Until recently, the term “telehealth” was known in the medical community, but not the cannabis community.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak sent the country into lockdown, medical marijuana users in many states can now check in with a health care provider by video for authorization, rather than an in-person meeting.

According to MPP.org, 31 states currently allow telemedicine for cannabis patients – 11 of which have temporarily altered their laws as a result of the current coronavirus pandemic.

Elevated levels of lead reportedly detected in some hemp products stocked on shelves in Florida have caused concern.

According to a WFSU Media report, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Director of Cannabis Holly Bell informed a recent meeting of the state Hemp Advisory Committee that elevated lead levels had been detected in “many products” randomly selected for testing.

Despite all that's gone on in 2020, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that we're now less than five months away from Election Day. We'll see voters choose who'll be president of the United States for the next four years, and could even witness the current political makeup of Congress shift.

But one of the more interesting stories for 2020 is going to be which states "go green."

Florida has long been one of the most important cannabis markets in the U.S., and even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical cannabis market continues to flourish there. According to Marijuana Business Daily, demand seems to be higher now in the Sunshine State than it was before the outbreak started. Case in point: In the first 10 weeks of 2020, medical patients in Florida bought an average of 2 grams of cannabis per week. In May, that average had climbed to 2.9 grams. 

America’s cannabis industry is a fractured marketplace. A scattered hodgepodge of state, county, and local municipalities piecing together a byzantine set of rules and regulations that seem to defy logic and common sense. And don’t even get me started about the social media restrictions.

Figuring out which hoops brands have to jump through within each state takes up enormous resources. But the fog of this minutiae can cloud the bigger picture: Do you know who your audience truly is?

The week ending May 28 was a strong week for Florida’s medical marijuana sector in general, with gains overall and in smokable flower.

Before its prohibition, hemp had been cultivated on fields across the U.S. for centuries—but Steve Edmonds’ vision of growing it hydroponically on polluted bodies of water might just be a first.

Edmonds has had the idea to clean up waterways using hemp since toxic blue green algae blooms severely invaded Lake Okeechobee in his home state of Florida in 2013. Now that hemp is federally legal to grow, Edmonds, a political science professor at Valencia College, has found a research partner at South Florida State College to carry out an experiment that’s been years in the making.

The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday challenging a proposed ballot measure that would legalize the recreational use of cannabis in the state. If approved by voters, the initiative constitutional amendment would legalize the use of marijuana by adults and establish a regulatory framework for commercial cannabis cultivation and sales.

Make It Legal Florida, the political committee championing the legalization ballot initiative, is currently collecting signatures in an effort to qualify the proposal for the 2022 election. But before that can happen, the state Supreme Court must approve the language of the initiative’s title and ballot summary, although the court does not rule on the merits of the proposal.

With Attorney General Ashley Moody, lawmakers and groups such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce trying to block the measure, the state Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments about a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow people to use recreational marijuana.

The political committee Make It Legal Florida is seeking to put the proposal on the 2022 ballot but needs the Supreme Court to sign off on the ballot title and summary — the wording that voters would see when they go to the polls.

Sunbelt Hemp and 39 HEMP are officially announcing their partnership and Florida launch after receiving the nod from the George Crop Improvement Association, a member of the Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies (AOSCA). Sunbelt Hemp’s hemp seed genetics are the first Officially Certified for distribution in Florida.