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New York, NY: State regulators have approved long-awaited regulations authorizing adults to home cultivate personal use quantities of cannabis.

Members of the Cannabis Control Board signed off on the rules last week. The rules must still undergo a 60-day public comment period.

New York is among the minority of adult-use legalization states that does not currently permit adults to legally grow marijuana in their homes.

The new regulations will permit an adult to grow up to six plants (no more than three mature) on private property and harvest up to five pounds of cannabis flower. (Cultivators also have the legal option of converting their flower to concentrates.) Households with multiple adults will be permitted to grow a total of six mature plants. Cultivators will be permitted to grow from seeds or they can purchase immature plants from licensed providers.

Currently, only those registered in the state’s medical cannabis access program are permitted to engage in the personal cultivation of cannabis.

State lawmakers legalized the adult-use cannabis market in March of 2021. Limited retail sales of cannabis began in December 2022.

Regulators at Friday’s meeting also approved an additional 100 new cannabis-related licensees, including commercial retailers and cultivators. Regulators have faced criticism for not licensing enough retailers to meet consumers’ demands.

Arkansas: Attorney General Signs Off On Proposed Ballot Measure To Expand Medical Cannabis Access

Little Rock, AR: The state’s Attorney General has given the go-ahead to a ballot initiative effort to expand the state’s medical cannabis access law.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Tim Griffin approved the ballot title language for a proposed citizens’ initiative, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2024. He had previously rejected an earlier version of the amendment, opining that the language was ambiguous.

The proposed amendment improves existing law by expanding the pool of practitioners who may recommend medical cannabis and by increasing the total number of qualifying conditions for patients. It also allows patients to receive physician recommendations via telehealth appointments and extends patients’ registration in the program from one year to three years, among other modifications.

Separate provisions in the amendment authorize adults to legally possess up to one ounce of cannabis if the federal government deschedules it from the Controlled Substances Act.

Backers of the amendment, Arkansans for Patient Access, must collect over 90,704 signatures from registered voters by July 5, 2024 to qualify it for November’s ballot.

Arkansas voters passed a ballot measure in 2016 to establish the state’s medical marijuana program. However, patients were not able to begin accessing medical cannabis products until mid-2019. Currently, just under 100,000 residents are registered with the program.

The full text of the proposed initiative is available from The Arkansas Advocate.

Study: Online Searches For Delta-8 Products Higher In States Where Cannabis Is Illegal

San Diego, CA: Residents in states where the adult-use cannabis market is criminalized are nearly twice as likely to engage in online searches for delta-8-THC products than are those who live in jurisdictions where marijuana is legal, according to data compiled by the group CBD Nationwide.

The group reported that searches for delta-8 products are 1.9 times higher in states where the adult-use cannabis market is illegal – a finding that is consistent with those of other studies.

Although delta-8 THC occurs organically in the cannabis plant, it is typically only produced in nominal quantities. By contrast, the elevated quantities of delta-8 THC found in commercially available products are typically the result of a chemical synthesis whereby manufacturers convert hemp-derived CBD to delta-8 THC. Manufacturers engaged in synthesizing delta-8 THC are not regulated and may use potentially dangerous household products to facilitate this process. Lab analyses of unregulated delta-8 products have consistently found them to contain lower levels of the compound than advertised on the products’ labels. Some products have also been found to possess heavy metal contaminants and unlabeled cutting agents.

Data published in 2023 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) similarly determined that consumers are much more likely to acknowledge using unregulated delta-8 products in states where cannabis is prohibited.

In 2022, NORML issued a report on delta-8 THC and other novel, synthetically derived cannabinoids that cautioned consumers to avoid these unregulated products because they are untested and may contain impurities.

Full results of the analysis are available from CBD Nationwide.