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Hey there, cannaboos. By this point, if you're still receiving this newsletter, we're assuming it's because you want it. Welcome to the Leaf Brief #3.
Have you ever wondered where all the plastic packaging that comes with your cannabis goes? SFR tried to figure it out, but unfortunately nobody is tracking it. It's just one of many thorny questions the industry is confronting as it emerges. Keep reading for some of the most interesting nuggets in cannabis news this past month.
Health News
CHS from THC
Patients quickly figure out that overloading on cannabis becomes ineffective because the body develops a tolerance. For a very small number of people who intake a lot of THC over a long period of time, it can also lead to "cannabis hyperemesis syndrome," which has received some media attention and can induce symptoms similar to stomach flu and an inflamed gallbladder. Like everything else having to do with medical cannabis, there's little research out on the subject, but Project CBD tried to compile what is out there.
FDA approved
For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration approved a medication with a cannabis-derived active ingredient. According to the FDA, Epidiolex, a CBD-based oral solution, is intended "for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare and severe forms of epilepsy, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, in patients two years of age and older." CBD might be getting the fed stamp of approval, but fear not: There is still innovation at the grassroots level. Just look at how college kids modified the Juul vape pod to deliver CBD.
More support for cannabis-over-opioids theory
Governor Susana Martinez' Department of Health may argue that cannabis exacerbates opioid dependency, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest it does just the opposite. The latest study, from researchers at the University of California at San Diego and Weill Cornell Medical College, found there was an inverse relationship between opioids received by Medicaid enrollees and medical cannabis legalization. Speaking of pain relievers, the University of Michigan is enrolling people in two studies to evaluate the effects of cannabis on pain, and enrollment is still open. They'll even give you a few bucks for the time.
Regional News
Smoking weed in Vermont
In June, Vermont became the ninth state in the country to legalize cannabis. (Remember when it was just Colorado and Washington?!) The law says people 21 and over can possess up to an ounce of cannabis and five grams of hashish, and also grow "two mature and four immature marijuana plants" on private property. Other states aren't nearly as far along: In Utah, a group asked a federal judge to block medical marijuana legalization from the November ballot (it "would leave in its wake an ocean of human lives shattered by addiction"), and in Oklahoma, the governor backed off from upending a new medical cannabis regulation.
Nevada cannabis market humming
Speaking of places where weed is still kinda newly legal, Nevada's cannabis market surpassed expectations for revenue after its first year in operation. Last year, Nevada's tax department projected that, in the first year, dispensaries would sell $265 million worth of retail marijuana and generate roughly $50 million in tax revenue; in the end, "dispensaries have sold north of $340 million and brought in $55 million in taxes." Sales were so high that the dispensaries in the state ran out of pot by last fall. Oregon is in the middle of the opposite problem: There's so much weed that the price of it is plummeting and smaller dispensaries are going out of business.
#CopsLie
Here's the thing about cops: They're bummers and they lie all the time (they're legally able to). So it makes sense that police in San Diego County are using misleading records of emergency calls to warn municipalities in California of the public safety dangers when you put a cannabis shop in your neighborhood. The figures used by San Diego police are now being cited by anti-pot conservatives across the state, but the Voice of San Diego found only one-fifth of the emergency calls had anything to do with crime occurring at a dispensary. The RAND Corporation found no positive correlation between property crime and dispensary location in California.
Around the Web
Legal in so-called North America
Cannabis will be officially legal in all of Canada on October 17. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterized the new industry as a way to "wipe out the black market" for the plant, and not some sort of economic panacea for the country. Meanwhile in Mexico, newly elected president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his interior secretary have demonstrated more openness to cannabis legalization and decriminalization than their predecessors. Here in America, meanwhile, racist lawn gnome Jeff Sessions, who is also the attorney general, thought the KKK was okay until he learned some of them smoke pot. USA!
National hemp legalization in sight
The Leaf Brief has been following the movement of provision to legalize hemp across the country in this year's farm bill. Both chambers of Congress approved their own versions of the bill last month, but only the Senate version contained a provision legalizing hemp. People from the House and Senate are meeting to hash out the differences in their versions of the bill. The provision would remove hemp from the definition of cannabis and make it easier for hemp growers to get crop insurance. (In related news, the Navajo Nation is looking to create its own industrial hemp market).
Hail Satan
Or maybe just his lettuce. Either way, you'll still be judged. A county judge in Indiana said the state's First Church of Cannabis could not use cannabis as a holy sacrament. The first principle of the church is, "Don't be an asshole. Treat everyone with Love as an equal." In response to the court ruling, church founder Bill Levin wrote on Facebook, "I love you. We lost. We are appealing … and so it goes."