In ‘This Week in Cannabis’ we want to help you uncover leading cannabis news, industry insights, scientific discoveries and more. Our hope is to help educate the greater public on the many uphill battles we still need to achieve prior to legalization. There are still a lot of laws, regulations and problems that cannabis companies and consumers are faced with.

This Week in Cannabis: May 10th-16th, 2020

This week was a good week for cannabis and hemp. On the wellness side of things, people are flocking to medical cannabis and CBD for their calming effects. And recreational cannabis companies are finding creative ways to get customers their daily doses, even during this pandemic. Let’s take a closer look. 

Keep Calm and CBD On…

Chances are you were already familiar with many of CBD’s health benefits. But recently CBD has found itself in the spotlight for one specific reason: Its ability to reduce anxiety. Research shows that CBD may boost endocannabinoid levels enough to actually help our brains forget fear-based memories! 

Put two and two together, and it’s clear CBD could provide a natural antidote to anxiety and stress. And we could probably all use such an antidote right about now.

Medical Cannabis On the Rise in Australia

In Australia, medical cannabis is a fairly new occurrence governed by the aptly-named Therapeutic Goods Administration. Their data suggests that Australians are turning to cannabis like never before. Over 3,000 new users have been approved for each of the last several months, and health regulators project there will be 70,000+ licensed users by the end of this year. Like many of us, it seems as though Aussies have found cannabis to be the perfect ally for enjoying your free time.

Liquor Company Delivering the Good Stuff

Why use alcohol when you can get similar upliftment from cannabis — without the hangover? 

This type of swap may not be what liquor distributor Drizly has in mind, but nonetheless it’s something they’re helping make possible. The company is branching out into cannabis home deliveries through a new brand called Lantern. Lantern will provide medical cannabis from several dispensaries to patients across the state of Massachusetts; once recreational cannabis can be legally delivered, Lantern plans to provide that service too!

Hemp Prices Way Down

A lot of hemp was grown by American farmers last year. Now that we’re more than a few months post-harvest, there’s a big question to answer: what to do with all of it. 

Finding a suitable outlet for all this surplus hemp is “the billion dollar question,” explains Casey Flippo, CEO of hemp extraction firm Natvana LLC. It seems that hemp extraction is the weakest link in the proverbial chain, as there’s still plenty of demand for CBD oil, but just not enough resources to carry out the conversion. Some farmers are trying to solve the problem by making and bottling their own branded CBD oil; others have resorted to selling biomass for as little as four or five dollars a pound.

Free Hemp Seeds? That’s What Texas Farmers Are Getting

Thankfully hemp has other uses beyond just making CBD oil. Panda Biotech is donating 60 tons of hemp seeds to Texan farmers, so long as they use their crops for fiber and provide plenty of data-based feedback. We think Panda is onto something. 

“We are literally seeding Texas’ industrial hemp industry […]. We’re making this donation to help ignite a new industry where Texas has the potential to be a global leader, and having access to real-world data is a necessary first step for that to occur.” 

– Scott Evans, Panda Biotech’s executive vice president

To Sum Things Up…

Like we said, this week in cannabis was a good one. Perhaps the industry has aligned with overall news trends, where lockdowns are being phased out and things are slowly getting brighter. Let’s just hope people continue to use cannabis, even long after they’ve taken their attention off of boosting their immune systems or creating new canna-jobs to survive within a struggling economy.