Marijuana News – Page 378

September 6, 2019September 6, 2019

Did Texas just legalize marijuana along with hemp?

It’s complicated.

This is an interesting twist to the avalanche of states passing legislation legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana nationwide. It seems Texas lawmakers have inadvertently made it damn near impossible to file charges against those found to be in possession of marijuana — which, in some counties, at least, is as good as legalizing it.

Texas is renowned for its harsh drug laws. In fact, more than sixty thousand Texans were arrested on charges related to marijuana possession in 2017 — a whopping eight percent of total arrests. Now, thanks to new hemp legislation, that number is dropping fast.

So it’s a hemp bill. What’s the harm?

In 2018 U.S. lawmakers passed a federal Farm Bill which removed hemp from the Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of Schedule I controlled substances. Hemp, as you probably know by now, is the same plant as marijuana, but hemp is bred to be essentially devoid of THC, the intoxicating compound found in pot.

In an effort to take advantage of the situation and begin building a hemp market in the state (after four score decades of prohibition), Texas lawmakers passed bill H.B. 1325, legalizing the cultivation, processing, sale, and possession of hemp. However, they never dreamed that they would be causing such…

Growing Marijuana In Missouri

How To Get Started Growing Your Own Medical Marijuana In MO

Growing marijuana in Missouri can get you in super big trouble — that is unless you’re a card-holding medical marijuana patient or caregiver.

In this post, we’ll talk about the conditions under which you can legally grow marijuana in Missouri. We’ll also cover the stiff penalties you could face if you grow your own pot without meeting those conditions or if you exceed the limits set by law. And finally we’ll talk about actually getting growing.

The short of it is that medical marijuana patients in Missouri are permitted to have up to 18 plants growing on their own property — six flowering plants, six non-flowering plants, and six seedlings or clones. Frankly, there’s no reason anyone should need to exceed that limit if they’re doing a proper job of growing cannabis.

To put things in context, let’s look at a little backstory to see how we got here.

Medical Marijuana In Missouri

The clear winner in the November 2018 nationwide midterm elections was cannabis. The election brought the number of states with medical marijuana programs up to 32 (now 34). That day, Missouri residents passed a ballot measure known as Amendment 2 with a two-thirds mandate officially establishing a medical marijuana program in the state…

Knock Off Vapes Cause Life Threatening Lung Damage

Vape Danger

When purchasing vape cartridges and pens, people who enjoy vaping aren’t usually concerned about crazy situations such as their face getting blown off or their lungs filling with fluid. But, maybe they should be.

It’s not just a pipe dream — or should we say nightmare. Vaping is sickening and even killing people — not a lot of people, but enough to cause serious concern among state and federal health officials who are now asking emergency rooms to ask lung patients if they had been vaping before the incident and to report back to the agency.

According to the CDC, the agency is tracking “94 possible cases of severe lung illness associated with vaping reported in 14 states from June 28, 2019, to August 15, 2019 (this includes 30 cases in Wisconsin).”

What Are The Symptoms Of Vape Poisoning?

The symptoms being reported include:

Shortness of breath
Inflamed lungs
Fluid in the lungs
Weakness
Tightness in the chest
Nausea

In some cases, rather than heading directly to the emergency room, patients have gone to see their primary physician or….

Vertical Integration VS Horizontal, the Nuts and Bolts

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Is Mary’s operation applying horizontal or vertical integration in order to grow? What’s the difference between the two? And why would she want to employ one or the other?

In this brief article, we’ll go over the differences between horizontal and vertical integration as well as discussing the benefits and drawbacks of each system of expansion.

Understanding Horizontal and Vertical Integration Is Especially Crucial In the Cannabis Industry

Understanding the difference between vertical and horizontal integration is especially important in the cannabis industry. This is because each state’s cannabis regulations are different. And even within each state, sometimes counties or individual municipalities have their own rules and regulations to follow.

Some states require vertical integration. In these states, retailers must grow and manufacture their own products. And some states actually forbid vertical integration. If you own dispensaries in these state’s, you’re not allowed to operate a cultivation facility.

A good example of a cannabis company that is growing horizontally is Ohio based dispensary chain Terrasana Labs who currently has three open locations in Ohio and are slated to expand.

A good example of vertical integration is Florida where cannabis companies were originally required to be vertically integrated — that is to grow, process, and manufacture all products that they sell in their dispensaries. (The vertical integration requirement may be changing due to legal challenges.) The three top licensed producer/dispensary retailers in Florida are Trulieve, Curaleaf, and Surterra Wellness.

Can smoking whole flower marijuana actually be good for you?

Can smoking marijuana be good for you?

When the good people of the state of Florida voted to expand their medical marijuana program to actually include marijuana there was no question in anyone’s mind at the time that this included smokable forms of marijuana — eg. dried flower (aka bud), hashish, rosin, and cannabis oil. However, when lawmakers got their hands on the constitutional amendment (no less), they decided that they know better than the majority of their constituents and that it was their job to protect the public by prohibiting the sale and use of smokable forms of marijuana because, well, smoking is bad for you, right? But is it really?

Before we answer that question, let us point out that the Florida situation actually has a happy ending. Florida attorney, John Morgan, who bankrolled the voter initiative to expand access to medical marijuana took it upon himself to put together a case against the state to overturn the smokables ban. The courts agreed that the intention of the measure was to include smokables as a form of administering medicinal cannabis. So did the incoming governor who insisted that lawmakers regroup on the matter and legalize smokables. They did so in short order by a unanimous vote.

Is smoking marijuana bad for you?

Let’s start out by stating the obvious: all things in moderation. If you’re spending the bulk of your days huffing on a bong or lipping blunts, you’re probably going to mess up your lungs. In fact, there is evidence that excessive pot smoking can cause chronic bronchitis. What there is not is evidence that smoking weed causes lung cancer. In fact, cannabis might even prevent lung cancer.

In the spring of 2005, Donald Tashkin, a professor of pulmonology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine claimed that….

March 13, 2019

CBD in Florida – 2019 Complete Guide

Is CBD oil legal in Florida?

Historically, Florida has been one of the strictest states in the U.S. when it comes to both hemp and marijuana — both of which are sources for CBD-rich cannabis oils. However, in recent years, Florida has undergone a sea change in its acceptance of cannabis as a medicinal plant.

Recently instituted legislation has created a full-blown medical marijuana industry minus smokables. This means that both CBD oil from marijuana and CBD oil from hemp are accessible to Floridians with a medical marijuana card. Other than that what about Floridians without a marijuana card? Because hemp CBD oil is not made from marijuana, can anyone in Florida buy it? What exactly are Florida’s laws when it comes to hemp CBD oil?

What are Florida’s CBD Laws as of 2019?

Back in November of 2016, Florida approved a constitutional amendment which gave patients suffering from a list of serious medical conditions access to medical marijuana, including both high-THC cannabis oil, and low-THC CBD-oil. Passing by a landslide margin of 71 percent, Amendment 2 superseded an older law which made legal the use of only low-THC CBD oil, and only….

How Does Medical Marijuana Help With and Treat Alcoholism or Alcohol Abuse – MedCard

For some time, the use of marijuana in treating medical conditions has been a controversial topic in the medical community. The reason is that while some well-respected doctors are advocating for its use, others are more concerned about its addictive properties as well as long term effects. Some researchers have however focused on exploring the potential of marijuana as treatment for chronic diseases like cancer and AIDS, whereas recent studies are focusing their efforts on the effects of marijuana on alcoholism.

Recall that the conventional western model of treating alcoholism has been statistically proven to have a poor success rate as an estimated half of individuals who begin an addiction treatment program often relapse within a period of six months. Well, the truth is that for alcoholics, the only real choice of emerging victorious over their affliction is to quit drinking in its entirety. This therefore explains why many forward thinking recovery programs have been replacing the daily use of alcohol with that of medicinal marijuana.

There are however shreds of evidences that marijuana may be useful in combating alcoholism as well as cocaine cravings. That said, cannabis aided alcoholism recovery is commonly known as…..

Opioids Kill, Marijuana Cures. Solving An American Crisis – Part 1

The Statistics are Alarming

Presently, opioid painkillers are the most commonly prescribed group of analgesics in the US. The numbers of opioids addicts are rising and one third of the total number of deaths from overdose is due to opioid painkillers. The consequences of the epidemic for American society are enormous, starting with health care. Hospitals in Florida and throughout the country complain that their emergency aid is becoming overloaded, and the re-use of needles has increased the spread of Hepatitis B and C in recent years. One in five of mental disorder patients also consumes some legal or illegal opioid. In the US, the number of deaths…READ MORE HERE

September 10, 2018September 10, 2018

Can Marijuana Solve The Opioid Crisis in America – Part 1

Medical Marijuana and The Opioid Crisis

Opioid Crisis in America Overview

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Opioids are a class of drugs that include the illegal drug heroin, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and pain relievers available legally by prescription, such as oxycodone (OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), codeine, morphine, and many others. Opioids are strong painkillers and are usually prepared from opium. There are mild opioids, such as tramadol and codeine, and strong ones, like morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl. The abuse of opioids is very controversial because they cover illegal substances as well as prescription. In many states including Florida & Illinois, there are signs of an increase in the prescription of strong opioids.

Opioids work mainly on the opioid receptors, which are majorly found in the brain regions that are involved in pain regulation, the central nervous system and in the gastrointestinal tract. This is why opioid painkillers work as analgesic and euphoric drugs. Opioids block pain signals in the central nervous system and give a euphoric feeling to the user. In patients with chronic pain, a slight pain can trigger all the tendency to use opioids.

Heroin is the most used illegal opioid while fentanyl, morphine and oxycodone are some of the most abused prescription drugs. Oxycodone has the same chemical compositions with morphine and heroin. It also provides a short-term relieve for chronic pain patients. Before now, oxycodone was mainly used for terminal cancer patients but in recent years, its use has rapidly increased. Oxycodone has a major dark side. Some health professionals believe if you take it as a painkiller for more than thirty days, the chances are that you will become addicted to it.

According to a University of Wisconsin study, since the end of the nineties, the use of these opioids has increased significantly worldwide. For example, the morphine in the US increased from about 70 mg per person in 1990 to 701 mg per person per year in 2014. In Europe these numbers are lower, but increase at the same rate: from 6 to 34 mg in 1990 to 214 to 485 mg per person in 2014.

The Statistics are Alarming

September 8, 2018September 8, 2018

Marijuana Approved as An Opioid Alternative by The Governor of Illinois

Approval of Marijuana as An Opioid Alternative by The Governor of Illinois

A few weeks ago, the governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, enacted a law that will allow the use of medical marijuana instead of prescription painkillers, a measure that seeks to combat the opioids epidemic that killed thousands of people in the United States. Rauner said the law will give an alternative to those who need to control pain and struggle with the negative side effects of opioids, including dangerous addiction

This new law allows the purchase of medical marijuana in authorized dispensaries, with the sole prescription of a doctor, without having to go through fingerprinting and other criminal background checks that are carried out today to other consumers.

Medical marijuana supporters see this law as a significant step in the right direction and a big win in favor of their advocacy for pain management that doesn’t have any potential for a deadly overdose. r. Medical marijuana began to be marketed in Illinois in 2015, in a pilot scheme that includes dispensaries and crops controlled by the state government and that expires in mid-2020.

In the state, there are currently 43 diseases treatable with marijuana including cancer, AIDS, rheumatic arthritis, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. Under the law, a person can be prescribed by their personal physician no more than 2.5 ounces (70 grams) of marijuana every two weeks.

It is estimated that there are currently more than 37,000 users of medical marijuana in Illinois compared with about 8 million opioids prescriptions patients.

BUD DIGEST