Many American farmers were handed seeds of opportunity in October, when the United States Department of Agriculture released its much-anticipated regulations for farming hemp. The new federal rules came nearly a year after Congress legalized hemp farming, and almost half a decade after the Colorado Department of Agriculture established its own program for farming hemp. And this state’s rules don’t exactly line up with the ones just announced by the feds.
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Driving around the residential streets of Colorado, you might see signs that look like they’re about to announce a garage sale but instead are advertising hemp or CBD oil. Like the homemade one pictured here, on Iliff Avenue in Aurora, hawking 1,444 milligrams of CBD oil for $60.
Colorado dispensaries will almost certainly break another annual sales record for the fifth straight year since recreational weed stores first opened for business on January 1, 2014.
According to data from the state Department of Revenue, Colorado dispensaries accounted for just under $150.5 million in sales in October. Recreational pot sales came in just over $121.2 million, while medical marijuana accounted for approximately $29.2 million.
As chemists try to attain precise effects, cannabis has been modified into specified chemical structures. Some of these forms of THC, the main compound responsible for marijuana’s intoxicating effects, aren’t even produced naturally in the plant.
There are abundant examples of celebrities trying to profit off legal cannabis while the less famous sit behind bars, but some of the OGs of cannabis culture are putting their money where their mouths are. Eric Rachmany, guitarist and singer for Rebelution, is using his national solo tour as a way to raise awareness and money for those imprisoned for cannabis charges.
Colorado’s cannabis community was surprised when iBake Denver, one of the state’s longest-running consumption clubs, announced that it would close at the end of the year because it would not be ready to comply with a new state law that licenses social pot use. Open since 2013, the club started as an Internet radio show hosted by Thurlow “T.L.” Weed, but slowly transformed into a cannabis club under Weed and his wife, LittleTree Oppy, whom he met when she was a weekly caller to his radio show.
The Colorado Supreme Court has overruled a district court decision that upheld a county court ruling requiring a doctor’s testimony for medical marijuana patients who want to use their medication while on probation. The Colorado Supreme Court decision, handed down November 18, weakens the restrictions and burdens of proof that Colorado judges can place on medical marijuana patients.
Colorado’s legal marijuana sales finally took a fall in September, according to data from the state Department of Revenue, and past trends indicate that this dip is likely to continue until next spring. However, 2019 is still very much on pace to become the highest-selling year ever for the state’s legal pot industry.
In a random assessment conducted by the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment in September, Denver dispensaries failed health inspections for mold and yeast. Westword studied reports for tests conducted at 25 dispensaries over a two-day period, and at twenty of them, some form of cannabis tested over the state’s limit for total mold and yeast. That’s an 80 percent failure rate. Many of the failing products came from outside growers whose marijuana had already passed state tests.
The Green Solution, one of Colorado’s largest marijuana dispensary chains, announced today, November 5, that it has been purchased by a publicly traded cannabis corporation.