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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government.
The order signed by Todd Blanche does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under federal law. But it does change the way it’s regulated, shifting licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. It also gives licensed medical marijuana operators a major tax break and eases some barriers to researching cannabis.
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The Trump administration also said it was jump-starting the process for reclassifying marijuana more broadly, setting a hearing to begin in late June.
Trump told his administration in December to work as quickly as possible to reclassify marijuana. On Saturday, as the Republican president signed an unrelated executive order about psychedelics, he seemed to express frustration that it was taking so long.
Blanche said Thursday that the Department of Justice was “delivering on President Trump’s promise” to expand Americans’ access to medical treatment options.
Trump Or Pope Leo: Weed Insiders Debate Who Would Be Best 420 Hang
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Many marijuana users will probably be getting high Monday to celebrate 420, the unofficial holiday dedicated to all things cannabis.
But Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV probably won’t be joining them.
The president is a known teetotaler, despite agreeing to shift pot from a Schedule I substance to Schedule III in December. Meanwhile, the pope hasn’t directly commented on the wacky tobacky, but he has said that “drugs and addictions are an invisible prison.”
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Of course, that isn’t stopping people in the cannabis industry from pontificating over who they would rather get high with between the president and the pontiff — or both.
Pope Leo definitely is the top choice of many marijuana insiders, including Max Simon, whose business Green Flower trains people on the inner workings of the industry.
He thinks smoking with the pope would be illuminating on a variety of levels.
“I have a feeling that conversation would go somewhere genuinely interesting. Consciousness, suffering, grace, what it means to be human,” he told HuffPost. “I’d be very curious if he feels closer to god with a little cannabis in his system.”
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Reggie Harris, of the House of Kush cannabis brand, said the choice is “a tough one,”
The Iran War Is Affecting The Cannabis Industry. Here’s How.
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Put this in your 420 pipe and smoke it: The cannabis industry could become disjointed if the Iran war continues.
Insiders in the bud biz are watching the Middle East conflict closely, as it affects the availability of certain products crucial to cannabis.
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Josh Kesselman, the CEO of RAW Rolling Papers and the publisher of High Times magazine, tells HuffPost that the conflict has caused rolling machine prices to increase by 50% due to a lack of materials.
“And some of our favorite filters (like the original cotton ones) are made in Lebanon, where production is now indefinitely suspended,” he lamented.
Although this added cost might affect consumers on 420, the unofficial hashish holiday devoted to all things cannabis, Kesselman said that the price of plastic tubes used on pre-rolls has doubled, “so that might raise the cost of pre-rolls by about 10 cents.”
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Inesa Ponomariovaite, CEO of the wellness company Nesa’s Hemp, told HuffPost that the conflict has begun to affect her business by raising costs across her supply chain.
“For instance, we rely on specialized transportation services to move our extracts to co-manufacturers and our products to fulfillment centers, and these costs have increased in line with higher
I Let My Teenage Son Grow Weed In Our House — And It Changed Our Relationship In Ways I Didn’t Expect
One little packet addressed to my son arrived in the mail one summer day along with a large envelope containing his senior portraits. I opened the senior portraits and saw my son in a black tux — clean-cut, smiling and handsome. My son — let’s call him Liam — opened the other package and we found three tiny black cannabis seeds called Northern Lights, “because they are specifically designed to grow well in cool climates like ours,” my son explained.
As parents, my husband and I hadn’t come to our decision to allow the pot growing lightly. Mostly we worried about what Liam would do with the pot if it grew successfully. Would he be tempted to sell it? Would we inadvertently be turning him into a drug dealer? And what about the whole “gateway” theory? Would this lead to experimentation with other more dangerous drugs? We knew Liam smoked pot from time to time and we accepted that. But would this setup turn him into a “wake and bake” guy?
Liam’s persistence and curiosity convinced us. Ever since we gave him the green light to grow pot, he had been studying the most effective methods for planting and harvesting
Have Your Weed and Eat It Too: Sask. Experts Talk Soon-Legal Cannabis Edibles
Saskatchewan experts and retailers weigh in on what to expect as cannabis edibles, extracts and topicals become legal on Oct. 17, 2019.
Patti Wood is no stranger to cannabis edibles.
Although the products only become legal for sale in Canada on Thursday, Wood has been making her own at home for a while: She began using medicinal cannabis in 2009, for pain management as a breast cancer patient.
Using legal cannabis — including the harvest from her own legally grown plants — Wood uses a Magical Butter machine to extract oil from dry cannabis.
– Read the entire article at Regina Leader-Post.
If Cannabis Is Having Any Dire Health Effects, Canadian Hospitals Haven’t Seen Them
More than half a year in, Canada’s relaxed cannabis laws appear to be earning a clean bill of health from major medical organizations.
While many hard numbers on health shifts are not yet available, some of the country’s largest mental health and emergency centres say the new laws have dumped no discernible increase in cannabis-related cases on their doorsteps.
“It’s certainly something that we’re very concerned about and want to be watching for,” says Robert Mann, a senior scientist and impairment expert at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. “But I’ve heard nothing — no indication that there’s all of a sudden a large increase.”
– Read the entire article at The Star.
How to Invest in Cannabis as the Industry Matures
Although the legal marijuana industry is still very much an emerging niche for stock market participants, the market for investing in cannabis is maturing.
In a recent sign of how far the legal cannabis sector has come, BlackRock Funds has made substantial investments in dispensary operator Curaleaf Holdings, the same company that also announced it will sell products infused with a non-psychoactive hemp component in CVS Health Corp (NYSE: CVS) stores.
Institutional Investment, Industrialized Processes
The CVS deal indicates that cannabis products are becoming more mainstream. The BlackRock investment is a high-profile example of institutional money entering a space that has been called the Wild West of investing. “We expect to see a floodgate [open]of more institutional investment,” said Matt Karnes, founder and managing partner with GreenWave Advisors.
– Read the entire article at YahooNews.
Cannabis Advocates Drop Off Donations at Windsor Food Banks
Rain this past weekend kept the EPIC 420 Cannabis Festival from getting the attendance organizers were hoping for, but still they were able to support Windsor area food banks.
Event organizer Leo Lucier dropped off a truck and trailer full of groceries at Street Help on Monday.
Lucier later went to the Welcome Centre Shelter for Women and helped fill their shelves with food and other necessities.
– Read the entire article at CTV News.
19 Stylish, Cannabis-Adjacent Gifts for Those Who Like to Smoke Weed
Your friend, significant other, sibling, parent — anyone!
We know it’s hard to find the right gifts for your loved ones, so we’ve compiled a ton of fashion and beauty-focused gift guides tailored to a range of interests and budgets. Check out our latest below and find more right here.
As marijuana continues to earn legalization for recreational use around the world, the act of smoking pot is rapidly transforming within the luxury market across fashion, beauty and media. (We’ve covered one, not two, but three very chic magazines on weed that just launched this year.) From designers getting inspired by the marijuana leaf’s aesthetic to new beauty brands banking on the benefits of CBD, the options for stylish cannabis-friendly products are plentiful right now.
– Read the entire article at Fashionista.