This is just a glimpse. Want to receive every issue of Cannabis Wire Daily, our newsletter that is sent to subscribers each weekday morning, and unlimited access to cannabiswire.com?
U.S. Census Bureau updates its cannabis data.
Last September, as Cannabis Wire reported at the time, the Census Bureau released a “new experimental data product” focused on state-level quarterly tax collections for cannabis sales. The product has now been updated to include data from Q4 2023.
California and Washington are at the top of the cannabis excises sales tax list, followed by Michigan and Illinois.
And check out the percentage of change, which indicates increases in collections. Toward the top? New York.
Note: If a state known to collect cannabis taxes doesn’t report its data and no alternative data is available, these entries are marked as “NA,” cautioning against using this report to gauge the total U.S. cannabis tax revenue.
AGs push Congress to rein in intoxicating hemp products.
This week, 20 state attorneys general wrote to leaders in Congress’ ag committees to change how hemp is defined in the 2018 Farm Bill.
“Bad actors have exploited the 2018 Farm Bill’s definition of hemp, its protection of derivatives of that plant, and a wrongly perceived federal pre-emption against state-level regulation of these products,” they wrote in the letter.
“Regardless of your Committees’ intentions, the reality is that this law has unleashed on our states a flood of products that are nothing less than a more potent form of cannabis, often in candy form that is made attractive to youth and children—with staggering levels of potency, no regulation, no oversight, and a limited capability for our offices to rein them in.”
As expected, cannabis and hemp groups diverged on their reactions to this letter. U.S. Hemp Roundtable, for example, issued a “red alert,” while ATACH said that they “applaud” the effort.
2 in 3 Canadians are now buying cannabis from legal sources.
Statistics Canada released its National Cannabis Survey, 2023 and it included a few interesting data points.
• Canada now has >3,000 legal cannabis stores, and 71.7% of Canadian cannabis consumers are buying from the legal market.
• Why legal? 38% reported product safety, while 16.9% said it was “convenience,” 12.9% said it was a “desire to follow the law.”
• Cannabis consumers preferred cannabis flower, as well as edibles.
GOP lawmaker talks cannabis banking at the ABA summit.
At the American Bankers Association summit this week, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer argued that supporting cannabis banking legislation does not mean supporting cannabis reform.
“Like it or not, if your state has enacted laws creating this, a legal entity that is legitimate, then our bankers should be allowed to bank it. That’s my belief, and I think that’s the approach. It’s not whether you’re a marijuana lover or hater, it’s more, this is a legitimate business that has been approved by the representative government of that state,” he said.
+ More: read Cannabis Wire’s coverage of the SAFER Banking Act.
