Tag Archives: marijuana

Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, Legal News

Legal Weed Is Hurting Beer Sales

It would appear that citizens of states with legal marijuana are switching out their beers for joints: A study from research firm Cowen & Company into the beer industries of Washington, Oregon, and Colorado asserts that those states’ beer industries are “underperforming.”

Craft beer industry news site BrewBound has some of the report’s details. “Domestic brewers” (that is, Big Beer) have seen the largest drops, with so-called premium brews (Coors Light, Bud Light) going down 4.4 percent in terms of the volume being sold. Economy brews (the regular, “non-fancy” forms of mainstream beers such as Budweiser or Coors) fell 2.4 percent.

Craft beer isn’t totally immune. The report suggests craft beer continues to grow in these three states (all of which are known for their robust microbrewing scenes), but those smaller breweries aren’t doing as well as their peers in other parts of the nation. However, the U.S. craft brewing scene was already slowing down, so that’s not entirely the fault of cannabis.

The epicenter of this trading-beer-for-weed phenomenon has been Denver, where beer volumes dropped by 6.4 percent Strangely, the report notes that import beers are relatively unaffected, indicating that lighting up a joint and drinking a Corona may be a more popular pastime.

Since only three states were studied this perhaps isn’t the most definitive look into the trend — but as marijuana goes on sale in several more states in the near future, there will be plenty of opportunities to see what legal weed might do to the beer industry.

sourced from – http://www.eater.com/2016/12/5/13847656/legal-pot-beer-sales-down

Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, International, Legal News

Canada’s Top Pharmacy Chain Wants to Sell Medical Marijuana

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Canada’s biggest pharmacy chain is hoping to be the first in the country to sell legal medical marijuana over the counter. Shoppers Drug Mart has confirmed that it applied to the Canadian government earlier this year to become a licensed medical marijuana distributer.

In email statement Tuesday, Shoppers Drug Mart spokeswoman Tammy Smitham confirmed the news adding, “We have no intention of producing medical marijuana, but we do want the ability to dispense medical marijuana to our patients in conjunction with counseling from a pharmacist.”

Under Canadian federal law, patients with prescriptions are only able to purchase medical marijuana directly from one of a few dozen licensed producers. Producers are required to securely ship pot directly to the patient by mail order only.

“We believe that allowing medical marijuana to be dispensed through pharmacy would increase access, safety, quality and security for the thousands of Canadians who use the drug as part of their medication therapy,” explained Smitham. “We are hoping that the Government of Canada will revise the current regulations to allow for the dispensing of medical marijuana at pharmacy.”

Canada currently has an exceptionally large number of medical marijuana users; experts estimate that there are approximately 80,000 to 90,000 registered marijuana patients in the country.

In August, the Canadian Pharmacist Association argued in favor of clinical oversight from pharmacists to minimize harms associated with use of all forms of marijuana in its submission to the federal task force studying marijuana legalization and regulation.

Full Article – http://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/cannabis-in-america/canadas-top-pharmacy-chain-wants-sell-medical-marijuana/

Blog, Business Law, Drug Companies, Legal News

Celebrity Mad Dash to Supply Legal Grass

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In the race to capitalize on America’s expanding legal cannabis industry, launch parties to premiere celebrity pot products have become de rigueur. Last November, Snoop Dogg debuted his Leafs by Snoop line at a Denver soiree, and on Feb. 6, which would have been Bob Marley’s 71st birthday, his son Rohan was in Los Angeles, where a high-end party launched Marley Natural strains and concentrates, now available at several SoCal med shops.

It’s just the tip of the celeb-pot iceberg. Tommy Chong’s Choice brand of buds began circulating in Washington State adult-use stores in January; a day after the Marley Natural bash, Chong was at the High Times SoCal Medical Cannabis Cup in San Bernardino promoting the new brand with an arcade-style crane machine filled with fat green nugs.

Just a week earlier, it was Wiz Khalifa’s turn to let the world know that he, too, is making a Green Rush move with his Khalifa Kush strain and other products to be grown and sold in RiverRock’s two Denver locations. In a press release, Khalifa stated: “These products have taken years to perfect. I’m really excited to share them with the public and to work with RiverRock to raise awareness and end marijuana prohibition nationwide.”

Khalifa has also extended his existing partnership with RAW to include new versions of his branded Khalifa cones and papers, and other merchandise. “He just really, really liked RAW ,” the company’s Founding Director, Joshua Kesselman, tells Freedom Leaf. “The relationship grew until one day it was time to turn it into an actual joint venture.”

Partnerships abound in the brave new world of legal cannabis. The Marley family has partnered with Privateer Holdings; and Willie Nelson has received investment support from Tuatara Capital for his Willie’s Reserve product line, which launched over the sumer on Colorado and Washington State

Singer Melissa Etheridge is also getting into the cannabiz with her private-label, weed-infused red wine, created for Greenway Cannabis Relief in Santa Cruz, Calif. by Lisa Molyneux (see Freedom Leaf Issue 5); the bottles are currently only available to members of the medical marijuana collective. At the Women Grow Summit in Denver in February, Etheridge told the crowd: “It’s time for us to run that business with the knowledge of health and wellness, and also the other energy of capitalism. We’ll show that it can work.”

Just this month, Etheridge announced that she would be starting Etheridge Farms, her own brand cannabis products, including topicals, edibles and flowers. The same goes for Whoopi Goldberg, who’s line, Whoopi and Maya caters especially to women. And Montel Williams’ LenitivLabs will focus on extracts and new delivery systems.

Several celebs are looking to get in on the retail cannabis boom. As we reported in Issue 11 (“Pot Shop Owner B-Real Talks Medical Marijuana”), rapper B-Real won a license in 2015 to open a shop in Santa Ana, Calif. He’ll be competing with Roseanne Barr, who’s invested in another Santa Ana store. However, in Hawaii, noted actor and hempster Woody Harrelson was rejected when he applied for a license to operate two dispensaries and two cultivation facilities on Oahu.

Blog, Criminal, Legal News

Glendale police arrest 3 teens in shooting death of Phoenix 18-year-old

, The Republic | azcentral.com7:15 p.m. MST July 5, 2016

Glendale police arrested three teens in the shooting death of 18-year-old Phoenix man Brenner “Justin” Anderson in what investigators described as a drug robbery turned deadly.

Police said Tuesday that Salem Ornelas and Talmontrai Taylor, both 18, and a 17-year-old girl were arrested over the weekend on suspicion of murder.

Police said that Anderson planned to meet and sell marijuana to a girl on June 29 at an apartment complex near Glendale and 43rd avenues. During the planned deal, police said Anderson was shot. He was pronounced dead the following day at a West Valley hospital.

Anderson’s friend told police that Anderson had arranged via Facebook to sell a half-ounce of marijuana to the female suspect, according to court documents.

While on the way to make the deal, Anderson told his friend that the female suspect would be at the location with her pregnant sister, according to court documents.

When Anderson and his friend arrived at the apartment complex, the friend saw a male and a female standing in the parking lot. Anderson got out of the vehicle to greet the suspects and Anderson’s friend offered to give the suspects a ride to an ATM machine to pay for the marijuana, according to court documents.

Court documents indicate that as Anderson entered the rear driver’s side of the vehicle, a male suspect pulled a tan-colored backpack from the vehicle that contained the marijuana. After the suspect took the bag and Anderson had entered the backseat, Anderson’s friend told investigators he heard multiple gunshots. The friend discovered Anderson had been shot and drove him to a nearby hospital, according to court documents.

Investigators used social media to identify the 17-year-old female suspect, who was located in the same vicinity of the shooting, according to court documents.

Detectives performed surveillance of the apartment complex and later obtained a search warrant before arresting the three suspects.

Ornelas and Taylor were booked at a Maricopa County jail and the female suspect was booked at Durango Juvenile Court.

 Full Article – http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2016/07/05/glendale-police-arrest-3-teens-shooting-death-phoenix-18-year-old/86728648/
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Study: There’s no scientific basis for laws regulating marijuana and driving

WASHINGTON (AP) — Six states that allow marijuana use legal tests to determine driving while impaired by the drug that have no scientific basis, according to a study by the nation’s largest automobile club that calls for scrapping those laws.

The study commissioned by AAA’s safety foundation said it’s not possible to set a blood-test threshold for THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high, that can reliably determine impairment.

Yet the laws in five of the six states automatically presume a driver guilty if that person tests higher than the limit, and not guilty if it’s lower.

As a result, drivers who are unsafe may be going free while others may be wrongly convicted, the foundation said.

The foundation recommends replacing the laws with ones that rely on specially trained police officers to determine if a driver is impaired, backed up by a test for the presence of THC rather than a specific threshold. The officers are supposed to screen for dozens of indicators of drug use, from pupil dilation and tongue color to behavior.

The foundation’s recommendation to scrap the laws in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington comes as legislatures in several more states consider adopting similar laws.

At least three states, and possibly as many as eleven, will vote this fall on ballot measures to legalize marijuana for either recreational or medicinal use, or both. Several legislatures are also considering legalization bills.

“There is understandably a strong desire by both lawmakers and the public to create legal limits for marijuana impairment in the same manner we do alcohol,” said Marshall Doney, AAA’s president and CEO. “In the case of marijuana, this approach is flawed and not supported by scientific research.”

Determining whether someone is impaired by marijuana, as opposed to having simply used the drug at some time, is far more complex than the simple and reliable tests that have been developed for alcohol impairment.

There’s no science that shows drivers become impaired at a specific level of THC in the blood. A lot depends upon the individual. Drivers with relatively high levels of THC in their systems might not be impaired, especially if they are regular users, while others with relatively low levels may be unsafe behind the wheel.

Full Article – http://www.businessinsider.com/study-theres-no-scientific-basis-for-laws-regulating-marijuana-and-driving-2016-5