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The buzz over 420 isn’t just media hype, April 20 ― aka “420” ― is considered pot’s biggest day, according to cannabis industry insiders like Robert Arabian, founder of Pop-Up Potcorn, a line of cannabis-infused microwave popcorn, and it should only get more popular now that 33 states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. “These days, 4/20 has turned into the biggest Holiday in the cannabis industry and serves as a day of celebration for the advancements the industry has made in the legal space,” Arabian told HuffPost. How is the marijuana industry changing you ask? Here are some significant changes for 2019: Everything CBD — or cannabidiol, the nonpsychoactive ingredient in the marijuana plant — is popping up in all sorts of products, including face masks, jelly beans and even burgers, despite the lack of evidence of its effectiveness for easing pain, insomnia, anxiety and depression. CBD will be sticking around for quite a while, though maybe not in its current form according to Michael Christopher, the CEO of Mood33, a California-based cannabis-infused beverage brand. “We are seeing some proliferation of CBD-infused products that are starting to overwhelm consumers,” Christopher told huffpost.com . “From $9 CBD-infused donuts to $14 CBD-infused brownie mix.

More Women Are Using Marijuana: Sheena Shirvai, director of consumer communications for Eaze, a cannabis-delivery company in California, says women are now behind 75 percent of orders. Last year, baby boomers were seen as the future of sales, but industry experts now see women as the next budding market. Dr. John Oram, the Founder/CEO of NUG, a cannabis company specializing in concentrates, said “soccer moms” are coming into the business in droves ― and it shouldn’t be a surprise. Oram told HuffPost. “Moms generally make the health and wellness decisions in the household. It is natural to expect women to play a greater role in choosing quality cannabis products.” Ray Landgraf of Island Cannabis, which deals with cannabis production technology, says there’s a thirst for pot-infused drinks. “We’re really early on beverages where people are just figuring out the science that will make cannabis beverages a really unique experience. Marijuana Delivery Is The Future: The idea of brick-and-mortar bud shops popping up like Starbucks is one that should be nipped in the bud, according to Brad McLaughlin of BudTrader.com, which bills itself as “the largest cannabis social media platform.” “Dispensaries will go the way of Blockbuster Video. You heard it here first,” McLaughlin said. “People don’t want to leave the pad, especially in major metropolitan cities with heavy traffic congestion like New York, LA and places where it’s cold.” However, many industry insiders such as Bryson Bulda, brand manager of LBS Distribution, a California cannabis company, believe dispensaries are crucial to building burgeoning bud businesses. “Going to a dispensary and talking to budtenders is the only way to actively learn from products and what you are consuming.”

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Pop-Up Potcorn

Mood33

Island Cannabis

BudTrader.com

LBS Distribution

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Not a day goes by, either, without something in the news questioning the honesty of certain Americans or Russians. Now it seems that UFOs have been added to that media storm. Whenever a story comes out claiming to show real pictures or video of UFOs, hope springs eternal that maybe, just maybe, this might be that elusive smoking-gun evidence of alien technology. The image is from a collection called Pixabay, which offers many free stock photos to use for practically anything you’d like. This one shows our sun with a circular black dot, reportedly the planet Mercury, making a transit across our home star. Still, how would Pixabay feel if a Russian news site, Pravda.ru ― ironically, the name means “truth” ― took that same picture, added two more black dots, called them all UFOs and claimed this was, in fact, a picture captured by a NASA “STEREO spacecraft”? Wow.! Dateline:
Pravda.ru “NASA spacecraft captures three huge UFOs silhouetted against the Sun.” That deserves another “Wow!” If you compare the two images, it doesn’t take long to figure out that the sun in the two pictures is identical and all that Pravda.ru did was finish it off with two more “UFOs” and added the headline.

HuffPost reached out to a NASA spokesman to comment about all of this, “I’m not aware of this photo being released. Certainly not from NASA. There is no official or unofficial NASA posting of the image,” he said. NASA generally has well thought-out explanations for these types of “UFO” incursions into our solar system. For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time that UFO charlatans have tried to convince the public that extraterrestrial ships are getting a little too close to our sun. For its part, Pravda.ru, which is separate from the Communist Party paper, has a history of extremely creative “journalism.” But the truth is out there. Just not Pravda.ru’s truth. Here’s a video http://youtube.com/channel/UCVTomc35agH1SM6kCKzwW_g of an alleged alien ship refueling, according to a source that is definitely not NASA.

The Crow is a contributing writer for c4ocradio.com/listenlive

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youtube.com/channel/UCVTomc35agH1SM6kCKzwW_g

Pravda.ru

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Mark Anthony Jones, 46, an unlicensed gun owner in Indiana is recovering in a hospital after accidentally shooting himself in the penis. Jones told police in Marion that he was taking a morning walk when the Hi-Point 9mm handgun he was carrying in his waistband “began to slip,” according to The Smoking Gun. According to a Marion Police Department news release on Facebook: Jones told police that when he “reached down to adjust” the unholstered gun, it discharged, shooting a bullet that “entered just above his penis and exited his scrotum.” Here is the Marion Police Department’s news release posted on Facebook:

Investigators have forwarded the case to the Grant County prosecuting attorney, the release notes that Jones doesn’t have a license to carry a handgun in Indiana. Investigators will determine if Jones will face any criminal charges for the self-inflicted wound.

The Crow is a contributing writer for c4ocradio.com/listenlive

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Marion Police Department

The Smoking Gun

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LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Democrat’s proposed spending plan, released Thursday, projects the state will bank $355 million in marijuana excise taxes by the end of June. Deep in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new budget is a figure that says a lot about California’s shaky legal marijuana market: The state is expecting a lot less cash from cannabis taxes. That’s roughly half of what was once expected after broad legal sales kicked off last year.
Most consumers are continuing to purchase pot in the illegal marketplace, where they avoid taxes that can near 50 percent in some communities. Tax collections are expected to gradually increase over time, but predicting what that amount will be remains something of a guess. Industry experts say the diminished tax income reflects a somber reality. Tax collections for “a newly created market are subject to significant uncertainty,” the budget said. Josh Drayton of the California Cannabis Industry Association credited Newsom with taking “a realistic look at the challenges” after a bumpy first year of broad legal sales. Newsom also recommended a sharp increase in spending for regulatory programs, although it’s an open question whether it will be enough to help steady the state pot economy.

Initially “the state was too optimistic about how the implementation of legalization was going to work. This governor has paid attention to that,” Drayton said. The budget recommends just over $200 million for marijuana-related activities in the fiscal year that starts July 1, which would be over a 50 percent boost from the current year. That said, Drayton added that legal businesses need a break from hefty tax rates that are driving consumers to the illicit economy. Local governments are free to slap taxes on sales and on growers too, which has created a confusing patchwork of tax rates around the state. Various proposals have been made to cut state pot taxes.
The state’s top marijuana regulator, Lori Ajax, has said the state intends to get more businesses licensed and operating in 2019, while cracking down on rogue operators who continue to proliferate across the state.
By some estimates, up to 80 percent of sales in the state remain under the table, snatching profits from legal storefronts. At year’s end, California’s effort to transform its longstanding illegal and medicinal marijuana markets into a unified, multibillion-dollar industry remained a work in progress. Meanwhile, the courts budget includes nearly $14 million for resentencing of thousands of drug offenders whose offenses are no longer crimes since California legalized recreational pot.

The Crow is a contributing writer for c4ocradio.com

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Huffpost.com/section/weirdnews

American Press Association

California Cannabis Asscociation