420 with CNW – Why Ohioans Aren’t Rushing to Buy Medical Cannabis

Medical cannabis has been available in Ohio for about three months now, but the latest data shows that the 20,000 people registered on the program haven’t displayed much eagerness to buy all the cannabis available at dispensaries. Here are some reasons that could explain this lack of buyer enthusiasm.

High Product Prices

One major concern for Ohio medical cannabis patients is the high prices being levied for medical cannabis products. On average, an ounce of cannabis costs $470. This is twice the cost of medical cannabis in Michigan.

Why is Michigan significant in this case? Patients from Ohio and other states can use their medical cannabis cards to buy medical marijuana in Michigan. It is therefore regrettable that the products in Ohio are so expensive.

This high cost can be attributed to the high licensing fees levied, as well as the rigid product packaging and testing requirements imposed by the state.

Dispensaries Aren’t Evenly Distributed

Ohio licensed 56 dispensaries. So far, only nine have opened their doors to patients. Unfortunately, all those nine are found on the Eastern side of the state.

Patients must therefore drive for several hours in order to find a dispensary and buy the products they need. Obviously, not many of the patients have felt the urge to endure those long drives.

Sales may therefore remain lukewarm until more dispensaries open closer to the patients who need the products available.

Unfavorable Possession Rules

Another major factor that can explain why patients aren’t buying as much medical cannabis as the state would expect is that the rules restrict a patient to just 90-days’ worth of cannabis. However, the clock starts ticking on those 90 days from the time you get your prescription from a doctor.

This means that every day you take without buying the maximum amount of cannabis allowed reduces the quantity that you will buy when you eventually visit a dispensary.

For example, a patient who goes to a dispensary 60 days after getting their prescription can only buy medical cannabis that can last a maximum of 30 days.

Furthermore, the high cost of cannabis means that patients may find it hard to buy a large amount of cannabis during one visit to a dispensary.

A Limited Range of Products

The law bars patients from smoking medical marijuana. However, only dried flower is currently available in the dispensaries that have so far opened.

This means that patients who want cannabis oil, tinctures, patches, lotions and edibles cannot spend any money on cannabis products until what they want is available.

All these issues show that the medical marijuana program has gotten off to a rocky start. Phivida Holdings Inc. (CSE: VIDA) (OTCQX: PHVAF) and Plus Products Inc. (CSE: PLUS) (OTCQB: PLPRF) hope that the medical cannabis program matures quickly so that each patient can get what they want at an affordable cost.

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420 with CNW – Complaints about the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Task Force Increase

When Minnesota legalized medical cannabis in 2014, a task force was established to evaluate the medical cannabis program and report back to the state. However, numerous complaints about the operation and effectiveness of this task force have arisen.

Representatives of patients, law enforcement agencies, the medical community, lawmakers and other stakeholders make up this task force. The task force is mandated to scrutinize patient access to the medical marijuana program, the affordability of the products and any other issue connected to medical cannabis.

However, the task force appears to have been doomed right from its very inception. For example, the law establishing this entity wasn’t very clear on the exact duties of the task force.

Consequently, some of its members thought that the task force would assess the conditions that people wanted to be added to the list of qualifying conditions and then make recommendations on the same while other members didn’t think the task force had that authority.

Additionally, the composition of the task force appears not to be conducive for the group to do its work. This is because the task force has members who have divergent views about the appropriateness of having a medical cannabis program in the state.

Such divergent views of the proponents and opponents of the medical marijuana program create a lot of tension during meetings, so it is hard for the members to agree on anything.

As if the issues above weren’t bad enough, the task force rarely meets. For example, the last meeting they held was in 2017. It is nearly two years since they held a meeting!

Even the meetings that have been convened haven’t been well attended. Denis Flaherty, the ED of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, revealed as much when he decided to resign his membership on the task force.

He said that being on the task force was “a waste of my time” due to the poor attendance and the lack of impact that the meetings were having.

Because of the lack of impact by the task force, medical marijuana remains very expensive (and many patients have resorted to the black market).

These complaints about the task force haven’t gone unnoticed by the powers that be in the state. For example, Rep. Heather Edelson has drafted a bill to clarify how often the task force should meet, and the specific issues they should consider during that annual meeting.

Gov. Tim Walz also acknowledged that there were frustrations with the task force. He revealed that he was considering recreating the group into a new one that will consider the legalization of recreational marijuana in addition to assessing the medical cannabis program.

It seems there is all round consensus that something needs to be done to make the task force more useful. Plus Products Inc. (CSE: PLUS) (OTCQB: PLPRF) and Redfund Capital Corp. (CSE: LOAN) (OTC: PNNRF) (Frankfurt: O3X4) call on all the concerned authorities to revisit the task force so that medical marijuana patients aren’t exposed to preventable inconveniences.

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420 with CNW – Idaho Police to Procure Equipment That Distinguishes Cannabis from Hemp

A committee of the Idaho State Assembly has approved funding so that the state police can buy the equipment needed to test whether a given plant is industrial hemp or marijuana. This plan comes after the police seized a semitrailer carrying what the arresting officer thought was marijuana while the driver and his employer insisted that the consignment contained hemp.

The owner of the cargo, Big Sky Scientific, tried to get a court order to compel the police to release the cargo since it was deteriorating rapidly as the police continues with its investigations. The company argued that it was now legal to grow hemp and transport it across state lines from the time President Trump signed the Farm Bill 2018 into law.

However, court declined to issue the court order since the state didn’t have a law prescribing how hemp could be grown. Furthermore, the court could not be certain that Big Sky Scientific had grown its “hemp” in accordance with the Farm Act 2018.

This case has captured headlines within and outside Idaho because it serves as an eye-opener of the kind of situations that law enforcement agencies are likely to face now that hemp is legal while marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.

This confusion is likely to arise because there is no difference in the physical characteristics of hemp and cannabis. It is therefore possible for someone to attempt to transport cannabis across state borders while passing it off as hemp. It is also likely that hemp cultivators will face a lot of inconveniences as they jump through hoops to prove that what they are cultivating or transporting isn’t marijuana.

The procurement of the testing equipment was initiated by some lawmakers (not the police department) who felt that it was unsustainable to keep sending samples to Kentucky each time a seizure or arrest was made by the police. The argument of the lawmakers makes sense, because Big Sky Scientific stands to lose its cargo due to the delays created by having to conduct tests outside the state yet the crop is highly perishable and cannot retain its quality while the legal issues are sorted out.

For now, the entire Assembly has to approve the $240,000 funding request before the spending proposals go to the state Senate for approval. Only then can the money be released to procure and install the testing equipment in the police testing facility. Plus Products Inc. (CSE: PLUS) (OTCQB: PLPRF) and Redfund Capital Corp. (CSE: LOAN) (OTC: PNNRF) (Frankfurt: O3X4) call for the speedy procurement of the testing equipment so that additional problems can be avoided later on.

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420 with CNW – New York Prosecutor Drops Marijuana Charges

A group of 35 people in Erie County received an unexpected gift when John Flynn, the Erie County District Attorney, requested that a judge at the Buffalo City Court accept the prosecutor’s request to dismiss the low-level marijuana charges (misdemeanor charges) against the nearly three dozen people.

The judge agreed with the prosecutor, and the charges were dismissed. It should be noted that the 35 people weren’t present in court. Their warrants were still outstanding and they had missed their court appearances.

In effect, the prosecutor saw no need to continue hunting for those individuals over a substance that would soon be legal throughout the state.

The action taken by John Flynn means that going forward, the District Attorney will no longer be interested in prosecuting such low-level marijuana cases within the jurisdiction.

The Erie County District Attorney isn’t the first to take such action within the state. Flynn is following in the footsteps of the prosecutors in New York City.

The mayor of Buffalo city is also on record for ordering the police in the city to stop arresting people for low-level marijuana crimes, such as possession of small amounts of cannabis.

These actions by prosecutors and the elected leaders seem to acknowledge that while the legislative process to legalize cannabis hasn’t been concluded, the population has gone ahead and started consuming recreational cannabis to such a high degree that it would be hard to clamp down on all of those users.

There is also widespread agreement across the state regarding the need to legalize marijuana for adult-use. Only law enforcement agencies and some members of the medical field still have reservations about adult-use marijuana.

The other disagreements are largely about how the industry will be regulated and where the taxes collected from cannabis will be spent.

For example, sections of lawmakers want the taxes collected from the recreational cannabis sector to be earmarked for revamping the dilapidated infrastructure in the state, such as the aging subway system.

However, others want a large portion of the cannabis taxes to be spent in the impoverished communities that bore the brunt of the war against drugs. The legislators in this school of thought have even threatened to vote against legalization if the law doesn’t stipulate what fraction of the marijuana taxes will go to the underprivileged communities in the inner cities.

What should be applauded in the meantime is the proactive step taken by the prosecutors to stop going after people who commit low-level marijuana infractions as the politicians are hashing out a law to legalize adult-use cannabis. Phivida Holdings Inc. (CSE: VIDA) (OTCQX: PHVAF) and Plus Products Inc. (CSE: PLUS) (OTCQB: PLPRF) are hoping that the lawmakers put the interests of New Yorkers first so that the best law is made for that jurisdiction.

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420 with CNW – Chronic Pain Tops Reasons for Medical Cannabis Use in America

A new study has found that most Americans use medical marijuana in order to ease chronic pain. The study was aimed at finding out the exact reasons why people in the U.S. use medical marijuana, and whether those stated reasons have any scientific basis.

Kevin Boehnke, a researcher at Michigan University’s Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center, led the team of researchers who started by analyzing a report that was written in 2017 on the use of medical marijuana. This report was written by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

That 2017 report found either conclusive or substantial proof that cannabis eased nausea, muscle spasms, vomiting and chronic pain.

Boehnke and his team also found that in 2016, the number of people who were registered to use medical cannabis was 641,000. This number rose to 814,000 the following year (2017). However, the researchers believe that the actual number of medical cannabis users exceeds the statistics captured in the report they read.

The statistics show that 85.5 percent of medical cannabis card holders were convinced that there was science backing their desire to use medical cannabis for the different qualifying conditions they suffered from. Chronic pain topped the list of qualifying conditions taking up 62 percent of all applications for medical cannabis cards.

The team of researchers wasn’t surprised by their findings regarding chronic pain given that approximately 100 million Americans are estimated to suffer from chronic pain.

Many of those medical cannabis users, such as Brandian Smith from Illinois, say that they resorted to medical cannabis because it worked better than the prescription opiates that they had been using previously.

This anecdotal evidence from actual medical cannabis users, together with the scientific studies that prove that medical marijuana can combat chronic pain, may offer a ray of hope in the fight against the opioid crisis in the U.S.

Currently, 33 states have legalized the use of medical marijuana. 10 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have decriminalized adult-use marijuana. These 33 states can potentially start a wave rolling back the opioid problem if this matter is given more attention.

For now, the federal government remains adamant that marijuana hasn’t been proved to have any medical use, so it remains a Schedule 1 substance. Boehnke and his team of researchers feel strongly that their findings make a case for changing the federal government’s position so that cannabis can be integrated in the medical system of the country. Phivida Holdings Inc. (CSE: VIDA) (OTCQX: PHVAF) and Plus Products Inc. (CSE: PLUS) (OTCQB: PLPRF) couldn’t agree more with Kevin Boehnke’s conclusions.

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420 with CNW – UC Berkley Launches Cannabis Research Center

The University of California at Berkley has announced that it has opened a cannabis research center that will study the effects of cannabis production upon society and the environment. This announcement was made on Tuesday this week (January 29).

UC officials also revealed that the research center will primarily focus on three major areas.

The first is cannabis regulation and policy. Cannabis regulations and policies have been evolving rapidly and they merit research in order to ascertain whether those policies and regulations have made the industry better, whether the policymakers had sufficient information upon which they based when drafting the regulations and policies, etc.

The research center will also study how cannabis production affects the environment. For example, what effects do cannabis plants have on groundwater? Is it better (for the environment) to grow cannabis in indoor facilities or outdoor grows are better? How can the adverse environmental impacts (if any) of cannabis production be mitigated? Such, and other issues will occupy the researchers who will devote their time and resources to looking into the environmental effects of cannabis production.

The third major area of research will be the impact of cannabis production on society. Already, some lawsuits have been filed against cannabis grow facilities in some neighborhoods while some local authorities have enacted ordinances that ban any marijuana-related activities in their jurisdictions. At the same time, many communities are clamoring to have cannabis production facilities in their areas in order to reap the economic benefits that such developments bring. So, the responses to cannabis production span the entire gamut of what anyone can imagine as a potential reaction to this controversial plant. The researchers will look into all these societal effects and provide scientific data to inform the decision-making process.

Ted Grantham and Van Butsic, both faculty members in UC Berkley’s Department of Policy and Management, and Environmental Sciences will head the interdisciplinary team at the research center.

The direction taken by the research center at UC Berkley is unique because so far, other researchers have devoted their resources to studying how cannabis affects people (the positive and negative) at the level of an individual. Grantham and his team want to broaden the lens and look at the bigger picture. This approach is a welcome development for the cannabis industry, including Plus Products Inc. (CSE: PLUS) (OTCQB: PLPRF) and Phivida Holdings Inc. (CSE: VIDA) (OTCQX: PHVAF), because it will provide deeper insights into the broader aspects of the industry.

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