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News of unregulated THC and e-cigarette vapes suspected to be causing illnesses and deaths are sweeping the nation, with a CDC report claiming that ​up to 530 possible cases of severe lung disease, and eight fatalities, may have been caused by vaping in at least 33 states. The majority of patients reported purchasing products from the black market.

While the investigation​ is still ongoing, as officials have not yet identified any single substance or product with ties to all cases, the news creates urgency for the legalization and regulation of the cannabis market nationwide.

How The Federal Ban Hurts The Country

Similar to the ​Prohibition Period​ with alcohol, the cannabis industry is struggling to fight issues caused by an unregulated black market. As of 2019, 33 states have legalized cannabis for medicinal use, and 11 are legal for recreational use — yet, marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 drug (the same classification for heroin and LSD), which makes it federally illegal.

Without marijuana legalized federally, states scramble to create and enforce regulations within the fast-growing market, often leading to confusion surrounding laws and health standards. In return, officials on both state and federal levels are left uneducated about the ​plant​, hurting the economy when resources are misused.

The economy also suffers from the banking issues created. Due to its classification as Schedule 1, U.S. banks and credit unions refuse to approve loans from hopeful cannabis businesses for fear they could lose their federal backing and FDIC insurance. This makes it extremely difficult for legitimate cannabis companies to access capital and operate safely. If businesses were allowed access to banking — which they are in Colorado — it’s proven to boost the economy when taxed in a regulated market.

Perhaps the most dangerous outcome the federal ban has created is a thriving black market — one that is now suspected to be responsible for illnesses and deaths across the country.

No Proper Testing Means High Potential For Unsafe Products

Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have the authority to regulate cannabis products due to its federal standing, it makes it easy for black market vendors to mass-produce products that look legit. However, many of these products are never officially tested and, therefore, usually contain cheap and harmful additives or contaminants.

These products thrive from both online sales and illegal storefronts, making black market vendors lots of money for selling illicit products. For instance, counties in California with tax rates as high as 40 percent, these products can be less than half the cost of legal counterparts. As for states where legalization is slow to occur, the black market seems to be the only option.

A Legal Market Could Decrease Crime, While Increasing Profits And Public Safety

Federal legalization of marijuan is one clear solution, but, while many think it will happen at some point, how many lives may be lost from illicit products before that happens? There must be a regulation policy in place in order to provide the framework necessary for consumer safety and product testing, which, in essence, would help to avoid public health outbreaks in the future. In addition, removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances list would allow for more reliable banking for hopeful marijuana businesses, helping to refocus police resources towards preventing crime rather than enforcing drug laws.

Another reason for the urgent push towards federal legalization is the need to increase profits nationwide. States like Oregon, which has small legal markets, struggle with a massive ​surplus of product​, which causes an inability to legally distribute products across state lines. The oversupply has driven retail prices down to $5/gram, and farmers are struggling to stay afloat. If states like Oregon were legally allowed to export products across state lines, profits would not only increase, but the market price of cannabis would become much more stabilized nationwide.

In states like Nevada and Florida, where the retail cost of a legal gram of premium indoor cannabis can top $20 before tax, the inability to export products legally to other states and regions have led to an inefficient production process.

“You have people using water in the desert in Nevada to grow mediocre cannabis, or in Florida, where they have to dehumidify giant spaces, consuming twice the energy,” Said Adam Smith, founder of the Craft Cannabis Alliance, in an ​article​ from the Los Angeles Times. “Oregon wouldn’t have an oversupply problem if we could access legal markets like these.”

What The Industry Is Doing About It

In Oregon, the ​Craft Cannabis Alliance​ was created to work with legislators to allow Oregon to start exporting pot to other legal-weed states by 2021.

“It just doesn’t make sense, that states legalizing weed are forced to create their own self-contained industry.” Said Smith in the Los Angeles Times.

Other groups, like the ​United Cannabis Business Association​ (UCBA) — a trade association representing licensed dispensary owners, cultivators and other cannabis businesses — work to educate and advocate various states to create a robust and sustainable regulated market in California.

There is even a banking bill that is currently being discussed by the Senate. The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act would allow banks to lend money to hopeful cannabis business without fear of federal prosecution, so long as the company they work with are compliant with the laws in the state in which they operate.

What Consumers Can Do Right Now

The figurative ball is in the federal government’s court.

For now, however, it is critical for consumers to support legal cannabis and only buy products from compliant and licensed dispensaries. Sticking with reliable brands — such as ​The Bloom Brand​, which never adds cutting agents (such as Vitamin E acetate) to oil, while being transparent about ingredients and testing — will help ease many health concerns about what might be in products.

Shortly after Governor Tom Wolf announced his support for legalizing recreational marijuana in the state, Pennsylvania lawmakers introduced a bill that is being hailed by cannabis advocates as the “gold standard” for weed legalization.

Democratic Senators Daylin Leach and Sharif Street filed the legislation that covers everything from social equity provisions to marijuana delivery services.

“Pennsylvania’s cannabis policy is cruel, irrational and expensive. Prohibition has destroyed countless lives and has cost taxpayers millions,” Leach said in a statement.

The senator argues prohibition also helps fund violent drug cartels and vowed to fight this “tough battle” until the end.

“The stakes are too high for us to fail,” he stressed.

Under the legislation, which “will end the ongoing destruction caused by cannabis prohibition and will establish a fair protocol for the use, sale and regulation of cannabis,” adults aged 21 and over will be allowed to possess and buy pot, but also cultivate up to 10 cannabis plants – more than in any other state that has fully legalized weed.

Additionally, the bill includes the automatic expungement of previous criminal convictions, which recently took effect in New York as well.

Advocates shouldn’t rush to celebrate, though

Perhaps most notably, the senators proposed that taxes collected from cannabis sales be directed toward school districts, which could amount to $500 million in the first fiscal year of legalization.

School districts would be allowed to allocate the funds according to their needs.

“An end to the prohibition of cannabis is overdue. The economic imperatives are too great. We also have a moral mandate to correct the damage that disparate enforcement of our Marijuana Laws has done and is still doing to communities across the commonwealth,” Senator Street adds.

The nonprofit organization Keystone Cannabis Coalition that advocates for full legalization of recreational weed in Pennsylvania called the bill “fantastic.”

“It prioritizes the cannabis consumer and corrects some serious social justice problems. If it passes, it could become the gold standard legalization bill for the free world,” Director Les Stark told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

However, Republicans, who currently control both chambers of the Pennsylvania state legislature, have recently expressed they have no interest in legalizing recreational marijuana, meaning the future of the bill hangs in the balance.

At the moment, support from across the aisle has been lacking.

Following Governor Wolf’s call to lawmakers to draft cannabis legislation, House Republicans stated they were “disappointed” and “frustrated” over his support for recreational marijuana.

GOP House leaders noted that cannabis is still classified as a Schedule I drug by the federal government and underscored that the state is already experiencing an opioid epidemic they believe would be exacerbated by access to legal weed.

Alcohol and pregnancy definitely don’t mix, but is it cool for expecting mothers to toke? Researchers at the University of Denver are trying to bring clarity to that question.

Pilyoung Kim, a psychology professor at the school, is leading a team that is studying the effects of cannabis on pregnant mothers and their babies. 

Kim said she was inspired to get to the bottom of the matter when she was working on a separate research project on poverty and pregnancy. While working on that study, Kim was confronted with a recurring question: “It’s OK to use cannabis while you’re pregnant, right?”

“We were baffled about what to say to these women,” Kim said in a press release. “There is a limited understanding of the effect of cannabis use on themselves and their babies if they are exposed to cannabis inside the womb.”

The research could potentially rupture another taboo over marijuana, which has been normalized (and legalized) throughout much of the United States. More than 30 states have legalized medical cannabis, and a growing number of cities and states are doing the same for recreational use. And marijuana has been marketed to pregnant women to help relieve morning sickness. A study last year on recommendations given to pregnant women at dispensaries in Colorado, one of the first states to legalize recreational pot, found that 69 percent offered the products as a remedy for morning sickness, and that 36 percent said marijuana is safe to use during pregnancy. 

Conversely, Kim’s research could lend support to the longstanding wisdom that expecting mothers should avoid marijuana. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that doctors should encourage pregnant women to discontinue marijuana use. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says plainly: “No amount of marijuana has been proven safe to use during pregnancy or while breastfeeding.” 

The Methods of the Study

Whatever the ultimate findings, Kim and her team are conducting the study by observing two groups of pregnant women: one that uses cannabis and one that doesn’t. From there, they’ll collect data during the pregnancy; after the baby is born, both the mother and child will undergo  an MRI to determine any impacts related to brain structure and function development.

“We feel there’s a little bit of a mission with this study, more so than some other research projects,” Kim said. “This is going to be really beneficial for moms in this situation. They are motivated to do their best for their baby, and they have a right to access all the right kind of information.”

Kim is one year into the study, which is being funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

“We are trying to do this research with an open mind, so the participants know that we would like to find scientific information that could be helpful to them one way or the other,” Kim said. “There’s a really important role science can play here. It’s to really inform the public so they are empowered to make a decision for themselves.”

It's been almost a year since Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana. Soon, the state will begin accepting applications for recreational pot businesses. That begs the question: what does all this mean for the existing medical marijuana industry in Michigan? 

Lisa Conine of Om of Medicine, a medical marijuana dispensary in Ann Arbor, predicts that “pretty much every dispensary” will apply for a recreational license.

That’s because Michigan will give medical marijuna dispensaries priority when it comes to recreational licensing for the next two years, a move that Conine says is meant to speed up the implementation process.

Conine expects that eligible existing marijuana dispensaries will be licensed and able to sell recreational weed to the general public early next year. But those who have medical marijuana cards will still have “some perks” even after anyone over 21 can legally purchase cannabis.

“There will be… a [lesser] amount of tax that [people with cards] will have to pay at the register being in the medical program versus the tax structure for adult use sales,” Conine explained. “We anticipate that they’ll see shorter lines, wait times, and more attention on them.”

The divide between Michigan’s medical and recreational marijuana programs means that patients and casual users who visit the same dispensary will be served separately. But Conine thinks that keeping those two businesses “under one roof” will help better educate people and normalize all kinds of cannabis use. 

Michigan's law on recreational marijuana also allows for “social use consumption spaces” in communities that approve them. Those are private businesses where people could consume cannabis outside of their own homes. Ann Arbor passed an ordinance last week that would allow for such cannabis consumption centers. 

“What better way to normalize [marijuana], something people have been using for thousands of years, than to have it be done in a communal way?” Conine said.

Conine understands that some Michiganders may be concerned about how the sale of recreational marijuana could impact the state. Gaps in research on the effects of cannabis, she argued, are due to its federal classification as a Schedule I drug. That’s why Conine suggests that those who are in favor of further research on marijuana should get in touch with their local representatives.

“If you’re frustrated and worried, then call up your senator and tell them that we need more research on cannabis,” Conine said. “Let’s deschedule cannabis from a Schedule I status so we can actually understand it in the way that we need to [in order] to fully utilize it and keep us all safe.”

The industry on pot stocks is undoubtedly changing. With such a large quantity of new investors coming into the industry the market can seem saturated at certain points. This is where alternative pot stocks to watch come in. These companies offer a new and different way to invest in marijuana stocks that other companies cannot. Much of this is due to the sheer size of the business and what they can achieve with that scale.

Additionally, some of the smaller pot stocks have had an easier time putting innovation through due to the lacking bureaucracy that bigger companies have to face. With this in mind, there are definitely pros and cons to each investing style and each part of the industry. All it comes down to is the personal preference of the investor and the amount of research that one does. Research is an investor number one tool and is made easier by finding certain pot stock info sites to rely on. With as much information on each company as possible, pot stock investors can avoid a lot of the surprises that they would run into without information at hand.

A Canadian Early-Stage Pot Stock

Stillcanna Inc. (STIL Stock Report) (SCNNF Stock Report) is one of the leading early-stage life sciences companies currently working on large scale CBD extraction throughout Europe. The company has stated that they have the potential to produce CBD in larger quantities and at a lower cost than most due to their proprietary intellectual property.

Recently, the company signed into an initial extraction contract in Europe that would effectively allow them to be the exclusive extractor for Dragonfly BioScicnes, LLC, a U.K. based CBD supplier. The company has also been working on a series of acquisitions which they hope can help to boost their share in the CBD market.

Recently, the company announced that they have signed into a definitive agreement to supply the company Sequoya Cannabis with hemp biomass from their farms located in Poland. In the agreement, Stillcanna would provide dried flowers which can then be used as biomass to produce various CBD extracts. The agreement, which is worth just under $1 million, represents only a few percent of Stillcanna’s biomass forecast for the 2019 year. For this reason, they remain a key pot stock to watch.

An Alternative Vertically Integrated Pot Stock

Acreage Holdings (ACRGF Stock Report) is a multistate dispensary operator currently showing some gains in the past month or so. The company has been working off of an acquisition from Canopy Growth that should see the two growing further into the future.

With a large cash and stock deal, it seems as though Acreage Holdings has quite a bit of growth left on the radar. The company has been waiting on some new legislation that would allow them to grow in a more effective way, but things do look bright in the present. All in all, they should continue to be watched moving into the near future.

Marijuana expungement is an often laborious, bureaucratic process, but algorithms have eased the process.

Following marijuana legalization, states and cites have emphasized correcting the records of those affected by the War on Drugs. An estimated 20 million people were arrested for a marijuana-related offense over the past 30 years. When individuals have cannabis convictions on their record, it limits their opportunity to acquire employment, access stable housing, and participate in their children’s school activities.

While cities like Seattle have offered opportunities for individuals to clear their records, the process is often laborious and bureaucratic. Take San Francisco, for example. In 2017, the city announced more than 9,000 residents were eligible to expunge marijuana convictions from their records. But only 23 people petitioned for that to happen.

“The way the legislation was written really kind of put it all on the people that had been convicted,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón told Reason. “It didn’t prohibit us from doing anything about it, but then it also didn’t spell out that you should.”

As Gascón explained, those able to take advantage of expungement were those already “well off” and “sophisticated” enough to jump through the necessary hurdles. But the San Francisco District Attorney believes the government should play a more active role in assisting “people that were harmed by decades of bad policy.” In other words, to make a kind of reparations.

That’s why Gascón recruited Silicon Valley to help with the process. He partnered with Evonne Silva, Code for America’s senior program director, and her team, which aims to clear a quarter million cannabis convictions in California before 2020. Silva’s team created an algorithm that combs through prior convictions and flags any cases possible for expungement. Then, the program automatically follows the paperwork on the individual’s behalf.

“The difference is, it on average takes an attorney 15 minutes to review one criminal record and evaluate eligibility and prepare the paperwork,” Silva told Reason. “We were able to process over 8,000 convictions in San Francisco in a matter of minutes.”

Other California jurisdictions plan to follow San Francisco’s lead and partner with Silva’s team, which is part of Code for America’s Clear My Record campaign. Los Angeles and San Jose are among the participating cities, but the program eventually aims to take its efforts nationwide.

“The technology is actually really simple. It also starts to shift the way in which people relate to their government, because now this is a service provided [by] government as opposed to government being seen as an obstacle,” Silva said.

Food and drink are still being sold with CBD in New York City, months after health officials banned restaurants and cafes from selling edibles spiked with or accompanied by the trendy cannabis derivative because of safety concerns.

The city’s health department surprised bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops, and other food sellers in February by telling them they were not permitted to put cannabidiol, or CBD, in prepared foods because it hadn’t been approved as a food additive by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They also can’t provide CBD to customers to add it themselves.

City health inspectors started seizing CBD-laced products, then backed off and gave food establishments until Oct. 1 to comply with the rules or face a fine of up to $650.

Yet on a recent spin around Manhattan in the days after that deadline passed, an Associated Press reporter was able to find CBD-infused coffee, cookies and other food items still for sale.

In the coffee bar at Le District, a fancy grocery near the World Trade Center, a sign read: “Add an extra dose of CBD oil to any drink for $5.”

At the Fat Cat Kitchen cafe in Manhattan’s East Village, freshly baked CBD cookies and brownies sat on display in a glass case.

CBD-infused drinks — including lavender matcha latte and white peach iced tea — were also on sale at the Forever Coffee Bar, near Columbia University’s new satellite campus in upper Manhattan. Customers could get 10 milligrams added to their beverage for $2.50.

Owner Artem Arnopulo said he was aware the ban was in place. Health inspectors, in fact, had already visited another one of his Manhattan cafes in September and asked it to stop serving CBD-laced items.

“That was before the Oct. 1 deadline, and they said, no violation, no tickets. But it was a warning,” Arnopulo said.

Still, he said he plans to keep serving CBD drinks until the inspectors show up at his other location and tell them to stop, too.

“We’re waiting for them,” he says with a grin. “I’m really a bit upset about it. If we cannot sell this anymore because CBD is kind of special and people are so excited about it.”

The Fat Cat Kitchen’s co-owner, C.J. Holm, declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Le District initially denied any CBD beverages were still for sale, then stopped responding to inquiries after being told an Associated Press reporter had been able to purchase a coffee with a packet of CBD that afternoon.

Products with CBD, a chemical in cannabis that doesn’t cause a high, have become a fad across the country. The chemical is touted by sellers as being able to relieve pain, anxiety, sleeplessness and other conditions. Those claims are unproven, and questions remain about its safety.

The FDA has approved CBD as a treatment for rare, severe forms of epilepsy. The substance’s status as a potential medicine, however, has triggered restrictions on its use as a food additive or dietary supplement. The agency is now exploring regulations that might allow it to be added to food at a later date. In the meantime, though, restaurants aren’t allowed to add it to food, just like they wouldn’t be allowed to add doses of painkillers or other medications.

Michael Lanza, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Health, told The Associated Press that no violations had yet been registered in the days after the October deadline. In the future, he said, health officials will confront owners of establishments about any CBD sales while conducting routine inspections of restaurants, delis and coffee shops.

The crackdown only applies to prepared food, not CBD oil sold by itself in shops and pharmacies.