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It’s been a long time coming, and finally, Minnesota will have smokable cannabis available for medical patients.

Medical cannabis patients in Minnesota will see smokable cannabis flower in licensed retailers beginning next month, according to an announcement from state regulators. The Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement on Tuesday that the state’s medical cannabis dispensaries will be able to offer dried cannabis flower on March 1.

Dispensaries will offer pre-packaged dried cannabis flower and pre-rolled joints in a variety of strains and cannabinoid potency levels. Registered patients will be able to purchase up to a 90-day supply of cannabis at one time. Previously, state regulations only permitted patients to use processed cannabis products such as extracts, distillates, capsules and topicals.

It won’t be as easy as visiting a dispensary and picking out a favorite strain of bud, however. Under Minnesota’s medical cannabis regulations, patients must first complete a consultation with a medical cannabis dispensary pharmacist to change the type of medical marijuana they receive. 

“In preparation for the change, registered patients interested in smokable cannabis can make an appointment for a consultation with a medical cannabis dispensary pharmacist beginning Feb. 1 so they will be pre-approved to buy pre-packaged dried flower and pre-rolls once available,” the health department wrote in its statement. Patients have the option of either in-person or virtual consultations to satisfy the requirement.

Smokable cannabis flower will only be available to patients and caregivers ages 21 and older who are registered with the state’s medical cannabis program. Minnesota Commissioner of Health Jan Malcolm urged patients who are considering switching to cannabis flower to seek the advice of a health care professional before making the change.

A claim that cannabis with Fentanyl in it was causing overdoses in Connecticut just got disproved, according to local media.

Another alleged case of fentanyl-laced cannabis in Connecticut has gone up in smoke. 

In this case, the false alarm came out of Connecticut, where an investigation has revealed that “nearly 40 Connecticut overdoses [that] were possibly linked to fentanyl-laced marijuana—sparking widespread attention and concern—turned out to be one confirmed case and was probably caused by accidental contamination,” according to a story by CT Insider.

That marks a major walk back from a bulletin in November issued by the Connecticut Department of Public Health, which said that it had “recently received reports of overdose patients who have exhibited opioid overdose symptoms and required naloxone for revival,” and that the “patients denied any opioid use and claimed to have only smoked marijuana.”

That press release detailed a total of 39 overdoses in the state between July and November of last year. In one such incident that took place in October, police in Plymouth, Connecticut were said to have responded to one overdose scene where they secured a sample of cannabis that later tested positive for fentanyl.

“This is the first lab-confirmed case of marijuana with fentanyl in Connecticut and possibly the first confirmed case in the United States,” said Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani.

Woman also ran her vehicle into a snowbank, with police reporting there was a clear cannabis smell coming from the car.

It took only less than two hours for an Iowa jury to find a 23-year-old woman guilty of possessing firearms while being a cannabis user.

The physical evidence may have accounted for the rapid decision-making, including pictures the woman had posted on social media showing her holding a weed blunt and speaking about cannabis use during a recorded telephone call.

“She continued to possess the firearms until law enforcement officers seized them on July 22, 2021,” notes a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa.

The woman faces a possible maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $317,500 fine and three years of supervised release following any imprisonment.

Beyond the social media posts and being found with guns, the statement reports law enforcement officials also encountered the woman in February 2021, after she drove her car into a snowbank.

Mississippi is legalizing medical marijuana for people with debilitating conditions such as cancer, AIDS and sickle cell disease.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation Wednesday and it became law immediately. It could be months before the first marijuana dispensaries open.

"There is no doubt that there are individuals in our state who could do significantly better if they had access to medically prescribed doses of cannabis," Reeves wrote in a statement posted to Twitter.

"There are also those who really want a recreational marijuana program that could lead to more people smoking and less people working, with all the societal and family ills that that brings."

The National Conference of State Legislatures says 36 states and four territories already allowed the medical use of cannabis. Mississippi becomes the 37th state.

The City Council, however, could eventually vote on its own ordinance before voters weigh in.

Redondo Beach voters will decide next year whether to legalize commercial cannabis in the city.

The City Council this week chose to place an initiative on the March 7, 2023, general election ballot that, if approved, would allow a few marijuana dispensaries in the seaside town, repealing the existing ban on cannabis.

This all came about because of an initiative petition.

A petitioner, resident Sam Nicosia — who was solicited by growing dispensary chain Catalyst Cannabis Co., headquartered in Long Beach — served Redondo with an initiative petition last year that sought to get the city to repeal its ban on cannabis and allow up to three dispensaries around town.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder verified more than 6,600 signatures last month; the petition needed signatures from 10% of the city’s nearly 48,000 registered voters — or about 4,800 — for the issue to go before the council.

State Rep. Jason Powell filed legislation on Monday to propose an amendment to the Tennessee Constitution to allow medical cannabis, according to a news release.

Powell, D-Nashville, said if the constitutional amendment is passed it would allow Tennesseans to use medical cannabis legally for approved medical conditions including cancer, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.

The state will give oversight of the medical cannabis program that will include the in -state cultivation, processing and sale of cannabis. The House Joint Resolution filed Monday conswill establish a 4% tax on the retail sale of medical cannabis with a portion specifically directed to assist military veterans’ health care.

“Tennesseans should have access to a comprehensive medical cannabis program in our state. No Tennessean suffering from an approved medical condition should have to drive hours out of state to purchase medical cannabis,” Powell said in a news release.

“Furthermore, Tennesseans should be able to legally grow and sale medical cannabis here in Tennessee. I firmly believe an amendment to the Tennessee Constitution is the best path for legalizing medical cannabis in Tennessee. Voters should have the opportunity to decide this issue and I simply ask my legislative colleagues to give Tennesseans the choice to vote on a medical cannabis program.”

San Marcans could see a measure on the November ballot aiming to change marijuana enforcement in the city. 

Mano Amiga, a grassroots immigration and legal reform organization, has begun gathering signatures to place an initiative on the ballot that would establish an ordinance eliminating low-level marijuana enforcement in San Marcos. 

“Having a charge for possession of marijuana on your record has the potential to negatively impact a person's life in so many ways,” Mano Amiga Communications Director Sam Benavides said.

“It can be found by employers, landlords, social services, and for students, it can even impact your financial aid. Our neighbors and our peers should not have their lives so needlessly disrupted over something that over half the states in our country have already decriminalized.”

According to the ordinance language, citations and arrests for misdemeanor possession of marijuana would end if the voters approved the proposition. San Marcos police, however, could cite an individual or make an arrest for Class A or Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana if it’s a part of an investigation involving a felony-level narcotics case or the investigation of a violent felony. 

58 per cent of respondents would support a politician “who occasionally smokes marijuana in their free time.”

People in the U.S. were recently asked if they would vote for a politician who smokes weed? According to a new poll, more than half of respondents report they would be comfortable dong so.

A deeper look into the statistics shows that Democrats were most likely to vote for a politician who smoked weed when compared to Republicans. Still, a significant percentage of Republicans said they would vote for a politician who smoked cannabis if they agreed on most issues.

Despite the somewhat surprising findings, it makes sense that large percentages of people in the U.S. would approve of a politician who consumes cannabis. As time passes, the plant continues to gain ground on the legalization front and, in turn, seems to be gaining approval across all demographics.

Chambers has caused a lot of commotion from his ad, earning his first large endorsement from Rep. Ted James.

Despite suggesting he is in favor of its decriminalization, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cited the "putrid" scent of cannabis as a reason he may remain opposed to fully legalizing its use in the state, Politico reported. "I think a lot of those other areas that have done it you know have ended up regretting it," DeSantis said Wednesday during a press conference in Tallahassee, according to Politico. "I could not believe the pungent odor that you would see in some of these places and I don't want to see that here. I want people to be able to breathe freely."

Democrat Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who has publicly acknowledged her use of medical marijuana, is running to unseat DeSantis in 2022 and has incorporated marijuana legalization into her platform. Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2016 that legalized the drug's medicinal use.

"You can still go to jail for weed in Florida because Ron DeSantis doesn't like the way it smells!?!" Fried said in a tweet on Wednesday.

"Sounds like Dictator Karen wasn't having much fun at Yale and Harvard so he's taking it out on the rest of us."

As DeSantis gears up for the gubernatorial race, Democrats have filed at least 10 marijuana-related bills for the 2022 legislative session, Florida Politics reported.

Nebraskans for medical marijuana were out over the weekend trying to get signatures on two petitions that could put the issue on the November ballot.

It's the latest attempt after the Nebraska Supreme Court barred a measure to legalize medical marijuana back in 2020.

As they kick things into high gear, volunteers and campaign managers say they’re feeling confident.

Crista Eggers is one of the people fighting hard to get medical marijuana on the ballot.

Her 7-year-old son Colton is one of the reasons why.

The removal of the SAFE Act from the defense bill is not the end of the road, but rather another indication of the steep climb to federal cannabis legalization.

The majority of cannabis advocates and supporters in the United States were let down by the Senate’s decision to pull out the SAFE ACT from the defense bill last month. Now that the shock of the removal has abated, these groups are rallying together to look for the next way forward. Lawmakers have started work on presenting a singular bill that encompasses the benefits the SAFE ACT could bring to the country.

The removal may happened for a reason, because in the weeks after this disappointment, new and better opportunities have been presenting themselves.

A Step Backward

From the first day, the SAFE Act bill was introduced to the legislature some years ago, passing the bill has always turned out to be a roller coaster journey. The result over the years has been a return to the starting point. Advocates and lawmakers held out hope that last year could be the year of federal cannabis reforms, only for the senate to pull the measure out at the last minute.

Many believe that this bill closes the gap between multistage operators and some small-scale cannabis entrepreneurs who have been unable to obtain private equity. They also think that small cannabis businesses would be allowed to make more profits if the playground were leveled with the SAFE ACT bill. However, the majority of the Senate lawmakers have refused to see the light or accept the benefits vividly written in the bill, claiming the language shows a different outcome.

The reason the Senate cited for striking out the measure from the defense bill is that the measure does little to stamp down on crimes but leans in favor of the MSOs. For a bill that the House had previously passed, the Senate’s reason seems a bit weird. Anyway, it’s the new year. With a new year comes new opportunities and new congressional sessions. Advocates are linking up and working together to have a fresh go at it in Congress. The objective for 2022 is to create a more equitable bill that not only leans towards MSOs but also enhances the safety of communities around the country.

At only two years old in 2016, Jaxsyn Carwile was diagnosed with autism, and the months and years after his diagnosis his symptoms escalated.

“It was like a snowball effect after his diagnosis,” said Jaxsyn’s mother, Tiffany Carwile. “Insomnia, self-injurious behavior, he had silent seizures for a while.”

But Tiffany said the pills that his doctor prescribed him made it worse.

“My son at one point was ingesting about 300 pills a month and he was only five years old,” said Tiffany.

“Every pill caused side effects that deemed more pills.”

The driver of an armored car carrying $712,000 in cash from licensed marijuana dispensaries was heading into Barstow on a Mojave Desert freeway in November when San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies pulled him over. They interrogated him, seized the money and turned it over to the FBI.

A few weeks later, deputies stopped the same driver in Rancho Cucamonga, took an additional $350,000 belonging to legal pot stores and gave that cash to the FBI too.

Now, the FBI is trying to confiscate the nearly $1.1-million bounty, which it might share with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The FBI says the money is tied to federal drug or money-laundering crimes, but has specified no unlawful conduct and charged no one with a crime.

The cash seizures — and another from the same trucking company in Kansas — raise questions about whether the Justice Department under President Biden is moving to disrupt the operations of licensed marijuana businesses in California and other states where pot is legal.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles have been forced to return tens of millions of dollars in cash and valuables seized by federal agents last March from hundreds of safe deposit boxes in Beverly Hills after the government failed to produce evidence to back up its allegations the money and goods were criminal proceeds. Some of that money belonged to owners of state-licensed marijuana businesses.

 After a record number of calls to the Illinois Poison Center (IPC) in 2021 related to cannabis, legislation has been filed at the Statehouse to limit the potency of some products sold at cannabis dispensaries.

For the bill sponsor, Rep. Mark Batinick, R-Plainfield, he says the bill isn't likely to pass as written, but he wanted to file it before the Jan. 28 deadline on behalf of the Illinois State Medical Society (ISMS), a non-profit association of healthcare professionals.

Batinick says the request from the ISMS is in response to a recent rise in cannabis-related calls to the IPC since 2019, when 487 cases were reported. In 2020, there were 743 cases and in 2021 there were 855 cases.

In 2019, there were 81 cannabis-related IPC cases that involved children ages five and younger. In 2020, there were 202 cases. By 2021, the number increased to 278 cases, representing a 243% increase from 2019.

The IPC credits the majority of this rise to edibles, or consumable marijuana, and says 40% of their cases involving children and gummy edibles involve hospitalization.

The Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy is polling its members on legislation that appears to address the persistent issues with host community agreements and social equity in the new cannabis industry, and that would pave the way for social consumption sites in Massachusetts.

Members of the committee have until 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 28, to weigh in on redrafted legislation that would put tighter restrictions on the legally required contracts between marijuana businesses and their host communities, establish a Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund, and lay the groundwork for cities and towns to allow on-site cannabis consumption establishments within their borders. The poll opened late in the afternoon on Wednesday, Jan. 26.

The legislation, which a spokesperson said is a priority for House Speaker Ron Mariano, appears to address some of the issues that the Cannabis Control Commission has most vocally been asking lawmakers to act on.

Committee co-chairs Rep. Daniel Donahue and Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz recommended favorable reports for two bills redrafted in committee to incorporate parts of about a dozen other related proposals. The new bill, titled "An Act relative to social equity and host community agreements in the cannabis industry," will be referred to the House as H 174 and to the Senate as S 72. Some of its provisions mirror those of a bill that the House passed in early 2020 but never surfaced in the Senate.

The bill would create a $10 million Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund "for the purpose of making grants and loans, including no-interest loans and forgivable loans, to social equity program participants and economic empowerment priority applicants to encourage the full participation of entrepreneurs from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement." In addition to the initial $10 million in funding, the bill creates other ways for the fund to grow.

I just read about the research study from Oregon State University, which found that consuming two cannabinoids (called cannabigerolic acid, or CBG-A, and cannabidiolic acid, or CBD-A) could prevent the spread of COVID-19. Awesome! But the study falls short.

CBG-A and CBD-A are both derived from hemp (i.e., part of the cannabis sativa species, but without the psychoactive component, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC). Both CBG and CBD have an abundance of cannabidiolic acid, which has the potential to bind onto COVID-19 spike proteins and prevent further infection. THC-A also has this acid (and in abundance!). However, researchers cannot study THC because it is still federally classified as a Schedule 1 drug and it would violate OSU's policy.

This is a huge shortcoming, and it serves as another reminder that we are overdue for legalizing marijuana federally. Currently, 36 states have legalized medical marijuana. The CDC estimates 48.2 million people in the U.S. (of a 329.5 million population) consume marijuana. That means approximately 82 percent of the population is missing out on cannabis's health benefits, such as the potential to prevent COVID-19. If more clinical studies were allowed to study THC, there would be more information about cannabis's effect on our health. And with more information it's likely that nonrecreational consumers will be more willing to try cannabis for its specific health benefits.

I say this because I was a nonrecreational consumer who only turned to cannabis out of sheer desperation. I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 2014 after 11 years of repeated misdiagnosis and consistently debilitating health. I tried myriad Western medicines, but cannabis was the only remedy that brought me back to a state of normalcy and stabilized my quality of life. The benefits were so significant that I started cultivating my own cannabis so that I could ensure a sufficient supply of high quality (organic) cannabis.

There are many similar stories to mine, and probably many more with 82 percent of the population not realizing the health potential. If cannabis remains federally illegal, we are inhibiting research and delaying major discoveries on its health benefits.

Years into Colorado’s recreational cannabis boom, Colorado Springs still doesn’t have legal, recreational cannabis sales.

A group of business and community leaders in Colorado Springs, Colorado has launched a bid to legalize sales of recreational cannabis in the city, arguing that tax revenue generated by purchases of legal cannabis by local residents should stay in the community.

Colorado voters legalized sales of recreational cannabis with the passage of Amendment 64 in 2012, and regulated sales began in the state two years later. But Colorado Springs banned recreational cannabis sales in 2013, although the city is home to more than 100 medical cannabis dispensaries. 

Colorado Springs Ballot Measure Filed

On Monday, the group Your Choice Colorado Springs filed ballot language for a proposed voter initiative that would allow the city’s existing medical marijuana dispensaries to apply for licenses to sell adult-use cannabis. In a statement from the group, the coalition of community and business leaders said that Colorado Springs residents are forced to travel to nearby cities that allow recreational sales. As a result, the city is leaving millions of dollars in potential sales tax revenue on the table, according to Your Choice Colorado Springs.

“It’s hard to believe just how much tax revenue politicians have robbed our city of over the past decade,” said Cliff Black, an attorney and the lead elector petitioning the city for adult-use cannabis sales.

“Recreational marijuana is 100 percent legal for every single adult living in the city. Yet the city gets none of the benefits. Instead, residents drive and spend their hard-earned money in Manitou, Pueblo, and even Denver, and then bring their marijuana right back home to Colorado Springs. With this initiative, we are asking voters if they want to keep their tax dollars local.”