The world's biggest beer company is looking at making cannabis drinks

By Daniel Shane
Source: cnn.com

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Could Budweiser drinkers soon be swapping beer for pot?

AB InBev (BUD), the world's biggest brewer, said Wednesday that it's teaming up with Canada's Tilray (TLRY) to research cannabis-infused drinks.

It's the latest major company to start exploring the pot market following decisions to legalize recreational marijuana in Canada and a number of American states. AB InBev and Tilray will invest a combined $100 million into researching non-alcoholic drinks containing cannabis elements.

"We intend to develop a deeper understanding ... that will guide future decisions about potential commercial opportunities," Kyle Norrington, president of AB InBev's Canadian subsidiary Labatt Breweries, said in a statement.

Marlboro owner Altria invests $1.8 billion in cannabis company Cronos

 

For now, AB InBev is only looking at using cannabis ingredients in Canada. The company, whose top brands include Bud Light and Stella Artois, will make a decision on whether the pot products are commercially viable at a later date.

Tilray's Nasdaq-listed stock surged following the announcement of the tie-up, gaining about 13% premarket on Thursday. The company, which is based in British Columbia, specializes in medicinal cannabis products.

Its stock has more than quadrupled since it went public on the Nasdaq in July. The company's backers include billionaire investor Peter Thiel's venture capital firm Privateer Holdings.

Earlier this week, Tilray announced a partnership with Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis (NVS) to distribute medicinal pot in international markets.

Other big consumer brands are looking into how they can capitalize on loosening restrictions on cannabis products.

With Democrats winning control of the US House of Representatives, Congress may finally pass the Farm Bill, which would make it legal to produce hemp and potentially open the door for more products containing cannabidiol (CBD), a element found in cannabis.

More big consumer brands are looking into how they can capitalize on loosening restrictions on cannabis products.

Earlier this month, Marlboro-owner Altria announced it is investing $1.8 billion in Canadian cannabis company Cronos Group. Canopy Growth (CGC), another Canadian marijuana business, received a multibillion dollar investment from Corona owner Constellation Brands (STZ) in August.

One top consumer brand resisting the pot rush for now is Coca-Cola (KO). CEO James Quincey said in October that it "doesn't have any plans at this stage" to enter the cannabis market.

Belgium-based AB InBev has been looking for ways to juice up its sales as consumers increasingly turn to craft beers and microbrews. That's hurt sales for mass-produced beers like Budweiser and Bud Light.

Paul R. La Monica contributed to this report.

Hemp industry expected to blossom under new Farm Bill

By Dennis Romero
Source: nbcnews.com

"This is a cultural shift," said one purveyor of cannabidiol, CBD, a compound derived from hemp.


A volunteer walks through a hemp field at a farm in Springfield, Colorado on Oct. 5, 2013.P. Solomon Banda / AP file

The U.S. hemp industry is expecting business to expand and investors to beckon after Congress on Wednesday passed farm legislation that included a provision to legalize and regulate the plant under the Department of Agriculture.

"This is a monumental bill for hemp farming," said Lauren Stansbury of the Hemp Industries Association.

The bill, awaiting President Trump's signature, opens the door to state-by-state regulation, removes hemp, which is part of the cannabis plant family, from the federal enforcement of outlaw drugs and gives hemp farmers access to banking, crop insurance and federal grants, experts said.

That could open the industry, which produces therapeutic cannabidiol (CBD), fabric, rope and even ethanol, to a wave of investment.

"This is a cultural shift," said Bomi Joseph, creator of CBD product ImmunAG. "CBD is going to explode. I think the market is going to triple in size."

Cannabidiol has been touted as an elixir that can do everything from cure cancer to tame menstrual cramps, but so far the U.S. Food and Drug administration has only approved a specific formulation of CBD to treat seizures associated with rare forms of epilepsy.

The bill "puts forth a whole-plant definition of hemp including extracts," said Stansbury of the Hemp Industries Association. "We’re not just talking stalk or flower. Any product derived from hemp is a legal consumer product."

But for now at least the FDA could stand in the way.

It states that CBD products can't be sold as dietary supplements and that those making medical claims are illegal without its approval. However, the FDA aims its most serious enforcement efforts at products "marketed for serious or life threatening diseases," according to a statement.

And the dietary supplement exclusion could be revisited, the administration has stated. "The FDA could allow it to be regulated as food and dietary supplements," said Shawn Hauser of the Colorado law firm Vicente Sederberg, which worked on the hemp legislation.

Under the bill, CBD products derived from hemp and containing 0.3 percent or less of the high-inducing cannabinoid THC will be considered legitimate.

"It would no longer be controlled under the DEA's purview," said U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger.

Cannabis market data firm New Frontier recently projected that the American CBD market could reach $2.3 billion in revenues by 2022. Hemp-derived CBD (it can also come from other forms of cannabis) was expected to be worth more than half that total.

"The recent Farm Bill will have significant impacts on this channel as companies begin moving into mass market retailers now that hemp will be removed from the Controlled Substances Act," Nick Olsen, a spokesman for New Frontier, said via email.

The organization Vote Hemp said in summer that U.S. revenues for the total plant in 2017 were at a little more than $800 annually and growing.

Now hemp enthusiasts expect to see more CBD and hemp-derived products at mass market retailers in the months and years to come. "This bill will make hemp explode," said Erica McBride, executive director of the National Hemp Association.

The legislation will also allow transportation across state lines, academic research, production on tribal lands, and state regulation, including prohibition. In fact, experts expect it to take about a year for states to work out their own regulations or allow federal law to supersede.

They said about 40 states already had some form of hemp pilot program. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) backed the hemp provision vociferously, saying that a pilot program in his own home state has "become a booming success."

"Its uses range from food and pharmaceuticals to home insulation and automotive parts," he said in a statement. "Enthusiastic farmers quickly applied to plant the crop in their fields. Entrepreneurs opened businesses selling hemp-based products. And consumers got to enjoy a whole new set of goods featuring American-made hemp."

Not everyone is so excited.

The Drug Policy Alliance, one of the nation's most potent champions for cannabis legalization, didn't take a position on the farm bill. The group tried to strike language that prohibits folks with drug convictions from working in the industry for 10 years.

"We’re not celebrating," said Grant Smith, the alliance's deputy director of national affairs. "For people who have a recent conviction it's essentially a de facto ban."

"There’s all this talk of criminal justice reform and here we have this brand new legalized industry that could create a lot of new jobs in areas where they're badly needed," he said. "They're going to be deterred from contributing to our economy. It doesn't make any sense."

Here Comes Hemp: Congress Votes to Unleash a Billion-Dollar Industry

By Phillip Smith
Source: alternet.org


Photo Credit: Bob Franklin/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Marijuana’s lanky, straight-laced country cousin is about to get legal.

The Senate on Tuesday and the House on Wednesday gave final approval to the massive 2018 Farm Bill, including a provision that will end an eight-decade ban on industrial hemp, that non-psychoactive but extremely useful member of the cannabis family. President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.

Even though you could smoke a hemp joint the size of a telephone pole and get nothing more than a cough and a headache, for decades the DEA has refused to recognize any distinction between hemp and marijuana that gets you high. That meant that American farmers could not legally produce hemp for a hemp products industry worth $820 million last year and expected to break the billion-dollar mark this year.

That’s right: Thanks to a federal court case brought against the DEA more than a decade ago, farmers in countries where hemp is legal can export it to the U.S., and companies in the U.S. can turn that hemp into a variety of products ranging from foods to clothing to auto body parts to building materials and beyond, but U.S. farmers can’t grow it. That’s about to change.

“For too long, the outrageous and outdated ban on growing hemp has hamstrung farmers in Oregon and across the country,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). “Hemp products are made in America, sold in America, and consumed in America. Now, hemp will be able to be legally grown in America, to the economic benefit of consumers and farmers in Oregon and nationwide.”

Wyden and fellow Oregonian Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) teamed up with Kentucky Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell to sponsor the bill and guide it through Congress. McConnell’s role as Senate Majority Leader certainly didn’t hurt the bill’s prospects.

As well as guiding the bill forward, McConnell took to the Senate floor on various occasions to support it. In his statement on the passage of the farm bill, he touted “the new opportunities available with the full legalization of industrial hemp.”

“Finally we are recognizing industrial hemp for the agricultural product it is,” Merkley said. “This is a cash crop that hasn’t been allowed to meet its full economic potential because of outdated restrictions. When I visited a hemp farm mid-harvest, I saw firsthand the enormous potential of this diverse crop under the limited 2014 farm bill. This full legalization provides economic opportunity for farmers across rural Oregon and rural America—good for jobs, good for our communities, and just good common sense.”

The bill defines hemp as cannabis with 0.3 percent THC or less by dry weight and removes it from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Regulatory authority over hemp moves from the DEA to the Agriculture Department. The definition of hemp in the bill includes all parts of the plant and specifically lists cannabinoids, including CBD, that are removed from control of the CSA. The bill also includes funding and authorization for research and authorizes crop insurance for hemp farmers.

The inclusion of CBD has the potential of greatly expanding the size of the legal hemp industry. Hemp-based CBD wellness products—a category that didn’t exist five years ago—already account for nearly a quarter of the domestic hemp market, and the Hemp Business Journal predicts they will account for nearly $650 million worth of sales by 2022, becoming the single largest sector of the hemp market.

It’s been more than 40 years since Jack Herer ignited the marijuana movement’s interest in hemp with The Emperor Wears No Clothes: Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy. Herer is long gone—he died at age 70 in 2010—but the movement he launched has now reached the promised land. The single most ridiculously unjustifiable aspect of federal marijuana prohibition has been killed; now it’s time to finish the job by ending federal marijuana prohibition.

Congress just quietly passed a law that could spark a boom for the $1 billion marijuana-linked CBD industry

By Erin Brodwin
Source: businessinsider.com


Shutterstock

• The US Farm Bill passed on Wednesday legalizes hemp, a plant that's roughly identical to marijuana and is a key source of highly touted wellness ingredient CBD.
• The bill defines hemp as an agricultural product for the first time and amends a major drug law that hadn't been altered in 50 years.
• Experts said the shift could spike interest in CBD, which is also the active ingredient in the first cannabis-based medicine to gain federal approval in the US.
• Despite its hazy legal status, CBD already makes up a roughly $1 billion industry.

This week, a plant that's nearly identical to marijuana is set to become legal to grow in the US.

Thanks to the US Farm Bill, which the House passed on Wednesday in a 369 to 47 vote, American farmers will be able to plant and harvest hemp, a strain of the same plant species from which marijuana originates. The bill passed the Senate Tuesday in an 87 to 13 vote, and President Donald Trump has indicated his support.

Hemp legalization has been a longtime goal of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, who believes it can help replace tobacco as a key crop for his state's farmers.

The move alters the language of a major drug law that had previously remained unchanged for half a century and loosely defined hemp alongside marijuana as a controlled substance. The new bill exempts hemp from that law and defines it as an agricultural product. That means farmers and researchers of hemp now get some of the same benefits as farmers and researchers of other crops, like the ability to apply for insurance and federal grants.

"The era of hemp prohibition is over," Jonathan Miller, legal counsel for a lobbying coalition of over 60 hemp companies called the US Hemp Roundtable, told Business Insider.

That's a key change for scientists, many of whom say previous drug laws deterred them from studying hemp because it was regulated like marijuana.

The bill may also boost interest in a nascent but booming $1 billion industry based on a component of the cannabis plant called CBD, which has been touted for a variety of health and wellness claims. CBD is popping up in more and more products, from coffee and tea to supplements and beer.

But because CBD can be sourced from both marijuana and hemp plants, its legal status, set by the Drug Enforcement Administration, remains somewhat hazy. CBD from marijuana, just like marijuana as a whole, remains illegal. But now that hemp is legal, CBD from hemp may be legal, too.

"The devil is in the details, and we don't know yet how the DEA will act to implement the law," Daniele Piomelli, the director of the University of California at Irvine Center for the Study of Cannabis and a professor of neuroscience and pharmacology, told Business Insider.

The DEA, which controls the scheduling of substances, has not said how it will respond to the new bill. As it stands, so long as a CBD product is "intended for human consumption," it remains a Schedule 1 drug, DEA spokesperson Katherine Pfaff told Business Insider on Tuesday. She said she couldn't comment on how the bill might affect the DEA's approach.

The difference between hemp and marijuana comes down to one word: strain

AP Photo/Steven Senne

Marijuana and hemp come from the same plant species, called cannabis sativa. Both contain THC and CBD. But each plant is its own unique strain of cannabis.

Until recently, hemp was bred almost entirely for industrial uses like manufacturing. As a result, hemp plants today have very low amounts of THC, the psychoactive chemical responsible formarijuana's high. Instead, hemp plants are often higher in CBD, or cannabidiol, which is also found in marijuana. CBD is now thought to be responsible for several of cannabis' therapeutic effects.

For example, marijuana-derived CBD is the active ingredient inEpidiolex, a syrup that is the first cannabis-based drug to gain US government approval for medical use. The government approved the drug over the summer. The drug treats two rare forms of childhood epilepsy.

One thing that is clear from the new bill is that commerce involving hemp is now in the clear. Federally insured banks, for example, have the green light for the first time to work with industrial hemp producers.

From A to CBD: cannabis is showing up in everything

By Chloe/Leslie Kirchoff

Because CBD can come from either marijuana or hemp plants, it is unclear whether or not hemp-derived CBD products are now legal. Previously, thousands of manufacturers and entrepreneurs glommed onto the CBD wellness trend with the awareness that CBD products existed in a legal gray zone.

Read more: Heineken is betting on a brew made with marijuana instead of alcohol, and it could help give a boost to the struggling beer industry

Part of the reason for this was that there was no specific language in the DEA's main drug law, called the Controlled Substances Act, that used the word "hemp."

Thanks to that fuzziness, you could find everything from CBD lattes in New York to CBD teas at grocery stores across the country.

But now that hemp is legal, some experts expect the trend to really take off.

"The passing of the farm bill will most certainly open up the marketplace for hemp products, specifically hemp extracts that are high in CBD," Josh Hendrix, the director of domestic product business development for cannabis company CV Sciences, told Business Insider.

"It will provide a higher comfort level for retailers and consumers and will lead to more investment and opportunity in the industry as it will continue to see rapid expansion."

Still, other experts — particularly scientists — have expressed concern that while the bill itself is a step in the right direction, what remains to be seen is how the DEA will respond to it. Until the DEA decides to change the status of CBD, researchers can't expect too many changes to their current work.

What CBD does — and may not do — for your health

Shutterstock

It's difficult to say what the real health benefits of CBD are right now. The drug does appear to have at least one well-vetted therapeutic benefit: staunching the symptoms of two rare forms of childhood epilepsy by way of the newly approved drug Epidiolex.

There's another pressing issue facing the CBD industry, too: The products are poorly regulated, meaning there's wide variation in their content, safety, and price.

For a 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers tested 84 CBD products purchased from 31 different online retailers. Roughly seven out of 10 items had different levels of CBD than what was written on the label. Of all of the items tested, roughly half had more CBD than was indicated; a quarter had less. And 18 of the samples tested positive for THC, despite it not being listed on the label.

"I've seen a lot of dirty CBD manufacturing facilities," Kelvin Harrylall, the CEO of a company called the CBD Palace that audits CBD companies and creates a list of vendors it deems safe for customers, told Business Insider in June.

"It's tough to know what you're getting."

The farm bill itself won't directly affect product safety. But experts believe that as these laws move toward legalization and an increased role for regulators, the companies that abide by strict manufacturing conditions will come out on top, while those who run fast and loose with rules will suffer.

"I believe if you are a CBD manufacturer and you can say that you're making a quality product ... then you have nothing to worry about," Harrylall said. "But if you aren't sure [or] if you've cut corners, those CBD manufacturers are the ones that should be worried."

THE SENATE HAS VOTED TO PASS THE FARM BILL CONFERENCE REPORT 87 TO 13

Source: votehemp.com/

This afternoon, the U.S. Senate voted to pass the Farm Bill conference report 87 to 13. The bill now goes to the House for a vote that will likely be held tomorrow or Thursday.

Congress is pushing to get the Farm Bill to the President's desk this week. Farmers are anxious for relief and the certainty that a new Farm Bill will provide. We are now one step closer to final passage. We will keep you updated.

Hemp and CBD legalization reportedly will be in Farm Bill

By Todd Runestad
Source: newhope.com



The hemp provision will remove hemp from the federal list of controlled substances.

Although the Congressional committee reconciling competing U.S. Senate and House versions of the Farm Bill are tight-lipped about the exact language that’s been agreed upon, it sounds like the bill, now expected to be signed next week, will legalize industrial hemp.

That spells good news for purveyors of hemp-derived CBD.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who made sure he sat on the Congressional reconciliation committee, tweeted that CBD will continue its extraordinary trajectory.

“Thanks for your hard work, @SenPatRoberts,” tweeted McConnell, “for our farmers, rural communities and all Americans. Pleased that my provision to legalize industrial hemp is included in the Farm Bill.”

This was confirmed by two other reconciliation committee members, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), according to a Bloomberg Government reporter, also on Twitter.

The hemp provision reportedly will remove hemp from the federal list of controlled substances, and hemp farmers will be able to apply for crop insurance. Hemp must contain less than 0.3 percent THC. The bill would push hemp regulations both to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and not the Department of Justice as well as to individual states to decide whether or not they want to go forward with commercializing hemp and hemp products including CBD. States can either develop their own plans or just abide by federal regulations that are to be developed by the USDA.

Farmers in the U.S. have planted more than 77,000 acres in 2018, according to Vote Hemp, about three times the amount grown in 2017.

The farm bill removes CBD from the Controlled Substances Act, thereby removing the DEA from enforcing – mistakenly or not – CBD products. However, the farm bill does not change requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which means CBD is still subject to FDA regulations. Keeping the FDA involved – outside of its role as regulator of dietary supplements – still maintains an element of risk to CBD businesses.

The FDA has proclaimed in an online Q&A that it does not believe CBD qualifies as a definition of a dietary ingredient and thus is illegal for use in supplements. That’s because a CBD isolate was approved as a pharmaceutical drug, making CBD isolates illegal as dietary supplements. Thus far, however, all the agency has done is gone after a few dozen companies making illegitimate disease claims—the type that trips up other mainstream supplement companies as well. And the conventional wisdom is that full-spectrum, industrial hemp-derived oil containing CBD is not an isolate and thus should be legal in any event.

The farm bill was expected to be signed this week, but Congressional action was put on hold because of the death of President George H.W. Bush and the pomp and circumstance that has surrounded his body lying in state in the nation’s capital this week.

That leaves Congress only two weeks to continue its lame-duck business before adjourning on Friday, Dec. 21. Congress is expected to conclude the farm bill proceedings next week.

Stay tuned for our industry coverage and commentary next week of the ramifications of passage of the industrial hemp provisions, in particular on the booming hemp-derived CBD market.

At Natural Products Expo West, which will be held in Anaheim next March, there will be a full day of The Natural Products Hemp & CBD Summit on Tuesday, March 5.

Legalization of Hemp Could Be First Step for Federal Marijuana Protections

Source: gfarma.news/

ATTENTION, MARIJUANA fans: Don’t light up that celebratory doobie just yet. But a long pot-hostile Congress appears headed toward acceptance of a substance more states are deeming legal for medicinal and even recreational purposes.

The 2018 farm bill includes language allowing farmers to grow hemp, a plant that is from the same cannabis family as marijuana but with just a trace of the tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, that provides the “high.” And pot legalization proponents are optimistic that the next Congress, with Democratic control of the House and the departure of one of the chamber’s most ardent foes of legalization, will move on marijuana as well.

“This farm bill is going to be a total game-changer,” says Stuart Titus, CEO of Medical Marijuana Inc. While hemp has important differences from marijuana, “I think this is going to be a tremendous step forward” in winning federal approval of marijuana use, he says. Michigan on Thursdaywill become the 10th state along with the District of Columbia to permit recreational marijuana use and the first in the Midwest. All the other states that have legalized the substance are on the coasts.

Marijuana possession is still a violation of federal law in all 50 states and D.C., creating a source of tension between the deferral and state governments as the movement gains steam in state legislatures and in state ballot initiatives.

Hemp has industrial applications, including in biofuels and construction materials, and is a source of both hemp oil – used as a vitamin supplement and for skin care, among other things – and cannabidiol, or CBD, an oil with more therapeutic purposes.

Marijuana is a source of CBD, but the plant also contains THC. That substance, which is intoxicating, is also used to treat pain, glaucoma, muscle spasticity and nausea.

Both hemp and marijuana are classified as controlled substances under the law. The farm bill, which is undergoing final negotiations to reconcile the House- and Senate-passed versions of the legislation, would classify hemp as an agricultural product and remove it from the list of controlled substances. Hemp can be grown now only for pre-approved “research” purposes and not as a commodity.

The farm bill offers no relief for would-be legal users of marijuana. But Titus and others believe that the agriculture bill is a first step in convincing Congress to consider marijuana not as a scary drug but as a relatively low-risk recreational intoxicant and therapeutic agent.

Public opinion – and with it, state action – is similar to the speedy move toward acceptance of same-sex marriage, says John Hudak, a Brookings Institution scholar and author of the book “Marijuana: A Short History.”

“The support for same-sex marriage actually follows a similar trend over a similar period of time,” Hudak said. “It’s a broader social awakening to issues in the United States that people just think … are victimless.”

The economic argument helped win support for hemp legalization. The provision was championed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican whose home state of Kentucky is a source of hemp crops. Investors want to get in on the business, and marijuana legalization offers tantalizing tax opportunities for both states and the federal government, Hudak says.

Most encouraging for backers of pot legalization is the changing political environment. Not only will Democrats run the House next year, but the chamber will not have anti-marijuana Rep. Pete Session, R-Texas, who was defeated in the midterms. Sessions, as chairman of the House Rules Committee, blocked legislation that would have protected states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use.

“We are very bullish on the notion that in 2019 and 2020 Congress is in fact going to take on a number of broader issues” loosening federal rules on pot, says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. Anti-marijuana lawmakers “have been replaced by members that are far more sympathetic,” he says. And given the importance of young voters to the success of any Democratic contender for president in 2020, it would be “political malpractice” not to campaign on legalizing marijuana, he says.

“It’s not an outlier (of an issue) anymore,” says attorney Matthew Abel of Cannabis Counsel, PLC, a Detroit law firm dedicated solely to marijuana litigation. Abel supports the recently approved Michigan referendum that as of Thursday will allow legal, private use of marijuana in the Wolverine State for adults 21 and older.

“Descheduling [the substance as a harmful drug] has always been the Holy Grail. And it does seem that we’re getting closer,” he says.