WeedLife News Network

The 2018 Farm Bill left the barn door open for dangerous and intoxicating forms of hemp says the the California Cannabis Industry Association (CCIA).

The CCIA has released a white paper it says details the dangers associated with the growing number of increasingly intoxicating products currently being sold as “hemp” from a myriad of outlets, and has called for urgent reform.

The issue has its roots in the wording of the 2018 Farm Bill, which made hemp legal if it contained less than 0.3 per cent delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol on a dry weight basis. The fact only delta-9 – the most commonly consumed form of THC and the one that provides a high – was singled out gave rise to other forms of intoxicating THC such as delta-8. These can be created by manipulating non-intoxicating cannabidiol (CBD) extracted from hemp.

The white paper notes some of these products are far more potent than their delta-9 counterparts and often contain dangerous chemicals resulting from the manufacturing process. Some of these cannabinoids include THCjd, THC-O, HHC, Delta-10 THC and the most commonly sold (for now), Delta-8 THC.

“With the way these products are sold, it’s easier for a kid to get their hands on them than a six-pack of beer,” says CCIA board Vice President Tiffany Devitt.

Various states have crafted their own laws regarding other forms of THC in order to rein in or stop their distribution, but the CCIA says more action is needed

As markets mature, cannabis users seek diversity and higher potency, triggering the demand for manufactured cannabis products. (Benzinga)

According to The Brightfield Group, a cannabis analytics firm, cannabis consumers are turning to extracts and concentrates as they seek more bang for their buck.

Falling flower prices and economics of scale behind producing extracts such as live resin or rosin, weigh in as factors that contribute to their popularity among cannabis users.

As markets mature, cannabis users seek diversity and higher potency, triggering the demand for manufactured cannabis products.

“More than 64% of consumers are using cannabis at least daily. … The more frequently you use it, the higher your tolerance becomes. That’s helping build the concentrates market,” Bethany Gomez, Brightfield’s managing director told MJBizDaily.

Gomez said consumers are more price sensitive given inflation, and products have become much more refined in branding and packaging.

Before 2018, cannabis was illegal in Canada. Now, as of mid-October, Uber Eats can deliver it in Toronto as the result of a partnership with Leafly, an online marketplace for licensed cannabis retailers. This is the first time Uber will deliver cannabis anywhere in the world.

This deal is being touted by Uber and Leafly as a great leap forward for the industry. The companies claim the arrangement will provide several benefits, including more business for the retailers, increased choice and flexibility for consumers while reducing the illicit market, and less impaired driving. However, these arguments hold little water.

How it will work

Consumers are able to use the Uber Eats platform to order cannabis products from any of three Toronto-based retailers — Hidden Leaf Cannabis, Minerva Cannabis and Shivaa’s Rose — provided they are within the retailer’s delivery footprint.

The ordering experience is similar to ordering food delivery on the app: Customers navigate to the “recreational cannabis” category, then to their chosen retailer’s menu where they select their desired products, then state whether they will pick up the order or prefer delivery. Uber then transmits the order to the applicable store. Once filled, the order is delivered to the customer by the retailer’s own delivery staff, as prescribed by law.

Ontario’s provincial cannabis regulations were only recently modified to permit delivery, although they do not allow third-party delivery. The retailer’s drivers must be employees of the retailer and be CannSell certified, as well as are required to verify identity and age at the time of delivery.

Little to gain for consumers and retailers

From the consumer’s perspective, the deal will merely provide another online location to order cannabis for delivery, on top of the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) and other private retailers.

Whether your dog has anxiety or you just need him to chill out a bit while you’re working, you may be looking for products that can help calm your pup.

Best Overall CBD Dog Treats: MediPets CBD Dog Treats Burger Beef Minis

The bill was sent for review after coalition partner Democratic Party said the bill would promote the recreational use of the drug.

BANGKOK – A farmers’ representative and a businessman called on the House to speed up the legislation of a cannabis control law so businesses know what they can and cannot do.
The statement came on Monday from Prapat Panyachatraksa, president of the National Farmers’ Council, and Ong-art Panyachatraksa, owner of the Organic Phet Lanna Farma and a partner of the RG420 Cannabis Store on Khao San Road in Bangkok.

The two were referring to the September 14 House resolution to indefinitely defer the second reading of the cannabis bill and return it to the special House committee that had vetted the draft.

“I understand the delay was caused by politicking,” said Prapat, who is a member and adviser to the ad hoc panel.

The bill was engineered by coalition partner Bhumjaithai Party, which had promised to legalise marijuana while campaigning for the 2019 general election.

The House voted 198:136 to return the bill to the ad hoc panel for review after Democrat Party, also a coalition partner, said the bill would promote the recreational use of marijuana. Democrat MPs also cited concerns that children and youth would abuse cannabis as a drug. The Rural Doctors Society was among groups that voiced such concersn.

Arkansas business leaders joined Gov. Asa Hutchinson Monday in calling for voters to oppose Issue 4, the general election ballot measure that would legalize adult use cannabis. At a news conference at the headquarters of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce in Little Rock, the industry representatives said legalizing recreational marijuana would compound problems for workforce recruitment and safety.

Issue 4 supporters said the arguments were no different than when medical marijuana was proposed in 2016, and that Arkansas businesses have not suffered since its passage.

Leaders from the trucking, construction and agricultural industries joined Hutchinson in condemning the proposal.

“It’s a nightmare for the industry, for the people we have to work on the highways and buildings around the state,” said Haskell Dickinson, former chairman of the Associated General Contractors of Arkansas. “We will have a challenge determining who can come to work… we don’t know how to handle it and no one else does either.”

“Issue 4 threatens the fair growth of business, by enriching marijuana monopolies and hamstringing industries like trucking that have long-served as the foundation for our state’s economy,” said Shannon Newton, President of the Arkansas Trucking Association.

Up to 40 cannabis consumption lounges could be coming to Nevada as early next year.

The Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board on Monday announced it had received 100 completed state licensing applications during a 10-day window earlier this month.

Nonrefundable application fees had been set at $100,000 for dispensaries; $10,000 for independent applicants, and $2,500 for social equity applicants, those who were negatively affected by marijuana laws before the state legalized the drug in 2017.

Established dispensaries, which would have a lounges attached or adjacent to them, accounted for 20 of the completed licenses. The state did not set a limit to how many such businesses it will be licensing.

But Nevada is only issuing 20 independent licenses, half of which would go to social equity applicants.

That will mean 40 independent and 20 social equity applicants will be left out out following a lottery for the 20 available slots.

A boy who used to endure 500 life-threatening fits a month is set to celebrate his 1,000th seizure-free day, thanks to medical cannabis.

Alfie Dingley, who suffers from severe epilepsy, is one of just three people in the UK to have been handed an NHS prescription for the drug.

Mum Hannah Deacon says the cannabis – which was legalised for medicinal use on November 1, 2018 – has made a huge difference to the 11-year-old’s life.

Yet thousands of people are still unable to access funded prescriptions, with families forced to spend thousands of pounds a month to go private, or buy the drug illegally.

Hannah, 43, who co-founded MedCan Support for families looking to access the drug, said this stance has created what she described as “a block” on NHS prescriptions.

She told how medical cannabis had given Alfie back his “quality of life”, allowing him to attend school full-time and start making friends.

“Germany has long been the leader in medical cannabis reform and all the other countries in EU will follow with similar versions once completed,” said Mike Sassano, CEO of Somai Pharmaceuticals.

Germany, the largest economy in Europe, is making plans to legalize and regulate recreational cannabis. On Wednesday, the health minister, Mr. Karl Lauterbach, presented a plan for cannabis legalization to the German cabinet. This move will make Germany among the first countries in Europe to legalize recreational cannabis, said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Currently, Malta is the only country in Europe that has made this bold move.

Legalizing cannabis for recreational use was captured in the coalition government’s manifesto. The coalition government is made up of three parties: Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and liberal Free Democrats.

How things are unfolding is therefore not surprising. How long the process will take is however not clear. While the Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) believes that this should happen by 2023, the Federal Drug and Addiction Commissioner Burkhard Blienert suggested that it will not be possible to have the law in place before the end of 2024.

According to Lauterbach’s plan, about 4 million Germans used cannabis in 2021. This signifies the existence of a vibrant illicit market which by all means presents a significant public health risk.

The plan presented by Lauterbach made a number of provisions for adult-use cannabis in Germany. Adults will be allowed to use and possess 20 to 30 grams of cannabis. Private cultivation of cannabis will be restricted to 2-3 plants per household, according to reports from the local media. In addition, marijuana-related cases that are ongoing but no longer illegal due to the new laws will be dropped. The coalition government plans to introduce a special tax for marijuana consumption alongside the usual sales tax. The plan also includes rolling out country-wide cannabis education and drug abuse prevention programs.

PAWNEE COUNTY - Keith Buntin is the fire chief for the volunteer department at Station 58 in Pawnee County.

He took pictures of what appears to be gloves, cans and other trash partially buried under mulch near Keystone Lake. He says he found the mess while responding to a fire a couple months ago.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics confirms they are investigating some of the grows in the Terlton area to make sure they are legal when it comes to who regulates what. They say when it comes to dumping, that is on the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA).

OMMA says: “The rules allow licensees to dispose of root balls, stems, fan leaves and mature stalks—parts of the cannabis plant not generally used as medical marijuana or in a medical marijuana product—at their own licensed premises by open burning, incineration, burying, mulching, composting or any other technique approved by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

The licensees must also maintain a disposal log with a signed statement attesting that the plant parts were disposed of lawfully.”

Chief Butin says in the Cleveland and Terlton zip code there are 54 legal and licensed grows or dispensaries.

There are various mechanisms by which cannabis could impact creativity and focus. But is there any scientific data that supports the idea that it actually has a positive effect on either?

Many people who consume cannabis for a cognitive boost are seeking to enhance their creativity and their focus at the same time.

It could be a computer programmer who finds that consuming a 1:1 CBD-THC edible in the morning settles her nerves for the day and opens her mind up to new solutions; a 70-year-old triathlete who discovers that a few drops of a sativa tincture allows him to stay focused during grueling bike rides; or a PhD student who breaks up long hours in the lab with a few tokes from a high-CBD joint.

Is cannabis or CBD the right choice for you to enhance your focus and creativity? Jointly can help you find out, but first let’s review what is known about cannabis, focus, and creativity!

Is Cannabis a Cognitive Booster?

In the popular imagination, cannabis has a much closer link to creativity than it does to focus, but there is also a long tradition of cannabis being used to enhance focus, especially during prolonged physical activities.

Wrestlers in Northern India traditionally took bhang, a cannabis infused drink, “to ensure long term concentration during exhausting all day practice.” Similarly, a survey of adult athletes who use cannabis revealed that 46.3% of athletes who used cannabis in the hour prior to exercising did so to improve focus.

In recent years, the cannabis industry has been booming. Research has created a new way to treat patients with debilitating health issues, like seizure disorders and chronic pain.

Businesses have created marijuana-friendly spaces such as coffee shops, restaurants and lounges. Cannabis is becoming increasingly normalized in our society and the drug has begun to lose a majority of its negative connotations with younger generations.

The wide variety of cannabis uses is astounding, from medicine to hemp-based products that help to fight pollution, to a recreational activity for those 21 and over. The United States has also made huge legal strides in terms of marijuana throughout the last decade, with 18 states having it fully legalized and 36 states having medical marijuana legalized. Rather than continuing to criminalize marijuana users, states have been able to make a profit from the product and allocate the funds to cities and programs in need.

Yet, there are still 40,000 Americans incarcerated for nonviolent marijuana-related charges. States are steadily continuing the legalization of marijuana but are not releasing people from prison at the same rate. This leaves our prisons overpopulated and underfunded, and ruins the lives of people who are, respectively, innocent.

Studies have found that people of color and white people use marijuana at roughly the same rate, yet people of color are four times as likely to be arrested for using the drug. Data collected from the New York Police Department found that in 2020, 94% of all people arrested on marijuana-related charges were people of color.

The popularization of marijuana usage has focused on white people and has become normalized by white people repeatedly speaking out about the benefits. Less than one percent of all dispensaries across the country are owned by people of color. Recently, a dispensary was under fire for naming a new strain of marijuana, “Strange Fruit.” The name was taken from a Billie Holiday song that was written as a metaphor to describe the abuse African Americans endured in the deep south.

While the draft of Germany’s cannabis laws has received a mixed response, those in the country’s hemp industry have welcomed developments.

Earlier this month the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) confirmed the suspended prison sentences of two commercial traders of CBD flowers. 

This was the latest in a long list of similar rulings with possibly hundreds more similar cases due before the country’s courts – which continue to view hemp/CBD as having narcotic properties.

However, it is understood that the country’s new cannabis regulations are set to finally remove hemp/CBD products from the German Narcotics Act.

Removed From Narcotics Law

This direction of travel has been welcomed by Jürgen Neumeyer, Managing Director of the Cannabis Business Industry Association (BvCW). 

He told BusinessCann that it appears that ‘in the future, cannabis – and thus also commercial hemp and CBD – will be completely removed from the Narcotics Act in Germany’.

TUCSON - A house that basically heats and cools itself, doesn’t catch fire, and helps reverse climate change may sound too good to be true.

That’s what Tucson general contractor Micaela Machado hears from people when she describes homes made with hemp lime.

”You can grow a two thousand square foot home on four acres, in one season, which is four months,” Machado said. “You can heat and cool it so easily, especially in a place like here in the desert, it’s just a whole lot less energy to heat and cool your house.”

Machado mixes hemp stalks with lime and water and shapes it into bricks. No, this is not the kind of hemp that creates a high. There are thousands of varieties of cannabis, and industrial hemp must have less than three-tenths of a percent of THC, the psychotropic chemical in marijuana.

Hemp cultivation became legal at the federal level with the 2018 Farm Bill.

“There’s a total stigma to it still, because it’s cannabis, but people don’t understand, it’s not a smokable cannabis,” said Machado.

South Carolina is one of only 13 states where marijuana is illegal.

But some lawmakers and doctors in the state continue pushing for the legalization of medical marijuana, which they say can be a safer treatment for people with debilitating illnesses than some prescription medications.

An attempt to legalize medical marijuana failed this spring, passing in the state Senate but not the House of Representatives .

Rep. Tommy Pope, R-York County, who voted against the bill, said he thought it went too far.

“My biggest concern is that I feel like it sets up an infrastructure for (full) legalization,” Pope said. “As opposed to focusing on taking care of those that probably need help the most.”

Still, legislators who support medical marijuana argue that legalization could significantly reduce the impact of the opioid epidemic.

Applications for medical cannabis licenses are scheduled to be sent out today, but it may still be months before the first products hit dispensary shelves in Alabama.

Meanwhile, marijuana remains classified as an illegal narcotic in the eyes of the federal government, whether it's bought illicitly off the streets or recommended by a doctor.

So far, 39 states have legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and the federal government has mostly looked the other way. Yet there exists a tension between state and federal laws concerning the drug, and it has led to confusion among lawmakers and enforcers over how the new Alabama law will work on a practical, day-to-day basis.

"Right now, there is no such thing as a prescription for marijuana," State Sen. Larry Stutts (R-Tuscumbia) said. "By the FDA guidelines, marijuana is still listed as a [schedule] 1 narcotic… which is in the same category as heroin; no known medical benefits and can be used only in research."

Stutts said doctors would only be able to recommend medical cannabis for patients, not prescribe it like other medicines due to Food and Drug Administration's guidelines.

"Drug stores won't be stocking it, pharmacists can't dispense it, and physicians can't write a prescription for it," he said. "The deal is, on the federal level, they have just chosen not to enforce that rule in other states, so I'm sure Alabama will not be an exception."

SIOUX FALLS - When it comes to marijuana, South Dakota has been a leader among its Great Plains neighbors: one of the first to legalize recreational use, the first to approve both medical and recreational forms on the same ballot and the only one to have its recreational measure reversed.

Legalization is back on the ballot in November, but whether the politically red state will become the first to pass it twice remains in doubt.

It’s facing strong opposition from conservative groups and figures determined to pull the state back from legalizing pot. And though 54% of voters approved a constitutional amendment to legalize cannabis in 2020, that campaign may have benefited from the medical marijuana measure that appeared on the same ballot.

This time, recreational marijuana stands alone on the ballot. And it likely faces a different demographic of voters — older and perhaps less inclined toward the drug — in a midterm election rather than in a presidential year, said Matt Schweich, who organized that campaign and is doing so again this year.

“I think this is a close race,” he said at a news conference to kick off a statewide voter registration tour last week. “We need our people to come out and vote.”

Pot legalization advocates have found success primarily through ballot measures rather than legislatures, especially in GOP-held states. Voters in three states where Republicans control the governor’s office and both legislative chambers — Arkansas, Missouri and North Dakota — are deciding on recreational marijuana this year, as is politically divided Maryland.

Cannabis has come a long way in the US since it was first legalized medically in California in 1996.

Now, 18 states have legalized medical and recreational marijuana, 21 have legalized medical marijuana, and Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota have all put recreational marijuana on the ballot for the midterm election season. And with over a third of the country readily available with dispensaries, restaurants, tours, and even churches, a cannabis-themed vacation is far from far-fetched.

Still, you might be wondering where to go. A study conducted by Upgraded Points, a company that helps consumers with information on points and miles, conducted a study to find the best cities for a cannabis vacation.

The study found that the most cost-effective places for a cannabis vacation are Oakland, California and Spokane, Washington. Researchers said the data showed a correlation that the longer a state has had legalized recreational cannabis (Wahington tied with Colorado for first in 2012 and California in 2016) had, the lowest prices. A four-day cannabis vacation in Oakland would run you about $1,068, followed by Spokane with $1,135. However, go somewhere where the cost of living is high, and you’ll pay the price. A four-day stay in Anchorage, Alaska, will run you $1,551, with Los Angeles trailing behind at $1,540.

Portland, Maine, turned out to be the second cheapest city due to the vast number of 420-friendly stays. The study found Portland has 102 cannabis-friendly Airbnb listings per 100,000 people. Denver reigns supreme due to its number of 420-friendly accommodations, its 64 licensed dispensaries per 100,000 people, and the average price of a quarter ounce of weed averaging at about $60 if you know the best spots to buy.

The 10 best cities for a cannabis vacation

To find the best cities for a cannabis vacation, Upgraded points looked at50 of the largest cities in states where recreational marijuana usage is legal. The cities were then ranked on a scale from one to five in 10 categories: average Cost of round trip airfare, the average nightly price at weed-friendly accommodations, number of weed-friendly Airbnbs, the average cost of rideshare, number of dispensaries, the average cost for a quarter-ounce of weed, number of guided cannabis tours, the average price of weed-friendly experiences on Eventbrite, and the number of available fast food restaurants. These scores were then rated according to their impact on cannabis tourism. Each city then received a final score on a scale of one to 50.