Welcome to Senior Cannabis Digest. This week we look at new cannabis brands from Whoopi Goldberg, how homegrowers get their information, a research agenda from health officials and more. Enjoy.
Senior Celebrity Spotlight
Actress, comedian and veteran talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg has announced she is reentering the cannabis sector—and in a big way. She will officially bring to market two cannabis brands under her WhoopFam umbrella.
This marks Goldberg’s second bite of the cannabis apple. As the folks at Greenstate have reported, Goldberg launched Whoopi & Maya withOm Edibles founder Maya Elisabeth in 2016 before shutting down the brand in 2020 due what might be called “creative differences.”
Now, according to Chris Gardner, reporting for The Hollywood Reporter, Goldberg will start the “reentry process” with the introduction of the brand Emma and Clyde. This brand relaunch is actually an expansion of an earlier launch in 2022 and a limited run in Arizona.
A logo for Whoopi Goldberg’s Emma & Clyde cannabis brand from WhoopFam.© Provided by Hollywood Reporter
Named after Goldberg’s late mother and brother—Emma used cannabis for its medicinal properties and Clyde used cannabis recreationally—Emma & Clyde products will be available in select stores in California, Arizona and Ohio with offerings designed for both medical and recreational users across categories such as edibles, pre-rolls, flowers and accessories.
This second brand launch will culminate with a ceremony granting Goldberg a key to West Hollywood.
Said Goldberg, “I am so glad that we are re-introducing Whoopi & Maya to a new group of women who will benefit greatly from period pain relief, which it was initially created for, as well as welcoming a whole new group of human beings who find themselves suffering from all types of muscular discomfort. There are tinctures, chocolate, as well as a soak, that I know people are going to love.”
Speaking about her other brand launch, Goldberg added, “Emma & Clyde offers flowers, pre-rolls and trays. You name it, it’s possible we make it. To work closely with Alex Martin-Dean, Bernard Dean, Scott Lambert and the team at WhoopFam is a great pleasure and proof that you can work with family.”
In his article, Gardner noted that Martin-Dean is Goldberg’s daughter while Bernard Dean is her son-in-law. Lambert is one of Goldberg’s business partners and a longtime cannabis business insider and consultant.
As it says on the WhoopFam website,”Healing through nature, from our family to yours.”
To learn more, we urge you to read Chris Gardner’s article in the July 5, 2024 issue of The Hollywood Reporter.com.
To visit the WhoopFam website, click on the following link:
Cannabis and Law Enforcement
In what might be described as a different kind of Miami vice, the police chief of the Ohio town of New Miami Village was fired for refusing to take a drug test after the mayor claimed she smelled an odor of marijuana that could “knock you off your feet” coming from his office.
According to Richard Polina, reporting for the New York Post, The New Miami Village Council unanimously voted to terminate Police Chief Harold Webb on June 27. New Miami Village is a community of just over 2,200 residents and is about 38 miles outside Cincinnati.
Polina noted that before he was fired, the village’s attorney hand-delivered a letter to Webb at his home on June 24 notifying him that he had until 5 p.m. the following day to take a drug test at the mayor’s request or face “disciplinary action.” Webb arrived at the testing site on June 25 but reportedly refused to give a urine sample in front of a nurse as a witness, calling the whole ordeal “belittling.”
In his defense, the former chief claimed the odor of cannabis cited by the Mayor was coming from more than 850 grams of marijuana flower the department seized during a raid in March. Unfortunately, for him, it appears the Mayor didn’t want to be distracted by facts.
As one might suspect, being able to detect the odor of cannabis in the police station was not the first source of conflict between the mayor and the former chief. Previously, Hayes-Hensley accused Webb of stealing hot dogs from a gas station when only free soda was allowed on duty, refusing to respond to 911 calls, “theft of office,” falsifying timesheets and daily logs, and “cashing his paycheck knowing he was required to show proof of his being at work.”
Holy Crockett and Tubbs, the former chief sounds like a regular one-man crime wave. Also, village records show that when he wasn’t causing chaos in the bustling little community of New Miami Village, the former chief also worked full-time for the U.S. Postal Service. One might say he was a very busy guy.
To learn more, we urge you to read Richard Polina’s informative and entertaining article in the July 8, 2024 issue of The New York Post.com.
Cannabis Stats of the Week
If you are impressed with the quality of the cannabis your neighbor has grown in his or her backyard, don’t be surprised if you find out he or she has turned to the internet for advice.
According to a new study from the folks at New Frontier Data, very nearly half of those who grow their own cannabis get their advice from online sources—and that’s why this week’s magic number is 49 percent.
Turning to friends and family with growing experience as a source of information on cultivating cannabis at home follows closely behind at 47 percent.
The survey indicated home growers often turn to multiple sources of information to guide their efforts. These include, in descending order, trial and error experimentation, books, experience growing other types of plants, a cannabis growing course or an academic degree in a relevant field.
Additional key takeaways from the study include the following:
• 44 percent of respondents said they grow their cannabis from seed, while 13 percent reported that they started their plants from clones—and 40 percent said they use both.
• 72 percent reported that they employed basic compost methods to improve the soil in the grow environment.
• 74 percent acknowledged they would use an automated system to take the guesswork out of growing cannabis if one was available.
• 37 percent said that keeping pests at bay was their biggest concern while for 29 percent it was producing top quality buds.
To learn more, we suggest reading the article “The Highs of Homegrowing Cannabis.” It appeared in the July 9, 2024 issue of Cannabis Insights, a publication of New Frontier Data.
newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/the-highs-of-home-growing-cannabis/?
Spotlight on Research
While the rescheduling of cannabis remains in a bit of a muddle at the moment, a new report from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)—a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)— indicates federal health officials have identified priorities for research into marijuana and cannabinoids.
The agency laid out these priorities in an article that was published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. The authors contend that the use of cannabis for purported medical purposes continues to increase despite insufficient knowledge regarding risks and benefits. As a consequence, research is needed to help health professionals and patients make knowledgeable decisions about using cannabis and cannabinoids for medical purposes.
According to Ben Adlin, reporting for Marijuana Moment, the authors of the journal article called chronic pain “a major public concern.” As a result, “One issue of particular interest to NCCIH is the potential analgesic properties of cannabis and its constituents.”
Other areas of study on the organization’s research wish list include cannabis’s effects on pain, sleep and social anxiety issues, the therapeutic use of terpenes, computer-aided identification of bioactive minor cannabinoids in hemp, chemical synthesis of rare cannabinoids and how exactly the chemical constituents of cannabis interact with the body and brain.
Adlin also reports that NIH has stated it supports the launch of a Resource Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research to “help investigators overcome challenges and barriers to conducting research on cannabis and its constituents, including regulatory concerns as well as scientific issues.”
When asked about rescheduling and research, David Shurtleff, deputy director of NCCIH and one of the authors of the new report said, “Anything that moves research quicker, faster, better—we’re all for, and we just hope that this will make life easier for our researchers. We just don’t yet know what this regulation will bring in terms of ability to to bring research quicker, better, faster. But again, we’re very hopeful. But nonetheless, regardless of what the scheduling is, NCCIH is still interested in studying the cannabis plant.”
To learn more, we encourage you to read Ben Adlin’s article in the July 5, 2024 issue of Marijuana Moment.net.
Senior Cannabis Digest is compiled and edited by Joe Kohut and John Kohut. You can reach them at joe.kohut@gmail.com and at 347-528-8753.
