For decades, cannabis has been trapped in a political purgatory, classified, vilified, and regulated as if it were a dangerous, single-molecule synthetic drug. But anyone who’s ever looked beyond the government propaganda or actually interacted with the plant knows better: cannabis is not a “drug” in the traditional pharmaceutical sense. Many of us see it
Cookies, the California-based cannabis brand, is facing a significant financial setback after a state judge ordered the company’s main royalty streams redirected to a former business partner, a move the company’s own attorney warned could trigger an “immediate insolvency event.” According to court records cited by Marijuana Business Daily, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Dennis
For the last century or so, the vast majority of governments has approached the fight against drug trafficking with force, whether police or military. However, after decades of relying on this method, a question arises: is it effective? The question may be simple, but the answer is complex. And if we take the recent events
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While federal lawmakers are busy advancing a nationwide ban on most hemp-derived THC products, New Orleans just did something very New Orleans. It opened a THC cocktail bar on Frenchmen Street. Tucked above Bamboula’s in the Faubourg Marigny Music District, Mélange by Cali Sober at Bamboula’s is billing itself as the city’s first non-alcoholic, functional
Massachusetts fights to keep legal weed while Florida battles to win it. For years, the story of cannabis reform sounded linear. Voters legalize, regulators build a system, the market matures, everyone moves on. But that story is starting to glitch. In Massachusetts, opponents are trying to yank the plug on a $1.6 billion adult-use market
In California, legal weed has been around for so long that it practically works as a spiritual category. That’s where the idea of being “Cali sober” came from: ditching alcohol but keeping cannabis, a kind of THC-powered “sobriety” that became a trend among celebrities, wellness influencers, and people who simply want to dodge a hangover
In a year when food insecurity continues to rise across California, two cannabis community heavyweights, Hash House and QC Farms, have stepped forward to deliver something truly meaningful: thousands of Thanksgiving meals for local families in need. What began as a challenge among friends has evolved into one of the season’s most impactful grassroots charity
This article is an adapted version of the Cannabis Confidential newsletter. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author. The IgniteIt (né Benzinga) Cannabis Capital & Policy Summit was held in Washington, D.C. on Monday, November 17th, 2025. The timing couldn’t have been better, given the recent intoxicating hemp ban and
When a 14-year-old rescue named Miss Daisie began standing over her water bowl and forgetting how to drink, Angela Ardolino knew something was wrong. The dog wasn’t sick—she was slipping away. “She’d get up and go to the water bowl and just stand there,” Ardolino recalled. “My partner said, ‘I think she’s got Alzheimer’s.’ He
