Author: News Room

Willy Myco and Philly Golden Teacher have racked up a fair amount of notoriety in the psychedelic community for their educational videos geared toward teaching would-be trippers how to grow and synthesize their own psychedelics. This matters to you, dear reader and presumed drug enthusiast, because growing shrooms is really damn hard. Most people can figure out how to grow an ounce or two using Google (or High Times articles) but a majority of people find it far too complicated at first glance and most processes involved with psychedelic production are much easier to understand with visual aids. Being as…

The White House has delivered an annual drug enforcement report to Congress that highlights a number of concerns from regional police partners about state-legal marijuana legalization—including what they believe are the implications for drug trafficking, environmental issues related to illicit grows and demand for high-potency THC products. Advocates and experts have been critical of the past reports from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program (HIDTA), which are not peer-reviewed and are facilitated through the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). They argue that the information is biased, given ONDCP’s statutory mandate to oppose efforts to legalize…

A Republican Virginia lawmaker has filed a bill to create a regulated marijuana market in the Commonwealth, but it’s drawing mixed reactions from advocates, some of whom view it as a giveaway to large, multi-state operators at the expense of equity for people harmed by the war on drugs. Del. Keith Hodges (R) introduced the legislation, which would build on Virginia’s current law that allows legal adult-use cannabis possession and personal cultivation by establishing a commercial marketplace. Advocates have been pushing the legislature to take the step to allow sales to begin. Lawmakers did include regulatory language as part of…

Despite prohibitionist arguments that marijuana legalization harms the workforce, a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that, if anything, the reform actually increases job opportunities. Researchers at San Diego State University and Bentley University said that their study is the “first to explore the impact of recreational marijuana legalization (RML) on labor market outcomes of working-age individuals,” analyzing employment and wage trends in states that have and haven’t enacted adult-use legalization. If what prohibitionists have insisted—that legalization would create health and safety issues, stunting labor outcomes and job opportunities—were true, the study would have…

State-legal marijuana industry operators would finally be able to take federal tax deductions that are available to any other business under a congressional bill that was filed on Friday, seeking to amend an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) with days left in session in the 117th Congress. While the text isn’t currently available, its short title is identical to versions of the Small Business Tax Equity Act that were filed in previous sessions. The IRS code that’s currently in place, 280E, makes it so businesses whose activities consist…

In May, Massachusetts topped the $3 billion mark in sales and is poised to eclipse $4 billion in sales in the coming weeks. By Brent Addleman, The Center Square Adult-use marijuana sales in Massachusetts continue to stuff state coffers with cash from tax revenue. The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission reports that through December 18, the state saw $1.42 billion in adult-use marijuana sales this year for those residents over the age of 21. On the medical marijuana side of the industry, the state saw $260.2 million over the same time period. With adult-use marijuana sales taxed at 6.25 percent, Massachusetts…

The governor of Connecticut announced on Sunday that the state has cleared nearly 43,000 records for marijuana-related convictions. Gov. Ned Lamont (D) previously noted last month that legalization legislation he signed in 2021 empowered the state government to facilitate mass cannabis clemency, which it has now processed for 42,964 cases. This comes about a week before the state’s first legal adult-use marijuana sales are set to launch. “It’s one step forward in ending the War on Drugs and giving our citizens a second chance to achieve their dreams,” Lamont said. As of this morning, our administration has marked 42,964 cannabis…

I had neglected to tell my friend Ed a little dark secret of mine. I figured it wouldn’t matter. I was absolutely convinced that, miracle of miracles, we’d find a way to get in to the New Year’s Eve Grateful Dead show at the Oakland Coliseum—despite arriving without ducats. But we failed, and so there we were sitting in our rental car in the parking lot, listening to the show on the radio. There was only one word for our collective state: bummed. I decided to confess. “I probably should have told you that I generally don’t have very good…

President Joe Biden granted a half dozen pardons on Friday, including for a handful of people with marijuana or other drug convictions on their records. The end-of-year clemency action follows the mass pardon for Americans who’ve committed federal cannabis possession offenses that the president issued in October. Advocates would welcome any form of presidential relief—and celebrate the formal forgiveness for a few people who were previously convicted of offenses like unknowingly renting housing space to a person growing marijuana, as the White House said was the case for now-pardoned John Dix Nock III. But at the same time, the president…

The U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) is set to join the growing ranks of jurisdictions in the country to legalize marijuana, with the territory’s Senate approving a comprehensive cannabis reform bill and separate expungements legislation on Friday. Just two months after Sen. Janelle Sarauw (I) filed the adult-use legalization bill, the Senate passed it handily, with amendments, in a veto-proof 11-1 vote. The expungements legislation passed unanimously. Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. (D), who has repeatedly called on lawmakers to legalize cannabis, is expected to sign the reforms into law. “Although there have been many politically driven false narratives about this cannabis…