WeedLife News Network

Medical marijuana dispensaries are starting to open in Missouri. It may take a little longer in Columbia. 

N'Bliss dispensaries in the St. Louis area saw long lines when they opened over the weekend. A Kansas City area dispensary was to open Monday. 

Six different companies plan to open dispensaries throughout Columbia. As of Wednesday afternoon, they were not yet approved to operate.

Calls and emails were sent to all six, with GRD Columbia LLC, Shangri-La, COMO Health LLC and QPS Missouri Holdings LLC responding. 

GRD will be located at 204 E. Broadway near Walgreens, operating as Green Releaf Dispensary. The facility still is under construction, CEO Jay Patel said. 

Marijuana is back on the ballot for the third time in the last five election cycles. But this year, Montanans will decide for the first time whether to follow states like Colorado and Washington in legalizing use for all adults.

The issue comes in the form of complementary ballot initiatives I-190 and CI-118. I-190 creates the rules for a recreational marijuana system in Montana, including a 20% tax. It also allows each county the option to prohibit dispensaries in their county.

CI-118 would amend the Montana Constitution to allow the state to set the minimum buying age to 21. If both pass, Montana would join 10 other states and the District of Columbia in legalizing recreational marijuana.

New Approach Montana, a group founded in January 2019 by Montana political veterans Ted Dick and Pepper Petersen, is running the pro-legalization effort. After seeing a decline of tax revenue from previous economic drivers like energy production and mining, the two men asked Montana’s Office of Budget and Program Planning to study the economic benefits of legalized marijuana. The office estimated that retail taxes on recreational marijuana could generate upward of $38.5 million a year by 2025.

“This is a substantial amount of funding,” Petersen said, adding that the next steps were clear. “We wrote our own law — we have a uniquely Montana approach.”

Two small Maine-based marijuana businesses are suing the agency that oversees recreational marijuana operations, arguing state licenses were illegally awarded to out-of-state owners.

State law requires owners of marijuana operations to live in Maine and to have filed state income taxes for four years. But the Maine Office of Marijuana Policy ignored the requirement, based on the state attorney general’s conclusion that it’s unlikely to hold up to legal scrutiny.

The federal lawsuit contends out-of-state companies take away a competitive advantage for Maine business operators.

Wisconsin hemp groups say the state’s decision to delay new regulations will keep CBD growers from suffering under more restrictive regulations.

Because it’s listed top of the schedule of abused drugs, there is an expectation that marijuana must be as highly addictive as heroin, and therefore horribly destructive.

Every time you light up a joint or inhale the vapor from a THC-infused vape or crunch down on an edible or put a couple drops of a THC-infused tincture into your coffee, you are effectively becoming part of a statistic: the marijuana addict.

There are so many ways to get THC into your system now, and researchers say that’s the problem. Having so many options, often packaged in such a way that it just seems like ingesting this psychoactive drug is harmless fun with a sort of backhanded illusion of safety, is just the sort of thing that makes anti-marijuana believers think that there is more to see here. They smell coverup. They sense capitalism overreach threatening citizen health. They see a brand new industry jostling with the rules to make a buck.

They even believe that the fun and the party jolliness and the fuck-em-all camaraderie that is part of the experience of consuming marijuana is lulling all of us cannabis enthusiasts into getting addicted—and we don’t even know it.

But wait. Let’s take a closer look at what makes an addict.

Global Hemp Recyclable Packaging Market 2020 by Manufacturers, Type and Application, Forecast to 2025 describes market introduction, product scope, market overview, and meticulous analysis of the Hemp Recyclable Packaging market in the forecasted period from 2020 to 2025. The report keenly analyzes significant features in major developing markets.

Growers, tenders, trimmers, producers and distributors all take different risks, skillsets and roles. Working with cannabis insiders operating on both sides of the law gives insight into the process of cultivating these plants and turning them into profit. Utilizing trim is one such way.

MediPharm Labs Inc has initiated a clinical trial to research and evaluate the effectiveness of the company’s cannabis-derived medicines for the treatment of end-stage renal disease or Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

Chronic kidney disease involves kidney damage over a long period of time that impacts on the organ’s ability to filter blood, meaning toxic wastes build up in the body. The progressive condition can result in major complications including eventual kidney failure and death.

It’s prevalence is quite shocking – according to Kidney.org, 37 million American adults have CKD and heart disease is the major cause of death for all people with the condition. The main causes of chronic kidney disease are diabetes and high blood pressure. Combined, these are responsible for up to two-thirds of  cases.

MediPharm Labs has partnered with Canadian firm OTT Healthcare Inc. for the trial, which will initially investigate dosing and safety profile of cannabinoid formulations, as well as assess pain and Quality of Life scores of patients receiving the medicines – the details of which weren’t revealed in the announcement.

Data gathered from this investigation will then support randomized double-blind clinical trials to establish the safety and efficacy of these products.

Cannabis has been used for its antimicrobial properties for thousands of years, but only recently have these benefits surfaced in Western medicine. A recent study highlights previously unknown antimicrobial properties of cannabis.

While the study focuses on several cannabinoids, it brings out CBG as a cannabinoid to pay attention to in terms of its antibiotic abilities.

What is CBG?

CBG – cannabigerol – is a cannabinoid of the cannabis plant. Unlike it’s counterparts THC and CBD, it is found in only very small quantities, making up approximately 1% of a harvest-ready plant. Like CBD, and unlike THC, it doesn’t produce a psychoactive effect. CBG comes from its acidic precursor, CBGA. CBGA in turn is converted into cannabinoids like THCA – tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, CBDA – cannabidiolic acid, and CBCA – cannabichromenic acid. What is left of the CBGA converts to CBG through decarboxylation. This is why so little of the plant is made of CBG.

CBG has been cited already as an anti-cancer agent, and now adds antibiotic to its repertoire of uses.

At a time when it seems like no one can see eye-to-eye on anything, there is one undeniable fact that most can agree on: something needs to change. Industry leaders are hoping that 2021 will be the turnaround after a monumentally tragic year where the lingering effects of COVID-19 changed how business was done and how we communicate with one another in the online and offline worlds. Not only did this impact high-volume in-person trade show events, but also supporting industries such as hospitality, travel, arts, and leisure. 

Toronto-based cannabis events and marketing firm, Lift & Co, (OTC: LFCOF) which produces Canada’s largest cannabis expo, recently stunned industry insiders when it declared bankruptcy after laying off employees in March and postponing their annual November event. 

With no clear idea of what the future holds, the cannabis event industry is adapting in different ways as the pandemic rolls into its second wave. The Cannabis World Congress and Business Exhibition (CWCB) canceled all in-person events until 2021, hosting a two-day digital conference on November 17 and 18. Even non-cannabis behemoths like SXSW buckled under pressure to create a virtual experience that could live up to the real deal.

MJBizCon, who transformed their trade show into a month-long digital experience leading up to a three-day online conference event December 2-4, featuring keynote speaker John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods, now run with the tagline: “The show must go online.” 

But can it, really? 

After wading through a raft of comments from municipal leaders, established industry players and advocates, marijuana regulators on Tuesday ironed out the final wrinkles of their plan to establish a structure for home delivery of marijuana and create new business opportunities -- and rejected a proposal to delay delivery until 2023.

Home delivery of marijuana has long been allowed under the state’s medical marijuana program, and advocates pushed for a delivery-only license in the recreational market, arguing that it will help level the playing field between large corporations and small businesses because the barriers to entry for delivery are typically far less burdensome than those for retail licenses.

The Cannabis Control Commission has been thinking about a delivery framework for almost three years and will launch delivery with a period of exclusivity for participants in the CCC’s Social Equity Program and certified economic empowerment applicants.

“Consumers want delivery, we wanted delivery for a long time, and equity and economic empowerment businesses are ready to be a significant part of this market,” Commissioner Shaleen Title said. She added, “We as a commission have taken it very seriously since day one ... to live up to this mandate to include disproportionately harmed people in the industry and today was another significant step towards that. I’m really looking forward to it becoming reality sometime next year.”

The CCC met Tuesday morning to consider feedback and hold a final discussion about its draft delivery policy, which would create two delivery license types: a “wholesale delivery license” that could buy products wholesale from growers and manufacturers and sell them to their own customers, and a “limited delivery license” that would allow an operator to charge a fee to make deliveries from CCC-licensed retailers and dispensaries.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved the Industrial Hemp Plan submitted by the South Dakota Department of Agriculture. The department is currently working to promulgate emergency administrative rules to establish a program in accordance with state law and the USDA approved plan. South Dakota Farmers Union Lobbyist Mitch Richter is pleased it’s moving forward as his group has been pushing for this plan for some time.

He says while there won’t be a huge number of acres of industrial hemp planted, there will be some farmers who will want to try growing the crop.

Richter says another positive for farmers being allwed to grow industrial hemp is the spin off economic development it will create.

Richter says it’s critical farmers wanting to grow industry hemp check with the State Agriculture Department and follow all their rules before proceeding. They also need to make sure they use only certified seed.

Two marijuana trade organizations filed a lawsuit today against the nation’s largest legal pot market over restrictions on stand-alone delivery services that have blocked them from obtaining licenses until 2025.

The lawsuit against Los Angeles and its Department of Cannabis Regulation seeks to overturn rules enacted earlier this year that postponed the availability of those licenses for certain businesses, even though broad legal sales began in the state in January 2018.

Under the changes, those licenses would only be available to so-called social-equity operators — people, many of color, who were arrested or convicted of a marijuana-related offense or lived in neighborhoods marked by high marijuana arrest rates.

Cannabis investors have endured a brutal 2020, and hopes that the November election will serve as a catalyst for federal US legalization are fading fast.

However, according to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Pablo Zuanic, a potential election “blue wave” victory for Democrats could be more bullish for cannabis stocks than investors realize.

Here’s an almost forgotten fact: Henry Ford spent a lot of time and money during the 1930s building a car entirely of plastics derived from hemp. He refined hemp biofuel to fuel it just to demonstrate it could be done.

The wonderful thing about this industry is that while the cannabis plant is the most important part, it isn’t the only part.

The hemp industry contends the Interim Final Rule is unlawful because it exceeds the DEA’s authority and violates the Agricultural Improvement Act, among other things.

The Canna Law Blog has been writing about the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) interim final rule (IFR) on hemp since its August publication in the Federal Register:Most recently, Nathalie Bougenies wrote about a petition for review against the DEA filed by the Hemp Industries Association and RE Botanicals in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (the “D.C. Circuit”). Why the fuss? As Nathalie explained, the IFR:

suggests that in-process hemp shall be treated as a schedule I controlled substance during any point at which its THC concentration exceeds 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis. ‘Any point’ includes even fleetingly during the processing phase and includes situations where the THC percentage is brought back into legal compliance for the finished product.

So will the DEA start raiding hemp processors? Who knows, but the implications are not good and led to the hemp industry making a concerted effort against the IFR. One such effort is the petition for review, which contends the IFR is unlawful because it exceeds the DEA’s authority, violates the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, and contends that the DEA violated the regulations governing the promulgation of rules set forth in the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”).

This week, the hemp industry opened a new front against the DEA and the IFR. On October 12, Petitioners in the D.C. Circuit filed a separate lawsuit against the DEA in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. This is the “trial court” for Washington D.C. as opposed to the appellate court, the D.C. Circuit, in which the petition for review was filed. (Email me if you’d like a copy of the Complaint).

Two years ago Canada became the second country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana sales.

Since then, the country has also made way for the legal sales of edibles, cannabis-infused beverages, and vape pens, but the newly legal cannabis market has faced its fair share of difficulties despite initial investor frenzy surrounding marijuana stocks. 

As Canada is the first major country to have fully legalized weed, governments around the world watched on with great interest these past two years as the legal pot market began to develop there, taking notes for when the time might come to allow marijuana to be sold for recreational use in their respective countries. 

A pandemic sales boom 

In line with public opinion, Canadian lawmakers took on legalization in late 2017, while the measure took effect on October 17,  2018, after passing both the House of Commons and the Senate. 

A total of 507 producers have been granted licenses to cultivate cannabis by Health Canada during the last two years, while sales of legal marijuana products have been on the rise monthly by month. Although the newly legal weed market faced immense competition from the illicit market, the coronavirus pandemic finally managed to bridge the gap between legal and illegal weed sales earlier this year.