HempTalk - Business Blogs and Press Releases

Seven Italian hemp producers will have products in HempToday’s HempBoutique popup showroom at NoCo Hemp Expo Friday and Saturday, April 6-7, in Loveland, Colorado, USA.

The seven fly the flag of Federcanapa, the Italian federation that backs hemp initiatives throughout Italy’s regions, and represent the agriculture, health & beauty and food sectors. Rachele Invernizzi, Federation President and President at SouthHemp Tecno srl, one of Italy’s leading hemp processors, is representing Federcanapa at NoCo.

For small, innovative producers

Ten other companies from as far away as Nepal and South Africa, along with European vendors from Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and France also will have products in the HempBoutique, situated in the Global Hemp Village section on the Expo floor.

The Boutique aims to give small, specialized producers a chance to get their products and innovations exposure in the fast-growing U.S. market, said Hana Gabrielová of Czech-based Hempoint, who is leading the HempBoutique supplier group.

International panel is set

Both Gabrielová and Invernizzi also will sit on the HempToday international panel set to run 3:20 to 4:05 p.m. Friday on the NoCo Mainstage, moderated by HempToday. The finalized panel:

Over the objections of law enforcement and health officials, a second House committee approved a bill Wednesday that would legally allow some Tennesseans to use medical cannabis.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Crosby, would give those suffering from roughly a dozen maladies a legal defense if they are arrested and prosecuted for having cannabis, provided they have a doctor’s note prescribing the product.

The House Criminal Justice Committee advanced the legislation with a 9-2 vote.

Click here to read the complete article

Joel Ebert ~ USA Today Network via Tennessean.com ~ 

A Vermont hemp processor accused of stealing a contract farmer’s hemp crop won’t be held personally liable for any missing profits. A civil judge dismissed the personal liability case against Vermont Hemp Co. CEO Joel Bedard, according to Heady Vermont, a website that covers the state’s cannabis industry. The lawsuit against the company will continue, […]

Vermont hemp processor wins partial victory in crop dispute is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

On the road in the USA • What’s gonna happen to our little industry in the Disastrous Era of Trump? Hold on to your hemp knickers, because we may be about to find out.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell said today he would “soon be discussing the issue” with Jeff Sessions, Idiot Attorney General. This came at a press conference during which McConnell announced that next week he’ll introduce a bill in the U.S. Senate to legalize hemp and allocate federal funds to help expand cultivation of our beloved crop. Specifically, the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 will legalize hemp as an agricultural commodity and remove it from the list of controlled substances. That’s what McConnell’s press release said.

One of the really stupid ones

The IAG, you’ll remember, announced in January that his Department of Justice was rescinding five Obama-era memoranda affecting criminal prosecution of marijuana-related offenses under federal law. The memoranda had essentially allowed individual states to decide about the cultivation, processing and sale of cannabis-based products including those derived from industrial hemp.

Sessions has been a longtime ignoramus about cannabis law reform. One of the really stupid ones.

Punching bag

Meanwhile McConnell, a Trump enabler and occasional punching bag (a true supporter, in other words), wants to take home the hemp, so to speak, for his farmer friends back in Kentucky. The Senator is among lawmakers representing several American farm states that want to revive hemp, which was grown across the vast Midwestern farm belt decades ago as a common crop.

The Senate’s top Republican says hemp shouldn’t be a controlled substance, and he plans to introduce a new bill to make the change. Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell made the announcement about the proposed change to federal hemp law Monday in his home state of Kentucky. “It’s now time to take the final step and make […]

McConnell calls for removal of industrial hemp from controlled substances list is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Police seized boxes of CBD-infused gummy bears from an Alabama company that distributes products to convenience stores after receiving complaints the candies may contain THC. Authorities are testing several boxes of gummies taken Friday from American Wholesale Distributors, according to Birmingham TV station WBMA. A representative from the distribution company told WBMA the products contain only […]

CBD raids spread to Alabama as officials seize gummies over THC concerns is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Rising acceptance for hemp and CBD – combined with easing regulations at the state level – caused U.S. hemp production to surge in 2017. From 2016 to 2017, the number of acres licensed for hemp cultivation in the top 10 hemp-growing states grew by 140% – while the number of hemp producers doubled over the same […]

Chart: US hemp production soars in 2017 is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Hemp’s tendency to absorb contaminants from the earth is among subjects to be explored during the fourth edition of “Cannabis & Science,” a conference set April 18, 2018 at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic.

While hemp is seen by some as useful in phytoremediation – in which plants absorb contaminants such as mineral fertilizers, composts and sewage sludges – the plant’s absorptive properties could mean it is more susceptible to contamination of hemp crops grown for other end uses.

Marie Bjelková, Agritec Šumperk, a plant science researcher based in the Czech Republic, will look at hemp’s ability to reduce or eliminate heavy metal from soil caused by intensive farming and industry.

Bjelková will balance hemp in phytoremediation with the potential for contamination in the cultivation and production of fiber, organic dry plant matter for industrial applications, and as seeds destined for food and oil.

Mendel U. expanding hemp research

Mendel University is rapidly expanding exploration of industrial hemp in its broader cannabis research program. That’s due in part to legislative changes that have made the Czech Republic an attractive destination for foreign investors interested in cannabis research.

A hemp education hub opening Saturday in New Zealand comes as the nation prepares for a big uptick in hemp growing because of new rules expanding how the plant can be used. According to the New Zealand Herald, the hemp innovation hub will offer consulting and education for interested hemp farmers. The owner of the […]

New Zealand hemp industry taking off with new uses, more acres is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Indiana’s long-simmering CBD confusion ended with the state’s governor signing a law clarifying that all CBD products are legal as long as they come from hemp and contain low amounts of THC. The new law specifies that anyone can sell or possess CBD products containing less than 0.3% THC and derived from hemp. Gov. Eric Holcomb’s […]

Indiana approves CBD for all, ending months of retailer confusion is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The largest hemp cultivator in Maine has identified a former blueberry processing plant as its future extraction site. Future Farm Maine – a subsidiary of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Future Farm Technologies – has signed a two-year lease for 12,960 square feet of the 60,000-square-foot building in Belfast, a coastal town about 100 miles north of […]

Maine’s largest hemp grower eyes blueberry plant for processing site is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Hemp farmers in Canada say overproduction is depressing prices for seeds. The Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance told the Commodity News Service that Canadian seed prices have fallen from about 75 Canadian cents (58 cents) a pound last year to 55 Canadian cents a pound this year. Canada remains the world’s biggest hemp-seed producer, devoting about […]

Canada hemp farmers blame overproduction for drooping prices is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Far from the bustling marijuana dispensaries in Las Vegas and California, rural and politically conservative states with limited cannabis laws are loosening restrictions that once had marijuana entrepreneurs writing them off as infertile territory.

"Progress is being made in places you'd never have thought possible," said Keith Stroup, founder of NORML.

CBD limits loosening in states written off by marijuana reformers is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

Vancouver-based Isodiol International Inc. has partnered with Kawacatoose First Nation to grow hemp and manufacture CBD, the company said this week.

Under the agreement, Kawacatoose will provide up to 3,000 acres of land, and the two parties will work together to set up a co-op with other tribes in Saskatchewan aimed to boosting tribes’ economic fortunes.

Isodiol makes pharmaceutical-grade phytochemical compounds and CBD consumer products.

“The company will have significant access to the highest quality CBD, as Kawacatoose will provide the labor necessary to maintain and improve the farmland,” said Marcos Agramont, Isodiol’s CEO. The company will consult with Kawacatoose and the planned co-op on cultivation methods and standards, Agramont said.

The Kawacatoose Reserve in southeast Saskatchewan comprises 8,248 hectares and has 1,000 inhabitants.

A Chinese hemp company and a California-based CBD company are building a new plant to manufacture CBD isolate in western Kentucky. The plant from HMI Group of Beijing and Kings Royal Biotech of Capistrano Beach, California, is expected to employ more than 100 people on nine acres in Bardwell, near the Mississippi River and just […]

CBD manufacturing facility under construction in Kentucky is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

When recreational marijuana hits store shelves in Canada later this summer, it will be sold in “plain packaging” that contains only a standardized cannabis symbol and one of 14 health warning messages, according to an updated set of proposals released Monday. The recommendations were part of a Health Canada report summarizing feedback from 3,200 people on […]

Canada releases rules for cannabis packaging, ‘micro-cultivation’ is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

A cannabis company plans to offer low-dose CBD products at convenience stores, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says federal attorneys have bigger concerns than “routine” marijuana cases, and an Arkansas judge blocks regulators from issuing MMJ business licenses. Here’s a closer look at some notable developments in the marijuana industry over the past week. Fill […]

Week in Review: CBD in gas stations, AG Sessions hints status quo for cannabis & Arkansas hits MMJ snag is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

A $100,000 infusion for Washington agriculture regulators has saved the state’s hemp oversight program – but the lifeline has failed to convince the largest grower to plant another crop. The money came in the final budget agreement at the Washington state legislature, according to Capital Press, which covers agricultural news in the Pacific Northwest. Washington’s […]

Washington hemp oversight restored after state allocates $100,000 for regulators is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) has again called on the European Union to reverse a tightening of THC levels for industrial hemp-based products enacted in 1999 “to restore the European hemp industry’s full competitiveness.”

“EIHA demands rational THC limits for industrial hemp in accordance with international regulations,” the Association said in a release. It called for an easing of the 17-year-old restriction that sets maximum THC content for industrial hemp at 0.2% in Europe while other markets around the world set that limit at 0.3%.

‘Significant disadvantage’

“The hemp food industry in Europe has a significant competitive disadvantage to producers in North America and Asia. With increasing hemp food markets, this problem will become even bigger in subsequent years,” EIHA said.

Europe specific THC limit values for industrial hemp were first set at 0.5% in 1984. The limit was later cut to 0.3% based on a standard set out in the 1970s by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT), and based on the work of American plant scientists Ernest Small and Arthur Cronquist. Their work for the IAPT set 0.3 % THC (dry weight) as the line between cannabis sativa (“hemp”) and cannabis indica (“marijuana”).

The European Union in 1999 further tightened the allowable amount of THC for hemp to 0.2% in a misguided effort aimed at preventing marijuana grows in industrial hemp fields.

Seven companies have applied to sell low-THC medical marijuana at 21 separate locations in Iowa. The state is expected to grant licenses for five locations next month.   Applicants paid a $5,000 fee for each application and won’t be able to open until early 2019, the Des Moines Register reported. Iowa’s medical marijuana program is quite […]

Seven Iowa businesses angle for low-THC medical cannabis retail licenses is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs