The state rules must include procedures for maintaining information about where hemp is produced; testing for THC, the psychoactive compound that gives marijuana users a high; disposing of plants that exceed 0.3% THC; licensing growers; and ensuring resources to run hemp programs.
TORONTO -- After a year of being able to purchase cannabis legally from age 18, Quebecers will now have to wait until they turn 21. The provincial government has passed a bill changing the legal age to use marijuana, a move critics say will only drive the black market.
The Coalition Avenir Quebec government adopted Bill 2, which raises the legal age for cannabis consumption from 18 to 21 as of Jan. 1, 2020. It will become the highest legal age for cannabis use in the country.
One area woman has received $3.5 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to study aspects of marijuana. Another is a former martial arts athlete who ran an erotic boutique before seguing into CBD products. And a third is a former Top Chef contestant who infuses marijuana in her food and aims to write a cookbook.
Cannabusiness is attracting women of all backgrounds, from millennials to boomers, from private equity hotshots and serial entrepreneurs to planners of underground pot parties.
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang entered the race to become the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee way back on November 6, 2017.
While marijuana hasn’t played a central role in Yang’s campaign, he supports legalization and has proposed several drug policy reforms since announcing his candidacy. That includes plans to decriminalize opioid possession and provide waivers for military veterans to access medical cannabis.
While CBD and THC certainly can’t take over the entirety of a pain management regimen, studies on cortisone treatments are bringing the conversations of cannabis to greater light.
From joint pain to the often debilitating effects of arthritis, corticosteroid injections have been a staple in managing pain and inflammation for the almost 30 million Americans that suffer from osteoarthritis (OA). With new research showcasing the long-term effects of one of the most used treatments for OA, doctors and researchers are concerned about the risks of injections and the potential risks involved with cortisone.
A Boston University study published this month found that patients who had been given the medicine by injection found a risk for “accelerated OA progression or adverse joint events after treatment.” Meaning, when a patient was treated for osteoarthritis via a shot of cortisone, it may have accelerated the progression of the disease, including complications, joint destruction, and bone loss.
Interestingly, the study found that certain preexisting conditions, such as older age and Caucasian race seemed to increase the risk for the outcome even more. Researchers recommended MRI pre-screening before injections were given to identify the area better and find if the danger could be accurately assessed before the dose was given.
Long cited and used for inflammation and joint pain, cannabis and CBD oil have helped with not only chronic pain conditions, but managing symptoms of OA. In a 2018 study by the US National Library of Medicine, researchers stated, “There is a growing body of scientific evidence which supports the analgesic potential of cannabinoids to treat OA pain.” To dive deeper, Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia found that since OA pain is multi-faceted, cannabis can help trigger the body’s own endocannabinoid system (ECS) to block pain receptors and potentially offer relief.
Even the Arthritis Foundation is taking notice, releasing its first guide to CBD for those that suffer from the condition. Dr. Daniel Clauw, a contributor to the guide stated, “Right now, it (CBD) appears to be fairly safe and might help certain types of pain.”
While CBD and THC certainly can’t take over the entirety of a pain management regimen, studies like the one conducted on cortisone treatments are bringing the conversations of cannabis and CBD to greater light and offering less stigmatization, which opens the door for better education for all.
Poor headwinds and outsized influence of individual investors have dropped valuations at multiple cannabis companies.
To understand why investors and financial analysts have cooled on the cannabis industry, just look at the jobs. Previously, marijuana businesses were all growth. If you needed a job and wanted to change fields, cannabis was fertile soil for a fresh start. While you can still find work in cannabis, the biggest players aren’t hiring like they used to.
Close to 600 cannabis industry workers have lost their jobs in the past few weeks, according to Business Insider. Layoffs hit everyone from CannTrust to Pax, meaning venture capital won’t save you from the recent downturn in cannabis. But in all cases a similar culprit to blame—the uneasy operating environment of a cannabis business.
Inconsistent regulations, high licensing fees, and media backlash from the vaping illness crisis all factor into the tricky variables inside the cannabis industry. Add in lower-than-expected retail sales in legal markets like Canada and California, and the inability to raise capital from regular investment means due to federal laws prohibiting cannabis banking, and you can understand why everyone isn’t as hot on cannabis as they once were.
Take The Marijuana Index, for example. The index is a composite of major cannabis stocks in the United States and Canada, including CannTrust, Canopy Growth, and Aurora Cannabis. After hitting a high in January this year, the index has lost 60% of its value, dropping to its around the same valuation it had close to two years ago. That’s not good, folks.
Bloomberg reported that the investment community is blaming mom and pop investors for the cratering of pot stocks. Canadian retail investors, not major institutions, increasingly dominate the public float at many companies. Individual investors, as a result, carry an outsized influence than publicly traded companies would like.
“The stock price is driven by Canadian retail investors, and that Canadian retail investor is a fickle, ignorant investor that doesn’t really understand what they’re investing in,” Jeff Mascio, CEO of the Denver-based Cannabis One Holdings Inc., told Bloomberg.
One investment analyst told Business Insider the up-and-down, unpredictable nature of the cannabis industry has created a “toxic” environment for businesses. But Nicholas Vita, CEO of the New York-based Columbia Care Inc., said that could all change if certain players enter the fray.
“If the U.S. investing community, particularly the U.S. institutional investing community, decides to lean in, you’re going to see a massive spike in valuations,” he told Bloomberg.
Billing the country’s potential cannabis industry as a “billion dollar” business, Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Deputy Leader Chester Cooper said the nation continues to miss out on the substantial stimulus of a regulated sector to countries such as Canada and the United States.
Addressing PLPs at the party’s headquarters on Farrington Road, Cooper said a PLP-administration, once elected, would be guided on the issue, like others facing the nation, by research, experts and public sentiment, and not any one view, including his own.
“When we talk about legalizing cannabis we are not going to have the business people like me in the room who truly believes this is a billion dollar industry and we are sitting on our hands while the Americans and the Canadians take advantage of it, but I am not going to impose my business view,” said the Exuma and Ragged Island MP, who has been vocal of his support for the legislation of medical cannabis and to decriminalize small amounts of recreational marijuana.
In the northern hemisphere, Uruguay and Canada have fully legalized cannabis.
In the United States, the marijuana is fully legal in 10 states and medical marijuana is legal is 33.
According to CARICOM’s Regional Commission on Marijuana, which recommended the declassification of the plant, The Bahamas could see a financial benefit of around $5 million from legalization domestically.
However, advocacy groups suggest the figure is closer to over $1 billion if considered beyond domestic use.
As he pledged to PLPs that the party will make decisions that are reflective of the best interest of the electorate after first listening to the Bahamian people, and the party’s committees, , Cooper suggested the leadership will not be dictatorial and impose its views into policy.
“We are going to have people who are psychologists, people who are lawyers, people who are reverends,” he said. “We are going to have a balance of our stalwarts in the room. We are going to have our young voters to ensure we have views that are representatives of the views of the Bahamian people.”
Cooper has previously called on the government to expunge the records of people convicted for possession of small quantities of the substance; and for a reexamination of the law concerning the quantity of the substance that meets the “intent to supply” threshold.
Speaking to Eyewitness News Online last week, Bahamas National Commission on Marijuana Quinn McCartney projected The Bahamas could see some form of regulation, not dissimilar to Jamaica’s heavily regulated model, within a short period of time.
He noted that the commission has yet taken a definitive stance on marijuana use in The Bahamas, but its report — expected to be submitted to the government in early November — will give the government options for various regulated models.
The report is expected to address the medical, industrial, economic, religious and ceremonial, and recreational use of cannabis, as well as research and development – codifying Bahamian attitudes on plant use.
The Trump administration has announced a long-awaited rule on domestic hemp production that could help relieve legal snags for trucking companies and drivers hauling the crop across state lines.
The U.S. Domestic Hemp Production Program, announced today (Oct. 29) by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Sonny Perdue, creates "a consistent regulatory framework around hemp production throughout the United States," as required by the 2018 Farm Bill, which removed hemp from the list of controlled substances.
"At USDA, we are always excited when there are new economic opportunities for our farmers, and we hope the ability to grow hemp will pave the way for new products and markets," Perdue said in a statement. "We have had teams operating with all hands on deck to develop a regulatory framework that meets congressional intent while seeking to provide a fair, consistent and science-based process for states, tribes and individual producers who want to participate in this program."
Concurrent with the rule, USDA also issued guidelines for sampling and testing procedures to provide additional information for sampling agents and hemp testing laboratories.
The agency said the 160-page interim rule will aid in the production, harvesting, transportation, storage and processing of hemp and hemp products. "Absent an interim rule promptly implementing the regulatory program required by the 2018 Farm Bill, there are no procedures in place to determine whether a cannabis crop qualifies as hemp" as defined by current law, the agency said.
Prior to the administration's rolling out this interim final rule (IFR), trucking companies and drivers hauling hemp across state lines have come up against legal problems in states that don't distinguish between hemp and marijuana. The IFR provides more guidance for law enforcement officials who must make those distinctions, according to USDA.
"While the States and Tribes may not prohibit the transportation of hemp produced under the 2014 Farm Bill, law enforcement does not currently have the means to quickly verify whether the cannabis being transported is hemp or marijuana," the agency states. "The IFR will assist law enforcement in identifying lawfully produced hemp versus other forms of cannabis that may not be lawfully transported in interstate commerce."
The IFR will also presumably put regulatory force behind a legal opinion issued by USDA earlier this year that helped mitigate some of the uncertainty for drivers hauling hemp across state lines.
USDA noted that the IFR doesn't address hemp exports. "Should there be sufficient interest in exporting hemp in the future, USDA will work with industry and other Federal agencies to help facilitate this process."
The IFR becomes effective upon publication in the Federal Register, which is expected later in the week, and USDA will also provide for a comment period. If the agency had added a subsequent formal notice and comment period after that, it would have pushed the effective date of the program "well beyond 2020 and into 2021 and [delayed] guidance that stakeholders sorely need," it stated.
The banking industry, for example, has been waiting for regulations to develop their own guidance regarding deposits derived from hemp operations, according to USDA, without which they're not willing risk accepting deposits or lending money to hemp businesses.
In addition, USDA stated, having a rule that goes into effect this fall will allow producers to plan for the 2020 crop year, including identifying planting acreage, obtaining financing and contracting with potential buyers.
