Hawaii: An adult use push is formally underway.
While adult use efforts are getting underway as legislatures come back into session, there’s a spectrum when it comes to how serious these efforts are. For example, the bill introduced this week in Tennessee called the Free All Cannabis for Tennesseans Act is on the unlikely-to-pass side of that spectrum.
As for Hawaii, it’s 50-50, but with plenty of promise. In recent years, adult use legislation has sputtered out, and former Gov. David Ige was not totally in support, either. But the new governor, Josh Green, supported legalization while on the campaign trail.
Under these new circumstances, lawmakers are trying again. On Wednesday, Rep. Jeanné Kapela held a press conference, along with groups like MPP and ACLU, to discuss her forthcoming bill.
“We all know, and Hawaii’s people know, that it is high time to legalize recreational cannabis use for adults in Hawaii,” Kapela said to applause.
“Legalizing cannabis is not just a matter of money. It is a matter of morality,” Kapela continued, adding that the industry should meet “needs of Hawaii’s people, not the profits of multi-state corporations.”
A first: Colorado’s annual cannabis revenue declines.
Colorado’s latest sales and tax revenue figures are out, and it is official: 2022 is the first time since legal sales went live in 2014 that the annual revenue didn’t beat the previous year.
Some post-pandemic-bump decline was expected, but then the revenue just kept falling. Now, the question is: when does the bleeding stop?
We suspect not just yet, as more and more adult use markets come online.
(Both sales and tax revenue are down, by the way, but here’s what the sales drop looks like.)
Research: UConn researchers’ work could be a space saver.
A research team at the University of Connecticut has published a study in HortScience that identifies the most space-efficient means of propagation.
They compared three methods (micro, stem, and retip cuttings) and found that while the size and cannabinoid makeup of the plants were similar, the “retipping” method took up significantly less space.
“Retipping has the potential to produce nine-times as many plants in a similar amount of floor space as stem cuttings from traditional stock mother plants,” said Jessica Lubell-Brand, professor of horticulture at UConn’s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources and principal investigator on the project.
“This method could help cultivation facilities grow more in less space while maintaining the quality of their final product.”