The average price for a pound of cannabis flower fell 8.1 percent nationally in 2023 to around $995, but cultivators in Alaska, Ohio, and Missouri still enjoy the hefty wholesale prices from a largely bygone era. According to a new report from Leaflink, Alaska leads the country with an average wholesale flower price of $2,374.74 per pound, followed by Ohio at $2,282.70 and Missouri at $2,065.88. It’s worth noting the report presents Ohio’s pricing data in grams to align with how… Read more.
Lawmakers in Missouri’s House of Representatives have given preliminary approval to a budget bill that would spend $10 million from state opioid settlement funds on research grants to study the use of psilocybin to treat opioid use disorder. The measure, HB 2010, underwent several amendments in the House on Tuesday and is scheduled for a third reading and likely floor vote on Thursday. An addition made in a House committee last week would have put the $10 million toward studying… Read more.
A strong majority of voters—including more than 60 percent of Republicans—support congressional legislation to protect states’ rights to set their own marijuana laws, according to a new poll of three states. The survey, commissioned by the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR), focused on Missouri, Ohio and Wyoming. It asked voters 21 and older about their views on the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act. The bill, which is being led by Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH)… Read more.
More than 40 percent of the owners listed on applications for state’s social-equity marijuana licenses issued in October were from outside Missouri, according to an annual report released by the Division of Cannabis Regulation Wednesday. About half of those owners came from California, Michigan, Louisiana and Arizona, collectively. The microbusiness license program is meant to boost opportunities in the industry for businesses in disadvantaged communities, and it was part of the constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed in November 2022. A total… Read more.
More than 40 percent of the owners listed on applications for state’s social-equity marijuana licenses issued in October were from outside Missouri, according to an annual report released by the Division of Cannabis Regulation Wednesday. About half of those owners came from California, Michigan, Louisiana and Arizona, collectively. The microbusiness license program is meant to boost opportunities in the industry for businesses in disadvantaged communities, and it was part of the constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed in November 2022. A total… Read more.
A Republican state senator has filed legislation to renew last spring’s failed effort to regulate intoxicating hemp products in Missouri, such as Delta-8 drinks and edibles. Delta-8 THC products can be sold in stores in Missouri because the intoxicating ingredient, THC, is derived from hemp, not marijuana which is a controlled substance. And hemp is federally legal. There’s no state or federal law saying teenagers or children can’t buy them or stores can’t sell them to minors—though some stores and… Read more.
Missouri’s crackdown on a cannabis company accused of illegally importing THC concentrate could lead to a showdown over the state’s authority to regulate the industry. Delta Extraction had its license to manufacture cannabis products revoked in November, months after a massive recall pulled more than 60,000 products off the shelves—which the state says were illegally made with a hemp-derived THC concentrate imported from out of state. As the legal battle continues to drag out, the company has upped the ante: If the state… Read more.
Have you ever pondered the landscape of cannabis regulations across the United States? Amid a shifting legal terrain where nearly half of the states have embraced recreational cannabis and 38 have legalized medical marijuana, the complexities abound. Despite federal law maintaining cannabis as an illegal substance, each state charts its course with unique rules and regulations. Deciding on the optimal cannabis state involves considering various factors, such as whether the state permits medical, recreational, or both cannabis programs, the presence of… Read more.
Missouri officials have expunged more than 100,000 marijuana cases from court records during the first year of legalization, according the latest state numbers. But some courts missed Friday’s deadline for felony expungements as clerks work to review decades of old cases. “The courts are going to need more time to finish the job, and in fact, it might be years before all the cases from the past century are expunged,” lawyer Dan Viets, a Missouri NORML coordinator and co-author of… Read more.
The city of St. Louis will lose approximately $500,000 in tax revenue after it failed to submit documents with the Missouri Department of Revenue to collect a voter-approved recreational marijuana tax. City voters approved a 3 percent tax on recreational marijuana in April. State law would have allowed the city to begin collecting the tax on October 1 if paperwork was filed by June 30. Bill 139 was passed unanimously by the St. Louis Board of Aldermen last December to ask… Read more.
Budtenders and inventory clerks Home State Dispensary in Kansas City, Missouri voted on Tuesday to join the Teamsters Local 955, making them the first cannabis workers in the Kansas City metro area to unionize and the first to join the Local 955. In a statement, Jerry Wood, Local 955 president, noted that cannabis sales in Missouri are on track to gross over $1 billion in revenue this year. Madison Ford, a budtender at Home State, said the workers “are standing… Read more.
Missouri regulators have notified cannabis operators that thousands of marijuana products under recall since August have been released for sale. The roller-coaster situation was first detailed by MJBizDaily. The Department of Health and Senior Services’ Division of Cannabis Regulation (DCR) have released nearly 15,000 products that were under recall, according to an Oct. 20 notice. That’s about a quarter of the 62,000 cannabis products that have been under recall. The infused products contained distillate manufactured and sold by Missouri-based Delta Extraction and its affiliates. The… Read more.
Missouri marijuana executives are hoping to return to some sense of normalcy after the state’s $1 billion-plus cannabis market underwent whiplash last week over the status of 62,000 infused products recalled from store shelves back in August. The back-and-forth began early last week when cannabis operators thought they had turned a corner in a saga that has cost them millions of dollars in lost sales and inventory. The initial sense of relief came as state regulators began clearing for sale… Read more.
A dispensary in St. Louis County initiated a lawsuit against Missouri, asserting that imposing multiple sales taxes on recreational marijuana sales by municipalities and counties is unconstitutional. In Kansas City, two counties, Jackson and Cass, have been stacking sales taxes. This action was prompted by voter approval in April, which endorsed county and municipal taxes, each set at 3% for recreational marijuana sales. The plaintiff in this case is Robust Missouri Dispensary 3, and their dispensary is situated within the city of Florissant,… Read more.
A Missouri cannabis company is suing the state claiming the sales tax stack on adult-use cannabis sales is unconstitutional, KSHB 41 reports. St. Louis County-based Robust Missouri Dispensary 3 argues that the 3% tax passed by voters in Jackson and Cass counties violates state law and that in February the Missouri Department of Revenue issued a statement that clarified “based on constitutional language, a city and a county cannot ‘stack’ the additional up to 3% local tax on recreational marijuana sales.” That… Read more.
An administrative hearing to weigh the merits of a massive marijuana product recall in Missouri has been pushed to December. Missouri’s Administrative Hearing Commission was set to hear arguments from cannabis regulators and Delta Extraction, but a joint motion between the manufacturer and state attorneys extended the hearing to Dec. 1 at the earliest, the Missouri Independent reported. Missouri regulators suspended Delta Extraction’s marijuana business license on Aug. 2 and accused the company of sourcing materials from an unlicensed facility. Then, on Aug. 14, the… Read more.
Missouri has awarded 48 cannabis microbusiness licenses to “marginalized or under-represented individuals.” Each of the state’s eight congressional districts were given two retail licenses and four wholesale facility licenses, according to a news release. The Division of Cannabis Regulation selected the winners through a lottery involving 1,600-plus applicants. Applicants denied licenses can request that their applications be reviewed or receive a full refund of their application fees. Another 48 licenses will be issued through another lottery in 2024 and 2025, the Missouri Department of Health… Read more.
A widespread recall targeting tens of thousands of infused cannabis products in Missouri has led to millions of dollars in lost sales and inventory for retailers and manufacturers, according to industry sources and court documents obtained by MJBizDaily. At the same time, scores of operators caught up in the fallout have few options to recoup those losses. Some retailers, such as Kansas City-based multistate operator Greenlight, have locked up thousands of vape pens and other products in vaults after Missouri regulators… Read more.
Kansas City, Missouri officials have green-lighted using proceeds from a 3 percent municipal tax on marijuana to fund a violence prevention program in the city. The City Council on Thursday approved a proposal to put $458,000 in proceeds from the local cannabis tax, which voters approved in April, toward the city’s Aim4Peace initiative, which works with local communities and survivors of violent crime. All told, the city estimates it should make roughly $3 million each year from legal sales after the tax… Read more.
Marijuana sales along state lines are key revenue generators for retail operators in the United States, and new insights suggest a similar business bump along international borders, particularly Mexico. Data compiled by New York-based wholesale technology platform LeafLink – as well as information gathered from state agencies, quarterly reports and interviews with several cannabis companies – bear that out. LeafLink analyzed hundreds of ZIP codes at the request of MJBizDaily and found strong links that when new recreational markets open, retailers near… Read more.
The Missouri medical cannabis company that had nearly 63,000 products recalled last month lost its bid to stop the recall after a Cole County Circuit judge on Thursday dismissed the case, KMIZ reports. The judge ruled that Delta Extraction, LLC did not exhaust administrative remedies and that the court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the complaint. The Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation (DCR) had issued the recall because the products were not tracked by the state’s seed-to-sale-tracking system, METRC, and that the agency could… Read more.
Foster parents in Missouri can now legally possess and grow marijuana in their homes under an emergency rule filed last week by the state Department of Social Services. Consuming cannabis in a manner that emits smoke or vapor, however, is still not allowed inside the house. Missouri voters in November 2022 passed a ballot initiative, Amendment 3, to legalize and regulate marijuana for adults 21 and older, allowing the purchase and possession of up to three ounces of cannabis and,… Read more.
St. Louis, Missouri officials are considering allowing the operation of cannabis lounges, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Under the plan, patrons could smoke cannabis and eat cannabis products on-site. Aldermanic President Megan Green told the St. Louis Business Journal that the lounges have “the potential to provide an economic boom for the city.” A private cannabis lounge opened in the city in 2019, prior to voters approving broad cannabis legalization reforms in 2022, and at least three others like it have opened within city limits, according… Read more.
New rules implemented in Missouri allow regulators to instruct the state’s certified cannabis testing laboratories to double check the work of other labs – an effort to cut down on so-called ‘lab shopping,’ the Missouri Independent reports. Under the regulations, the state will, up to 10 times a year, instruct labs to test cannabis samples tested by another lab. Then the state will review the test results to make sure they have similar results in THC potency, and that one lab isn’t… Read more.
The newly elected Missouri state auditor, Scott Fitzpatrick, launched a formal investigation into how the state oversees its medical and recreational marijuana industries, fulfilling a campaign pledge he made last year in his run for the office. According to The Missouri Independent, the audit kicked off on Aug. 2 when auditors met with officials from the Department of Health and Senior Services, which houses the state Division of Cannabis Regulation, the state agency tasked with overseeing the marijuana trade. Fitzpatrick told The… Read more.
Missouri officials have released new rules for cannabis packaging in the state, limiting colors on packages to one primary package color and up to two logos or symbols that can be of different colors, the Springfield News-Leader reports. The logos or symbols cannot be larger than the clearly printed word, “Marijuana,” which must appear on the packaging in black or white text. All cannabis product packaging must also feature a warning label that says: “Cognitive and physical impairment may result from the use of… Read more.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters grew its membership of cannabis workers again, this time in California and Missouri. Teamsters Local 1932 in San Bernardino, California, added 81 workers at Growpacker, a Desert Hot Springs-based cannabis bottling facility, according to a news release. Employees at another San Bernardino cannabis company, Captain Jack’s Dispensary, voted in February to join Local 1932. In 2021, cultivation facility workers at nearby Tikun Olam also voted to join Local 1932. “This is the fifth group of California cannabis workers who have joined the Teamsters this… Read more.
Missouri’s marijuana businesses will have fewer obstacles when it comes to accessing banking, but they must now get fingerprint background checks from all their new employees and contractors, under legislation that Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed on Thursday. Few banks nationwide serve cannabis businesses and their owners—or even their auxiliary partners —because most want nothing to do with a business that sells a product the federal government still considers illegal. That’s true even in states that have legalized marijuana. The governor… Read more.
Springfield residents invested in the city's proposed marijuana tax must be registered to vote by Wednesday in order to weigh in. A special municipal election is set for Aug. 8, with only one issue on the ballot. Voters have the opportunity to decide whether the city of Springfield imposes an additional 3% sales tax on recreational marijuana. Revenues from this sales tax would go toward "public safety, mental health services, housing and substance abuse services," according to the ballot. Only… Read more.
In St. Louis in the 1980s, if you got caught with even a “butt of a joint,” you were going to do jail time, said Bob Ramsey, who was assistant public defender at the time. Ramsey particularly remembers the head of the prosecutor’s marijuana task force, under then-Circuit Attorney George Peach. “She was just absolutely ruthless and brutal,” Ramsey said. “You didn’t even bother to talk to her because you knew you were going to get a plea-bargain offer for… Read more.
Social equity advocates in Missouri are questioning the validity of numerous zip codes submitted by law enforcement that would qualify residents to apply for cannabis microbusiness licenses. Leaders of the local and state NAACP are criticizing the inclusion of several zip codes that encompass government buildings, post office boxes and affluent suburbs, while omitting several others primarily in north St. Louis, where roughly half the city’s Black population resides. The microbusiness licenses were designed to allow “marginalized or under-represented individuals… Read more.
Cannabis sales in Missouri have topped $350 million during the first three months of adult-use sales, the Missouri Independent reports. And while sales have remained strong, there was a slight dip in cannabis sales in April as adult-use sales fell about 3% from March, to $91 million, while medical cannabis sales slipped nearly 8% to $30.1 million, KSDK reports. Missouri cannabis sales nevertheless remain on track to achieve $1 billion in annual sales this year. Comparatively, it took seven months for neighboring Illinois to reach… Read more.
Recreational marijuana has been legally available in the Show-Me State for almost three months and in Springfield dispensaries, sales remain steady. Operators say a driving factor in the consistently high demand has been an influx of out-of-state customers who cross the border to purchase Missouri marijuana. Flora Farms President Mark Hendren said "the numbers are pretty steady" for the first 90 days that recreational products have been on the market. Flora Farms operates four dispensaries in Springfield, Humansville, Ozark and… Read more.
Some companies to slow their hiring strategies. Legalization of recreational cannabis in Missouri led to a surge in job growth within the industry, but the trend could be slowing as labor needs are met. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the number of active licenses to work in the sector catapulted from 9,800 in October to more than 14,000 in March, after voters approved recreational marijuana use through a constitutional amendment last November. While the rapid expansion has boosted the state’s economy,… Read more.
How police officers plan to use the device during simple traffic stops is unclear. A neuro-diagnostic company, Oculogica, said it has launched a pilot program to trial a new roadside cannabis test that supposedly provides immediate results, with a wider release slated toward the end of the year. The binocular-looking device, dubbed OcuPro, detects recent cannabis use and impairment within 60-90 minutes using eye-tracking-based algorithms, the company said, which would be an improvement over current tests that can only detect the general presence of… Read more.
Missouri total cannabis sales topped $125 million in March, according to the state Division of Cannabis Regulations data outlined by KSHB. The total includes $93.5 million in adult-use sales and $32.7 million in medical-use sales. In a statement, MoCannTrade Executive Director Andrew Mullins said Missouri has “one of the most customer-friendly cannabis programs in the entire nation.” Adult-use cannabis sales launched in Missouri in February and are so far on track to surpass $1 billion annually. The state sold $102 million worth of cannabis… Read more.
The Missouri House last week approved a measure that would require the state to conduct studies on psilocybin to treat depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, or use as part of end-of-life care, the Missouri Independent reports. This bill requires the state Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) to provide more than $2 million in grants for the research, subject to lawmakers approving the appropriation. The state would collaborate on the study with a Missouri university hospital or medical center operated by the U.S.… Read more.
Things are getting high in Missouri for cannabis users in more than one way! Less than two months into recreational pot being legal, there’s already a marijuana shortage and that’s leading to soaring prices. It starts with cultivators not being able to keep up with demand, moves down the line to manufacturers paying more for what’s grown, and ultimately leads to higher checkout totals at dispensaries. Missouri initially predicted around $50-60 million would be spent on cannabis. Now, we’re looking… Read more.
Following adult-use cannabis legalization in Missouri, the state has granted more than 15,000 expungements of nonviolent misdemeanor and felony cannabis crimes, KMOV reports. Under the state’s voter-approved adult-use cannabis law, possession of up to three ounces is legal for adults and all eligible misdemeanors for individuals who completed their sentences must be expunged automatically by June 8, while low-level felonies must be expunged by December 8. Charges that included selling cannabis to a minor, violence, or driving under the influence are not eligible… Read more.
Missourians voted to legalize recreational, adult-use marijuana in November. That constitutional amendment also established a framework for marijuana "microbusinesses" — business licenses intended to allow more "everyday folks" to participate in the state's growing marijuana industry. "Right now, the way I see it is these microbusinesses are effectively small businesses that are designed to allow particular entities and individuals to own and operate them," Missouri's Division of Cannabis Regulation Director Amy Moore said. While the idea seems straightforward, the details… Read more.
Since the sale of marijuana became legal in Missouri, Fridays have been busy at Kansas City marijuana's dispensaries. On this Friday, among the customers were basketball fans from out of town. "We saw some Iowa State gear," said Sam Morrison, manager of From the Earth. "We saw, you know, some West Virginia stuff. And then all of a sudden, we saw those wide eyes come through the door." Missouri is the only state in Big 12 country with legal recreation marijuana and fans are… Read more.
It’s been one month since Missouri began approving licenses for dispensaries to sell recreational marijuana Feb. 3. In less than 30 days, Missouri’s nearly 200 dispensaries made about $103 million in weed sales – nearly $72 million of that came from recreational sales. According to Andrew Mullins, executive director of the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association (MOCann), Missouri has already outpaced Illinois in adult-use sales. The state is the only one bordering Missouri that also has recreational use. The first month of adult-use cannabis sales… Read more.
As former general manager of three Arena Football League teams, Reggie Harris knows the importance of going on offense. So, in 2021, when Harris and his team launched House of Kush, a Kansas City, Missouri-based company that sells cannabis-plant genetics via seedlings and licensing deals, he didn’t wait for clients to come find him. “Primarily, we’re going out seeking them,” Harris said. Today, House of Kush genetics are growing in six states – Arizona, California, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri and Oklahoma… Read more.
After the overwhelming success of previous business events, the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference is returning to Miami beach April 11-12, 2023 with events taking place simultaneously on two stages at the historic Fontainebleau Hotel. As part of celebrating individuals, entrepreneurs, and organizations who do amazing things in the industry, Benzinga will feature Christine Smith, founder & CEO of Grön (pronounced "green"), one of the largest and most recognized producers of handcrafted cannabis-infused edibles in the American Northwest. Mother And Architect-Turned-Chocolatier Christine Smith brings over 20 years of experience as a licensed architect before… Read more.
The first two months of 2023 have shown expansive interest in bold drug policy reform in state legislatures across the country—most recently, with the introduction of numerous new bills touching on everything from psychedelics legalization to authorizing safe drug consumption sites. Lawmakers in several states will conduct hearings on such reform proposals over the next week. The marijuana legalization movement continues to spread and evolve, but it’s become quickly apparent this session that legislators are eager to more holistically move… Read more.