It’s the first week of January, and you all know what that means in the blogging game: It’s time to make wild predictions about the coming year. As always, making predictions is hard, particularly when they’re about the...more
1/6/2025
/ Agribusiness ,
Banking Sector ,
Business Licenses ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Dispensaries ,
Farm Bill ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Cultivation ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Cultivation ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
SAFE ,
State and Local Government
2024 was a banner year for cannabis lawmakers and business operators. From Kamala Harris advocating for marijuana reforms to California’s clash of titans between hemp and marijuana markets, there was no shortage of drama in...more
12/31/2024
/ Agribusiness ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
DEA ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Dispensaries ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Farm Bill ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Cultivation ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Cultivation ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Recreational Use ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
State and Local Government ,
State Legislatures ,
Trump Administration
Part of the reason we started a Cannabis Industry team at a Southeastern-based law firm before any Southeastern state had adopted a marijuana program was because we had a hunch that the expansion of cannabis would eventually...more
12/6/2024
/ Agribusiness ,
Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Dispensaries ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Healthcare ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Cultivation ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
State and Local Government ,
THC
The title of this post comes, of course, from The Who’s classic track “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” This post analyzes whether there is cause for worry on the part of cannabis operators – both marijuana and hemp – under a second...more
11/12/2024
/ Agribusiness ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Farm Bill ,
Hemp ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Cultivation ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
New Legislation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Trump Administration
I adore the film (and, as always, I stress the word “film”) Trading Places. It has it all: Eddie Murphy hitting his prime, a wonderfully smug Dan Akroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis doing her thing, and it’s all wrapped up in a...more
10/31/2024
/ Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Controlled Substances ,
CUTPA ,
Dispensaries ,
Farm Bill ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
State and Local Government
Even the most responsible hemp operator should understand that it operates in a world full of risk. But I doubt many of them believe they might be accused of racketeering. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments...more
10/22/2024
/ Business Litigation ,
Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Corrupt Organizations Act (COA) ,
Dispensaries ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Labeling ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Racketeering ,
RICO
The 1984 film The Terminator featured a deadly robot assassin who looked like a regular guy (if by “regular guy” you mean a young, jacked Arnold Schwarzenegger). The horror of it all was that the victims could not tell if the...more
When you work in the cannabis business, you get used to answering questions that don’t always make sense. One question we get most often is whether an employee can use a legal product that nonetheless may cause the employee...more
We at Budding Trends have devoted thousands of words (and nearly as many pop culture references) to the escalating tension between the marijuana and hemp industries. It seems that to many in the cannabis industry this is a...more
10/11/2024
/ Agribusiness ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Controlled Substances Act ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Plant Based Products ,
Recreational Use ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Reform
During this time of great tension and competition between the marijuana and hemp industries, it is refreshing to see efforts at compromise. The initial draft of the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, proposed last week by...more
10/7/2024
/ Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Dispensaries ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Cultivation ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
State and Local Government
It’s hard to be surprised when you’ve been writing and talking about government decisions about the cannabis industry over the past decade. But I’ll admit that my eyebrows raised when I read a recent letter from the solicitor...more
I guess if you do this job long enough, you’ll see just about everything. This time, it’s the attorney general of Mississippi wading into the legality of beverages containing hemp. And it’s a doozy....more
9/26/2024
/ Beverage Manufacturers ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Dispensaries ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
State and Local Government ,
State Attorneys General
The novel cannabinoid industry took another hit recently as a bipartisan group of 21 attorneys general urged Congress to make clear that states may regulate, and even prohibit, intoxicating products derived from hemp....more
Supporters of hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) who hoped the Food and Drug Administration would adopt a more progressive view of CBD were disappointed when FDA Chief Robert Califf recently testified that FDA does not consider...more
4/23/2024
/ Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Cannabis Products ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Dietary Supplements ,
Farm Bill ,
FDA Approval ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Health and Safety ,
Hemp ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Requirements
There is a great line in the wonderful film Charlie Wilson’s War, where Charlie Wilson (played remarkably by the inimitable Tom Hanks) describes the successful, if relatively covert, involvement of the United States...more
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission, on behalf of the Texas Department of State Health Services, recently announced that it was accepting public comments to the current rules governing consumer hemp products in the...more
Novel psychiatric cannabinoids legalized by the 2018 Farm Bill remain under attack by state regulators. Most recently, the Arizona attorney general opined that “Arizona law does not permit the sale of delta-8 and other...more
Earlier this week, the Florida legislature passed a bill (SB 1698) that will limit the amount of THC in hemp-derived products and threatens to upend the novel cannabinoid industry in the state.
For the past few years,...more
3/12/2024
/ Agricultural Sector ,
Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Florida ,
Governor DeSantis ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
New Legislation ,
State and Local Government
Once hailed by observers as the southern state most likely to legalize marijuana first, North Carolina has not kept pace with its northern neighbors in adopting laws to promote the growth of a vibrant medicinal and...more
11/9/2023
/ Cannabis Products ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Hemp ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Medical Marijuana ,
North Carolina ,
Popular ,
State and Local Government ,
State Legislatures
Loyal Budding Trends readers and hemp operators at large know that the 2018 Farm Bill was a watershed moment for the hemp industry. It brought centuries-old hemp products back from near-extinction and lit the fuse for an...more
Jimmy Buffett was a spirit animal of the Budding Trends blog. We don’t quote from him as often as we do the Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic, or popular movies, but maybe because in many ways his lyrics are too good for...more
9/11/2023
/ Agribusiness ,
Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Dispensaries ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Cultivation ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
Marijuana ,
Marijuana Cultivation ,
Marijuana Related Businesses ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Recreational Use
Last week in a small hearing room in a House office building, the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services held a hearing titled “Hemp in the Modern World: The Years long Wait for...more
While it appears likely that Tennessee will be the last Deep South state to legalize medical cannabis (as we wrote about here), it has always been a favorable state for the hemp industry. The Tennessee Legislature just came...more
Welcome to the latest installment of the Editors’ Roundtable, in which our editors – Whitt Steineker, Jay Wright, Hunter Robinson, and Slates Veazey – discuss cannabis issues in the news and take a stab at where the cannabis...more
4/4/2023
/ Amended Legislation ,
Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Cannabis Products ,
Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs) ,
DEA ,
Farm Bill ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Hemp ,
Hemp Cultivation ,
Hemp Related Businesses ,
THC
There is a moment in the movie Wall Street, just before a fresh-faced Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox interviews for a coveted position with a peak-of-his-fame Michael Douglas playing the iconic Gordon Gecko, where Sheen looks in...more