Author: hashtshish

France’s highest appeals court on Wednesday overturned a ruling that stores in the country can’t legally sell cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychotic compound related to cannabis that is being researched for a variety of medical applications, report Reuters.*

Based on the free trade of goods within the European Union, the Cour de cassation ruled that judges could not find the sale of CBD in France illegal if it had been legally produced in a member state of the bloc.*

The Court of Justice of the EU ruled last year that no national law can prohibit the sale of CBD legally produced in a member state, the French court also said.*

“Without considering whether the substances seized had not been legally produced in another member state of the European Union, the court failed to provide a basis for its decision,” it said, referring to a ruling of a lower appeals court.*

The Cour de cassation did not rule whether selling CBD in France was legal or not, and ordered a lower court to rule again on a case involving the owner of a shop selling CBD.*

“We are happy”, CBD shop owner Mathieu Bensa, who was not involved in the case, told Reuters after the ruling.*

“We did not understand why France was the last country in the European Union that had not given access to the sale of hemp plants”, he said.*

Derived mainly from the hemp plant, CBD is increasingly used as a relaxant.*

Cannabis stocks have attracted growing interest on world stock markets, particularly on the Toronto stock exchange after Canada became one of the first major economies to legalise the recreational use of marijuana.*

Cannabis use is outlawed in France but the country has one of Europe’s highest consumption rates.*

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Connecticut on Tuesday joined 17 other U.S. states in legalizing adult recreational use of marijuana as Governor Ned Lamont signed a bill that he said would also help heal economic scars left by the war on drugs, report Reuters.*

The marijuana measure, which takes effect on July 1, would automatically erase many criminal convictions and would set up a regulatory structure that would direct opportunities and revenue toward communities hard-hit by its prohibition.*

“For decades, the war on cannabis caused injustices and created disparities while doing little to protect public health and safety,” Lamont said in a statement.*

Parts of the measure largely mirror a legalization bill signed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in March, which required that largely non-white communities that bore the brunt of drug enforcement efforts get a share of marijuana sales licenses and a share of the tax money it generates.*

Noting that some surrounding states had already legalized recreational use of the drug, Lamont said, “we’re not only effectively modernizing our laws and addressing inequities, we’re keeping Connecticut economically competitive.”*

Marijuana has been legally available for sale in neighboring Massachusetts for more than two years.*

“Regulating cannabis, rather than criminalizing it, has proven to be a superior public policy – which is why more and more states are rapidly moving in this direction,” Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORMAL, which advocates for abolition of marijuana laws, said in a statement.*

The legalization movement has gained momentum this year as five state legislatures, including Connecticut’s, have approved the drug’s recreational use, most recently in Virginia, where the law also takes effect on July 1.*

Connecticut, whose law allows for personal cultivation of marijuana plants in 2023, becomes the 18th state to approve legalization. Voters in a 19th state, South Dakota, approved legalization last year, but a legal challenge to the measure is now pending before the state Supreme Court.*

Marijuana, which remains prohibited by federal law, has been approved for medical use in 36 states, including Connecticut.*

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Cannabis marketplace Leafly is raising $30 million in a fresh funding round, it said in a filing on Wednesday, as the world’s biggest pot-related website taps strong investor appetite for companies in the burgeoning U.S. marijuana industry, report Reuters.*

Seattle, Washington-based Leafly has said more than 120 million people use its website annually, with an exponential rise in popularity over the last year as several more U.S. states legalized medical or recreational use of marijuana.

Investor appetite for U.S. cannabis companies has also been supported by prospects of federal reforms, including full legalization of marijuana, after last year’s coronavirus lockdowns led a record number of people to take up cannabis use for medical or entertainment purposes.

Privately owned Leafly has raised almost $23 million of the total $30 million offering of convertible debt and equity in the latest fundraising, the company said in a filing here. It raised around $17 million in a fundraise in October 2020.

The company runs a pickup and delivery service, helps consumers find the right cannabis strain for different medical application, runs a dispensary locator and posts reviews on different cannabis products. Industry news forms a small part of its business.

Founded in 2010, Leafly was owned between 2012 and 2019 by Privateer Holdings, a cannabis-focused private equity group, and now operates as an independent business.

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Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday it supports a proposed U.S. legislation to legalize cannabis at the federal level, and would drop weed-testing requirements for some recruitments, report Reuters.*

The e-commerce company’s public policy team will be actively supporting The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021 (MORE Act), which seeks to legalize marijuana at the federal level, its consumer boss Dave Clark said in a blog post.*

Amazon will also no longer screen its job applicants for marijuana use for any positions not regulated by the Department of Transportation, Clark added.*

While many U.S. states have legalized marijuana use, employers have so far largely refused to work with the industry as cannabis is still a classified substance at the federal level.*

“In the past, like many employers, we’ve disqualified people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use,” Clark said. “However, given where state laws are moving across the U.S., we’ve changed course.”*

Amazon was hit with a proposed class action suit, which claimed that the company was violating a New York City law by testing applicants for jobs at local facilities for marijuana, according to a Westlaw report.*

The company does not allow marijuana sales on its platform.*

Amazon also said it is tweaking its worker productivity tracking tool, “Time off Task.”*

“Starting today, we’re now averaging Time off Task over a longer period to ensure that there’s more signal and less noise—reinforcing the original intent of the program,” Clark said.*

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