You’re reading this week’s edition of the New Cannabis Ventures weekly newsletter, which we have been publishing since October 2015. The newsletter includes unique insight to help our readers stay ahead of the curve as well as links to the week’s most important news. We no longer send these by email as we did in the past, but we post this and all of the newsletters on our website here.

Friends,

I am based in Texas, which has a very poorly structured cannabis industry. The medical program here has only three licensed providers, and two of them are units of larger multi-state operators. The other is a local company that I have visited and follow. The program has improved dramatically since it was introduced, but it is still poorly run and missing a lot. There are very few patients in the Texas medical cannabis, and adult-use for Texans isn’t likely to happen soon.

With that said, I went to my first cannabis event this week right near my house in Houston. The event was sponsored by a company based in South Carolina that sells seltzer that contains THC and CBD derived from industrial hemp. The Farm Act of 2018 legalized industrial hemp cannabinoids at the federal level, but the FDA has not yet weighed in.

My own focus on the cannabis industry began in 2013, which was right ahead of the Cole Memorandum that allowed Colorado and Washington to introduce what their voters had approved in late 2012: adult-use sales in their states. The state-by-state approach has created a lot of challenges, to be sure, but it also allows the industry to evolve. The rules and regulations differ greatly from state to state.

I currently am not focused on any publicly traded companies that operate in industrial hemp exclusively. I used to follow some of them, but it has been a disaster. Of course, investors in state-regulated cannabis companies have endured a lot of pain too. I have been expressing my optimism for them, and the delay in rescheduling does not change my optimism that I have been expressing here. It is still likely to happen and will end 280E taxation, which is a major positive, but it won’t happen as soon as some were hoping now that the DEA has scheduled a hearing in December.

For a while now, I have viewed hemp-based products negatively. My main concerns have been that there are many stores selling them that are unlicensed and not selling products that are tested or that make sense. I am bothered by the many products that come from synthetic CBD and synthetic THC too. I have never had an issue with cannabinoids derived from hemp.

While I am not a fan of gas-station CBD and now more recently THC products, I think the good thing is that it shows that consumers want these products. The media and regulators must explain to consumers about how unregulated cannabinoids can be dangerous. Of course, having regulations raises the price of the product, which can hurt consumers, but consumers of other types of products will often pay up for safer products with other criteria that they like, such as being organic, vegan or light in added sugars.

I have been libertarian in my thinking for more than 40 years now, and I am against over-regulation, but I understand how a total lack of regulation can lead to problems too. I am very happy to see regulators stepping up to protect their consumers in California and New York within the licensed cannabis programs, and I am happy to see Texas reaching out to stop CBD stores that aren’t regulated.

People who have been focused on the industry saw the excitement over the Farm Bill of 2018 and how poorly it played out for operators and investors in CBD companies. The state-regulated cannabis operators have been in a bear market for over three years now, and there is too much competition within it and a lack of new big opportunities for them. There seems to be a war between them and some industrial hemp operators to reach consumers, and I think that the ability to sell cannabis products, even if derived from industrial hemp, expands the market so much that state-regulated cannabis companies should think about entering those markets. More importantly, they are thinking about it and, to a small extent, doing it. This week, the Ayr Wellness CEO did an interview at Seeking Alpha with Rena Sherbill, and he discussed how his company is looking very closely.

The MSOs all talk about building brands, but the current system of state-by-state production and sales makes it difficult to build a national brand. Selling in dispensaries only is a big challenge. It would be helpful if they could sell their brands in restaurants and non-cannabis stores. Ben Kovler at Green Thumb Industries wrote to the CEO of publicly-traded Boston Beer Company about the two companies potentially merging. I don’t see that merger happening, but it would be good for GTI if it could do so and retain the NASDAQ listing.

I began to give this topic of industrial hemp cannabinoids more thought earlier this year when I saw that a Houston-based company had merged with a craft beer maker. Then, this company cut distribution deals with a large Texas-based wine chain that I know very well and respect a great deal and a Mexican restaurant chain to sell their beverages that contain THC from industrial hemp. I discussed with the CEO the legal status and learned that it is currently legal in the state.

I know that many of our readers are investors in the space, and I have no investment conclusions today. I see a big potential threat developing, but I also see an opportunity for the MSOs to invest in industrial hemp cannabinoid production or to buy established brands. I am investing my time and thought into better understanding the hemp-derived cannabinoids industry. One big company, which happens to be publicly traded, seems to be excited: Anheuser Busch. They are quietly pushing CBD and THC products here in Texas. It’s not now or likely to be a big part of their revenue any time soon, but I like to see these established companies diversify into cannabis.

New Cannabis Ventures publishes curated articles as well as exclusive news. Here is some of the most important content from this week:

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Sincerely,

Alan

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

A new technique has arrived that measures the potency of psilocybin and psilocin, great news for those medicated by mushrooms. 

Credit goes to teams at the University of Texas at Arlington, Scottsdale Research Institute in Phoenix, Shimadzu Scientific Instruments in Maryland, and Millipore-Sigma in Round Rock, Texas. They comprise the brilliant minds behind the method for quantifying the potency of psilocybin and psilocin in magic mushrooms, known in the medical and scientific community as Psilocybe Cubensis. “These legislative changes are expected to facilitate further research and potential clinical applications,” stated Kevin Schug, the Shimadzu Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Psilocybin is not a psychoactive compound. Psilocin, however, has a strong relationship to our 5-HT receptors, which are responsible for the infamous psychoactive effects. 

Schug and the team’s discovery was originally published in a recent issue of Analytica Chimica Acta, breaking down the experimentation and final results. It took ten authors to explain the results, including Sabrina Islam, Sue Sisly, and Arun Babu Kumar, among other significant team members behind the breakthrough in testing.

Here’s how they did it: utilizing liquid chromatography (LC) with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), they extracted and measured the potency of the mushrooms. For those without a scientific background in the audience, liquid chromatography separates molecules. As for tandem mass spectrometry, it dissects ions into fragments and reveals the chemical structure.

By combining these two techniques, the researchers studied five strains of dried, intact mushrooms: Blue Meanie, Creeper, B-Plus, Texas Yellow, and Thai Cubensis. (Familiar names to mushroom aficionados, no doubt.) The study found that the average total concentrations of psilocybin and psilocin for the Creeper, Blue Meanie, B+, Texas Yellow, and Thai Cubensis strains were 1.36, 1.221, 1.134, 1.103, and 0.879%. The entire process is surprisingly described as “relatively low-cost,” which inspires hope for present and future clinics and patients.

The revelatory results were cross-referenced in two separate labs, including a non-affiliated lab, to confirm accuracy. “As medical professionals identify more safe and effective treatments using mushrooms, it will be important to ensure product safety, identify regulatory benchmarks, and determine appropriate dosing,” Schug added about the discovery. “Established and reliable analytical methods like the one we describe will be essential to these efforts to use mushrooms in clinical settings.”

Now, time for a bit (or A LOT) of history.

Mushrooms grow in mundane substrates such as dung, mosses, soil, and wood. They can flourish in various conditions. Consider it a part of their magic. Among the hundreds of species in the Psilocybe genus, the popular kid is P. Cubensis. Growing kits for P. Cubensis are commercially available, even if they are sadly illegal in many states.

At their best, Psilocybe Cubensis and other magical mushrooms can induce perceptual distortions, mood alterations, mystical experiences, and euphoria. Under the right circumstances and perhaps with the right group of people, they not only provide a good time but an enlightening one that makes you and the world around you glow (aka a “serotonergic psychedelic”). For thousands of years, they’ve been ingested and appreciated, all the way back to indigenous tribes and civilizations. Of course, to this day, magical mushrooms are ingested in ceremonies for religious and spiritual purposes. Or, in most cases, just to have a damn good, mind-expanding time. 

In 1970, Uncle Sam attempted to kill the party and curb the mushroom fun, as well as the mushroom healing. The anti-hippie President Richard Nixon and his famously corrupt administration passed the Controlled Substances Act. Nixon, a devilish general of sorts in the war on drugs, made the possession of psilocybin and psilocin illegal. Mushrooms were classified as Schedule 1 substances. In the Act’s own, outdated words, a Schedule 1 drug is essentially one with “no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse.”

Due to government restrictions, research on shrooms slowed down significantly. Not much support was ever there for it; researching Schedule 1 drugs in the United States necessitates registration and licensure by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Not an easy task, basically. It was a topic of importance that went undiscussed in the ‘70s, but eventually, the truth came into the light: mushrooms are viable medical treatments. 

The beautiful drug’s legal status continues to evolve, albeit at a slower than desired pace. Oregon – which was the first state to decriminalize cannabis in 1973 – became the first U.S. state to legalize the federally illegal psilocybin-assisted therapy. Since then, Colorado has also decriminalized the possession of magic mushrooms. As a result, more research and potential clinical applications have been pursued and produced groundbreaking developments, such as the new technique to measure potency, that will continue to improve and even save lives, thanks to all the advocates and researchers involved. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday filed lawsuits against five cities that have passed marijuana decriminalization measures. The legal action was filed against the cities of Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin, and Denton “for adopting amnesty and non-prosecution policies that violate Texas laws concerning marijuana possession and distribution,” according to the attorney general’s office.

In 2022, the five cities each adopted ordinances or civic policies that instruct police officers not to enforce state laws prohibiting the possession or distribution of cannabis. After filing the lawsuits this week, Paxton said that such policies are prohibited by the Texas Local Government Code, which bars municipal and county governments from adopting “a policy under which the entity will not fully enforce laws relating to drugs.”

“I will not stand idly by as cities run by pro-crime extremists deliberately violate Texas law and promote the use of illicit drugs that harm our communities,” Paxton said in a statement on Wednesday. “This unconstitutional action by municipalities demonstrates why Texas must have a law to ‘follow the law.’ It’s quite simple: the legislature passes every law after a full debate on the issues, and we don’t allow cities the ability to create anarchy by picking and choosing the laws they enforce.”

The attorney general also noted that under Article 9, Section 5 of the Texas Constitution, it is illegal for municipalities to adopt ordinances that are not consistent with the laws enacted by the Texas Legislature. With the lawsuit, Paxton has asked the district court to overturn the city ordinances and instruct local officials to enforce state law.

Progressive Leaders Push Back

Julie Oliver, executive director for Ground Game Texas, a group that works to advance progressive issues including local marijuana decriminalization ballot measures, said that the attorney general’s legal action seeks to undermine the right of Texans to govern themselves at the local level.

“Ken Paxton’s lawsuits represent an anti-democratic assault on the constitutional authority of Texas Home Rule cities to set local law enforcement priorities,” Oliver told local media. “In each of the cities sued, a supermajority of voters adopted a policy to deprioritize marijuana enforcement in order to reduce racially biased law enforcement outcomes and save scarce public resources for higher priority public safety needs.”

In Denton, a city of about 140,000 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, voters passed an initiative to decriminalize misdemeanor marijuana offenses in November 2022. The ballot measure received the approval of more than 32,000 votes and the election marked the highest voter turnout recorded in the city’s history.

“This ordinance has now received more votes than any council member or mayor in the history of Denton,” Nick Stevens from Decriminalize Denton, a grassroots organization behind the ordinance, told the Denton Record-Chronicle after the election in 2022. “We’re ecstatic that Republicans, Democrats and independents came together to reclaim their power in the city.”

Denton’s marijuana decriminalization policy, however, has not yet been fully implemented and the city’s police have still been issuing citations for misdemeanor marijuana offenses. In June, the Denton City Council considered an ordinance that advocates said would have strengthened the measure approved by voters but voted 4-3 against the proposal.

New Law Restricts Local Control

The attorney general’s lawsuit is partly based on HB 2127, a bill passed last year that restricts so-called home rule authority. Attorneys for cities including Denton, San Antonio, Waco and Plano that filed suit against the law last year explained that home rule allows local governments “to create policies that address local concerns that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction based on many factors such as demographics, population density, environmental concerns and public safety issues.”

But Stevens said that HB 2127 does not cover the city marijuana decriminalization measures because it states that it only applies to municipal or county codes involving agriculture, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources and occupations.

“Ken Paxton should read this law before wasting Texans’ tax dollars with another frivolous lawsuit that distracts from the work we have done to deliver for the people of Denton,” Stevens said.

Ground Game Texas is currently sponsoring a campaign to decriminalize marijuana in Dallas. Known as the Dallas Freedom Act, the measure would end most arrests and citations for Class A and Class B misdemeanor marijuana possession. The proposed ordinance, which is similar to the one passed in Denton, would also require city leaders to report on cannabis enforcement and forbid the use of city funds for laboratory testing to distinguish hemp from marijuana.

“The Dallas Freedom Act is a dynamic initiative that will reduce unnecessary arrests, address racial disparities in marijuana enforcement, and save millions of dollars in city and county resources for much-needed public safety programs,” Tristeza Ordex, campaign manager of Ground Game Texas, said in a statement about the proposal.

Native American and preservationist advocates are sounding the alarm about an imminent “peyote crisis.” The crisis started decades ago, but recently has been amplified by pharmaceutical interests in mescaline, the psychoactive compound the cactus is known for.

The mescaline-rich spineless cactus, Lophophora williamsii, has been used in sacred rituals for over 5,000 years by American indigenous cultures, but through careless harvesting by recreational users, or worse, mass produced pharmaceutical companies, all of that could soon be lost. In the U.S. the cactus only grows wild in Texas—where it’s been declared an endangered species—as well as Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas in northern Mexico.

The cactus is currently being monetized for either pharmaceutical or recreational use, and indigenous groups like the Native American Church (NAC) are concerned that the sacred plant is being exploited. In the December 1977 issue of High Times, journalist J. F. Burke wrote about his journey with peyote that started in 1957, one of the first in-depth articles about the plant, just as the federal government was making exemptions for a short list of Native Americans. Since then, a lot of hippies, psychonauts, and wannabe shamans have scoured the earth looking for ways to find it.

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (42 U.S.C. § 1996.) protects the rights of Native Americans to exercise their traditional religions–including psychedelic sacraments. On Dec. 22, 1981, the Department of Justice reiterated the DEA’s peyote exemption for the NAC, but only bona fide members of the church are included. Only allowing that single church was challenged in 1994 under Peyote Way Church of God, Inc. v. Thornburgh and Congress amended the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to legalize peyote use by all members of Native American tribes.

Vice reported last September Canada-based Lophos Pharma, a publicly-traded company, started to produce the psychoactive cactus for pharmaceutical, not spiritual purposes. Lophos runs a 10,000-square foot facility in Napanee, Ontario. Mescaline itself is illegal under Schedule III of the Canadian drug act, peyote is permitted, so long as the mescaline isn’t extracted from it. But some say even medical purposes are not the way the cactus should be consumed, as it’s considered sacred.

Peyote Advocates Push Back

Colorado-based journalist Annette McGivney has recently been advocating for the preservation of peyote and the sacred ceremonies that surround it.

McGivney told KJZZ that she visited with the two camps of people: “One is, you know, the plant medicine activists and then the pharmaceutical entrepreneurs, so the plant medicine activists had two different responses,” she said. “One was they were totally oblivious to the Native American worldview and why it would not be OK with them for someone to just grow a peyote cactus in their home greenhouse. They had no idea or they were coming up with their own justification saying, ‘Well, it’s not interfering with Native American spirituality because we’re growing the cactus ourselves. So we’re not taking it away from its natural habitat.’ And they kind of come up with their own justification, ignoring what Native Americans were actually saying, that that was a problem.”

Companies like Lophos Pharma, which is growing peyote legally in Canada, as well as researchers in the U.S. are also a threat to the sanctity Native American religious ceremonies.

“And then the pharmaceutical industry has their own justifications about why they’re not infringing on Native American spirituality, which is they’re using synthetic mescaline. So they’re creating chemical compounds in a lab that clone the cactus, the psychoactive substance. So they’re saying that’s OK because we’re not actually using the cactus, but for Native Americans and their worldview around interconnectedness and respecting the sovereignty of plants as well as humans. They say it’s not OK to clone our sacred cactus.”

Last month McGivney also wrote for The Guardian about the same issue. In Window Rock, Arizona, members of the Navajo Nation, called the Diné partake of azeé (peyote). “How would Christians feel if Jesus Christ was cloned?” Justin Jones, a Diné peyote practitioner and legal counsel for the NAC asked The Guardian. “And while the real Jesus is protected, people could do whatever they wanted to the clone.”

The NAC is the same church Burke explored in the 1950’s. Other Native American healers and shamans echoed the same response, saying that cloning or mass-producing peyote is fundamentally wrong from their context.

“I’m all for healing,” said Cora Maxx-Phillips, a social worker, member of the Navajo Nation human rights commission and board member of the Council of Peyote Way of Life Coalition, a Navajo Nation grassroots group. “But don’t do it at the expense of our people, who are trying to survive the multigenerational trauma inflicted upon us. Please, leave us alone.”

Going on a cruise is intended to be a break from reality, and a place where you vacation your way, whether that means being active and going on excursions in foreign destinations or sleeping in and relaxing on the deck. However, one individual recently received a lifetime ban for attempting to bring CBD gummies on board.

According to Local10 News, Texan Melinda Van Veldhuizen has gone on many cruises in the past—and the frequency has earned her priority boarding.

Her most recent trip was meant to celebrate her 21st wedding anniversary with her husband, as well as her son’s senior year of high school by traveling to Aruba, Curaçao, and the Dominican Republic. During boarding on the Carnival Cruise Ship Horizon at the Port of Miami, Florida, which was set to visit she was pulled aside when a security officer found CBD gummies in her bag. “I have trouble sleeping, so it was just to make sure I could sleep on the trip—so if there were any issues, I could sleep,” Van Veldhuizen said. “I’ve always traveled with them, no problem.”

Van Veldhuizen explained that she was taken away from her family to a separate area where was interrogated by both ship security and law enforcement. “I sat there for two-and-a-half hours, really not sure what was going to happen,” she said. “The way that they treated me was like a criminal.”

At first she thought it was a mistake for something else often prohibited on the ship when boarding. “I thought it was one of those situations where you’re like, ‘Oh shoot, I left a bottle of water in my backpack; you gotta throw it away,’ kind of thing like that happens at TSA,” she said.

CBD has been legal in the U.S. since the 2018 Farm Bill was passed, and can be sold in any state as long as it contains 0.3% THC or less. Van Veldhuizen’s CBD gummies contained 0.01% THC.

The problem lies with the cruise line—in fact all major cruise lines—which do not permit CBD on board due to federal restrictions. 

According to Van Veldhuizen, even the captain questioned her during the incident. “The captain asked me several times if I had a marijuana card or if I had a diagnosis, if I needed it,” she said. “I said, ‘It’s CBD; that doesn’t exist. It’s just not a thing.’”

She and her family did not continue their vacation and were sent a letter from Carnival on Aug. 5 stating that Van Veldhuizen was banned from ever cruising with Carnival in the future. “This decision was based on your actions on the current cruise, which were a violation of the ship rules, interfered with the safety and/or enjoyment of other guests on the ship or caused harm to Carnival,” the letter stated, which was signed by Horizon Captain Rocco Lubrano and two witnesses. “Your attempt to book a future cruise will result in cancellation and a possible loss of deposit monies.”

Local10 News shared a statement obtained from Carnival regarding the incident. “We are very sorry this guest and her family are unhappy with the outcome of their vacation plans, but we are following federal law under which CBD is defined as a controlled substance,” the statement said. “We are not here to ascertain where our guests purchase CBD or what they intend to use it for once on board. Our responsibility is to follow federal guidelines and stop prohibited items from being brought on board our ships.”

Carnival Cruise Line does state that cannabis and CBD are clearly prohibited on its website. “Any illegal narcotics/drugs including synthetic, designer drugs, Cannabidiol (CBD) and medical marijuana. While certain CBD products used for medicinal purposes may be legal in the US, they are not legal in all the ports we visit and therefore are also considered prohibited items,” the cruise line states.

The cruise line also did not refund Van Veldhuizen for the cost of the trip, which included $5,586 and an additional $700 that was charged to her credit card after the ship left the port. According to a report by The Washington Post, the cruise line eventually offered to reimburse her for $1,665 of the trip cost. So Van Veldhuizen hired an attorney both to get her full fare refunded, and also to get her ban lifted.

Attorney Daren Stabinski, a Florida-based attorney representing Van Veldhuizen, explained that while the ship has its rules, the case was “specifically outrageous.” “We believe it was false imprisonment what they did to her. They had no right to hold her, especially when she did nothing wrong in the first place,” Stabinski said. “CBD is not marijuana. When you look at the specific rules and conditions that you agree to when you sail, it specifically says marijuana, marijuana derivatives and all illegally-controlled substances are prohibited, and what my client had was none of those things.”

Royal Caribbean cruise line, which owns some of the largest ships in the world, notes in its FAQ that “illegal drugs & substances” and “CBD oil/CBD products” are prohibited from being brought on board.

Disney Cruise Line shows “marijuana and illicit drug policy” on its restricted item list as well. “Additionally, all drug paraphernalia used for marijuana, cannabis and hemp is prohibited. Medically prescribed marijuana, as well as items derived from or enriched by marijuana, including items and products that contain THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) and or CBD (Cannabidiol) are also prohibited.”

Likewise, Norwegian Cruise Line also prohibits cannabis and CBD in any form.

When Congress legalized industrial hemp in 2018, it prompted a tidal wave of CBD-based products while also eliminating a front in the war on drugs. 

But in Texas, some local law enforcement officials continue to fight the old battle, as a report this week in the Dallas Observer highlights.

The story details a recent raid at the store Venom Vapors in Killeen, Texas, where cops, building inspectors and even the local fire marshal showed up one morning earlier this month saying they had received “a tip about narcotics sales and crime at the business and were there to check it out.”

It was a shock to the store’s owner, Kyle Brown, who recounted the unwelcome visit to the Observer.

More from the story:

“Those authorities managed to find some minor violations, like extension cords that were plugged in where they shouldn’t have been, for one example. But the cops were more interested in some of the products the business was selling – namely hemp products like delta-8, delta-10 and THCa…Many of the products Venom Vapors sells come with a certificate of analysis (COA), which lists the constituents and shows that they are compliant with state law. A detective told Brown he scanned the COA for one of the shop’s delta-8 dab products and that it showed there was too much THC for it to be legal.”

Brown disputed that claim, but according to the Observer, but “the cop said the COA showed the product had something like 80% THC. Brown tried to explain that the COA showed it was within the legal limit of delta-9 THC and that the 80% was actually the delta-8 content.” 

“That’s when things kind of went sideways,” Brown told the publication. “They didn’t take the certificate of analysis for what it was. They instead turned it around and used it against us, which was very alarming.”

In a press release, the Killeen Police Department explained its version of events.

“On Thursday, October 19, 2023, detectives with the Special Investigation Division, conducted a special detail at the Venom Vape/Sweep Stakes located at 1518 S. Fort Hood Street due to crime and narcotic complaints. During the operation, officers arrested seven individuals for Possession of Controlled Substance Penalty Group 1 (under 1 gram), Possession of Controlled Substance Penalty Group 1 (over 1 gram under 4) Fail to Identify Fugitive, Fail to ID, Walking in the Roadway, Resisting Arrest, Search or Transport, and Felony Warrant for Debit Card Abuse,” the press release said.

“On Friday, October 20, 2023, detectives conducted an inspection, with the assistance of the Killeen Fire Marshals, Killeen Code Enforcement, and Killeen Building Inspectors. During the inspection, illegal narcotics were displayed inside the business. A narcotics search warrant was executed, and detectives seized 120 grams of THC products, 56 grams of marijuana, 8 electronic gambling devices (computer towers), 6 gambling ledgers, gambling paraphernalia, and $36,117.00 in US currency.”

According to the Dallas Observer, raids like the one that occurred at Venom Vapors “have cropped up around North Texas in recent months.”

The Observer reported that “Brown claimed the police used the COA to secure a search warrant from a judge, but he thinks if the COA had been presented accurately, the police wouldn’t have been able to get the warrant.”

“The police confiscated all the delta-8 dab products, some delta-8 and delta-10 hemp flower, and some THCa prerolls. They also took over $36,000 from the business as evidence, and eight electronic gaming machines that they say were being used for illegal gambling. (Brown said the machines are also compliant with state law.),” according to the Observer.

The dispute calls to mind another recent story in that part of the Lone Star State: despite the passage of an ordinance by local voters to decriminalize marijuana, officials in Denton, Texas have defied those results.

Voters in Denton –– which is home to the University of North Texas –– overwhelmingly approved the ordinance last year, but in June, members of the city council voted against adopting it.

Under the ordinance, “Denton police officers [would] no longer write tickets or make arrests for possession of small amounts of pot and paraphernalia, [and] no longer stop and frisk people when they smell weed,” the Cross Timbers Gazette reported last year.

But in February, Denton’s city manager, Sara Hensley, sounded the alarm on the implementation of the ordinance.

“I recognize the voters have spoken and I understand that, but we don’t have the authority to implement those because of state law and the conflicts,” Hensley said at the time.

“I do not have the authority to direct the police chief to not enforce the law,” Hensley added.

In June, the Denton City Council voted 4-3 against adopting the ordinance, although the city’s mayor “insisted that police officers still have the discretion not to cite or arrest for marijuana possession but advocates want more assurance they won’t be prosecuted,” CBS News Texas reported at the time.

A massive bust at the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas, was announced last Friday, and law enforcement agents presented the seizure with stacked bales of cannabis in a wall-like structure that was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

In a single swoop, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Field Operations (OFO) officers assigned to the World Trade Bridge seized over two tons of cannabis. Border agents searched a suspected freight truck and found it was loaded 4,466 pounds of pot, with a street value of nearly 10 million dollars.

The bust took place last Thursday, on Sept. 14 at the World Trade Bridge in Laredo. A CBP officer flagged a 2023 freightliner tractor trailer that claimed to ship home goods for secondary inspection. And after a thorough examination using the border patrol’s non-intrusive inspection system, CBP officers discovered 177 packages containing a total of 4,466 pounds of alleged cannabis within the trailer. Law enforcement agents say it has a street value of $9,904,204, outlined in a Sept. 15 news release.

“Our CBP officers continue to maintain strict vigilance in our cargo environment and this week they came up big, with a seizure of more than two tons of marijuana,” said Port Director Albert Flores, Laredo Port of Entry. “We have not seen as much marijuana lately compared to the harder narcotics but it underscores the ever changing nature of the drug threat our officers face on a daily basis.”

CBP agents are primarily concerned with cannabis and drugs that are headed into the country, instead of headed the other way.

A photo shows the packages containing 4,466 pounds of cannabis seized by CBP officers at World Trade Bridge. CBP agents seized the cannabis, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents are currently investigating the seizure. 

CPB is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the comprehensive management, control, and protection of our nation’s borders, combining customs, immigration, border security, and agricultural protection at and between official ports of entry. CBP is one of the world’s largest law enforcement organizations with the primary goal of keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S., but also enforcing  lawful international travel and trade.

Cannabis seizures along the U.S.-Mexico border, which stretches nearly 2,000 miles, have actually fallen dramatically in recent years, aligning neatly with adult-use cannabis laws in the West: Seizure fell from about 1,350 metric tons in 2013 to around 70 metric tons in 2022, according to CBP statistics.

Cannabis Crossing the Border From Both Ends

The U.S.-Mexico border is not the only borderline you need to worry about in 2023.

In 2019, border patrol seized $100,000 worth of cannabis in upstate New York near Canada.

Border Patrol agents and police officers seized approximately 50 pounds of cannabis in upstate New York in 2019  in a traffic stop near the U.S-Canadian border. Officials estimated the value of the pot at more than $100,000, according to a press release from CPB.

Agents assigned to the Massena Border Patrol Station were on duty when they pulled over a red pickup truck in the parking lot of a hotel in Hogansburg, New York. After requesting assistance from other nearby law enforcement agencies, the Border Patrol agents were joined by officers from the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Police (SRMTP) and the New York State Police (NYSP).

After a canine unit with the SRMTP smelled something in the vehicle, the officers discovered the cannabis hidden in luggage which was stowed in the extended cab of the pickup truck.

Up north, some people are doing it by accident: The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) released a press release on June 26 as a reminder for people traveling for the holidays that no cannabis is allowed across the border.

For those who plan to traverse the border between the U.S. and Canada, CBSA recommends tips such as planning ahead for border wait times, saving time with an Advance Declaration, and having travel documents handy. The topic of cannabis was also shared in this list as well.

The section entitled “Cannabis: Don’t bring it in. Don’t take it out.” refers to the restrictions of cannabis being brought across the border. “Bringing cannabis across the border in any form, including oils containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabidiol (CBD), without a permit or exemption authorized by Health Canada is a serious criminal offence subject to arrest and prosecution, despite the legalization of cannabis in Canada. A medical prescription from a doctor does not count as Health Canada authorization.”