Two German nationals believed to be pivotal to the E645 million JuicyFields fraud are soon to appear in a Berlin court. However the thousands of investors left out of pocket by the complex cannabis pyramid scheme are unlikely to see any of their funds returned.

US cannabis stakeholders have cautiously welcomed Donald Trump’s return to the White House, saying the industry will probably escape the impending pushback of Biden policies. Trump does not see cannabis as a priority issue, which means current reform initiatives are likely to remain intact and that the plant is still in line to be removed from the federal list of controlled substances.

The Israeli Defence Force believes that one of Hezbollah’s main funding sources is the trade in Captagon, a powerful amphetamine that is produced almost entirely in the Middle East. A former Israeli ambassador to the US says the recent IDF strikes in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley have the aim of taking out Hezbollah’s narcotics production infrastructure.

Donald Trump’s White House victory has been greeted with cautious optimism by the big players in the US cannabis industry. They don’t see the Republicans rolling back plans for federal reform, banking access and state autonomy and hope for bipartisan support in dealing with regulatory challenges.

Mexico’s new president wants to constitutionally ban all vapes by the end of the year. Critics are concerned that this overlooks the fact that vapes are nicotine alternatives and that banning them will simply drive the vape market further underground.

International consulting company Global G has just released its Global Cannabis Market: Fall 2024 Outlook which shows the market just keeps growing. The oils market especially has expanded rapidly in a sector that has increased by 14% in value over the past year. Sadly, Africa is nowhere to be found in this positive prognosis.

South African cannabis retailers trapped in the ‘grey zone’ of regulatory vacuum may take heart from a recent bombshell ruling in New York City. A Queens judge has ruled as unconstitutional a state law that allowed NYC to padlock hundreds of suspected illegal cannabis shops.

The US Presidential elections are set to unleash a new wave of cannabis legalization no matter what the outcome. This is the first US election where there is bipartisan support for cannabis reform with both Democrats and Republicans backing the Biden administration’s push to reschedule cannabis and remove it from the list of scheduled substances..

The United States’ US$30 billion cannabis industry is experiencing a surge in female buying power. And with younger women now buying more cannabis than their male counterparts, cannabis companies are re-evaluating their product offerings and marketing strategies.

The South African CBD skincare market is poised to grow significantly for the rest of the decade, outpacing most other CBD categories. This is in line with global trends which show that growing consumer awareness of CBD’s anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects is translating into sales.

New uses for industrial cannabis are being discovered all the time. A recent study published in the journal Insects found that hemp-derived CBD kills Yellow Fever mosquitoes in their larval phase, opening up new possibilities in ecologically-sustainable insect control.

Kansas lawmakers are debating cannabis legalization, and a senior taxman has suggested the US state start with regulating cannabis for recreational use rather than begin with a medical cannabis programme as other states have done. This, he said, would be “easier to implement”. South African policy-makers should take note: this could solve a lot of self-inflicted regulatory problems, which appear to be getting worse.