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CLV Frontier Brands Pty Ltd says it will begin marketing cannabis-flavored beers and tonics in Europe and Canada this summer, Creso Pharma, a partner in the three-way partnership, has announced.

The new drinks contain terpenes, which carry the aroma and flavor of cannabis without any accompanying THC or cannabinoids.

Creso, UK-based Baltic Beer Company Ltd. and Canadian TSX Venture incorporated LGC Capital are equal one-third partners in CLV.

‘Significant’ sales envisioned

“We see CLV as an exciting business partnership that we believe can add significant sales revenues to Creso Pharma over the coming years,” Dr. Miri Halperin Wernli, Co-Founder and CEO at Creso Pharma, said in a release.

Terpenes, which are derived from cannabis and other plants, have a range of applications in food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Those contained in the products under development by CLV are extracted from various plant sources, all of which are food-grade, 100% natural and non-GMO, according to Creso. The terpenes are introduced to beer at the post-fermentation stage in much the same manner as hop extracts are added.

The state is looking for ways to help medical marijuana businesses that are having trouble finding a bank or a credit union.

Rick Johnson chairs the state medical marijuana licensing board.

He says most financial institutions won’t work with marijuana-related businesses because the drug remains illegal at the federal level.

He says that means the businesses don’t have checking accounts and can’t easily handle electronic transfers.

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Former Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld says it makes a lot of sense for Republicans, like President Donald Trump, to support de-scheduling marijuana.

"I would think it's excellent politics for President Trump. He did say during the campaign in 2016, adult recreation, full adult legalization, is a states' rights issue — and that goes down very well with Republicans," Weld said on CNBC's "Fast Money."

"Including this former Republican," Weld added, chuckling. The former Republican governor of Massachusetts-turned Libertarian has made his newfound feelings about marijuana well-known, since announcing last week he would join former House Speaker John Boehner on the board of medical marijuana company, Acreage Holdings.

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Chloe Aiello ~ CNBC.com ~ 

German confectionary maker Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG produced a limited edition “Schoko & Gras” (“Chocolate & Grass”) bar under its Ritter Sport brand timed for this past week’s World Cannabis Day, (“4/20 Day”).

Ritter produced the square chocolates in a “collectors’ edition” promotion, offering them for sale online and in its branded retail outlets in Berlin and Waldenbuch, where the company is headquartered.

“This is a great example of an enlightened major player who understands the potential for hemp in foods,” said Daniel Kruse, CEO at Hempro Int. GmbH & Co. KG, Dusseldorf, which provided the hulled and roasted organic hemp seeds for the “Schoko & Gras” bars.

Aside from promoting hemp seeds in the chocolates as a “superfood,” the effort intends to spark “unbiased discussion on hemp,” according to Elbkind, the Hamburg agency that executed a social media campaign in support of the promotion.

Ritter, which has an online tool through which consumers can submit ideas for new products, said it has received many submissions suggesting the incorporation of hemp seed into its treats.

The U.S. legal cannabis industry is on track to hit $25 billion by 2025, according to the latest forecast from cannabis analytics firm New Frontier Data.

The research and data firm on Friday released revised industry sales projections, predicting that the $8.3 billion U.S. medical and recreational marijuana industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.7 percent, to an estimated $25 billion by 2025.

That $25 billion should be split equally between medical and recreational cannabis, New Frontier officials said.

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Alicia Wallace ~ TheCannabist.co ~ 

Politics isn't always red or blue. Lately, it has been green.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., plans to introduce legislation on Friday to decriminalize marijuana on the federal level, adding a high-profile advocate in the effort to decriminalize, legalize and normalize marijuana use in America.

Schumer's legislation would remove marijuana from the list of scheduled substances under a 1970 law that classifies marijuana as dangerous as heroin for legal and regulatory purposes

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Susan Davis ~ NPR.org ~

HempToday has launched a Japanese-language web edition under the direction of entrepreneur Riki Hiroi, owner at Each Japan, a leading Japanese cannabis consultancy.

The Japanese edition is based mainly on translations of global reporting from hemptoday.net, with technology being managed by volunteers from the IT industry in Tokyo.

Support from stakeholders

A group of stakeholders have come together to support reporting and translation services for HempToday Japan to feed local market content back to the hemptoday.net mother site in English, Hiroi said. The stakeholders are the Cannabis Museum in Nasu, Tochigi (Japan’s top hemp producing prefecture), along with the Government Office and the Prefectural Assembly of Hokkaido – all of which are supporting Hokkaido Hemp Net, a newly developed entity that will promote the industry in Japan.

While hemp has a tradition in Japan going back centuries, the country has remained strictly aligned with outdated international norms that conflate hemp with marijuana. HempToday Japan aims to help knock down that barrier, Hiroi said.

Community engagement is a challenge for Cannabis Companies, but it happens and most don’t even know it occurs.

Denver (April 18th, 2018) – WeedLife.com, a cannabis social network in the rapidly expanding legal cannabis industry, is the presenting sponsor of the 2018 CannaMakeADifference Nonprofit Pavilion at the Mile High 420 Festival in Denver Colorado this Friday, April 20th. WeedLife.com is supporting the newly coordinated event this year which includes a focus on the cannabis culture’s connection to their communities.

“We’ve spent the past five years providing online cannabis consumers and businesses worldwide a social network they can connect, share and learn from one another on, so the industry can grow even faster.” says WeedLife.com co-founder Ken Tapp. “Our goal as the presenting sponsor of the charity pavilion at the 2018 Mile High 420 Festival in Denver Colorado is to shine a spotlight on the many people and charities this industry continues to support here in Colorado.”

WeedLife.com has teamed up with CannaMakeADifference.org in 2018, to help link Cannabis Companies with Nonprofits in Colorado, and throughout the United States, using the WeedLife.com social network to educate millions of online consumer and business users on how they can help the many charities in need that CannaMakeADifference supports.

“People assume cannabis companies give because of the tax write off. However, they cannot write off any donation due to the 280E law. If I want to know how much giving is going on in an industry, most of that data is widely found in IRS records due to tax writeoffs. However, with cannabis companies, that information is not public, yet we know cannabis companies are donating and volunteering in our communities. That needs to be public.” says Kevin J White, founder of CannaMakeADifference, a company dedicated to educating and connecting both cannabis companies and nonprofits. “We appreciate companies like WeedLife.com helping us to get the word out.”

A CBD treatment for epilepsy is closer to becoming the first cannabis medicine approved for the U.S. market. A panel of government health advisers gave a unanimous recommendation Thursday to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve Epidiolex, a CBD medicine for rare epilepsy conditions that don’t respond to other drugs. The panel voted […]

FDA advisory panel gives thumbs-up to CBD epilepsy treatment is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Several potential rival presidential candidates are teaming up on legislation to end the federal war on marijuana.

On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is signing on as a co-sponsor of the Marijuana Justice Act, introduced last year by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).

Many political observers expect that Booker and Sanders will compete for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), another rumored contender, is also a co-sponsor of the bill.

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Tom Angell ~ Forbes.com ~ 

It’s shaping up to be a watershed summer for the cannabis industry with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration poised to approve the first drug made from the plant.

The agency's impending decision on Epidiolex, an epilepsy treatment made of CBD extracted from cannabis flower, could upend decades of government insistence that the plant has no medicinal value.

Here’s how the FDA’s review of epilepsy drug could affect CBD companies is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Polish CBD maker HemPoland said its CannabiGold brand will go into distribution in Germany beginning May 1. The company worked with Pharma-Zentrale, a German pharma group, to get the product officially registered. CannabiGold will go on sale in May under an agreement with online retailer mein-cbd.de.

The companies announced the German launch during the recently held International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin.

CannabiGold products are produced via CO2 extraction from 100% natural raw materials in a fully managed seed-to-shelf production process. The company operates an on-site laboratory where it does constant analysis to ensure highest standards and quality.

HemPoland already has distribution in the UK through reseller Quintessential Tips, and in Holland through Smart & Zo.

The post Polish CBD maker entering German market May 1 appeared first on HempToday.

New legislation released Tuesday would dump the Department of Veterans Affairs’ excuse for not better researching the possible benefits of cannabis for suffering veterans, a move that could have wide-ranging ramifications for the nationwide legalization of medical marijuana.

The bill — dubbed the VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act of 2018 — has the support of the top Republican and Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and other key lawmakers.

It would not only clarify that VA has the authority to research cannabis, but require regular reports from department leaders on how seriously they are taking that responsibility.

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Leo Shane III ~ MilitaryTimes.com ~ 

The new U.S. 2018 Farm Bill that would free states to guide hemp programs – allowing them to expand – is reportedly “fast tracked,” but proponents still can’t say if the measure will get consideration by the USA’s upper congressional body any time soon.

The office of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who recently introduced the bill, said this week it was unclear when – or even if – the Senate would vote on the measure.

While the Act bypassed the Senate’s committee process via a procedural move and is “on the Senate calendar,” it’s still not guaranteed to get a hearing, McConnell’s office noted.

Technically, the bill would allow hemp to be sold as an agricultural commodity, removing it from the federal drug list. U.S. states currently administer hemp cultivation under the thumb of federal authorities. The new Act would turn the programs fully over to the states.

Meanwhile U.S. President Donald Trump has said his administration will lift a crackdown on states that have legalized marijuana – enveloping hemp as well. Trump made that announcement following talks with hemp-state advocates, undercutting a January policy announcement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that had eased federal enforcement of marijuana laws and giving federal prosecutors wide latitude to pursue criminal charges.

Hemp nutrition and the benefits of CBD are among a wide range of hemp-related topics on the schedule for this year’s Expocáñamo, which marks its fourth edition Friday-Sunday, May 11-13, 2018 in Seville. A special Industrial Hemp Forum set for Sunday has been expanded this year.

Spanish stakeholders will turn their attention to the role of women in the cannabis sector on the opening day. Attorney and cannabis industry consultant Raquel Galiano will address that topic during a Friday session.

Also on Friday, Patricia Amiguet of Red Estatal de Mujeres Antiprohibicionistas (REMA) (the State Network of Women Anti-Prohibitionists) will moderate a panel featuring leading cannabis activist Fernanda de la Figuera; Libertad Peñalosa of Comisión de Estudio para la Regulación del Cannabis en Andalucía (CERCA) (The Study Commission for the Regulation of Cannabis in Andalusia); and Elisabeth Céspedes of the Sevillian company Mariadelajuana. Discussion will trace the women’s experiences in the industry and how the sector has evolved in terms of integration and equality.

Looking for fair regulations

Opening Saturday’s program, Bernardo Soriano, of the Responsible Regulation platform will moderate a session among authorities from different Spanish political parties and explore costs linked to the prohibition of cannabis as well as strategies being undertaken by civil society to create fair regulations for both consumers and society as a whole.

Other speakers set for Saturday, May 12 include:

Across the United States — and among former professional athletes, especially — people are telling stories of how cannabis curtailed their epileptic seizures, helped manage their chronic pain, and gave them their lives back.

The bottle stared at Cullen Jenkins for two weeks untouched on his nightstand, and he stared back at it.

“I thought I was going to be high,” Jenkins says. “I thought I was going to be just tripping the same things as weed. But it wasn’t anything like that. It’s more of a mellow, calming, smooth feeling. I felt pretty good.”

Within just two months of trying Fresh Farms CBD Oil, Jenkins is already a cannabis evangelist. This past NFL season was his first out of football. 

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One of Congress’s leading proponents of marijuana law reform — a key Trump ally — announced he will soon be filing new legislation in line with the president’s pledge to support changing federal cannabis laws.

“I am extremely happy that President Trump has made perfectly clear that he meant his campaign promise to respect state laws with regard to marijuana. Now there should be no question in Attorney General Sessions’ mind about the president’s intention,” Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said in a press release.

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Tom Angell ~ MarijuanaMoment.net ~ 

He's going to call it 'Markle’s Sparkle'.

Meghan Markle’s nephew has revealed that he’s currently developing a special strain of cannabis to celebrate the upcoming royal wedding.

Tyler Dooley, grows cannabis in Oregon USA – which has been legal in the American state since 2015 – and now he is in the process of creating a new potent hybrid named “Markle’s Sparkle.”

The son of Markle’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr, Dooley boasts of his pride at being a “pioneer” in the marijuana business.

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