The UFC and the US Anti-Doping Agency have updated their marijuana policy to allow for the consumption of cannabis.

The UFC has made headlines today after announcing that the organization, in conjunction with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) will no longer reprimand fighters that test positive for marijuana use.

Every cannabinoid, including THC and CBD, is now permissible within the sport, provided that athletes aren’t using the plant to improve their performance, and that they aren’t intoxicated during their fights.

Jeff Novitzky, the UFC’s senior vice president of athlete health and performance said that “in regard to marijuana, we care about what an athlete consumed the day of a fight, not days or weeks before a fight, which has often been the case in our historic positive THC cases.” …

Democrats now control the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. Does this mean that U.S. citizens can expect cannabis to be made legal?

Yesterday, the highly-anticipated Georgia run-off Elections unfolded, handing Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock both positions upon the senate, making it a 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats.

However, following the election win of Joe Biden, the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be given the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, effectively handing control over to the Democrat Party.

This is important, as Democrats hold a majority in the House of Representatives for the next two years, meaning that the left-wing party will control both chambers of congress. …

2020 was a year unlike any other, and this goes for the cannabis industry as well. So how did cannabis fare last year?

When the coronavirus hit, the world was brought to a screeching halt as citizens across the globe were told to shut their stores and stay indoors. The lockdowns resulted in a huge spike in unemployment and business closures, in addition to the growing number of cases and deaths from COVID-19.

Needless to say, 2020 was a tumultuous year for nearly every individual and industry imaginable. In light of this, however, the cannabis industry managed to secure some real triumphs in the face of adversity and continued to progress in many respects.

Here’s a list of some of the wins that the cannabis industry achieved throughout 2020. …

2020 saw over 3,500 research papers released that look into cannabis and its effects, making it a record year for the plant.

Research into cannabis remains one of the keys to pushing the industry toward the mainstream and into legalization.

As Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) outlined in 2019, “in many cases, there are very limited data from which to draw specific recommendations for treatment.”

Given that cannabis remains a Schedule I substance in the U.S. due to its perceived “lack of accepted medical uses,” one of the linchpins of widespread cannabis legalization is through a growing body of research surrounding the medical uses of cannabis and its derivatives.

Thankfully, it appears the tides are turning, and cannabis is finally getting the attention it deserves. …

I wanted to make a post in celebration of hitting 500 followers on Medium! I began writing on Medium a few years back, covering mostly political content and some philosophical musings here and there, before using the space as a second home for my writings on Cannabis.

I write full-time for The Green Fund, creating podcasts, articles and managing our team to ensure we can produce consistent, high-quality articles regarding the latest cannabis content. …

Another marijuana research bill has been introduced, this time to the U.S. Senate following the introduction of a similar bill last week by the House of Representatives.

Last week, legislators from both sides of the political aisle introduced the Medical Marijuana Research Act to the House of Representatives, which seeks to allow researchers to use dispensary cannabis for their studies, as opposed to current regulation which only allowed for marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi to be studied.

Just one week later, a similar marijuana research bill was passed by the U.S. Senate called the Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion Act, which was initially introduced in 2019.

The bill seeks to remove red-tape when it comes to researching cannabis-derived medicines, expediting research for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA.) …

The U.S. House of Representatives has just passed a bill that would make studying cannabis much more accessible to researchers.

The House of Representatives has passed another cannabis-related bill, following their passage of the MORE (Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment & Expungement) Act, this time passing a cannabis research bill.

The proposed bill, called the Medical Marijuana Research Act, would allow researchers to use dispensary cannabis for their studies, as opposed to current regulation which only allowed for marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi to be studied.

The bill was introduced by representatives on both sides of the political spectrum, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD). On their justification for the bill, Blumenauer said:

“The cannabis laws in this country are broken, especially those that deal with research. It’s a narrow bill that fixes one of many broken cannabis laws. And I want to hasten to add that this in no way negates the need to move forward with other areas of legalization… But this is sort of a foundational question. No matter where you are, there’s no reason the federal government should impede this critical research.” …

The ODC’s new hemp cultivation guidelines have made things a lot easier for hemp cultivators in Australia.

Cannabis legislation has been changing rapidly over the past few months, and the global cannabis industry has felt major gains as a result. In early November, five states in the U.S. voted to legalize some form of cannabis, followed shortly by the U.N.’s announcement that cannabis would be removed from its list of Schedule IV substances, where the plant previously sat alongside heroin.

Most recently, the MORE Act (Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement) passed in the U.S. …