WeedLife News Network

The CBD market has achieved steady growth curve even during the pandemic. CBD or cannabidiol is a natural substance derived from cannabis, found in both marijuana and the non-psychoactive hemp plant. CBD is a non-psychoactive chemical compound and may alleviate things such as anxiety and pain, which is why it is used to create wellness products, such as oils, edibles and functional beverages. The pandemic caused a shift in CBD sales to online channels. While this shift ensured that CBD products remained accessible to consumers, it did not fully compensate for the loss of education and brand awareness available at some retail stores.

PIERRE, S.D. — As the November deadline for proposed laws concerning legalized medical cannabis approaches, the South Dakota Department of Health is holding a public hearing to consider the adoption and amendment of proposed rules for South Dakota medical cannabis program.

The hearing will be held on Aug. 18, 2021 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. CDT, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. MDT in Conference Room 3 of the Kneip Building, 700 Governor’s Drive in Pierre. Anyone interested in testifying for or against the proposed rules may do so by appearing in person or remotely at the hearing.

To testify remotely, you must register by Aug. 13, 2021 by clicking here.

If you cannot make it in person or remotely, written comments and materials must reach the South Dakota Department of Health — 600 East Capitol Avenue, Pierre, South Dakota 57501 — by Aug. 28, 2021.

After the hearing, the DOH will consider all written and oral comments.

ALBANY — A certification process highlighting energy-efficient cannabis cultivators and a tax credit to complement it are key sustainability proposals of an industry white paper released Tuesday by New York’s Castetter Cannabis Group. The paper also called for state regulators to develop a strategy for data collection and analysis of license holders’ operations.

Its recommendations reinforce lawmakers’ urgency to minimize harm to the the state’s fledgling industry, but suggest a divergent strategy centered on incentives rather than efficiency limits.

“We’re advocating for a performance-based approach,” said Kate Hruby, the group’s lead policy analyst and co-author of the paper.

As billionaires blast off into space to search for inhabitable planets, there are other business leaders doing their part to keep the planet we have from either burning up or being buried under all the garbage we produce. CannaCraft, a community-oriented cannabis company based in Sonoma County, has made it its mission to tackle the plastic packaging waste issue.

When the New Mexico Legislature was considering a bill that eventually became the Cannabis Regulation Act, one of the major topics of concern was water use. Ultimately, lawmakers agreed to require cannabis growers to prove they had legal access to water.

Marijuana smokers in Southern Illinois can now legally light up in a new consumption lounge. The Luna Lounge, in Sesser, Illinois, about 5 hours south of Chicago, was specifically built for marijuana smokers.

Misinformation has run rampant over the use of marijuana for decades. In 1936, the church group-financed movie Reefer Madness taught the public about the perils presented in using the drug — everything from attempted murder to suicide and madness. Around the same time, Harry Anslinger and others began the war on drugs, which was at least partly fueled by racist motives. Ever since, rumors and or slanted science about weed has often filled in a gaping hole in research due to restrictions on drugs illegalized by western governments. That said, the legalization of marijuana in various states and countries has led to marketing campaigns making sometimes dubious claims of the herb’s health benefits.

Some people have long tended to lump all illegal drugs together, seeing little difference between the dangers posed by drugs like heroine or methamphetamines to marijuana. But how dangerous is marijuana, really? Can it kill you? Is it possible to overdose on weed?

The answer to the latter question is an easy “no.” There are some ways that joints, bong hits or synthetic versions of the psychoactive agents in marijuana can kill you, but overdosing on pure, unadulterated marijuana that isn’t mixed with anything is very nearly impossible.

“It’s not close to alcohol or opiate toxicity,” says Mujeeb Shad, a psychiatrist with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Why the Danger of Marijuana Is Self-Mitigated

The reason marijuana doesn’t pose the same sort of risk as opiates, cocaine, amphetamines or even alcohol is that some of the active components of the pungent herb work against each other in your body.

A trial carried out in Western Australia is indicating strong potential for hemp to be a good summer feed option for livestock.

There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that hemp is a great livestock feed, but one of the challenges is regulatory – concerns about how the intoxicating cannabinoid THC may impact animal products. While THC is only present in small amounts in hemp, the fact it exists at all is the main reason it remains illegal to feed it to livestock in many jurisdictions.

Synthetic cannabinoids have different biochemical properties compared to THC that increase their risk.

By Nate Guzowski

A problem of increasing social importance is the rise in the use of synthetic cannabis alternatives, commonly called K2 or Spice or a number of other brand names. In 2020, 2.4% of high school seniors tried synthetic cannabis.

In contrast to marijuana where THC is the active molecule, these alternatives use a range of different, more potent compounds that activate the same pathways as THC, namely the CB1 cannabinoid receptor, which is responsible for the subjective effects of cannabinoid intoxication.

JWH-018 is perhaps the most widely abused of these molecules historically due to its ease of synthesis, but these products may contain any of a large number of similarly acting molecules. JWH-018 has approximately 5 times the activity as THC, but other synthetics can far exceed this. For example, HU-210 has an activity measured in hundreds of times the potency of THC. The legal status of these compounds varies on a case-by-case basis and can be poorly defined. This is because the CB1 receptor is promiscuous with respect to the variety of chemical matter it will bind to. JWH-018 is officially a schedule 1 drug, whereas HU-210 is unscheduled currently.

While the use of cannabis dates back to the third millennium BC, the ways that humans have experienced the plant haven’t changed dramatically. With legal medicinal dispensaries being welcomed into our communities, the selection and quality of cannabis products has improved vastly - but the fundamental experience of ingestible products has stayed basically the same. At long last, that’s about to change.

Maine’s recreational marijuana market continued its eye-popping growth in June, the state has reported.

Sales of cannabis for recreational, adult use topped $6.47 million for the month, up from $5.36 million in May, according to new data from the Maine Office of Marijuana Policy. More than 86,000 purchases took place during June.

The value of June sales is the highest monthly total since Maine’s recreational marijuana market launched last October, and represents a 20.6% increase over the dollar amount in May. That’s slightly less than the 23.2% growth in May over the previous month.

To date, sales have totaled nearly $30 million, according to the OMP. June sales were roughly six times the total in the first month.

Canada is opening their border to vaccinated U.S. travelers on August 9, but while cannabis is now legal in New York state and Canada, it’s still illegal to take it between the two locations.

Since Canada legalized cannabis in 2018, Mike Niezgoda with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said there have been a number of smuggling cases.

“We had an incursion that came via helicopter that landed in Grand Island, just north of Buffalo,” he said. That was in 2019 when Border Patrol agents recovered four duffel bags carrying a total of more than 100 pounds of weed with an estimated street value of more than $100,000.

However, Niezgoda said that smaller infractions, and unintended smuggling, are another matter for travelers to keep in mind.

“Say they went to Toronto to go up to see the Maple Leafs play the Sabres, they bought some marijuana, and then they forgot about it and then came back and they realized it right when they saw the booth.”

EcoCaNN, the first social media for medical cannabis patients, was launched officially in Israel this morning. The app allows patients and their families to consult and to get assistance by the best professionals in the medical cannabis field, and to get specific answers to their questions 24/7. EcoCaNN is based on a free digital platform and the information in the app is protected, anonymous, and confidential.

Delta Agriculture, the country's largest industrial producer and processor of hemp raw goods, today announced the launch of its hemp fiber line, marking a transitional growth from leader in hemp flower production into a full-scale industrial hemp supplier. The company also unveiled a new logo as part of an extensive rebrand initiative focused on its goal to make hemp the nation's leading raw good supply source, with the ultimate mission to ensure America's trajectory towards a carbon-negative future.

One local hospital says they're now treating at least a couple of young children every month for toxic exposure to edibles — and they're warning parents to lock up their pot treats

A skyrocketing number of children in the tri-state are inadvertently ingesting marijuana edibles, and legislators say there's a void in New York's emerging pot regulations that isn't helping the situation.

The scary trend began before New York State legalized recreational marijuana back in March, going from six children in the NYC metropolitan area poisoned by edibles in 2018, to 32 in 2019 and 127 in 2020, according to regional poison control officials.

"Sometimes that's in the form of candies and gummies, cookies and brownies. There are lots of forms that are out there," said Dr. Ethan Wiener, director of pediatric emergency medicine at Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone.

Two-thirds of those children are under the age of 5 — and the numbers are on track to be just as high this year.

It’s possible for a weed-consuming population to use marijuana without needing emergency medical assistance. Here’s how.

It seems that every time a state officially launches its legal cannabis market, reports showing that emergency rooms are filling up with people who can’t handle their weed start to bombard the internet. This took place earlier this year throughout Illinois, which rolled out its taxed and regulated pot trade in January. In Chicago, doctors claimed an increase in ER visits due to people overdosing on weed.

Listen, this madness might be happening, or it might not. The purpose of this article is not to debate whether legal marijuana brings about an uprising in freakouts that send people on a mad dash for the hospital. It is to serve as a guide, of sorts, intended to prevent these horrific events from happening in the first place. Because, get this, it is possible for a weed-consuming population to use marijuana without needing emergency medical assistance. It’s a novel concept, we know. But we swear that people can use cannabis products safely and responsibly.

Here’s how.

Photo by Nicole De Khors via Burst

The first thing to consider is this: Any report that comes out in the media suggesting that people are running to the ER because the weed got on top of them can almost always be attributed to edibles. We’re not going to lie, these popular pot products sold in dispensaries in states where marijuana is legal can be tricky and the source of great misery if they are not consumed correctly.

Research out of Australia is indicating the “entourage effect” associated with medicinal cannabis is likely really a thing.

So, what is the entourage effect?

Coined by Israeli researchers in the late 1990’s, the entourage effect describes medical cannabis treatment efficacy not being limited to a specific cannabinoid such as THC or CBD, but multiple compounds working together producing a therapeutic effect. These compounds aren’t just cannabinoids, but also terpenes – aromatic chemicals.

There are many who accept the entourage effect exists, but to this point scientific evidence to support it has been scant.

Research just released from Sydney University’s Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics indicates hemp extracts deliver high concentrations of cannabinoid acids in mice due to a ‘pharmacokinetic entourage’ mechanism – higher than when they are administered alone as a single molecule.

A new report suggests having accessible weed can add to your property value.

If you’ve been shopping around for a new home recently, you’ve probably noticed that real estate prices have increased. This is true, particularly in weed-friendly states. But with 91% of American adults who support cannabis legalization, it will only continue to spread throughout the country and there is no doubt it will have an impact on real estate prices.

Chuck Schumer Is Still Working To Pass His Federal Reform Bill

Image credit: Marijuanastocks.com - MarijuanaStocks

3 Political Figures Want Cannabis Federally Legalized ASAP

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the end of the week spoke on his approach for gaining enough votes to pass his federal reform bill. He went on to explain the means of asking for feedback on the legislation from colleagues. From this, he hopes to work on including any requested “modifications” in order to get the measure passed in 2021. Just a short time ago Schumer released his draft for his new cannabis reform legislation. This reveal was done with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and Sen. 

As the political figures made clear that public input is important. With this, they’ve created an email where people can send comments in regards to the bill until September 30th. The new comments offer a raw look into the legislative process to build backing for the bill within the Senate.

“We’re now going around to our colleagues saying, ‘Would you sign onto the bill? And if you don’t like what’s in the bill and want some modifications, tell us,’” he told ABC’s The View. “I want to get this done. And I think we will get it done because it’s so, so overwhelmingly supported by the American people.”