HempTalk - Business Blogs and Press Releases

"My mission is to make cannabis cooking a broader conversation among a more diverse group of people and not just preaching to the choir."

There was once a time when Andrea Drummer was completely against cannabis.

That is until she met a cannabis advocate whose success and productivity as an attorney challenged her point of view and opened her mind to the possibilities of how she could use the botanical wonder in her own profession.

She started a culinary events company called Elevation VIP Cooperative and began curating high-end fine dining experiences via private cannabis-infused functions and invite-only VIP dinners in Los Angeles. 

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Only five states specifically allow autism patients to legally access whole plant cannabis, so long as they get the appropriate doctor recommendations.

The Arizona chapter of MAMMA, Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism, is working hard to make their state the sixth on the list—and they’ll take their case to state officials in Phoenix this week.

This will be the group’s second meeting with officials from the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), which regulates the list of qualifying conditions.

In early May, MAMMA members convened for three days with ADHS officials to consider the organization’s petition to let medical professionals recommend medical cannabis for autistic children.

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Berlin-based MH medical hemp GmbH (MH) has applied for licenses to import and sell medical cannabis in German pharmacies, with approval expected this summer. MH is in the process of obtaining Wholesale Trading Authorization for human medicinal products as well as a Narcotic Drug License as outlined in the German Narcotic Drug Act.

Next evolutionary step for MH

“This is the next step in the evolution of the company. It’s a natural space for us to be in,” said Joscha Krauss, MH’s CEO. “The demand for medical cannabis in Germany is by far higher than its supply – especially when high quality standards lead to tight bottlenecks.”

Germany’s medical marijuana law, which went into effect in spring 2017, makes it easy for patients to access cannabis for medicinal purposes, removing a complicated system in which special authorization was required to obtain cannabis remedies in the past. Patients are only required to have a doctor’s prescription, and can collect reimbursement via their health insurance program.

“The fact that health insurance companies will cover the cost of medical cannabis gives Germany a leading role on a global level,” Krauss added, and empowers both patients and doctors in their efforts to manage patient needs.

Western palates aren’t yet accustomed to cannabis, but they soon might be.

As states continue to roll back tight regulations on the recreational and medicinal uses of marijuana, there’s a highly skilled and creative subset of people who are crafting the way the future era of legal pot is going to taste.

We’re talking about chefs, of course.

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Diana Crandall ~ RealClearLife.com ~ 

New York moved a significant step closer to legalizing recreational marijuana, as a study commissioned by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will recommend that the state allow adults to consume marijuana legally, the governor’s health commissioner said on Monday.

The announcement by the commissioner, Howard Zucker, signals a broad turnaround for the administration of Mr. Cuomo, a second-term Democrat who said as recently as last year that marijuana was a “gateway drug.”

“We looked at the pros, we looked at the cons, and when we were done, we realized that the pros outweighed the cons,” Dr. Zucker said, adding, “we have new facts.”

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Jesse McKinley and Benjamin Mueller ~ NYTimes.com ~ 

(This is an abridged version of a package that appears in the May-June issue of Marijuana Business Magazine.) North American marijuana entrepreneurs who believe it’s too early to look at international opportunities should reconsider their position. Federally licensed cultivation companies in Canada – Canopy Growth, Tilray, Aurora Cannabis and Cronos Group, to name a few – already are […]

Time is right for marijuana entrepreneurs to enter the global market is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Along with the tempura cannabis leaf, Shibumi’s special dishes include vegetables flavored with cannabis-infused sauce, made like a miso paste, which is often mixed in with sesame paste in Japan.

You enter the sleek Shibumi restaurant via a clandestine doorway next to a parking garage in downtown LA.

Now the hush-hush concept continues inside – those in the know can request off-menu cannabis-infused dishes, including a battered pot leaf.

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Jade Bremner ~ LonelyPlanet.com ~ 

South Carolina Democrats gave medical marijuana a landslide victory Tuesday, with 82 percent declaring in an advisory vote that doctors should be allowed to prescribe the drug.

The question “Do you support passing a state law allowing doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to patients?” was approved by Democrats in all of the state's 46 counties during Tuesday's primary.

The nonbinding ballot initiative is the latest boost for legalized medical marijuana, which has been embraced by key committees in both the S.C. House and Senate.

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Jeff Wilkinson ~ TheState.com ~ 

Former Ohio Republican Congressman and Speaker of the House John Boehner joined several U.S. mayors this week in telling the federal government to get out of the way of marijuana legalization.

Boehner, a longtime staunch opponent of marijuana, joined the advisory board of Acreage Holdings, a cannabis investment firm that pursues cultivation and dispensary businesses in addition to touting cannabis’s “transformational power to heal and change the world.”

Speaking with WCPO-TV on Monday, Boehner touted the effectiveness of medical marijuana treatment for military veterans, opioid addicts and children with epilepsy.

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Benjamin Fearnow ~ Newsweek.com ~ 

A strange-bedfellows mix of powerful state governors and members of Congress signed on to end the decades-old war on marijuana – via the newly introduced STATES Act.

Momentum seemed to build over the weekend for the bill, introduced Thursday by Sen. Corey Gardner (R-CO) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

On Friday, the governors of California and New York, as well as their counterparts in ten other states, urged Congressional leaders to advance the bill.

California Gov. Jerry Brown endorsed the plan to exempt legalization states from federal pot law in a joint letter with Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, Washington Gov. Jay Isnlee and others.

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Canada’s proposed licensing structure for recreational marijuana will create significant opportunities for additional players, and “hundreds” of businesses are positioning themselves to capitalize on the market - even before the final regulations have been released.

New licenses open doors for Canadian marijuana entrepreneurs is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Leading global stakeholders will gather at HempToday Center in Poland Aug. 24-25, 2018 to survey the burgeoning medical hemp sector amid exploding demand worldwide for CBD.

European blue-chip CBD brand CannabiGold is the host sponsor for “The Future of Medical Hemp,” an exclusive gathering limited to 25 persons total. Twenty accreditations are still available for the Summit at €900 each. Signups before the end of June receive an early-bird rate of €700.

Attendees will get an in-depth look at a wide range of industry topics including investment, product development & innovation, global medical hemp hot spots, the regulatory environment, biochemistry of cannabinoids, and cannabinoid production.

Featured presenters are:

Boaz Wachtel, Chairman & co-founder, CresoPharma, a nutraceuticals company traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) since autumn 2016. Wachtel was co-founder and former managing director of MMJ Phytotech, Australia’s first publicly traded medical cannabis company. He is also the co-founder of the International Medical Cannabis Patient Coalition (IMCPC).

The much anticipated 2018 Farm Bill that would remove hemp from federal narcotics lists in the USA goes before a Senate Agriculture Committee tomorrow, Wednesday, June 13.

The removal would be through the Hemp Farming Act of 2018, included in the overall farming legislation, which also defines hemp as an agricultural commodity and would give individual states the opportunity to become the primary regulators of hemp production, allow hemp researchers to apply for competitive federal grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and make hemp farmers eligible for crop insurance.

Rare bipartisanship

Following the amendment process, which could last several days, the full committee will vote to send the legislation to the Senate floor, possibly by the end of this month. The measure would become law only if it is eventually signed by the unpredictable Donald Trump, Idiot President.

The committee released the current version of the 2018 Farm Bill earlier this month.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, introduced the bipartisan Hemp Farming Act in April along with fellow Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, and with Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. Twenty-four other Senators from the two main political parties in the USA also are supporting the measure in a rare example of bipartisanship in the sharply polarized political scene in the USA.

Australia-based Elixinol Group has put up the first-ever advertising for a CBD product in Japan with installation of a billboard in Tokyo’s Omotesando train station.

“Japan has the third largest consumer economy in the world, and the audience is both sophisticated and health conscious,” said Elixinol CEO Paul Benhaim after the billboard went up earlier this month.

CBD is legal in Japan, but CBD producers were heretofore not able to advertise them.

Breakthrough with Japanese authorities

“Elixinol has been supplying hemp oil products to Japan for over three years, however up until now we have not been able to actively market the product range,” said Makoto Matsumaru, CEO of Elixinol Japan. The approval came after months working with authorities in Japan, which has a very strong historical connection to hemp dating back to ancient times, Matsumaru added.

“Approval to commercially advertise our Hemp Oil Drops is a major win for the hemp industry,” Matsumaru said.

A group representing mayors of cities across the country is pushing the federal government to enact a series of major marijuana law reforms.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is also calling on cities in states that have legalized cannabis to expunge people’s past convictions.

“The looming threat of federal prosecution or shutdown lends uncertainty to states and local governments and legally compliant commercial cannabis business operators, patients and adult-use consumers, and harms state and local efforts to regulate cannabis for the safety and health of its residents,” reads one of the two measures adopted by the mayors group on Monday.

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Tom Angell ~ MarijuanaMoment.net ~ 

A key U.S. Senate panel voted on Thursday to allow doctors with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to issue medical marijuana recommendations to military veterans.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the amendment, offered by Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), on a voice vote.

The measure “simply allows veterans to discuss that option [medical cannabis] with their VA doc or physician,” Daines said during a brief debate.

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Tom Angell ~ MarijuanaMoment.net ~ 

Cannabis stakeholders and activists are drawing positive energy from four days of hearings during which doctors, patients, and researchers presented analysis and outlined the benefits of cannabis before the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO convened a special 40th meeting of its Expert Committee entirely dedicated to cannabis for the first time. The meeting was held in Geneva.

“In the year of its 70th birthday, the World Health Organization is finally taking steps to repair an injustice that it co-created: the affirmation that cannabis had no medical value, based on biased scientific processes,” the Foundation for Alternative Approaches to Addiction (FAAAT), said in a statement.

FAAAT is a transnational non-governmental, non-partisan and non-profit organization working on the issue of addiction, controlled drugs, and plant or substances liable to produce addiction. From Barcelona, Geneva, New-York, Paris Vienna, FAAAT & do tankcentralizes the collaboration of a global network of experts.

FAAAT has been pressuring the United Nations system to strengthen scientific methodology and comprehensiveness of data regarding medical cannabis and its derivatives since 2009.

In 420-friendly states, a growing cadre of chefs, confectioners, and entrepreneurs is intent on pulling weed out of its dank past and into our locavore, organic, chef's-menu-laden food present.

If you've taken two bites of a weed brownie, you know that they can fail in a number of ways: They're dry and crumbly, or flavorless, or stale, or too weak, or (more likely) too strong, maybe so strong that you forget what it feels like to stand up, and you begin to long for a bottle of Sprite as big and welcoming as the Statue of Liberty.

The first weed brownie I ever ate was a grave mistake, taken before a New York–to–Boston bus ride that became a study in acute paranoia and the healing properties of a rest-stop McDonald's.

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Marian Bull ~ GQ.com ~

A bipartisan group of senators and representatives introduced a bill  that could change the cannabis legalization landscape across the United States.

In a move that’s been anticipated for weeks, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Rep. David Joyce (R-OH) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Entrusting States (STATES) Act this morning on Capitol Hill.

The measure would exempt state-legal marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, allowing every state to legalize and regulate cannabis (or keep it illegal) as they see fit.

In a joint press conference, Sen. Gardner emphasized that the Act would not mandate full nationwide legalization. Rather, it would allow each state to legalize or prohibit cannabis on its own. 

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The Michigan Legislature on Tuesday decided to punt the issue of legalizing marijuana for recreational use to voters to decide in the November election.

Senate Republicans had wanted to take up and pass the measure so they could amend it and keep it off the Nov. 6 general election ballot.

But they deferred to the House of Representatives to see whether Republicans could muster the votes — 55 needed for passage — and they never got close.

"There's simply not support in the chamber to pass this right now. The voters are going to have to decide," said Speaker of the House Tom Leonard, R-Dewitt. 

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