Author: News Room

“The report reaffirms what we all know to be true: former Secretary Shemia Fagan’s actions compromised public trust in the audit.” By Ben Botkin, Oregon Capital Chronicle Auditors under former Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan (D) failed to maintain the public trust when their boss moonlighted for a cannabis company amid an audit about marijuana regulation, an Oregon Department of Justice review has concluded. The report, released on Wednesday, recommends that the state temporarily remove the audit linked to the rapid downfall of Fagan from its website and review it. Fagan resigned in May after Willamette Week reported she…

New Jersey marijuana regulators have announced a new campaign to promote public health and safety around the state’s legalization law—an effort that, in part, will involve encouraging adults to use cannabis delivery services to mitigate the risk of impaired driving. On Wednesday, the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission (NJ-CRC) unveiled what will be a year-long campaign  involving distributing educational materials and promoting advertisements on issues such as preventing marijuana use during pregnancy, youth consumption and impaired driving awareness. The “Cannabis Smart / Cannabis Safe” initiative comes more than a year after New Jersey’s adult-use market opened, with regulators and lawmakers…

The mayor of Washington, D.C. has signed a bill that will allow medical marijuana patients to submit products directly to labs for testing—and also let regulators issue temporary cannabis patient registrations to non-residents that last for up to a year. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) approved the legislation from D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) and Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D) on Wednesday. It will additionally expand who can qualify as social equity cannabis license applicants. The non-resident temporary registration provisions will build on the District’s evolving medical marijuana program, which has been repeatedly amended as lawmakers continue to face a congressional…

Colorado retailers have sold more than $15 billion worth of legal marijuana products since the state’s first adult-use retailers opened in 2014—and that has generated more than $2.5 billion in cannabis tax revenue to support public programs and services—state officials have announced. As of August, Colorado has seen $15,028,995,376 in total legal cannabis sales. In 2023 alone so far, marijuana sales have amounted to $1,052,517,913. The tax revenue from the last nine years of legalization stands at $2,554,160,551 as of September, the Colorado Department of Revenue (CDOR) said in a press release on Wednesday. Colorado was the first state to…

“We’ve had a giant shift socially in the acceptance of this plant in most of the country.” By Joe Blubaugh, KMUW A group made up of older Kansas residents is asking lawmakers to end long-time opposition to medical marijuana legalization and Medicaid expansion. Kansas remains one of only a few states with no legal way to access cannabis and one of nine states that have not expanded the health care program Medicaid. The Kansas Silver Haired Legislature met at the Statehouse in Topeka and voted to advocate for those issues during the legislative session that starts in January. The group…

A new map published by the U.S. Census Bureau details the proportion of state revenue made up by marijuana tax money, and in some cases, the figures are eye-popping. In Oregon, for example, roughly $1 in every $20 the state made during some recent time periods came from legal cannabis transactions. According to the federal data, marijuana taxes comprised 4.67 percent of Oregon’s total revenue in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, 4.7 percent in the first quarter of 2022 and 5.21 percent in the third quarter of 2021. While Oregon by far relied heaviest on marijuana tax dollars,…

The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has drastically reduced its recommendation for total daily intake of CBD, in light of guidance from key government committees. Under the update, FSA now recommends consumers take a maximum of 10mg or “about 4-5 drops of 5% CBD oil” per day, down from 70mg under guidance issued in 2020. For comparison, the European Industrial Hemp Association has proposed a maximum daily intake level of 17.5mg per day of CBD to the European Food Safety Authority. FSA said it considered data collected during its safety assessment of more than 12,000 products that are candidates for…

Nova Farms (Nova), like their CEO and founder, Derek Ross, has been galvanized by adversity, and rose above early challenges to become the largest, privately owned, vertically integrated cannabis operator in the Northeast. High Times recently sat down for a conversation with Ross and Nova’s Chief Operating Officer, Blair Fish, to learn how Nova is preparing for their next phase of explosive growth. Courtesy Nova Farms A Rough Start in Rhode Island Ross, Fish, and the other founders of Nova are originally Rhode Islanders. Fish had been the owner of Ocean State Cultivation Center (OSCC) with his brother and Ross…

Texas activists say they have secured enough signatures to put a local marijuana decriminalization initiative on the ballot in the city of Lubbock if lawmakers there do not enact the reform legislatively. The committee behind the initiative filed paperwork for the Freedom Act Lubbock ordinance with the city secretary in August, and on Wednesday announced that that they’ve since gathered about 8,800 signatures. They only need roughly 4,800 valid signatures by October 17 to qualify, and the plan is to turn in about 10,000 by the deadline to ensure success. “We are extremely proud of all of the volunteers on…

A top health agency has formally revised federal workplace drug testing guidelines to clarify that using medical marijuana under a doctor’s recommendation in a legal state is not a valid excuse for a positive THC test. In a pair of notices set to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced that it had amended guidance of saliva and urine testing to include the cannabis policy clarification, despite receiving comments opposing the proposal after they were first announced last year. The agency did make one change to its initial plan,…