CannabisLink.ca - Current Affairs 2026

(2026) - Chronological (1416 items)

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Aug 27, 2026	Gallup: 17% of Americans Smoke Cannabis; 15% Consume Edibles Seventeen percent of Americans said they smoke cannabis, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. The figure ties the previous record high found by the pollster in 2023. In 2024, the number of Americans polled by Gallup who said they smoked cannabis fell to 13% but rose to 14% in 2025. Another 15% of those polled indicated they consume cannabis edibles, including 17% of women and 12% of men; comparatively, 15% of women and 18% of men said they smoked cannabis.
Aug 27, 2026	The High-THC Cannabis Debate Misses the Point: Adults Already Understand Potency There is a strange assumption buried inside much of the modern debate over high-potency cannabis. It assumes adults cannot adjust how much cannabis they consume. A flower testing above 30% THC, a potent hash, a concentrate or another high-cannabinoid product is frequently discussed as though its potency automatically determines how much someone will use. But consumers do not necessarily consume every cannabis product in identical quantities. Someone smoking a powerful concentrate can take a considerably smaller amount than someone smoking flower. Someone using strong flower can take one pull instead of finishing an entire joint. Experienced consumers regularly adjust dosage based on product type, tolerance, desired experience, setting and budget. That basic idea has become central to an increasingly important conversation inside legal cannabis.
Aug 27, 2026	The Vault Is Still Locked—A Banking Update on Cannabis Rescheduling There’s a scene near the end of every heist movie where the crew finally cracks the vault and it’s empty. Somebody already got there first, or the money was never really in there to begin with. Four months into medical marijuana’s move to Schedule III, that’s starting to feel like the right metaphor for cannabis banking — not because nobody’s trying to open the vault, but because it turns out rescheduling didn’t come with a combination.
Aug 27, 2026	Strong Weed Is No Reason for Prohibition Weed has come a long way since Up in Smoke. While there are disagreements about the potency advertised by retailers, there is little dispute that cannabis products have higher THC content than ever before. Concerns about that development were recently heightened by a study challenging the idea that cannabis has low addictive potential.
Aug 26, 2026	Canadian Marijuana Producers Expand Their Footprint in Europe Canada-based cannabis producer Tilray Brands recently announced that it was increasing its cultivation footprint in Europe and Canada as demand for medical marijuana continues to rise across regulated markets. According to the company, its yearly production capacity has increased to roughly 275 metric tons, compared with about 210 tons previously. The additional capacity is expected to support expanding sales in overseas markets, particularly across Australia, Europe, and other jurisdictions with established cannabis regulations.
Aug 26, 2026	Industry Responds After DEA Releases Rescheduling Transcripts The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) hearing on President Trump’s marijuana rescheduling proposal wrapped up last month, but this week the DEA published the transcripts from the multi-day affair. The transcripts prompted responses from notable industry stakeholders.
Aug 26, 2026	Can Cannabis Consumers Convince Government That It’s Time for Industry Reform? When Canada legalized recreational cannabis in 2018, it resolved one of the most contentious issues surrounding the plant. Canadians who believed people should not be criminalized for consuming cannabis had something clear to fight for, and ending prohibition gave them what they wanted. But legalization did not resolve many of the issues facing the industry that emerged in the years that followed. Cannabis businesses continue to push for changes to excise taxes, packaging and promotion restrictions, THC limits, and other regulations. What has largely disappeared is the public constituency demanding change alongside them.
Aug 26, 2026	DEA Releases Full Marijuana Rescheduling Hearing Transcript As Judge Prepares To Issue His Recommendation The full official transcript of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hearing on the Trump administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal has now been made available to the public. The release of the day-by-day record of the cannabis rescheduling proceedings comes after DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius ordered that dozens of mostly small and technical changes be made to an initial draft.
Aug 26, 2026	Canada surpasses California as largest cannabis market in the world California’s leaders love to brag about the state’s legal cannabis market being the largest in the world. Even when the legal market has shown deep problems and dysfunction, leaders could say that at least California was still No. 1. However, that no longer appears to be true. Canada’s federal government released data last week showing that its June sales totaled $517.8 million Canadian dollars, or about $374.5 million in U.S. dollars. That’s more than the $372.4 million that California sold the same month, according to the Department of Cannabis Control, meaning California has lost its superlative status.
Aug 25, 2026	Europe Has a Cannabis Prohibition Problem European authorities are blaming North American cannabis legalization for rising illicit cannabis trafficking, but the evidence tells a different story. As regulated markets displace illegal sales in North America, Europe’s continued prohibition may be creating the very conditions that fuel its illicit cannabis trade.
Aug 25, 2026	Reports Of Increases In Problematic Cannabis Use Don’t Mean We Should Return To Prohibition (Op-Ed) As a physician, I don’t dismiss recent reports of increases in problematic cannabis use. But we should avoid letting them trigger another drug-war moral panic. Cannabis use has increased as more states have legalized it for adults. That should surprise no one. When a widely used substance moves from an illicit market to a legal one, some who previously abstained will try it, some occasional users will use it more often and people will be more willing to admit they use it. Yet these recent patterns don’t tell us what cannabis use will look like going forward.
Aug 25, 2026	St Kitts sets global standard with seed-to-bank cannabis system Saint Kitts and Nevis will track the money in its medicinal cannabis sector as closely as the plants. The Medicinal Cannabis Authority (MCA) has contracted GrowerIQ to run a national seed-to-sale system that records every financial transaction alongside every plant and batch, from the first licence application onward. The design follows the Federation’s own rulebook. The Cannabis (Medicinal Cannabis Licensing) Regulations, SRO No. 17 of 2022 require every financial transaction connected to a licensed cannabis business to be recorded in the national tracking system, with the Authority holding real-time read access. Regulation 55 names seventeen transaction categories, from investments, loans and capital expenditure through rent, salaries and taxes to dividends and banking. The regulation ties the requirement to the country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing obligations.
Aug 25, 2026	A growing trend among retirees is sparking neighborhood disputes Cannabis use among older Americans has climbed sharply in recent years, with many seniors turning to marijuana products to help manage chronic pain, sleep problems and other age-related issues. As the trend expands, however, some retirement communities, condominium buildings and neighborhoods are seeing increased friction between users and neighbors who object to lingering odors and secondhand smoke, The Wall Street Journal reported. Health researchers say adults ages 65 and older represent one of the fastest-growing groups of cannabis users in the United States. Increased legalization, wider availability of marijuana products and changing cultural attitudes have encouraged many baby boomers to revisit or begin using cannabis for medical and recreational purposes, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Aug 25, 2026	Cannabis Is Capitalism’s Next Fix We grew up being told, ?“Just say no,” ?“Say nope to dope,” ?“Choose life, not drugs.” Now we read articles about how psychedelics can improve brain health in mainstream media and scroll past Instagram posts advertising cannabis as the latest essential wellness treatment for on-the-go millennials. A change is happening, even if we can’t fully see it. Is the War on Drugs over? If so, who won? Or is it simply changing shape? How did this change come about, and what comes after it? If we have lost the War on Drugs, what does the postwar reconstruction look like? To understand why this shift is happening, and why now (after all, activists have been calling for drug legalisation since the 1960s), it helps to zoom out. We are living through an era the economic historian Adam Tooze has called a ?“polycrisis.” The economy is in long-term stagnation. Decades of free-market policy have carved a huge global divide between owners and earners, between asset holders and people who must work for a living. The global superpowers are descending into hostile trade wars, and people fear that artificial intelligence will take away the few remaining professional jobs. Everyone is looking for a fix.
Aug 25, 2026	Legal weed may have an unexpected workplace benefit Legal medical cannabis may be doing something employers might not expect: keeping more workers on the job and in good health. A new study published in the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health found that medical cannabis decriminalization was associated with a roughly 6.9 percent reduction in the likelihood of health-related workplace absences. Researchers analyzed more than 20 million responses from the Current Population Survey, spanning January 1990 through March 2025.
Aug 25, 2026	More Than 200,000 People Were Arrested For Marijuana Possession In The U.S. Last Year, FBI Data Shows More than 200,000 people were arrested for possessing marijuana in the U.S. last year, according to the FBI’s latest annual crime report, and another 17,000 were booked for allegedly selling or growing cannabis. Those figures likely understate the true number of people busted for marijuana, however, given inconsistencies in the federal data and questions about the agency’s changing methodology from recent years, as well as the fact that about 13 percent of state and local law enforcement agencies did not contribute data for 2025.
Aug 25, 2026	Reports of Increases in Problematic Cannabis Use Don’t Mean We Should Return to Prohibition A free society should be capable of learning to live with potentially risky substances without the government banning them. As a physician, I don’t dismiss recent reports of increases in problematic cannabis use. But we should avoid letting them trigger another drug-war moral panic.
Aug 24, 2026	Trump Signed an Order Paying Farmers to Heal Their Soil. Weed Growers Get Nothing. This past June, President Trump signed an executive order expanding a pilot program the USDA had already funded, routed through conservation programs like EQIP and the Conservation Stewardship Program, which pays farmers for building soil health. Across row crops and rangeland, regenerative agriculture has moved from a fringe idea to the fastest-growing banner in farming. Almost none of that money will reach a marijuana farm.
Aug 24, 2026	Cannabis Law Reform Is Increasingly Gaining Prominence as Midterms Approach Cannabis policy is heading into the U.S. midterm elections as a politically complicated issue, with voters in some states considering ballot measures while candidates elsewhere take opposing positions on legalization. The debate comes as the country remains divided between broad public acceptance of cannabis and its continued prohibition under federal law. The issue could gain attention as November approaches, although voters are also focused on immigration, the economy, the conflict with Iran, and the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure.
Aug 24, 2026	Curaleaf Responds to Aurora Cannabis' Latest Attempt to Deflect From Shareholder Value Creation STAMFORD, Conn., Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (TSX: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf"), a leading international provider of consumer and medical cannabis products, today responded to Aurora Cannabis Inc.'s (TSX: ACB) (NASDAQ: ACB) ("Aurora") latest public statements regarding Curaleaf's offer for Aurora: "Aurora's hollow protests and completely misleading statistics change nothing about reality: if its multi-year turnaround strategy were delivering the value management claims, the company's valuation would reflect it. Aurora has repeatedly failed to demonstrate both a credible plan and the ability to execute, resulting in significant lost shareholder value.

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