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Author: Johnny Green

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Sri Lankan President Tasks Officials With Looking Into Cannabis Legalization

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Politics.

Cannabis legalization is about to expand exponentially across the globe in the coming years. So far only Uruguay and Canada have legalized cannabis for adult use, however, more countries are moving in that direction.

Mexico’s Supreme Court struck down cannabis prohibition in late 2018 and tasked lawmakers with implementing adult-use cannabis legalization. That is expected to finally happen in 2021 after several delays.

Israel is another country that is expected to legalize cannabis for adult use by the end of 2021. Only time will tell if that actually happens, but the odds look very favorable right now.

When it comes to cannabis legalization, one country that is probably not high on everyone’s radar, but should be, is Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s president recently tasked officials with exploring the benefits of cannabis legalization. Per Daily Mirror:

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said a policy decision has to be taken to legalise the cannabis in Sri Lanka in order to develop it as a medicinal crop in the future.

The President was responding to a proposal made by an academic at his recent meeting of the series of programmes launched as ‘Discussion with the Village’ (Gama samaga pilisandarak), held at Aluthwewa Grama Niladhari Division in Thanamalvila, Monaragala on Saturday.

President Rajapaksa directed state officials to look into the avenues of creating a policy decision in this regard and was instantly briefed by the latter about the present situation in legalising the plant.

The cannabis plant has a long history in Sri Lanka, referred to there as ‘Kansa.’ Cannabis has historically been used in Sri Lanka in many Ayurvedic and ‘Hela’ medicines.

Hopefully that rich history, along with the clear benefits of ending cannabis prohibition, will push reform over the top in Sri Lanka sooner rather than later.

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Australian Pharmacies Can Now Sell CBD Without A Prescription

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Business.

Cannabidiol (CBD) is arguably the most popular cannabinoid on earth right now, even ahead of  THC. THC is obviously still very popular, however, CBD is searched for more often on Google than its cannabinoid counterpart.

CBD is being infused into just about anything and everything, for better or worse. Some CBD products make sense, such as capsules and topicals. However, some products out there such as ‘CBD firewood’ is a headscratcher for sure.

Regardless of the merits of some CBD products, the fact of the matter is that CBD is extremely popular, with more and more patients and consumers looking to CBD for wellness benefits.

In many countries, such as in the United States, CBD products can be purchased virtually anywhere. CBD-infused products are very commonly found around the world.

With that in mind, it is odd that CBD required a prescription in Australia, where reefer madness was preventing the non-intoxicating cannabinoid from being freely sold. Fortunately, that is changing. Per News.Com.Au:

Low-dose cannabidiol (CBD) can be sold in pharmacies around Australia from today, for the first time without prescription.

The chemical compound – extracted from cannabis – is used to treat a number of health issues, including pain, insomnia and anxiety, and can now be bought over-the-counter after the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved its sale last month.

While the product will only be available to adults in doses of no more than 150 milligrams per day, patients will no longer require a referral or special approval for its legal use.

Ideally, there would be no limit on the amount of CBD that people can purchase without a prescription, but for now, this move by Australia is a great step in the right direction.

CBD does not possess the same euphoric-inducing qualities that THC does, and by virtually every measure it’s benign from a risk standpoint, so it doesn’t make sense to limit non-prescription sales to low-dose options only.

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Texas’ Hemp Industry To Experience Exponential Growth In The Coming Years

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Business.

The hemp industry is picking up steam around the world, with more and more countries legalizing hemp production for human consumption.

Hemp has been legal for making things like paper and rope in most countries, however, there were still a lot of restrictions in place in many countries due to concerns about high-THC cannabis.

Historically, reefer madness was so strong regarding the cannabis plant that lawmakers around the world refused to consider low-THC hemp legalization for the purpose of human consumption, out of fear that it could be used to ‘disguise’ high-THC cannabis plants, which is a fear that is not based in science.

Fortunately, the rise of CBD as a medicine across the globe has changed a lot of minds, and legal hemp production is being ramped up all over the planet.

One of those places is the State of Texas, which is geographically the largest state in the U.S. among the ‘lower 48 states.’ Converting farmland in Texas to hemp will not only help local economies but will also help the environment since hemp helps pull CO2 out of the air and removes contaminants from soil (among other benefits).

Texas’ hemp industry is still in its infancy, with state law only recently being changed in 2019. With that being said, Texas is likely to see exponential growth in the coming years now that the federal government has finally issued hemp industry rules. Per KXAN:

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says he’s pleased with the approval of federal rules for the industrial hemp program.

“This industry is booming and needs the certainty that comes with finalizing these guidelines,” Miller said. ”While hemp growers might not have gotten everything they wanted, I believe USDA has responded to the industry and is working to improve this program.”

“Here in Texas, we’ve been in the hemp business for almost a year and we’re busy building the Texas ‘hempire’ — we’ve issued over 1150 producer licenses, permitted over 5,000 acres of hemp in the ground and over 15 million square feet of hemp in greenhouses,” Miller said in a statement Tuesday.

Texas is well known for being a top petroleum and natural gas state, as well as being a national leader for cattle and other livestock. Unfortunately, both of those industries have a detrimental impact on the environment.

A strong hemp industry could drastically change the State of Texas’ future, in a great way.

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Medical Cannabis Associated With Prolonged Reductions In Opioid Use

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Medical.

When it comes to cannabis reform, one of the biggest opponents to legalization, even medical legalization, has historically been the pharmaceutical industry.

It is a fact that when medical cannabis legalization comes to a particular state or country, the use of prescription drugs reduces because people replace some or all of their prescriptions with medical cannabis.

One area of the pharmaceutical industry that is particularly hit hard post-medical cannabis reform is the opioid sector of the pharmaceutical industry. Below is more information about it via a news release from our friends at NORML:

Patients who initiate the use of medical cannabis experience sustained reductions in their use of opioids, according to data published in the journal Cureus.

A pair of investigators assessed survey data from over 500 patients registered with three state-licensed medical cannabis practices in the northeastern region of the United States. Those surveyed had been prescribed opioids for chronic pain treatment for at least three months.

Forty-five percent of those surveyed reported decreasing their opioid usage following the initiation of cannabis therapy and another 40 percent of respondents acknowledged ceasing their use of opioids altogether – findings that are consistent with dozens of other studies. The majority of respondents (65 percent) reported that they sustained these changes for over one year.

Authors reported: “To our knowledge, this is one of the largest surveys of chronic pain patients who used opioids continuously for a minimum of three months and combined it with medical cannabis. Our results show a remarkable percentage of patients both reporting complete cessation of opioids and decreasing opioid usage by the addition of medical cannabis, with results lasting for over a year for the majority. … We believe our results lend further support that medical cannabis provided in a standardized protocol can lead to decreased pain and opioid usage, improved function, and quality of life measures, and even complete cessation of opioids in patients with chronic pain treated by opioids.”

Full text of the study, “A survey on the effect that medical cannabis has on prescription opioid medication usage for the treatment of chronic pain at three medical cannabis practice sites,” appears in Cureus. Additional information is available from the NORML fact sheet, “Relationship Between Marijuana and Opioids.”

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How Much Legal Cannabis Did Illinois Sell In 2020?

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Business.

Currently, 15 states in the U.S. have legalized cannabis for adult-use along with Washington D.C. Some of those states already have legal adult-use cannabis sales underway, while others, mostly the 2020 class of states, have yet to launch legal sales.

The first state in the history of the United States to legalize adult-use cannabis sales by legislative action was Illinois. Every other state that legalized cannabis before Illinois, with the exception of Vermont, legalized cannabis via the ballot box.

In the case of Vermont, lawmakers passed a legalization measure, however, the measure did not legalize regulated adult-use cannabis sales – just possession and cultivation.

Illinois just wrapped up its first year of adult-use cannabis sales, and the year-end totals are staggering. Per Chicago Tribune:

The year 2020 dawned with thousands of people lined up, some overnight, waiting to be among the first to buy legal recreational marijuana in Illinois.

As the long, strange year comes to an end, people are lined up at food banks, to get coronavirus nasal swabs and in some cases, to be among the first to receive a vaccine that may mark the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And people are still buying weed. Lots of it.

Despite the massive economic disruption wrought by the pandemic, 80 recreational cannabis dispensaries have opened in Illinois and business is on pace to top $1 billion in 2020, including medical marijuana sales.

Illinois’ legal cannabis industry is still very young by many standards, and to top a billion dollars in sales in the first year is significant. To put the sales figure into perspective, Colorado’s first year of legal sales post-legalization (2014) was roughly $684 million.

To be fair, Illinois has a significantly larger population than Colorado, however, Colorado’s medical industry was much older so a better industry framework was already in place, and Colorado had the national monopoly on legal adult-use sales and sold a lot of cannabis to tourists.

Illinois’ cannabis laws are not perfect, and the industry has a lot of room to improve, but what happened in Illinois in 2020 was pretty remarkable, and will hopefully encourage legislators in other prohibition states to pass legalization measures sooner rather than later.

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Ireland’s Transport Minister: No Cannabis Legalization In 2021

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Politics.

In many ways 2020 was one of the worst years of all time, yet, from a purely cannabis reform and industry standpoint, 2020 was a solid year by many measures.

Last year had one very big disappointment in the form of an unsuccessful vote in New Zealand, where voters shot down a nationwide cannabis legalization measure.

However, putting New Zealand’s vote aside, 2020 was stellar for cannabis efforts in many parts of the world, with the legal cannabis industry putting up record figures.

Several states legalized cannabis for adult use in the United States, and several countries increased momentum for reform at the international level going into 2021.

One country that will not be legalizing cannabis for adult use in 2021 is Ireland according to Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. Per The Irish Sun:

IRELAND is not ready to legalise cannabis next year, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has claimed.

It comes as People Before Profit plan to put forward a motion in the Dail next year to legalise the drug in Ireland.

Earlier this month, PBP TD Gino Kenny said his party will bring forward legislation to try end the prohibition of cannabis in Ireland.

As of right now, only Uruguay and Canada have legalized cannabis for adult use. Italy’s Supreme Court ruled cannabis prohibition to be unconstitutional, but lawmakers in Italy have not passed a legalization measure to fully implement the Court’s decision.

Only time will tell which country on the European continent becomes the first to legalize, however, it will likely not be Ireland if current trends persist.

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Cannabis Use Not Associated With Elevated Risk Of Secondary Cancer Per Study

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Science.

It is estimated that roughly 4% of all cancer patients suffer from head and/or neck cancer. As with any form of cancer, head and neck cancer are absolutely awful for anyone to have to battle.

The results of a recent cannabis study provide some encouraging news for those that suffer from those particular forms of cancer. Below is more information about it via a news release from our friends at NORML:

Patients with head and neck cancers who possess a history of cannabis use are not at an increased risk of developing a secondary cancer diagnosis, according to data published in the journal Cureus.

A team of researchers affiliated with McMaster University, the University of Toronto, and the University of British Columbia assessed the association between cannabis smoking and the risk of developing a second primary squamous cell carcinoma in patients previously diagnosed with head and neck cancer.

Investigators reported that those who consumed cannabis “showed lower odds of developing SPC” compared to non-users.

“These results suggest that cannabis behaves differently than tobacco smoking,” they concluded. “Our results are consistent with the theory that cannabis is not carcinogenic and hence would not follow patterns of field cancerization.”

The study’s findings are consistent with those of prior papers concluding that cannabis smoke and tobacco smoke are not equally carcinogenic and that marijuana smoke exposure is not associated with many types of tobacco-related diseases, such as lung cancer and COPD.

Full text of the study, “Rate of second primary head and neck cancer with cannabis use,” appears in Cureus. Additional information is available from the NORML white paper, “All Smoke Is Not Created Equal.”

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Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Now Has A Cannabis Index

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Business.

For many years investing in the emerging cannabis industry was a very tricky thing for many reasons, not the least of which was that the cannabis industry was operating in a legal ‘grey area.’

Places such as Amsterdam and British Columbia were home to cannabis-based businesses like cannabis cafes that were ‘tolerated’ by local authorities.

Arguably the biggest evolution in the cannabis industry came in 1996 when voters in California legalized cannabis for medical use, which resulted in the exponential growth of medical cannabis dispensaries and cultivation operations throughout California.

For many years cannabis investments operated in those types of markets, and/or revolved around ancillary cannabis inventions and ideas. The reward was significant, however, so were the risks.

Zoom forward to today and there are far more options for investing in the emerging cannabis industry, including and especially cannabis stock investment options.

Multiple stock exchanges now allow cannabis company listings, including in Israel. Per The Jerusalem Post:

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange launched on Monday a new index for nine medical cannabis companies in an effort to boost trade in the burgeoning, yet not quite mature, sector.

The new index includes nine companies that are “primarily engaged in the fields of research, cultivation, sale or production and marketing of medical cannabis products”, the stock exchange said.

Israel is rapidly taking its rightful spot as an international cannabis leader. The Middle Eastern nation has long been an international leader for cannabis research, but the country’s medical cannabis program was limited for many years.

Now Israel not only has plans to become a major exporter of cannabis but also has plans to legalize cannabis for adult-use next year. If you are looking to invest in cannabis, you should definitely keep an eye on Israel to see how things develop.

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Cannabis Legalization Is A Political Issue Most Americans Agree On

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Politics.

To say that the United States is divided when it comes to politics is a massive understatement. One could easily argue that the political climate in the U.S is more polarized than it has been in well over 100 years.

However, at a time when most U.S. voters do not seem to agree on almost anything, there is one issue that has support from all over the political spectrum, and that support continues to increase with every passing year.

That political issue is cannabis legalization. Support for cannabis legalization is at an all-time high in the United States, no pun intended, and that is reflected in the results of a new poll. Below is a news release about it from our friends at NORML:

Majorities of Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters endorse legalizing the use of marijuana for adults and this support is growing, according to polling data compiled by the firms FM3 Research and Fabrizio, Lee & Associates and first reported by MarijuanaMoment.net.

Pollsters surveyed voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota. A majority of voters in each of the four states decided in favor of adult-use legalization ballot measures on Election Day.

Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed – including 85 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of Independents, and 53 percent of Republicans – support legalizing marijuana. That finding is consistent with other nationwide polls.

More than one-quarter of respondents (27 percent) – including 33 percent of Democrats, 35 percent of Independents, and 23 percent of Republicans – said that their views have become more favorable toward legalization in recent years. Sixty-five percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Legalizing adult use of marijuana is a non-partisan issue that both liberal and conservative voters can get behind.”

Eighty-one percent of respondents agreed that the federal government should not interfere with state laws legalizing marijuana use.

Pollsters concluded: “The results carry important insights, especially for Republican elected officials” who often “cast cannabis legalization as a partisan wedge issue.” This position, pollsters acknowledged, is growing “increasingly untenable” with Republican voters.