Author: News Room

Sales of legal marijuana in Michigan contributed $266.2 million in tax revenue to the government during the most recent fiscal year, according to a new report from the legislature’s nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency. That’s more than the state made from the sale of beer, wine and liquor combined. Tax from sales of adult-use cannabis were up 49.1 percent in fiscal year 2022–23, which ended in October, compared to $178.6 million collected the year before. That amounted to an additional $87.6 million in state revenue from cannabis sales compared to the prior 12 months. Of all the major tax revenues itemized…

Maryland has officially opened the first round of applications for new adult-use marijuana dispensary, cultivation and processing licenses—reserved exclusively for social equity businesses. The Maryland Cannabis Administration (MCA) will ultimately be accepting a total of 179 marijuana licensees following the 30-day application period that started on Monday. That includes 75 dispensary, 16 grower and 32 processor licenses. This will more than double the number of retailers in the state, where currently only existing medical marijuana dispensaries that converted to dual licenses are serving adult consumers. The application process for this round is also meant to promote diversity and prevent large…

As the Biden administration’s marijuana scheduling review continues, the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says his agency is uniquely positioned to “update the science” to ensure that drugs are “properly” classified under federal law. During a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) asked HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra about his agency’s role in the “scheduling process” under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) as compared to that of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which is now considering HHS’s recommendation to move cannabis to Schedule III. While the senator didn’t explicitly…

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) might be retiring at the end of this Congress, but he’s still got boxes he wants to check off on an ambitious agenda to reform federal marijuana laws before his final bike ride from Capitol Hill. The Oregon congressman, a founding co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus who has spent decades championing marijuana legalization, intends to make the most out of his last 14 months in office. He thinks bipartisan cannabis banking reform is still in play, for example, and he’s hopeful that the Biden administration will heed the will of voters by taking bold action…

As marijuana reform continues to stagnate in the Wisconsin legislature, bipartisan and bicameral lawmakers have come together to introduce a new bill that would create a psilocybin research pilot program in the state. Sens. Jesse James (R) and Dianne Hesselbein (D), as well as Reps. Nate Gustafson (R) and Clinton Anderson (D), are sponsoring the legislation, which would focus on exploring the therapeutic potential of the psychedelic in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans. The pilot program would be facilitated through the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which already operates a multidisciplinary psychedelics research division that launched…

By Albert Goldman Was Son of Sam the ultimate rock critic? When he loaded his machine gun to strafe that discotheque in Long Island, was he preparing to make a statement? To drown out with the rat-tat-tat of his deadly weapon the brazen new Beat for the Feet? We’ll never know—unless the New York D.A. subpoenas that 6,000-year-old dog that was giving Sam his orders. What we do know is that disco, as Charlie Parker said about bebop, “ain’t no love-child.” Much of the resistance to the new style comes from people who want to stay tuned for the rest…

With Lubbock city leaders set to consider a citizen-initiated proposed ordinance to decriminalize cannabis on Tuesday, a Texas advocacy group has released a report looking at the impacts of similar marijuana reform efforts passed by voters in five different jurisdictions during the 2022 election. It found that the measures will keep hundreds of people out of jail, even as they have led to blowback from law enforcement in some cities. The report, from Ground Game Texas, looks at local decriminalization reforms adopted in Killeen, San Marcos, Denton, Harker Heights and Elgin. Julie Oliver, executive director for the group, said she…

With less than a month left before a New Hampshire commission is due to put forward a plan for how to legalize adult-use marijuana sales through a system of state-controlled stores, members were visibly frustrated at a Thursday meeting with the group’s slow, meandering progress through a draft bill circulated last month by the group’s chair, Sen. Daryl Abbas (R). Lawmakers on the panel grew combative with one another over issues such as penalties for public consumption of cannabis, dual licenses for existing medical marijuana businesses and the very handling of the commission meetings themselves. After more than two hours…

House lawmakers are set to meet next week for what’s believed to be the first-ever congressional hearing focused on psychedelic-assisted therapy for veterans’ mental health. The House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health was originally scheduled to meet October 19 to discuss the matter, but that hearing was postponed as Republicans scrambled to elect a House speaker. Now the panel is set to convene Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. for the event, titled “Emerging Therapies: Breakthroughs in the Battle Against Suicide?” Since the meeting’s postponement last month, two new witnesses have been added to the calendar. One is Brett Waters, the…

German lawmakers have postponed a final vote on legislation to legalize marijuana that was scheduled for next week, a move expected to delay the proposed nationwide reform from taking effect into at least early next year. The bill, which was set for a final reading next Thursday in the Bundestag, Germany’s national parliament, now “will be decided in December,” member Carmen Wegge said in a social media post on Friday. “I know this is a huge disappointment for many,” said Wegge, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). “That’s why this decision wasn’t easy for anyone. However, well-designed improvements are in…