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
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.
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
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
Hemp advocates are surely still nursing sore throats (and the effects of whatever else they used to celebrate) after singing “God Blessed Texas” this past weekend. Moments before a bill that would essentially ban all consumable THC products in Texas was due to become law, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the would-be law. He proposed instead
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it
One of my favorite quotes from Justice Potter Stewart (naturally, a Supreme Court justice writing about watching pornography is my favorite) is “[f]airness is what justice really is.” The Alabama attorney general has an opportunity to demonstrate fairness and put wisdom before power. Will he?
We’ve written extensively about Alabama’s new law substantially curbing the
Most of the annual state legislative sessions have ended or are nearing an end, and it would be an understatement to say that the hemp industry has ever experienced a more widespread and seemingly coordinated effort to roll back consumable hemp programs. In some states, those reforms were dramatic. Others, substantial but not existential. Add to
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. That’s been the tenor of what I’ve heard and read from stakeholders in the Alabama hemp industry in response to the enactment of comprehensive hemp reform legislation earlier this month. And for reasons I will explain below, I am extremely sympathetic to anyone whose livelihood was