Author: News Room

A North Carolina House committee has approved a bill to create a $5 million grant program to support research into the therapeutic potential of psilocybin and MDMA and to create a Breakthrough Therapies Research Advisory Board to oversee the effort. The House Health Committee passed the legislation, filed by Rep. Edward Goodwin (R) and other bipartisan lawmakers last month, in a vote vote on Tuesday. The measure wouldn’t legalize the psychedelics, but it would provide funding for two competitive grants through the state Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for eligible research initiatives focused on “breakthrough therapies.” Psilocybin and MDMA are…

Florida’s attorney general is again asking the state Supreme Court to keep a marijuana legalization initiative off the ballot. About a week after the Smart & Safe Florida campaign said that they’ve collected enough raw signatures to qualify for the 2024 ballot, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) transmitted the measure to the court, with an opinion challenging its constitutionality. Specifically, Moody is claiming that the initiative violates the state Constitution’s single subject rule, which requires ballot proposals to be narrowly focused on an individual issue. She made the same argument against a 2022 legalization measure, and the Supreme Court…

The use of medical marijuana is associated with “significant improvements” in quality of life for people with conditions like chronic pain and insomnia—and those effects are “largely sustained” over time—according to a new study published by the American Medical Association (AMA). Researchers carried out a retrospective case series analysis that involved 3,148 people in Australia who were prescribed medical cannabis for the treatment of certain eligible conditions. For all eight wellbeing indicators that were tested, marijuana appeared to help, with adverse side effects that were “rarely serious,” according to the study, published last week in the Journal of the American…

Minnesota lawmakers have finalized a marijuana legalization bill in conference committee, reaching an agreement on tax and appropriations provisions in the last of three meetings to resolve differences between cannabis reform measures that passed the House and Senate last month. The final bill will now head to floor votes in both chambers this week and, if approved there, to the governor’s desk to be signed into law. Bicameral negotiators appointed to the conference committee had already tackled the bulk of the legislation in their previous two meetings, adopting agreed-upon articles that also dealt with major issues like local control and…

Salem, Massachusetts lawmakers have approved a resolution to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. Members of the City Council voted unanimously on Thursday to pass an activist-led measure making it the local government’s official policy to deprioritize enforcement of laws prohibiting the possession and cultivation of psilocybin. This is the latest Massachusetts city to enact some form of psychedelics decriminalization as the national reform movement continues to expand, though it is the only one to focus on psilocybin alone. Other cities that have taken broader psychedelics action include Somerville, Cambridge, Easthampton and Northampton. The resolution notes that psilocybin has significant therapeutic potential for the treatment of mental…

The swirl of excitement around developments in the cannabis industry is at an all-time high, with an endless parade of biz cons and trade shows trumpeting the latest innovations in genetics, technology, equipment, and extraction. The Dank Duchess cuts through the noise with her passion for traditional hash making and her mission to educate people about the subtleties and nuances of creating the most phenomenal melt in the world. It’s a cool gray day in Far Rockaway in Queens, New York, when we meet via video call, and The Dank Duchess is in peaceful repose on a blanket on the…

“Hopefully if they do implement the fingerprinting again there’ll be more providers in the state of Missouri that will be able to deal with a large quantity of candidates.” By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent Everyone working in Missouri’s cannabis industry would be required to submit to a fingerprint background check under legislation approved Thursday. Under the constitutional amendment that voters passed in November to legalize recreational marijuana, only the owners of cannabis companies are required to submit their fingerprints to the Missouri Highway Patrol for a criminal background check. Employees currently undergo a background check but aren’t required to be fingerprinted. On…

Top New Hampshire lawmakers are giving mixed feedback on the governor’s newly announced support for legalizing marijuana sales through a system of state-run stores—with some saying that passing such legislation this year is unlikely. Gov. Chris Sununu (R) revealed on Friday that he’s come around on cannabis reform, but only if shops are operated by the state itself rather than by private companies. The pivot came just one day after the Senate defeated a House-passed commercial marijuana legalization bill. But while Sununu signaled that he’d sign legislation to enact state-controlled legalization this session, Senate President Jeb Bradley (R) said on…

A top California marijuana official says that the U.S. already has an established interstate cannabis market. It’s just been unregulated, forcing cultivators to make the choice between staying legal—but isolating products from each operation to one state—or engaging in illicit activity by selling across state lines. But now that three states have enacted legislation positioning them to authorize marijuana imports and exports, the conversation about the future of cannabis commerce is evolving, with stakeholders, advocates and regulators becoming increasingly mindful about the opportunities that would be created by a borderless industry. The Alliance for Sensible Markets hosted a webinar on…

A Minnesota legislative conference committee held its second meeting on a pair of House and Senate marijuana legalization bills on Monday, reconciling most of the remaining differences as a deadline for final passage looms. Bipartisan and bicameral negotiators tackled several key sections of the legislation, including provisions on licensing, expungements and criminal penalties. But tax- and appropriations-related issues must still be resolved by the panel—and agreed to by the full legislature—before the House’s planned adjournment for the year on Thursday. The reason for the conference committee is that both the House and Senate passed cannabis legalization bills last month that…