A Weekly Roundup of Stories We Found Interesting – From The Profound To The Profane

Wells Fargo Bank Dumps Florida Candidate Because of Cannabis
Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest bank in the U.S., went out on a limb to show just how anti-cannabis it could be. The bank unceremoniously dumped Florida agriculture commissioner candidate, Nikki Fried, as a client because her campaign has received donations from lobbyists in the medical marijuana industry, reported Forbes. Remember, this is the same bank that was fined for $1 billion a few months ago for home and auto loan abuses. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stated, “Wells Fargo’s conduct caused and was likely to cause substantial injury to consumers.”

Massachusetts Refuses To Referee Marijuana Testing Dispute
A bitter scientific and business feud has split into two camps the state’s four marijuana testing labs, which currently serve medical dispensaries and will soon join the lucrative recreational market. Each camp says that the other’s methods can’t be trusted. And both complain that cannabis companies, which under the state’s medical marijuana regulations are required to contract with private labs for testing, routinely “shop” for favorable results by sending samples to different labs.

Arizona Judge Rejects Autism as a Medical Cannabis Condition
An administrative law judge in Phoenix has upheld the Arizona Department of Health Services’ denial of a petition to add autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to the list of debilitating conditions covered by the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act.

Border Police Double Down on Plans to Block Canadian Weed from Entering America
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have stated unequivocally that they intend to follow federal cannabis laws to the letter, which means Canadian pot professionals could be banned from entering the country. So bringing cannabis products legally purchased in Canada into a neighboring canna-legal state like Washington or Maine would still be entirely illegal.

Schools Where Students Smoke The Most Weed
It’s that time of the year that college students heading back to school. See how your school rank in The Princeton Review on marijuana use. The University of Vermont comes in as number one, and also top the list in 2017. A cursory look at the list reveals many liberal arts colleges from Vermont, and New York state.

Now Decriminalized, Could Jamaica Become Destination for Legal Weed?
Reggae’s justice-driven Rastafari icons like Bob Marley would have us Americans thinking Jamaica’s cannabis policy would reflect their cannabis-friendly culture. In fact, it’s taken decades for the Caribbean island’s government to finally legalize even just medical marijuana, to honor Rastafarians’ sacramental use of ganja, to support a nascent cannabis industry and to begin economizing on the country’s long-standing reputation.

Why are Health Experts Suddenly Worrying about Marijuana Addiction?
A new feature in The Atlantic magazine details a supposed increase in cannabis use disorder cases since legalization started sweeping the country, raising new questions about the risks of cannabis reform. The big-picture view is that the vast majority of people who use cannabis are not going to be problematic users. Criminalization simply increases the harms related to cannabis, and so having a strictly regulated market where there can be limits on advertising, where only adults can purchase cannabis, and where you’re going to get a wide variety of products makes sense.

Legal Weed is 22.5% Cheaper on the West Coast
There are nine US states with legal recreational marijuana; five on the west coast and four in the east. Pricenomics, acting on behalf of Wikileaf, priced out the cost of an eighth of an ounce of weed in major markets on both coasts, and found that weed is 22.5% cheaper out west, though there’s a lot of regional variation (San Franciscans pay 50% more than Portlanders).

DEA Again Increases Amount of Cannabis Permitted to be Grown for Research
DEA dramatically increase cannabis cultivation quotas for 2018 and 2019. It is an ongoing process to license more legal growers for research that was initiated under the Obama administration. Under the proposed update, more than 2,500 pounds of cannabis will be needed in 2018 to provide for the estimated medical, scientific, research, and industrial needs of the United States, for lawful export requirements, and for the establishment and maintenance of reserve stocks.