platform Drizly. And thanks to the pandemic, delivery services are booming and companies are hiring and raising venture capital to keep up with the surge in demand.

Khaled Naim, the CEO and co-founder of Onfleet, a San Francisco-based delivery management software company, raised a $14 million Series A in October to scale the business and keep up with the pandemic-inspired growth.

“Cannabis delivery has exploded this year,” says Naim. “We used to manage thousands of cannabis deliveries, now its tens of thousands.”

High-End High: Sava is targeting the higher-end, less price conscious consumer with its scheduled delivery service. Basket size grew from $162 per average customer pre-pandemic to over $170.