Hemp Production and Prices Increase

Earlier this year, hemp was included in the USDA’s Census of Agriculture. When hemp was first legalized in 2018, there was a boom in production under the fervor of new opportunities, spearheaded by the demand for CBD products. This resulted in over production and over supply. The CBD market was over-saturated within a growing season and hemp biomass prices plummeted, along with hemp production. More recently, however, hemp production has leveled out and is even increasing as reported by the USDA on April 17, 2024. As an example, prices for hemp outdoor-grown flower are up 35% and hemp clone and transplant prices are up 61%.

In November of last year, we wrote about how Total Wine & More jumped into the cannabis drinks arena in Minnesota. Since then (and probably before that), there’s been an influx of “THC Beverages” hitting the marketplace, and I don’t mean the state-licensed cannabis marketplace either. At this point, you can buy these drinks online or in person at a number of retail outlets and locations that don’t have any kind of state cannabis licensing at all (here’s one in Alabama, for example). How, you may be asking, is this legally possible and why are these libations picking up great speed with consumers?

Husch Blackwell’s Matt Kamps and Andrea Shoffstall were recently published by Marijuana Ventures in an article where they review U.S. cannabis-centric patents and patent applications trends during the pandemic, which were granted and published at record numbers in 2021. However, early returns in 2022 suggest the numbers may take a dip for the first time

A favorable ruling from the Ninth Circuit in United States v. McIntosh is a reassuring win for the medical marijuana industry.  This federal case concluded that § 542 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act prohibits DOJ from spending money on actions that prevent medical marijuana states giving practical effect to their state laws that authorize

On June 10, 2016, Governor Hickenlooper signed bill 16-040 which removes the Colorado two year residency requirement to obtain a marijuana business owner license, ultimately easing the burden for prospective out-of-state investors to become owners. The Colorado General Assembly’s intent in creating this bill was to provide marijuana businesses with the economic capabilities to grow

President Obama approved the 2016 federal budget and it contained a prohibition that none of the funds made available to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to any of the States that have state-legal medical marijuana programs, to prevent any of them from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution,

This ruling is a definitive win for medical marijuana business that are operating consistent with state regulations.  The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment to last year’s spending bill lists the states that have medical marijuana laws, and mandates that the DOJ is barred from using federal funds to “prevent such State from implementing their own State laws