#Budtender Training Columbia

[leafypros-blog]

Budtender Training | Budtender Training Certification In Maryland | Leafypros Leafy Pros provides Budtender Training in Maryland, the United States for Cannabis Industry Jobs. Here you can get Cannabis Training seminars, Programs, Courses and classes in cities across the United States. Our specialized Trainers teach to latest trend medical cannabis industry. Maryland Dispensary Training. Get Budtender Salary in Maryland with leafy Pros. More Details visit: https://www.leafypros.com

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How to Open A Cannabis Store in Canada.

How to Open a Cannabis Dispensary in Canada On October 17, Canada became the first G7 country and the world's second country to legalize recreational cannabis, ushering in a historic shift in the evolving legalization landscape. And Canada's green injection is expected to boost the country's economy significantly: the industry is expected to generate CAD$9.2 billion by 2025.

Prospective business owners have plenty of opportunities in Canada's new recreational market, but deciding to start a cannabis business is only the first of many steps. Researching the regulatory requirements in each province and writing a cannabis dispensary business plan are just a few of the tasks that any aspiring entrepreneur must complete before entering Canada's burgeoning cannabis market.

Understand the Laws

Adults in Canada are permitted to possess, transport, and share up to 30 grams of cannabis under the central framework of legalization. Aside from that, each of the 13 provinces is developing its own set of regulations, which will be overseen primarily by the liquor and gaming authorities in each province. Most provinces define an adult as someone aged 19 or older; in Quebec, the legal age is 18.

Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan have all legalized the sale of cannabis through privately owned dispensaries, which means that entrepreneurs will be able to apply for licenses in those states. Customers in most other provinces, on the other hand, will have to buy cannabis from government-run dispensaries, with Ontario recently changing their rules to only allow government-run online sales until April 1, 2019, when private retailers open for business.

These details alone can influence where you apply for a license, which customers you serve, and which regulations you follow - and that's just a snippet.

Step 1: Obtain Your License: 

There are three types of licenses available for cannabis retailers in Canada: provincial, territorial, and municipal. Provincial licenses are issued by the provincial government, territorial licenses are issued by the territorial government, and municipal licenses are issued by the local municipality. In order to obtain a license, the applicant must be at least 18 years old and meet all other eligibility requirements as set out by the applicable license authority.

The application process for a retail cannabis license varies depending on the type of license being applied for and the jurisdiction where the store is located. Generally, however, the applicant will need to submit a completed application form, pay the applicable fees, and provide all necessary supporting documentation.

Step 2: Find A Suitable Location For Your Store: 

When looking for a location for your store, you'll want to find a spot that's visible and accessible but also one that meets the zoning regulations in your area. You'll also need to find a space that's large enough to accommodate your inventory and customers.

Once you've found a suitable location, you'll need to apply for a license from your local government. Each municipality has its own regulations regarding cannabis stores, so be sure to check with your local officials before submitting your application.

When it comes time to open your store, you'll need to consider the security measures you'll put in place. You may want to install an alarm system or hire a security guard, as well as make sure that your staff is properly trained on cannabis legislation and regulation. You'll also need to ensure that all products are clearly labeled and stored securely in accordance with local laws.

 Step 3: Develop An Operating Plan & Budtender Training Program: 

Develop a detailed operating plan for your cannabis store. This should include staff training, inventory management, customer service processes, security protocols, and other operational policies. It's also important to create a budtender training program that covers key topics such as safety considerations, product knowledge, and compliance with provincial regulations. Making sure your staff is up-to-date on the latest industry standards and regulations is essential for maintaining a safe and compliant dispensary.

When it comes to inventory management, you'll need to ensure that your cannabis store is well-stocked with a variety of products that meet customer needs. You may also want to consider having certain products on hand in limited quantities — this can help ensure that customers who find a product they like will come back for more. Make sure to keep accurate records of your inventory, both in-store and online.

Step 4: Develop Product & Pricing Strategies:

Once you've secured your license and leased a space for your store, it's time to start planning the product selection and pricing structure of your cannabis store. You should research the market carefully and decide which products you want to offer at what prices. Consider how much competition there is in your area and what people are willing to do.

Step 5: Market Your Store & Increase Brand Awareness: 

Once you have secured the necessary licenses and set up shop, it is time to market your business and increase brand awareness. Creating a marketing plan for launching your cannabis business should be an integral part of any start-up. You can use traditional advertising methods like print or radio ads or consider digital methods such as social media campaigns and email marketing.

Having a website and online store is also important for cannabis businesses as it provides customers with an easy way to learn more about your products, services, and special offers. Additionally, investing in search engine optimization (SEO) can help you boost web traffic and generate leads.

Conclusion:

Opening a cannabis store in Canada is a challenging but rewarding endeavor. Though the process may be lengthy and costly, it can help you become part of an emerging industry with significant economic and social benefits for your area. To open a successful store, you must understand the legal requirements of operating within Canada's cannabis laws, follow provincial or municipal regulations, and apply the necessary steps to secure a license from your provincial regulator. You should also consider investing in technology that can help you better manage inventory, orders, and customer data to remain competitive in the cannabis market.

[bestmarijuanaboutiques]

Clearing the Air: Florida Condensed Cannabis

New Post has been published on https://bestmarijuanaboutiques.com/?post_type=wprss_feed_item&p=24062

Clearing the Air: Florida Condensed Cannabis

If you wish to re-publish this story please do so with following accreditation

AUTHOR: Heather Allman

PUBLISHER:  CANNABIS LAW REPORT

Clearing the Air- Florida Condensed Cannabis 

For those of you in the dark about Florida’s Medical Marijuana Program, I will be lighting up the dim corners of Florida: The Nation’s Fastest-Growing Medical Marijuana Market, according to The Miami New Times on May 2, 2019.

CANNABIS PRIMER

Glossary of Marijuana TerminologyviaCannaInsider.com

Americans for Safe Access.org

Luckily for me, Florida passed constitutional Amendment 2 in November 2016 which allows Multiple Sclerosis, along with many other chronic and debilitating qualifying conditions as eligible for compassionate care, meaning diagnosed patients would be allowed by Florida to receive a medical marijuana recommendation from a qualified Florida physician and products from a licensed Florida dispensary; these dispensaries must strictly adhere to Florida’s seed-to-shelf vertical integration business model.

I am a legal Florida medical marijuana patient since January 2017, as well as a traveling medical cannabis writer, patient educator and vocal advocate. Since then, my quality of life has increased dramatically, both mentally and physically. Even my doctors and specialists are amazed at my progress!

As such, I am representative of the face of medical marijuana in Florida, one of 311,266 qualified active patients with ID cards as of February 7, 2020. Did I mention that we only have 2,607 of those “Florida qualified physicians” for ALL of us?

STATE OF FLORIDA

If Florida plans to increase its medical marijuana program through new legislative policies and marijuana dispensary standardized procedures, how exactly do we attempt to accomplish this?

In May 2019, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried announced that a newly-created and appointed Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee of 18 doctors, lawyers, patients, industry leaders, and advocates will be implemented in order to “advance and modernize policies” to move Florida into the future of medical marijuana

Florida plans to help close the existing gaps and get patients and the state across the existing, prohibitive Drug War bridges, with  Florida’s appointment of a 2019 inaugural group:

18 Member Medical Marijuana Advisory who will collaborate with the Florida Department of Agriculture to help improve the state’s medical marijuana regulations and policies through membership by the following individuals and is part of the Cannabis Division at the Department of Agriculture:

[ 1. Kim Rivers; 2.Barry Gordon, MD; 3. David Kotler; 4. Dr. Michelle Weiner; 5. Zachary Kobrin; 6. Dan Russell; 7. Dr. David B. Corn; 8. Cameron Vance, Ph.D.; 9. Sally Kent Peebles; 10. Jacel Delgadillo; 11. Eric Stevens; 12. Mike Smuts; 13. Ron Watson; 14. Antoinette Duncan; 15. Peter Barsoom; 16. Paul Messer; 17. Karen Seeb Goldstein; 18. Elaine Geller ]

Florida’s Cannabis >Medical Marijuana Division in the Department of Agriculture. The Committee will convene telephonically and in-person bimonthly to develop ways and methods to expand patient access and affordability, increase innovation and technology within the cannabis industry, and to make recommendations to the Legislature and the Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU)

Who will organize and oversee this committee, you ask?

Florida Director of Cannabis: Meet Florida’s New Director of Cannabis Holly Bell via her resumé and listen to her May 2019 “Mother of Marijuana” interview.

Who will this committee make recommendations to other than the Florida State Legislature? Who else is listening intently?

Florida Office of Medical Marijuana Use, or OMMU,  provides Weekly Updates every Friday. This Office is part of Florida’s Department of Health.

Who will appoint, amend, manage and provide oversight to this Advisory Committee, the Director of Cannabis, and to the Office of Medical Marijuana Use? 

Florida Department of Agriculture: Meet Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services: Nicole “Nikki” Fried.

For interested parties currently residing outside the state of Florida, a comprehensive overview:

Who’s Who in Florida Government published by Spectrum News Staff and updated on Feb. 28, 2019 gives valuable background on the State of Florida in its Latest from Tallahassee, the state Capitol.

PHYSICIANS

On the Medical Marijuana/ Cannabis state lead:

Florida Department of Health and its Office of Medical Marijuana Use. In addition, the DOH works directly in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Florida’s volatile cannabis arena. 

What specific curriculum and medical material is taught in their Florida CME training and certification journey?

What medical marijuana delivery routes and associated products are accessible by Florida patients? 

The medical cannabis training these specialized CME physicians receive from the state is readily accessible for the public, including all Florida state medical cannabis certification physician qualifications and official answers:

OMMU PHYSICIANS Certification Course

OMMU PHYSICIANS Certification Course Textbook

OMMU PHYSICIANS FAQ

CANNAHEALTH PHYSICIANS CERTIFICATION 

Upon successful completion of the Florida physican CME training, a physician proceeds to immediately update this new medical specialization information with the Florida Division of Medical Quality Assurance

Patients in need of Florida’s rapidly advancing legal cannabis medication can then search the state’s CME physician database, call for information, and ultimately schedule an initial cannabis patient qualification appointment at a particular practice, or MMTC of their choice. 

During this required update timeframe, physicians often pause briefly to deliberate the choice: what are the implications of being an integral part of Florida’s burgeoning therapeutic cannabis medicine practice?

Membership in the widespread MMTC FL state system offers the most clinical practice hours, and a physician begins seeing possible medical marijuana patients immediately. 

Physicians can easily update their designated specialized certification at www.FLHealthSource.gov. Physicians can directly email questions to MQAOnlineService@flhealth.gov.

DISPENSARIES 

Dispensaries serve as The Crusaders who are literally growing medical marijuana in the state, while figuratively growing the state’s fledgling program simply through their participation.

What exactly has transpired concerning Florida state regulations as they directly pertain to local dispensaries, their employees, and dispensary ancillary agents? It all hinges solely on a vertical integration business model, which includes licensed cannabis businesses in Florida.

These state-licensed cannabis companies are called “dispensaries.” The Florida Department of Health regulates medical marijuana in Florida and is the agency that issues all required licenses. Visit the Florida Department of Health for further information.

Florida Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Info List

Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in Florida

These licensed dispensaries must be complete seed-to-sale companies who also provide healthcare to qualified medical cannabis patients by dispensing a patient’s desired product, in the desired delivery route.

These vital, end-line dispensary employees help fit desired cannabis medication products into a patient’s individual money framework.

That is, these licensed companies eventually dispense a patient’s doctor-issued recommendation by first planting and cultivating medical cannabis before processing and packaging it.

Simultaneously, Florida dispensaries must strive to train efficient, knowledgeable store employees, called “Wellness Coordinators” or “budtenders.”

These necessary individuals present the finished state-certified cannabis product on the dispensary’s shelves in an appealing manner. These end-line employees smartly and safely sell, or “dispense,” the cannabis product to the patient and consumer per the physician’s recommendation in the Registry.  

All of our state MMTC FL licensed clinics and dispensaries incorporate the lofty goals of both patient and product availability (access) and affordability (cost).

The Medics, or cannabis physicians, prescribe the patient’s recommendation for medical cannabis products that can be purchased by the patient (1) in various delivery routes (oral, inhalation, tinctures, oils, topicals, smokable), and (2) in various strains depending on the particular dispensary business.

The patient can fill their physician-recommended medical marijuana order at any, or all, of the Florida dispensaries listed below, using any desired personal combination of delivery routes and cannabis products. 

Patients are not limited to specific product choices or strains when given their medical marijuana order by the physician. Patients cannot be required to purchase from a specific dispensary.

Although their personal CME physician can make recommendations on product choices or dispensaries that would be best for the patients qualifying condition and associated symptoms, patients are not required to purchase specific cannabis products. 

Both the medical marijuana dispensary and cannabis products purchased are at the sole discretion of the individual patient.

Licensed Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers that are authorized to dispense medical marijuana products in a form for smoking or other delivery route to qualified patients include these fourteen companies called dispensaries:

Trulieve

Curaleaf

Liberty Health Sciences

VidaCann

MüV ( formerlyAltMed)

GrowHealthy

Rise Dispensaries (GTI)

One Plant (formerly 3 Boys)

Surterra Wellness (Parallel)

Fluent (formerly Knox Medical)

Harvest

MedMen

The Botanist

Columbia Care Florida

What’s the actual story behind Florida’s current vertical integration model, recently ruled “unconstitutional”?

There are fourteen current licensed participants as noted above, which begs the question of how can Florida’s vertical integration model requirement for state licensure be so problematic? Let’s highlight the Florida Medical Marijuana timeline between 2016 and 2019, leading up to the future case hearing and ultimate decision, and attempt to decipher what all this fuss is about.  

Way back in the beginning in 2016, Florida had only six dispensing businesses licensed by the state’s Department of Health to grow, process, and distribute marijuana rather than the currently existing fourteen dispensary businesses.

Trulieve was the first dispensary to be issued a license by the state as noted in this July 20, 2016 article: Florida’s First Medical Marijuana Dispensary Ready To Hit Market. Trulieve is my favorite dispensary, hanfs down. They have a wide variety of quality cannabis at fair prices, knowledgeable employees, mellow environment, and treat patients in a respectful and professional manner.

On April 15, 2019, Florida released updated Information on How to Get Medical Marijuana Treatment Center License, or MMTC license, in the state to open a clinic or dispensary. 

In addition, ModernCanna Labs MMTC Application Process offers step-by-step one pagers, along with several vital guides for use in Florida:

What does it mean to be a vertically-integrated Florida dispensary of medical cannabis products?

How can a Florida dispensary license be obtained?

How To Prepare for the Process of Obtaining a Florida MMTC License

Know the Current Laws and Regulations in Florida courtesy of the Marijuana Policy Project

Dispensary Permits: Open a Dispensary in Florida

Dispensary Permits – Florida Medical Marijuana Licenses

Foley LLP – Medical Marijuana Licensure, June 22, 2017 Update

Whether or not these common goals of access and affordability are always achievable for MMTC physician clinics and their dispensary counterparts remains undecided; but cannabis is quite the budding industry here in Florida. 

PATIENTS 

Now that we know who these state medical marijuana physicians are, let’s examine the patients being treated.

What exactly are the qualifications to become a Florida medical marijuana patient? On the popular MarijuanaDoctors.com, all qualifying conditions in Florida are noted.

Dedicated availability through the official OMMU patient/physician site, and the Florida MMTC maintains an accurate, updated list of eligible qualifying conditions at all times. 

Listed for quick reference, patients in Florida diagnosed with one of the following Top 10 qualifying “debilitating medical conditions” have legal protection under Amendment 2, overwhelmingly passed in 2016:

AIDS (Positive Status)

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

Cancer

Crohn’s Disease

Epilepsy

Glaucoma

HIV (Positive Status)

Multiple sclerosis (MS)

Parkinson’s disease

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

–Terminal Condition that is diagnosed by a physician other than the qualified physician issuing the physician certification

–Chronic Pain (Nonmalignant) caused by a qualifying medical condition or that originates from a qualifying medical condition and persists beyond the usual course of that qualifying medical condition

–Medical conditions of the same kind or class as or comparable to those above.

Florida’s medical marijuana program has evolved leaps and bounds beyond the confines of the state’s original, yet restrictive, 2016 “Compassionate Use” law.

While the words seem to be clear enough on paper in the 2016 Florida State Law, the interpretation and implementation of this law is the inseparable key to the proverbial Pandora’s lock. Indeed, the lock on the state’s cannabis safe is nearly unbreakable. Why? Because this invaluable safe contains Florida’s medical marijuana legal framework.  

Concerning the current state program’s legal details, Marijuana Doctors correctly advises that Florida’s cannabis patients must be at least 18 years of age and a Florida Resident, or a seasonal resident with a valid Florida driver’s license or Florida identification card. 

Patients must obtain legitimate medical records or documentation from a primary care physician describing their diagnosis, and subsequently bring these records to a marijuana evaluation appointment with a CME licensed physician. Seen different doctors for a qualifying condition? No problem! Here’s how to easily request your medical records.

The qualifying patient must be diagnosed through a full in-person physical examination and assessment of medical history before receiving a recommendation by your selected certified physician for having one of the debilitating medical condition diagnoses listed above.

All patients must be entered into the Florida Medical Marijuana Use Registry by the physician who evaluated them.

Patients (and Caregivers) must also apply for their Registry Identification Card (Medical Marijuana Card) only if they need to purchase or carry a patient’s medical marijuana products on their person.

Need help? A designated caregiver can be added to your patient profile after proper documentation is submitted to the state. But an OMMU Registry ID card is not required in order to simply accompany a patient to purchase cannabis products inside a physical dispensary location

In such a case,the patient’s caregiver or other accompanying adult needs only to have a valid Florida identification card or driver’s license to temporarily relinquish to dispensary staff for the duration of the patient’s visit. Patients and caregivers can submit an application online or by mail.

Once the application has been approved, a temporary Identification Card will be emailed to the patient immediately. Qualified Florida patients will then be mailed a physical Identification card required by law to be kept on their person at all times.

Patients can then fill their order at a licensed Medical Marijuana Treatment Center of Florida dispensary location using their ID card as required identification for purchase of various cannabis products.

Patients have to be re-certified every 30 weeks in order to receive a new medical marijuana recommendation. To maintain a valid Medical Marijuana Registry Identification Card, Patients & Caregivers must renew their Identification Card annually. 

Renewals must be submitted at least forty-five (45) days prior to the present card expiration date; a complete renewal application, $75 and required documentation must be submitted to the state.

The Florida Department of Health, Office of Medical Marijuana Use can be accessed manually at 1-800-808-9580, online at Florida Department of Health’s Office Of Medical Marijuana Use, or email at medicalmarijuanause@flhealth.gov.

On November 21, 2017, Jerry Ianelli brought the breaking story that a Miami Nursery Sues to Demand Florida Allow More Medical Pot Farms

Wednesday, January 2, 2019, caused quite a commotion when it was officially announced that Florida Medical Marijuana System Is Now In Court

On January 10, 2019, Eric Sandy reported on the Latest Court Ruling in Florida Reiterates Unconstitutionality of Medical Marijuana Law.

RESOURCES

Even with recent dual drives for Florida adult recreational use and the impending court decision on the constitutionality of our Florida vertical integration cannabis program model, Medical Marijuana remains in the foreground and legal users now have representation, lobbyists and passionate advocates infiltrated throughout local, state and national government.  

Most locales throughout Florida have embraced this full-spectrum cannabis economy, along with the accompanying exceptional physician minds introduced to each state region with marijuana expansion, especially considering these vital facts:

Cannabis in Florida: A Year In Review and Forecast for 2020

How Much Cannabis Each State Sold in First Month of Legal Sales

700 Medical Cannabis Studies Sorted By Disease

Marijuana Statistics 2019, Usage, Trends and Data)

And finally, according to Marijuana Momentum, January saw another major marijuana score with Federal Marijuana Reform Getting Another Congressional Hearing.

The current cherry on top of our messy U.S. cannabis sundae? According to this Ocala Star Banner Editorial, the overall message has shifted on medical marijuana. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. 

[nancygduarteus]

America’s Invisible Pot Addicts

The proliferation of retail boutiques in California did not really bother him, Evan told me, but the billboards did. Advertisements for delivery, advertisements promoting the substance for relaxation, for fun, for health. “Shop. It’s legal.” “Hello marijuana, goodbye hangover.” “It’s not a trigger,” he told me. “But it is in your face.”

When we spoke, he had been sober for a hard-fought seven weeks: seven weeks of sleepless nights, intermittent nausea, irritability, trouble focusing, and psychological turmoil. There were upsides, he said, in terms of reduced mental fog, a fatter wallet, and a growing sense of confidence that he could quit. “I don’t think it’s a ‘can’ as much as a ‘must,’” he said.

Evan, who asked that his full name not be used for fear of the professional repercussions, has a self-described cannabis-use disorder. If not necessarily because of legalization, but alongside legalization, such problems are becoming more common: The share of adults with one has doubled since the early aughts, as the share of cannabis users who consume it daily or near-daily has jumped nearly 50 percent—all “in the context of increasingly permissive cannabis legislation, attitudes, and lower risk perception,” as the National Institutes of Health put it.

Public-health experts worry about the increasingly potent options available, and the striking number of constant users. “Cannabis is potentially a real public-health problem,” said Mark A. R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at New York University. “It wasn’t obvious to me 25 years ago, when 9 percent of self-reported cannabis users over the last month reported daily or near-daily use. I always was prepared to say, ‘No, it’s not a very abusable drug. Nine percent of anybody will do something stupid.’ But that number is now [something like] 40 percent.” They argue that state and local governments are setting up legal regimes without sufficient public-health protection, with some even warning that the country is replacing one form of reefer madness with another, careening from treating cannabis as if it were as dangerous as heroin to treating it as if it were as benign as kombucha.

But cannabis is not benign, even if it is relatively benign, compared with alcohol, opiates, and cigarettes, among other substances. Thousands of Americans are finding their own use problematic—in a climate where pot products are getting more potent, more socially acceptable to use, and yet easier to come by, not that it was particularly hard before.

For Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, the most compelling evidence of the deleterious effects comes from users themselves. “In large national surveys, about one in 10 people who smoke it say they have a lot of problems. They say things like, ‘I have trouble quitting. I think a lot about quitting and I can’t do it. I smoked more than I intended to. I neglect responsibilities.’ There are plenty of people who have problems with it, in terms of things like concentration, short-term memory, and motivation,” he said. “People will say, ‘Oh, that’s just you fuddy-duddy doctors.’ Actually, no. It’s millions of people who use the drug who say that it causes problems.”

Users or former users I spoke with described lost jobs, lost marriages, lost houses, lost money, lost time. Foreclosures and divorces. Weight gain and mental-health problems. And one other thing: the problem of convincing other people that what they were experiencing was real. A few mentioned jokes about Doritos, and comments implying that the real issue was that they were lazy stoners. Others mentioned the common belief that you can be “psychologically” addicted to pot, but not “physically” or “really” addicted. The condition remains misunderstood, discounted, and strangely invisible, even as legalization and white-marketization pitches ahead.

The country is in the midst of a volte-face on marijuana. The federal government still classifies cannabis as Schedule I drug, with no accepted medical use. (Meth and PCP, among other drugs, are Schedule II.) Politicians still argue it is a gateway to the use of things like heroin and cocaine. The country still spends billions of dollars fighting it in a bloody and futile drug war, and still arrests more people for offenses related to cannabis than it does for all violent crimes combined.

Yet dozens of states have pushed ahead with legalization for medical or recreational purposes, given that for decades physicians have argued that marijuana’s health risks have been overstated and its medical uses overlooked; activists have stressed prohibition’s tremendous fiscal cost and far worse human cost; and researchers have convincingly argued that cannabis is far less dangerous than alcohol. A solid majority of Americans support legalization nowadays.

Academics and public-health officials, though, have raised the concern that cannabis’s real risks have been overlooked or underplayed—perhaps as part of a counter-reaction to federal prohibition, and perhaps because millions and millions cannabis users have no problems controlling their use. “Part of how legalization was sold was with this assumption that there was no harm, in reaction to the message that everyone has smoked marijuana was going to ruin their whole life,” Humphreys told me. It was a point Kleiman agreed with. “I do think that not legalization, but the legalization movement, does have a lot on its conscience now,” he said. “The mantra about how this is a harmless, natural, and non-addictive substance—it’s now known by everybody. And it’s a lie.”

Thousands of businesses, as well as local governments earning tax money off of sales, are now literally invested in that lie. “The liquor companies are salivating,” Matt Karnes of GreenWave Advisors told me. “They can’t wait to come in full force.” He added that Big Pharma was targeting the medical market, with Wall Street, Silicon Valley, food businesses, and tobacco companies aiming at the recreational market.

Sellers are targeting broad swaths of the consumer market—soccer moms, recent retirees, folks looking to replace their nightly glass of chardonnay with a precisely dosed, low-calorie, and hangover-free mint. Many have consciously played up cannabis as a lifestyle product, a gift to give yourself, like a nice crystal or an antioxidant face cream. “This is not about marijuana,” one executive at the California retailer MedMen recently argued. “This is about the people who use cannabis for all the reasons people have used cannabis for hundreds of years. Yes for recreation, just like alcohol, but also for wellness.”

Evan started off smoking with his friends when they were playing sports or video games, lighting up to chill out after his nine-to-five as a paralegal at a law office. But that soon became couch-lock, and he lost interest in working out, going out, doing anything with his roommates. Then came a lack of motivation and the slow erosion of ambition, and law school moving further out of reach. He started smoking before work and after work. Eventually, he realized it was impossible to get through the day without it. “I was smoking anytime I had to do anything boring, and it took a long time before I realized that I wasn’t doing anything without getting stoned,” he said.

His first attempts to reduce his use went miserably, as the consequences on his health and his life piled up. He gained nearly 40 pounds, he said, when he stopped working out and cooking his own food at home. He recognized that he was just barely getting by at work, and was continually worried about getting fired. Worse, his friends were unsympathetic to the idea that he was struggling and needed help. “[You have to] try to convince someone that something that is hurting you is hurting you,” he said.

Other people who found their use problematic or had managed to quit, none of whom wanted to use their names, described similar struggles and consequences. “I was running two companies at the time, and fitting smoking in between running those companies. Then, we sold those companies and I had a whole lot of time on my hands,” one other former cannabis user told me. “I just started sitting around smoking all the time. And things just came to a halt. I was in terrible shape. I was depressed.”

Lax regulatory standards and aggressive commercialization in some states have compounded some existing public-health risks, raised new ones, and failed to tamp down on others, experts argue. In terms of compounding risks, many cite the availability of hyper-potent marijuana products. “We’re seeing these increases in the strength of cannabis, as we are also seeing an emergence of new types of products,” such as edibles, tinctures, vape pens, sublingual sprays, and concentrates, Ziva Cooper, an associate professor of clinical neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, told me. “A lot of these concentrates can have up to 90 percent THC,” she said, whereas the kind of flower you could get 30 years ago was far, far weaker. Scientists are not sure how such high-octane products affect people’s bodies, she said, but worry that they might have more potential for raising tolerance, introducing brain damage, and inculcating dependence.

As for new risks: In many stores, budtenders are providing medical advice with no licensing or training whatsoever. “I’m most scared of the advice to smoke marijuana during pregnancy for cramps,” said Humphreys, arguing that sellers were providing recommendations with no scientific backing, good or bad, at all.

In terms of long-standing risks, the lack of federal involvement in legalization has meant that marijuana products are not being safety-tested like pharmaceuticals; measured and dosed like food products; subjected to agricultural-safety and pesticide standards like crops; and held to labeling standards like alcohol. (Different states have different rules and testing regimes, complicating things further.)

Health experts also cited an uncomfortable truth about allowing a vice product to be widely available, loosely regulated, and fully commercialized: Heavy users will make up a huge share of sales, with businesses wanting them to buy more and spend more and use more, despite any health consequences.

“The reckless way that we are legalizing marijuana so far is mind-boggling from a public-health perspective,” Kevin Sabet, an Obama administration official and a founder of the nonprofit Smart Approaches to Marijuana, told me. “The issue now is that we have lobbyists, special interests, and people whose motivation is to make money that are writing all of these laws and taking control of the conversation.”

This is not to say that prohibition is a more attractive policy, or that legalization has proven a public-health disaster. “The big-picture view is that the vast majority of people who use cannabis are not going to be problematic users,” said Jolene Forman, an attorney at the Drug Policy Alliance. “They’re not going to have a cannabis-use disorder. They’re going to have a healthy relationship with it. And criminalization actually increases the harms related to cannabis, and so having like a strictly regulated market where there can be limits on advertising, where only adults can purchase cannabis, and where you’re going to get a wide variety of products makes sense.”

Still, strictly regulated might mean more strictly regulated than today, at least in some places, drug-policy experts argue. “Here, what we’ve done is we’ve copied the alcohol industry fully formed, and then on steroids with very minimal regulation,” Humphreys said. “The oversight boards of a number of states are the industry themselves. We’ve learned enough about capitalism to know that’s very dangerous.”

A number of policy reforms might tamp down on problem use and protect consumers, without quashing the legal market or pivoting back to prohibition and all its harms. One extreme option would be to require markets to be noncommercial: The District of Columbia, for instance, does not allow recreational sales, but does allow home cultivation and the gifting of marijuana products among adults. “If I got to pick a policy, that would probably be it,” Kleiman told me. “That would be a fine place to be if we were starting from prohibition, but we are starting from patchwork legalization. As the Vermont farmer says, I don’t think you can get there from here. I fear its time has passed. It’s generally true that the drug warriors have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

There’s no shortage of other reasonable proposals, many already in place or under consideration in some states. The government could run marijuana stores, as in Canada. States could require budtenders to have some training or to refrain from making medical claims. They could ask users to set a monthly THC purchase cap and remain under it. They could cap the amount of THC in products, and bar producers from making edibles that are attractive to kids, like candies. A ban or limits on marijuana advertising are also options, as is requiring cannabis dispensaries to post public-health information.

Then, there are THC taxes, designed to hit heavy users the hardest. Some drug-policy experts argue that such levies would just push people from marijuana to alcohol, with dangerous health consequences. “It would be like saying, ‘Let’s let the beef and pork industries market and do whatever they wish, but let’s have much tougher restrictions on tofu and seitan,’” said Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project. “In light of the current system, where alcohol is so prevalent and is a more harmful substance, it is bad policy to steer people toward that.” Yet reducing the commercial appeal of all vice products—cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana—is an option, if not necessarily a popular one.

Perhaps most important might be reintroducing some reasonable skepticism about cannabis, especially until scientists have a better sense of the health effects of high-potency products, used frequently. Until then, listening to and believing the hundreds of thousands of users who argue marijuana is not always benign might be a good start.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/americas-invisible-pot-addicts/567886/?utm_source=feed

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How to Using Marijuana to Get High Dates Back Millennia

Leafypros is certified in the marijuana industry in budtender Maryland, Columbia. The repeated warnings about cannabis use in the post-hippie era is to be aware that what you're smoking or ingesting isn't your grandparents'cannabis.Humans have worked hard in recent decades to produce strains with powerful doses of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC. the psychoactive component of the paint.

A superstrong strain of pot might overpower unwitting baby boomers, but all of this might just be a case of déjà vu. Today’s herb could be somewhat like cannabis that people cultivated about 2,500 years ago in Central Asia, a plant also bearing high levels of THC.  

The earliest of example the humans to burning cannabis in a purposeful way was the uncovered as researchers worked on the solving the mystery of ancient wooden burners found at a cemetery site in the Pamir in a mountain range in eastern China.

Such a discovery adds to growing indications of an association among many cultures of cannabis with the afterworld and death.

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We organize our seminars, Budtender Training Certification  Events in different cities of USA. To keep yourself updated about the upcoming event refer to our ‘Training Events’ section. If you are interested in the next event by Leafy Pros, then don’t forget to enroll for the same. We provide Budtender Training  Certification in New York, Oklahoma, Ohio, Maryland and in many more legal States. Contact us:- Email:-Support@LeafyPros.com Website:-https://www.leafypros.com

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Best Medical Budtender Training Maryland, Columbia

Leafy Pros have started offering the latest information in the cannabis industry. We are offering a Budtender Training Courses. The dispensary, Mary and Main, had its soft opening on Monday at its location along Hampton Mall Drive Capitol Heights.

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We are the best Maryland Dispensary Training providers. We want you to get the best jobs in the field of cannabis. Learn all about Medical Marijuana from expert teachers at Leafy Pros. They have also conducted their seminars in best-accredited cannabis colleges and trained their students. Now, it’s time for you to get trained by highly professional and experienced trainers. 

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Leafypros Provide our Budtender training in California, Florida, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and in many more places. Our trainers are the highly professional and deliver you the latest information about the field, they will you about the endocannabinoid system and how cannabis interacts with it, state, and federal cannabis regulations.

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Leafypros provides the best Budtender Training Certification in Columbia. join us on the campus of Prince George's Community College and attend the Gold Standard training for Dispensary Technicians. As a Dispensary Technician, you are the first person the patient comes in contact with when they make their purchase. Contact us Email:-Support@LeafyPros.com Website:-https://www.leafypros.com

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Using Marijuana to Get High Dates Back Millennia

A repeated warning about cannabis use in the post-hippie era is to be aware that what you’re smoking or ingesting isn’t your grandparents’ cannabis. Humans have worked hard in recent decades to produce strains with powerful doses of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component of the plant. The result is a surprisingly intense high that famously sent New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd into a spiral of paranoia after she ingested a cannabis-laced chocolate edible one fateful evening in Colorado.

A superstrong strain of pot might overpower unwitting baby boomers, but all of this might just be a case of déjà vu. Today’s herb could be somewhat like cannabis that people cultivated about 2,500 years ago in Central Asia, a plant also bearing high levels of THC.  Research published June 12 in Science Advances offers the first evidence that humans around that time not only used cannabis for the high it offers but also selected strains for their THC-packed psychoactive power, burning them in mortuary rituals. The find represents some of the oldest documented use of cannabis for its mind-altering effects. “I am impressed by this new and important discovery,” says Tengwen Long, an assistant professor and environmental archaeologist at the University of Nottingham, Nimbo campus, who was not involved in the study. “It offers us very important data concerning humans’ close interaction with the plant.”

This earliest example of humans burning cannabis in a purposeful way was uncovered as researchers worked on solving the mystery of ancient wooden burners found at a cemetery site in the Pamir mountain range in eastern China. The burners, dating to about 500 years B.C., were charred. Samples of the char revealed compounds that develop when people living in the region burned cannabis.  Furthermore, the estimated levels of THC in these samples were higher than wild cannabis would normally produce, suggesting intentional cultivation of the plant for its psychoactive powers.

Such a discovery adds to growing indications of an association among many cultures of cannabis with the afterworld and death, says Mark Merlin, professor of botany at the University of Hawaii, who was not involved in conducting this study. Cannabis was probably used for “medicinal and spiritual reasons,” he says, “which are not really separated by most traditional societies.”

Although the work shows the earliest chemical evidence of cannabis smoking, says study author Yimin Yang, professor of archaeometry at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Pamirs are where the practice first gathered steam. Yang’s co-author Robert Spengler, laboratory director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, agrees. Despite a cluster of archaeological finds from the Pamirs and other ancient cultures in the mountain foothill areas of Asia, Spengler urges researchers to continue the quest for earlier examples of cannabis use elsewhere.

More cases may inevitably turn up, says Barney Warf, professor of geography at the University of Kansas, who was not involved in the work. Warf called the most recent finding a “very reasonable and thorough study [that] makes a useful contribution documenting early psychoactive cannabis use. But I would not be surprised if future efforts uncover even earlier cases.”

Other regions where evidence of ancient cannabis use has emerged include the lands of the ancient Scythians in Siberia and similarly old sites in China, where hints of recreational use have been discovered, says study author Hongen Jiang, professor of archaeobotany at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Merlin points to the discovery in Japan of seeds that are about 10,000 years old. “This was a key plant in Eurasia,” he says.

A practice involving cannabis and death rites that may have disseminated far and wide along trade routes such as the Silk Road could have met its end with the rise of monotheism, Merlin says. “The spread of the major monotheistic religions pretty much wiped out shamanism, but there are vestiges,” he notes.

This sense of an ancient diversity of human ritualistic use lends context to the attention cannabis receives in contemporary headlines, says Spengler. “It is important to continually illustrate that the human interaction with this plant goes deeper back in time,” he says.

In the meantime, Long sees the findings reported in this study as “unambiguous” in confirming early use of cannabis deliberately as a psychoactive substance. Merlin agrees that all signs point to intentional use of the plant for this purpose, but it’s also possible that ancient people burned it to mask the smell of death and decay associated with mortuary rites, he says.

Still, Merlin doesn’t think that’s really the case, because of the link of cannabis to the burials of shamans, suggesting shamans might continue their practices in the afterlife. Merlin himself has seen a another example of ancient cannabis use, although without confirmation of burning. “It was almost two pounds of cannabis next to a shaman’s head, practically still green,” he says, expressing awe of the find in tombs in Turpan, northwest China. “I observed this 2,500-year-old shaman, and he had mortar that had been caked in cannabis with him. That was a remarkable find.”

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Leafy Pros is offering training to prepare prospective Budtenders for the Medical Marijuana Industry. We provide Budtender Training in Maryland, Florida, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Nyc, Ohio, San Diego, and Columbia.