NHA and HFC partner to advance hemp as animal feed

Today the National Hemp Association (NHA) and the Hemp Feed Coalition (HFC) announced the formation of a mutually beneficial partnership to accelerate the goal of each organization to obtain approvals for hemp as an animal feed ingredient.

NHA and HFC are motivated to benefit the entire industry by opening new markets for hemp and its co-products by gaining federal approval for its use as an animal feed ingredient. Historically they have successfully worked on projects together and recognize the opportunity to share resources and expand the footprint of advocacy and education centered around hemp as a nutritious animal feed product.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is backtracking after saying the legislation would be unveiled this month.

The wait for the Senate’s version of a cannabis legalization bill will continue for months, with Democratic leaders in the chamber indicating Thursday that it will come sometime in the summer.

According to The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he’s proud of the progress senators have made in “bringing this vital bill closer to its official introduction” before the recess in early August.”

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is backtracking after saying the legislation would be unveiled this month.

The wait for the Senate’s version of a cannabis legalization bill will continue for months, with Democratic leaders in the chamber indicating Thursday that it will come sometime in the summer.

According to The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he’s proud of the progress senators have made in “bringing this vital bill closer to its official introduction” before the recess in early August.”

Last week, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board and Washington State Department of Financial Institutions published a list of cashless phone apps and transfer services that cannabis retailers can use for customer payments, in lieu of cash.

The list also included banks and credit unions that would provide services to pot shops.

Because pot is federally illegal, cannabis retailers usually cannot take credit or debit cards. This reliance on cash alone has made them a target for armed robberies, which have spiked this year — including a robbery in Tacoma that saw an employee murdered.

However, not all cannabis retailers were optimistic about the cashless apps.

‘High’ frequency in armed robberies at pot shops in Puget Sound region

Hazy clouds of smoke hovered over massive crowds of mellow patrons at Saturday’s National Cannabis Festival.

The tradition of the annual festival at the Robert F. Kennedy Festival Grounds in southeast D.C. began in 2016 after the D.C. Council passed recreational cannabis legislation, Initiative 71, which allows adults 21 and up to legally own up to two ounces of marijuana and grow up to two plants. This year’s festival – which ran from noon to 10 p.m. – featured more than 60 food vendors, more than 100 cannabis “exhibitors” and all-day musical performances with headliner Wiz Khalifa.

The bill would have allowed for self-certification for adults 21+ to use medical cannabis and established a tax holiday for medical cannabis products during April.

District of Columbia Council Chairman, Phil Mendelson, introduced a new emergency bill to reform the medical marijuana market in the nation's capital where cannabis is fully legal but sales are banned, by a congressional spending bill rider that’s been annually renewed, prohibiting the use of local taxes to implement a system of recreational cannabis commerce. (Benzinga)

As D.C. seems unable to fully create a proper cannabis program, it is overcoming the roadblocks step by step.

The new bicameral omnibus spending bill presented on Wednesday by congressional leaders in Washington D.C. would keep a ban on allowing legal recreational cannabis sales. On the other hand, a different provision that protects state-legal medical marijuana programs from federal interference was left unchanged in the proposed measures, reported Marijuana Moment.

And so, the long-standing problem for cannabis businesses in Washington D.C. looks like it will remain, despite recent efforts to change it.

Washington, D.C. has made changes to the expiration of medical cannabis cards, as well as increased possession limits for medical cannabis patients.

City leaders in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday extended a lifeline to the district’s beleaguered medical cannabis dispensaries. 

The D.C. Council gave unanimous approval to an emergency bill that will allow medical cannabis patients “whose cards expired since Mar. 2020 to continue using them to purchase medical marijuana through the end of Jan. 2022,” the website DCist reported, while additionally creating “a new two-year medical marijuana card (instead of the current one-year card), and increases the amount of marijuana a patient can buy at a time to eight ounces, up from four.”