Canada

Vermont medical cannabis user challenges urine-test regime for workers

Posted on April 8th, 2023 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

medical marijuanaRights for medicinal cannabis users in the workplace have not kept pace with the law in states that have embraced medical and even “recreational” use. Now a case in Vermont may push state and federal authorities alike to close the loopholes that allow workers to be dismissed—and denied unemployment insurance—for using state-legal medicine.

Has your cannabis been irradiated? And should you care?

Posted on May 23rd, 2022 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , .

cannabisIrradiated cannabis? Yes, it’s a reality. While it may sound scary, industry tells us not to worry. Consumer advocacy groups, however, are raising concerns.

Global industry round-up: Canada, Israel, Costa Rica, Thailand

Planet WatchThe cannabis industry is globalizing fast, which means changes for mainstays of commercial production in Europe and North America, and new players coming on line from regions such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Central America. Here’s a brief overview of a few entries from these categories.

NFL awards $1 million to study cannabinoids and pain management

Posted on February 10th, 2022 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

CBDThe National Football League has awarded a $1 million research grant to study the impacts of cannabinoids on pain management and neuroprotection in football players. The move represents a breakthrough given the NFL's longstanding zero-tolerance stance on cannabis use.

India: Bollywood scion snared in hash rap

Posted on November 16th, 2021 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , .

South AsiaA Bollywood celebrity was arrested for supposedly using hashish and other drugs on a cruise ship off Mumbai—one of a slew of high-profile cases that have embarrassed India's entertainment industry and political establishment. Apart from providing fodder for the gossip columns, however, the affair raises serious concerns about civil rights in "the world's largest democracy."

The death penalty for cannabis —even now

nooseIt's pretty surreal that even as a legal cannabis industry emerges on a global scale, there are still countries that impose outrageously draconian sentences for the herb—up to and including the death penalty.

The egregious case of a man sentenced to death for smuggling two pounds of cannabis into the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore has focused global attention on the disturbing reality.

The Rise of Franken-Cannabinoids?

cannabis geneticsIn the near future, the CBD, THC or other cannabinoids you consume in edibles or medications may not be derived from cannabis at all, but grown in a laboratory.

Kevin Chen, CEO and co-founder of Hyasynth Bio, describes the Montreal-based start-up as "focused on engineering strains of yeast to produce the active compounds of cannabis without having to grow plants."

From Mythos to Monoculture

Posted on August 21st, 2020 by Bill Weinberg and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

hempHemp’s Curious Cultural Trajectory

Now that hemp has finally arrived at its long-sought status as a legal crop and commodity, there is a sense of inevitability to its deviation from the utopian vision that animated the advocates who fought for it a generation ago.

A tension that has always existed between two currents in the subculture of hemp advocacy is increasingly weighted toward the more mundane—activists versus entrepreneurs, idealism versus pragmatism, agrarianism versus agribusiness. And finally the original paradigm of a crop with multitudinous uses as “food, fuel and fiber,” holding the potential to solve humanity’s ecological crisis, versus the hegemony of CBD.

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