Author: News Room

“I want to get a bill through the Assembly where we can get the votes to be able to show that we support the concept and then let the Senate act as it will.” By Baylor Spears, Wisconsin Examiner Wisconsin Assembly Republicans’ limited medical marijuana legalization proposal poses several concerns related to cost, accessibility and potential conflicts with the federal government that lawmakers should consider, policy experts told the Wisconsin Examiner. The proposal by Assembly Republicans would create the Office of Medical Cannabis Regulation in the Department of Health Services. The office would maintain a registry of patients and caregivers…

In a little-noticed section of a report on the nation’s worsening drug overdose epidemic released late last year, the American Medical Association (AMA) urged states and local communities to consider allowing overdose prevention sites (OSPs) to operate as a public health strategy. “At this point in the nation’s epidemic, the AMA urges states and communities to consider all evidence-based approaches to prevent overdose death and help connect individuals to health care and treatment,” the report says. “The data shows that OSPs help reduce risky drug use behaviors, overdose and death while improving public safety and access to health care.” The…

I’ve been freelancing for over a decade now. While it feels like a long time, it equally feels like a blur of events, achievements, and tons of busy days. In 2011, I started covering films, then moved into electronic music. In 2017, I parlayed my years-long love of getting high into freelance weed reporting, interviews, and other news endeavors. Along the way, I added freelance copywriting to help cover the bills and stretch my creative muscles.  Freelancing in weed and beyond has been a wild ride, one I’m glad to still be on despite its hardships. To keep up, my…

In a few months, the self-proclaimed entertainment capital of the world will make the case for itself as the weed capital of the world. Las Vegas’ seven-old legal cannabis program is a fine-tuned machine, but there’s one final shot in the arm coming this spring: nice places to smoke it.Sin City is home to 70 dispensaries—all within a 15-mile radius of the Strip—that accommodate the 45 million annual visitors looking to buy legal cannabis, as well as 3 million locals in the metro area. Clever entrepreneurs have additionally built a bustling industry around legal cannabis with everything from ganja-inspired tour…

Picture this, Leafly nation: you’ve touched down in New York City, with a packed itinerary of seeing sights, perusing shops, and grabbing the best eats in Lower Manhattan. But you have no weed, no gear, and nowhere to smoke it in style.What if I told you there was a place you could get all three, and so much more? In fact, I’ll even give you a tour. The House of Cannabis museum, aka THC NYC, opened its doors on April 20, 2023 to provide visitors a top-to-bottom experience in all things cannabis, from agriculture to its impact on culture to…

The Justice Department has asked a federal court to dismiss a cannabis industry lawsuit that seeks to block the enforcement of marijuana prohibition against state-legal activity—in part, it says, because the court should not get ahead of a possible cannabis rescheduling decision that’s being considered. In a document filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Western Division, on Tuesday, lawyers for Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Congress “rationally set up an administrative process for rescheduling drugs.” “Pursuant to that mechanism, the DEA is currently considering” a recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human…

A Pennsylvania district attorney and gun rights advocates have filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to overturn the ban preventing medical marijuana patients from buying and possessing firearms—the latest in a series of legal challenges to the policy. Warren County, Pennsylvania District Attorney Robert Greene, a registered medical cannabis patient in the state, teamed up with the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) to file suit against the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on Tuesday. This comes as the question over the constitutionality of the federal gun ban for people who use marijuana…

Massachusetts marijuana retailers sold a record $158.7 million worth of legal cannabis products in December, according to figures released by the state’s Cannabis Control Commission—bringing the state’s total recorded sales for 2023 to nearly $1.8 billion. Of that annual total, the bulk—more than 87 percent—was from adult-use sales, which came to nearly $1.57 billion last year. Medical marijuana sales, meanwhile, totaled about $226 million in 2023. Record sales to adults last month, at $140.0 million, were largely responsible for the overall monthly record in December. Sales of medical marijuana were also stronger than in recent months, at about $18.6 million,…

The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) is calling on Congress to increase the THC limit for legal hemp as one of their 2024 policy priorities. As lawmakers resume work on the next iteration of the Farm Bill, the group representing state agriculture officials in 50 states and four U.S. territories is aligning itself with hemp industry stakeholders, urging Congress to more than triple the THC threshold for hemp from the current limit of 0.3 percent THC by dry weight to 1 percent. “Increasing the THC concentration to one percent would enable farmers to plant more seed varieties,”…

Dogs who receive daily doses of CBD see “significant reductions” in stress and anxiety related to car travel, according to a new study. To investigate the issue, researchers at the Waltham Petcare Science Institute in the United Kingdom compared the behavioral and physiological stress response of dogs who received THC-free cannabis with a placebo group before, during and after drives. The 20 dogs involved in the study, published in the Journal of Animal Science, all exhibited signs of stress and anxiety when riding in a car—but the canines treated with CBD two hours before taking the trip showed meaningful improvements…