It’s that time of year again. Our annual round-up featuring some of the most read content on Budding Trends in the past year. This year’s edition has a little something for everyone: marijuana, hemp, mushrooms, state law, federal law, banking, intellectual property, and more!
Before we dive right in, we want to plug our January
As we close the book on 2025 and look ahead, we can’t help but feel a strong sense that we’ve been here before.
On the one hand, with the federal government potentially eradicating consumable hemp in November and the president ordering urgent action on marijuana rescheduling in December, it may not be an exaggeration to say
Are you not entertained? In a much-anticipated ceremony in the Oval Office, President Trump signed an executive order that (1) directs the attorney general to expeditiously reschedule marijuana to Schedule III and (2) instructs senior White House staff to work with Congress to revise the statutory definition of final hemp-derived cannabinoid products.
The first of
I suspect my entry into the hemp market was similar to many of yours. I have never been a regular consumer of THC and consider myself a rule follower. A few years ago, I noticed new cannabis boutiques popping up in my neighborhood. Then canned hemp drinks started to appear at grocery stores around town.
Sportscaster Jim McKay famously said that “our greatest hopes and worst fears are seldom realized.” When the federal government enacted a law that, on its face, would essentially eradicate the consumable hemp industry in America, my first reaction was great sadness for those I had gotten to know in the industry and those millions of
Shock. Grief. Dismay. Desperation. Just a few of the emotions I have encountered during countless phone calls and meetings with stakeholders in the hemp industry since the federal government enacted a law that would essentially ban all of the consumable hemp industry.
I have heard for years that Congress needed to “close the loophole” created
The Traveling Wilburys – perhaps the musical supergroup most aligned with the mood and spirit of the Budding Trends blog – tell us that it’s all right to live the life you please. The state of Alabama, however, has determined that the End of the Line for unregulated consumable hemp is January 1, 2026.
As
You’re awake. This is real. Yes, the federal government just passed a law that, if it goes into effect in its current form in a year, will essentially destroy the non-industrial hemp industry as it exists today. So now what?
I suspect it will take some longer than others to process the shock. While anti-hemp
Touting Medicare’s coverage of cannabidiol (CBD) for seniors as “the most important senior health initiative of the century,” President Trump provided a huge boost for the hemp industry as Congress debates the language of the next Farm Bill.
While CBD is simply one of the cannabinoids in the cannabis plant, it is an important part
This past summer, a collection of hemp companies in Charm City Hemp, LLC asked a Maryland federal court for a preliminary injunction halting aspects of Maryland’s cannabis licensing scheme (the term cannabis encompassing both recreational marijuana and hemp). Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that Maryland is wrongly requiring hemp producers to acquire a “recreational cannabis license.” That