Uber is interested in the “types of deliveries that a high percentage of consumers are going to want delivered fast into their home and are quite frequent,” which includes weed.
Your future cannabis purchase may be as easy as ordering take-out. The CEO of Uber said that the company would “absolutely” explore including marijuana deliveries to its services once the drug has been legalized federally.
Dara Khosrowshahi explained in an interview with CNBC that while the company’s current focus of interest lies in mobilizing passengers and delivering groceries and alcohol, once marijuana is legalized, providing delivery of another good could absolutely be an option. This question was asked in light of marijuana’s legalization in New York.
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Uber has been one of the most rapidly expanding companies in the country, having recently acquired Drizly and Postmates, big names when it comes to food and alcohol delivery.
According to Khosrowshahi, Uber is interested in the “types of deliveries that a high percentage of consumers are going to want delivered fast into their home and are quite frequent.” It’s a service that seems perfectly suited for cannabis.
Could you get your weed delivered through Uber? CEO Dara Khosrowshahi discusses the potential business strategy: “When the road is clear for cannabis and federal laws come into play, we’re absolutely going to look at it.” (via @CNBCTechCheck) https://t.co/6VM454ugkapic.twitter.com/bRjpv7vvhU
“When the road is clear for cannabis when federal laws come into play, we’re absolutely going to take a look at it,” Khosrowshahi said. “But right now with grocery, with food, with alcohol, etcetera, we see so much opportunity out there and we’re going to focus on the opportunity at hand.”
While the federal legalization of marijuana is likely a ways off, Uber’s interest is a sign of the cannabis industry’s capability for growth. While smaller businesses should be prioritized in a nascent industry, it never hurts to tack a name like Uber onto the list.
A 2015 study found that obese mice actually lost weight from ingesting cannabis because THC caused changes in the gut microbiome that regulates weight loss and digestion.
Cannabis consumers have known for years about the effects of cannabis on appetite.
In fact, one of the more enduring stereotypes of the side effects of cannabis usage is the consumer getting the “munchies” after consumption, which is often a highlighted feature of modern U.S. television situational comedies, such as anepisode of “The Big Bang Theory” and others.
But there is a more serious side to the munchies mania. This side-effect of cannabis consumption is now the focus of studies by researchers in clinical trials using cannabis in cancer patients who typically lose their appetites and, thus, lose weight.
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One such study, published in the Internal Medicine Journal, found that patients were enthusiastic about the results on increasing their appetite using cannabis in tablets, mouth sprays or vaporizers (smoking is generally not considered a medically correct method for people with compromised immune systems).
A 2014study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed that when cannabis is consumed, the CB1 cannabinoid receptor signaling smell increases odor detection and promotes food intake, linking hunger to increased smell capability and thus more food intake.
THC has been shown to be an effective treatment for anorexia in animal studies, as well as severe weight loss in humans suffering from AIDS, but more work needs to be done. For example, a 2011 study published in Biological Psychiatry showed that people with anorexia and bulimia have a misfiring brain cannabinoid system. According to the journal’s editor, Dr. John Krystal, “The role of endocannabinoids in appetite control is clearly important. These new data point to important connections between this system and eating disorders.”
Another issue is the actual taste of cannabis, which has become the focus of most edible and infused cannabis manufacturers. For example, edibles producers are using lots of garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg and other substances to disguise the taste of cannabis in an attempt to suit some consumers’ requests. “Most of the bad taste in edibles is likely due to phytol (a terpene that creates a mild sedative effect), chlorophyll (a green photosynthetic pigment in plants), and oxidized (rancid) plant fats,” said Michael Backes, editor of the book Cannabis Pharmacy: The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana.
Consumer demand for cannabis-infused edibles is strong today, and getting stronger as more first-timers are beginning to see the medicinal value of cannabis to treat aches and pains.
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There are now 1, 2, and 5 mg micro-dose edibles, powdered THC that you can add to any food or drink, as well as edibles that are designed to control the timing of the effect within 2 to 15 minutes using a better bioavailability feature.
Regulations for edibles are still evolving, in part because of ongoing health concerns with their consumption, as reported in U.S. News.
Colorado edibles regulations are fairly typical of most states where THC-infused edibles are legal: Any THC-infused product cannot have more than 10 mg of THC per individual serving.
One company in the state making non-alcohol 5 and 10 mg THC-infused lagers (and other non-THC infused beers), Ceria Brewing, has explored making a 100 mg infused beer. But that would have to come in a resealable bottle with a small cup attached to measure out the proper 10 mg serving amount, according to Ceria Brewery co-founder Keith Villa.
So can consuming cannabis help you actually lose weight? The jury is still out, thougha 2015 study found that obese mice actually lost weight from ingesting cannabis because THC caused changes in the gut microbiome that regulates weight loss and digestion.
Feel free to explore your universe of munchies, and try to balance that with exercise during this COVID-19 era. Because even if you eat too much, maybe marijuana can help you lose that weight later. It’s simply another layer of cannabis karma, a plant that researchers are finding is a riddle wrapped up in an enigma of positive human health discoveries.
Signed bill HB2 also regulates the production and sale of recreational cannabis while including measures to incentivize populations disproportionately impacted by prohibition to enter the industry.
On Monday, New Mexico became the latest state to legalize adult-use cannabis, after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Cannabis Regulation Act.
Sales are expected to begin before April 2022.
Following a legalization wave led by New York and Virginia, this approval now puts more than 43% of Americans living in legal cannabis jurisdictions, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.
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“The successful bill signing today of adult-use cannabis legislation in New Mexico would not have been possible without the leadership of Governor Lujan Grisham and the tireless support of the State Legislature,” said David Culver, vice president of global government relations at Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC).
The Bills
Signed bill HB2 allows New Mexicans 21 and over to possess up to two ounces of cannabis, and cultivate six mature and six immature plants at home. The bill also regulates the production and sale of recreational cannabis while including measures to incentivize populations disproportionately impacted by prohibition to enter the industry.
“We are going to increase consumer safety by creating a bona fide industry. We’re going to start righting past wrongs of this country’s failed war on drugs. And we’re going to break new ground in an industry that may well transform New Mexico’s economic future for the better,” said Gov. Grisham, a strong proponent of cannabis reform.
Senate Bill 2, a complementary bill signed in the same session, provides automatic expungement opportunities for individuals charged with low-level cannabis convictions.
“Today’s signing—coupled with last month’s signing into law of New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act and news that Virginia has legalized three years ahead of schedule—shows state-level policymakers are listening to their constituents and embracing the promise of a safe and well-regulated cannabis market,” concluded Canopy’s Culver.
Cannabis treatment can significantly help with chronic pain, according to a new study conducted by Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Boston.
Thirty-seven patients enrolled in the study with various chronic pain conditions such as neuropathy, joint pain and arthritis, reports Pain News Network. The group was observed for six months while taking cannabis products. Patients had either never used cannabis, or sustained from using it for a minimum of one year prior to the research.
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The study revealed that those who used medical cannabis daily for six months experienced notable advancements in their overall health status: less pain and anxiety, better sleep and mood.
What’s more, patient usage of opioids dropped by 13% and 23% on average after three and six months of medical cannabis treatment, respectively.
The drop in opioid usage wasn’t enough to be marked as fundamental, the report said.
“This naturalistic study of medical cannabis (MC) patients with chronic pain provides preliminary evidence that ‘real world’ MC treatment may be a viable alternative or adjunctive treatment for a least some individuals with chronic pain,” wrote lead author Staci Gruber, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
“As results also revealed that individual cannabinoids appear to exert unique effects on pain and comorbid symptoms, more research is needed to potentially optimize cannabinoid-based treatments for pain.”
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TCH For Pain Relief, CBD For Mood Enhancement
The study found that higher THC consumption was connected to pain relief, while CBD intake was related to mood improvement.
“Interestingly, we have found that many patients aim to achieve symptom alleviation without experiencing the intoxicating effects of THC. Therefore, it is likely that patients are able to achieve adequate pain relief using lower doses of THC over time than initially utilized,” said Gruber, who heads the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery program at McLean Hospital.
The study ran a control group with nine patients also suffering from chronic pain who didn’t use medical cannabis, and the group did not show a similar improvement, according Pain News Network.
Researchers said more exploration and larger studies are needed to confirm the findings and further explore further the effects THC and CBD have on pain and mood.
Despite all of the resistance, the fact is that cannabis legalization is happening right now. State by state, country by country, it’s going global.
When the Biden Administration took the White House, the headlines all clamored that it will be a “good time for cannabis”.
Stocks seemed to echo the sentiment.
Yet, since the administration took office, they fired staffers for admitting they smoked weed in the past, Kamala Harris rolled back her “pro pot stance” to align with the President’s, and now the entire “weed thing” has been put on the back burner.
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“Honestly, right now, we’ve been focused on getting people food, helping them stay in their apartments or in their homes, getting kids back to school, getting shots into arms,” she said in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle. “That has been all-consuming.”
However – does legalizing cannabis actually conflict with Covid relief? More importantly – how much “input” does the Biden Administration really need to have when it comes to legalization?
Congress has been mulling over cannabis regulations for years now – independent of the administration. It’s a bipartisan issue. There is relatively little to nothing that President Joe Biden needs to do with legislation other than sign it when the time comes.
The only thing that Biden and his administration can do to assist with the entire legalization process is in fact very simple and requires virtually no effort.
They simply have to endorse the idea.
Legalizing Cannabis can help mitigate damages of COVID
We can all agree that the most affected by COVID-19 is the state of the global economy. Millions of people have lost their jobs or have been made redundant due to the pandemic.
One of the few industries who have actually been thriving during COVID is the cannabis industry. Legalization could serve as a vehicle to help kick start the economy, provide new jobs to the millions who have lost their employment and free up state resources to move things forward.
Of course, getting people medicine is important, but while the government is focusing on the apparent health crises…
The economic clusterf**k that will follow is going to create a real problem.
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When unemployment rises, so does crime and things generally become more dangerous. People tend to revert back to their basic survival instincts which is a “dog-eat-dog” way of living.
Legalizing cannabis could provide the release of pressure on the economy, giving people something else as their old ways of earning a living got murdered by COVID.
Cannabis can help keep people healthier & indoors
Not only are cannabis users skinnier on average than their non-smoking counterparts, they also tend to be more active and get sick less.
Furthermore, cannabis users can entertain themselves for hours with enough weed on hand meaning if the Biden Administration really wants to keep people indoors they’d legalize home cultivation.
One would think that Biden Admin would jump on this opportunity, rather, they remain steadfast on their position.
Why are they resisting change so much?
At this point, I cannot speculate anymore. Perhaps Biden truly believes that people do not have the ability to decide for themselves what they can and cannot consume.
However, this would put him at odds with the rest of America. Hell, weed is more popular than Biden.
Perhaps, there are some money interests behind the president that do not want cannabis legalized yet and would much rather prefer him to push against the will of the people to maximize profits.
While we may never know for sure, the longer that they maintain their position against cannabis, the longer people are suffering the Casualties of War — the Drug War, that is.
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America keeps on pushing
Despite all of the resistance, the fact is that cannabis legalization is happening right now. State by state, country by country, it’s going global.
Senators, Congress people and the likes have all said that “irrespective of Biden’s resistance” to legalization, they will continue to introduce bills that are aligned with the will of the people.
COVID has become a blanket excuse for politicians to dodge their responsibilities.
The Biden Administration is at odds with the rest of the world. They have flip-flopped on the subject matter that the people can now see that they are simply “more of the same”.
For some people, this is a relief from the Orange Menace that sat on the throne before Sleepy Joe.
However, if you recall in 2019, the whole world was in protest against “the same”.
The pandemic shut all that down — for now!
But what happens when the hunger sets in due to the loss of jobs? What happens when people are forced out of their homes and into the streets due to their inability to sustain their current lifestyles?
Will “the same” still be seen as the “timely relief from Trump” or will it reignite the pre-pandemic dissonance that’s still lingering like a time-bomb in the collective minds of the masses?
Historical evidence indicates sleeping for eight hours a night wasn’t what people used to do.
Sleeping eight hours a night is a much desired goal for a lot of us. In order to achieve better sleep, we are willing to create bedtime habits and schedules, helping us stay rested and energetic for the coming day. But a growing body of evidence suggests sleeping for eight consecutive hours every night may be unnatural.
The BBC spoke with Roger Ekirch, who published a study that revealed that back in the day, humans slept in two separate chunks of time. This information, gathered from diaries, court records, medical books and literature, suggests people went to bed at some point after dusk. This was then followed by a wake up period of one or two hours and then another sleeping period.
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Waking periods are assumed to have been active, with reports of people getting up from bed, smoking and even visiting with friends. For the most part, people stayed in bed, doing low key activities like reading, writing or praying. If they had partners in bed, they also used this time to have sex, with a 16th century manual advising that the best time to conceive was “after the first sleep,” which would allow them to have more enjoyable sex.
All of these activities sound like appropriate things to do when faced with a bout of insomnia, especially since experts are now advising against staying in bed and trying to force yourself to get back to sleep.
In ancient years, nighttime used to be associated with criminal activity, making it not appetizing for people to spend their time out of their house, no matter their wealth or social standing. “Even the wealthy, who could afford candlelight, had better things to spend their money on. There was no prestige or social value associated with staying up all night,” explains historian and author of Evening’s Empire, Greg Koslofsky.
Ekirch reports that during mid 17th century, the habit of sleeping twice a night started to disappear from the collective unconscious, more and more until there was no updated record of it. Contributing factors could be attributed to street lighting, domestic lighting and a surge of coffee houses, which would sometimes be open all night. “People were becoming increasingly time-conscious and sensitive to efficiency, certainly before the 19th Century,” he explains. “But the industrial revolution intensified that attitude by leaps and bounds.”
Maybe next time you’re laying awake in bed and start to feel the tingles of sleep less anxiety, use this time to relax and distract yourself with other activities that aren’t all that strenuous. If it’s still dark, you’ll likely get sleepy within a short span of time.
Marijuana is like a road test ninja. THC that could indicate intoxication remains in your body for days, even weeks, as small amounts continue to be released into your bloodstream.
Nearly every discussion by lawmakers looking to shoot down cannabis legalization includes concerns about driving while high: Get us a roadside testing device or we’re done here.
According to theNational Survey on Drug Use and Health, there were an estimated 10,511 alcohol-impaired driving deaths in 2018, but “the contribution of marijuana and other illicit drugs to these and other impaired driving deaths remains unknown.” The NSDUH also reported that during 2018, 12 million U.S. residents reported driving under the influence of marijuana in the past 12 months.
Industry manufacturers are scrambling for a roadside testing device to measure THC intoxication — the Draeger Drug Test 5000, the Securetec Drug Wipe, to name just a couple — but the reliability of those devices has come into question, according to astudy. Too many false positives are found—just getting second-hand exposure to cannabis smoke can result in a positive test for THC using a roadside testing device.
Roadside testing is done with these devices using swabs of saliva checking for an established level of intoxication. Andit isn’t clear if a CBD-only product with, say, .5% THC or so, would affect the testing measurements and create false positives.
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This amazing, complex plant is like a road test ninja. THC that could indicate intoxication remains in your body for days, even weeks, as small amountscontinue to be released from where they are stored in your body’s fat into your blood while you go about your everyday business. You are not high, but a saliva or blood test could indicate you still hit a limit set by local law enforcement for THC intoxication.
Some11 states have adopted a per-se measurement scheme (similar to the intoxication level of a drunk driver, measured as a concentration of 5 or 10 nanograms per liter depending on the state) or zero tolerance scheme (meaning that any amount of THC detected in a fluid sample) to measure if you are too high to drive. But the Foundation for Traffic Safety determined that “the scientific evidence of impairing effects of THC on driving performance and crash risk is not clear or uniform.”
Police then are left to conduct the usual field sobriety tests they use for alcoholic-induced impairment, looking for indications of THC intoxication—the smell or marijuana (which some jurisdictions say is not a good enough reason to pull someone over), distracted speech, stopping too long at a stop sign, red eyes—or so-called behavioral impairment.
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Can you beat it? Well, you can simply refuse to do the field sobriety test and the breathalyzer. Penalties in most states for that kind of refusal includes surrendering your driver’s license for a period of time. But guess what? That leaves the subjective observations by the law enforcement officer who pulled you over as the only indication of your guilt. And any good lawyer should be able to make that particular subjective analysis go away.
What’s more, the instructor guide for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says roadside sobriety tests should be done “under ideal conditions,” another loophole for a clever defense lawyer to explore.
Plus, chances are if you have to deal with the court about a hearing on your DUID (driving under the influence of drugs), you are going to get a freshnew court-appointed prosecutor who has little or no experience on the legal challenges you—or your attorney—present to him or her.
So take your chances — even the casual consumer knows driving while high has its challenges. Know your rights, but don’t become another statistic just because you want to stick it to The Man.
Biden may or may not understand the degree to which he owes his election to Trump’s failure to support marijuana legalization.
Disclaimer:The views expressed in this article solely belong to the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Fresh Toast.
President Biden has suffered two avoidable embarrassments. First, he somehow managed to fall three times trying to run up the ramp stairs for Air Gorce One. I’m even older than he is, so I’m sympathetic. Oops. It happens.
Don’t worry if you missed it. It will run forever on the Trump cult networks to demonstrate how inferior he is to the godlike athleticism of the Apollo of Mar-a-Swampo.
Someone immediately pointed out that this would keep former President Barack (“Lock My People Up”) Obama from being appointed to anything. To which I say, “hooray!”
On the other hand, it is utterly inconsistent with his claims that his advisers will lead with science and truth. This places a penalty on both, and arguably creates security risks.
More substantially, it will pointlessly exclude some truly great minds. Two of the greatest geniuses of the last century were cannabis users, one of whom was the late Carl Sagan, “American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator.”
As Wikipedia described him, “Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym “Mr. X”, he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered. The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan’s works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences. After Sagan’s death, his friend Lester Grinspoon disclosed this information to Sagan’s biographer, Keay Davidson. The publishing of the biography, Carl Sagan: A Life, in 1999 brought media attention to this aspect of Sagan’s life. Not long after his death, his widow Ann Druyan went on to preside over the board of directors of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), a non-profit organization dedicated to reforming cannabis laws.”
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I had the honor of being the National Director of NORML at the time, and the dinner that Allen St. Pierre and I had with Sagan and Druyan was one of the greatest experiences of my very fun life.
Another great mind (and a NORML board member, also recruited by Lester Grinspoon) that would be excluded was Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis. He “shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith[4] and was awarded the Japan Prize in the same year. His invention became a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology, described by The New York Times as “highly original and significant, virtually dividing biology into the two epochs of before PCR and after PCR.”
Mullis would have been especially problematic for the truth aversive because In a Q&A interview published in the September 1994 issue of California Monthly, Mullis said:
“Back in the 1960s and early 1970s I took plenty of LSD. A lot of people were doing that in Berkeley back then. And I found it to be a mind-opening experience. It was certainly much more important than any courses I ever took.”[60][verification needed] During a symposium held for centenarian Albert Hofmann, Hofmann said Mullis had told him that LSD had “helped him develop the polymerase chain reaction that helps amplify specific DNA sequences.”
Well, we certainly would not want people like that giving Biden advice, unless it was about holding on to the railing.
Of course, the most serious problem is what this means for the Biden Administration policies. After over 22 million arrests, Biden was shocked, shocked to find out that the laws he supported for decades had disproportionately impacted racial minorities, whose champion he now claims to be.
He may or may not understand the degree to which he owes his election to Trump’s failure to support marijuana legalization and the fact Biden’s supporters obscured his prohibitionist record.
Prohibiting marijuana hurts the legitimacy and credibility of the criminal justice system. Such prohibitions are undemocratic, racially discriminative, costly, ineffective and a blatant waste of resources.
Cannabis users and enthusiasts always want to focus solely on the medicinal and recreational benefits of the plant, which is excellent, but there is more to understand about marijuana.
For example, you cannot separate marijuana usage from the policy-making process, including legalization and the criminal justice system. These governmental aspects are fundamental because they affect how we all use cannabis.
Photo by Esther Kelleter/Getty Images
If the government in your state is hostile towards cannabis use by setting up policies limiting your access to this super plant, you will feel frustrated. So always pay close attention to what goes on in the legislative and governmental sectors regarding cannabis.
Politics and cannabis
During campaign season for the 2020 election, candidates had to share their thoughts on marijuana policy reforms. For candidates like Bernie Sanders he believed that marijuana laws should include its legalization. He also promised to erase all marijuana-related convictions, which made families of incarcerated families happier.
Other political candidates such as Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren agree with Sanders and support the marijuana justice act.
The act calls for removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, thus deleting all marijuana-related convictions. The act also stops federal funds from being sent to states that enforce cannabis discriminatorily.
Current president Joe Biden does not support this idea of fully legalizing cannabis at the federal level; he maintains that states should do legalization. Some experts argue that his reluctance is because marijuana is seen as a way of getting drugs. But through the years, Biden’s assertion about cannabis has been proven false. Although he gave the impression of warming up to the idea of full cannabis legalization pre-election, the latest developments regarding the fired employees makes one wonder where he really stands. One thing is certain though, there are more and more political figures getting onboard the legalization train, and they’re pushing hard to make it a reality.
Research has debunked a lot of the negative propaganda about cannabis. It is already proven that marijuana is beneficial to our criminal justice system, and the marijuana Justice Act is a good policy for America.
Connection between cannabis and the criminal justice system
The background information on the views of America’s president on cannabis puts the challenge in perspective. Marijuana is helpful to many people for its medicinal properties hence the reason more people seek it.
Cannabis enthusiasts are advocating that marijuana should be legalized from the Federal level so people can gain easier access. However, the federal government thinks that such a move will make people abuse marijuana in society.
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But not giving people legal access to marijuana will only encourage them to get cannabis illicitly, especially in states where it is not permitted. This process causes more harm to the justice system because they get to be incarcerated when they are caught.
The government has also continued to give marijuana a lousy name by linking it to a rise in the crime rate. They insinuate that criminals use marijuana as a drug with other substances like alcohol to perpetuate violence and crimes. So anyone caught with marijuana in states where it isn’t legal is sent to prison!
The more people are incarcerated, the more taxpayer dollars the country spends on the criminal justice system. Also, when these individuals get out of jail and cannot reintegrate into society because of their “criminal” record, they become a menace in society.
The solution?
First, let’s state the facts: marijuana is not the cause of the drug use crisis in the country, neither is it associated with an increase in violence and crime rate. Marijuana is also not associated with an overdose risk, and it is not a contributing factor to the opioid epidemic ravaging America.
Legalize marijuana and educate the people (especially those in minority communities such as Black and Latino areas). When marijuana is legalized, the government can set up the instruments for regulation that curtails abuse. When abuse is curtailed, people will use marijuana responsibly, which will reduce or completely eradicate the number of people imprisoned for illegal possession of marijuana.
America’s famous ‘War on Drugs” is a war on marijuana because the majority of the arrests made were for pot offenses. There is no justice with the system because a more significant percentage of those detained and affected are communities of color. The targeting of people of color for committing “drug crimes” just because they have possession of marijuana needs to stop for an effective criminal justice system.
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There is also an alternative which hinges on halting the wastage of resources on ineffective strategies that don’t help the justice system. Instead of the government spending money on enforcing this so called ‘marijuana laws’ and sentencing ‘marijuana offenders’, funds should be allocated to more efficient preventive and rehabilitation programs.
Prohibiting marijuana is NOT the solution: it is expensive, ineffective, and causes a lot of damage to the criminal justice system. States can do better with regulation and educating minority communities on the right way to use marijuana.
The immense benefits and incredible potential cannabis holds are enough to convince anyone to take it the right way. But when American leaders and politicians use marijuana to score political points, the criminal justice system suffers for it.
Despite the attempts at sabotaging marijuana, its demand has risen, which means legalizing it holds significant potential for increasing tax returns. A part of the tax revenues generated from cannabis can be used for correctional facilities, drug rehabilitation, and crime prevention centers/programs.
Bottom line
Prohibiting marijuana hurts the legitimacy and credibility of the criminal justice system. Such prohibitions are undemocratic, racially discriminative, costly, ineffective and a blatant waste of resources. The resources being wasted on prohibition will be better utilized if it is channeled into criminal justice reforms.
At the core of the reforms should be legalizing marijuana in all states as this move will reduce crime on the streets and ease the monetary burden a lack of legalization places on the justice system.
Some policymakers fear that marijuana use will harm the populace, but if marijuana is not legalized, it will cause more harm because people will seek to get it through illicit means. Let the Marijuana Justice Act thrive in America: it is a good policy that is valuable to the criminal justice system.
According to a recent report, women in every single age category outspent men when buying this particular product.
The cannabis industry has seen some players make big bets on beverages, but so far it hasn’t paid off. The market is definitely growing, just not at the rate many had hoped for. Plus, the slow growth of this form factor is not an indication that it won’t continue to increase and eventually gain even more market share.
Cannabis tracking firm Headset recently released a report on the cannabis beverage industry and found that in the U.S., “The beverage category’s market share has held fairly steady between 0.85% and 1.1% over the last several years. In fact, market share to the category was slowly decreasing through late 2019 and early 2020 before maintaining just below 0.9% during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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Despite consumers tapping the brakes on beverages, the category has begun a turnaround and Headset believes the products are poised to reach an all time high as pandemic restrictions ease. The report also noticed that consumers are at least giving the products a try as basket data is showing more people are tossing some beverages in the bag. The report said, “We can see a relatively steady march upwards over time rising from 1.6% in January 2018 to 2.8% in February 2021. Even though market share hasn’t drastically increased, Beverages are making their way into more and more baskets each month, indicating that more customers than ever are trying THC-infused Beverages.”
A little more than 20% of the shopping carts are filled with only cannabis beverages, meaning the other almost 80% are adding beverages to a larger order. By contrast, a third of edible consumers are buying just edibles when they go to the dispensaries.
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It’s A Girl Thing
What has been revealed is that women are the big buyers of cannabis beverages. In every single age category, women outspent men when buying cannabis-infused beverages. So, hands down, the main consumer for cannabis-infused beverages are women.
Where things get even more interesting in the report is when Headset dives into dosage. The two main categories for purchases are on either side of the spectrum — either low like a microdose or very high for maximum effect. The report stated, “In fact, most of the growth in the 10mg or lighter section over the last few years has come from the 0-5mg ‘microdosed’ cohort of beverages, which has risen from 14.4% category share to more than 18% of sales this year to date.” For example, so far in 2021 beverages with over 100mg accounted for 59.8% of the market share, while products with less than 5 mg were the second-largest category with a 19.5% market share.
Photo by Elsa Olofsson via Unsplash
California Drinking
The report stated that “California beverage sales in January 2021 clocked in at $15.5M, nearly six times greater than the $2.7M recorded during January 2018, the first month of recreational sales.” Also, since the competition is heating up and there are more beverages to choose from, the top three selling brands in 2018 have seen their market share decline. The data showed that some brands, like Kikoko and Cannabis Quencher, have held firm in the market even though new brands have entered the space. “Legal beverages, on the other hand, was unable to keep up, falling from the third top selling Beverage brand in 2018 to a market exit in 2020.”
Headset also determined that there are some newer success stories like Lagunitas Brewing Company’s ‘Hi-Fi Hops’ which sells only products containing 10mg of THC or less per serving. Heineken (OTC: HEINY) owns Lagunitas and so the beer is no longer considered a “craft beer”. “Keef Cola, a legacy brand originating way back in the medical cannabis markets, was relaunched in California in 2019 and quickly rose to a prominent position by offering affordable soda, mocktail, and flavored water products in both 10mg and 100mg package sizes.”
Just like the alcohol industry has seen a big move towards hard seltzers, cannabis beverages have also dipped into the bubbly category. CANN Social Tonics has made a quick splash by using celebrity investors to get attention. The report stated that “Despite extremely high EQ (price per milligram of THC) prices, and with less than a year and a half in the market, CANN has pulled away as California’s top Beverage brand by an increasingly wide margin.” That doesn’t mean it’s alone in the space, Pabst Blue Ribbon recently launched a 5mg seltzer in California, and cannabis-infused wine-like product Rebel Coast left the vineyard to focus on canned seltzer products.
The cannabis beverage is still only a tiny part of the market, but it is slowly growing. Women seem to be the dominant consumer along with Gen-Xers. The desired dose is either maximum effect or just a light buzz. The in-between products aren’t generating as much interest and cannabis seltzers could become just as big as alcoholic seltzers.
