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A hemp company is pushing back on a recent court filing from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about the agency’s stance that a cannabinoid produced synthetically from components of the cannabis plant is federally illegal—saying that its denial of another business’s petition on the issue undermines the arguments the government is making in ongoing litigation. DEA issued a rule in May saying that while it had already considered hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) to be a Schedule I illegal substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the agency will now giving the compound its own unique drug code for classification. Two hemp companies filed separate lawsuits challenging the move, however, and last week DEA filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in response to one of them—arguing that the company, Bluestar Operations, LLC, does not have standing to bring the case and, even if it did, it would fail on the merits. The agency essentially said it has considered HHC to be illegal for decades and that assigning the code does is “a technical change that has no substantive effect on HHC’s status as a schedule I substance.” “All the rule does is assign a tracking code to HHC to facilitate DEA’s administration of the CSA,” the brief said, adding that because the change “imposes no new obligations or liabilities,” Bluestar has not “identified any injury traceable to the rule that can be remedied in this proceeding.” Bluestar, in a reply brief filed on Thursday, said DEA’s filing provided “no substantive answer to the merits” of its case. “The DEA Rule, according to the Respondents, is something both simultaneously important enough to warrant publication in the Code of Federal Regulations yet sufficiently inconsequential that no one it reaches may be heard to challenge it,” lawyers for the company wrote. “Both cannot be true. That strategy fails on its own terms, and cannot rescue the DEA Rule which is unlawful on the merits.” DEA’s position, Bluestar said in the filing, is that the company’s “injuries flow from the ‘preexisting’ status of HHC rather than from the DEA Rule.” But the agency “cannot have it both ways,” it said. “If HHC was already unambiguously a Schedule I substance, then no new agency action was necessary.” The Bluestar filing also said that DEA’s argument that HHC is not “part of” the hemp plant contradicts the 2018 Farm Bill’s definition of hemp as including “all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers” as well as the agency’s own “fifty-year practice of treating plant-elaborated compounds as retaining their botanical lineage.” The drug agency’s brief last week also pointed to forthcoming planned changes in the legal status of hemp products. Hemp derivatives with less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill that President Donald Trump signed during his first term in office. But late last year, the president signed new legislation containing provisions that will redefine hemp to make it so only products with 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container will remain legal after November 12. As such, DEA said that the legal theory behind Bluestar’s case “will soon be overtaken by events.” The scheduled recriminalization of many hemp products “will defeat whatever remains of Bluestar’s claims,” it argued. That said, Senate recently approved a funding bill that includes a provision to delay the effective date of the hemp product ban until December 11—a move that was supported by the White House. While that change has not yet been approved by the House of Representatives or enacted into law, industry supports believe it could give them more time to convince Congress to enact a regulatory structure for hemp products as an alternative to broad prohibition. The new Bluestar brief pushed back on DEA’s citation of the potential change in hemp products’ federally legal status, saying that “the 2025 amendment is prospective—it is not yet in effect, and cannot retroactively supply a limitation the language of the 2018 Farm Bill never contained.” “If anything, the 2025 amendment underscores that under current law—the only law governing the DEA Rule—hemp-derived HHC is lawful hemp,” the company’s lawyers wrote. Separately, a lawyer for Bluestar sent a letter to the Fourth Circuit’s clerk on Saturday to notify the court of what he called a “dispositive development bearing directly” on DEA’s “defensive argument that Bluestar has failed to exhaust its remedies through a petition for rulemaking.” The agency’s brief last week had said the “appropriate” course for the company was to file an administrative petition to reschedule HHC rather than file the current lawsuit. But what DEA “did not disclose to the Court was the critical fact that another HHC manufacturer pursued that very route on June 18, 2026,” J. Gregory Troutman of Troutman Law Office, PLLC wrote in the letter on behalf of Bluestar. “That petition made the same core procedural and substantive arguments that Bluestar makes here, including parallel constitutional arguments.” Troutman noted that “a mere 17 hours after Bluestar filed” its initial reply brief, “DEA transmitted its denial of this parallel administrative petition.” “The short temporal gap between Bluestar’s Reply brief and the DEA’s denial of a parallel administrative petition on the same issues cannot be a coincidence,” the lawyer wrote. “It infers futility vis-à-vis the Respondents’ exhaustion of remedies argument and negates their standing traceability, redressability and mootness arguments. It also confirms the Petitioners’ closed-door/moving-target defenses, infers that the DEA manufactured its defenses and further confirms the basis for granting relief here.” Meanwhile, the appeals court considering Bluestar’s challenge in June denied the company’s request for a stay on the drug code rule pending resolution of the litigation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is considering a separate similar case brought by the hemp company IHC Investments, Inc., which also filed the rescheduling petition that Bluestar’s lawyer noted in his letter to the Fourth Circuit. Both suits say the agency’s decision is “unlawful.” In earlier briefs filed in June, DEA has said that each petitioner “fails to meet any of the factors required to show that a stay pending review would be warranted.” HHC can be found in trace amounts in cannabis plants but is also synthesized by hydrogenating cannabidiol (CBD). It’s sometimes sprayed on cannabis flowers that are low in delta-9 THC, the most well-known psychoactive component of marijuana, and its psychoactive effects are reportedly similar. While the 2018 Farm Bill federally legalized hemp and its derivatives with less than .3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis, DEA says that only applies to naturally occurring, and not synthetic, cannabinoids. As such, it is the agency’s position that HHC does not fall under the definition of legal hemp. The Bluestar case cited a prior ruling in the Fourth Circuit that found the hemp-derived cannabinoid THC-O-acetate is federally legal despite DEA’s claim to the contrary. “Congress intentionally employed expansive statutory language and did not prohibit cannabinoids subjected to ordinary extraction, refinement, conversion, hydrogenation, distillation, or similar manufacturing processes commonly utilized throughout the hemp industry,” the complaint said. DEA’s move “conflicts with the plain text, structure, and purpose of the 2018 Farm Bill and unlawfully inserts limitations Congress neither intended, nor enacted,” it said. The agency’s action has “already caused immediate and concrete harm to the Petitioner, including substantial compliance costs, business uncertainty, reputational harm, disruption of commercial relationships, and interference with ongoing operations.” “Congress, not executive agencies like the DEA, defines the scope of federal criminal liability. The DEA lacks authority to narrow Congress’s legalization of hemp cannabinoids through interpretive construction unsupported by statutory text.” The IHC Investments case cited a prior Ninth Circuit ruling that the federal legalization of hemp through the 2018 Farm Bill removed restrictions on a wide range of molecules produced by the cannabis plant—including the psychoactive cannabinoid delta-8 THC. The petition said that “DEA effectively, and thus unlawfully, attempts to expand federal criminal liability through administrative interpretation, unsupported by the plain statutory text of the enabling legislation.” “Congress did not prohibit converted cannabinoids, hydrogenated cannabinoids, or cannabinoids subjected to ordinary commercial processing techniques,” the complaint said. “Congress did not clearly authorize the DEA to criminalize broad categories of hemp-derived cannabinoids through administrative interpretation.” Both petitions argued that DEA’s move violates the major questions doctrine, a precedent holding that if an agency seeks to decide an issue of major national significance, that action needs to be supported by clear congressional authorization. The agency’s ban of HHC “carries enormous economic and political significance affecting a nationwide hemp industry involving billions of dollars in commerce,” the litigation brought by Bluestar said. DEA, for its part, said in the HHC rule it filed that “only tetrahydrocannabinols in or derived from the cannabis plant—not synthetic tetrahydrocannabinols—are excluded from control as ‘tetrahydrocannabinols in hemp.'” “To clarify further, tetrahydrocannabinols produced through chemical conversion, even when hemp derived are considered synthetically produced for purposes of the CSA, do not qualify as ‘tetrahydrocannabinols in hemp’ under” the 2018 Farm Bill, the agency said. The Federal Register notice wasn’t the first time that DEA addressed the legal status of HHC. In a 2023 letter, Terrance Boos, chief of DEA’s Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section, wrote that HHC “does not occur naturally in the cannabis plant and can only be obtained synthetically, and therefore does not fall under the definition of hemp.” The recent filing signed by DEA Administrator Terrance Cole said that “this rule does not affect the continuing status of hexahydrocannabinol as a schedule I controlled substance in any way.” “This action, as an administrative matter, establishes a separate, specific listing for hexahydrocannabinol in schedule I of the CSA and assigns a DEA drug code for this substance,” it said. “This action will allow DEA to establish an aggregate production quota and grant individual manufacturing and procurement quotas to DEA-registered manufacturers of hexahydrocannabinol, who had previously been granted individual quotas for such purposes under the drug code for tetrahydrocannabinols.” The DEA notice cited a move last year by an international drug control body to add HHC to Schedule II of the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971—but the document doesn’t note that when the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) took the action, the U.S. was the only country to abstain from the vote. DEA said that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “concurs with the direct listing and drug code assignment of hexahydrocannabinol in the CSA.” Read the filing and letter in the HHC lawsuit below: The post Hemp Company Pushes Back On DEA Claim That Synthetic Cannabis Compound HHC Is Illegal appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

“The judge himself acknowledged that this was rushed legislation, leading to complications and unintended consequences.” By Samantha Willis, Virginia Mercury A federal judge in Roanoke on Friday declined seven Virginia hemp business owners’ request to eliminate a new regulation that removes an exception to the state’s limit of 2 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per product package. The new standard took effect August 15. The entrepreneurs had asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Roanoke for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to block the rule stemming from the state budget lawmakers passed and Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed in late June. They said the removal of the 25-to-1 ratio, which allowed hemp products to exceed the 2 mg THC limit if they contained 25 times as much cannabidiol (CBD), would devastate their businesses, cause severe financial strains and undermine Virginia’s small business owners. The court found that the plaintiffs did not prove that the new standard would significantly harm their businesses, and determined that the new rule was created in the public’s best interest. “Because Plaintiffs have not demonstrated either a likelihood of success on the merits or irreparable injury if HB 30 becomes effective, and because the balance of equities and the public interest weigh in favor of Defendants, the Motions for Preliminary Injunction…and Temporary Restraining Order…are DENIED,” Judge Robert S. Ballou wrote on Aug. 14. The plaintiffs and other hemp industry representatives reacted quickly, expressing disappointment in the judgment, requesting lawmakers discuss the matter in a special legislative session and asking authorities to pause the new law. “We are incredibly disappointed with today’s news. The judge himself acknowledged that this was rushed legislation, leading to complications and unintended consequences,” Barbara Biddle, president of the Cannabis Small Business Association and owner of District Hemp Botanicals, said in a statement. “We are calling on legislators to convene a special session to address the gap in access for consumers, protect businesses from bankruptcy and reinstate the previous definition of hemp.” Biddle added: “We’re also asking the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority, Office of the Attorney General and local law enforcement to consider halting enforcement of the redefinition until legislators are able to resolve this issue.” Travis Lane, owner of Northern Virginia Hemp & Agriculture LLC, placed blame for the new standard squarely on Spanberger and her administration. “If Virginia small businesses are pushed toward bankruptcy while a new state-regulated cannabis market is being built for 2027, voters deserve to remember who made that choice, and our elected leaders still have an opportunity to change it,” Lane said in a statement. Spanberger has not commented on the ruling but earlier this month, her spokesperson said gaps between the state’s marijuana and hemp laws created dangerous conditions. “For years, untested and highly-intoxicating products have flooded Virginia with little oversight, inadequate protections for kids and teenagers and few tools for law enforcement to address the illicit market—all because of a loophole in state law that bad faith actors have exploited and pushed the limit of its intended use,” the spokesperson said. He added that the state’s adult-use cannabis market, slated to open next year, will streamline the industries, shore up safety and create new opportunities for small businesses owners. This story was first published by Virginia Mercury. Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan. The post Virginia Hemp Businesses Push Lawmakers For Special Session After Judge Declines To Block New THC Product Restrictions appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

“With THC drinks, it’s different from alcohol that you can smell or smokable marijuana that you can smell.” By Skylar Laird, South Carolina Daily Gazette The official death knell of two bills means South Carolina’s laws on driving under the influence won’t get stricter this year, and sales of THC-infused products continue without limitations. Legislators left the Statehouse last week with no plans to come back until the next legislative session begins in January. That killed compromises on DUI laws and THC-infused drinks and gummies, which had been in legislative purgatory for nearly two months. Both bills needed final approval from each chamber to head to the governor’s desk. Compromises worked out by House-Senate panels failed to win approval from the full chambers when legislators briefly returned in June. A proposal intended to strengthen the state’s DUI laws needed supermajority approval to advance. But the 23-13 vote in the Senate fell short, primarily over angst about the THC bill. On the same day, the full House rejected the compromise limiting sales of intoxicating drinks and edibles infused with hemp-derived THC, the compound in marijuana that gives a high. “The debates on those have been intertwined,” Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey told reporters June 25. “So, they’ll probably rise or fall together, and today, they both fell together.” Massey left the door open at the time as to whether senators might try again to get the 31 votes needed on the DUI bill. Several of its backers couldn’t attend the one-day special session in June. The chamber could have taken the bill up again last Tuesday when legislators returned to vote on the state budget. But after some behind-the-scenes conversations, senators decided to wait, giving themselves more time to hammer out a better proposal, Massey told the SC Daily Gazette. This was the second year of a two-year legislative session. Any bill not passed before voters officially approve a new Legislature in November must start over completely in 2027. “We’ll take a shot at it next year,” the Edgefield Republican said. ‘It’s frustrating’ Strengthening the state’s DUI laws was a priority for legislators in both chambers and both parties this year. Both the House and Senate passed versions of the bill unanimously. Supporters of the bill say the state’s existing laws don’t do enough to deter drunken driving or punish those who do it. “It’s frustrating,” Massey said. “We have way too many DUI-related injuries and deaths on our roadways.” The bill was extensive, spanning more than 40 pages and touching on numerous technicalities of the state’s DUI laws. The scope of the proposal may have contributed to some of the concerns about it, since people had more to get upset about, said Rep. Robby Robbins, a member of the negotiating committee. “It is a monumental undertaking,” said the defense attorney from Summerville. “It is just a massive amount of information.” Major changes would have increased the punishment for people suspected of driving under the influence who refuse to take a breathalyzer test, created a mid-level offense for drivers who cause “moderate bodily injury” and made drug screenings easier for police officers. The bill was also meant to make prosecution of DUI cases easier, requiring all cases have an actual prosecutor assigned instead of just the arresting officer, and removing loopholes that get cases tossed out over minor videotaping issues. Until the law changes, South Carolina’s “situation won’t change,” said Stephen Burritt, regional executive director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In 2024, the most recent data available, South Carolina had the highest number of deaths caused by drunken driving per 100 million miles driven, according to a study by the national highway department. “We’re just telling ourselves and the people of this state that we’re OK being the worst in drunk driving fatalities,” Burritt said. The compromise also would have set a legal limit for how much THC a person could have in their bloodstream while driving. That came from the separate bill attempting to limit sales of THC products to adults over 21 and where they could be bought. Adding that likely made the compromise tougher to pass, said Sen. Greg Hembree, a member of the negotiating committee. Senators who opposed the THC bill were the same ones in June who voted against moving forward on the DUI bill. The proposal to regulate THC products proved much more controversial. In the House, representatives who wanted to ban the products entirely joined ranks with those who wanted to avoid strict limits on the industry, creating enough opposition to repeatedly thwart proponents’ efforts. The Senate faced a similar challenge. In March, factions opposed to any THC products joined those who wanted minimal restrictions to vote down the bill after two weeks of debate. But enough senators changed their votes the following day to advance the proposal. Next year’s goals on DUIs Legislators in both chambers said they expect strengthening DUI laws to remain a top priority in the coming year. The bigger question is what will end up in the bill that advances next year. One major point of contention will likely be over whether every officer needs to go through training to become a drug recognition expert before arresting someone for driving under the influence of THC. Hembree, a former solicitor, doesn’t think so. The course to become certified is lengthy and expensive, which is why fewer than 200 officers statewide have gone through the process, he said. Instead of giving officers more tools to arrest people for driving under the influence, it could instead become a bigger headache, he said. “It creates another one of those tripwires we’re trying to get rid of,” the Little River Republican said. But the issue became a “pinch point” with the House, Hembree said. Members of the House think officers need that training to make sure they aren’t falsely accusing someone of driving under the influence of drugs, said Rep. Jeff Johnson, also on the negotiating committee. Determining whether a person has been drinking is easier than knowing the signs of being high on THC, he said. “With THC drinks, it’s different from alcohol that you can smell or smokable marijuana that you can smell,” the Conway Republican said. Legislators are going into next year hopeful they can reach a deal even better than the compromise they came up with this year. While this year’s proposal coming so close to the finish line was disappointing, legislators will begin next year with a baseline, potentially allowing them to work out a better proposal, Hembree said. “We start from a good place,” Hembree said. “It’s not like we’re carving it out of granite anymore. We’re putting polish on it.” Next year for THC As for THC drinks and edibles, legislators said they still want to see limitations. While marijuana remains illegal in South Carolina, the industry has flourished due to a loophole in federal law. That means there’s no age restriction on buying the products, which are sold in gas stations, at grocery stores, in restaurants and at vape shops. And there are no restrictions on the products themselves, which can contain high amounts of THC. A clincher in the debate could be federal action on intoxicating hemp products. The spending package that reopened the federal government last fall included a provision setting limits on the amount of THC in hemp products. Proponents said it will close the problematic loophole, while opponents contend the limits will effectively kill the multibillion-dollar industry. The new rules were supposed to take effect in November. But this month, the Senate voted to delay implementation until December. Whether Congress continues to delay the law or allows it to take effect will likely determine what happens in South Carolina, Robbins said. “We’ve got to see what the feds do this fall,” Robbins said. This story was first published by South Carolina Daily Gazette. The post South Carolina Lawmakers Are Letting Hemp THC Products Stay Legal Until At Least Next Year appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

Georgia regulators are proposing new rules that will allow medical marijuana to be delivered directly to patients—including via the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and private carriers like FedEx and UPS. The change, officials with the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC) say, is being made possible by the Trump administration’s move to reclassify medical cannabis, which effectively federally legalizes it. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April issued an order that immediately reclassified state-licensed medical cannabis, as well as marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III. Under a separate order the acting attorney general signed, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hearing is being held to consider more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III. “We think this provides a great pathway. It maintains the same tracking standards that the commission has, and it really leverages the authority in that DEA rescheduling order for state-regulated medical marijuana program,” Andrew Turnage, GMCC’s executive director, said of the new proposed rules in a meeting on Thursday. “Without these regulations, we don’t have guidelines in place for things like delivery. We think it’s really important to put those guardrails in place and establish standards.” He noted that Georgia is a “very large state” and that it has been hard for some patients to easily access the medical cannabis that their doctors have recommended. “Patients in many areas are having to travel two hours or more, either into a congested metropolitan area or around large geographic divides—whether that’s the mountains, the rivers, or the lakes, and it makes it impossible to get east to west across our great state, Turnage said. The GMCC official noted that one of the “greatest values” of the new proposed delivery rules will be getting cannabis to patients in healthcare facilities, including those such as nursing homes where they are permanent residents. “This creates a much more secure transaction for that healthcare facility to be able to make a purchase at our dispensaries and have that shipped and delivered securely to those facilities, without presenting a risk for diversion, without presenting a risk for, frankly, theft, robbery, an attack in the parking lot,” he said. The proposed rules change states that: “Where delivery is performed by the U.S. Postal Service, a common carrier, the Commission, or a common carrier engaged by the Commission, the dispensing licensee shall use certified mail, or a carrier service providing equivalent tracking and proof of delivery, with delivery restricted to, and the signature required of, the patient, caregiver, or healthcare institution employee. No person other than the registered patient, the patient’s caregiver, or the listed healthcare institution employee may sign for or accept such delivery. A dispensing licensee shall record the certified mail receipt, tracking number, or other information evidencing proof of delivery in the Commission-approved tracking system immediately upon completion of delivery.” GMCC will meet on September 16 to receive public feedback on the delivery issue and other proposed rules changes before holding another meeting on September 30 to vote on adopting the reforms. It’s not clear if there will be any federal or state pushback to the idea of medical marijuana being delivered via USPS, or if the private carriers noted in the rules will have any hesitation about participating, given the ongoing evolution of cannabis’s legal status under U.S. law. Officials with USPS, FedEx, UPS and DHL did not immediately respond to Marijuana Moment’s request for comment. This isn’t the first time the state has pushed the envelope of what’s federally acceptable with its medical marijuana program. In 2023, the DEA warned Georgia pharmacies that they could potentially lose their federal registrations if they began dispensing THC products under a provision of state law. Meanwhile, Georgia’s medical cannabis program is seeing a huge influx in the number of registered patients as the state implements a recently enacted law that expands access. The legislation, which Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed in May and which officially took effect on July 1, adds new qualifying conditions for the program, allows patients to vaporize medical cannabis and changes THC potency limits, among other reforms. Gary Long, the CEO of Botanical Sciences, a Georgia-based medical cannabis company, recently predicted that the expanded law could triple the number of patients by mid-2027. Under the legislation, patients with lupus are allowed to legally access medical marijuana, building on the state’s prior law that allowed certain people with cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, autism spectrum disorder, intractable pain and other conditions to qualify. The policy, which was sponsored in the legislature by Sen. Matt Brass (R), also removes the requirement for many conditions that the patient’s status be severe or end-stage to be allowed to enter the medical cannabis program. The reform also expands how patients can use medical marijuana. Previously they were able to access oils, tinctures, capsules, lozenges, topicals and transdermal patches—but now vaping is allowed as delivery method for people over 21 years of age, though smoking continues to be prohibited for all patients. The Putting Georgia’s Patients First Act additionally replaces the current 5 percent THC potency cap for medical cannabis products with a limit of 12,000 milligrams of THC that a patient can possess at any one time. “These changes, while meaningful to the affected patients, do not materially alter where Georgia sits in the national landscape on this issue,” Kemp said in a signing statement. “This bill passed with a constitutional majority in both chambers of the General Assembly.” “I, like many of those who expressed opposition to this bill, have reservations about the legalization of recreational cannabis. Many states that have legalized recreational cannabis have come to regret that decision,” he said. “I also recognize that for some patients, medical cannabis provides significant relief to symptoms that would otherwise go untreated or would be treated with even more harmful opioids.” “I do not believe that a well-implemented medical cannabis program must inevitably lead to the legalization of recreational use in Georgia, nor is the question of recreational use anywhere in the bill on my desk for signature,” the governor said. The new law also replaces references to “low THC oil” in current law with “medical cannabis.” — Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments. Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access. — The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission, which oversees the program, also now has a new duty of conducting public awareness activities about “effective uses of medical cannabis and products, including, but not limited to, publishing materials and conducting outreach and public education activities to inform members of the public, law enforcement, and healthcare providers about the medical cannabis program in this state and the potential benefits that medical cannabis and products may have to eligible patients.” Last year, House leaders created a Blue-Ribbon Study Committee on Georgia’s Medical Marijuana and Hemp Policies to examine the state’s cannabis laws. Lawmakers in Georgia have also considered legislation to support research on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. The post Medical Marijuana Can Be Delivered In The Mail By USPS Under Trump’s Rescheduling Move, Georgia Officials Say appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

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The Texas Democratic Party is calling out the Republican candidate in a high-stakes election for a seat to represent the state in the U.S. Senate over his refusal to answer a question about cannabis policy. The party is also pointing to a warning that podcaster Joe Rogan issued to Republicans, saying they will turn the state blue by pushing too hard to crack down on the availability of THC products. State Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who is the GOP nominee for a Senate seat that’s on the ballot in November, was shown in a video posted to X on Saturday being asked what his thoughts are on the “state’s THC ban.” “I don’t know the details of it, but let’s talk later,” he replied before quickly stepping away. Paxton, in fact, has sued to overturn local voter-approved marijuana decriminalization laws in several cities across Texas. His office has also defended hemp product restrictions in court against lawsuits from the industry. That includes a recently enacted ban on certain hemp-derived THC cannabis products, including those containing delta-8 and delta-10 THC. Now classified as Schedule I drugs under state law, possession is treated as a felony, carrying a punishment of 180 days to two years in prison and fines of up to $10,000. A judge last week declined hemp companies’ request to impose a temporary restraining order on the THC crackdown while the overall litigation is considered. The Texas Democratic Party pounced on Paxton’s inability to answer the cannabis question, saying in a press release that he appeared to be “in a panic” when being pressed about the “incredibly unpopular” THC ban before proceeding to “run away” from the questioner. Q: What's your thoughts on the state's THC ban? KEN PAXTON: Uhm. I don't know the details of it, but let's talk later. (Paxton is currently being sued because he's trying to enforce Texas's ban to the maximum extent possible, so this is a lie!) pic.twitter.com/DmGT6nVcje — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 15, 2026 “Ken Paxton is a coward who runs from questions because he has no answers for his wildly unpopular positions,” Texas Democratic Party Spokesperson Ryan Martin said. “Paxton knows Texans hate this THC ban he has pushed onto people with his nanny-state agenda.” “For Paxton, the state’s top law enforcement officer, to claim he doesn’t ‘know the details’ of the laws is beyond insulting,” he said. “No Comment Ken can dodge questions all he wants, but come November the people will be holding him accountable at the ballot box.” The party’s press release also noted that Rogan, who lives in and operates a comedy club in Austin, discussed the issue on an episode of his podcast that was posted on Thursday. “They’ve done the THC thing,” he said. “Here’s what Texas doesn’t understand. You will fuck this place up and you will turn the whole thing blue.” “Kids will turn on you if you tell them they can’t smoke weed,” Rogan said. “They know weed’s not killing anybody.” Meanwhile, the Democrat in the Senate race, James Talarico, supports legalizing marijuana and suggested in a recent interview that that Paxton supports banning cannabis in order to aid his political donors in the alcohol and tobacco industries. “It doesn’t make any sense until you follow the money and realize that it is big beer and big tobacco that are funding the politicians, like Ken Paxton, who turned around and banned these safe THC products in order to enrich the big beer and a big tobacco lobby,” Talarico, who currently serves as a state representative, said. In a separate interview earlier this month, the Democratic candidate said that keeping marijuana illegal while also moving to restrict hemp THC products is an “insane” form of “corruption.” “Think about what industries are most worried about THC products being readily available: Big Beer, Big Tobacco, right? And so they were the ones pushing this THC ban because it hurts their bottom line,” he said. “And a lot of research shows that THC—cannabis—these products are safer and less addictive than than beer or tobacco.” “And so to me, this is a prime example of what corruption looks like when you’ve got big industries buying politicians and pushing bills that harm people, but benefit them financially,” Talarico said. Voters in Houston will decide on an initiative to make misdemeanor marijuana possession the “lowest possible enforcement priority” for local police on the November ballot. Image element courtesy of AnonMoos. The post Texas Democrats Call Out Paxton For Dodging Cannabis Question As Joe Rogan Warns THC Ban Could Turn The State Blue appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

MA anti-marijuana ballot measure alarm; Study: Legal cannabis boosts agriculture jobs; NC cannabis smell court ruling; HI hemp lawsuit Subscribe to receive Marijuana Moment’s newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. It’s the best way to make sure you know which cannabis stories are shaping the day. Get our daily newsletter. Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human: Your support makes Marijuana Moment possible… BREAKING: Journalism is often consumed for free, but costs money to produce! While this newsletter is proudly sent without cost to you, our ability to send it each day depends on the financial support of readers who can afford to give it. So if you’ve got a few dollars to spare each month and believe in the work we do, please consider joining us on Patreon today. https://www.patreon.com/marijuanamoment / TOP THINGS TO KNOW Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico is suggesting that his opponent for the seat, state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), supports keeping marijuana illegal and banning hemp THC products “in order to enrich the big beer and a big tobacco lobby” that are donating to his campaign. The Marijuana Policy Project is raising the alarm about an initiative on Massachusetts’s November ballot that would roll back the state’s legalization law—saying it would have “disastrous political and economic consequences for legal cannabis markets everywhere.” “Even a too-close victory would spook markets and incentivize a rash of similar initiatives in states around the country, each costing millions to try and defeat.” A new study found that marijuana legalization “significantly increased agricultural employment by approximately 9 percent” in states that enacted the reform—while it had “no statistically significant effect on agricultural wages, all-industry employment, or economy-wide wages.” The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that police can use the smell of cannabis as the basis for a warrantless search. The chair of the Hawaii House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee denied accusations that a crackdown on hemp products is intended to help medical cannabis businesses—saying that it is meant to protect public health because “there are products that have not been subject to the same rigorous testing that the medical marijuana requires.” / FEDERAL The Drug Enforcement Administration promoted an article about the “many risks of cannabis and high-dose THC.” The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration tweeted, “Marijuana use comes with real risks to health.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted, “Washington is three months from wiping out the hemp industry nationwide. Kentucky already regulates these products with registration rules, age limits and testing standards. We did the work. Congress should let states that got it right keep their own rules.” Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) tweeted, “This week, I introduced the Beverage Regulatory Parity Act with @RepGregLandsman. Our bipartisan legislation to bring regulatory clarity to hemp-derived beverages, by offering a targeted alternative to establish a three-tier distribution system along with labeling, advertising, and trade-practice rules that have governed alcohol for nearly a century.” The House bill to designate psychedelic therapy centers of excellence got one new cosponsor for a total of 28. / STATES Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa tweeted, “Texans should know whether the THC gummies they bought last month are legal or whether they’re a felony. Greg Abbott is playing politics with our laws. When I’m governor, I’ll let the people vote.” Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly, a former congressman, said he doesn’t intend to attack Republican contended Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) over his prior marijuana arrest. A federal judge rejected a request to place a temporary restraining order on Virginia hemp product restrictions. A federal judge dissolved an order blocking Rhode Island marijuana business licensing from moving forward in light of recent changes to state law. New Jersey officials are moving to appeal a federal court ruling against a state requirement that marijuana businesses enter into labor peace agreements. Colorado regulators circulated updated proposed changes to marijuana rules. Georgia regulators are proposing changes to medical cannabis rules. Illinois regulators published guidance about cannabis facility alteration and modification. Massachusetts regulators released an audit of THC potency on cannabis flower product labels, finding that “most samples fell within an accurate range.” Minnesota’s top cannabis regulator said other states are being inspired by its approach to tribal-run marijuana businesses. — Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments. Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access. — / LOCAL Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said many parents today are “a bunch of ex-hippies” that ” were smoking their marijuana, and these assholes are smoking even stronger marijuana.” / INTERNATIONAL The Indian government is reviewing the rules for drug testing of airline pilots after the pilot-in-command of a flight that experienced a sudden 300-foot drop in altitude tested positive for marijuana. A Philippine truth commission on the nation’s bloody “war on drugs” held its first hearing. / SCIENCE & HEALTH A study of people with burning mouth syndrome found that “full spectrum cannabidiol oil improved pain and quality of life with a favorable safety profile.” A review concluded that “cannabinoids provide modest improvements in patient-reported spasticity in [multiple sclerosis], with more consistent effects for THC:CBD extracts.” / ADVOCACY, OPINION & ANALYSIS The Family Research Council tweeted, “Marijuana is not a scrappy, hippy-led grassroots effort anymore. Marijuana is a $38.5 billion industry driven by titans in tobacco, pharmaceutical, and alcohol that has given over 20 million people cannabis disorders and forced us to rethink everything we know about the industry.” / BUSINESS Glass House Brands Inc. reported quarterly net revenue of $47 million and a net loss of $6.7 million. Charlotte’s Web Holdings, Inc. reported quarterly net revenue of $10.9 million and a net loss of $4.1 million. / CULTURE Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat spoke about their new stoner comedy film The Wrong Girls. Make sure to subscribe to get Marijuana Moment’s daily dispatch in your inbox. Get our daily newsletter. Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human: Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer. The post Senate candidates clash on cannabis (Newsletter: August 17, 2026) appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

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“There are products that have not been subject to the same rigorous testing that the medical marijuana requires.” By Stewart Yerton, Honolulu Civil Beat It happens all the time now at Oʻahu Dispensary and Provisions in Waikīkī: A prospective customer like Blake Birdwell comes looking for a pre-rolled hemp cigarette or hemp-based edible, only to find the kiosk’s shelves are empty of such goods—by recent order of the Hawaiʻi Department of Health. “It’s really shitty,” Birdwell said on a recent afternoon after making the rounds at other shops like Natural Mystic, Vape Hawaiʻi and Hawaiʻi’s Cheapest. “They’re all telling me, ‘No.’” It’s a new reality for people like Birdwell who until recently were able to purchase a range of THC products without a medical marijuana card at dozens of shops across ​​the state—often at a lower price than the products for sale at Hawaiʻi’s officially licensed medical marijuana dispensaries. The state has now cracked down on sellers of hemp-based products that had been operating under a loophole in federal law, and that’s set up a battle in which Oʻahu Dispensary and Provisions’ owner, Lance Alyas, has asked a federal judge to stop the crackdown. The suit, which alleges the state has improperly recriminalized federally legal hemp, has gained national attention in legal news reports. The free-market libertarian magazine Reason, which generally opposes government-regulated monopolies, has also weighed in. It’s the latest iteration of an ongoing struggle to regulate cannabis in Hawaiʻi, which has become widely available for adults to use recreationally in two dozen states. It’s also a matter of life and death for Alyas’ business, he says, which operates four locations on Oʻahu. “We have 20 people at risk of losing their jobs,” he said. Booming Market For Low-THC Hemp Products Hemp is the same plant species as cannabis sativa—or marijuana—which is a federally controlled substance, though hemp has been historically grown for non-intoxicating uses and contains lower levels of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC. Congress’s 2018 Farm Bill made hemp legal as long as the plants contained no more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC, the ingredient that gets people high, by weight. That led to a national flood of products—including gummy candies, vapes, drinks and pre-rolled cigarettes—containing THC derived from federally legal hemp. In 2020, the Hawaiʻi Legislature passed a law making it legal to grow hemp, but not to produce or sell hemp-based THC products. Such products proliferated legally on the continent, however, thanks to the 2018 farm bill. By 2024, the hemp-based cannabinoid market had grown to $3.5 billion and was expected to reach $4.4 billion by 2029, the Brightfield Group, a consumer goods research firm reported. Others, such as Portland-based market researcher Beau Whitney, estimate the market now is actually closer to $30 billion to $44 billion, thanks in part to THC beverages. Adult beverages containing THC derived from hemp have become so popular and ubiquitous that even Target has begun selling the drinks in hundreds of stores in four states. Until recently, Hawaiʻi residents could order drinks online, shipped to their door, from brands with names like Willie’s Remedy+, produced by the singer Willie Nelson. The challenge for Hawaiʻi regulators has been how to deal with such products, which are legal under federal law, coming into the state, where they weren’t supposed to be sold. ‘Premier Pakalolo Provider’ Lobbied For Change Noa Botanicals is one of Hawaiʻi’s eight licensed medical marijuana dispensaries not subject to the crackdown. Although technically a maker and distributor of medication people can buy only with a doctor’s approval, Noa Botanicals’s marketing looks more like that of a lifestyle brand—not a medical product for patients seeking pain medication. Its Instagram page, for instance, calls itself “Hawaii’s Premier Pakalolo Provider” and carries the slogan “Find your Hawaiʻi High.” A recent post shows greenhouse workers posing with big marijuana plants above the text “Bud Huntaz out here baggin’ da real trophies.” Other posts feature local music artists HIRIE and Sierra Lucia. Starting in late 2024, Noa Botanicals’s chief executive, Karlyn Laulusa, began lobbying House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee Chair Scot Matayoshi (D) and other lawmakers about unlicensed retailers selling hemp-based THC products. The crux of the problem, as Laulusa described it in emails to lawmakers, was that the licensed, highly regulated dispensaries were losing business to unregulated retailers selling hemp-derived products that were illegal in Hawaiʻi. The number of unlicensed retailers had boomed from 10 on Oʻahu in 2024 to 74 by early 2025, she wrote, and were taking over the market. Lualusa cited a market analysis from the Department of Health estimating that out of a total annual market of $198 million to $360 million, only $60 million was going to licensed dispensaries. The rest—$138 million to $300 million annually—was going to the unregulated market. While all of this was happening, buyers were dropping out of the official medical marijuana program. In December 2021, there were 34,125 Hawaiʻi residents with a medical marijuana card, according to the Hawaiʻi Department of Health. DOH’s most recently available report, from the end of last year, shows 28,735 people had cards—a 16 percent decline. Meanwhile, Laulusa told lawmakers that the Department of Health’s Office of Medical Cannabis Control and Regulation had authority over only the regulated dispensaries. The regulators couldn’t do anything about the unregulated ones. The result of Laulusa’s lobbying efforts was Act 269 of 2025, which was supported by the Honolulu Police Department and the prosecutor’s office, as well as two other licensed dispensaries, Aloha Green Apothecary and Cure Oahu. The law, combined with interim administrative rules, gave the health department the ability to require all sellers to register with the agency and open their stores to inspection by cannabis control agents who could tell the retailers what products they needed to remove from their shelves. As Andrew Goff, chief of DOH’s Office of Medical Cannabis Control and Regulation, describes it, ACT 269 and administrative rules gives the office the ability to enforce existing law. The registration requirement enables the office to know what retailers are selling cannabis products, so the office can let the retailers know what products are allowed and what are not. Alyas, who obtained the correspondence between Noa Botanicals’s Laulusa and Matayoshi through a public records request, questioned whether lawmakers should be working so closely with industry executives to shape a new law. Laulusa did not respond to requests for comment. Matayoshi said it’s part of his job to communicate with industries the state closely regulates and solve problems. Not talking to the regulated industry, he said, would be failing to do due diligence. “If we’re going to be regulating doctors,” he said, for example, “I think we should be talking to doctors.” In any case, DOH began enforcing the rules in July, which has led to the situation where people like Birdwell can’t get pre-rolled hemp reefers from places like Oʻahu Dispensary and Provisions. As president of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaiʻi, Nikos Leverenz generally supports legalization and regulation of adult-use cannabis. Although he testified against Act 269, Leverenz did say DOH’s enforcement rules can provide a useful framework for regulating sales of cannabis sold to adults—if policymakers legalized such sales outside of medical marijuana dispensaries. “The DOH has the authority to do what it’s doing now, but I don’t think it’s in the best interest of consumers,” he said. “And it’s certainly not in the interest of businesses outside of the licensed cannabis dispensaries.” Economic Protectionism Or Consumer Protection? This echoes one of Alyas’s main complaints: that policymakers are favoring the licensed dispensaries over anyone else, engaging in economic protectionism of a medical cannabis dispensary industry that’s had the benefit of a government-imposed oligopoly for a decade. When the Legislature established the medical dispensary program in 2015, it limited the number of licenses to eight, with each licensee permitted to operate two retail dispensaries. Over time the Legislature increased the number of dispensaries a licensee can run to four if the licensee can show the location is needed to serve a rural or underserved population. Alyas questions why, if the market calls for more retail locations, policymakers haven’t simply granted more licenses, rather than letting the same eight businesses, which he calls “the Hateful Eight,” expand operations. More pointedly, Alyas questions the Department of Health’s 2025 decision to let Noa Botanicals open a new retail location on Royal Hawaiian Avenue under the statutory provision allowing new locations in rural or underserved areas, when there already were two competing licensed shops in Waikīkī. DOH said there was only one licensed dispensary at the time it approved Noa Botanicals’s request to open its Waikīkī location, and there are now a total of two in Waikīkī. The medical marijuana control office makes its determinations based on the licensee’s ability to serve and supply patients and an “assessment of the number of registered patients residing in the relevant area in relation to the capacity of the surrounding dispensary locations,” DOH said. Licensed dispensaries are subject to numerous regulations and are fundamentally different from hemp retail stores, the department said. Matayoshi, the House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee chair, says regulation is not simply about protecting the network of dispensaries and affiliated production facilities the state has set up to produce and sell medical marijuana. It’s also about protecting consumers from untested, hemp-based THC products previously sold by unlicensed retailers. “There are products that have not been subject to the same rigorous testing that the medical marijuana requires,” he said. Matayoshi also took issue with the federal government’s carving out low-THC hemp from its schedule of controlled substances, which includes marijuana. “They try to draw a difference,” he said. “There’s not any. If hemp didn’t have the same effect people wouldn’t buy it.” Federal Loophole Set To Close Meanwhile, Alyas’s lawsuit remains alive in Honolulu federal court. Among other claims, Alyas argues that Hawaiʻi’s law violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause by criminalizing hemp that Congress legalized. It also challenges the state’s law under a constitutional doctrine known as the “dormant commerce clause,” which limits states’ ability to pass laws interfering with interstate commerce. Hawaiʻi Attorney General Anne Lopez’s (D) office has countered that the supremacy and dormant commerce clause arguments don’t apply and has asked the court to deny Alyas’s request for a court order preventing the state from enforcing the law. The issues concerning Hawaiʻi’s low-THC hemp law soon may be moot. In 2025, President Trump signed a bill that redefines hemp, effectively closing the loophole in the farm bill that allowed for the wave of hemp-based THC products to flood the market. The new measure was supposed to take effect in November, but the Senate passed a bill pushing the deadline back until December. Beau Whitney, the Portland-based hemp market researcher, has been following Congress’s movements closely. He said the new hemp definition threatens the whole industry and could have unintended consequences for industrial hemp. While some in Congress, including U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, have been pushing back, Whitney isn’t counting on those efforts to do anything, although he said, “There might be a diving catch.” This story was first published by Honolulu Civil Beat. Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen. The post Hawaii Officials Defend Hemp Crackdown From Industry Lawsuit appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

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“The totality of the circumstances, including the odor of cannabis, provided law enforcement with probable cause to search.” By Carolina Journal The North Carolina Supreme Court has upheld a conviction in a Mecklenburg County case involving a defendant whose arrest was linked to authorities detecting cannabis odor. Friday’s unanimous decision in State v. Schiene marked the court’s third decision this year upholding arrests linked to cannabis odor. “This Court recently reaffirmed that ‘we continue to follow our precedents which require examination of the totality of the circumstances to determine whether probable cause exists’ and that ‘the odor of cannabis is one factor that may be considered’ as part of this examination,” wrote Justice Phil Berger Jr., referencing the high court’s May decisions in State v. Dobson and State v. Rowdy. “This Court has therefore already answered the single question on which review was allowed in this matter,” Berger added. “As further review of this resolved issue would be superfluous, we conclude that discretionary review was improvidently allowed.” When a court indicates that a review was “improvidently allowed,” it has decided that it never should have taken the case. The state Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in 2024 against defendant Codie Bruce Schiene. “The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s order denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized from a vehicle pursuant to a warrantless search, reasoning that the totality of the circumstances, including the odor of cannabis, provided law enforcement with probable cause to search,” Berger explained. “To the extent the opinion of the Court of Appeals is consistent with Dobson and Rowdy, the opinion below remains undisturbed,” he concluded. Three court orders in July rejected requests from defense attorney Benjamin Kull. He had urged the high court to revisit the cases against his clients, Schiene and Tyron Lamont Dobson. Kull had argued in a June 16 court filing that the decision against Dobson “repeatedly violates the rule of law in order to allow the very type of ‘evil the [Fourth] Amendment was designed to prevent.’” Kull sought new oral arguments in Dobson’s case and a separate dispute involving Schiene. Kull presented the original arguments in both cases last September. During last September’s oral arguments, Kull produced a bag of what he said was legal cannabis. He argued that the cannabis would have the same odor as illegal marijuana. The state Supreme Court ruled unanimously on May 22 in State v. Dobson. The defendant argued that neither the cannabis odor alone nor the combination of cannabis and cologne justified a warrantless search in Greensboro in 2021 that led to criminal charges against him. “Because the odor of legal hemp and illegal marijuana are virtually identical, the question arises how that smell can factor into a law enforcement officer’s determination of when probable cause exists to conduct a warrantless search consistent with the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures,” Justice Anita Earls explained in her opinion. “Today we hold that under applicable federal Fourth Amendment doctrine, we continue to follow our precedents which require examination of the ‘totality of the circumstances’ to determine whether probable cause exists to conduct a warrantless search,” Earls wrote. “Below, the trial court determined that the totality of the circumstances justified the police search of Mr. Dobson’s vehicle and person,” Earls added. “The Court of Appeals affirmed that order, holding that the officers’ detection of a cover scent provided a basis to support probable cause for a search in addition to their detection of the odor of marijuana.” Dobson objected to the Appeals Court’s ruling and accused judges of applying “an unconstitutional ‘double odor’ rule” linking the marijuana odor and a cover scent, Earls explained. “The State argues that the ‘odor alone’ doctrine is good law; and in the alternative, that the Court of Appeals did not create a ‘double odor’ rule and other facts gave rise to probable cause. “We hold here that the smell of marijuana and the smell of a cover scent were not the only factors on which the officers relied in making their probable cause determination,” Earls wrote for the unanimous court. “Considering the totality of the circumstances, we hold that the officers’ search was objectively reasonable.” A unanimous state Supreme Court issued a related May 22 ruling in State v. Rowdy. That decision upheld the conviction of defendant Terrel Dewayne Rowdy based on a 2020 arrest in Forsyth County. Kull did not represent Rowdy. “This is a companion case to today’s decision in State v. Dobson, which reiterates that the odor of marijuana is a factor to be considered when analyzing the totality of the circumstances to determine whether an officer had probable cause to conduct a search,” wrote Justice Allison Riggs. “Terrel Rowdy was subject to two searches in connection with a traffic stop: a search of his person and a warrantless search of his automobile,” Riggs explained. “The searches were only proper if officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct the search of Mr. Rowdy’s person and probable cause to conduct the warrantless automobile search. The reasonable suspicion and probable cause analyses examine whether the totality of the circumstances, including the odor of marijuana, justifies a stop, search, or seizure.” “Under the totality of the circumstances, the search of Mr. Rowdy’s person was justified by his refusal to pull over for the traffic stop, his presence in a ‘high crime area,’ his prior convictions for narcotics and weapons offenses, the odor of marijuana, and his evasive behavior during questioning,” the opinion continued. “The warrantless search of his automobile was justified by the above factors and the additional discovery of what officers ‘believed to be a marijuana blunt’ during the search of his person.” “We hold that the search of Mr. Rowdy’s person met the reasonable suspicion standard and the warrantless search of his automobile met the probable cause standard, so the trial court did not err in denying his motion to suppress evidence,” Riggs wrote. When arguing for Dobson and Schiene last September, Kull cited the General Assembly’s 2018 decision to legalize smokable hemp. Police across North Carolina no longer have a way to distinguish between legal hemp and illegal marijuana, he said. “People of North Carolina through their elected legislative representatives have made a paradigm-shifting choice,” Kull argued. “They have created a legal form of cannabis in North Carolina.” State law allows people to buy and use hemp, Kull added. “The question for this court is whether you are going to impose a tax on that lawful behavior,” he argued. “Not a tax that people will be forced to pay with money, but a tax that people will be forced to pay with their constitutional rights.” Conditions have changed for law enforcement officers, Kull argued. “When the odor was always the odor of contraband, that odor was like Popeye’s spinach,” he said. “It immediately gave them a superpower — superpowers that they did not otherwise have.” Kull specifically targeted the state Appeals Court’s State v. Greenwood precedent from 1980. It allowed law enforcement officers to conduct warrantless vehicle searches based solely on cannabis odor. State Special Deputy Attorney General Zachary Dunn urged the high court in the Schiene case to preserve the odor rule. The Schiene arguments preceded those in the Dobson and Rowdy cases. “This case and the two that follow present one overarching question, which is whether the odor of marijuana—standing alone—provides probable cause for the search of a vehicle after the passage of the Industrial Hemp Act,” Dunn argued. “If the answer to that question is yes, this case, Dobson, and Rowdy all come out the same way. Probable cause existed, and the searches were proper.” U.S. Supreme Court precedent requires law enforcement officers to weigh the “totality of the circumstances” before proceeding with a warrantless vehicle search. The Greenwood case allowed North Carolina authorities to cite only the odor, Dunn explained. “The way it’s articulated is the odor of marijuana is the only circumstance in the totality of circumstances that mattered,” Dunn explained. “If you smell the odor of marijuana, then that is enough for probable cause.” This story was first published by Carolina Journal. Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel and Philip Steffan. The post North Carolina Police Can Search Based On Smell Of Cannabis, Supreme Court Rules appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

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States that enact marijuana legalization see jobs in the agriculture sector increase more than they would have without the policy change, according to a new economic analysis from researchers at Texas Tech University. The results, which were presented at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association’s 2026 meeting last month, found a 9 percent uptick in agriculture sector employment in states that legalized cannabis—though wages did not increase proportionately due to factors that researchers determined are likely unrelated. To investigate the relationship between marijuana legalization and industry-specific economic trends, analysts looked at state-level data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages from 1990 to 2024. Applying a synthetic difference-in-difference (SDID) estimator, the researchers assessed “both aggregate and cohort-specific average treatment effects” on the target jurisdictions. “The policy effectively increased agricultural employment.” “Our baseline results indicate that legalization significantly increased agricultural employment by approximately 9 percent, while having no statistically significant effect on agricultural wages, all-industry employment, or economy-wide wages,” the study found. “The baseline SDID estimates indicate that the policy achieved its primary objective of expanding agricultural employment, with treated counties experiencing an approximately 9 percent increase in agricultural employment relative to the synthetic counterfactual. However, this employment expansion did not translate into measurable changes in agricultural wages, all-industry employment, or economy-wide wages.” Researchers said the “null wage response” to legalization, which seemed to be at odds with the “significant employment growth” they observed, likely isn’t related to the cannabis-specific policy factor. Rather, it’s “consistent with an elastic labor supply in the agricultural sector, where increased demand was absorbed through greater workforce participation rather than upward pressure on wages.” “Policymakers should consider adoption timing and local labor market conditions when designing similar interventions, as the effectiveness of the policy varies considerably across cohorts,” the study authors said. The cannabis sector is closely aligned with the agriculture industry, but legalization has had a wide range of economic impacts. For example, as of early 2026, direct jobs in the marijuana market reached about 412,500 U.S. workers, according to the U.S. Cannabis Jobs Report from Vangst and Whitney Economics Meanwhile, legalizing medical marijuana appears to be associated with reduced rates of employees missing work—particularly in trades like manufacturing and agriculture where workers are more likely to experience symptoms such as pain that cannabis can help treat—according to a recent study. Research published last year on marijuana legalization’s effect on workers’ compensation found that while the policy change was associated with a “gradual increase” in workers’ comp claims, the average cost per claim in fact fell after the policy change—as did patient use of prescription drugs, especially opioids and other painkillers. In 2021, a separate study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that adult-use cannabis legalization was associated with an increase in workforce productivity and decrease in workplace injuries. Those researchers looked at the impact of recreational cannabis legalization on workers’ compensation claims among older adults, observing declines in such filings “both in terms of the propensity to receive benefits and benefit amount” in states that have enacted the policy change. The post Marijuana Legalization Boosts Agriculture Jobs In States That Enact It, New Study Shows appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico is suggesting that his Republican opponent for the seat supports banning cannabis in order to aid his political donors in the alcohol and tobacco industries. “People are outraged across the state, and it’s not any one political party,” Talarico said of recently enacted state restrictions on hemp products in an interview with KTSM-TV. “It’s people across the spectrum.” The comments come as Texas regulators are moving to ban certain hemp-derived THC cannabis products, including those containing delta-8 and delta-10 THC. Now classified as Schedule I drugs under state law, possession is treated as a felony, carrying a punishment of 180 days to two years in prison and fines of up to $10,000. “Instead of getting it now from a local small business, Texans are now going to get it off the black market,” the Democrat, who currently serves as a state representative, said. “So this ban is a gift to the drug cartels.” Beyond aiding cartels, though, Talarico also believes making hemp products illegal while continuing to ban marijuana is a fiscal benefit for tobacco and alcohol companies—and he’s alleging that state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), his opponent for the U.S. Senate seat, supports cannabis prohibition in order to benefit his campaign contributors in those industries. “It doesn’t make any sense until you follow the money and realize that it is big beer and big tobacco that are funding the politicians, like Ken Paxton, who turned around and banned these safe THC products in order to enrich the big beer and a big tobacco lobby,” Talarico said. Paxton did not reply to KTSM’s request for comment, the outlet reported. This isn’t the first time that Talarico has voiced support for cannabis reform or argued that prohibition of the plant benefits alcohol and tobacco companies. In an interview with The Breakfast Club last week, the Democratic candidate said that keeping marijuana illegal while also moving to restrict hemp THC products is an “insane” form of “corruption.” “Think about what industries are most worried about THC products being readily available: Big Beer, Big Tobacco, right? And so they were the ones pushing this THC ban because it hurts their bottom line,” he said. “And a lot of research shows that THC—cannabis—these products are safer and less addictive than than beer or tobacco.” “And so to me, this is a prime example of what corruption looks like when you’ve got big industries buying politicians and pushing bills that harm people, but benefit them financially,” Talarico said. The Senate candidate also noted that “a lot of young Texans, a lot of our veterans, they use THC products, for PTSD. Seniors use it.” The recently adopted Texas hemp product restrictions are being challenged with a federal lawsuit filed by hemp companies. A judge this week declined their request to impose a temporary restraining order on the THC crackdown while the overall litigation is considered. Paxton, for his part, filed lawsuits to block several Texas cities from implementing local voter-approved laws to decriminalize marijuana in his capacity as state attorney general. Meanwhile, voters in Houston will decide on an initiative to make misdemeanor marijuana possession the “lowest possible enforcement priority” for local police on the November ballot. Image elements courtesy of Antonioaesparza and Gage Skidmore. The post Talarico Suggests Paxton Cracked Down On Cannabis To ‘Enrich’ Donors In Alcohol And Tobacco Industries appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net

One of the nation’s leading marijuana reform organizations says it would be “disastrous” for the cannabis industry is an initiative to roll back Massachusetts’s legalization law that is on that state’s November ballot is approved by voters. “If you haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on in the Bay State, it’s time to start,” Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) Executive Director Adam J. Smith said in an alert to supporters. “A loss in Massachusetts would have disastrous political and economic consequences for legal cannabis markets everywhere, and even a too-close victory would spook markets and incentivize a rash of similar initiatives in states around the country, each costing millions to try and defeat.” Last month, state officials issued a final determination that the initiative—which would repeal laws allowing the regulated commercial sales of recreational cannabis and home cultivation while maintaining legal possession and continuing the medical marijuana system—will appear on ballot this fall. After the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office determined that organizers for the anti-cannabis proposal had turned in enough valid signatures to put the measure before voters, a marijuana reform advocate filed an objection with the State Ballot Law Commission claiming that various signatures were not genuine, obtained through fraudulent means or were not “signed substantially as registered.” The body rejected the challenge to the legal marijuana rollback measure, however, clearing it to go before voters to decide. “Now, ten years into Massachusetts’ legal cannabis market, we are faced for the first time in history with the question… Will supporters of legal cannabis markets—in Massachusetts and elsewhere—stand up to defend them?” MPP’s Smith wrote in the new alert. :They had better, because victory is not a sure thing, and the risk is existential.” He pointed to recent polling showing that the anti-marijuana initiative is trailing by just a single-digit margin, and that the gap “narrows to within the margin of error once respondents hear arguments in favor of recriminalization.” “Legal cannabis is responsible for more than 20,000 jobs in the state. The legal cannabis that people are using, unlike the illicit market, is tested and properly labeled. Cannabis arrests and their associated costs—personal, economic, and in law enforcement—are down nearly 90%, and youth cannabis use is down 25% since the state legalized adult-use cannabis.” “The case needs to be made that ending the regulated market would lead to an explosion in the illicit market, reversing those gains and exponentially increasing the number of easy access points for kids,” MPP’s alert said. It’s official. Massachusetts’ Question 8 — the first-ever attempt to recriminalize adult-use sales and home grow in a legal state — is on the ballot. Stand with us to defend not just the state’s legal market, but the future of legal cannabis everywhere. https://t.co/SieDuGAcwK — Marijuana Policy Project (@MarijuanaPolicy) August 4, 2026 The prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana, whose affiliated group SAM Action is largely funding the anti-cannabis ballot campaign, has tens of millions of dollars in its war chest, Smith said, pointing to its most recent federal reporting form. On the other side of the debate, a coalition of Massachusetts marijuana business leaders, healthcare professionals and other advocates have launched a campaign to defeat the measure. “Question 8 could pass if the ‘No on 8’ Campaign lacks the resources to get its message out, broadly and consistently, from here to the election,” Smith said. MPP is asking industry operatives and supporters to donate to the No on 8 Campaign to “help us fight back and protect legalization progress.” “Whether you’re an industry member, an allied business, an advocate for the plant or for rational public policy or personal freedom—and wherever you are in the country—the Massachusetts ballot initiative is your fight,” he said. “It’s our fight.” The group is also selling t-shirts that say “Vote No On Question 8” to support the effort. In June, the campaign behind the anti-legalization ballot measure fired a signature gatherer it says was shown appearing to engage in “wholly unacceptable” conduct in a recent video. As Marijuana Moment reported, a man petitioning for the Massachusetts initiative as well as a similar anti-cannabis proposal in Maine was depicted in recent social media posts seeming to argue that voters who support legal marijuana access should sign the petitions in order to advance or protect reform. The campaign later said it has “zero tolerance for any circulation tactics that would mislead petition signers.” “The identified canvasser was immediately terminated, in coordination with our vendor, upon being made aware of the alleged conduct,” the group said. “The conduct apparent in the video would be wholly unacceptable and does not reflect how this campaign operates. We demand honesty, transparency and professionalism from everyone associated with our effort.” A video posted to Reddit of the signature gatherer shows the man collecting signatures outside a retail store in Massachusetts next to a sign that says “keep cannabis legal.” When confronted by a marijuana reform supporter who recorded the petitioner’s interactions with voters, he appeared to be trying to convince them that it is important to qualify the anti-cannabis measure for the ballot in order to then defeat it. “This is what we’re fighting against right here. That’s why we vote no,” he said. “If we can get this to the ballot right here, we vote no.” The person who captured the video pointed out that Massachusetts voters already approved marijuana legalization years ago, and that the only way it could be imminently repealed is if the new ballot measure qualified for the November election. If the initiative does not get enough signatures to go before voters, the state’s laws will remain the same. “It’s my job,” the petitioner insisted, however. “I know what I’m talking about.” “It’s a group of rich folks from out of state that want to basically take marijuana to when it was a medical marijuana card,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen.” The same man also appeared to also be gathering signatures for a separate measure in Maine that would similarly repeal laws allowing regulated adult-use marijuana sales and home cultivation rights for adults while keeping possession legal and adding new testing requirements for medical cannabis. The campaigns have previously been accused of misleading petitioning tactics. In Massachusetts, some voters reported that the campaign used fake cover letters for other ballot measures on unrelated issues like affordable housing and same-day voter registration during the first round of petitioning. Legal cannabis supporters filed a formal complaint about the prohibitionist effort’s tactics, but the State Ballot Law Commission rejected the challenge. The measure faced a legal challenge from cannabis industry operatives who argued it contains “impermissibly unrelated subjects,” and that the state attorney general’s official summary is “misleading and deficient.” The state Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments on the litigation challenging the anti-marijuana initiative but it ultimately ruled against the challenge. The post Top Marijuana Advocacy Group Raises Alarm About Initiative To Roll Back Legalization In Massachusetts appeared first on Marijuana Moment. 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IL marijuana biz form; Study: Medical cannabis for endometriosis; TX hemp product ban op-ed; OH marijuana prices Subscribe to receive Marijuana Moment’s newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. It’s the best way to make sure you know which cannabis stories are shaping the day. Get our daily newsletter. Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human: Your support makes Marijuana Moment possible… BREAKING: Journalism is often consumed for free, but costs money to produce! While this newsletter is proudly sent without cost to you, our ability to send it each day depends on the financial support of readers who can afford to give it. So if you’ve got a few dollars to spare each month and believe in the work we do, please consider joining us on Patreon today. https://www.patreon.com/marijuanamoment / TOP THINGS TO KNOW The Drug Enforcement Administration filed a federal court brief defending its stance that the synthetic cannabinoid hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) is an illegal Schedule I substance—and not legal hemp. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation posted a new form that recreational marijuana retailers can use to apply for a license to begin selling medical cannabis, which is taxed at a much lower rate. A study of women with endometriosis found that medical cannabis treatment “was associated with sustained improvements in pain, health-related quality of life, sleep, and anxiety”—”with benefits sustained to 24 months and a favourable adverse event profile.” There was also a reduction in prescribed opioids, “including a clinically significant reduction in 26.1% of participants at 24 months.” Prisoner reentry advocate Michael A. Davis argues in a new Marijuana Moment op-ed that Texas officials’ crackdown on hemp products “creates more room for untested products, counterfeit labels and sellers who cannot be held accountable.” “It may also give organized criminal networks another market to exploit.” Ohio legal marijuana prices are significantly higher than those in neighboring Michigan—an analysis that comes shortly after lawmakers passed a bill that makes it a crime to possess cannabis purchased legally in another state. / FEDERAL President Donald Trump issued a proclamation declaring August to be National Substance Use Primary Prevention Month. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that the International Criminal Court could investigate the U.S.’s military strikes on alleged drug boats, though he said there would be “no legitimate basis” to do so. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is seeking White House Office of Management and Budget approval for proposed changes to a hemp survey. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he doesn’t think “it’s somehow more moral to take a Percocet than it is to take a hemp gummy to sleep at night.” / STATES Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) cited his mass marijuana pardon. Rhode Island Democratic attorney general candidates discussed one contender’s tenure as chair of the Cannabis Control Commission during a debate. A federal judge said he would rule on whether to halt a Virginia law restricting hemp products by Saturday. Alabama’s top medical cannabis regulator acknowledged that officials were a “little overly optimistic” in making predictions about the launch of the market. The South Dakota Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee will meet on Monday. — Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments. Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access. — / LOCAL An Ingham County, Michigan official said eliminating the state’s new marijuana wholesale tax could undermine road repair efforts. / INTERNATIONAL Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers is considering a proposal to allow importation of samples of cannabis-containing medicines. / SCIENCE & HEALTH A study concluded that “existing evidence suggests medical cannabis may improve quality of life and contribute to opioid reduction; however, limited clinical guidance, restrictive THC caps, and lack of dialysis-specific inclusion create barriers to access and implementation” in Texas. A study found that “CBD attenuates UVB-induced skin inflammation.” / ADVOCACY, OPINION & ANALYSIS Republican operative Roger Stone published a blog post about the Trump administration’s efforts to delay the federal recriminalization of hemp THC products. The Washington Times editorial board is concerned that more Americans are switching to marijuana over alcohol and tobacco. / BUSINESS iAnthus Capital Holdings, Inc. reported quarterly revenue of $35.3 million and a net loss of $14.4 million. Auxly Cannabis Group Inc. reported quarterly net revenue of C$45.8 million. Rubicon Organics Inc. reported quarterly net revenue of C$18.5 million. Vireo Growth Inc. announced a share buyback program. High Tide Inc. shareholders elected board of directors members. Make sure to subscribe to get Marijuana Moment’s daily dispatch in your inbox. Get our daily newsletter. Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human: The post DEA defends synthetic cannabinoid ban (Newsletter: August 14, 2026) appeared first on Marijuana Moment. View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net