ROADBLOCKS?
What’s getting in the way of US cannabis legalization?
Democrats control the House and Senate and big corporate backers like Amazon have stepped up to support cannabis legalization, yet several pieces of proposed legislation languished in 2021, reports Politico.
So what gives? Insiders proposed a few reasons:
- Lack of compromise and an “all or nothing” attitude among legislators
- Absence of a concentrated effort and consensus from industry players to advance federal legalization
- Tension between banking/corporate interests and social justice reform
- Declining lobbying dollars
The takeaway
With Democrats likely to lose control of Congress after the midterms in 2022, federal cannabis legalization isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
(And for those of you who were keeping track and/or holding your breath, the word cannabis did not come up in President Biden’s State of the Union this week…)
Enjoy Cannabis Daily each morning at 7 a.m.
HE DID INHALE?
Former President Bill Clinton endorses cannabis—sort of
Impact Forum, the invite-only healthcare conference held this week in Orlando, Florida, featured star speakers like CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, but no one expected former president Bill Clinton to come out swinging in support of cannabidiol (CBD) and small amounts of THC for pain treatment in a discussion about substance use disorder, reports Cannabis & Tech Today.
“I try not to answer any of those hype calls but I get more messages about CBD than any man alive,” Clinton reportedly said. “Go figure. There is some evidence that you can get CBD with a low-THC count that will combat pain. Some of these products have been tested more or less to FDA standards and some [haven’t been tested] not at all.”
But it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement
According to Marijuana Moment, Cannabis & Tech Today unpublished the article after Clinton’s PR team asked the writer to take it down. The website later republished it.
ONE MILLION STRONG?
WeedTube launches Instagram petition
Cannabis-friendly video platform WeedTube launched a petition to encourage Instagram to stop censoring cannabis content, according to a press release. Accounts are often taken down in an effort to protect younger users of the app, despite meeting the community guidelines which prohibit cannabis sales or trades.
The details
- So far, just 312 had signed as of writing this newsletter. The goal is to gather 1,000,000 signees
- WeedTube hopes reps of the app will “join a roundtable discussion with experts in the cannabis industry to update their policies and regulations around legal cannabis content”
In the meantime, the new cannabis-friendly social media network by Weedmaps and Cookies is coming soon.
$ TO EU?
Leafy Tunnel could bring more institutional investment in the EU market
Since venture capital company Leafy Tunnel announced its first closing of its $30 million target fund at the end of January, co-founding partner Bek Muslimov says he imagines it will pave the way for more institutional investment in the European cannabis and psychedelics market, reports BusinessCann.
“With this milestone, we envisage the entry of more institutional capital in Europe within these sectors that will serve as a catalyst for Big Pharma companies to penetrate the space further,” he said.
The takeaway
EU cannabis stocks struggled to build momentum without institutional investment in 2021—but Leafly Tunnel could be paving the way forward.
