Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies has approved a bill to allow regulated marijuana and hemp industries. But the pending law still has hurdles to overcome and it could be years before a flourishing industry emerges. Lawmakers in Mexico’s lower house voted largely in support of the bill, with 316 votes in favor and 129 against. There
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No part of the global economy has escaped the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 2.5 million lives around the world and sickened countless more. But few industries were in the kind of infancy the hemp industry was in when the World Health Organization declared the virus a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.
Hemp imports were cited as a main driver for Congress voting in 2014 to authorize limited experimentation with the crop after decades of head-scratching policies allowing hemp to be bought and sold in the United States — as long as it was grown somewhere else. But hemp exports have grown dramatically ever since. Hemp imports
MJBizCon will return as a live, in-person event in Las Vegas this October, barring any unforeseen developments related to the coronavirus pandemic, Marijuana Business Daily announced Monday. The 10th annual cannabis trade show, the largest in the industry, is scheduled to be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center and will include an online component
A Canadian manufacturing company that makes agricultural equipment for the marijuana and hemp industries is accusing U.S. Customs and Border Protection of wrongly blocking imports needed by its Washington state subsidiary to build a hemp-trimming machine. Keirton USA says that Customs agents seized last month in Blaine, Washington, calling the equipment “drug paraphernalia.” The seizure
British American Tobacco is selling flavored CBD vapes in the United Kingdom as it eyes new products beyond tobacco and nicotine. But the parent company of Lucky Strike says it is not ready to enter the THC market yet. The company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Kingsley Wheaton, told CNBC this week that CBD is an “exciting
A denim maker owned by the H&M Group has debuted a line of hemp denim dyed with avocados and red onions. Weekday, a sustainable fashion brand based in Sweden, highlighted its first items made from hemp textiles at Stockholm Fashion Week last week, Sourcing Journal reported. The garments are dyed with food waste including avocados
An executive from international CBD brand Elixinol has been appointed to the board of directors at the U.S. Hemp Authority — one of the industry’s self-regulatory bodies. “From the start, Elixinol has gone above and beyond when it comes to product efficacy and transparency,” Elixinol CEO for the Americas Tom Siciliano said about his appointment.
A Canadian hemp producer says it has acquired the water rights necessary to pursue its plan to grow hemp in northwestern Colorado and process the hemp into construction components for affordable homes on the same land. Global Hemp Group says it has acquired control of Western Sierra Resource Corp. of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and its
NBA Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas is investing $3 million in his company One World Pharma, which grows hemp and marijuana in Colombia. Thomas, who played 13 seasons for the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, became CEO of One World Pharma in July. The company is located in Las Vegas but has a 30-acre regional cultivation facility
Mexico is moving ahead on medical marijuana regulation — and all hemp and marijuana companies that envision doing business there in the future should start preparing now, lawyers say. The Mexican government has begun setting a regulatory structure for medical cannabis in the country, making it possible for companies to start applying for research licenses
(A version of this story originally appeared at Marijuana Business Daily and will be updated.) An Irish pharmaceutical firm, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, has agreed to purchase United Kingdom-based GW Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest medical cannabinoid companies in the world, for $7.2 billion, the drug companies said Wednesday. The proposed cash-and-stock deal would be the largest
A key market regulator for trade in the European Union has updated its guidelines to add plant-derived CBD as a legal ingredient in cosmetics. The change comes after the European Industrial Hemp Association pointed out that the European Court of Justice recently ruled that CBD should not be classified as a drug and can be
Thailand’s public health minister has approved regulations legalizing hemp production beginning Friday. The new rules allows hemp cultivation for commercial, medicinal, and research purposes, the Bangkok Post reported. Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul approved the rules Thursday. The regulations will allow both exports and imports and the plant can be cultivated for extracts, beverages, cosmetics,
A Swiss CBD company is accusing e-cigarette maker Juul of infringing on one of its patents. SwissX alleges in a lawsuit that Juul pods copy a nicotine vapor delivery system that SwissX bought the rights to last year, according to Law 360. The lawsuit was filed in Delaware federal court. SwissX, which is owned by
Hemp-derived CBD energy drinks manufactured by the UK brand Trip have been stocked in Queen Elizabeth II’s Windsor Farm Shop, UK tabloid The Sun reported. According to an unnamed source in the report, the drinks have been popular with patrons of the shop, which was founded in 2001 after the Duke of Edinburgh proposed selling
If the CBD market is any indication of how other sectors will be affected by the United Kingdom’s divorce from the European Union, buckle your seatbelts. Supply-chain slowdowns and lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic have already made doing business in the UK a challenge. Now, with the confusion surrounding the final Brexit trade deal,
The first Big Tobacco company to join the hemp and marijuana industries is getting back out. Pyxus International, one of the world’s largest tobacco suppliers, said Thursday that it will focus on its more profitable tobacco and liquid nicotine products after filing for bankruptcy in June. Based in Morrisville, North Carolina, Pyxus was growing hemp
Qairos Energies, a startup with aspirations of using agricultural biomass to produce methane and hydrogen in northwestern France, has raised nearly €18.8 million ($23 million) to build and launch a facility that will use local hemp to make fuel for buses, trains and France’s chief natural gas distributor. The eight-figure support for the project, reported
Molson Coors Beverage Co. says it has launched CBD drinks in Colorado through TRUSS CBD USA, its joint venture with HEXO Corp. The beverage line will be available in three flavors – Grapefruit Tarragon, Strawberry Hibiscus and Blueberry Lavender under the name, “Verywell,” Molson Coors and HEXO said Wednesday. The companies first partnered in 2018
Daniel Fernandez is hoping for a hemp renaissance in Spain this year with the launch of a new Spanish industry association. But first, the Galicia native says federal authorities need to be educated on the economic possibilities of the crop so that Spain can tap underlying potential for collaboration on hemp projects with Portugal, Eastern
RAMM Pharma, a cannabis-based pharmaceutical company with products in several Latin American countries, has bought a 49% stake in the Sicilian CBD processing company Canapar. Based in Toronto, RAMM purchased the shares from the cannabis venture-capital firm Canopy Rivers. Under the agreement, RAMM paid $7 million cash to Canopy Rivers to buy a little more
A longer version of this story appears at Marijuana Business Daily International. Sales of medical marijuana in Denmark posted healthy gains in the third quarter of 2020, coinciding with the launch of GW Pharmaceuticals’ CBD drug Epidiolex. Overall sales of all medial cannabis products grew from about 13 million Danish Krones ($2 million) in the
This story originally appeared at Marijuana Business Daily. Canadian cannabis producer Canopy Growth Corp. is suing UK-based GW Pharmaceuticals in U.S. federal court, alleging that GW is knowingly infringing upon Canopy’s intellectual property. GW used a Canopy-patented method to extract the CBD that’s the active ingredient in its Epidiolex medication, according to a complaint filed
The European Union’s drug agency has signaled that it is mulling the legal and commercial status of CBD and cannabis-based products in Europe in a new report. The Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction published the report on Monday, detailing the results of a study that kicked off in 2018 and aimed
A Dutch biocontrols giant that has flexed into the cannabis space, Koppert Biological Systems, has acquired a Brazilian drone company in a bid to use drones to apply its sustainable biocontrols in Brazil. Koppert said its acquisition of Geocom will help it “accelerate precision agrifarming, which is crucial for bringing biologicals to the fields,” according
Italy’s agricultural ministry has named four dozen government, regulatory and industry stakeholders to a new working group for the country’s hemp sector. According to a decree published last week, the working group is expected “to perform consultative and monitoring duties” for the hemp sector. The commission’s 48 members include representatives from: The Ministry of Agricultural, Food
Regulators in Australia have amended the country’s drug law and removed a prescription requirement for some CBD products, paving the way for greater consumer access but saddling CBD makers with efficacy requirements that threaten to create barriers to market entry. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said Tuesday it was amending the country’s Poisons Standard to
The Supreme Court of Mexico has again extended the deadline for legislators to comply with a mandate to legalize industrial hemp and adult-use marijuana. Congress can now legislate on this matter until the end of the next ordinary session period, which starts in February 2021 and ends in April. The Mexican Chamber of Deputies –
(A version of this story originally appeared at Marijuana Business Daily International.) A government evaluation to include a CBD product in Brazil’s Public Health System has been postponed. Brazil’s National Committee for Health Technology Incorporation had been scheduled to take up the question of covering the oral CBD product this week. Instead, the evaluation will
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