WeedLife News Network

Now that we’re in lockdown, many of us are spending a lot of quality time with our phones, consequently glued to our social media apps and living vicariously through our favorite influencer.

Influencers have become more than just a typical internet celebrity, some even become household names, utilizing their large platform to spread their views to an engaged audience.

We’ve compiled a list of some popular cannabis influencers who are using social media as an entertaining and innovative way to normalize cannabis consumption.

So, take a smoke, get comfy, and let’s scroll. 

@sativadiva1997 

With over 170K followers, this 23-year-old Orange County native is a fan favorite on TikTok, where she posts daily hilarious videos involving cannabis.

Republican U.S. Congressman Bob Good has written a letter to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam urging him to veto a recreational marijuana legalization bill passed by state lawmakers last month. The Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates agreed on a compromise bill to legalize cannabis for use by adults and to regulate marijuana production and sales on February 27.

In a letter to the Democratic governor written by Good last week, the representative for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District exhorted Northam not to sign the legalization bill, HB 2312, into law.

“Legalizing recreational use of marijuana, even if limited to adults, would expose our future generations to drug use at young impressionable ages,” said Good. “It is my hope that the Governor will not move forward with this legislation and will instead acknowledge that the many negative consequences far outweigh any potential positive revenue for the Commonwealth.”

In his letter, Good said that the cannabis legalization bill would “undermine the rule of law,” noting that marijuana remains a Schedule l substance under federal statute.

Good cited concerns that the legalization of cannabis would pose a danger to children and repeated debunked assertions that marijuana is a “gateway drug” to more dangerous illicit substances. He also expressed doubts that a regulated marijuana economy would generate as much tax revenue as projections predict.

A bill aimed at capping the amount of THC in medical marijuana cleared its first committee stop in the Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The Professions & Public Health Subcommittee passed the bill, HB 1455, allowing it to move forward in the Florida House.

The bill states that qualified physicians may not prescribe medical marijuana containing more than 10 percent THC to patients. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive compound in cannabis that produces the high sensation.

The bill would also limit patients to 15,000 milligrams of THC every 35 days.

Rhode Island is the next in a series of states to propose recreational cannabis as a way to boost the economy following the impacts of COVID. 

The bill was introduced by the state Senate, who proposed a legal cannabis bill that would tax cannabis at 20 percent in order to generate revenue. 

The bill is being backed by Josh Miller, chairman of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee, and Michael McCaffrey, the majority leader. If the bill gets signed into law, it will make it legal for those 21 and older to possess at least an ounce of cannabis in the state. Some home growing would also be made legal.

“Cannabis legalization is a monumental shift in public policy that effectively creates a new economy,” Miller said in a statement. “We want to ensure as many Rhode Islanders as possible have the opportunity to participate in this new economy.”

Miller claimed that the goal of this proposed law is to make legal cannabis “as entrepreneurial as possible” in order to bring money into Rhode Island. 

Hawaii state senators on Tuesday advanced a slight increase to the minimum wage and another measure that would legalize recreational pakalolo for anyone 21 years and older.

While this is the first year a recreational pot measure has cleared a full floor vote, it appears dead on arrival in the House of Representatives. A key House chairman said he may not hear the measure.

The House meanwhile advanced measures allowing certain nurses to perform abortions after significant debate on the floor. Those bills are among hundreds that crossed over between the House and the Senate on Tuesday.

More stringent gun control laws also drew some attention during floor debates. And the new federal stimulus bill may spell death for certain tax credit proposals.

While the legal cannabis industry is slowly spreading across the U.S. and becoming legal, regulated, and accepted in more states, one thing the cannabis industry struggles with is having access to services that most businesses have access to, including banking and insurance. Now, one company has stepped forward to offer insurance services to the Arizona market, which is very much in need. 

A recent poll released on Tuesday shows that two-thirds of Maryland adults support the legalization of recreational marijuana. The results of the Goucher College Poll come as the state’s lawmakers consider bills that would legalize cannabis for adults and expunge past convictions for some marijuana offenses.

“The Maryland General Assembly is considering a bill to legalize the use of recreational cannabis,” said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College. “This most recent effort comes on the heels of four states voting to legalize recreational cannabis by ballot measure this past November and, most recently, New Jersey, and Virginia passing adult-use marijuana legalization laws.”

The poll surveyed 725 Maryland adults to ask their opinions on a variety of topics affecting the state. When asked whether they supported “making marijuana legal for recreational use in Maryland,” fully two-thirds (67%) said that they either supported or strongly supported the idea (27% and 40%, respectively). Only 28% said that they opposed recreational marijuana legalization, with 17% strongly opposed to the proposed change.

This year’s poll results show the strongest support for legalizing recreational marijuana in Maryland since the Goucher Poll began asking about the issue in October 2013, when 51% were in favor and 41% opposed legalization. Less than two years ago, 57% of those surveyed were in favor of legalization while 37% said that they were opposed. 

Support For Legalization Varies By Political Party Affiliation

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy indicated this week that he is in favor of a change to the state’s new marijuana law that would allow law enforcement to notify parents of an underage individuals’ first-time pot offense. 

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, the Democrat said he’s receptive to the tweak to the law he signed late last month.

“I personally think that’s a step in the right direction, and so we’ll see where that goes,” Murphy said, as quoted by NJ.com. “It’s got a ways to go, but as a conceptual matter…I support that direction.”

As NJ.com explained, the bill that Murphy signed only a couple weeks ago “removed all criminal penalties and fines for such offenses, replacing them with escalating warnings.” “Under that, the first warning will go to the juvenile only, the second to a parent and the third as a referral to drug education or treatment programs,” the website reported.

A number of lawmakers immediately expressed misgivings with the idea that a minor could get busted for pot without their parents being notified. Last week, a trio of Democratic legislators—State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch), Assemblyman Eric Houghtaling (D-Neptune) and Assemblywoman Joann Downey—introduced a bill to change that part of the law.

Irish Revenue officials have once again intercepted packages containing cannabis from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Spain thanks to the Baileys, two drug-detecting dogs whose sole mission is to sniff out contraband.

In all, packages received at both the Dublin and Athlone mail centres contained 141,000 euros (just shy of $213,000) in illicit weed.

Arriving at the Dublin Mail Centre, the innocuously declared packages — including those labeled as “art supplies,” “coffee pods,” “action figures” and “toys” — were destined for different addresses across the county, according to a statement from Revenue.

Specifically, the packages intercepted on Mar. 3 contained more than four kilograms of cannabis, and 27 grams of cannabis oil and butane honey oil products. Combined, the weed and products have an estimated value of almost 88,200 euros ($133,182)

Just two days earlier at the Athlone Mail Centre, Revenue officers seized almost seven kilograms of illegal drugs and psychoactive substances. This time, the contraband originated from the U.K. and declared as “hair bows,” “football memorabilia” and “photos.”

The full plant profile and all of its compounds are considered important in creating the experiences consumers seek.

Today, it isn’t uncommon to hear about the potency or strength of a cannabis product. Typically, the discussion centers on the percentage of THC or CBD found in a plant strain or its products. Advancements in cultivation and tech allowed potency to balloon over the decades, particularly in recent years as legalization spread across the globe.

However, experts in the space tend to agree that potency is far from the be-all-end-all indicator that far too many make it out to be. Instead, most suggest that the full plant profile and its numerous compounds each play an integral part in creating the plant’s true healing potency and quality.

Much More Than THC And CBD Content

Sources say that potency, while important, does not equate to the quality of the plant or its products. Instead, the full plant profile and all of its compounds are considered important in creating the experiences consumers seek.

Today’s flower can reach up to or above 30% potency, a staggering leap from a few decades ago when the plant’s strength was often in the low- to mid-single digits. But many, like High Life Farms Co-Founder Ben Celani, notes that plants with a potency of around 18% can still provide a more effective, robust experience than a 30% plant if it has the right plant profile makeup, which includes its terpene content.5

Terpenes, or the oily compounds found in cannabis and other plants, are critical in producing the unique aroma, flavor and effects in each cultivar. “There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that switching strains to vary the terpene profile consumed can give a user the feeling of having “reset” their tolerance, requiring less consumption to achieve the same level of effect,” reported Celani.

For decades now, cannabis has been treated as a joke medicine, or worse. Fortunately, since 2020, we’ve seen several groundbreaking studies that have begun dispelling cannabis’s negative reputation.

In a December 2020 study by the University of New Mexico published in the Journal of Cannabinoid Research, researchers reviewed data collected from 2306 self-administered doses of cannabis flower by 670 participants via a cannabis tracking app called Releaf.

From that data, researchers found that decreases in symptom intensity were reported in 95.51 percent of cannabis sessions. Additionally, higher CBD concentration was not associated with changes in intensity of symptoms while higher THC concentration was associated with reductions in negative symptoms. Yet, cultivars labeled indica provided better results than cultivars labeled sativa. While the labels sativa and indica have been discounted, this study used them to match the consumer’s market options.

Although paranoia has commonly been associated with cannabis, this study found that people were much more likely to report positive effects after ingesting cannabis than negative ones. Due to this, the authors have hypothesized that the classic paranoia may have more to do with the illegality of cannabis than the inherent effects of the plant. They also hypothesize that this positive profile is why many patients choose to substitute cannabis for traditional pharmacological substances such as benzodiazepines, atypical antipsychotics, SSRIs, beta-blockers, and other medications meant to treat negative affect.

In contrast to the idea that THC causes anxiety, the study found that: “…the fact that higher THC appears to confer greater anxiolytic effects in our study at higher THC levels suggests that the whole natural Cannabis plant may act very differently on the brain as compared to synthetic or derived THC isolates.” While there was a lack of absolute control over the experiment, Releaf represents an innovative solution that allows for reliable and comfortably supplied information to be reported.

Some reports indicate the cannabis component is on its way to becoming the next rockstar cannabinoid of the legal weed movement.

There have been several reports over the past year or so suggesting that people all over the country who use hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) products are failing drug tests. This is apparently happening as the lack of FDA regulations has allowed cannabis companies to be inconsistent in their manufacturing process.

So, while these products are only supposed to contain no more than 0.3% THC (not enough to get you high or cause a failed drug screen), some have more. But a 2019 study suggests that CBD users really don’t have much to worry about when it comes to the possibility of failing a drug screen. However, if they are using another emerging, cannabis-derivative known as cannabinol (CBN), they might be putting themselves at risk.

Photo by pxfuel

Researchers at the University of Utah Health Science Center say that CBN users could have a difficult time passing a drug test. It seems that while examining a handful of cannabinoids to determine which of them, if any, might react with immunoassays — the most common type of drug test available — they found that CBN was more likely to cause a false positive for marijuana than other cannabinoids, such as CBD or cannabichromene (CBC) and cannabigerol (CBG).

Specifically, the study shows that the Beckman Coulter Emit II Plus Cannabinoid test can register a positive for pot with as little as 100 ng/ml CBN. Researchers say drug testing pros should keep this in mind.

Hemp is technically legal, but proving that it’s not illegal marijuana can be a hurdle, requiring testing in a licensed laboratory.

When a truck carrying thousands of pounds of hemp was recently detained by law enforcement near Amarillo, Texas, the driver spent weeks in jail awaiting confirmation that the cargo was legal.

Stories like that inspired a team of Texas A&M AgriLife researchers to create a “hemp scanner” that could easily fit in a police cruiser and distinguish hemp and marijuana instantly, without damaging any of the product.

In 2019, Texas lawmakers made a distinction between hemp and marijuana based on the level of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, in a plant. If a plant has less than 0.3% THC, it is designated hemp.

Both federal and state restrictions on hemp have loosened in recent years. As a result, the value of hemp has skyrocketed, said Dmitry Kurouski, assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics, who led the study.

A proposed bill in the Minnesota state senate would make it legal for medical cannabis patients in the state to use marijuana flower for treatment.

The legislation cleared its first hurdle earlier this month, with the bill getting passed out of the Senate Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee on March 1. According to local television station KSTP, current law in Minnesota only allows medical cannabis to be distributed in pill or liquid form.

Such restrictions have been decried by cannabis advocates, who argue that patients ought to be able to receive treatment in its most common form. Consumption methods like tinctures and oils are also generally more expensive for both the producer and consumer. Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed the state’s medical marijuana law in 2014, which has gradually expanded in the years since to include more qualifying conditions. 

Criticism of The State’s Current Medical Cannabis Program

The state’s restrictions have prompted some to call Minnesota’s medical cannabis program one of the most conservative in the country. And those restrictions also prevent many patients from turning to cannabis rather than more dangerous painkillers. 

One member of the Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee, state Sen. Matt Klein, expressed tepid support for the bill.

Colombia is a country that’s been at the forefront of drug markets for quite some time, with a government ready, willing, and able to make updates to laws as needed. In its newest turn, Colombia is building its international cannabis export market, and creating new legislation to bring in more revenue.

In today’s world of cannabis, you can choose the THC you like the most. There’s delta-9 which is the standard THC. And then there’s delta-8 THC, a newer version which causes less psychoactive reaction, and less overall anxiety. Which THC is better? Check out our sweet Delta-8 THC deals and figure out which one works best for you.

Cannabis and Colombia

Colombia has been one of the more lax countries when it comes to cannabis use, partly because the country has had so many drug issues and drug violence, that it has made laws specifically to try to combat these issues. One of them was to decriminalize most drugs in 1994. This decriminalization wasn’t as precise as it should have been, and in 2012, a specification was made to clarify just how much a person could have for personal use and/or possession without being arrested. The amount was set at 20 grams or less to avoid prosecution. This was still only intended for private use, and did not decriminalize public use.

Things got a little sticky in 2018, when then president Ivan Duque signed a decree giving law enforcement the ability to confiscate personal use quantities if caught. The decree did not break with decriminalization in that it didn’t threaten criminal sanctions, but it did instate a fine of up to 208,000 pesos. The following year (2019) the Constitutional Court ruled that parts of the decree were unconstitutional and abolished punishments for up to 20 grams, while still allowing law enforcement to confiscate contraband.

Sale, supply, and trafficking crimes are all predictably illegal. Having more than 20 grams can be considered possession with an intent to sell. The maximum prison sentence is 20 years, which is a stricter penalty in the country than for rape. Being caught trafficking can land a person in prison for up to 30 years.

A proposed bill in the Minnesota state senate would make it legal for medical cannabis patients in the state to use marijuana flower for treatment.

The legislation cleared its first hurdle earlier this month, with the bill getting passed out of the Senate Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee on March 1. According to local television station KSTP, current law in Minnesota only allows medical cannabis to be distributed in pill or liquid form.

Such restrictions have been decried by cannabis advocates, who argue that patients ought to be able to receive treatment in its most common form. Consumption methods like tinctures and oils are also generally more expensive for both the producer and consumer. Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed the state’s medical marijuana law in 2014, which has gradually expanded in the years since to include more qualifying conditions. 

Criticism of The State’s Current Medical Cannabis Program

The state’s restrictions have prompted some to call Minnesota’s medical cannabis program one of the most conservative in the country. And those restrictions also prevent many patients from turning to cannabis rather than more dangerous painkillers. 

A proposed bill in the Minnesota state senate would make it legal for medical cannabis patients in the state to use marijuana flower for treatment.

The legislation cleared its first hurdle earlier this month, with the bill getting passed out of the Senate Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee on March 1. According to local television station KSTP, current law in Minnesota only allows medical cannabis to be distributed in pill or liquid form.

Such restrictions have been decried by cannabis advocates, who argue that patients ought to be able to receive treatment in its most common form. Consumption methods like tinctures and oils are also generally more expensive for both the producer and consumer. Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed the state’s medical marijuana law in 2014, which has gradually expanded in the years since to include more qualifying conditions. 

Criticism of The State’s Current Medical Cannabis Program

The state’s restrictions have prompted some to call Minnesota’s medical cannabis program one of the most conservative in the country. And those restrictions also prevent many patients from turning to cannabis rather than more dangerous painkillers. 

When Silicon Valley tech workers didn’t invent microdosing, they may be responsible for turning it into a trend: The practice is often touted as a biohack for creativity, inspiring new ways to pump out code, design interfaces, or harness the entrepreneurial spirit. But, microdosing psychedelics may have real benefits that go beyond the reflective walls of San Francisco high rises. 

A “microdose” is a dosage of a psychoactive substance that is too low to produce a noticeable intoxicating effect. Psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and cannabis are the three most commonly micro-dosed substances. Anecdotally, the reasons why consumers microdose are many: Anxiety, creativity, and depression all make the list. 

Yet, while consumers report many benefits to microdosing, the topic has long eluded the scientific community that’s responsible for putting these reports to the test. The 1971 Controlled Substances Act criminalized the possession, cultivation, and processing of many drugs, psychedelics included. The act, however, does a lot more than criminalize the possession of these substances. It also forces scientists to jump through immeasurable hurdles to access psychedelics for research.

But that doesn’t mean that some researchers don’t try. 

Microdosing for Anxiety

Every once in a while, researchers are given express permission to move forward with psychedelic studies. Fortunately, the rising popularity of microdosing is spurring a push for real scientific research on the topic. Five years ago, there were virtually no studies on microdosing psychedelics. Yet, in the time since, academic journals published nearly 400 different papers on the topic. 

Despite more Americans supporting federal legalization of cannabis, many people still don’t know about the industry’s potential to harm the environment.

Just like other agricultural commodities, there are environmental impacts involved when growing cannabis. But many consumers don’t know, or simply don’t care how their cannabis was grown or even if it was sprayed with harmful chemical pesticides.

Tons of carbon is emitted into the atmosphere too just to grow a single cannabis plant. However, there is a growing number of people who do care how their cannabis was grown, and if they are produced with care to reduce its impact on the environment.

With climate change the number one issue our earth faces today, it’s important for you to help make a positive change by looking for products — your cannabis included — from brands or manufacturers that work to reduce their carbon footprint.

Cannabis is one of the oldest agricultural commodities out there, and more grow operations continue to sprout because of demand for the product. However, growing it using modern techniques especially in indoor grows requires massive amounts of energy and water, which have a major carbon footprint. Despite more Americans supporting federal legalization of cannabis, many people still don’t know about the industry’s potential to harm the environment.