WeedLife News Network

State Senator-elect Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio has pre-filed a bill that would legalize cannabis.

The Democrat who ousted Republican Pete Flores in the State Senate District 19 race last week made the legalization of marijuana for medical and adult recreation use one of his campaign platforms.  Gutierrez says  it would result in an estimated $3.2 billion in state revenue and create 30,000 jobs.

“There is going to be a budget shortfall to affect all Texans next legislative session, however, I look forward to working with my colleagues to offer a real solution,” Gutierrez said. “Our state’s economic future is uncertain and in order to best serve our state, we have to look at cannabis legalization as a solution and not keep going back to the taxpayers and raise their taxes.”

He notes that marijuana is legalized, either for medicinal or adult recreational use, in 3 dozen states.

“We’ve interview Texas mothers who are living with their autistic children in Colorado because cannabis helps control seizures,” Gutierrez told KTSA News.

Every serious grower has a set of tools that are used every day to monitor and tend to their crops. If you’re thinking about taking the step from curious cultivator to master grower, there are a handful of tools that will be essential to the plant’s success and using them on a daily basis will ensure that the next (or first) crop will be healthy and bountiful. Check out this list of suggestions below for resources to get you growing with the best of them.

pH Meter

There are a few ways to measure the pH of the nutrient solution with effective pH meters that are inexpensive yet simple to use. You may purchase a vial of litmus fluid to test the pH. Simply take a sample of the nutrient solution and put a few drops in the vial. After shaking it to mix it thoroughly, the color of the nutrient solution changes. Compare this color with the gauge that’s included and that’s the pH.

A more effective but costlier method is to purchase a pH meter, which is recommended if there’s more than one crop being grown. It’s a simple meter to use and can be found at any hydroponic supply store. Fast-growing leafy plants generally like a lower PH in the range of 5.2 to 5.9.

PPM Meter

The concentration of the nutrient solution is measured in parts per million (PPM). This indispensable tool is used every day to monitor and mix the nutrient solution to make sure there aren’t any nutrient deficiencies. Young, established seedlings or rooted clones are generally started at 500 to 600 PPM. This value is increased to 800 to 900 PPM during the peak foliage growth period. During the flowering period, the PPM is raised even higher to 1000 to 1200 PPM. That’s a lot of nutrient. And it’s needed – every drop. It’s at the flowering time that the plant will need the most resources.

24 Hour Timer

In order to have a healthy crop, a lighting cycle must be religiously adhered to. The norm is to have a cycle that has 18 hours with light and six hours without it. This is accomplished with an automatic timer. It’s important to have a setup that allows the night cycle to be absolutely black. It’s recommended to not even enter the room they’re being grown in to check on them during their night cycle.

Using cannabis-related products has become increasingly popular in North America. Scientific research has discovered a wide variety of ailments that these products could be useful for. Accordingly, the CBD market has surged. 

People are now integrating CBD products into their everyday lives. When shopping for  CBD near you, visit sites like cbdoilnearby.com to find which stores are worth visiting. For the best deals, always buy online unless it’s not an option in your town or city.

What Does CBD do?

The normalization of CBD products is still a relatively new concept. Therefore, not everyone is exposed to information regarding the benefits that this compound can have. In this article, we are going to learn how CBD products can have a positive impact on men’s health.

Cannabidiol known to most as CBD is an active compound that can be derived from cannabis and hemp. It is the second most prevalent, after THC. Many people know THC due to its psychoactive properties. Essentially, THC is what makes users feel “high.”

The presidential election is over. While the central concern of the election was to reclaim America from the clutches of Donald Trump, addressing the pandemic that killed more than 230,000 Americans, passing some version of the COVID-19 relief bill that Senate Republicans have been holding hostage, protecting abortion and LGBTQ rights from the now-stacked Republican Supreme Court, as well as a host of other urgent issues, the legal status of marijuana is also at stake. While the Democratic platform calls for the federal descheduling and decriminalization of marijuana, the Republican platform called for more of the same—which means more mass incarcerations and a “tough on crime” stance for petty drug possession charges.

What Joe Biden Promises

During the primary race, the Shepherd Express repeatedly pointed out that Joe Biden was the only Democratic candidate who refused to consider the full legalization of marijuana, a stance that has now been adopted by the entire party since Biden became the nominee. However, despite being one of the more conservative candidates on the roster, Joe Biden made one key promise: “Nobody should be in jail simply for smoking or possessing marijuana.”

During the last presidential debate, President Donald Trump didn’t hesitate to point out Joe Biden’s record as a Senator, accusing him of partially causing America’s mass incarceration problem. Surprisingly, given that it came from the mouth of the president who told a record-breaking 20,000 recorded lies before the end of his first term, this is actually true—somewhat. While Trump simply repeated the words “your Crime Bill” in-between some drivel about being better than any president since Abraham Lincoln, there is a nugget of truth here. Joe Biden is credited with writing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, commonly known as the 1994 Crime Bill, a core component of the War on Drugs to this day, which led to the incarceration of countless innocent people for possession of recreational drugs.

What matters now, a quarter-century later, is that Joe Biden publicly denounced his own record. “It was a mistake,” he said of his Crime Bill during the debate, on live television in front of 63 million Americans. “We passed 100%. All 100 senators voted for it. It was a mistake. I have been trying to change it since then, particularly the portion on cocaine,” he added. “I’ve been arguing that, in fact, we should not send anyone to jail for a pure drug offense, they should be going into treatment. [...] It was a mistake to pass those laws relating to drugs.”

Beyond recognizing the error of his past actions, which made him the only man to do such a thing on the debate stage, Joe Biden also put forth ideas for a solution: “There should be no minimum mandatory [sentences] in the law. I am offering $20 billion to states to change their state laws to eliminate minimum mandatories and set up drug courts. No one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem. They should be going to rehabilitation, not to jail. We should fundamentally change the system, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

In the short term, marijuana hinders your learning ability, but doesn’t seem to cause long-term impairment.

Marijuana makes you dumb. At least according to the tired trope surrounding its use. Back in the day, stoners were considered slackers and anyone who smoked weed was on a one-way ticket to Loserville.

Today, many of those stigmas have fallen away. But some still linger in the popular consciousness, like the perception that every hit on a joint results in a lower IQ. But does smoking marijuana actually make you stupid?

Not really, according to a review published in the journal Neuropsychology. Canadian researchers Scot Purdon and Daniel Krzyzanowski aimed to better understand what long-term cognitive effects cannabis could have on users. They analyzed 23 previous studies to determine if marijuana abstinence had any impact on verbal learning and memory abilities.

Based on available literature, they wrote, whatever impairment marijuana use inflicted upon memory and verbal learning “appear to resolve between 7 and 28 days of sustained abstinence.” However, they added, “years of regular use were inversely related to longer periods of abstinence and verbal learning performance, undermining a confident inference that abstinence alone has direct benefits to verbal learning and memory.”

Detroit-based production company ASK-Y LLC is currently filming “Smokin’ Good,” a drama series set in the ‘world of cannabis.’

The series will follow August Good, portrayed by Shiek Mahmud-Bey, as he navigates his transition from the illicit cannabis market into the legal framework, notes a press release.

“The average person has no idea what this industry is really about,” says Andrew Watson, co-executive producer. “They primarily feed into the stigmas attached to cannabis, and that, in turn, affects their perception. This show will give them a taste of what the industry is, and from a very unique perspective. You rarely see a Black man’s point of view with cannabis, outside of being arrested and locked up from it.”

Watson called the show semi-autobiographical. “It details my successes, my failures and everything in between as a cannabis entrepreneur,” he says.

Mahmud-Bey called the series “a classic, from-the-streets-to-the-boardroom tale,” adding “those types of stories never get old, and the writing for this one is incredible.”

While we were watching other elections, voters in South Dakota legalized marijuana.

What will that mean for Minnesota?

In Rock County, Minn., close to the South Dakota border, bemused officials took in the news.

“It was a shocker,” said Rock County Sheriff Evan Verbrugge. “I think everybody in this area was really surprised that South Dakota voted this way before Minnesota.”

That’s pot politics. Lots of issues split along partisan lines — blue against red, liberal against conservative, us against them — but not marijuana. Never marijuana.

Down a rural farm road on the outskirts of Bergheim, 40 minutes north of San Antonio, lies the green pasture nurturing Texas' first legal hemp farm. At Texas First Hemp, visitors can take a look inside the farming operation, demystifying some of the stigma and buying samples on their way out.

Owners Jennifer and Austin Ruple were some of the first to receive hemp-growing permits after the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1325 in June 2019, legalizing hemp farming in Texas. Hemp is a variety of cannabis that contains less than .3% THC, a compound known to produce psychoactive effects. The Ruples primarily focus on cannabidiol, or CBD, a naturally occurring extractable compound found in hemp plants. Hemp has been used in everything from soaps, clothing, and diapers to paper, foods, and building materials.

The Ruples became licensed in spring 2020 just after COVID-19 hit, and they were the first in the state to have seeds planted that would grow into the first legal hemp plants in Texas.

“People think of this industry, and they think long hair and beanies, but it’s all about integrity,” Austin says. “It’s all above-board. It is becoming more popular and so much more mainstream.”

Now that those seeds have blossomed into 8-foot plants with leaves and buds, they’re ready for harvest, and the Ruples have opened the farm to tours. While nearby Fredericksburg attracts wine lovers, people with an appreciation for hemp can go behind the scenes of the process.

It wasn't long Wednesday morning before Don Lantis had fielded three phone calls from people wanting to go into the marijuana dispensary business with him.

Lantis, the grand old man of fireworks in North Sioux City, is personally not fond of marijuana and has never used it. (He prefaced this several times by noting, "I'm 79 years old.") But it's impossible to deny the moneymaking potential of marijuana in North Sioux City, the same sort of opportunity that compelled his father to open Lantis Fireworks in the border town 75 years ago.

"There was money to be made there," Lantis said of his father's long-ago decision to sell fireworks directly across the border from Iowa where they were illegal.

The passage of medical marijuana in Mississippi by voters Tuesday is being hailed as an historic vote.

Jay Czarkowski, a Boulder Colorado-based cannabis industry consultant who donated to the campaign to get medical marijuana approved in Mississippi, said his best advice to Mississippians is to become involve in the process of establishing the rules and regulations for a medical marijuana program.

"There isn't anything urgent; It will take time for this program," he said.

What do you need to know about medical marijuana in Mississippi? We provide answers:

Who will be able to use marijuana under the proposal?

Initiative Measure No. 65 amends the Mississippi Constitution to allow qualified patients with debilitating medical conditions — certified by licensed Mississippi physicians — to use marijuana.

Some analysts predict that legal weed is on its way to becoming a $9 billion market. So, not many states — or the federal government — will be able to ignore the economic benefits too much longer.

While the federal government still considers marijuana to be a dangerous drug, the rest of America isn’t so crass. Five more states just legalized the leaf in Tuesday’s election, making it where one in every three Americans now lives in a state where marijuana is no longer bound by prohibition.

Some believe that such a substantial victory means that cannabis reform is poised for more progress in the coming year. We’re talking about more states with influence putting pot laws on the books and, perhaps, even a situation where Congress is finally forced to take a careful look at the issue. Although there is still a great deal of uncertainty about how this could or will shake out, you can bet there is plenty on the horizon for marijuana legalization in the United States.

One thing you can almost count on is New York finally working toward a fully legal market. Although lawmakers haven’t been able to come to terms on it for the past couple of years, New Jersey’s newfound legal status might pressure them to take another look. Voters in the Garden State overwhelmingly approved a measure on Tuesday that makes the cultivation and sale of cannabis a fully legal industry. If New York doesn’t do the same, the state will be forced to contend with interstate drug trafficking, and ultimately exhaust police resources needed for violent crimes.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo knows this is true. He told public radio station WAMC  earlier this week that he believes legislators are going to have to find the inspiration to approve pot legalization in 2021 or else. More than anything, he said, the state needs the tax revenue from the cannabis industry to help repair the economic downtrodden brought on by the coronavirus.  

Despite all the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. election, there’s a clear victor already: domestic cannabis companies.

Leaders across the industry cheered after marijuana measures passed in all five states that had them on the ballot Tuesday -- even in deeply red parts of the country. The results buoyed the biggest U.S.-based players in the market.

“Cannabis won, and won big,” said Boris Jordan, chairman of Curaleaf Holdings Inc., one of the largest cannabis companies. “It’s a green landslide.”

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised swift action on legislation to remove cannabis from the nation’s list of controlled substances if Democrats take control of the U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s election, according to a report from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). The Democrat from New York said in comments made last week that lawmakers would move to pass the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act, a bill that would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act. The measure also provides support for small businesses and grant funding to support efforts to review and expunge past marijuana convictions at the state level.

“I think we’ll have a good chance to pass that bill,” Schumer said.

“I’m a big fighter for racial justice, and the marijuana laws have been one of the biggest examples of racial injustice, and so to change them makes sense,” he added. “And that fits in with all of the movement now to bring equality in policing, in economics, and in everything else. Our bill is, in a certain sense, at the nexus of racial justice, individual freedom, and states’ rights.”

Schumer made a similar promise to advance cannabis reform legislation in an interview in September.

“My commitment is that if I am leader [of the US Senate], I am going to do everything I can to put the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act on the floor of the Senate,” he said. “The odds are very high it will pass.”

California's most iconic cannabis cultivation zones and its local outdoor growers recently received a boost to their business when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 67 into law on Sept. 30.

The regulation amends Section 26063 of the Business and Professions Code while enacting a new terroir-based appellation for origin-specific products and its use of the environment during the plant's growth.

Any use of artificial lights, shelters or any other form of temperature or climate control is prohibited under the rules.

The passage of SB 67 is being heralded as a win for the state's iconic operators across California's fertile grounds, including the Emerald Triangle, by recognizing their claim to the fertile region.

San Francisco’s cannabis industry is expected to hang on to a bit more green next year due to a tax break that is likely to pass next week.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman has proposed the one-year tax reprieve, delaying the implementation of the cannabis tax approved by voters in November 2018.

The estimated tax break and revenue loss to The City is $7.1 million, according to the budget analyst.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture has adopted new regulations that will expand the state’s industrial hemp program. The new regulations bring the state’s program into compliance with provisions of the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, and will establish industrial hemp as an agricultural commodity.

“Hemp is an emerging agricultural commodity that presents a new opportunity for farmers looking to diversify their operations,” said Secretary of Agriculture Joe Bartenfelder. “We have seen significant interest in the first two years of the Industrial Hemp Research Pilot Program and we are excited to expand the state’s hemp industry with the new Hemp Farming Program.”

What is New Under the New Hemp Program?

Under the new Hemp Farming Program, growers may apply to produce and cultivate hemp for commercial purposes. In previous years, Maryland growers have only been able to produce hemp under the department’s Industrial Hemp Research Pilot Program.

In January 2019, the department began accepting applications for its Industrial Hemp Research Pilot Program. The pilot program is the result of Maryland House Bill 698, a 2018 state law that required growers to partner with the department or an institution of higher learning to grow industrial hemp for research purposes.

Applications for both programs’ 2021 growing season will be announced and posted on the program’s website in the coming weeks.

The Oregon secondary market for cannabis licenses and businesses remains lively. We have been helping industry buy and sell these businesses since 2016. This post is mostly about pricing for retail plays, which is still an evolving standard, but a standard nonetheless.

First, some context.