LATEST TOPICS AND DISCUSSIONS ABOUT CANNABIS

Legalized marijuana has been growing in popularity. It is becoming very popular among American adults. More than 45% adults in the United States are said to have consumed cannabis at least once in their lives. There are about 109 million Americans who live in localities where use of cannabis among adults is legal. And one in three Americans live in states where recreational marijuana is legal. So, it is very natural to find that one in eight adults are ardent marijuana users. These numbers are proof that the prevalence of marijuana use has doubled over the past few years. It was not long ago that marijuana was illegal across the United States. But now as many as fifteen states in the United States have legalized marijuana completely, while thirty-six states have legalized it for medicinal purposes. Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota, Mississippi and Montana became the latest states to legalize marijuana, which they did during the 2020 US Presidential elections. Arizona, New Jersey and Montana legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, while in South Dakota and Mississippi, medical marijuana was legalized. In every state where drug policy reform and marijuana legalization were on the ballot, the voters sided with it and resulted in a win.

Delaware had opened the licensing program last year, and gathered ten applicants. The state recently increased the number of licenses for medical cannabis business from three to six. Along with the existing licensees- Columbia Care, First Sate Compassion, and Fresh Cannabis, three new licensees are- CannaTech Research, EzyCure, and Valor Craft Cannabis Co. The heavily regulated medical marijuana market of Delaware requires the cannabis businesses to be vertically integrated. According to Delaware’s Medical Marijuana Annual Report for 2020, there was a 37% increase in issuing of medical cards as compared to 2019.

Geographic Location Innovations, a company based in Houston, Texas has recently sued Dixie, a marijuana company for alleged patent infringement. Dixie is said to have unlawfully used a patented technology as a store locator on their website. Geographic Location Innovations claim that Dixies has violated on its patent, and is asking for a court order to stop the marijuana company from using the patented technology and to pay unspecified damages. Geographic Location Innovations’ patent is for a technology which stores and transmits addresses to electronic devices. The marijuana company’s website, Dixie Elixirs, still features a locator that helps consumers find the nearest retail store. As per the complaint, the patented technology includes display and other components that are in Dixie’s store locator platform.

In mid-February (2021), the pace of issuing store licenses by the cannabis store regulator has increased from 20 per week to 30 per week in the Canadian state of Ontario (which is the largest recreational marijuana market in the country). The regulator is said to have received in an excess of 1600 cannabis store applications till now and have issued Retail Store Authorizations (RSAs) to almost 500 of those applicants. According to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), Ontario now has 430 licensed cannabis store that are open for business, and more than 900 applications are still in the process of being granted licenses. Ontario went past 100 store licenses only in June (2020). The AGCO is continuously receiving a plethora of applications every week, and even at the new rate of 120 store authorizations each month, it will take at least another seven months to clear the licensing backlog. And at the current rate, Ontario will soon surpass the cannabis store count of Alberta, which has 573 licensed stores.