Earlier this month, President Trump tapped “physician-turned wellness influencer” Casey Means as his nominee for surgeon general. Means has close ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Trump has touted her “impeccable” Make America Health Again (MAHA) credentials. We’ve written previously on what impact Trump’s second presidency could
Often wrong, never in doubt. That’s our promise here at Budding Trends. A little over a year ago, we wrote these words: “DEA will reschedule marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule III.” We later acknowledged we (may have) jumped the gun on that and modified our prediction to be that rescheduling won’t happen in
Another legislative session has come and gone in Mississippi (a limited, short special session is all but a certainty, as the Legislature passed no state budget), resulting in tweaks to the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act (MMCA) and a failed consumable hemp regulatory bill. Those happenings, along with others we discuss below, prove that efforts remain
Recently, a divided United States Supreme Court held that a cannabis product manufacturer could face civil liability under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) if a consumer suffered a personal injury that created a business or property loss to the consumer. Specifically, the Court concluded that an employee could state a claim under
As the hallowed cannabis holiday for stoners-turned-business-entrepreneurs falls upon us, we find ourselves in the shifting sands of change in the cannabis industry as usual. Not surprisingly, many states have seen legislation brought to the table, decisions made at the courts, and commentary presented by politicians that will directly impact cannabis businesses, medical marijuana dispensaries
You’ve probably seen the reports of the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ January 7, 2025 opinion upholding a Virginia law that regulates consumable hemp products. I planned to put up a blog post soon after the opinion was handed down, and I will still summarize the holding here. But the delay in writing
It’s the first week of January, and you all know what that means in the blogging game: It’s time to make wild predictions about the coming year. As always, making predictions is hard, particularly when they’re about the future. But here are a few of our thoughts about what the cannabis world may look
Part of the reason we started a Cannabis Industry team at a Southeastern-based law firm before any Southeastern state had adopted a marijuana program was because we had a hunch that the expansion of cannabis would eventually make its way to our neck of the woods. And we guess it was just kind of a
While courts use the same analysis under either federal or state law, any
Well, our Matt Gaetz post was short lived. And, in hindsight, that should come as no surprise given the overwhelming opposition and allegations that continued to emerge. If you are a frequent reader of Budding Trends, however, you know we try to stay on top of the unending news cycle that is the cannabis