WeedLife News Network

Despite all of the resistance, the fact is that cannabis legalization is happening right now. State by state, country by country, it’s going global.

When the Biden Administration took the White House, the headlines all clamored that it will be a “good time for cannabis”.

Stocks seemed to echo the sentiment.

Yet, since the administration took office, they fired staffers for admitting they smoked weed in the past, Kamala Harris rolled back her “pro pot stance” to align with the President’s, and now the entire “weed thing” has been put on the back burner.

Photo by Win McNamee/Staff/Getty Images

This month just might be the best time in a long time to buy cannabis stocks. Why? Much of the initial excitement about the increased prospects of significant U.S. cannabis reform has waned. With the Biden administration focused on other priorities, some investors could even be despairing that anything will be done.

However, changes that would benefit the cannabis industry are still likely on the way. Other factors are already at work that should also provide momentum. But not all pot stocks are in as good of a position to win as others. Here are my picks for the three best marijuana stocks to buy in April.

When it comes to small business opportunities these days, few phrases give people the old dollar-sign-eyes more than “legal cannabis”.

From states like Michigan where it’s been approved for both medicinal and adult use, to places like South Carolina where legalization has been a popular topic for ballots and voters, cannabis is slowly turning into one of America’s biggest businesses.

You don’t need us to tell you that – Investopedia reports that (as of Nov. 2020) over 340,000 American jobs were devoted to the handling of plants at various stages along the retail cycle, and the industry was estimated at over $13 billion as of 2019.

More than two years after Michigan voters approved marijuana for adult use, residents convicted of many pot-related crimes that have now been legalized have an opportunity to expunge them from their records.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a sweeping "clean slate" package of bills in October that will automatically expunge some criminal records in 2023, while others have to be applied for. On Monday, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced a new website where Michigan residents can learn about how to begin the process expunge the marijuana-related criminal records that require an application.

"Michiganders voted to legalize recreational marijuana use years ago," Nessel said in a statement. "Residents should rightfully be able to eliminate convictions for actions that are no longer considered a crime in our state."

According to the new website, "a person convicted of 1 or more misdemeanor or local ordinance marijuana crimes may petition the convicting court to set aside the convictions if they were based on activity that would not have been a crime after December 6, 2018, when a 2018 voter-passed initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Michigan went into effect."

The website explains the requirements, including a checklist of eligible misdemeanor marijuana offenses. Additionally, a person convicted of one or more criminal offenses including felonies (but not more than a total of three felonies) may petition to expunge the convictions.

New Zealand medical cannabis company Puro has kicked off the harvest of its crop, which it claims to be the largest in the country to date.

Planted in December last year, tens of thousands of plants have been grown on the 10-hectare site in Kēkerengū, on the Kaikōura coast of NZ’s South Island (Te Waipounamu). Cultivated under organic protocols, harvesting is being carried out entirely by hand by more than 40 workers over a period of around 5 weeks.

While people have likely smoked from a pipe or a bowl that had remnants from a different weed strain, mixing two strains is not something that usually done, at least not as a first choice. Is it possible to produce different highs when mixing two types of weed? Can a person tailor a high by playing scientist? Some people believe that’s the case and some don’t.

Mixing strains together can boost weed’s much discussed entourage effect, that feeling when different elements of cannabis come together and produce a powerful high, much stronger than when consuming a single cannabinoid by itself. The entourage effect is the reason why many people claim that consuming one cannabinoid for relaxing or therapeutic effects is not as effective as consuming the entirety of the plant, terpenes and all.

If truly looking to explore unique effects, mixing two strains together may be able to do that, for better or worse. In any case, mixing two strains isn’t rocket science. While a person can end up with a very strong high or something that sends the user to bed, the feeling will pass.

What should a person do?

Stick to one type of product and use common sense. If smoking flower, choose two preferred strains and pair them in equal parts. Don’t mix a vape with flower, or an edible with flower. Start off slow and reign in that creative monster.

When prepping a bowl, take care with the flower by placing it in glass containers and out of the sun and storing it in a cool, dry place. This will preserve the plant’s terpenes and allow for fuller experience.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation Monday legalizing recreational marijuana use within months and kicking off sales next year, making it the seventh state since November to put an end to pot prohibition.

The governor, a Democrat, has supported marijuana reform as a way to create jobs and shore up state revenue.

On Monday, she also touched on concerns about the harm inflicted on racial and ethnic minorities by drug criminalization and tough policing, noting that the new law could free about 100 from prison and expunge criminal records for thousands of residents.

“It is good for workers. It is good for entrepreneurs. It is good for consumers," she said of legalization. “And it brings about social justice in ways in which we have been talking about and advocating for, for decades.”

The signed bill gives the governor a strong hand in oversight of recreational marijuana through her appointed superintendent of the Regulation and Licensing Department.

Prohibiting marijuana hurts the legitimacy and credibility of the criminal justice system. Such prohibitions are undemocratic, racially discriminative, costly, ineffective and a blatant waste of resources.

Cannabis users and enthusiasts always want to focus solely on the medicinal and recreational benefits of the plant, which is excellent, but there is more to understand about marijuana.

For example, you cannot separate marijuana usage from the policy-making process, including legalization and the criminal justice system. These governmental aspects are fundamental because they affect how we all use cannabis.

Photo by Esther Kelleter/Getty Images

If the government in your state is hostile towards cannabis use by setting up policies limiting your access to this super plant, you will feel frustrated. So always pay close attention to what goes on in the legislative and governmental sectors regarding cannabis.

Three bills revising marijuana laws passed their final reading in the Montana House Thursday afternoon.

House Bills 701, 707 and 670 are all measures generally revising laws relating to the taxation and regulation of recreational and medical marijuana.

HB 701 would give licensing, cultivation and sales authority of medical marijuana to the Department of Revenue, as well as create separate license categories for cultivation, manufacturing, dispensing and transporting marijuana.

HB 707 would provide taxation for marijuana at the wholesale level and create wholesale licenses.

HB 670 would create a marijuana revenue trust fund, increase the medical marijuana tax rate to 5% and decrease the adult-use marijuana tax rate to 15%, among other things.

When Nevadans buy marijuana at local dispensaries, it must be consumed at home.

Tourists are not allowed to do it in public, most hotels ban it, and it can’t be used in the dispensary where it is purchased.

Social use legislation would change that and create two new categories for cannabis consumption lounges: retail (attached to existing dispensaries) or independent

Existing retailers could let people buy their products and consume them on-site. Independent lounges, places not permitted to sell cannabis on their own like barber shops or nail salons, could have marijuana products delivered or people could bring it in on their own.

Oasis Cannabis Dispensary, near downtown Las Vegas sees on average about a thousand customers per day.

Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifted the ban on growing industrial hemp in 2018, companies developing sustainable products can look forward to a future supply of hemp fiber and oil. The plant material works in numerous industrial applications, including paper making, textiles, bioplastic packaging, flooring, and even a form of concrete.

Long History Of Usefulness

Hemp is the non-intoxicating variety of the cannabis or marijuana plant. For thousands of years, human civilizations have cultivated hemp for fiber. Historians have evidence that people grew hemp in 8,000 B.C. It was also a common crop in Colonial America. As recently as the 1930s, the state of Kansas was one of the biggest hemp producers in the world.

The CBD market has always been a tough place to succeed. And companies experienced yet more hurdles in 2020, as a pandemic and an assortment of lawsuits gripped the industry.

In the face of such strong headwinds, it seems like it’ll also be hard for CBD businesses to grow in 2021. But it won’t be impossible. Despite obvious difficulties, the industry still provides opportunities for well-run companies to establish themselves and prosper.

There are several strategies companies can employ to develop a successful brand in this ever-changing market. But before discussing them, it’s important to understand the challenges that CBD entrepreneurs face.

More women are buying cannabis, which could lead to shifts in product demand. Women still make up a minority of adult-use marijuana purchasers – 33.6 percent in February – but that’s increased almost a full percentage point from 2020. While that trend might not be a dramatic shift in the gender makeup of retail marijuana sales, it could have a lasting effect because men and women shop differently for cannabis products.

For example, female buyers are more likely to purchase products other than flower when compared to their male counterparts. Both men and women spend the most on flower, but women spend less on it, according to analysis of wallet share (the percentage of a customer’s spend on specific categories) from February 2021.

The demographic information, including age and gender, was self-reported by participants in customer-loyalty programs and collected by Seattle-based cannabis analytics firm Headset. The biggest gap was in California, where women spend $36.30 of every $100 on flower compared with $43.90 spent by men, an almost $8 difference.

Other states saw a similar breakdown in flower spending:

Women most likely spend the difference on non-flower products such as edibles, where they outspent men in each state analyzed:

Chronic pain patients who used cannabis saw sustained improvement in their condition over time, according to the results of a recently released study. An abstract of the research, “No pain, all gain? Interim analyses from a longitudinal, observational study examining the impact of medical cannabis treatment on chronic pain and related symptoms,” was posted online last month prior to publication by the journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology.

To complete the study, researchers working with the Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Boston evaluated the use of medical cannabis (MC) by chronic pain patients, most of whom had either musculoskeletal pain or neuropathy. Patients were evaluated for factors including pain, clinical state, sleep, quality of life, and conventional medication use before the onset of treatment, as well as after three and six months of using medical cannabis. The data revealed a sustained improvement in the participants’ symptoms.

“Relative to baseline, following 3 and 6 months of treatment, MC patients exhibited improvements in pain which were accompanied by improved sleep, mood, anxiety, and quality of life, and stable conventional medication use,” the researchers wrote. “Reduced pain was associated with improvements in aspects of mood and anxiety.”

Different Effects Noted For THC, CBD

The research also revealed potential differences in the effects of increased exposure to the cannabinoids THC and CBD on different symptoms experienced by the participants, writing that “findings highlight the potential efficacy of MC treatment for pain and underscore the unique impact of individual cannabinoids on specific aspects of pain and comorbid symptoms.”

An Irish start-up has just raised $5.3 million (€4.5 million) in financing to provide loans to farmers in Ireland and across the world to encourage them to grow hemp for use in cannabidiol (CBD) products.

Co Meath-based Greenheart CBD, which was founded by Paul Walsh and Mark Canavan two years ago, uses drones and artificial intelligence to help maximise crop cultivation by continually monitoring plant health.

For many, the jolt of caffeine and the mellowing effects of cannabis make a perfect combination. When the two meet in the body and mind, they can amplify one another, but research is limited as to how they interact on a chemical level.

Scientific studies on what happens when your morning joe meets your morning joint are scattershot and inconclusive, but they provide a rough map of what to expect of this mental terrain. But culturally, caffeine and cannabis seem like natural bedfellows, with everyone’s favorite (legal) upper most likely to be paired with cannabis from a retail perspective.

Murky Conclusions

For starters, we know caffeine operates in the endocannabinoid system – the same brain region that makes weed do its thing. Both substances have been shown to cause an uptick in dopamine activity, and some report that the kick from caffeine creates a brighter, more euphoric cannabis high.

In many ways, however, the two seem to be awkward dance partners, canceling out certain effects and amplifying others.  Caffeine can have an anxiety-producing effect, while THC can make one mellower in low doses and freaked out at high doses (CBD seems to generally have a calming effect at any dosage). It’s possible for coffee jitters to add to cannabis shakes, paranoia or couchlock for an unpleasant cocktail. But it’s also easy to find individual reports of just the opposite effect, with the two mixing for a relaxed yet upbeat feeling. As always, it is advisable to take it slow when trying new combinations and pay attention to one’s own body.

Though coffee has been shown to enhance one’s cognitive powers, combined with weed, the overall effect may actually be the reverse from coffee alone: Some studies suggest that coffee and cannabis combine to inhibit memory. Others have shown that caffeine can partially protect against the forgetfulness associated with high doses of CBD.

As many states are doing, New York fully embraced the concept of social and economic equity by setting a target goal of 50% of licenses issued to social and economic equity applicants.

After years of fits and starts, New York finally legalized adult-use cannabis and expanded its previously restrictive medical cannabis program. As the nation’s third largest economy and fourth most populous state, New York has the opportunity to set the gold standard for state cannabis industries.

New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (“MRTA”) establishes industry governing bodies — the Cannabis Control Board (“CCB”) and the Office of Cannabis Management (“OCM”), creates license types across the commercial cannabis activity spectrum, sets up a social and economic equity plan, and allocates a significant portion of tax revenue from cannabis sales to social and economic equity programs.

An important political catalyst for the New York legislature’s passage of the MRTA was the expectation that tax revenue generated from cannabis sales will reduce the state’s significant budget deficit and repair of some of the economic damage caused by COVID. Another political objective was correcting social and economic injustices caused by decades of inequitable enforcement of marijuana laws.

Commercially, the MRTA aims to prevent anti-competitive behavior among licensees, creating adult-use licenses for cultivators, processors, cooperatives, distributors, retail dispensaries, microbusinesses, deliveries, cultivation nurseries, and on-site consumption. Industry rules and regulations will be created and implemented by the CCB and OCM, including those related to the number of licenses issued per license type and by geographic area.