Tag: cannabis

Maryland Bill To Let Adults Make Marijuana Edibles And Concentrates At Home Heads To The Governor

A Maryland House bill that would allow adults to manufacture marijuana edibles and concentrates for personal use is officially heading to the governor. And a Senate companion version of the measure is also advancing through the legislature.

On Wednesday, the Senate gave final approval to the House-passed legislation from Dels. David Moon (D) and Luke Clippinger (D), voting 38-9 to send it to Gov. Wes Moore (D). The companion from Sen. William Smith (D), meanwhile, cleared the Senate in a 35-8 vote last week and now pending before the House of Delegates Rules and Executive Nominations Committee.

While the state’s cannabis law already allows adults to cultivate their own plants, the measures  would expand their options to account for non-flower marijuana products that can be made at home.

However, they would continue to prohibit the use of volatile solvents to create cannabis concentrates.

Under the legislation, possession, cultivation and distribution of high-volume cannabis in excess of 50 pounds would no longer be considered a felony punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. Instead, it would be a misdemeanor carrying a maximum 10 year sentence and/or a $50,000 fine.

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New Hampshire Senate Committee Rejects Three Cannabis Bills, Including Legalization And Medical Marijuana Homegrow

A week after hearing testimony on four House-passed cannabis bills, a New Hampshire Senate committee has voted to recommend killing three of measures, including a Republican-led legalization proposal and a plan to let state-registered medical marijuana patients grow plants at home.

Another bill rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on Tuesday would have allowed existing medical marijuana dispensaries—known in the state as alternative treatment centers (ATCs)—to buy nonintoxicating hemp cannabinoid products from commercial producers and, after lab testing, use them in products for patients.

Lawmakers voted 3–1 to designate each of the three bills as “inexpedient to legislate” (ITL), essentially recommending that they not proceed. All the bills will nevertheless move to the Senate floor, at which point the full body will have the option to approve them despite the committee’s recommendations.

While the legalization bill—HB 75, from Rep. Kevin Verville (R)—was widely seen as unlikely to make it through the Senate, advocates said the committee’s recommended rejection of the two medical marijuana proposals from Rep. Wendy Thomas (D) underscores the body’s critical reception in general of cannabis-related legislation.

“It appears that a few senators just want to kill every bill that deals with cannabis policy, no matter how modest and non-controversial,” Matt Simon, director of public and government relations at the medical marijuana provider GraniteLeaf Cannabis, told Marijuana Moment. “That’s very unfortunate because support for cannabis policy reform has always been bipartisan in this state.”

Simon added that he’s still hopeful the Senate will move forward on at least the hemp cannabinoids bill, HB 51, once it reaches the chamber floor.

(Disclosure: Simon supports Marijuana Moment’s work via a monthly pledge on Patreon.)

The panel did not act at Tuesday’s meeting on the fourth cannabis bill before it, HB 196, which would expand the state’s annulment process of past arrests and convictions around simple marijuana possession.

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Indiana Lawmakers Approve Bill To Ban Marijuana Advertising On Billboards

Tuesday discussion around a Bureau of Motor Vehicle (BMV) bill descended into impassioned debate over marijuana advertising, which Republican lawmakers said should be restricted.

In contention was House Bill 1390, authored by Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie). The underlying legislation originally just dealt with BMV agency matters, like insurance verification, specialty license plates and registration stickers.

But among multiple changes adopted by the Senate Homeland Security and Transportation Committee on Tuesday—including a significant amendment addressing “predatory” towing—was a ban on “outdoor” marijuana advertising, notably on highway billboards.

Specifically, the amended bill language seeks to prohibit outdoor advertisements for products containing marijuana or a variety of other controlled substances, including heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Pressel, whose district extends to Indiana’s northern border, described “billboards all over the place that say, ‘Come to my store and buy this,’” referencing dispensaries in Michigan, where recreational marijuana is legal.

“And we have trucks—mobile billboards—that drive around and sit in front of our parks. That’s unacceptable, and it sends a mixed message to the consumer that this product is legal in Indiana, which it is not,” said Pressel, who unsuccessfully attempted to add the provision to a separate House bill earlier in the session.

“I think that’s an unfair message,” he continued, “and I believe that we should get in front of this to say that if it’s an illegal substance, listed on our illegal substance list in the state of Indiana, you should not be able to advertise for that.”

Multiple advertisers pushed back.

Ron Breymier, executive director of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Indiana, cited First Amendment issues. He argued that policymakers can dictate the size and placement of billboards, but “not the actual advertisement itself.”

Phones and internet searches, Breymier said, are a “greater threat” than billboards.

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DEA Promotes ‘Anti-420 Day’ Contest For Young People To ‘Flood’ Instagram With Marijuana Warnings

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is promoting an “Anti-420 Day” campaign that’s recruiting students to send short videos warning their peers about marijuana use.

In a bulletin that was distributed on Tuesday, DEA’s JustThinkTwice.com site shared details about the campaign, which is being run by the anti-cannabis nonprofit organization Johnny’s Ambassadors.

“Be an Instagram Influencer for Anti-420 Day,” the message says. “Johnny’s Ambassadors is hiring teens and young adults (high school and college students) to create original videos about the harms of youth THC use for Anti-420 Day.”

The plan is to “flood” Instagram with the short-form videos that would feature students talking about “why young people should not use THC.”

Students would be eligible for a $25 Amazon gift card for a personal video, $35 for a group video and $50 for a “professionally produced educational video or skit with adult sponsor supervision.”

“Your video should either be an educational Youth THC Prevention video on why young people shouldn’t use THC products (vapes, dabs, weed, edibles, gummies) OR a personal story of how you have been impacted by THC use (yourself, a friend, a family member, or a loved one),” the organization said.

It also provided examples of potential prompts, including explainers on “why THC impacts athletic performance on a team” and busting “commonly-held but incorrect myth about THC.”

“Tell a personal story about how you’ve been negatively impacted by THC use” or perform a “skit or drama to educate other teens why using products with THC is bad for you,” the description from Johnny’s Ambassadors—which was founded the parents of a child who died by suicide after consuming high potency marijuana concentrates—says.

There are some restrictions on the content, including a ban on “swearing” in the videos. And no content is allowed that “depicts, imitates, or promotes the possession or consumption of any THC product.”

“DO NOT IMITATE THE USE OF THC/MARIJUANA OR PARAPHERNALIA OF ANY KIND, EVEN AS A JOKE,” it emphasizes.

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Bungling police raid ‘terrified’ elderly couple’s home in search for cannabis farm after thermal camera mistook the heating in terraced home for drugs den

An elderly couple who like to keep the heating on at home were left ‘shaking in fear’ when police burst into their home searching for a cannabis farm – after a thermal camera on a helicopter wrongly identified it as a drugs den.

Pensioners Barry and Mavis Lovelock were finishing their breakfast when the ‘terrifying’ raid took place.

Nine officers stormed in because a helicopter camera had mistakenly identified their toasty terrace home as a potential cannabis grow.

But after charging upstairs looking for cannabis plants and the strong lamps used to grow them, the sheepish officers came back down empty-handed after quickly concluding their tip-off had been ‘not fully accurate’. 

The heat signature on the couple’s roof had instead been caused by their two gas fires, which they keep on around-the-clock in the colder months.

Leicestershire Police has now apologised. They said another raid on a separate property in the street in Newfoundpool, Leicester, had found a large cannabis farm, with 79 plants being seized.

Mrs Lovelock said the ‘awful’ incident, which took place on March 15 at the property the couple had lived in since 1978, had left her in tears.

She said: ‘They told us the camera on the helicopter had noticed our roof glowing white but that was just because we have the heating on all of the time.

‘People of our age feel the cold so we need the heating on. 

‘We have two new gas fires downstairs and the gas engineer told us they will warm the whole house and they do. We keep the doors open and the heat circulates. We have electric wall heaters too, but we only need to put the electric heater on in the back bedroom.’

She said the couple had just finished their breakfast when she noticed a group of police officers outside as her husband, a retired water board worker, went to make another cup of tea.

Mrs Lovelock said that police then ‘hit the door’, prompting Mr Lovelock to shout: ‘Hang on mate’, before somebody shouted ‘Stand clear’ from the street outside.

She added: ‘They just rammed the door in. It was awful. They knocked the gate at the back in as well.

‘It was terrifying and I said to them, ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing? There’s two pensioners here.’

The couple, who celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary last year, were shown a warrant with their house number on it.

Mrs Lovelock, a former hospital worker, added: ‘They got in and two of them ran upstairs, but they only went to the top of the stairs and ran back down.

‘I think there were about nine of them altogether, maybe more.

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Ending Drug Testing For Marijuana During Pregnancy ‘Improved Racial Parity’ Without Harming Babies, American Medical Association Study Says

A new federally funded study published by the American Medical Association finds that removing isolated marijuana use as a reason to order urine drug screenings during pregnancy “was associated with improved racial parity in testing and reporting” of test results to child protective services, “with no evidence of decreased identification of non prescribed, non cannabis substances” and “no significant association between the intervention and any measured neonatal outcomes.”

The report, published on Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open, notes that urine drug screenings are often used during pregnancy to guide prenatal care. And some states require that positive results for federally illegal substances be reported to child protective services.

Authors from Washington University in St. Louis, however, suggest that the harms of that practice sometimes outweigh the benefits. Eliminating marijuana as a reason to order drug screening, they wrote, better protects families and promotes parity by “reduc[ing] racial bias in urine drug screening and reporting to child protective services without impacting the identification of clinically meaningful substance use.”

The report notes that “Black patients are significantly more likely than their White counterparts to undergo peripartum urine drug screening (UDS) and subsequent reporting to child protective services (CPS).”

Parents’ fear of a CPS report and possible loss of custody of a newborn child can get in the way of needed care, which can further exacerbate racial disparities in health.

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UN Drug Commission Votes To Ban Previously Uncontrolled Marijuana Compound, With U.S. Abstaining

The United Nations (UN) Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) voted this week to ban the marijuana component hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) under an international treaty, with every country present except the United States casting a vote in favor of placing the substance under Schedule II of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

The U.S., for its part, abstained. In a statement afterward, officials said they were “unable to vote” on the HHC proposal as well as another being voted on that placed the drug carisoprodol under Schedule IV.

“While the United States supports the use of the international scheduling system to make scientifically-informed decisions about international drug control, we were unable to vote on the proposals,” the statement said. “Nevertheless, both of these substances are already controlled in the United States, at levels that will allow the United States to meet its international obligations arising from the CND’s decisions today.”

The statement gave no further information explaining why the U.S. was unable to cast those votes.

CND also voted to regulate four other non-cannabis compounds under international law.

In a social media post, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) called the actions “critical decisions on the control of harmful substances.”

“These decisions shape drug policies, law enforcement and public health worldwide,” the body said.

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Federal Memo From National Cancer Institute Lists Marijuana As ‘Controversial ‘Topic That Needs Special Approval Before Publication

“Marijuana” is one of nearly two dozen “controversial or high-profile topics” that staff and researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) are required to clear with higher-ups before writing about, according to a newly leaked memo from within the federal agency.

The government directive puts marijuana and opioids on a list along with vaccines, COVID-19, fluoride, measles, abortion, autism, diversity and gender ideology and other issues that are believed to be personal priorities of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump.

NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which itself is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Prior to publishing anything on the specified topics, NCI staff are required to send the materials to an agency clearance team, says the new memo, first reported by ProPublica.

“Depending on the nature of the information, additional review and clearance by the NCI director, deputy directors, NIH, and HHS may be required,” it advises staff. “In some cases, the material will not need further review, but the NCI Clearance Team will share it with NCI leadership, NIH, and/or HHS for their awareness.”

It notes that staff “do not need to share content describing the routine conduct of science if it will not get major media attention, is not controversial or sensitive, and does not touch on an administration priority,” according to the ProPublica report.

The investigative news outlet says the directive “was circulated by the institute’s communications team, and the content was not discussed at the leadership level,” adding that “it is not clear in which exact office the directive originated.”

Experts said the policy could have a chilling effect, slowing publication of important findings and pushing researchers to censor their work.

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Coating Dentures With CBD Can Help Prevent Oral Infections, Government-Funded Study Shows

A newly published journal article says the cannabis component CBD could be an effective way to avoid oral infections when incorporated into the primary material used in dentures.

Published last month in the journal Molecules, the government-funded research says bonding CBD to dentures demonstrates “potential for antibiotic-free denture coatings, reducing dental biofilms and plaque formation, and improving oral health outcomes.”

To study the properties of CBD in dentures, researchers incorporated the cannabinoid into a type of plastic known as poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), which the paper explains is “the primary material for dentures due to its favorable physical and aesthetic qualities.” Researchers then tested antimicrobial activity against three types of bacteria: Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Streptococcus agalactiae.

Results showed that the CBD denture coatings had “significant bactericidal effects” against so-called Gram-positive bacteria. In terms of Gram-negative bacteria—which are typically more resistant to antibiotics—the CBD coating was ineffective against free-floating, so-called “planktonic” Gram-negative bacteria but effectively eliminated communities of bacteria known as biofilms.

“Biofilm studies revealed a 99% reduction in biofilm growth for both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria on CBD-infused PMMA compared to standard PMMA,” the report says. “The CBD disrupted bacterial cell ways, causing lysis,” or the breakdown of the cell itself.

“In summary,” authors wrote, “biofilm studies showed PMMA/CBD coatings were effective in eradicating all the pathogens on their surface.”

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