News: 

• Missouri Probation Officers Send Patients Back to Prison For Using Legal Medical Marijuana. 
• Reminds Jeff of authoritarian states having ambiguous laws. 
• Is dabbing legal? 
• Many people are wrongfully charged for felonies when it comes to dabbing. 
• Surgeon General Says Stop Locking Up People For Marijuana 

- This is some positive news, yet it’s another person taking a personal position but still operating within a regime that has more than 40k people in jail. 

• Is Big Pharma Taking Over the Cannabis Industry?
• In the US, GW pharmaceuticals and Sanofi are leading the cannabis clinical trials, and some of the largest stakeholders of cannabis patents are pharmaceutical companies. Is this problematic, or better in the long run? 
• We hope that things with cannabis legalization aren’t being slowed down for the purpose of getting things in place for these companies. 
• -GW Pharmaceuticals has the first and only cannabis-derived drug, Epidiolex, to be approved by the FDA. 

Stats of the Week: 

• What Percentage of Americans Smoke Marijuana? A 2019 Gallup poll reports that 12% of Americans regularly consume cannabis (not CBD), while nearly half of the U.S. population (about 46%) have tried weed at least once. 
• -People used to believe that men smoked more weed than women, BUT as of 2020, ladies accounted for 48% of consumers. 

Controversy of the Week: 

• Most states impose cannabis potency laws. Should states tax or regulate cannabis potency with “potency-related taxes”? There might be something in the high level THC that we need research that could prevent people from getting sick, or is this recriminalization? 
• Virginia’s new law allows regulators to limit the THC % in products; 30% for flowers, 60% for concentrate.

Controversy of the Week: 

Joe Biden on Sha’Carri Richardson: "The rules are the rules," Biden told reporters. "And everybody knows the rules going in, but whether it should remain that way is a different issue."

• Is it a performance enhancer? 
• What did Joe really mean? 
• The rules are that way for the world organization, so do we have the right to try and apply it to what is legal in the United States? 

Keywords: Cannabis, THC, Cannabis legislation, advertising, cannabis  legalization, Joe Biden, Sha’Carri Richardson, Charles Schumer

News: 

•  Mexico's Supreme Court has decriminalised the private recreational use of cannabis by adults, calling the current prohibition unconstitutional. Supporters of legalisation hope it could reduce some of the violence related to illegal drugs trade, which claims the lives of thousands of people in the country every year.
• Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says federal cannabis prohibition may no longer be necessary. As legalization of cannabis becomes more mainstream, there will be a lot of politicians that hold the banner of cannabis freedom who also put millions of people in jail for using the plant. We must be careful who we give credit to.
• Los Angeles Lakers Guard Alex Caruso arrested at Texas airport for marijuana possession. The basketball player was found to have a grinder while he was on a departing flight from Texas, and had to pay a $3,000 bail bond and $550 fine.

Stats of the Week: 

•  More Texans support legalizing marijuana in some form than you may think! Nearly nine out of ten Texas voters say marijuana should be legal in some form, with just 13 percent still backing prohibition, according to a new poll.

Controversy of the Week: 

• The UN is Trying Really Hard to Enact a Global Ban on Cannabis Advertisements. In its latest World Drug Report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recommends that member nations enact a “comprehensive ban on advertising, promoting and sponsoring cannabis” in order to “ensure that public health interests prevail over business interests.
• Should there be restrictions in cannabis advertising?
• Should the rules be different from alcohol?
• Whose responsibility should it be to make sure we are responsibly advertising products that may be seen by children?