WeedLife News Network

Finally, the feds are looking more seriously into product safety and quality for cannabis and CBD products, but it’s not the FTC taking the reins.

Over the years, we’ve pointed out when federal agencies opt to ignore the federal illegality of cannabis. It happens more often than you might think depending on the topic (see, for example, the NLRB). One agency, however, that has surprisingly never lifted a finger against state-legal cannabis – though it is taking a closer look at CBD – is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It is bad public policy when no federal watchdog is looking out for cannabis consumers (many millions of people) or scrutinizing the quality of cannabis products overall, and/or going after bad actors to deter bad behavior. To date, it’s truly been “buyer beware” outside of states putting together their own protocols on things like recalls, packaging and labeling safety standards, quality assurance reviews, and testing. None of this is approved or sanctioned by the feds, like it oftentimes is for other industries. As such, the states are literally making up cannabis consumer safety as they go along; and products liability suits (and at least one wrongful death suit) have manifested over the years. See here for our various posts on these topics.

Cannabis testing, itself, has also been problematic in a variety of states where no gold standard exists for testing. It’s entirely up to state agencies regarding what, exactly, should be tested and in what amounts, in order to be considered a “passing” product. For example, if you remember, vitamin E acetate was one of the presumable culprits when consumers were experiencing significant health issues from ingesting illegal market cannabis oils through vapes.

At the same time, California’s cannabis regulators didn’t mandate testing for additives/thickeners (like vitamin E acetate) for products manufactured and sold by state-licensed businesses. In addition, there have always been issues with certain standards of lab integrity/general competence: one lab will issue a passing result for a batch of cannabis while a second lab issues a failing result — both using the same testing methods under state laws and regulations.

One of the biggest threats facing CBD companies? Survival. CBD is already projected to hit over $16 billion in sales by 2024, so it's not surprising that there are over 3,000 brands in the market, hoping to ride the wave of success and reap the rewards.  

But there is a big problem. While there is a high level of consumer interest, the market has reached a saturation point. And yet, CBD remains a nascent category, and the continuum of consumer knowledge is breathtakingly wide. Yes, there are many consumers who are self-educated and knowledgeable, but the opportunity for brands to scale is to connect the dots for new consumers and bring them along.

The pace that the industry has scaled has provided oceans of data on millions of potential consumers. Thanks to Big Data, AI, and predictive analytics, we can finally start to make sense of it all, gathering insights that allow us to eliminate guesswork and target the right audiences. 

Clutter and confusion

Consumer interest in CBD has grown over 100 percent year-over-year for the last few years, and while the pandemic has slowed industry growth, CBD is here to stay. Search volumes at the beginning of the pandemic for “best CBD for anxiety” showed an increase of 250 percent according to Google Trends. 

However, all of this interest also creates confusion for consumers. Many brands market based on the potency of CBD or the process of extraction, neither of which most of the general public understands. Too many CBD websites market with images of sunny landscapes and green fields, all of which feel undifferentiated. Some bad actors go as far as to make false claims of health benefits, or they market products that may not even contain quality CBD. For a CBD-curious consumer, it can be a daunting task to cut through it all.

Vapor pens accounted for most of the sales of Cannabis 2.0 products in Canada, as demonstrated by new data collected by data analytics company Headset. 

Dubbed Cannabis 2.0, the second wave of legalization in Canada saw vapes, edibles and beverages become legal exactly one year after the country allowed recreational marijuana sales. 

Since then, products under the Cannabis 2.0 category started slowly hitting the shelves of Canadian markets, however, the coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted the entire cannabis industry. 

As the rollout of Cannabis 2.0 is still in its early stages, companies are still trying to figure out which products will attract the most consumers. 

According to the data from Headset’s report, vape pens were by far the most popular product in the three Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario, which Headset included in its analysis on Cannabis 2.0. 

An Oregon hemp processor claims a Washington farm violated a contract by failing to deliver hemp of sufficient potency and quality to fully repay a loan.

New Earth Biosciences, a processor in Salem, Ore., has filed a lawsuit seeking repayment of about $800,000 advanced to Terra Ridge Farms of Othello, Wash., for seeds, growing supplies and drying services.

Under a contract between the companies, 90% of the hemp supplied by Terra Ridge Farms to New Earth Biosciences was to contain at least 10% cannabidiol, or CBD, the complaint said.

The CBD compound is extracted for use in a variety of products, as it’s believed to have anti-inflammatory and other healthful qualities.

However, the farm’s first load of hemp delivered to the processor last autumn only contained about 7% CBD while having been “excessively dried” and “chopped too finely” to fit the specifications of extraction equipment, the complaint said.

Hemp has thousands of uses including paper, textiles, building materials, food, cosmetics and more. One application that might not immediately come to mind is hemp’s usefulness in the manufacture of musical instruments.

Entrepreneur Morris Beegle may be better known as the producer of the world’s largest hemp-centric conference and trade show, NoCo Hemp Expo, held each year in Denver, but with his new company, Silver Mountain Hemp Guitars, he’s combining two passions. In addition to leading the NoCo show and a number of other hemp-related activities over the past several years, Morris spent 25 years as a producer and promoter in the music business. Now, with the launch of Silver Mountain hand crafted, hemp composite electric guitars and ukuleles made in classic styles for working musicians, he has come full circle.

Hemp has thousands of uses including paper, textiles, building materials, food, cosmetics, animal feed and more. But one application that might not immediately come to mind is the use of hemp in making musical instruments. Beegle is among a group of early innovators seeking to change that with the launch of Silver Mountain’s website, his flagship hemp guitars made in classic styles inspired from the ‘50s and ‘60s, high performance, hemp-derived speaker cabinets and cones, and related productThe use of hemp composite materials helps reduce deforestation and the use of endangered woods often used in making musical instruments, Beegle says, and hand crafted under a luthier’s care, his eco-friendly guitars and ukuleles sound great, too. Silver Mountain guitars were recently featured in Merry Jane, Pot Network and most recently on the Devil Doc Talk Podcast featuring Joey “Doc Talk” Martinez.

In addition to hemp guitars, ukuleles and speaker cabinets, Silver Mountain offers guitar straps, guitar picks, volume knobs and other accessories, all using hemp as a main ingredient in the manufacturing process. The company’s flagship guitars are hand made using hemp bast fiber composite body shells molded around hemp board cores. Custom hand-made speaker cabinets are forged with hemp pressed particle board and paired with a choice of Tone Tubby HempCone or Eminence Cannabis Rex speakers, Beegle says.

For travelers, BugOut Guitars, based in Randolph, VT, combines hemp and plant-based resins to create a unique and “supremely rugged” travel-size guitar. “One thing that’s unique about the hemp guitars compared to wood guitars (and) compared to a carbon fiber guitar is it’s sort of a happy medium between the two in the sense that my guitars have fibers and cells in common with wood, but also the durability of a carbon fiber,” Burstein told Lancaster Farming. In addition to durability, using hemp also can reduce the number of trees being used to make guitars. Burstein explained that there’s a shortage of the wood traditionally used to make guitars. As such, “there is a movement within the guitar community to use alternative forms of building instruments. This one’s mine,” he said.

The Polish hemp variety Białobrzeskie has the greatest economic potential among 11 hemp cultivars recently studied by a research team at the University of Kentucky (UK) in the USA. Białobrzeskie had the highest grain yield, and estimated potential returns from the sale of seed and biofuel material of $1,564 (€1,328) per hectare ($632/€536 per acre), the research found.

The study evaluated six fiber-only hemp varieties and five varieties that produce both fiber and significant grain, comparing their economic potential as commodity crops. Researchers also looked at how the hemp biofuel raw material from the plants performed under laboratory pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis designed to enhance biofuel yields.

Legacy cultivar

The first Polish variety of fibrous monoecious hemp, Białobrzeskie was originally developed in the 1960s for textile production by Poland’s Institute of Natural Fibres and Medicinal Plants (IWNiRZ). But the variety also provides a high grain yield. In addition, in more recent years, flowers from Białobrzeskie have been used to produce CBD. Importantly, the strain is stable at less than 0.2% THC.

“We’ve known for a long time that Białobrzeskie is highly suited for dual cropping,” said Witold Czeszak, who heads IWNiRZ’s Technology Transfer Department, and is co-founder and manager of the Polish Hemp Program at the Poznan, Poland-based Institute. “This research is more confirmation of the economic superiority of this well-proven cultivar.”

NWG 331 from New West Genetics, Colorado USA, had the second highest estimated return of $1,482 (€1,259) per hectare, and gave the highest biomass yield and second highest grain yield of all cultivars in the trials.

Many businesses and individuals increasingly imagine alternatives to food products. More importantly, these food alternatives require the use of 3D printing. But when it comes to food, it’s easy to imagine a process of 3D printing something that will eventually become solid. But the 3D printing of a drink? This is something we just learned from the former professional boxer, Mike Tyson.

According to the latest information, The Ranch Companies, founded by Mike Tyson, has obtained a global license for the 3D printing of edible cannabis products. Yes, you read right, 3D print!

But how can you print a beverage? This is where Tyson’s new business partner, Smart Cups, a US startup responsible for creating the world’s first printed beverage, comes into play. More than two years ago, this tech company and beverage maker launched its line of 3D printed energy drinks in capsule form.

“Having the ability to produce lines of ingestible cannabis products that will have accurate and consistent doses of cannabis is incredibly important to us,” Tyson said in an interview with Forbes.

The company’s secret weapon is a micro-encapsulation printing technology that is used to infuse its plant-based products into the substrate, which is then inserted into a bioplastic cup. “In this specific application, we use water-soluble cannabinoids and are able to precisely print them on virtually any surface,” explained Chris Kanik, founder and CEO of Smart Cups. “The printed actives and flavors are released when they come in contact with a liquid (i.e., water, soda, or saliva).”

Penn State College of Medicine researchers have found products containing cannabinoids may have impacts on the effects of some conventional prescription drugs.

The researchers have put together a list of 57 medications that may not function as intended when used with cannabis products including medical cannabinoids, CBD oil and medical or recreational marijuana. This could involve prescription drugs not being as effective, or their effects boosted. All the prescription drugs listed have a narrow therapeutic index – meaning the doses are usually prescribed at levels high enough to be effective, but not at a level that could cause harm.

There are some widely used medications on the list including warfarin, which is an anti-coagulant that prevents blood clots from forming.  Warfarin is commonly used to prevent stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease or artificial heart valves. Other classes of drugs include, but are not limited to, antibiotics, anti-convulsants and pain medications.

The researchers, Professor Kent Vrana and pharmacist Paul Kocis, have also published a list of 139 medications that could have a potential drug-drug interaction with a cannabinoid.

This is important research that demonstrates why it’s important for doctors to brush up on cannabis and for patients to be honest with their doctors about their cannabis use, whether its medicinal or recreational.

A researcher at West Virginia University has received $200,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study industrial hemp for two years.

One of the many factors Michael Gutensohn, an assistant professor of horticulture in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, will be studying is the THC levels in hemp plants. THC is the psychoactive compound in hemp and cannabis that causes someone to get high and hemp growers are only allowed to have 0.3% of it in their plant. However, this is hard to control because very little is understood about the hemp plant since growing it was illegal until 2018.

If you look at hemp, there’s very little [understood], but on the flip side of that, any grower that grows hemp has the same questions and issues as, say, someone who grows corn would have. There’s a huge gap in knowledge and we really need to do some research there and we’re almost decades behind some of these other crop systems.

Michael Gutensohn – WVU Assistant Professor

Because very little is known about why hemp plants go hot, the term for when they exceed the 0.3 percent THC limit, growers often have to discard their harvest or wait and hope the concentration drops, according to a WVU press release. Gutensohn said this problem is far from rare and as a result growers are suffering, and in need of answers.

As legislation moves through Congress to legalize cannabidiol (CBD) and other hemp-derived product use by military service members, the Navy has taken the ban a step further.

The Navy recently administered a memo clarifying that service members are prohibited from using “any products containing, made or derived from hemp” regardless of their stated cannabinoid content, including shampoos, conditioners, lotions, lip balms or soaps.

The most recent ban builds on a broader existing prohibition throughout the military on hemp and CBD products. In February, the Department of Defense issued an order that barred service members from using all hemp and CBD products.

Both that order and the most recent memo from the Navy state the prohibition on CBD products is because military service members need to pass a urinalysis drug test.

“The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not determine or certify the THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] concentration of commercially available hemp products, such as cannabidiol (CBD). Accordingly, these products may contain appreciable levels of THC, yet omit any reference to THC on the product label and/or list an inaccurate THC concentration,” the Navy memo states. “Consequently, Sailors and Marines cannot rely on the packaging and labeling of hemp products in determining whether the product contains THC concentrations that could cause a positive urinalysis result.”

Since this only covers novel foods, this may not have an effect on CBD in other kinds of products, such as cosmetics.

The craze for hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) extends beyond the United States and into Europe. We’ve written a good amount on the difference between how the European Union (EU) regulates CBD in contrast to the United States, and link to a number of those posts at the bottom of this page. All of that may be put on hold soon as the EU weighs new laws for CBD products.

For some background, the European Foods Safety Authority (“EFSA”) previously classified CBD as a “novel food” ingredient. A “novel food” is “food that was not used for human consumption to a significant degree within the Union before 15 May 1997, irrespective of the dates of accession of the Member States to the Union.” Pursuant to EU regulations, anyone who wishes to sell food containing a “novel food” ingredient must first secure a license from the EFSA.

Guidance issued by the EU on a plethora of various cannabinoids suggested that foods containing hemp-derived cannabinoids (and not just CBD) were considered novel foods because there has been no demonstration that they were consumed prior to the 1997 date. If something is a novel food, then certain regulatory approvals are needed to advance it in the market. Needless to say, it’s a long process.

In mid-July 2020, it was reported (see here and here) that the EU was halting novel food applications for foods containing CBD and is apparently considering designating such CBD-bearing foods as narcotics. And here we were thinking that the United States’ policy on CBD in foods was bizarre.

Blockchain is the cannabis industry’s answer for stealing market share from the unlicensed market.

While we wait for government regulators to catch up to the speeding train called cannabis innovation, consumers need protection from rogue growers and distributors. Blockchain is capable of many use cases, but it’s a perfect fit for supply chain management.

So what is blockchain? Blockchain is a digital ledger that records and tracks data and physical assets from point A to B in the supply chain. The information on the blockchain is cryptographically secure and tamper-proof—which means that no one can change data once it has been entered and verified.

The blockchain technology can strengthen consumer confidence in the cannabis industry by verifying product origin, compliance, seed verification, proof of ownership, cultivating and manufacturing processes, transactional information, location tracking, and supply chain paper trail.

Let’s break it down:

Despite the fact that CBD makes a lot of money for both big and independent companies, a surprising amount of people don’t know what the compound does or where it comes from. No matter if you think it’s crazy that someone will swallow or put something on their bodies without knowing what it does, we have to recognize that the CBD industry is confusing. It’s common and okay for people to be a little bit unsure.

Here are 5 of the most popular questions people have Googled about CBD topicals:

What is the purpose of CBD lotions? 

Photo by Linda Prebreza via Pexels

CBD lotions can be used for a wide variety of medicinal conditions and, depending on the other components in the lotion, can produce myriad results. CBD is primarily known for its anti-inflammatory effects, which is why there are so many CBD lotions designed to target chronic pain, arthritis, eczema and the like.

How many mg of CBD should be present in the topical in order to have some effect?

Photo by Toa Heftiba via Unsplash

Buying cannabis products in the Czech Republic just got a lot more convenient.

Capital city Prague, along with Pasohlávky, Ostrava, and Olomouc, are all now home to their first automated cannabis-dispensing machines installed – and more are expected to dot the cities in the near future.

Unfortunately for cannabis-loving Czechs, there’s a catch.

The products with which the machines are stocked contain negligible levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the impairing compound in the cannabis plant, and are instead purchased for their high levels of cannabidiol (CBD).

They’re also not the first weed-dispensing ATMs. Neighbouring countries such as Austria and Poland have had similar machines installed for far longer, to the point that they’re considered commonplace and provoke no more public interest than a soda machine.

After over a century of irresponsible treatment of our environment, our plant -humanity is in need of a quick solution. Hemp may just be one of the pieces to this giant puzzle.

Unfortunately, hemp didn’t have the opportunity to help us until recently due to poor regulation. Back in the 1930s, marijuana was criminalized as a dangerous substance that caused violent behaviors and had a high potential for addiction. When this happened, hemp was criminalized all the same even though it causes absolutely no psychoactive effects.

Hemp and marijuana are both apart of the cannabis sativa plant and, on a surface level, look almost identical. However, marijuana contains higher amounts of THC – the cannabinoid responsible for getting people “high” – while hemp contains higher amounts of CBD. It’s unclear whether or not people were aware of this information when cannabis was criminalized.

But what was most certainly common knowledge was all the different uses hemp had. This plant is one of the most versatile found in the wilderness and can be used for 20,000 different necessities, from food to rope to clothing.

In the last two decades, hemp has become a mainstream topic of discussion again. People have finally woken up to the ridiculousness of having such a robust plant be criminalized. And maybe they’ve done so just at the right time.

The U.S hemp community has been urged to get cracking on signing a petition calling for the legal definition of hemp to be changed to allow for 1% THC.

Under the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp is defined as cannabis not containing more than 0.3 percent of the intoxicating cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). How that percentage was arrived at, which was apparently set by a Canadian cannabis researcher way back in the 1970s, is somewhat a mystery given even at much higher levels industrial hemp still wouldn’t have any recreational value.

The 0.3% limit has cause headaches for the industry as hemp testing above that level must be destroyed. For example, we mentioned yesterday half of Hawai’i’s 2019 hemp crop was destroyed due to elevated THC levels.

Staying below the .3% limit can be somewhat a mixture of science and good luck; particularly where crops are being grown for the extraction of another cannabinoid, cannabidiol. Policy and advocacy group Vote Hemp says the 0.3% level must be boosted to 1% – and fast.

“It is not fair to producers to who are already struggling due to difficult market conditions, to risk losing their hemp crop due to it testing slightly above the current federal limit of 0.3%,” said Vote Hemp President Eric Steenstra.

With several sold-out events under its belt, the ACT Summit is now going virtual by offering free webinars for cannabis cultivators around the globe. “The exclusive live ACT Summit that our group has now hosted for 3 years in Las Vegas has been very popular, so it’s now time to bring this knowledge to the rest of the world. This pandemic has forced us to rethink how we should deliver our educational content.” explains Henry Vangameren of Priva. “Our live full-day events have drawn a lot of attention and attendance but with travel bans in place and trade shows being cancelled, we had to pivot with new ideas so going virtual with webinars was a logical choice”.

The ACT Summit consists of industry suppliers with deep rooted horticultural histories who provide education on the latest cutting-edge technologies and best practices. “This is an educational platform to help cultivators improve operational efficiently and increase overall profitability in today’s competitive cultivation landscape” explains Cinnamon Cantwell of Grodan. “We’re very excited as these webinars will be offered free of charge to help bring this knowledge to a much broader audience of cultivators”.

This first 1-hour webinar from the ACT Summit group will be presented on July 28th by Grodan and Priva. They will share best practices from around the globe for water use efficiency and recirculation in commercial cannabis growing facilities to ensure healthy plants, sustainable growing practices and a healthier bottom line.

Recent testing carried out by the FDA on cannabis products shows there’s still a lot to be desired in product quality control.

The FDA has been undertaking a more extensive CBD product sampling effort this year to help it fill gaps in knowledge and to respond to a direction from Congress to determine prevalence of mislabeled or adulterated products in the current CBD marketplace.

The FDA first generated a list of 500 marketed CBD and hemp products. From that list, which included products where CBD wasn’t mentioned, 200 products were purchased across a number of categories – tincture/oil, capsule/powder, gummy, other edibles and pet products (tinctures, oils and drops).

Testing for cannabinoids was completed on 147 of the products purchased. The 11 cannabinoids tested for were CBC, CBD, CBDA, cannabidivarin (CBDV), CBG, CBGA, CBN, THC, ∆8-tetrahydrocannabinol (∆8-THC), THC, THCA and tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV).

Of the products, two mentioning CBD on the label didn’t have any all. Where products indicated a specific amount of CBD (102 products):

When it comes to cultivating cannabis, many people are under the false impression that it is an easy thing to do.

“Cannabis grows like a weed!” you will hear many people exclaim. However, that is not actually the case.

Certainly, if you want to simply cultivate a cannabis plant from start to finish with no regard to how the plant turns out, and just want to keep it alive, then yes, it “grows like a weed” and the chances of success via that standard is pretty easy.

If you want to cultivate cannabis to a level that makes the end product desirable to consume, then it takes a lot of knowledge, experience, and hard work.

Cultivating a cannabis plant so it reaches the peak of its potential is far from easy. It’s a craft that very few people have truly mastered.