WeedLife News Network

Facing a possible industry revolt over California cannabis tax structure, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signaled that he is open to rethinking the taxes the state levels on marijuana growers and purchases. The governor included in a budget proposal he released this week that he “supports cannabis tax reform and plans to work with the Legislature to make modifications to California’s cannabis tax policy to help stabilize the market.”

Asked to expand on the language at a press conference, Newsom said, “There was intention by having that language in the budget. It is my goal to look at tax policy to stabilize the market.”

Newsom’s budget projects that the state will collect $787 million in cannabis revenue during the 2022-23 tax year. Of that, the budget estimates that nearly $595 million will be available to be allocated to youth substance abuse treatment, clean-up of illicit cannabis grows and support public safety-related activities. It’s been a bumpy road for legal cannabis in California since voters approved adult-use sales in 2016. Cannabis activity, including cultivation, distribution and retail, remains outlawed in much of the state, as cities and counties have been reluctant to authorize such activities.  Newsom said his goal is “to get these municipalities to wake up to the opportunities to get rid of the illegal market and the illicit market and provide support and a regulatory framework for the legal market.” Newsom’s statements, and budget proposal, came as welcome news to Elizabeth Ashford, vice president of communications for Eaze, a cannabis delivery company. Ashford previously worked for Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I think Gov. Newsom knows and his advisers know that they can’t let the legal market fail,” Ashford said in a telephone interview after Newsom unveiled his budget proposal.

“It’s extremely important that the steps that state government can take are taken. They need to take these steps.”

Like many other states, Wyoming is gearing up for cannabis reform on the legislative sector in 2022. Here’s to positive change!

Activists in Wyoming are circulating petitions for two ballot measures to reform cannabis policy in the state, including one to legalize medical marijuana and a second to reduce penalties for cannabis-related crimes.

Wyoming is one of about a dozen states that have not yet passed laws to legalize cannabis in some form, despite data from the University of Wyoming that shows a majority of residents support cannabis reform and 85 percent support legalizing medical cannabis. Last year, a bill to study medical marijuana and another measure to legalize and regulate cannabis died in the Wyoming House of Representatives without a hearing, despite both measures gaining the approval of the House Judiciary Committee. 

Activists Advance Two Ballot Proposals

Due to the legislature’s inability to pass cannabis legislation, the Libertarian Party of Wyoming is leading the campaign for two ballot initiatives to reform marijuana policy in the state. The first proposal would legalize the medicinal use of cannabis, while the second would reduce the penalties for cannabis offenses. 

To qualify an initiative to legalize cannabis for the ballot in Wyoming, organizers will have to collect enough signatures to total 15 percent of the vote cast in the 2020 general election, when voter turnout was particularly high because of the hotly contested presidential race. The initiative campaign is also required to collect signatures from 15 percent of voters in at least two-thirds of Wyoming’s 23 counties.

Approximately 278,000 people voted in the general election in 2020, meaning that activists will have to collect more than 41,000 qualified voter signatures for each initiative to qualify for the 2024 election. Initiative campaigns are given an 18-month window to collect the required signatures, setting a deadline for the cannabis legalization measure organizers until January 23 to meet the requirement.

NutraLife Biosciences Inc. (OTC: NLBS) announces a feature article released by CFN Enterprises Inc. (OTCQB: CNFN), owner and operator of CFN Media, covering NutraLife’s rapidly growing expansion plans.

CBD has become one of the fastest-growing wellness products globally, reaching more than $11 billion in global sales last year. According to Market Data Forecast, these sales will continue to grow at a 22.2% annual pace to nearly $31 billion by 2026. As a result, companies building an early presence in the industry could be in a great position to profit.

Most states in the U.S. are in violation of a major federal drug statute.

 The 1971 Controlled Substances Act lists marijuana in the most dangerous category defined in the law, on par with cocaine and heroin because of its supposed potential for abuse and lack of medical applications. 

But 36 states plus the District of Columbia allow either full legalization for adult use or wide scale medical use, putting them at odds with federal law. Congress so far has been unable to come up with a solution, despite support from leading Democrats for a smoother relationship between the states and the federal government.

State acceptance happened quickly, with Colorado and Washington the first to legalize adult use less than 10 years ago.  By the first of the year, marijuana possession will be legal for all adults in 18 states — including Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Virginia –— that make up 44 percent of the national population.

That number has recently been growing: The governors of New Mexico and Virginia signed their legalization laws just this year. Montana’s, enacted through a ballot measure in 2020, will go into effect New Year’s Day.

‘Not in my backyard,’ towns say

Around half of New York cities and towns don’t want marijuana dispensaries or consumption lounges, a cautionary signal for companies hoping to do business in the Empire State.

New York is expected to start recreational marijuana sales in the next year or so, likely becoming the second-biggest market after California, with around $4.2 billion in projected sales. Yet when given a Dec. 31 deadline to opt out of participating, 47% of the state’s 1,521 municipalities opted out of having dispensaries and 54% opted out of having consumption sites, according to data compiled by the Rockefeller Institute of Government as of Jan. 7.

Ultimately, there may be no single resource on the market more effective at helping people save money on cannabis than a dry-herb vaporizer.

The end of the holidays and the beginning of a new year brings about the urge to make improvements, which is where New Year’s resolutions come into play — and saving money is typically among the most common.

Refrain from rolling up

Rolling up a thick, satisfying blunt or joint before lighting it is a truly satisfying experience for any cannabis enthusiast. Even though that’s the case, doing so too often is a great way to burn through funds.

Try vaping  

Recycling is always a phenomenal way to save money. Making an investment in a dry-herb vaporizer is a great way to reduce the amount of money spent on cannabis because it allows users to repurpose their buds.

Vaping is also said to get users higher than combustion-based consumption methods such as joints or bowls.

After your glass accessories have been properly cleaned with these items, don’t be surprised when they feel like entirely new devices!

One of the most effective ways to consume cannabis from both an economic and an enjoyment standpoint is with a nice bowl or bong. The problem is that when they aren’t cleaned properly, it can lead to toxins like mold and bacteria being inhaled.

Fortunately, there are numerous products available on the market that can help cannabis consumers keep their glass accessories looking and functioning as good as new. It’s likely that you’ll already have some of these items lying around the house already.  

Coarse Salt

Rock salt or epsom salt is essential in helping to make sure a bong is clean. The best practice for using coarse salt in the process of cleaning a bong is to ensure that the surface of the glass piece is submerged in the salt prior to soaking it in alcohol.

Cotton swabs are imperative for keeping glass accessories clean because they make it easy to reach the more restrictive areas of glass devices. Cotton swabs are especially important when cleaning glass bongs due to the many crevices present on devices with multiple components like honeycombs and downstems.

Oklahomans could see on the ballot this year competing state questions to legalize recreational marijuana. 

A second initiative petition to legalize recreational marijuana use in Oklahoma for anyone 21 years or older was filed Tuesday with the secretary of state's office.

Campaign spokeswoman Michelle Tilley said this measure is a new version of a recreational cannabis initiative petition she helped with two years ago. That petition, State Question 807, didn't make it on the statewide ballot partly because the start of the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult to collect signatures. 

"This is an effort that started several years ago but has grown," she said.

The recent discovery of a new cannabinoid—located deep in the hemp plant’s trichomes—could have huge implications for the future of cannabis. It’s called Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabiphorol or THCP and it’s a psychoactive molecule that’s shown to be up to 30 times more potent than tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.

Fresh Bros™ now offers this incredible cannabinoid compound in the form of THC syrup—what was once commonly known as distillate. But not all THC syrups are made exclusively from cannabis. At Fresh Bros™, all THC products originate from hemp, including THC syrups, like Delta-8 and full spectrum CBD distillate, which contains no more than 0.3% THC. THCp syrup can be used in a wide variety of ways, including on its own, in prepared foods and drinks, or to create treats from scratch. 

Scientists have been discovering new wonders buried deep inside hemp and cannabis plants since the 1940s. As technology has developed, researchers eventually located as many as 150 cannabinoids across many varieties of these plants. While most people have heard of THC or CBD, THCp is lesser known but has stirred up great interest over the past year. 

THCp was first identified and revealed to the public in December 2019. It immediately drew worldwide attention for its intense intoxicating properties that some say are stronger than Delta-9 THC. The cannabinoid compound was discovered during a decarboxylation process where cannabis compounds are isolated and activated. 

Our bodies are equipped with an endocannabinoid system that naturally processes cannabinoid compounds through the CB1 and CB2 receptors in the brain. Each cannabinoid molecule reacts differently with those receptors based on their alkyl side chains—and three of these carbon atoms are needed to impact the CB1 receptors. THC contains five alkyl side chains, while THCp contains seven, leading scientists to begin studying this compound’s actual impact on the brain. 

When I took my deep drag yesterday morning on the Legislature’s big marijuana bong, I noted in passing that Representative Will Mortenson’s Republican friends (and Republicans are the prime sponsors of all 26 marijuana bills in the hopper) appear to be ignoring his advice to leave marijuana policy alone until after voters get their say on the marijuana initiative that he is sure will make the November ballot. Mortenson expressed this wish even though marijuana initiative organizers had not at the time of his writing over a month ago yet submitted their initiative petition for a repeat vote on legalizing marijuana. Those organizers still have not submitted their petition; South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws continue to collect signatures, as evidenced by their advertisement on this blog. Republicans could still halt their efforts the moment SDBML submits its petition to the Secretary of State—What? Steve got the petition, and it has 20K+ good signatures? Whoa, horse! Withdraw all of our bills! Let the people decide!—but I find that prospect highly unlikely. I’d suggest it’s more likely that marijuana advocates will pack the committee rooms and lobbies this winter to shape those 26 marijuana bills, and if they get what they want, they’ll call off the drive for another statewide vote.

Arguably, Mortenson’s Republican friends are deferring to the people by recognizing that all this petitioning signals that South Dakotans want legal marijuana and proposing Senate Bill 3 to codify that popular want. But I won’t make that argument, because if legislators really tuned their lawmaking to popular initiatives, they’d have Medicaid expansion right alongside marijuana legislation.

Consider that while one group is circulating a marijuana petition, two groups have been pushing Medicaid expansion initiatives. Rick Weiland’s Dakotans for Health has been engaging grassroots circulators around the state since November 2019 in circulating petitions to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot. The hospital lobby put together South Dakotans Decide Healthcare for the same purpose and placed a Medicaid expansion amendment (Amendment D!) on the November 2022 ballot.

The voters are sending at least as strong a signal with Amendment D (not to mention every poll I can find on the subject) that they want to expand Medicaid. Plus, the policy evidence from every state that has expanded Medicaid is paints a far more uniformly positive picture of the policy impacts of expanding Medicaid than we get from various states’ experience with legalizing marijuana. Expanding Medicaid saves lives, boosts state budgets, and stimulates the economy. Legalizing pot just means we stop putting people in jail and start taxing them for an already widespread activity of questionable value.

Helping 42,500 South Dakotans get affordable health insurance is a great social good. Adding another sin tax to South Dakota’s budget gimmicks is at best a shrug at behavior of little social value.

The new legislative session began on Tuesday. At the top of the list for state lawmakers to discuss is the medical marijuana program.

Across Mississippi, people who support medical marijuana have been vocal over their frustrations with state leaders to approve the program that was passed by an overwhelming 74 percent of voters in 2020. One of the state’s advocates in launching a medical marijuana program is Conner Reeves, a Jackson attorney who has previously served as general counsel for the Mississippi State Medical Association and as the medical policy advisor for the Medical Marijuana 2020 Campaign, which successfully saw a citizen-initiated ballot measure get passed. WLOX’s David Elliot spoke with Conner Reeves on Wednesday about the medical marijuana program and the bill currently set to be discussed in Jackson.

A new city law bars many employers from testing job applicants for cannabis use, but there are several exemptions to the ordinance.

If you’re looking for a job in Philadelphia, you may no longer need to pass a drug test for marijuana. A new city law bars many employers from testing job applicants for cannabis use. It took effect Jan. 1.

But there are several exemptions to the ordinance and questions about enforcement. If you’re a job applicant or hiring manager, here’s what you need to know about the city’s ban on pre-hire marijuana testing.

Medical marijuana is legal in Pennsylvania, but some people who are prescribed cannabis have a hard time landing jobs because of drug screenings. City Councilmember Derek Green introduced the bill after specifically learning of people with autism spectrum disorder who struggled to find work due to their medical marijuana use.

“It just seemed to be contradictory that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is allowing this product to be used for individuals to help improve their quality of life,” said Green, a Democrat.

“But then that’s also restricting their ability to improve their life by getting gainful employment.”

One of the most influential groups helping set policy for New York’s legal cannabis industry is led mostly by farmers with little prior political experience — but with early success in representing small to mid-sized marijuana businesses, the group is punching above its weight.

Among people with an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) stroke, a type of bleeding stroke, recent marijuana users were more than twice as likely to develop a dangerous complication that can result in death or greater disability, according to new research published today in Stroke, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association.

"We're all vulnerable to a bleeding stroke or a ruptured aneurysm, however, if you're a routine marijuana user, you may be predisposed to a worse outcome from a stroke after the rupture of that aneurysm," said Michael T. Lawton, M.D., senior author of the study and president and CEO of Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.

Researchers analyzed data on more than 1,000 patients who had been treated for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage at Barrow Neurological Institute between January 1, 2007 to July 31, 2019. All patients had been treated to stop the bleeding either via 1) open surgery to clip off the base of the aneurysm, or, 2) noninvasively, by threading a slim tube through a blood vessel to the base of the aneurysm and releasing coils that fold to fill in the space and provide a barrier to further bleeding.

Among all participants, 36% developed delayed cerebral ischemia; 50% were left with moderate to severe disability; and 13.5% died.

After adjusting for several patient characteristics as well as recent exposure to other illicit substances, patients who tested positive for THC at last follow up were found to be:

Industry Waits On FDA Approval To Reach Its Full Potential, But Producers Are Still Hopeful

Across the country, bags of hemp grown as long ago as 2019 still sit in barns, waiting to be sold and extracted. 

When the 2018 Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp, most growers grew hemp for cannabidiol (CBD) extraction, because it had a high profit-to-acreage ratio. With an estimated 455% increase in U.S. hemp producers, the CBD industry quickly found itself with a glut of product and not enough consumer demand. Moreover, there wasn’t enough processing capacity to make the crop profitable. 

Pfizer wants in on the cannabis game. Will you be buying Pharma Weed? Most consumers say absolutely not.

You may not have heard the wonderful news. Our great overlords and global saviors at Pfizer announced their intentions to get into the medical cannabis market via their $6.7 billion acquisition of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. Of course, the giant pharmaceutical company has a lot of “expendable cash” available due to the pandemic.

However, the news of Pfizer wanting to break into the medical cannabis industry isn’t something new. Every advocate understood that once cannabis is legalized globally, these giant pharmaceutical companies would definitely make their claim to some portion of the marketplace. Whether this is a “good” thing or a “bad” thing is irrelevant; the truth of the matter is that pharma entering into the cannabis industry is an inevitability.

For that to happen, pharma has to dig their money-hungry hands into the market and begin to do some R&D. In the case of their recent acquisition, we can already see that they are targeting specific conditions and will be creating a medication instead of trying to sell tinctures, whole plant, etc.

Pfizer wants in on the cannabis game. Will you be buying Pharma Weed? Most consumers say absolutely not.

You may not have heard the wonderful news. Our great overlords and global saviors at Pfizer announced their intentions to get into the medical cannabis market via their $6.7 billion acquisition of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. Of course, the giant pharmaceutical company has a lot of “expendable cash” available due to the pandemic.

Clark County officials are closely monitoring the state’s efforts to regulate cannabis consumption lounges, a process that will largely inform how the county sets its own expectations for the marijuana industry’s expansion.

When they open this year in Nevada as expected, following approval in the state Legislature last summer, lounges will provide locals and tourists with places to consume marijuana. But first, the state’s Cannabis Compliance Board must finalize regulations, which local jurisdictions may then strengthen if they wish.