BudDigest

Two new cannabis dispensaries are scheduled to open in East Peoria.

A NOXX dispensary is set to open “before the end of the year” at 300 S. Main Street, according to East Peoria director of development and planning Ty Livingston.

Cloud 9 brand dispensary is also opening a location at 458 W. Camp Street. Livingston said that location will open within the first three months of 2024.

NOXX dispensaries is based in Michigan, where it operates two locations in Grand Rapids. The East Peoria store will be its first in Illinois.

Cloud 9 has locations in Champaign and Edwardsville and is planning to open another in Oswego in addition to the East Peoria store.

East Peoria’s NuEra dispensary at 504 Riverside Drive is the only active dispensary in the city.

ASBURY PARK – For a short while, Sylvia Sylvia-Cioffi might have been the most popular person at the Jersey Shore.

New Jersey was on the cusp of legalizing marijuana for recreational use — it was a matter of “when,” not “if” — and Asbury Park was seen as a potential epicenter. It had the built-in name recognition and attractions. It had a bustling downtown. And its officials were open about their intention to welcome in the cannabis industry with open arms.

When industry hot-shots wanted an introduction to the city’s decision-makers, they turned to Sylvia-Cioffi, executie director of the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce. Some even wanted her to join their boards of directors or ownership groups: Sylvia-Cioffi, a Cuban American woman, described herself as a “bit of a unicorn” for an industry that state law rewards when women and people of color are in charge.

Riana Durrett, at the time the executive director of the Nevada Dispensary Association, poses in this 2017 photo outside the Legislative Building in Carson City. Durrett is the inaugural director of the new Cannibas Policy Institute at UNLV. The institute will serve as a research hub for local, state, national and international cannabis policy, according to UNLV.

By Grace Da Rocha (contact)

Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023 | 2 a.m.

The medicinal and recreational use of legal cannabis is still relatively new in Nevada, where lawful sales debuted in 2017, and the regulation of consumption lounges is being worked through.

That’s part of the reason why UNLV created its Cannabis Policy Institute, which is believed to be the first of its kind in Nevada and possibly in the United States, director Riana Durrett said.

The institute will serve as a research hub for cannabis policy and “local, state, national and international implications for public policy, law, medicine, science, economics and businesses,” UNLV said in a recent release. It is a collaboration between multiple programs at the university.

“There are so many unanswered questions related to cannabis legalization here in Nevada and nationwide, and we believe UNLV — with

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Since Issue 2, the law to legalize recreational marijuana, passed on election night, WEWS/OCJ viewers and readers have been writing in to ask what this means. Ohio Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau breaks it down with the help of some legal experts.

This is the second in a series of answering questions about marijuana policy in the state.

About 57% of voters approved of recreational marijuana, leading to many questions from both supporters and opponents. We brought them to Case Western Reserve University law Jonathan Entin.

We have already answered some basic questions, like: When/Where/How can I smoke? Can I be evicted? Can I be drug tested at work? Click here to read the answers.

With Dec. 7 approaching rapidly, cannabis users are getting excited to legally smoke in Ohio. However, they won’t be able to immediately buy marijuana in stores. The state’s cannabis division has to be established and has to write rules, meaning it’s estimated stores won’t be open for about a year.

Monday’s questions delve into what you can do in the meantime.

Can I drive to Michigan, where recreational marijuana is legal already, and bring back weed?

“There are several answers to this question,” Entin said.

It all

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Four service-disabled veterans settled a lawsuit with the Cannabis Control Board on Nov. 28, essentially unfreezing a conditional retail licensing program for the state’s marijuana industry. This means that over 400 retail establishments can again proceed towards receiving conditional licenses statewide. Specifically, entrepreneurs that were banking on opening dispensaries can now do so.

Only 26 dispensaries have been legally licensed and opened statewide. Eleven of those are located in New York City, with six in Manhattan.

The vets had essentially taken issue with equity provisions in the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary Program, which they claimed excluded them from being prioritized. Essentially, the program had focused on granting licenses to people with past marijuana convictions (or immediate family members of those convicted under the old law). The veterans claimed that violated the state’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act. After the suit was filed in August, a judge in Ulster County froze the licensing program It had just started to crank up again after Governor Hochul signed legislation allowing hundreds of new firms to apply.

The veterans had piggybacked off a March lawsuit filed by four medical marijuana companies, who posited a similar argument claiming they were being illegally excluded from getting

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NEW YORK (PIX11) — On Monday, New York State’s Cannabis Review Board approved a settlement in a lawsuit that has halted new, legal cannabis dispensaries from opening.

In August, a state Supreme Court judge issued an injunction because the suit halted many businesses.

Since then, dispensary owners have been living in limbo, unsure when to open, but they are still stuck paying rent and payroll. Growers have also been struggling with excess products and insufficient retailers to sell them to.

Leafy NYC in Chelsea was finalizing its full license when the injunction was implemented. Unable to open, the front of the business is being used to host the Leafy NYC Cannabis Growers Showcase. It opens to the public on Tuesday.

The state allows dispensaries stuck in limbo to partner with a legal licensee and open temporarily. This helps dispensaries cover costs, retailers expand their reach, and growers bring products to market.

Where can I buy weed in NYC? Full list

“This gives us a chance for us to spread them [growers] around New York State and to give them exposure in markets that they weren’t in, and that’s such a beneficial thing,” said Matt

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Nov 28, 2023, 1:35amUpdated 3h ago

Dozens of dispensaries across the city could be one step closer to opening after the New York State Cannabis Control Board approved settlement agreements that were once stopping hundreds of businesses from opening its doors.  

Almost four months ago, a court injunction was in place that prevented hundreds of dispensaries from opening. The Cannabis Control Board voted to settle that lawsuit, and while it is a step in the right direction for CAURD license owners, they still have to wait until the court approves the agreement.  

The injunction will be lifted once it is approved, which will mean that hundreds of CAURD licensees could open their stores and the state Office of Cannabis Management can get back to issuing new licenses.  

The CAURD program is the first-of-its-kind in the United States and allows people who were incarcerated on marijuana charges to be the first to make cannabis sales.  

Coss Marte, who was supposed to open up his dispensary in the South Bronx in September, says he’s been paying rent and staff for months on a business that hasn’t opened, and this injunction being lifted could finally get his business off the ground.  

“I

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Last December, New York’s first legal cannabis dispensary opened its doors in Greenwich Village. Now, close to a year later, there are still just 11 licensed dispensaries in the city and only 27 statewide.

That number could soon spike dramatically.

“This is a significant moment,” said Chris Alexander, the executive director of the state Office of Cannabis Management.

What You Need To Know The rollout of the legal cannabis market has effectively been paused since early August, thanks to a lawsuit filed by a group of veterans with disabilities The state’s Cannabis Control Board on Monday approved a proposed settlement in the case The state’s Office of Cannabis Management says there are at least two dozen new dispensaries ready to open immediately The veterans said they were unlawfully excluded from the first round of licenses, which went to applicants with past marijuana convictions

During a brief emergency meeting Monday, the Cannabis Control Board, the state’s oversight body, approved a settlement in a lawsuit that had effectively blocked the legal industry from moving forward for months.

It was welcome news for those with retail licenses, some of whom were

Read More Here...

Last December, New York’s first legal cannabis dispensary opened its doors in Greenwich Village. Now, close to a year later, there are still just 11 licensed dispensaries in the city and only 27 statewide.

That number could soon spike dramatically.

“This is a significant moment,” said Chris Alexander, the executive director of the state Office of Cannabis Management.

What You Need To Know The rollout of the legal cannabis market has effectively been paused since early August, thanks to a lawsuit filed by a group of veterans with disabilities The state’s Cannabis Control Board on Monday approved a proposed settlement in the case The state’s Office of Cannabis Management says there are at least two dozen new dispensaries ready to open immediately The veterans said they were unlawfully excluded from the first round of licenses, which went to applicants with past marijuana convictions

During a brief emergency meeting Monday, the Cannabis Control Board, the state’s oversight body, approved a settlement in a lawsuit that had effectively blocked the legal industry from moving forward for months.

It was welcome news for those with retail licenses, some of whom were

Read More Here...

To one local dispensary owner in Dixmont, unregulated cannabis is threatening business.

NEWPORT, Maine — Months after police arrested a group of Chinese nationals for running an illegal marijuana growing operation in Carmel, the problem of illicit cannabis cultivation remains.

“They’re very secretive as to how they operate.” Newport Town Manager Jim Ricker said Monday. “They normally buy old houses.”  

While the true number of growing sites is unknown, Ricker said they’re easy to spot—with boarded-up windows and several electricity meters. Court documents in the Carmel growing case show the house rented by Weizan Huang, one of the defendants, was billed up to $6,900 a month for power—pointing to an enterprise that, while underground, is built for large-scale transactions.

Already, these illegal grow sites are having an impact by way of introducing low-cost, unregulated marijuana into the market. This has served to threaten the business of local dispensaries.

“What’s happening is it’s killing our profits; it’s killing our margins and the growers are getting shut down because of it,” said Jennifer Belcher, owner of Dirt Road Acres in Dixmont.

Belcher estimates illegal growers sell a pound of marijuana

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