Author: News Room

“I think as a general matter this is a group of workers that seems to be inclined toward organization.” By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current As a patient-care specialist at Warwick’s RISE Dispensary, Bruce Botelho recommends strains to customers and oversees purchases at a job he said initially provided good benefits and a friendly atmosphere. “It’s a really fun job, the people I work with are great,” he said. Yet things soured quickly after Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries took over the former Summit Medical Compassion Center in 2021, he said. While there were few changes at first, Botelho said employee…

The first—and, for now, only—recreational marijuana shop in Minnesota opened its doors on Tuesday. And the demand was intense, with the business so overwhelmed that it had to turn customers away at the store and also temporarily suspended online orders to keep up. The Red Lake Nation tribe was quick to take advantage of a unique feature of the state’s legalization law, which went into effect on Tuesday, and launched its storefront in Red Lake well before traditional retailers are expected to start being licensed by state regulators. Some people travelled hours (Red Lake is a 3-4 hour drive from…

Federal, state and local officials have voted to add a pair of new marijuana items to a federal handbook that are meant to provide model standards for cannabis definitions,  packaging and labeling requirements and best storage practices to control for moisture loss in marijuana flower. At a National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM) conference on Wednesday, members of the bicameral conference’s House of Representatives and House of Delegates passed the marijuana proposals that were offered by the Laws and Regulations (L&R) Committee. The package needed 27 votes to pass and it received 33. NCWM previously approved a number of…

He claims a cannabis business owner used campaign contributions as “leverage” to have him “pushed out of office when his work concerning Oregon’s cannabis industry stood in her way.” By Lynne Terry, Oregon Capital Chronicle Gov. Tina Kotek (D) faced pressure from recovery advocates to fire the head of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission for its support of the alcohol industry. Mike Marshall, executive director of Portland-based Oregon Recovers, told the Capital Chronicle on Tuesday that he asked Kotek last October and repeated the request in December after Kotek was elected to get rid of Steve Marks, then executive…

The U.S. Forest Service is reminding people that Minnesota’s new marijuana legalization law enacted this week does not mean people can possess or use cannabis at national forests in the state—so it recommends buying a map to know where you can and can’t indulge. On Tuesday—the same day that adult-use marijuana legalization took effect in Minnesota—the Forest Service issued an alert, notifying the public that possessing any amount of cannabis “is still prohibited on all National Forest lands and at all National Forest campgrounds and facilities.” “Forest officials ask visitors to be mindful of National Forest System boundaries and to…

Maryland legal marijuana sales reached a record high of $87.4 million in July, the first month since the recreational market launched, state data shows. That more than doubles the sales totals for June, when medical cannabis dispensaries were only serving patients. About 100 of those existing dispensaries were cleared to service adult consumers starting July 1. The previous monthly record for medical-only purchases was just over $50 million. In the first weekend of adult-use sales alone, the state yielded over $10 million in combined medical and recreational purchases. The first full week saw about $21 million. And that trend sustained…

Massachusetts activists have filed a pair of initiatives to legalize the possession of certain psychedelics and allow for licensed facilities to provide supervised services that could go before voters on the state’s 2024 ballot. Massachusetts for Mental Health Options, which submitted paperwork to form the ballot committee last month, officially submitted the measures on Wednesday. The two initiatives are nearly identical, except that one would allow adults 21 and older to cultivate their own psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca. Overall, both would remove criminal penalties for low-level possession of five entheogenic plants and fungi, while establishing a licensing scheme for…

Minnesota’s former governor Jesse Ventura says he wants to be the “first major politician in America” to have a marijuana brand featuring his likeness—which is now possible as the state implements its new cannabis legalization law. Ventura, who has long championed marijuana reform and appeared next to current Gov. Tim Walz (D) when he signed Minnesota’s legalization bill in May, spoke about his future ambitions and personal experience with cannabis during a panel hosted by Canna Connect on Saturday, asserting that Minnesota is positioned to grow the “best cannabis in the world.” “I want involvement in this. I want involvement…

The White House drug czar says that the president’s marijuana pardons and scheduling directive last year are part of an effort to create cohesive cannabis policy within a patchwork of state legalization models. At a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on Thursday, Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Rahul Gupta was asked to share his perspective on the disconnect between federal prohibition and the normalization of marijuana use in jurisdictions that have enacted legalization. Rep. William Timmons (R-SC) said that “it seems that a lot of our cities across the country are not really holding people accountable”…

Lawmakers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) have approved a bill to end pre-employment marijuana testing for most government jobs. About five years after the U.S. territory legalized cannabis—the first time the reform was enacted in a U.S. jurisdiction through an act of lawmakers rather than by a ballot initiative—the CNMI House of Representatives passed the employment protections legislation from Rep. Diego Vincent Camacho (D) in a 17-1 vote on Friday. It now heads to the Senate for consideration during a special session. Under the measure, government agencies could no longer subject most applicants to drug testing…