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New Mexico’s adult use program continues to come together.
On Friday, New Mexico regulators announced the Cannabis Regulatory Advisory Committee. The Committee met on Tuesday to consider proposed producer rules for the state’s forthcoming adult use industry.
Pushback in Georgia.
As Cannabis Wire reported last month, Georgia regulators awarded the first-ever cultivation licenses, which were years in the making. Among the six licensees was Trulieve, which, as Cannabis Wire reported in 2019, was lobbying in the state.
Now, several applicants who were not awarded licenses have filed “protests” with the state, including Curaleaf, who has also registered to lobby in the state.
On Monday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution dug up the fact that one of the board members of Botanical Sciences LLC is former US Representative Tom Price (who also at one point was former President Donald Trump’s secretary of health), who opposed medical cannabis legislation while in that role.
Suffice it to say that patients, who have already waited years for legal access to medical cannabis in-state, and not just a legal right to possess the products, will likely be waiting months longer.
Minnesota to consider allowing medical cannabis for anxiety, again, and edibles.
The state’s Office of Medical Cannabis has opened public comment, until October 1, on two potentially transformative changes to its medical cannabis program.
One petition would allow “anxiety disorder” to be a qualifying condition, and the other would allow for sales of edible cannabis products. The state already allows for oral products that dissolve, but this change, if approved, would allow for “food products infused with cannabis extracts.”
Petitions to add anxiety have been brought forth every year since 2016, and this year, regulators will approach the issue differently. Specifically, the Office will provide a report to Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm that lays out the potential benefits and harms to public health by adding the condition.
The report was prompted by Malcolm, who asked last year for “a review of the literature and research,” interviews with states that have “added or denied anxiety as a qualifying medical condition,” and “convening a work group of professionals with expertise in anxiety disorder to obtain their perspectives.”
Malcolm will decide on the two petitions this December.
+ More: Minnesota began to step toward broader cannabis reforms this year when the House passed an adult use legalization bill. But the legislation stopped there.
Leafly plans to pull a Weedmaps.
In June, Cannabis Wire reported in our newsletter that Weedmaps, which rose in popularity as a Yelp-like platform on which users could locate a cannabis shop, would be renamed WM Technology, Inc. upon its $579 million merger with Silver Spike Acquisition Corp. and listed on Nasdaq as MAPS.
Now, Leafly, which rose in popularity as a platform on which to read strain reviews, is planning to go public by the end of 2021 via a merger with Merida Merger Corp. I, after which it would be listed on Nasdaq as LFLY. According to the announcement, “the transaction values the combined company at an implied, fully diluted enterprise value of approximately $385 million and equity value of approximately $532 million, subject to any redemptions by Merida stockholders.”
