doomed
2 days ago
Home / Legal
It’s official: No marijuana banking protections from current Congress
By MJ
December 19, 2024
The current session of Congress is poised to end without any progress on major marijuana reform measures, including banking protections.
With Congress needing to pass a spending bill by the end of the week to avoid a partial government shutdown, a budget proposal was unveiled late Tuesday that included disaster aid and cash for farmers.
But the plan offered nothing pertaining to the $32 billion state-regulated marijuana industry.
That inaction brought to fruition marijuana industry predictions to MJ in November “to not expect anything of the lame-duck” Congress this year.
Importance of marijuana banking services
For years, cannabis advocates have begged Congress to provide clear protections for financial institutions that provide banking services to state-regulated marijuana businesses.
While many cannabis businesses have bank accounts, most major financial institutions do not provide services to the marijuana industry.
That creates more costs and more complications for an already overburdened legal industry.
And then came the proposed spending bill with no provisions for the marijuana industry.
Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer foreshadowed that result, claiming in a Dec. 10 post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Republican leadership was “blocking my push” to tuck cannabis banking into any last-minute spending measure.
That same blame game played out two years ago, when a similar lame-duck push in Congress to squeeze banking into either a budget a defense-spending bill also failed.
Then and now, some Democrats blamed opposition from Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, a staunch opponent of marijuana reform.
Cannabis stakeholders ‘disappointed’ by Congress
However, frustrated cannabis advocates say there is plenty of blame to go around for the stalemate.
“It’s an understatement to say we’re disappointed by the 118th Congress,” David Culver, the senior vice president for public affairs at the U.S. Cannabis Council, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group, said in a statement.
Industry advocates hope that incoming President Donald Trump follows supportive words for marijuana rescheduling with action.
“With a supportive president,” Culver said, “the pending reclassification to Schedule III, and strong support from key congressional Republicans, we are hopeful that we can break the logjam and make significant progress toward our goal of federal legalization and the protection of public safety that comes with it.”
Trump do not care for cannabis, Fentanyl is the buzz.
Weed will have to wait for a miracle.
doomed
2 weeks ago
Home / Cultivation
Judges appear unmoved by arguments challenging federal marijuana prohibition
By MJ Staff
December 10, 2024
A three-judge U.S. appeals court has indicated it’s unlikely to side with a group of cannabis businesses aiming to overturn federal marijuana prohibition via a constitutional challenge.
According to Reuters, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston voiced serious concerns that the legal challenge argued by superlawyer David Boies could upend precedent since the Supreme Court upheld the national ban in 2005 – despite major shifts in recreational and medical marijuana legalization across the majority of the country.
“Congress’ overarching goal was to control the supply and demand of controlled substances in both lawful and unlawful channels,” U.S. Circuit Judge Julie Rikelman, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said, according to Reuters.
“And that hasn’t changed.”
The appeals court expressed similar concerns made in May by a U.S. District Court judge in Springfield, Massachusetts, who said issuing a ruling contradicting the Supreme Court is a “big step,” Reuters reported at the time.
The lawsuit was filed in October 2023 against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland by and Chicago-based multistate operator Verano Holdings Corp. and three Massachusetts companies, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers and cultivator Wiseacre Farm.
The plaintiffs are challenging the merits of the Controlled Substances Act, a strategy that has failed in the past, as they hope to bring the case to the Supreme Court but the judge wants none of it.
Since the high court upheld the ban in 2005, 24 states have approved adult-use sales and 41 states have established medical marijuana programs, according to MJBizDaily research.
Washington, D.C., also has approved both markets but has not yet established recreational cannabis sales.
doomed
2 weeks ago
Gouging sick folks… welcome to greedy Corporate America!🎯😂
Home / Cultivation
Marijuana lab operator calls for expanded testing requirements and enforcement
author profile pictureBy Omar Sacirbey, MJMagazine Editor
December 10, 2024
Family-owned and -operated Anresco Laboratories has been testing food products since its founding in 1943 by Sylvan Eisenberg, a chemist and Stanford University Ph.D.
San Francisco-based Anresco, named after the acronym for analysis, research and consulting, began testing cannabis in 2015.
Today, its chief operating officer and the company founder’s grandson, Zachary Eisenberg, chairs the Cannabis Science Section of the American Council of Independent Laboratories (ACIL), a
Washington, D.C.-headquartered trade association for testing labs.
In that role, Eisenberg and other labs conducted research into potency inflation that confirmed suspicions about the practice occurring – even in regulated marijuana markets with mandatory testing protocols.
The investigations also found that many cannabis products were contaminated with pesticides.
Later, Anresco and another California lab were tapped by the Los Angeles Times and WeedWeek to assist in their investigation of marijuana products cleared for sale by state-regulated testing labs.
Eisenberg spoke with MJMagazine about pesticides and potency manipulation, what can be done to solve these problems and the backlash he’s faced for being a whistleblower.
How did Anresco first learn about potency inflation and illegal pesticides in regulated cannabis?
There’s potency inflation, and then there’s contaminant misreporting or misanalysis.
It’s widely understood in the industry that potency inflation occurs.
It’s an inevitability that if consumers pay more for higher-potency products, the cultivators and distributors are going to put pressure on laboratories to provide higher (THC) results.
Potency inflation is pretty rampant – especially for flower products and extracts.
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As chair of the ACIL Cannabis Science Section, we were heading an initiative to determine the extent to which potency inflation is occurring in California, and it was pretty gross what we found.
As part of that study, which we conducted with a variety of other laboratories, we also found that there were pesticides in some of the samples we were analyzing.
Similarly, in our own personal experience, we’ve had customers that said, “Oh, you’re finding pesticides in our products, and other labs aren’t. So, we’re going to start using those labs instead.”
So, we had an idea that there were likely pesticides being misreported to the DCC (California’s Department of Cannabis Control).
Whether that was intentional or not, we weren’t entirely sure.
It was only more recently, when we started testing samples from store shelves and then partnering with the L.A. Times, that we really appreciated the extent to which pesticides are intentionally being introduced into cultivation.
Does the DCC’s list of 66 prohibited substances cover everything for which labs should be running tests?
No. What is currently required is insufficient.
That’s not to say that the DCC did a bad job coming up with their list when they published it several years ago.
They had far more analytes than Colorado and Oregon were requiring – it was state of the art at that time.
But when people know what you’re testing for, they also know what you’re not testing for.
What the L.A. Times article brought to light is the fact that people are using non-DCC (banned) pesticides because they know they’re not going to be caught – or they didn’t think they were going to be caught.
There has to be screening – perhaps by a regulatory body and/or private laboratories – for new compounds.
And there has to be a process for modifying the list over time to protect public health.
How difficult is it to manipulate testing equipment, and what enforcement can be done?
You’re describing a term known as dry-labbing, where a laboratory either doesn’t properly analyze the sample, or maybe they don’t analyze the sample at all, and they issue a result that’s erroneous.
In some cases, maybe those laboratories are just not capable.
Maybe they didn’t have the right instrumentation or the personnel or the methods to perform these analyses, and they just didn’t realize the pesticides were there.
We also know that there’s been a variety of enforcement actions taken against labs by the DCC in California and by other regulatory bodies in other states against labs that they found to be manipulating results.
When products are contaminated – whether intentionally or not – they need to be recalled to protect public health.
If people know there’s a potential that their product can be recalled if it has been found to have pesticide, and they know the DCC and/or other private laboratories are surveilling products for contaminants, they’re going to be far less incentivized to use pesticides going forward.
Likewise, when it comes to potency inflation or contaminants, if they know that the DCC is surveilling for those things, then maybe they’re not going to be so incentivized to pressure laboratories to provide inaccurate results.
What kind of feedback did you get from businesses after the investigation?
The brands that had products containing pesticides were probably not very happy they were being so directly called out by the L.A. Times.
We don’t make the decision whether to (identify) the brands or not.
In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever tried to throw a brand under the bus before.
But certainly, those brands are upset and a couple of them mentioned that (they believed) we are part of a conspiracy to take them out.
That was a little bit misguided on their part, but I understand that perhaps the article had economic consequences for their businesses, and they were upset as a result.
We’ve also come across companies that said, “We’re so happy that you brought this issue to our attention. We want to be proactive. We want to sell safe products. We’re sourcing from people, and we didn’t even know that we should be testing for additional compounds.”
One of the biggest selling points to buying regulated cannabis products is it’s supposed to be tested, and it’s supposed to be safe, and if that promise breaks down, then what’s the incentive to spend more opposed to a black-market product?
For a few years there, you were seeing potency inflation getting worse and worse.
Only after the L.A. Times article brought a lot of attention to these issues, the DCC is now being a lot more proactive in terms of the surveillance sampling and issuing recalls and finding the people who are intentionally doing things that are bad.
That’s a positive development. You’re also starting to see the industry start to regulate itself.
They’re actually calling it “Category 4” testing. The DCC has Category 3 testing, which tests for 66 analytes.
Is it harsh on the throat? Return the product… if you can.
doomed
2 weeks ago
Tilray’s bunk or Snoop’s best?
I see a clear winner with traction and a bunk grower without any…
🤣🤑😂
FORBES
LIFESTYLE
VICES
Snoop Dogg Opens Online Cannabis Shop Shipping Direct To U.S. Consumers
Doomed
Contributor
Doomed is freelance writer covering weed news and culture.
Dec 6, 2024,
Hip-hop icon and multi-talented entrepreneur Snoop Dogg on Wednesday opened an online shop selling cannabis flower and other hemp-derived products with shipment direct to U.S. consumers in more than three dozen states, including many that have not legalized recreational marijuana. Also featuring lifestyle products including smoking accessories, premium tobacco cigars and limited-edition merchandise, the new direct-to-consumer marketplace SWED.com launched at 4:20 p.m. EST on December 6.
The launch of the new online shop follows the opening of Snoop Dogg’s S.W.ED. cannabis dispensary in Los Angeles and a so-called coffee shop in Amsterdam, where patrons are able to purchase small quantities of cannabis and other weed products. The initials S.W.E.D stand for “smoke weed every day,” a Snoop Dogg mantra that has grown into an international lifestyle brand.
The online shop will feature a curated selection of authentic Snoop Dogg and Death Row Records branded hemp-derived cannabis products, including THCA flower that contains a non-psychoactive precursor to THC. When heated by smoking or vaping, however, THCA is changed to THC, the cannabinoid most associated with the classic “high” achieved from smoking marijuana.
Other products available now or in the coming weeks include rolling trays, cigars, tobacco “blunt” wraps, pipes, vaporizers and other exclusive merchandise. All products except the THCA offerings can be shipped directly to consumers in the U.S. THCA products cannot be shipped to Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Dakota, although the rest of the line is available to consumers in those states.
“SWED.com is designed to deliver a complete lifestyle experience with products hand-selected by Snoop himself,” the company wrote in a statement about the launch. “From Dogg Leaf natural tobacco leaf wraps to exclusive Death Row Records rolling trays and odor-proof backpacks, the site is a one-stop shop designed to offer a premium experience for collectors, connoisseurs, and everyday users alike.”
Contrary to large producers in Canada, Snoop understand the canna culture.
Suits don’t partake.
doomed
2 weeks ago
Large producers purchased poor genetics to start the biz… and have been cloning poor genetics.
They been growing bunk nobody wants ever since… hence the drop in share prices.
BCBUD all grow from seeds. They rule the market making good money, keeping customer happy.
They have connections and purchase seeds on the world market.
It all starts with good genetics. Contrary to suits, they grow fire.
Home / Cultivation
Veteran cannabis cultivators express renewed interest in seeds over clones
author profile pictureBy Kate Lavin, Editorial director
When Mario Guzman, the creator of cannabis genetics Gelato and Sunset Sherbert, travels to Europe for events, he looks forward to meeting up with longtime friends and exchanging seeds.
“All of our global friends come, and we share genetics and talk about what we’re all planting for the following year,” Guzman told MJBizDaily during a recent phone call.
He likens the experience to the seed market that has existed for decades in the coffee shops of Amsterdam.
“They were really the culture of it: The passionate backbone of all seed sales in Europe,” Guzman said of Amsterdam-based growers and seed breeders, adding that until the medical marijuana market got a toehold in the United States, legacy growers brought seeds from outside the United States that later became the bedrock of today’s black market.
Popping seeds
While demand for product uniformity requires most licensed cultivators to produce marijuana from clones, growers’ affinity for sharing genetics through cannabis seeds is alive and well in today’s regulated market.
“I still get excited when I pop a three-pack of seeds as opposed to a clone,” said Justin Sheffield, director of cultivation at BeLeaf Medical Co. in Missouri.
“To have something new, something proprietary, something that you know your team started from seed that no one else has? That still gets us excited.”
BeLeaf operates three cultivation facilities in Missouri with tens of thousands of plants in various stages of cultivation at any time.
Nonetheless, Sheffield said, “We always have a pheno hunt in the works.”
Bag appeal
Reggie Harris, co-founder of Kansas City, Missouri-based cannabis genetics company House of Kush, said most of his clients are asking for “good, hearty plants that aren’t difficult to grow.”
He believes seeds have become more popular in recent years as companies have become more concerned with mold, disease and pests in the regulated U.S. marijuana market valued at $112 billion.
“The thought before was that having a clone saved time from having to pheno hunt and let the plants grow out – but if you weigh the cost between potential lost crops or the extra time it takes to grow, seeds make sense,” Harris said.
“It may take a little longer to get a new strain to market, however the risk/reward is worth weighing.”
There’s no question, however, that flower “has to look and smell the part” to keep consumers loyal to your brand, Harris said. Folks do not buy bunk.
“With the number of choices out there, cultivators are looking for hits.
“If you can consistently deliver them, they’ll keep coming back for your genetics.”
International cannabis market
When it comes to what cultivators should look for when vetting potential partners for cannabis seeds, Eugene Boukreev, head of marketing at international seed bank Fast Buds, said “detailed information about the genetic stability and quality of the seeds should be provided.”
He also recommended that growers ask for:
Confirmation that seeds are tested for germination rates.
Reviews, including references or testimonials from other cultivators.
Boukreev told MJBiz that North American marijuana cultivators have different preferences than their European counterparts.
“North American black market growers favor genetics with high THC content for more potent flower, optimized yield, unique terpene profiles that allow for marketplace differentiation,” Boukreev said, adding that resistance to disease and pests also are key priorities.
“European growers’ priorities are a little different.
“They must remain compliant with stringent THC limits and local regulations, so we see a higher demand for limited-THC strains as well as strains with specific medicinal properties.”
The Vault at MJBizCon
Voice of the Plant is bringing best-in-class genetics from BCBUD, Europe and the United States for a first-of-its-kind collaboration with MJBizCon, taking place Dec. 3-6 in Las Vegas.
“The community coming together, that’s the most important part,” Guzman said, “and pushing the culture forward.”
To accomplish that, Voice of the Plant (VOP) is curating The Vault at MJBiz, a section of the trade show floor where seed breeders hand-selected by VOP will offer cash-and-carry genetics for the first time at the world’s largest cannabis business conference and trade show.
“True geneticists aren’t just botanists; they really are artists,” Deych said.
Winning cannabis genetics
For Guzman and Deych, comparing how genetics perform with other cultivators in their circle is part of the experience they seek to replicate through The Vault at MJBiz.
“Everyone involved in The Vault, we’re going to open up the best of our genetic libraries to the world,” Guzman said.
“Our hope is to create an environment for people to openly share, like they have been doing in Europe for decades, but now on U.S. soil.”
Guzman and Deych said genetics enthusiasts big and small will appreciate the thought leadership they’re assembling for The Vault, including representatives from:
Abstrax Terpenes of Irvine, California.
Barney’s Farm of Amsterdam.
Conception Nurseries of Sacramento, California.
Sensi Seeds of Amsterdam.
“A lot of the big grows and businesses have started to understand the importance of genetics and how that root truly is the center of the business,” Guzman said.
doomed
3 weeks ago
The Jugewho will decide on CANNABIS FAITH (for newbies anyway, cuz folks in the know don’t care about legalization, they don’t need a permit to partake, besides lp is bunk and terribly expensive for what it is) IS CANABIS NAIVE
Home / Legal
Historic DEA marijuana rescheduling hearing opens, paused until mid-January
author profile pictureBy Chris Roberts, Reporter
December 2, 2024 - Updated December 2, 2024
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Image of cannabis naive DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney II overseeing Monday's marijuana rescheduling hearing
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney II hears from attorney Matt Zorn during Monday's marijuana rescheduling hearing. (Image courtesy of dea.gov/live)
Historic hearings on marijuana’s status under federal law will begin in earnest sometime in mid-January, an administrative law judge for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said during a procedural session Monday.
At that time, hearings will be held “Tuesday through Thursday … for as long as it takes,” said John Mulrooney II, the DEA’s chief administrative law judge.
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There’s still no exact date when Mulrooney might rule on moving marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act, which would have profound consequences for the $32 billion state-regulated U.S. cannabis industry.
That long-awaited date appears to be no earlier than February, when some of the parties designated to participate in the rescheduling process indicated availability to give part of what might be a week’s worth of testimony.
In the meantime, more filings in the proceedings are due Dec. 13, with documents due Jan. 3 – two “homework” dates that Mulrooney set on Monday.
Focus includes judge’s ‘pigeonholes’
As expected, Mulrooney heard no evidence or testimony from the select few “designated participants” during two hours of proceedings Monday.
Nor has Mulrooney absorbed any of the copious information presented to him in pre-hearing filings, he said.
Instead, during his opening remarks and in dialogue with attorneys representing the parties, Mulrooney seemed concerned with narrowing what evidence and testimony he will hear, in part so that a decision can be reached as swiftly as is reasonable.
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“Remember, everybody, this is not a trial whether marijuana is good or bad,” he said at one point.
“I don’t know if it’s good. My issues are much more narrow than that.
“It has to do with addiction potentialand several other little pigeonholes that I have.”
While setting ground rules, Mulrooney’s focus Monday was determining availability from the 19 designated participants’ witnesses – and, in some cases, questioning whether the witnesses qualified as experts.
Rescheduling hearing process
Mulrooney established Monday that:
Each of the designated participants will be allowed 90 minutes for testimony from a witness they select.
Opposing parties can cross-examine that testimony for up to 20 minutes.
Parties consolidating their arguments with another designated participant – including some of the pro-marijuana blocs denied full standing in the proceedings and those permitted independent participation – can have up to 120 minutes for two witnesses.
It likely will not be until after February 2025 when Mulrooney concludes hours of testimony and an untold cache of evidence.
No books; experts only
That cache, Mulrooney stressed Monday, must be as brief as possible.
Some witnesses appeared keen to send Mulrooney as much information as possible, including books they’d written.
“Here’s a spoiler alert,” he said. “I am not going to be reading anybody’s book,” he said.
“I don’t have the lifespan to read mountains of evidence.
“I want the evidence that’s important.”
Witnesses also must demonstrate in testimony or a written brief why they qualify as an expert.
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