Seizures of Cannabis at U.S./Mexico Border Plummet to Historic Lows
By many measures the border shared by the United States and Mexico has served as ground-zero for the war on cannabis. It’s no secret that for many years cannabis, among other things, was smuggled from Mexico into the United States via various entry points along the nations’ shared border. Starting in 1996 the demand for cannabis...
CBD More Effective Than Conventional Treatments at Treating Skin Ulcers
According to the American Cancer Society, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer. In fact, more than 1.5 million people were diagnosed with some form of skin cancer in the year 2020 alone. New research found CBD can help treat symptoms from certain skin cancers. It’s a serious health condition that is expected to only...
Saskatchewan Government Files First Nations Cannabis Authority Legislation
The emerging cannabis industry has the potential to transform communities and boost opportunities for those that live where cannabis commerce is permitted. A report from earlier this year by Deloitte highlighted just how much the legal cannabis industry has helped communities in Canada. One of the major takeaways from the...
New Report in Ireland Recommends Considering Cannabis Legalization
Ireland’s Oireachtas Justice Committee is recommending that the government consider legalizing cannabis for adult-use, in addition to wider drug policy reforms. According to its website, the Oireachtas Justice Committee “shadows the Department of Justice and considers policy in the fields of justice, security and the rule of...
Canadians Can Now Possess Up to 48 Cans of Cannabis Beverages in Public
The cannabis beverage sector of the emerging international cannabis industry has been very interesting to follow. It’s often the subject of a great deal of public relations efforts it seems, with industry leaders often touting it as ‘the next great sector’ that entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers should watch...
Brittney Griner Freed From Russian Prison Sentence of Nine Years
WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from a Russian prison colony in a prisoner exchange, President Joe Biden confirmed Thursday. “She’s safe, she’s on a plane, she’s on her way home,” Biden said from the White House, where he was accompanied by Griner’s wife, Cherelle, and administration officials. Going in...
German Lawmakers Call for Cannabis Legalization Bill to be Expedited
How long is a reasonable amount of time to wait to get permission from the European Union before introducing an adult-use cannabis legalization measure? That is the multi-billion dollar question facing Germany’s Health Minister who made a legalization presentation to Germany’s federal cabinet late last month. The presentation...
Pilot Project in Switzerland to Import Cannabis From Canada?
Cannabis pilot programs are part of an interesting public policy concept that is springing up in Europe. Essentially, cannabis pilot programs provide for limited adult-use cannabis commerce in a designated area and research from the pilot programs provide insight to lawmakers for if/when they craft national cannabis laws and...
Study Finds Cannabis Inversely Associated With Hypertension in HCV Patients
We previously reported that a peer reviewed study in France determined that medical cannabis use was associated with a lower BMI in patients diagnosed with hepatitis C (HCV). A separate study from France also found that cannabis is inversely associated with obesity among HCV patients. It is estimated that as many as 58...
Thailand Now Able to Import Cannabis Seeds by Land, Sea, or Air
Prior to last week, the only way that cannabis seeds could be imported legally to India was via air transport. Even then, imports were greatly restricted and involved considerable hurdles. That is changing, with many provisions related to cannabis seed imports being eased to some degree. All imported cannabis seeds to Thailand...
What's Really Scary This Halloween? Seven Years in Prison for CBD.
At a time when many parts of the world are trending in the right direction in regards to cannabis policy, Hong Kong is going in the opposite direction with CBD. Cannabidiol (CBD) is very popular in Hong Kong, with many CBD-based businesses operating in Hong Kong in recent years. Yet, despite the cannabinoid’s popularity and...
Germany’s Legalization Plan Includes Removing Cannabis From Narcotics Law
Cannabis legalization efforts in Germany received a huge boost yesterday, with the nation’s Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) making a formal presentation to the federal cabinet regarding the most up-to-date plan for a German adult-use cannabis legalization measure. The presentation was truly historic, in part due to the...
German Health Minister Leaks Insider Info About Legalization
Long-awaited key points of a German adult-use legalization plan were made available to Germany’s media community. The provisions being leaked out there are reportedly from Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), and are providing tremendous insight into what a finalized coalition plan may look like. Obviously, there’s still a...
The Countdown Begins for the World CBD Awards in Barcelona
For a billion dollars, you could purchase 1000 particle accelerators. You could take a trip around the world in a luxury jet with 48 of your closest friends. You could fly to space for a 10-day vacation on the International Space Station — twenty times. A billion dollars is a lot of money, but it’s only one seventh of what North...
Where in the World is Cannabis Legal?
Cannabis has a complicated legal status in many countries. In the U.S., states have individual laws regarding medical and adult-use. Additionally, the rise in hemp-derived products like delta-8 THC and CBD can make it even more challenging to discern what is and isn’t legal when crossing state lines. Keeping up with the...
German Finance Minister: Expect Cannabis Legalization in 2023
When it comes to the push for adult-use cannabis legalization there’s no place on earth that is as exciting as Germany right now. Late last year a new coalition government was elected in Germany, and the ‘Traffic Light Coalition,’ as it is commonly referred to, made it clear very quickly that it sought to legalize cannabis for...
New Zealand Approves Sale of Domestic Cannabis Products
The island nation of New Zealand has relied on exports to treat medical cannabis patients so far. Allowing the dispensation of domestically cultivated cannabis will help the nascent industry grow and lower overall costs. Last week, New Zealand officials approved the beginning of the domestically sourced medical cannabis market. The...
France reenters medical marijuana industry after more than a half-century hiatus – a cannabis historian explains
David A. Guba, Jr., Bard Early College Baltimore Early in 2022, the French legislature greenlighted the cultivation of cannabis inside French territory to supply the nation’s ongoing pilot program in medical marijuana. The clinical trials were launched in March 2021 with cannabis supplied from abroad and have been overseen by the...
New Forecast: Global Cannabis Market to Hit $57 Billion by 2026
A new report from BDSA, an international cannabis industry data company, was published this week which provided new projections and estimates for the emerging global cannabis industry. “The report projects annual global cannabis sales to grow from $30 billion in 2021 to $57 billion in 2026, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR)...
Estonia Now Allowing Farmers to Grow Hemp With Higher THC
A regulatory amendment is now being drawn up by the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs to allow hemp with higher THC limits to be cultivated in the country. In a major advance for the European hemp industry, Estonian regulators are planning to allow hemp farmers to grow crops with a THC level higher than the current 0.2%. By 2023,...
Hong Kong Taking First Steps to Crack Down on CBD
Earlier this summer government officials in Hong Kong announced that they are pursuing a plan to prohibit CBD entirely. The announcement came after it was determined that as many as one-third of CBD products in Hong Kong contain trace amounts of THC. Join Our Mailing List Hong Kong is home to a number of CBD companies...
The International War on the Rights of Medical Cannabis Users
In the United States, the Biden Administration is in favor of banning gun ownership for medical users. In Germany, there is an ongoing debate about driving limits. Such policies rely on outdated criteria to penalize cannabis users' rights. The push to fully and federally legalize cannabis in places like the U.S. and Germany right now...
Medical Cannabis Legalized in Switzerland, With Exports
The Swiss government has joined other European countries in fully legalizing medical cannabis for domestic use, and export. Switzerland is moving forward on its own path to full legalization. With a federal recreational trial pending, the country has now fully and formally legalized medical cannabis use. This has been achieved by...
First-of-its-Kind Multilateral EU Policy Meeting on Cannabis Held in Luxembourg
The first of many high-level meetings on the legalization of cannabis was held in Luxembourg between representatives from Germany, Luxembourg, and Malta. An unprecedented meeting occurred on Friday, July 15. Ministers from Germany, Luxembourg, and Malta met for the first time to kick off a series of meetings between the countries on...
Boris Johnson's Out, Is British Cannabis Reform on Its Way?
The controversial politician was forced to announce his resignation last week. How will this affect the pace of British cannabis reform? Through the lens of history, the passage of Boris Johnson through the country’s top political job may become forever associated, for good or for bad, with Brexit. How that plays out when it comes...
The Bleeding Edge of International Cannabis Reform Is Being Forged by Women
Women are on the front lines of the war to legalize cannabis – and paying a heavy price. There are two high-profile cannabis cases right now that are making global headlines. Both of them involve women who have been caught with cannabis – and face years if not decades in prison. In Russia, WNBA star Brittney Griner has just...
Flower Is North America's Most Popular Cannabis Product
For many decades cannabis essentially came in only two forms – cannabis flower and cannabis hashish. If you were lucky then you perhaps had a friend or family member that could make topicals and/or edibles at home. These days, if you live in North America where legal cannabis products are bought and sold, then you know firsthand...
Switzerland Consumes a Whopping 56 Tons of Cannabis Annually
The European continent is undergoing a significant shift when it comes to cannabis policy, and in many ways, Switzerland is at the forefront of it. Low-THC cannabis products (less than 1%) have been legally bought and sold nationwide in Switzerland since 2017. Switzerland is also one of a handful of countries in Europe that is home...
Is Brittney Griner a Cannabis-Related Political Prisoner?
Two-time Gold Medallist Brittney Griner faces up to 10 years in prison for possession of less than 1 gram of cannabis. Critics are crying foul – calling this a trumped-up political case to swap prisoners. The cold war between the U.S. and Russia may be hotter than it has been in decades over the Ukraine war. However, a...
Germany's Burkhard Blienert Keynotes ICBC in Berlin
Germany is in the midst of the most robust and complex cannabis policy and industry endeavor in the history of humankind. Policymakers and industry regulators in Germany have worked diligently since the 2021 election to craft the laws, rules, and regulations that will eventually govern a national adult-use cannabis industry. Given...