Germany Approves Cannabis Reform Plan: Possession Legal April 1

The German government last week adopted a bill to end the prohibition of cannabis for adults that will make possession and home cultivation of weed legal in Europe’s most populous nation as of April 1. The legislation, which also allows for the establishment of cannabis clubs, was given final approval on Friday in the Bundesrat, Germany’s legislative chamber representing the country’s 16 federal states. The bill has already been approved by the second chamber of parliament known as the Bundestag, which voted to pass the legislation late last month.

Under the limited legalization bill known as CanG, adults aged 18 and up will be permitted to possess up to 25 grams of marijuana and store up to 50 grams of weed at home beginning on April 1. The measure also permits adults to grow as many as three cannabis plants at their residences. 

On July 1, Germany’s weed legalization plan will begin permitting non-commercial cannabis clubs, where members will have access to legally cultivated marijuana. Each cannabis club will be limited to no more than 500 members. The legislation does not include provisions that allow for-profit recreational marijuana producers or retailers.

“The fight was worth it,” Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, according to a translation from Politico. “Please use the new option responsibly.”

“Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the black market today,” he added.

Before Friday’s vote, the leaders of several federal states called for a mediation committee to be convened to resolve disputes over the legislation with the Bundestag. Had the mediation committee been called, enactment of the cannabis legalization plan would have been delayed, likely by about six months.

The states raised concerns about an amnesty provision in the law that requires judicial review of tens of thousands of past cannabis cases, fearing the process would overwhelm the courts. Some also criticized the maximum cannabis possession amount as too high and called for weed prohibition zones near schools and kindergartens.

A motion to convene a mediation committee was offered but did not gain the number of votes needed for approval. The Bundesrat then voted to approve the plan to legalize cannabis in Germany, which will join Malta and Switzerland in the small group of European nations that have approved limited cannabis legalization plans.

Niklas Kouparanis, the CEO and co-founder of Frankfurt-based medical cannabis company Bloomwell Group, says that the legalization of adult-use cannabis in Germany will also have a significant impact on the nation’s existing medical marijuana industry. While there are now an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 medical cannabis patients in Germany, Kouparanis says that number is likely to increase by as much as 10 times when reclassification goes into effect.

“While it will probably take some time before the first licensed clubs – permitted under the new law – produce significant amounts of recreational cannabis, the CanG is the best news for the German medical cannabis industry since the ‘Cannabis as Medicine’ law passed in March 2017,” Kouparanis wrote in a statement to High Times.

“Starting April 1st, medical cannabis will no longer be classified as a narcotic, and can now be prescribed by physicians as a completely ‘normal’ Rx, such as antibiotics or high-dose ibuprofen,” he added. “This reclassification significantly reduces costs and other administrative burdens to access–from cultivation to further processing and distribution, to storage to dispensing in the pharmacy.”

The limited cannabis legalization bill adopted on Friday is considered the “first pillar” of Germany’s cannabis policy reforms, Politico reports. The “second pillar” is expected after the decriminalization plan is in effect, and will consist of five-year municipal pilot programs for state-regulated cannabis to be sold at licensed retailers.

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Going Rogue

If you’ve ever driven from California to Oregon by way of Interstate 5, it’s likely that you’ve passed right by the Rogue Valley. This region of southern Oregon, comprised of the two bordering Josephine and Jackson counties, is home to the Rogue River, a 215-mile waterway that moves westward until it hits the coast. Unlike more prominent areas of the Pacific Northwest, such as Portland, Oregon, or almost all of Washington state, southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley has a unique climate perfect for farming.

Jessica Clements, founder of Güd Gardens, has been cultivating cannabis in Oregon since 2010.

“This little pocket that I’m in on the Rogue River, just outside of Grants Pass, is a small mini valley of flat, arable land, all irrigated by the Rogue River,” Clements says. “When I found the property, I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘This is insane. This is everything I wanted.’”

High Times Magazine, March 2024

The Emerald Triangle is known worldwide for its ideal growing conditions, but Clements believes that southern Oregon also shares that benefit.

“California gets all the clout for being, you know, some of the best climate to grow cannabis, but southern Oregon is this little pocket like microclimate, that is very similar to [Northern] California’s,” Clements says. “And so [when] you think of Oregon, you think Portland, Seattle, the Pacific Northwest, it’s just like rainy, and you know, kind of cool and dark in the winter. But we get incredible amounts of sunshine. In the summertime, we have a long growing season.”

Clements started by cultivating medical cannabis but immediately knew she wanted to move into recreational cannabis once voters approved Measure 91 in 2014. Recreational cultivation licenses in the state were granted starting in 2016, and in 2017, Clements applied for a license, was approved, and harvested her first crop all during the same year. Over five years later, Güd Gardens has expanded to include five farms.

Jessica Clements, Founder of Güd Gardens

The first Güd Gardens farm, also where Clements resides, includes 10,000 square feet of outdoor canopy, a greenhouse, and a 6,900-square-foot indoor facility.

“So this has kind of all the components that you would ever want for multiple growscapes in which we can do our breeding, our pheno hunting, and I do our year-round indoor cultivation here,” she explains of the primary farm, which she calls the “OG flagship farm.” “The greenhouse allows us to expand our nursery, and then we do some greenhouse [cultivation] in the summer and late fall and then the outdoors with the full sun, you know, one harvest a year outdoor.”

When Güd Gardens expanded to include additional farming properties, Clements focused exclusively on outdoor cultivation.

“I love indoor. I appreciate its place in the world, but like, my gosh, if you’re in southern Oregon growing indoors, that’s wild to me,” Clements says. “So when I built the other farms, they’re full-sun outdoors, so each of them is like the maximum canopy limit, which is [one] square acre of just full sun outdoor.”

With a total of 4.5 acres of outdoor canopy to work with (a half-acre on the flagship farm, plus one acre for each of the other farms), Güd Gardens has managed to establish a massive presence in Oregon. Clements says that 2023’s growing menu consisted of a whopping 173 different cultivars. In addition, Güd Gardens merged with a local extract company called Higher Cultures in 2021. Approximately half of Güd Gardens’s harvests are freshly frozen and used to make everything from distillates to live resin batter for Higher Cultures products.

Runtz Buttons

Güd Gardens’s extensive selection of cultivars showcases a wide variety of strains bred by famous breeders like Exotic Genetix and 3rd Coast Genetics and local breeders like StaeFli Farms.

Güd Gardens grows both through seeds and clones. When considering which strains to grow, Clements says that it comes down to two things. First, she wants to retain a varied selection of sativa, indica, and hybrid products.

“While I hate it from a cultivation standpoint, the taxonomy of sativa/indica/hybrid, there’s a lot of problems with that, but it is kind of what we all agreed upon as like how we’re going to qualify, you know, the effects of the products right now that we’re selling and that people are buying,” Clements says.

More importantly, though, she wants to see Güd Gardens continue to offer a diverse selection of flavor profiles, especially when pursuing a variation in concentrate selection.

“If you’re going into the sativa realm, you’re gonna get a lot of citruses. You know, there’s a lot of those like brighter, lemony/piney experiences, but we like to find unique cultivars that express differently, right?” Clements says. “We don’t want a sativa library that’s all lemon, or, you know, all pineapple or all Tangie. We’re looking for some diversity within that.”

Every few months, Güd Gardens focuses on hunting for new and exciting genetics to add and experiment with. Its most recent hunt included gear from Countree Grammer and Big Papa from Skunk House Genetics, Dad Breath from Masonic Seed Co., Deep V from Thug Pug Genetics, and PermZ from Lost In Translation (LIT) Farms, among many others.

Cultivation Manager Adam tends to Red Queen.

The Güd Gardens team has also spent the last few years experimenting with their own internal breeding program. Clements says they started building the program between 2021 and 2022 using southern Oregon staples like Purple Hindu Kush, Jager, and Lemon Sour Diesel. However, their in-house breeding portfolio has expanded to include a few interesting results.

Warp Speed (Galactic Runtz x Runtz Buttons) was the first to be announced online from this breeding program. Clements explains that Warp Speed has been “wildly popular.”

“We chose to share pollen from Galactic Runtz with several receivers; this offspring was a clear winner,” Güd Gardens announced online last summer. “This gorgeous plant has reflective trichomes and an ultra-gassy, chemical-rich, nose-wrinkling scent. It finishes with a sweet fruity flavor that makes this one of the more dynamic and highly potent experiences from our garden.”

Likewise, another in-house bred cultivar, Elon’s Yacht (Galactic Runtz x Tropical Fusion), which features a musky, men’s cologne aroma, was another surprise winner with Oregon consumers. That one was turned into rosin and BHO by Higher Cultures.

“A seriously divine cross of tropical terpenes and ultra-gassy skunk combine to create a bright green mature flower with a sweet flavor and the familiar gas of the classic Galactic,” Güd Gardens says on Instagram. “Perhaps the most notable quality of this genetic is its ability to create high-yielding and mouth-watering rosin.”

Sour Plums offers a diverse display of colors and flavors.

Clements recalls that one surprising cultivar creation came in the form of a plant strongly reminiscent of turkey gravy, so the team aptly named it Gravy (Tropicana Punch x Point Break).

“There’s still these unique profiles presenting themselves, and I think that’s what a lot of the really interesting breeders are chasing too,” Clements says.

Ultimately, Clements thinks that over the past five years or so, consumers have become overwhelmed with a wide variety of new strains whose flavor profiles and qualities are very similar to classic strains.

“I’ll tell you what, Purple Hindu Kush in southern Oregon, it’s like people come back to that. And the Blue Dream? People are coming back to that now,” Clements says. “I think everyone got kind of hit over the head with all the new stuff, and those [classics] sell great too. We put a Blue Dream cart out, we put Blue Dream in a bag and sell the flower, and we can’t keep it in stock.”

Güd Gardens has found a sweet spot for cultivating unique cannabis in the Rogue Valley, but there’s even more to look forward to soon. Earlier in 2023, Higher Cultures began selling extracts in New Mexico, and Clements is making plans to check out property to expand Güd Gardens into the Land of Enchantment next.

This article was originally published in the March 2024 issue of High Times Magazine.

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Bruno Worldwide

Over the last few years, the world of professional joint rollers has exploded with Bruno Van Holland right amongst the front of the pack.

Best known as simply Bruno, Van Holland’s attempt to elevate the live rolling experience with his always dapper haircut, tuxedo vest, and giant smile has endeared him to the cannabis world. And I mean that in the most literal sense as I’ve personally accompanied him to the Canary Islands and Denmark, not to mention all of our domestic adventures. Everywhere we’ve been, folks were quick to pull out their phones to catch a shot of Bruno in action.

And it’s not just a personality thing. Bruno’s rolls are top-class, be it regular joints or hash holes. He’s also pulled the whole rolling team he’s assembled up to a high level. As we jumped on a call with Bruno to chat about his adventures, he immediately noted that he and the team were in prep mode for two events that night.

High Times Magazine, March 2024

Things have gotten action-packed since his return to his home in California from South Korea in 2020. While overseas he used his Cali growing experience to help some friends get set up. Just after that South Korea trip, he spent a month in Cuba touring tobacco plantations. There he watched how the experts roll.

“And then right before that, I had just spent six months in Korea growing basically like the largest indoor facility in Seoul, Korea,” Bruno told High Times. “I was growing for six months in Korea before I came back to the states. And that’s how I got my story. That’s where I met my wife. I was showing the people in Korea how to grow California weed and smoke like we do. It was definitely an experience that got me started on thinking international because Korea was my first time out of the country.”

Bruno points to a gig he got with Hash and Flowers in the summer of 2021 as the moment everything changed for him. He argues that the full-ounce hash hole stuffed with 8 grams of rosin put him on the map in the first place. That was also when he knew he had to figure out how to do this full-time.

“The Delta Boys hit me up and said we would like to do a roll. We’d like to have your roll in our stores. They need a roller and they would like to do a collab with me,” Bruno said. “They had me roll 2,000 joints by myself.”

The ball kept rolling as more and more people got wind of what Bruno was up to. He quickly became a regular on the California scene. Whether it was a sesh, party, or big industry event like Hall of Flowers, you could expect to see that staple bow tie and vest. Eventually, he would pair up with one of his favorite rollers, Grasshoppa, and the duo would turn the live experience into Luxe Roll Bar. Bruno called Grasshoppa a major inspiration for his live rolling events.

Bruno’s first dabblings into international rolling activities were pretty basic as he coached his fans worldwide on how to do a better job with their rolls.

Going Abroad

Bruno would get the call to travel to the Canary Islands to judge the Canary Champions Cup in the spring of 2023. He was a hit with the locals and those who had made the short trip from Europe to enjoy the sun, hash, and flowers.

“We absolutely loved having Bruno come through to the islands, one of the most charming and calm individuals to ever grace the industry,” the Champion’s Cup founder Lawrence told High Times. “He’s always on deck to roll up something special! The fact that his rolls are so well presented and he wears a tuxedo when in this flow state of paper wizardry just reconfirms we made an excellent choice to invite him out for the cup. We are so happy to see someone with talent like Bruno taking huge leaps towards their goals and still finding time to spend with the little guys.”

I was sitting next to Bruno at the judges table for two days as I watched a carousel of European hitters come up to watch him roll or chat it up. Bruno emphasized he was in shock that people knew who he was.

“That was amazing that anybody outside of my group of friends knew who I was, and that there were people that wanted to meet me and take a picture with me. That blew my mind,” Bruno said. “That just doesn’t happen to somebody that just rolls joints. I don’t know. But I feel like in that community, they were very welcoming. And they liked me. They liked what we’re doing here in California as far as rolling joints.”

But Bruno noted that people are looking for the upgraded experience that he’s offering.

“The bow tie and the whole classy look and bringing it into a wider audience like, this is fancy, this is really nice. It’s not just we’re just smoking pre-rolls, it’s something fancier,” Bruno explained.

Backstraps vs. Cali Cannons 

We asked Bruno what it’s been like comparing elite rolls around the world.

“Different areas in the world have different styles of rolling? Even here in America, I noticed that they’ll roll differently in different parts but the biggest difference, in California versus everywhere else in Europe, was the backstrap,” he said.

Bruno explained the backstrap is where, instead of sticking the gum line at the very end, you are rolling it with the paper upside down so that tuck is with the gum line and then there’s going to be an excess paper that’s folding off and you would have to rip that off or burn it off. This common European method creates less paper that you’re burning and smoking.

Bruno went on to note, “Back here in California, we roll joints so big that we use all that paper and so it’s that. There’s a bit of a difference there.”

Another obvious giant difference for Bruno between the two sides of the Atlantic is that practically everyone in Europe is smoking spliffs, such as old-school Moroccan hash or flower paired with tobacco. A fun reaction you’ll see when traveling with Bruno is people seeing how big his joints are. He laughs at how shocked they are to discover it’s all flowers inside.

“Whenever they see one of my joints, their eyes get so big because they don’t smoke like that,” Bruno said. “They don’t have the amount and access to the flower.”

As for his favorite places to roll so far? Bruno has a deep love of sitting in front of Amsterdam coffeeshops and rolling up as he looks at the canals.

Other Rolling Scenes Catching Up to West Coast

Currently, California is the epicenter of the elite rolling scene. A lot of the biggest rollers in the game call the Golden State home just like Bruno. We asked if any other locations seemed to be catching up in his travels.

“I knew that Michigan has a lot of really good rollers,” Bruno replied. “If not for California, Michigan has the best rollers in the United States.”

Bruno noted next when it came to speed, Amsterdam had some of the fastest rollers he’d seen. He further argued Amsterdam is where there should be more famous rollers.

“I’m surprised that in Amsterdam, they don’t have the live rolling like we do here,” he said.

He feels that everybody there rolls their joints, so they don’t see it as needing somebody to roll for them.

“But I think that they’re going to have live rolling and it’s going to be more centered around somebody like a chef that makes these joints or that’s the roller there in that coffeeshop,” Bruno predicted. “[People will say] ‘Oh, you have to get his rolls, they’re the best.’ I think that that’s the spot where people are going to start finding legendary rollers.”

Normalization and Subpar Rolls

When asked about his favorite rollers of the moment, he quickly pointed to Weavers, June Da Goon, and his good friend Grasshoppa.

Bruno sees himself and his peers as rollers and the top tier rollers being the bartenders of parties from now on instead of having bartenders be there. He argued that live rolling should be a part of more normalized aspects of society like movie theaters and sporting events.

But Bruno warned that it’s not all sunshine and perfect rolls. Every week he hears about a new professional roller.

“I’ve seen them come and go over the years,” Bruno said. “The ones that can stick around are the ones that have put in 10,000 rolls. The guys that have been here since the beginning. There’s a rolling community that will point out when it’s not good. And we know what the not good rolls look like.”

Bruno emphasized that everyone knows what’s going on and if a person is putting out subpar rolls and calling themselves a professional, they make all professional rollers look bad.

“And being an active member of the community, you have to point that out. It’s like hey, [you] can’t call that a professional roll when it’s not a professional roll,” Bruno said. “There should be some guidelines or some approval like who said it? I don’t know I sometimes…I just get upset when I see that.”

The Hash Hole’s Impact

The conversation turned to how critical the hash hole has been in the international rise of the professional roller. Bruno said that the rise of Fidel’s Hash Holes changed everything, and that wave of popularity has been paying his rent for the last three years plus all the other niche jobs it created for the community.

As for where Bruno is heading next, he is setting his sights on rolling in Thailand and New York.

This article was originally published in the March 2024 issue of High Times Magazine.

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Study Aims To Determine Role of Shrooms in Battling Alcoholism

A study based in Canada aims to shed light on the potential for psilocybin’s role in battling the beast that is alcohol addiction. Researchers associated with the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada started to recruit 128 patients to embark on the largest single-site trial of its kind in Canada to find out.

Psilocybin will be sourced from mushrooms by Burnaby, British Columbia-based Filament Health, by workers who extract psilocybin and put it into capsule form. The trials earned an exemption from Health Canada in order to use a controlled drug that remains illegal at the federal level.

The current system isn’t working: About 70% of individuals struggling with alcoholism will relapse at some point, and furthermore, the percentage of alcoholics who recover and stay sober is about 35.9%, or around one-third. (The good news is the longer an individual is sober, his or her chances of full sobriety skyrocket.) The fact of the matter is that family intervention simply doesn’t work statistically, and that forcing someone into rehabilitation rarely works—at least, not without an alternative approach.

The Calgary Herald reports that the goal is to determine if administering psilocybin will enhance the effect of psychotherapy sessions for those with alcohol use disorder (AUD). People have been exploring the role of shrooms in battling AUD since at least the 1960s, when the topic began appearing in books.

“What’s new is taking a scientific approach to demonstrate it has an impact,” said Dr. David Hodgins, a professor of clinical psychology at the U of C’s faculty of arts. “There are a lot of beliefs about what the possibilities are—it would be really nice to see the science there.”

Participants will undergo about an hour of psychotherapy, which would be followed by a psilocybin session lasting five to six hours, according to Dr. Leah Mayo, principal investigator and Parker Psychedelic Research chair at the Cumming School of Medicine.

“It’s what you’d think of a psychedelic trip—the visuals, the profound insights,” said Mayo, adding that patients would receive another psychotherapy session afterward. “It is going to be done in a very controlled environment with a trained therapist.”

Patients will undergo a total of 16 weeks of follow ups after their dosing session and researchers hope to have results by the end of the year.

“They can open up a therapeutic window of opportunity—the brain becomes more elastic, people are open and more receptive,” she said. “Cognitive flexibility is staying out of that rigid thinking and becoming more adaptable.”

The current approach, which isn’t working well, “is a more confrontational approach, this model (we’re using) avoids confrontation,” said Hodgson. “It’s a process that encourages a lot of self-reflection—if people identify and focus on the reasons they want to make changes in their lives, they’re much more likely to succeed.”

Researchers hope to create a standardized protocol that can be applied by other researchers and, perhaps eventually, be used on a larger scale to help people battling alcoholism.

It’s psilocybin’s power to increase cognitive flexibility that makes the compound so unique. Recent research suggests psilocybin can help with other conditions like treatment-resistant eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.

Psilocybin’s Role in Alcoholism

Last June, researchers announced what they said is the first randomized controlled trial examining psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for AUD, however that study only involved 13 participants.

A 2023 study published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors by the American Psychological Association on June 5, 2023 found that psilocybin can be an effective treatment for people with alcohol addiction.

Entitled “Reports of self-compassion and affect regulation in psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder: An interpretive phenomenological analysis,” the study was conducted by researchers from New York University and University of California, San Francisco, as well as a psychedelic integration and psychedelic-assisted therapy business called Fluence.

The study objective was to “delineate psychological mechanisms of change” for those who suffer from AUD.

“Participants reported that the psilocybin treatment helped them process emotions related to painful past events and helped promote states of self-compassion, self-awareness, and feelings of interconnectedness,” researchers stated. “The acute states during the psilocybin sessions were described as laying the foundation for developing more self-compassionate regulation of negative affect. Participants also described newfound feelings of belonging and an improved quality of relationships following the treatment.”

Based upon this evidence, researchers explained that psilocybin “increases the malleability of self-related processing, and diminishes shame-based and self-critical thought patterns while improving affect regulation and reducing alcohol cravings,” the authors concluded. “These findings suggest that psychosocial treatments that integrate self-compassion training with psychedelic therapy may serve as a useful tool for enhancing psychological outcomes in the treatment of AUD.”

The evidence is piling up and developments are underway to form a protocol for battling AUD with the help of psilocybin.

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source https://hightimes.com/study/study-aims-to-determine-role-of-shrooms-in-battling-alcoholism/

First Black Woman-Owned Dispensary Opens in Manhattan

Bliss + Lex is a Black woman-owned cannabis dispensary in Manhattan and its team says it’s the first dispensary of its kind to do so in a March 20 announcement. Licensed adult-use cannabis businesses are beginning to appear in New York City as they compete with unlicensed businesses. 

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pull up our own seat at the table in the cannabis industry. As entrepreneurs, we have a chance to create a legacy, change the trajectory of our family’s future and give back to the community in new ways,” said Nicole Lucien, co-Founder and CEO of Bliss + Lex, who is opening the dispensary with her husband, Christopher Lucien. “As a former New York City public school educator, my life has been dedicated to family and community, our careers in service, and now we are proud to share our passion for the plant.”

It is Manhattan’s first Black woman-owned dispensary and a Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) licensee. Bliss + Lex is the second retailer to open in collaboration with the Housing Works CAURD Community Initiative, which provides critical support for New York social-equity cannabis entrepreneurs.

The New York Cannabis Control Board (CCB) met on Feb. 16 and voted on a few new cannabis draft rules, including cultivation and research, and also announced the first round of adult-use licenses. The CCB approved a total of 109 licenses for the state, with 38 licenses that are retail-specific, and 26 that are microbusiness licenses. 

Currently, the only cannabis business license holders in the state were approved under the CAURD program, which were granted specifically to social equity applicants. While those business owners hold conditional licenses, the CCB’s most recent round of licenses are the first non-conditional licenses to be granted, meaning that they did not qualify as social equity applicants.

They benefited from a New York state program that prioritizes giving people with criminal histories the first retail licenses to sell cannabis in the state, as Nicole’s husband has a prior conviction.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think a cannabis conviction, that until now has created a barrier to jobs, housing, and acceptance, would be the key to this door of opportunity for myself and my family,” said Christopher Lucien, co-founder and COO. “I’ve always been driven to support the underdog in my work in nonprofits serving the homeless, and becoming a business owner is an invigorating way to help my community.”

“Housing Works is honored to work alongside and support the opening of Manhattan’s first Black woman-owned dispensary, Bliss + Lex, through our CAURD Community initiative,” said Sasha Nutgent, Director of Retail at Housing Works Cannabis Co. “This opening marks a big step forward in our efforts to build an equitable market here in New York. Nicole and Christopher represent exactly what NY’s adult-use market needs more of–mission-focused and dedicated to educating and building a fostering community–and we look forward to seeing and aiding the team’s success however they need.”

Nicole is the first Black woman in Manhattan to be awarded a coveted license to open a cannabis dispensary.

Her husband, also on the license, has a prior drug conviction. They benefited from a New York state program that prioritizes giving those with criminal histories the first retail licenses to sell marijuana.

Christopher Lucien, owner, said, “I have tried to start several businesses like my wife was saying home improvement construction, and because of my criminal background I was denied, even after 20 some odd years of a clean record there was never a chance where I had a second chance this was always been held against me.”

CCB chair Tremaine Wright spoke at a recent meeting, expressing his relief that the time has come to move forward with New York’s cannabis industry, beginning with social equity applicants. “This moment has been a long time in the making,” said Wright. “We assure you it only represents the beginning. The office has been diligently working to prepare as many applications as possible for consideration, and the board will continue to approve additional licenses at future board meetings.” He added that the CCB’s goal is to “tackle a number of the matters that we hope will help propel our industry forward.”

The 2,603 square-foot retail store aims to provide highly-individualized consumer experiences including, on-the-go ordering to inclusive, step-by-step walk-through education. Bliss + Lex will carry a range of cannabis products from brands such as Off Hours, 1906, TYSON 2.0, and more. You can visit the retail store located at 128 East 86th St. with close subway access, and it is open seven days a week.  

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source https://hightimes.com/news/first-black-woman-owned-dispensary-opens-in-manhattan/

African County of Eswatini Introduces Medical Cannabis Legislation

The landlocked country of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland), located in southern Africa, recently made a move to legalize medical cannabis.

According to a report from VOA Zimbabwe, King Mswati III and the Eswatini government have introduced medical cannabis legislation hoping that it will help curb illegal sales and allow the country to benefit from tax revenue. “The legislation will also provide measures to guard against increasing the black market,” said spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo. “This has robbed government taxes, Eswatini, an opportunity to grow their economy and robbed even the farmers themselves who have been trying to make a living using this cannabis. We look forward to the unbanning of the cannabis plant as an opportunity to develop the country, our economy and to empower Eswatini themselves.”

Currently only one company, Profile Solutions, has been approved to be a legal cannabis cultivator in Eswatini.

If medical cannabis is legalized in the country, it would amend a statue that was implemented by the British in 1922 through the Opium and Habit-forming Drugs Act. British control over Eswatini lasted from 1903-1968, but the country’s name of Swaziland wasn’t changed to its current name until 2018.

VOA Zimbabwe obtained a statement from Dr. Thys Louren, a medical practitioner with Occupational Health Eswatini, who believes that medical cannabis legalization would provide a multitude of benefits for the country. “I stand here urging for the transformative change of Eswatini’s health care landscape toward a healthier and more sustainable Eswatini,” Louren said. “It is not just a medical decision but a holistic solution for our patients, community and economy.”

The news outlet also spoke with Business Eswatini CEO E. Nathi Dlamini, who explained the necessity of bringing Eswatini up to speed with the global medical cannabis industry. “Many countries are well ahead in this regard in terms of developing industries to support investment, create jobs which by the way, we desperately need,” Dlamini said. “As Business Eswatini, we are very thankful that from the highest authority of the land now, we are beginning to be one-minded on this.”

Additionally, residents such as merchant Maqhawe Tsabedze admitted that he’s put his kids through school while thriving from illegal cannabis businesses. “The decriminalization of cannabis will help a lot and will perhaps stop police from raiding and confiscating our products, which we make a living from selling,” Tsavedze said. “Rain or sunshine, we make sure we put bread on the table so that our children do not go to bed on empty stomachs. Since there are no jobs, we make a living from selling cannabis on the streets.”

The medical cannabis legalization proposal has only been introduced, and requires a three-fourths vote in both the House of Assembly and Senate before it can be passed into law.

Previous attempts to get medical cannabis legalized in Eswatini have fallen short. One version was tabled by the Eswatini Ministry of Health in 2020, and resurfaced in May 2023, according to a report from Semafor Africa. The news outlet spoke with the Eswatini Cannabis Association (ESA) at the time, who explained that the proposed bill would establish a Medicines Regulatory Authority to “import, export, and trade in, by wholesale, cannabis and cannabis products.” “They cannot be both the referee and the player at the same time,” said ESA chair Saladin Magagula at the time. “You cannot as an authority give yourself an export and import license while also issuing the same to people.”

However, farmers who rely on illegally cultivating for their livelihood voiced concerns about legalization. “Lomtsetfo [the law’ might make things worse because the rich companies will become our competition,” said an anonymous farmer.

Eswatini is home to more than 1 million people, and a large percentage of which suffer from HIV/AIDS. In 2021, The Guardian covered how older women were illegally cultivating cannabis (called “Swazi Gold”) to help both their families as well as children who were orphaned as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. “Poverty led me into this business,” one woman said. “There are no jobs. These children need to go to school but there is no help at all from government. I have to commit crime, farming weed, to ensure I take care of them. I had three children but they all passed away, leaving me with five grandchildren to care for. All my children were HIV positive and they died because of that. I also take care of two other children, relatives to my late husband, whose parents are also dead.”

The country was also the feature of a documentary by Strain Hunters in April 2013, which explored both the cannabis industry as well as genetics unique to the region.

Other countries in Africa have begun to embrace cannabis. Medical cannabis sales were approved back in July 2022 in Zimbabwe. Last November, the South African National Assembly approved a cannabis bill that decriminalized cannabis, but did not legalize sales. It does, however, allow residents to cultivate their own plants for personal use.

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Inhalable Lung Cancer Drug Delivery Performs Well, Study Suggests

In a twist of irony, a powerful drug that battles lung cancer might be delivered safer via inhalation versus surgery, injection, and other invasive methods, a new study suggests.

Researchers associated with Columbia University observed rat models and determined that a new inhalable lung cancer treatment is capable of delivering localized immunotherapy to difficult-to-treat tumors.

Lately researchers have been looking for a safe and non-invasive alternative to current approaches to tackling cancerous tumors that require direct injection of immunomodulators into the tumors. But when cancer is found in the lungs, it is typically hard to reach and treat with drugs by direct injection.

Researchers believe that a potent drug that fights cancer might be better delivered via inhalation in order to battle lung cancer. The study was published recently in Nature Nanotechnology and online Jan. 11, showing how nanobubbles containing a powerful drug could be administered via inhalation to provide a safer delivery route. 

Medscape reports that researchers demonstrated that nanobubbles can deliver potent immunotherapy directly to tough-to-treat lung cancer tumors via inhalation. Researchers suspect that exosomes, also known as extracellular vesicles (EVs), could be the key to the next step in lung cancer treatment.

“Exosomes work like text messages between cells , sending and receiving information,” said lead researcher Ke Cheng, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia, who has been working with stem cells and exosomes for over 15 years. “The significance of this study is that exosomes can bring mRNA-based treatment to lung cancer cells locally, unlike systemic chemotherapy that can have side effects throughout the body. And inhalation is totally noninvasive. You don’t need a nurse to use an IV needle to pierce your skin.”

The study could help move research forward by allowing for the therapeutic uses of exosomes, inhalable treatments for lung conditions, and the safe delivery of powerful interleukin-12 (IL-12) immunotherapy.

Researchers have known about IL-12’s abilities to fight cancer for decades, but early human trials lead to serious side effects and several deaths. Researchers are now trying new delivery methods that target tumor cells without affecting healthy tissue. The research team’s new approach involves inserting mRNA for IL-12 into exosomes.

“One of the advantages of exosomes is that they are naturally secreted by the body or cultured cells,” he noted. “They have low toxicity and have multiple ways of getting their message into cells.”

The scientists borrowed an approach that captured public attention during the pandemic: Using messenger RNA, which directs cells to make proteins for tasks — including boosting immune response.

In the study, researchers developed inhalable extracellular vesicles loaded with IL-12 mRNA to battle lung cancer and bolster systemic immunity in mice with tumors. IL-12 mRNA was loaded into human embryonic kidney cell-derived exosomes (HEK-Exo) through electroporation, yielding IL-12 mRNA-loaded exosomes (IL-12-Exo). 

When inhaled by mice with lung tumors, IL-12-Exo outperformed IL-12 mRNA-loaded liposomes (IL-12-Lipo)n and minimized systemic toxicity. These inhaled IL-12-Exo promoted

immune activation, systemic immunity, and immune memory, culminating in lung tumor suppression and heightened resistance against tumor recurrences.

Lung Cancer and Smoking

Human trials could launch within five years, and help put an end to the devastation that lung cancer causes each year. 

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death overall and among both men and women. (The second leading cause of cancer death is prostate for men and breast for women.) In 2021, 134,592 people died from lung cancer, or 22% of all cancer deaths. In the United States, cigarette smoking is linked to about 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths. 

However, even the Lung Cancer Society notes that while it is not risk-free as it involves combustion, cannabis smoke is not as carcinogenic as tobacco smoke. NORML explains this very well: THC and CBD, the two most popular cannabis active ingredients, are non-carcinogenic and demonstrate anticancer properties in vivo and in vitro. Nicotine—in stark contrast—promotes the development of cancer cells and their blood supply. In addition, cannabinoids stimulate other biological activities and responses that may mitigate the carcinogenic effects of smoke.

People who smoke cigarettes are 15 to 30 times more likely to develop lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke. Even smoking a few cigarettes a day or on occasion increases the risk of lung cancer.

Even if you don’t smoke anything, or only vape, you’re still not off the hook, depending on how hazardous areas are that you live in.

People also get lung cancer from radon, and they usually have no control over the undetectable radioactive gas caused by the natural decay of traces in uranium in rocks and the soil. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  estimates that radon causes about 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year. 

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source https://hightimes.com/health/inhalable-lung-cancer-drug-delivery-performs-well-study-suggests/