Author: News Room

New York marijuana regulators published a year-end review of the state’s legal cannabis system on Friday, highlighting major milestones and offering a snapshot of the market almost exactly a year after the state’s first adult-use sales began. Consumers purchased more than 3.5 million cannabis products during the year, New York State’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) said in the report. Once December figures are tallied, total sales for the year are expected to exceed $150 million. That activity brought in more than $32 million in state revenue, including nearly $16.3 million during fiscal year 2023 and upward of $16.6 million…

Effective Monday, the marijuana possession limit for adults in Nevada will more than double to 2.5 ounces. Recreational retailers will also become authorized to serve medical cannabis patients as well, without having to get a separate license. The policy changes are coming into effect under a large-scale marijuana reform bill that Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) signed into law in June. The legislation also broadens eligibility for participation in the market by people with prior felony convictions. One of the key provisions of the law increases the possession and purchase limit for cannabis from one ounce to 2.5 ounces. The amount…

“It was a successful year for New Jersey’s growing cannabis market, affirming the efficacy of our approach to building a market on a framework of social equity and public safety.” By Sophie Nieto-Muñoz, New Jersey Monitor The long-awaited opening of Jesse Marie Villars’ cannabis dispensary in Lambertville was a longtime goal for the previously underground entrepreneur, and a sign that New Jersey’s cannabis market is flourishing in parts of the state. Baked by the River, which welcomed customers on December 16, is one of 57 dispensaries that opened in the Garden State this year, the first full year recreational cannabis…

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced on Thursday that it is formally removing marijuana from its newly modified banned substances list for athletes, building on an earlier reform. While UFC says it is modeling its list of prohibited drugs after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)—which has controversially maintained cannabis as a banned substance—it is making amendments “based on historical findings (i.e. marijuana removed from the prohibited list).” Professional fighters have already been largely protected from being penalized over testing positive for THC under a policy change that UFC adopted in 2021, but now it is removing cannabis as a banned…

Ten years ago, adults from across the U.S. travelled to Colorado to take part in history: buying legal, regulated marijuana from the nation’s and the world’s first licensed recreational cannabis retailers. And the governor says his state has led by example over the past decade, informing the legalization debate that’s since seen nearly half of the states in the country end prohibition. A lot has changed since that first day of sales on January 1, 2014. Colorado’s industry has evolved in a number of ways, with lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis (D) enacting a variety of reforms to build on…

Active duty military personnel, veterans and their family members support allowing U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to recommend medical marijuana and psychedelics to patients if they believe it would provide a benefit, according to results of a survey from Ohio State University (OSU). Researchers polled service members, veterans, their family members and non-military respondents over a few weeks in late August and early September, the report says. All told, 1,168 individuals participated, including 315 active and veteran military members, 426 members of military families and 427 non-military individuals. The goal was to assess the differing likelihoods across the…

South Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun, known for playing the wealthy father in Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 film Parasite, was found dead in his car on Wednesday morning. Inside the car, parked near Waryong Park in central Seoul, investigators found a charcoal briquette. The briquette, a compressed block of coal that can cause carbon monoxide poisoning, suggests he died by suicide. He was 48 years old. Lee passed away at the pinnacle of his career. In addition to starring in the Oscar-winning thriller, which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award alongside his fellow cast members, he also played a leading role…

Workers who use marijuana in compliance with state law in California and Washington State will have new employment protections as of Monday. Under two pieces of legislation signed into law in 2022 and 2023, California employers are now prohibited from asking job applicants about past cannabis use, and most are barred from penalizing employees over lawful use of marijuana outside of the job. The Washington State law, meanwhile, will protect workers from facing employment discrimination during the hiring process over their lawful use of cannabis. All three bills—signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D),…

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin lawmakers have formally introduced a measure to decriminalize marijuana possession after previewing the proposal earlier this month. Sponsors hope the limited, noncommercial reform will win enough support to clear the state’s GOP-controlled legislature and become law in parallel with a separate limited medical cannabis bill that Republican leaders say will be filed in January. Assembly Bill 861, introduced by Reps. Shae Sortwell (R), Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D) and Dave Considine (D), along with Sen. Lena Taylor (D), would remove the threat of jail time for simple possession of up to 14 grams of cannabis, replacing criminal…

A new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University will track 10,000 medical marijuana patients over a year or more in an effort to better understand the efficacy and impacts of cannabis therapy. Funded with a five-year $10 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the research team will work with federal researchers and the nonprofit Realm of Caring, among others, to collect data around dosing, delivery methods, the chemical composition of products, possible medication interactions and other treatment details. “Our mission with this research is to understand the health impacts of therapeutic cannabis use,” one of…