Author: News Room

The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act’s chances of clearing the U.S. Senate are again fading as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urges congressional leaders to remove the cannabis-related language from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).The Kentucky Republican called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to forego the SAFE Banking provisions, which would allow federally regulated financial institutions to work with state-legal cannabis businesses.McConnell dismissed the banking-related language Dec. 6 as reform “in name only,” according to The Hill.“House and Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA…

On Dec. 10, the Emerald Cup Harvest Ball will welcome its first Scratch n Sniff packaging.Humboldt Seed Company (HSC) collaborated with Calaveras County, Calif.-based craft producers One Straw Farm and Burr’s Place to bring the technology to cannabis consumers, said Benjamin Lind, HSC owner and chief science officer.HSC creates the Scratch n Sniff ink using the actual terpenes extracted from the same batch of cannabis contained in the package, Lind said, adding that it solves the issue of consumers being unable to smell product prior to purchase.Creating Scratch n Sniff ink from its own genetics, HSC has put Scratch n Sniff…

Washington, D.C. lawmakers approved a bill on Tuesday that would make fundamental changes to the medical marijuana program in the nation’s capital—including by eliminating cannabis business licensing caps, providing tax relief to operators, further promoting social equity and creating new regulated business categories such as on-site consumption facilities and cannabis cooking classes. It would also provide a pathway for current “gifting” operators that sell non-cannabis items in exchange for “free” marijuana products to enter the licensed market, while empowering officials to crack down on those who continue to operate illegally. The full D.C. Council passed the legislation, which was amended…

Cannabis dispensaries in several states were left scrambling to find ways to process transactions without cash when a popular workaround to federal banking regulations known as cashless ATMs stopped working for many retailers beginning last week. Cashless ATMs, also known as “point of banking” systems, allow customers to use bank cards instead of cash at cannabis dispensaries, giving retailers and their patrons alike more flexibility when processing transactions for marijuana purchases. But beginning last week, some of the biggest ATM transaction processors including NCR Corp.’s Columbus Data Services have shut down the ability of cashless ATM transaction processors to use…

Ohio lawmakers held a brief hearing on Tuesday to consider two marijuana legalization bills—one sponsored by Democrats and the other led by Republicans. Both bills before the House Finance Committee would tax and regulate cannabis for adults over the age of 21, though they have significant differences between them. Neither proposal is expected to pass this session, but the hearing provided an opportunity to hear debate on cannabis reforms that some lawmakers framed as inevitable as activists gear up to potentially place a legalization measure on the November 2023 ballot. Rep. Casey Weinstein (D), one of the sponsors of HB…

Cannabis cultivators growing under lights in controlled indoor or greenhouse environments traditionally have relied on top lighting to achieve their goals. But as cannabis lighting research has pushed those goals to new heights, interest in alternative lighting options has grown.More than half of the participants in Cannabis Business Times’ 2022 “State of the Cannabis Lighting Market Report” research, made possible with support from Fluence, plan to investigate lighting options such as side, intercanopy and subcanopy lighting this coming year. So where’s a grower to start?For insights and answers, we turned to Fluence principal scientist David Hawley, Ph.D., for more on…

ROCKLAND, Maine, December 6, 2022 – PRESS RELEASE – Sweet Dirt, a Maine-based, vertically integrated cannabis company, today announced the opening of a new location at 305 Main Street, Rockland, Maine. The new recreational cannabis store opened its doors at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 3.The Rockland location is the company’s fourth recreational cannabis store and its first store in Knox County. The company’s other adult-use stores can be found in Portland, Waterville, and Bridgton. The 1,800-square-foot Rockland retail store has undergone extensive renovations, transforming the space into a warm and beautiful showroom with nods to Rockland’s coastal surroundings.Located in…

A large-scale defense bill that advocates had hoped would serve as a vehicle to enact marijuana banking and expungements reform does not include any cannabis language following bipartisan and bicameral negotiations. At the same time, details about the so-called SAFE Plus package that lawmakers have been negotiating are emerging, including the potential inclusion of language on gun rights for marijuana consumers. The deal could still advance as part of separate omnibus appropriations legislation, or even as a standalone, before the end of the year. Talks over SAFE Plus have been intensifying in recent weeks, and they were complicated in part…

When Jason Sanders first started cultivating cannabis in Mendocino County, California, he thought outdoor, sun-grown cannabis was the industry’s future. But the intervening years triggered a significant shift in his thinking.“What really caught me by surprise is how the market has gone toward quality, rather than field-grown quantity, and how much the controlled environment dictates quality,” Sanders says.Now director of cultivation at Austin-based Texas Original, Sanders oversees the medical cannabis company’s controlled-environment cultivation facility and R&D, with an environmental focus that transcends seasons.“It’s a lot more about the environment every day within the crop’s lifecycle and being able to try…

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced plans Dec. 6 to clear the records of thousands of residents with low-level cannabis possession convictions.The move represents a key component of Connecticut’s adult-use cannabis law, which Lamont signed in June 2021.Records in roughly 44,000 cases will be fully or partially erased in January through an automatic erasure method, according to Lamont’s announcement.“On Jan. 1, thousands of people in Connecticut will have low-level cannabis convictions automatically erased due to the cannabis legalization bill we enacted last year,” Lamont said in a public statement. “Especially as Connecticut employers seek to fill hundreds of thousands of job…