As Maine enters its fourth month of adult-use marijuana sales being legalized, licensed purveyors still face competition from the black market. This trend could change as more sellers are approved for the adult-use marketplace and their supply increases. Overregulation has put Maine in a conundrum with the black market, Eben Sumner, a founding board member of Maine Growers Alliance, told The Center Square in an email. “Maine has been a pioneer and could be considered to have one of the best medical programs in the country,” Sumner said. “However, the cumbersome adult-use legislation has now created a major barrier of entry into the industry by adopting Metrc track and trace, which is a very expensive and time-consuming system.” Sumer also serves as CEO and founder of 1780, a medical cannabis cultivation business in North Berwick, and co-founder/CEO of Casco Bay Hemp in Portland. According to data from the Office of Marijuana Policy (OMP), Maine collected $128,386 in sales taxes in November, the most recent month for which figures are available. The November sales amount was roughly $1.3 million, generated from 19,015 transactions. It’s still illegal under federal law to sell or possess marijuana. “If there was more widespread industry involvement in our rulemaking process, the laws would be better suited to small businesses, which is what Maine needs most,” Sumner said. “It outwardly appears like the government is looking for one or two national companies to come in and take over the market, at least this is what is reflected with the legislative involvement and rulemaking process.” Among proposals under consideration are three bills submitted late last month by the Maine Craft Cannabis group, Sumner stated.
Learn more
Let’s take advantage of the last few weeks of our 2020 vision and keep an open mind regarding new data, research and comparisons about marijuana for Virginians. Although some think marijuana is the same as it was in the 1960s, in reality marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug with no definitive medical benefit, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency. Currently, marijuana is intentionally grown with triple and often quadruple levels of the psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that dwarf the low levels from decades ago. Marijuana oils and waxes can have even greater levels of THC that range from 32-99%. This increasingly potent drug has even increased in appeal over the decades. Vaping marijuana and nicotine have more than doubled among 19-22-year-olds between 2017 and 2019. Their current annual prevalence rate of 43% is the highest level seen in the past four decades. In 2019, more than one-in-seven non-college 19-22-year-olds used marijuana on a daily or near-daily basis. This use pattern makes it harder for them to return to academics due to marijuana’s detrimental effects on cognitive functioning and mental health, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The Journal of Adolescent Health reported in September that during the pandemic, national data cited an increase in marijuana use by adolescents: 49% used marijuana alone, 32% used with peers while on their devices, and 24% used in person.
Learn more
January 5, 2021
FDA & FTC Begin Crackdown Over CBD Marketing Claims
The Federal Trade Commission and Food and Drug Administration are cracking down on CBD companies making false or misleading health claims about their products in an action they are calling Operation CBDeceit.
Learn more
January 5, 2021
Portland researcher: Hemp surplus brings major woes
Regulatory uncertainty has made it more difficult to process, and sell, hemp.
Learn more
January 5, 2021
New Jersey Legalized Cannabis—But Marijuana Is Still Illegal. What Went Wrong With Legalization?
All those details would come later in “enabling legislation,” a package of laws that would also outline broad rules controlling a future commercial weed industry.
Learn more
Five years after Texas legalized medical marijuana for people with debilitating illnesses, advocates and industry experts say the state’s strict rules, red tape and burdensome barriers to entry have left the program largely inaccessible to those it was intended to help.
Learn more
Missouri Rep. Shamed Dogan, R-Ballwin, prefiled a measure to amend the state constitution to legalize recreational cannabis. In addition to allowing adults 21 and older to use the drug, Dogan said, his proposal would be an important step toward criminal justice reform.
Learn more
Many states surrounding Wyoming have legalized marijuana in one form or another, with South Dakota and Montana voting to legalize the schedule one drug in the 2020 election for recreational use. Wyoming’s willingness to follow suit and the implications of the potential legalization in the state remain unclear and worrisome to local law enforcement.
Learn more
Hemp was supposed to be the next big thing for Maine farmers, an easy-to-grow cash crop capable of fetching as much as $250,000 an acre when sold for CBD, the non-psychedelic derivative of cannabis that can now be found in almost every prominent wellness product line in the world. But after three years of rapid expansion, Maine’s emerging hemp industry has all but collapsed before it even had a chance to mature,
Learn more
January 5, 2021
Nearly 500K Illinois marijuana arrest records expunged; pardons issued for over 9K low-level convictions
In the final hours of 2020, Gov. JB Pritzker announced that about a half million marijuana convictions have been pardoned or wiped from the records in Illinois. That forgiveness is part of the state law that legalized pot sales last year.
Learn more
