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

2024 was a banner year for cannabis lawmakers and business operators. From Kamala Harris advocating for marijuana reforms to California’s clash of titans between hemp and marijuana markets, there was no shortage of drama in the cannabis industry. Vice President Harris vocally championed marijuana legalization on various platforms, emphasizing its importance for social justice. Meanwhile

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

Last week, the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs held a hearing to discuss how the Lonestar State might soon regulate THC-infused beverages. Led by committee chair Sen. Bryan Hughes, the hearing heard from members of Texas agencies and representatives of companies in the hemp industry, all discussing the need for reasonable regulations, as well

The 1984 film The Terminator featured a deadly robot assassin who looked like a regular guy (if by “regular guy” you mean a young, jacked Arnold Schwarzenegger). The horror of it all was that the victims could not tell if the robot was a human or a fake – organic or synthetic.

The Terminator

When you work in the cannabis business, you get used to answering questions that don’t always make sense. One question we get most often is whether an employee can use a legal product that nonetheless may cause the employee to fail a drug test conducted by her employer.

We have a bit more clarity since

War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.

We at Budding Trends have devoted thousands of words (and nearly as many pop culture references) to the escalating tension between the marijuana and hemp industries. It seems that to many in the cannabis industry this is a zero-sum game. But it’s far

During this time of great tension and competition between the marijuana and hemp industries, it is refreshing to see efforts at compromise. The initial draft of the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, proposed last week by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, would represent a momentous compromise in creating a regulatory framework for hemp-derived cannabinoids. And it