A Beginner’s Guide To Meditating With Cannabis

Cannabis can be a great accompaniment for any kind of meditation, as really all that involves is presence.

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Does Oregon’s Eviction Moratorium Apply To Cannabis Businesses?

On April 1, Governor Brown signed Executive Order 20-13, which imposed a temporary moratorium on evictions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

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3 Things To Know About A Second Stimulus Check

Want to know if a second stimulus check is on the way? How much you could be getting? And when? Here’s what you need to know.

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Marijuana is becoming something of a staple in the Mexican Congress, and not just when it comes to reform bills being considered. Actual cannabis products are regularly being exchanged, displayed and planted in and around legislative chambers as lawmakers work to legalize the plant.

On Wednesday, a top administration official was gifted a marijuana plant by senator, and she said she’d be making it a part of her personal garden.

Interior Ministry Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero said that by the time she plants the cannabis gift from Sen. Emilio Álvarez Icaza, she’ll be “fervently hoping that the law [to legalize cannabis] is already passed,” referring to reform legislation that the legislature has been working on the past couple years.

“The medicinal use of marijuana has been a revelation for the world, and second because hemp is industrially interesting from clothes, energy, paper, construction materials, stronger than any other construction material,” she said, according to a translation. “In other words, there is enormous potential with hemp and also the recreational use of marijuana, respecting the principle of the autonomy of the will and the free development of the person.”

Last year, a different lawmaker gave the Sánchez Cordero a marijuana joint on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies.

“I bring you a gift as a reminder of that proposal you made at the beginning, because that goes to be the way to help us build peace. Let’s regulate the use of drugs,” Deputy Ana Lucía Riojas Martínez said at the time.

Cannabis made another appearance in the legislature last month, when Sen. Jesusa Rodríguez of the ruling Morena party decorated her desk with a marijuana plant.

Drug policy reform advocates have also been cultivating hundreds of marijuana plants in front of the Senate, putting pressure on legislators to make good on their pledge to advance legalization.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently said that marijuana reform legislation will advance in the new session.

A legalization bill was approved by several committees earlier this year, but the reform effort has been stalled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The nation’s Supreme Court—which deemed the country’s prohibition on personal possession and cultivation unconstitutional in 2018—is currently giving lawmakers until December 15 to enact the policy change.

The legalization bill that’s set to advance this coming session was revised during a joint meeting of the Justice, Health, Legislative Studies and Public Safety Committees in March.

The proposal would allow adults 18 and older to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. Individuals could grow up to 20 registered plants as long as the total yield doesn’t exceed 480 grams per year. Medical patients could apply to cultivate more than 20 plants, however.

Personal possession would be capped at 28 grams, but possession of up to 200 grams would be decriminalized.

The Mexican Institute of Regulation and Control of Cannabis, a decentralized body established under the measure, would be established and responsible for regulating the market and issuing licenses for marijuana businesses.

The bill proposes a 12 percent tax on cannabis sales, with some revenue going toward a substance misuse treatment fund.

Public consumption would be permissible, except in spaces designated as 100 percent smoke-free. Hemp and CBD would be exempt from regulations that apply to THC products.

An earlier version of the legislation was approved by Senate committees last year ahead of the court’s previous October deadline.

Sen. Julio Ramón Menchaca Salazar, also of the Morena party, said in April that while legislators must still resolve certain disagreements about the legislation, legalizing cannabis could fill treasury coffers at a time when the economy is recovering from the pandemic.

While advocates are eager to enact reform, they’ve also raised several concerns with the legislation as drafted, particularly as it relates to restorative justice.

Zara Snapp, a legalization activist with the Instituto RIA and the coalition #RegulacionPorLaPaz, told Marijuana Moment on Friday that while it’s “concerning” that committees haven’t yet scheduled time to take the legalization bill back up, she’s had conversations with senators from all political parties and “they all tell me this will happen this legislative session.”

“We’re going to take them at their word that they will be approving this in the next two to three months,” she said.

This article has been republished from Marijuana Moment under a content-sharing agreement. Read the original article here.

Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

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Kate Middleton Has Been Down-Low Breaking This Royal Rule For Years

It may not seem like a bid deal, but royal protocol usually frowns on such things.

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Does Demi Lovato Smoke Weed?

Demi Lovato is making headlines for ending her (very short) engagement. Is she turning to weed to help her cope with her quarantine breakup?

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is releasing new draft guidelines that are meant to streamline approvals for generic oral CBD medications.

In a notice published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, the agency said it is soliciting public feedback on its guidance to researchers who are interested in submitting abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) for CBD solutions.

To expedite the approval process, FDA said applicants can request a waiver of an in vivo bioequivalence study if they meet certain requirements. This guidance comes two years after the agency approved the brand-name CBD-based epilepsy medication Epidiolex from GW Pharmaceuticals.

Going forward, if a drug company wants to produce generic versions of that 100 mg/mL cannabidiol solution, they could follow specific rules to skip the in vivo bioequivalence study step if the draft guidance is finalized. The drug would have to be derived from Cannabis sativa L, contain no more than 0.1 percent THC and have “no inactive ingredient or other change in formulation from the [reference listed drug] that may significantly affect systemic availability.”

Researchers must use “appropriate analytical methods” such as macroscopic or microscopic analysis or DNA bar-coding methods to determine that the solution is being made from cannabis sativa.

“Due to the many cultivars within this species, identification and authentication of plant species should be conducted at the cultivar(s) level if the potential cultivar(s) will be used as a natural source of the [botanical raw material],” FDA said.

Further, when collecting that raw cannabis, the agency said applicants must follow “established good agricultural and collection practices (GACP) procedures to minimize variations in BRM and eventually ensure the batch-to-batch consistency of the drug substance.”

A public comment period on FDA’s draft guidance will last until November 23. FDA also recently closed a comment period on separate draft guidance on developing cannabis-derived medications. However, three other federal agencies are currently accepting input on a variety of other proposed cannabis- and drug-related regulations.

While this latest document isn’t the separate comprehensive CBD guidance that advocates and industry stakeholders have been waiting for, it’s another example of how the scientific landscape around cannabis is changing, with a federal agency helping to facilitate the production of cannabidiol-based drugs.

Separately, FDA announced on Tuesday that it will be hosting a public meeting in November to discuss gender and sex differences in the effects of CBD and other cannabinoids.

The agency also recently held a meeting to help inform cannabis researchers and cultivators about opportunities to protect their proprietary information and promote studies into the plant.

It also recently submitted draft guidance on CBD enforcement to the White House Office of Management and Budget—a long-anticipated move that comes after hemp legalization.

The agency was mandated under appropriations legislation enacted late last year to provide an update on its regulatory approach to CBD, and it did so in March. The update stated that “FDA is currently evaluating issuance of a risk-based enforcement policy that would provide greater transparency and clarity regarding factors FDA intends to take into account in prioritizing enforcement decisions.”

FDA has been using enforcement discretion for CBD in the years since hemp became legal.

The agency has continued to issue warnings to cannabis businesses in certain cases—such as instances in which companies claimed CBD could treat or cure coronavirus—and provide public notices about recalls.

In July, FDA also submitted a report to Congress on the state of the CBD marketplace, and the document outlines studies the agency has performed on the contents and quality of cannabis-derived products that it has tested over the past six years.

Also that month, a congressional spending bill for FDA was released that includes a provision providing “funding to develop a framework for regulating CBD products.”

The agency is also actively looking to award a contract to help study CBD as the agency develops regulations for products containing the non-intoxicating cannabinoid.

Read FDA’s draft guidance on developing CBD medications below: 

FDA CBD guidance by Marijuana Moment

This article has been republished from Marijuana Moment under a content-sharing agreement. Read the original article here.

Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

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Why Tommy Chong, At Age 82, Is The Reigning Cannabis Legend

The Canadian actor, who rose to fame as part of the Grammy-winning comedy duo Cheech and Chong, is more active than ever.

The post Why Tommy Chong, At Age 82, Is The Reigning Cannabis Legend appeared first on The Fresh Toast.

California announced this week that grant applications are now available to promote public health and economic justice for communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs. And those grants are being funded by legal marijuana tax revenue.

The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development said the California Community Reinvestment Grants (CalCRG) program is meant to give eligible health departments and community-based nonprofit organizations resources to support “job placement, mental health treatment, substance use disorder treatment, system navigation services, legal services to address barriers to reentry, and linkages to medical care for communities disproportionately affected by past federal and state drug policies, also known as the War on Drugs (WoD).”

“The mission of the CalCRG program is to advance health, wellness, and economic justice for populations and communities harmed by the WoD,” the solicitation says.

The state also described the guiding principles of the grant program: 

• Responsive to and focused on populations and communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.
• Grounded in science and data, while being receptive to emerging and innovative approaches.
• Advancing whole person, trauma-informed care.
• Accountable to taxpayers and stakeholders.

Marijuana excise and cultivation taxes are funding the program. For the 2020-2021 fiscal year, $30 million in grants will be made available. That will increase to $40 million for 2021-2022 and then $50 million for 2022-2023. It will remain at $50 million for subsequent years. Last year, the program made its first round of awards, amounting to $9.6 million in support for 69 separate grantees.

The online portal to submit an application for this year’s grant round will open September 28 and close November 2.

The drug war “has disproportionately impacted communities of color, particularly low income African American/Black and Latino/Hispanic populations,” the solicitation says, detailing how people use and sell cannabis at similar rates across racial lines but that “African American/Black and Latino/Hispanic individuals have historically been arrested more frequently for marijuana violations.”

“Harsh federal and state drug policies enacted during the WoD led to the mass incarceration of people of color, decreased access to social services, loss of educational attainment due to diminished federal financial aid eligibility, prohibitions on the use of public housing and other public assistance, and the separation of families,” the document says. “Individuals from populations and communities in California that were disproportionately impacted by the WoD represent the CalCRG program priority populations. The CalCRG program aims to be a resource to address and repair the multi-generational impacts of the WoD.”

The same office behind this grant program also announced in April that it would be providing $30 million in funding for cannabis entrepreneurs from communities disproportionately impacted by the drug war.

As more states legalize cannabis, there’s been increased interest in ensuring that tax revenue from the market helps promote social equity for people from communities targeted by prohibition’s enforcement.

In May, for example, Illinois announced that it was distributing $31.5 million in restorative justice grants funded by marijuana taxes. The funds are designated for community assessment and planning initiatives as well as service delivery for those in economically distressed areas.

Meanwhile, local jurisdictions are also considering ways to revise where cannabis tax dollars should go.

A new budget proposal released in King County, Washington this week would shift $4.6 million in cannabis tax revenue away from the sheriff’s department and instead use the funds to vacate prior convictions for marijuana, among other programs.

In June, the Portland City Council approved an amendment to a proposed budget that would divest cannabis funds from the city’s police department.

This article has been republished from Marijuana Moment under a content-sharing agreement. Read the original article here.

Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

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How To Turn Down Invitations During COVID Without Being Awkward

An unexpected challenge of the pandemic has been the urge of wanting to take care of our health while still being polite to our friends.

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