Tag: Cannabis Wire

10/23/19--Greenwich Biosciences, the United States subsidiary of the British GW Pharmaceuticals, registered to lobby in every single state in the country—including ones where all forms of cannabis are prohibited—over the last three years. Greenwich has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2019 alone on its state-level lobbying activities, mostly on issues related such as “scheduling of FDA approved cannabidiol drugs,” “drugs and controlled substances,” “pharmaceuticals,” “healthcare,” and “health insurance,” according to lobbying disclosures. Read

9/20/19--The American Bar Association hosted a roundtable discussion in Chicago on Thursday during which executives from some of the cannabis industry’s biggest companies debated current trends in the industry and weighed predictions about what’s next. Read

9/20/19--The Senate Appropriations Committee approved Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s additions to the 2020 Senate Agriculture Appropriations Bill. If implemented, the bill will require the Food and Drug Administration to pick up speed on developing more permissive guidance on hemp-derived CBD products, paving the way for increased business opportunities. Read

9/19/19--Last week, the California State Legislature made final decisions regarding several key cannabis bills that could have a significant impact on the world’s largest cannabis market. Governor Gavin Newsom has until October 13 to approve or veto the bills endorsed by the legislature. If he does not act on the bills, they will become law by default. Read

4/25/19--The Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act of 2019, commonly referred to as the SAFE Banking Act, would provide banks and federally-regulated creditors with ties to state-legal marijuana businesses with legal protection from prosecution. A number of large insurance companies and industry associations are chiming in because they see the “exploding” marijuana market, yet the insurance industry is grappling with risks associated with federal illegality. Read

4/24/19--Depending on where marijuana-based businesses are located, publicly available information on who’s selling legal marijuana in select cities can be scarce, as is information about how they were approved to operate. Proponents of access to information, certain members of the media, and some interested citizens maintain that the public should know who’s profiting from this highly regulated industry. Read

4/13/19--In an exclusive interview, US Attorney Billy Williams weighs in on banking, hemp, overproduction, black-market diversion—and marijuana regulators who fail to think things out. Williams’ advice to lawmakers and regulators considering legalization? “Slow down, wake up, and get serious about what you’re doing.”  Read

4/16/19--During a one-on-one interview with Cannabis Wire co-founder Alyson Martin, Steve Hawkins, the new executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, talks equity, federal legalization, and the organization’s role in the booming, multibillion dollar global cannabis industry, while also discussing the future of the Marijuana Policy Project organization, which has been on the ground floor of marijuana legalization in the US since the 1990s. Read

3/20/19--The United Nations’ Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) opted to indefinitely postpone a vote on the World Health Organization’s recommended changes to the scheduling of cannabis in international drug control conventions. The recommendations, prepared by the WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, call for cannabis and cannabis resin to be deleted from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs. Read  

8/8/18--The way states choose to tax marijuana plays a crucial role in how their marijuana markets will take shape, and will almost definitely have long-term effects on things like public health and criminal justice. To better understand where marijuana tax dollars end up in different states, Cannabis Wire provides a breakdown of how each state that has legalized marijuana collects and handles its revenue. Read