Ah, another beautiful summer Friday to hide inside a dark cave a la Gollum and dig through the interwebs for precious NEWS!
Maryland
The buzz is all about UMd's School of Pharmacy new graduate program in Medical Marijuana! If you remember, the university had planned to roll this out two years ago only to abruptly cancel it on the advice of the state's attorney general. Looks like they Reversed his Reverse, if you get my Draw.
Washingtonian comes thru with the highlights:
- The course is mostly online. There's an in-person symposium every semester
- Cost is $20,785.20 in-state and $25,621.20 out-of-state. Oof.
- There will be no direct work with the plant. You gotta look at photos. LMFAO. Hey UMd! I got some photos you can buy or rent or whatever.
- the course focuses on medical cannabis science, therapeutics, and policy
Ok, it's cool, but there's still so much about the plant we don't know cuz the research hasn't been done yet- how does it help to send out a bunch of graduates half-cocked?
Therapeutics sounds good, but recognize that cannabis testing isn't 100% reliable. Cannabinoid and terpene levels differ between batches, even with the use of clones, nor do we have the genetics to grow anything we want with consistent results.
Before we can say "Oh you need a blend of CBG and THC-V to combat whatever" we need to be able to reliably grow, identify, quantify them. I question how much is gonna be pie in the sky nonsense vs reality and how much is gonna be "rub some CBD on it."
Look, it's like this. If you want to get into the cannabis industry, you need to attend industry events and network. That's how you get a job instead of somebody's buddy's nephew's buddy. If you're in the industry but looking to advance in your company, then you need to learn another hard skill your paymasters can benefit from. A liberal arts weed degree isn't going to help anybody. Learn how to code online for free instead.
Washington, DC
Sen. Wyden and Rep. Blumenauer, both Dems hailing from Oregon, have introduced legislation for the federal gov't to allow interstate commerce between states with legal cannabis this week!
While visions of cheap weed flooding the local markets and driving down prices for consumers and patients are quite enticing, they're no more real than the sugar plums dancing 'round your head, Tiny Tim.
Thing is- other state's programs, by and large, are not struggling for weed after, say, their first year of business. DC got in a squeeze after it's emergency legislation passed before the licensed growers and plant count limit could handle it, but this too was fixed within a year of the rule change.
The cannabis industry in other states is sure to oppose this law- why would they welcome the competition? The East Coast in particular is still getting top dollar for weed and it's not even that good yet! If Maryland dispensaries could pull from out of state and force the local growers to compete on price and quality- y'know, how capitalism is supposed to work- why, that'd be disastrous.
It doesn't stand much of a chance in the current environment anyway. There's more important measures at hand now, like getting the SAFE and STATES Acts through.
But it's nice to dream sometimes, isn't it, Wendy?
Virginia
New CBD laws go into effect July 1st! Now Virginia's laws align with the federal standards for industrial hemp- that is, no more than .03% allowable THC. Most interestingly, VA's law insists "officials refrain from requiring destruction of industrial hemp until the THC level is greater than 0.6 percent."
So if I'm one of the new hemp farmers on the block (I don't think that boy band's gonna take off), and I grow a plant that's .05% THC...what happens? It's not destroyed by law enforcement, ok, but is it seized? Can I still sell it?
.06% is not that huge a deal, though. You'd need quite a bit more THC to see much of a synergistic effect between that and the dominant CBD, but it's very cool they're extending some leeway to the new hemp industry.