WeedLife News Network

Several ancient societies burned hemp during funeral ceremonies. What better way to part with the dead than by getting hella faded?

Nowadays people tend to associate the cannabis plant with Mexico, and for good reason. For decades, narcos smuggled their harvests into the United States and Europe. Along with California, Mexico is known to produce some of the finest cannabis in the world. The states of Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Durango—where the largest farms are located—all have climates that are perfect for cultivating cannabis: year-round temperature ranging between 70 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit, with cool, long nights and low humidity.

But long before cannabis was introduced to—and became synonymous with—the New World, it was being cultivated in the lands of Central Asia. Initially, though, the cannabis or hemp plant was grown not for its leaves but for its stems, which could be processed into a strong and durable rope.

Excavations reveal that humans have been using hemp rope since the Neolithic age. The earliest evidence for burning cannabis, meanwhile, dates back to 3,500 BC, and is attributed to the Kurgans of modern-day Romania. This Proto-Indo-European tribe probably burned the plant as part of their rituals and ceremonies, a practice that spread eastward as its practitioners migrated. Why the Kurgans burned cannabis is difficult to say. They may well have discovered the plant’s psychoactive properties by accident, only to find that the smoke heightened their connection with all things spiritual.

The earliest evidence for smoking cannabis comes from the Pamir Mountains in western China. There, in 2500-year-old tombs, researchers discovered THC residue inside the burners of charred pipes that were probably used for funerary rites. (Similar pipes, dated to the 12th century BC, were later found in Ethiopia, left there by a separate culture). These devices, compared to pyres, would have yielded a much stronger high. Given their placement inside a crypt, however, it’s safe to say they were used only ceremonially, not recreationally. 

Some scholars have argued that cannabis was an important ingredient of soma, a ritual drink concocted by the Vedic Indo-Aryans of northern India. Described in the Rigveda, a collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns, soma was made by extracting juice from an unknown plant. When taken in small doses, soma was reported to induce a feeling of euphoria. In higher doses, it caused people to see hallucinations and lose their sense of time. All three of these effects have been ascribed to cannabis, but even if cannabis was not the main ingredient of soma, it may have been combined with psychedelics such as psilocybin, a.k.a. magic mushrooms.

WeCare-MedicalCannabis’ A Comprehensive Resource for Medical Cannabis Education is Now Available in English, German, French, and Portuguese

 Tilray Brands, Inc. ("Tilray" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: TLRY; TSX: TLRY), a leading global cannabis-lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company inspiring and empowering the worldwide community to live their very best life, today announced that its medical cannabis division, Tilray Medical, launched a new cannabis education platform, WeCare-MedicalCannabis, dedicated to providing resources and educating healthcare practitioners and patients about medical cannabis.

WeCare-MedicalCannabis provides science and research-based cannabis content tailored to healthcare professionals, caregivers, and patients to help them make informed decisions about medicinal cannabis and assists them along their path to discovering how medicinal cannabis can support daily wellness and health. Designed to serve as a one-stop, comprehensive resource on medical cannabis insights, WeCare-MedicalCannabis is now available in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Portugal.

Sascha Mielcarek, Managing Director, Tilray Europe, said, “As global pioneers in medical cannabis, we are aware of the lack of access to science-based, medical cannabis education. WeCare-MedicalCannabis was created to bridge that gap and help provide the needed resources to helping patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals with the information they need to make informed decisions on medicinal cannabis. As cannabis legalization continues to expand across Europe, Tilray Medical is dedicated to help provide informed and trusted guidance for those interested in learning more about medical cannabis.”

Tilray Medical continues to work with leading patient associations and physician societies, providing value to those impacted by changes within the medical landscape, and who serve at the forefront of global health initiatives. By providing access to educational platforms such as WeCare-MedicalCannabis, Tilray Medical continues to open and expand its world of wellbeing.

Even though pot shops are seemingly on every corner of the city and despite the opening of a nice space to light one up at Exhibition Place, cannabis tourism is not yet much of a thing in Toronto.

Though Toronto has gone from just 12 legal cannabis shops at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to close to 500 now, according to a recent New York Times story, and though it’s true that there are things like personalized tours and cooking classes themed around marijuana for eager tourists who favour bud, these aren’t exactly high times, according to those in the know.

Destination Toronto told the Sun that they’ve only received a couple of inquires in the past four years about cannabis tourism in Toronto.

Cannabis Carnival recently opened and will continue for the rest of the summer at Exhibition Place. It’s a 600,000-square-foot outdoor smoking area for cannabis at Grand Bizarre Supper Club.

George Smitherman, president and CEO of the Cannabis Council of Canada, recently told reporters that the Cannabis Carnival space will start the “normalization of cannabis culture.

“There will be more opportunities. There will be more of these opportunities with edibles, drinks and the food evolution of the cannabis consumption culture,” Smitherman said.

As more states and cities decriminalize and legalize marijuana, the number of kids accidentally ingesting cannabis products has doubled, and in some areas quadrupled -- That’s according to a recent study in the U.S. and Canada.

7News’ Adrianna Hopkins talked to a pediatrician about what parents should know.

The American Association of Poison Control Centers says each year they get around 3000 calls for help over this issue, and they believe a lot of cases aren’t reported.

First things first, Dr. Caleb Ward with Children’s National Hospital says every family should have the Poison Control number posted in plain sight for themselves, caregivers, grandparents, and babysitters. That’s your first call if you think your child has eaten an edible.

Other advice:

Here’s what happens to a kid who’s eaten a cannabis product:

Legendary boxer turned cannabis entrepreneur Mike Tyson has expanded distribution of his namesake marijuana to four more states, including medical marijuana dispensaries in Maryland.

The expansion, through medical marijuana cultivation and distribution company Columbia Care, will also be available in Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania. His pot is called Tyson 2.0.

The expansion to medical marijuana dispensaries in Maryland also comes ahead of a ballot referendum in Maryland this fall that could legalize recreational use of marijuana.

Tyson launched Tyson 2.0 cannabis products, including flower, vaping and pre-rolled products, with Columbia Care last fall. It is currently available in nine markets.

A group of California cannabis farmers, led by legacy farmer and entrepreneur Justin Calvino, are coming together to build Emerald Road, a crypto-exclusive digital cannabis community. The advanced e-commerce platform will connect farmers directly with customers through a suite of purchasing and marketing tools, content and education, and community-building experiences, all powered on the blockchain. Designed as a virtual bazaar-like marketplace, Emerald Road will allow consumers to connect with, learn from, virtually visit, and purchase directly from farms.

"Emerald Road is about solving a problem and that solution just happens to be Web3," according to Calvino.

"Legacy platforms are not embracing emerging technologies and currently, there is no central hub for canna-culture and canna-curious consumers to connect, socialize, learn, transact, and be entertained, not to mention the restrictions on cannabis advertising. In addition, small farmers don't have the capital to market themselves on a broad scale like the bigger companies do. Emerald Road is the solution for all of those problems."

The more popular cannabis platforms are simply one-way communications, providing education and purchasing options for users. Emerald Road will let users actually interact with brands and other members to ask questions, take virtual farm tours, obtain exclusive products, participate in member-only experiences, and buy discounted products. Membership to Emerald Road is free for legacy members.

When launched in Q3 2022, the Emerald Road Utility Token will be used to purchase goods, services, and experiences throughout the Emerald Road ecosystem. A next-generation wallet will facilitate consumer and business transactions, allowing for seamless transfers from fiat currency to the Emerald Road Token and back again.

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.