From Our Writers

A new study by the Stanford School of Medicine appears to contradict a commonly cited 2014 study that suggested medical cannabis legalization leads to a reduced rate of opioid overdoses.

Massachusetts has awarded the first provisional license under the state’s social equity licensing rules to Pure Oasis, a Boston-based dispensary; the owners say they will hire locally and hope to establish a business incubator.

Known British cannabis advocate Blair Gibbs is leaving a position as policy lead for the Centre of Medicinal Cannabis to join the administration of the newly appointed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom he has worked for previously.

Ohio is the latest state to legalize hemp cultivation and CBD product manufacturing; the bill had been overwhelmingly approved by the state’s legislative bodies and was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine on Tuesday.

Utah lawmakers are planning to change the state’s medical cannabis program, which was created in the first place as a legislative replacement for the voter-approved program that lawmakers said would be untenable, as the current program conflicts too directly with federal rules.

Woodstock Ventures, the founding entity behind the Woodstock music festival, can move forward with a planned cannabis brand after a court ruled their trademark was not blocked by Woodstock Roots LLC, an unaffiliated company.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill into law that establishes an expungement process for low-level criminal charges and expands the state’s existing decriminalization rules.

Massachusetts regulators have warned residents and tourists against bringing cannabis out to sea, and into other federal waterways, despite the plant being legalized in the state.

A Pennsylvania medical cannabis cultivator has had its license revoked following multiple accusations of wrongdoing by state regulators.

As Canada approaches the one-year anniversary of legalizing cannabis, adult-use sales are steadily rising but medical cannabis flower sales have dropped 20 percent.

Standard Wellness has issued Ohio’s first medical cannabis product recall on its THC-infused water-soluble drops after patients alerted the company that some bottles contained dark-colored debris; so far, no adverse effects or illness related to the polluted drops have been reported.

Law enforcement in British Columbia has asked federal authorities to help thwart illegal online cannabis sales in the province.

With $1.6 million already spent this year, the cannabis industry’s 2019 Capitol Hill lobbying efforts on are on pace to break the record set last year at $2.7 million.

Details have emerged about the CBD trials partnership between the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Canada’s Aurora Cannabis; the trials will investigate CBD’s effectiveness in wound care, recovery, pain treatment, and more.

Juneau, Alaska has approved social use cannabis regulations that will take effect within a month. At first, however, only infused edibles will be allowed — smoking regulations are expected to come later.

A recent study covering 3,023 surveyed California parents found that parents who had used cannabis within the previous year were more likely to discipline their children. Note: this trend was reversed for “lifetime” cannabis users and the data used by researchers was collected in 2009.

Researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario say they have identified pain-relieving cannabis flavonoids that are “30 times more powerful at reducing inflammation than Aspirin.”

After receiving more than 800 applications to grow industrial hemp, Virginia’s Agriculture Department is planning to establish new regulations for hemp-derived CBD products.

Three months before edibles regulations take effect nationwide, officials in Quebec, Canada have announced a ban on sweetened cannabis edibles containing THC, including (temporarily) topicals.

Lawmakers yesterday held the first Senate committee hearing to be aimed at addressing banking challenges for the cannabis industry; the hearing included arguments from financial institution representatives, state-legal cannabis professionals, and elected officials from states with reformed cannabis laws.

As part of a bipartisan effort in the U.S. Senate, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez has proposed a bill aiming to open up business insurance opportunities for state-legal cannabis companies.

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have approved legislation banning hemp flower starting in 2020 due to police complaints that hemp flower will interfere with their cannabis enforcement efforts.

Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler and Sen. Kamala Harris are introducing a federal cannabis reform bill called the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act to both decriminalize cannabis and set up the expungement of prior cannabis convictions.

The California Bureau of Cannabis Control and state law enforcement agencies have seized a combined $30 million worth of cannabis products, cash, and weapons from the unregulated industry since 2018.