Source out of Washington D.C. says marijuana rescheduling is "imminent."
No wonder there's been so many senators calling for de-scheduling this week. If they know it won't happen, it's a safe political play, and they position themselves in front of the issue for November.
Been hearing chatter about this. The rumor is the Biden administration will reschedule
#cannabis
to Schedule 3. And it could happen this calendar year, which would be, well, turbulent and interesting to say the least.
This interview was something of a turning point for me as a
#cannabis
reporter. I now have good reason to believe that
#marijuana
will be legalized at the federal level in less than a calendar year by the Biden administration. Still hard to grasp.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren just called for
#cannabis
to be completely de-scheduled, removed from the Controlled Substances Act altogether.
"This bill cannot be all that we do in this Congress on marijuana," Warren said.
Two more sources today told me the word is Biden administration wants a Schedule III announcement from DEA by the end of Q1 or before the State of the Union on March 7.
Heard once more today from yet another source that word out of D.C. is
#cannabis
will be moved to Schedule 3, likely in early 2024.
#marijuana
But of course it's all just chatter until it happens. Could be a VERY interesting year to come though.
The speculation from well-placed D.C. observers continues to be that the Biden administration will reschedule
#marijuana
, likely to Schedule 3.
Going to be spending the rest of my year wrapping my head around all the seismic changes that would accompany such a shift.
Latest intel out of D.C. is cannabis rescheduling not going to happen this month, but maybe in April. Word is DEA simply being cautious, moving slowly.
"This is not coming before April," source told me, and emphasized, "We still feel very good that it’s going to get there."
@abarnes2201
@Kephfas
Some more chatter I've heard since yesterday is the administration wants a Schedule III announcement this month. But who knows if that'll actually come true.
Now the question will be, how long will the DOJ and HHS take in their review of how
#cannabis
should be classified as a "substance?" Will the Biden administration go for rescheduling or descheduling?
#marijuana
Holy hell. Reading Tilray's Q3 earnings report. The company lost $1.1 BILLION in a single quarter as of Feb. 28, and $1.3 billion for its fiscal year so far.
That's BILLION. With a B. Lost.
Wow. Um.
This kind of mainstream
#cannabis
coverage is ignorant and reminiscent of the 1980's. It oversimplifies an incredibly complex topic, demonizes
#marijuana
, and outright ignores health benefits for millions. I'd expect more from USA Today.
@DavidHilzenrath
Sen. John Hickenlooper tonight called for the Biden administration to "deschedule"
#cannabis
. "Legalize
#marijuana
in America," Hickenlooper said. A 180-degree pivot from 10 years ago.
Illinois
#marijuana
retailers sold $3,176,256.71 in
#cannabis
products on New Year's Day in 77,128 customer transactions, according to state regulators.
The New York
#Cannabis
Control Board just gave the formal thumbs up for subsidiaries of Green Thumb Industries and iAnthus Capital to start recreational
#marijuana
operations in the Empire State.
Heard once more today from yet another source that word out of D.C. is
#cannabis
will be moved to Schedule 3, likely in early 2024.
#marijuana
But of course it's all just chatter until it happens. Could be a VERY interesting year to come though.
“Today, the Attorney General circulated a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. Once published by the Federal Register, it will initiate a formal rulemaking process as prescribed by Congress in the Controlled Substances Act.” -DOJ's Xochitl Hinojosa
A group of
#cannabis
reform advocates just issued a statement condemning the proposed move of
#marijuana
to Schedule 3. "Rescheduling is simply a rebranding of prohibition, not the end of it," the group said in a statement.
New York
#Cannabis
Control Board just gave the thumbs up for six of the state's 10 medical
#marijuana
companies to join the recreational market starting Dec 29: Columbia Care, Curaleaf, Etain, Acreage/NYCANNA, PharmaCann and Sunnyside/Remedy/Valley Agriceuticals.
Trulieve just closed on a new $25M loan. I looked at the company's balance sheet; it has total liabilities of $1.3 BILLION at the end of Q3 last year. Does that strike anyone else as particularly enormous?
@CGaines94139980
@MGoodland
Rescheduling or de-scheduling any given controlled substance - including
#marijuana
- does not require an act of Congress, and in fact the ultimate decisionmaker is the U.S. attorney general. We laid out the process in this story:
It's with a mixture of excitement and sadness that I announce tomorrow will be my last day at
@MJBizDaily
. I've accepted a new position with
@GreenMarketRpt
, and I'm looking forward to getting started on Monday!
"If all Bloomberg wanted to do was blow half a billi and get nothing out of it all he needed to do was start a
#cannabis
business in California."
#quoteoftheday
#marijuana
Anyone interested in cannabis finance should check this story out. Took me weeks, on and off, of sifting through court records.
Planet 13 sued Casa Verde last month for $16.5 million, claiming fraud by the investment firm co-founded by Snoop Dogg.
I am a very flawed man, and I absolutely have flaws as a journalist. I will always acknowledge that.
But a lack of integrity is not one of those flaws, particularly when it comes to journalism. Anyone who knows me, or has worked with me, can tell you that.
"I would be surprised if we don’t see the rescheduling (announcement by DEA) happen sometime in the next 60-90 days... The flip side is that this is the federal government. So I don’t know that my crystal ball is any better than anyone else’s."
@Bkov9
@DEAHQ
@natsfert
DOJ Director of Public Affairs Xochitl Hinojosa: “Today, the (AG) circulated a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. Once published by the Federal Register, it will initiate a formal rulemaking process as prescribed by Congress in the (CSA).”
Story coming on today's New York
#Cannabis
Control Board meeting. Small fact-check point: Rep. Peoples-Stokes said at one point, "If you look at any state that legalized adult-use, or even any country... none of them were up and going in two years."
That's not true at all.
I'm in Chicago for the start of recreational
#marijuana
sales tomorrow, and I'll be live tweeting throughout the day. Planning on visiting four shops to see how things go.
#cannabis
@Bkov9
@DEAHQ
@natsfert
I have an email from the DOJ on Tuesday, stating on the record, "Today, the (AG) circulated a proposal to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. Once published by the Federal Register, it will initiate a formal rulemaking process as prescribed by Congress.”
When the AP broke the rescheduling news last month, both my editors were on a plane. Last Friday, when New York's marijuana trade was thrown into chaos, I was on a plane. Today, DEA makes rescheduling super-official, and both my editors are attending the GMR Women's Summit.
#fate
($96 out the door for an eighth of flower and what looks like 100mg pack of gummies. Industry standard it other words. (Someone else said an eighth is going for $35 in nearby Wash SQ Park.))
Just made my first reporting call for Green Market Report. While leaving a message, I began, "This is John Schroyer, from Marijuana Business Dai- ... ah, crap..."
#newjob
Several
#marijuana
farmers showed up to the New York
#Cannabis
Control Board meeting today to ask for help in getting their crops from last year to market so they can survive this year. "Please, please help us. We beg you," said one farmer.
"A super-majority of Americans ... support ending the federal criminalization of
#marijuana
, which would not be accomplished under rescheduling, as Schedule 3 maintains federal criminal penalties for mere possession," -Justin Strekal, BOWL PAC
#cannabis
"With the Biden announcement a few weeks ago … we’re getting a lot more inbounds from institutional investors, who are like, we want to get in before capital floods into the space," said Mina Mishrikey of Merida Capital.
#cannabis
#marijuana
#MJBizCon
It's really frustrating that this crap story by Politico titled "Pot is making people sick, Congress is playing catch up" is still atop the news search in Google for
#marijuana
after two days. I'd be willing to bet some of their own
#cannabis
reporters are embarrassed as hell.
Hickenlooper also promised legislation in coming days that would create a federal task force to examine possible federal rules to govern a national
#cannabis
market.
#marijuana
Adding up some of the
#cannabis
companies I just tweeted about in the last 10 minutes, and their losses add up to more than $560 million in 2022. And that's just for six companies.
Wow...
Woke up this morning to a text message from a California CEO, accusing GMR of not being "real" journalists because his company was left off a small list of "successful" businesses in this article.
I will die defending my work and GMR's rep. Come at me.
"We’re going to introduce legislation in the next month that will create ... a national task force through legislation, so that we pave the way and make sure that when that change occurs ... that we’re ready for it," Hickenlooper said about federal
#cannabis
legalization.
California had at least 37
#marijuana
related ballot questions at the city/county level, of which 31 were approved Tuesday night. Upshot: More
#cannabis
industry expansion on the way.
@StonardPeter
Haven't heard anything new, but I'm not going to consider the intel wrong unless we get to April and the DEA hasn't made an announcement.
Worth emphasizing that I was passing along what I considered reliable chatter. Nothing more.
Reading the WM Technology earnings call this morning. It's the definition of irony for exec chairman Doug Francis to complain of the "thriving black market" in
#cannabis
when Weedmaps has been one of the most high-profile supporters of illicit
#marijuana
in California for years.
Amusing that the LA Times basically takes credit in this story for a new state investigation into
#cannabis
corruption, when the entire corruption issue was blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention for years before the LAT bothered to cover it.
"Criminalization has failed and disproportionately harmed Black and Latino communities. It’s extremely disappointing ... rescheduling MJ without further action allows criminalization to continue and leaves most of the harms caused by criminalization in place," - Cat Packer, DPA
Next month marks five years of covering the
#marijuana
industry for me. Weird to think about how much things have changed since I started. Back in 2014 it was hellish just trying to find dispensary owners willing to talk to reporters. Now everybody wants media attention.
Curaleaf Chairman
@Boris_Jordan
has issued a clarification of his Cannavest keynote at
#MJBizCon
this week; here's the relevant audio, in which he talks about
#cannabis
evolving into a global tobacco-like oligopoly.
#marijuana
I truly do not understand the point of having health insurance if I'm still forced to pay almost $1,600 out of my own pocket for an ambulance ride to the hospital after being nearly killed by another driver. Or maybe it's just
@Aetna
.
This HHS rescheduling letter has an amusing table of all the states with legal medical
#marijuana
, along with the years those states supposedly legalized and then began opening dispensaries. Pg. 85.
They have the years wrong for California, Colorado and Washington.
#facepalm
Four of the New York medical
#marijuana
companies were not approved to join the adult use market immediately: Citiva, Fiorello Pharmaceuticals, MedMen and Vireo Health. Not clear why, if they didn't apply for permission, or what.
My latest
@MJBizDaily
feature chronicles
@MedMen
's longheld practice of not paying invoices, ghosting vendors and contractors, and blatantly disregarding employees. I spent months on this story and interviewed dozens of sources across the country.
"The only way to fully resolve the myriad of issues stemming from the federal conflict with state law is to remove
#cannabis
from the Controlled Substances Act and regulate the product in a manner similar to alcohol," -Aaron Smith, NCIA
#marijuana