One of the biggest things I’ve learned after years in this industry is that being good at what you do isn’t enough. You have to see the whole board. If you’re in marijuana and only pay attention to marijuana, you’re missing what hemp is doing. If you’re in hemp and ignore what is happening in state regulated marijuana, you’re missing part of the picture too. If you only understand retail but don’t understand manufacturing, distribution, margins, testing and supply chains, you’re operating with blinders on. If you understand the business but don’t understand the science, eventually somebody who does will expose the holes in your argument. If you understand the science but ignore legislation, regulation and politics, somebody can change the rules underneath you before you even realize what happened. And if you spend all your time protecting the specific piece of the industry that makes you money today, you may completely miss where the consumer and the market are going tomorrow. You need to understand hemp, marijuana, medical, adult use, cannabinoids, testing, manufacturing, retail, distribution, federal law, state law, politics, public perception and most importantly, the consumer. You don’t have to be the smartest person in every room. But you damn well better understand how all the rooms connect. The people who can see the big picture are usually the ones who see what’s coming before everyone else does. Lift your head up and take a look around.

Hello Hemp Haters. 😉 “Let the bodies hit the floor” 😂 “You wanted in, and now you're here Driven by hate, consumed by fear” $MSOS @V_arrell @jamiecampbell @TheDankInformer Are you guys ok? 😎 youtu.be/04F4xlWSFh0?is=_cvV…

Things that make you go hmmmm. 🤣 I got one. 😉 Texas brought in Crowe Advisory to conduct financial due diligence on the conditional TCUP licensees. Seems legit, but here’s where things get interesting. 🧐 DPS originally required bidders to confirm they had NO involvement with cannabis multi-state operators (MSOs). Then DPS crossed that requirement out and changed it to simply DISCLOSING that involvement. Why? Well, in August 2023, Crowe hired Rebecca Young as a Managing Director to help lead its cannabis accounting practice. Guess where she worked before that? TRULIEVE! That’s right. Young was Trulieve’s Chief Accounting Officer when the original Texas TCUP application window opened in January 2023. Now Trulieve TX is a conditional license winner, and Crowe has been hired to review the applicants’ financial viability. I’m not alleging wrongdoing, but that raises some serious questions. What did Crowe disclose to DPS? Is Young involved in the review? And did she help take the test and now get to grade it? 😉 Things that make you go HMMMM… 🎶🤣 youtu.be/XF2ayWcJfxo?is=kTDD…

More Texas shenanigans. Down the rabbit hole we go. The TCUP licensing process has been dragging on for years. 1/13/23 DPS opened the original TCUP application window. 12/1/25 DPS finally announced the first conditional winners and said they were moving into additional due diligence. 5/8/26 DPS corrected the license selections and the new conditional winners were placed into ongoing due diligence. 9/1/26 DPS awarded RFQ 405-26R0019669 to Crowe Advisory to conduct another major layer of financial review. I wonder what dirt will be dug up next. I bet this rabbit hole goes deeper. 🤣 Pay close attention. 😉 txsmartbuy.gov/esbd/405-26R0……

Colton is coming out guns blazing in Texas and putting in work! 🔥 Guess they should have used Signal. 🤣

Hello Hemp Haters! 😉 Well, well, well. Look what the DEA just said. The DEA denied MedPharm Research a federal marijuana manufacturing registration, citing its affiliated companies’ participation in Colorado’s state licensed recreational marijuana market. And here’s the best part. The DEA explicitly stated that manufacturing marijuana for the recreational market violates federal law and “constitutes diversion of a Schedule I controlled substance.” Let that sink in. A STATE LICENSE DOES NOT OVERRIDE FEDERAL LAW. And guess what? Schedule III does not magically legalize recreational marijuana either. Meanwhile, Congress specifically removed qualifying hemp from the federal definition of marijuana. So remind me again, which industry is operating through a loophole? You can keep calling hemp the loophole, but the DEA just reminded everyone which market remains federally prohibited. Don’t shoot the messenger. Take it up with the DEA. 😂 themarijuanaherald.com/2026/…

Hello Hemp Haters. 😉 Guess what? The state licensed marijuana market is a loophole. States created legal markets for marijuana even though federal law prohibits that conduct. A state license does not change federal law. Hemp is the opposite. Congress specifically legalized hemp and removed it from the federal definition of marijuana. So one market operates because states created a lane around federal prohibition. That’s a loophole. The other operates because Congress expressly made the product federally legal. That’s a law. I’m all for regulating hemp harder. But calling hemp the “loophole” while pretending state licensed recreational marijuana isn’t one is completely backwards. Follow me for more fun facts. 🤣

Cresco is suing Texas because they fixed the grading and they didn’t make the cut. Trulieve is intervening in their lawsuit because they “want it now” and they don’t want Cresco to slow them down. That was a Willy Wonka reference if you didn’t catch it. Can you picture her saying “I want it now“? 🤣

A lot of you still seem to think this federal registration piece is optional. It isn’t. If you want to manufacture, distribute, or test medical cannabis inside the federal Schedule III framework, DEA registration is part of the deal. That is how the Controlled Substances Act works. DEA just opened the registration portal for state licensed medical cannabis manufacturers, distributors, and labs. This is the infrastructure being built in real time. So while some of you are still arguing that nothing changes, the federal government is literally building the system you are going to have to operate under. Medical cannabis is being pulled into a federally regulated Schedule III lane. That means registration. Compliance. Recordkeeping. Security. Controlled substance rules. You can keep telling yourself none of this is mandatory, but the law does not care about your business model or your Twitter argument. Pull your head out of your ass or you are going to get left behind. cannabisbusinesstimes.com/ca…

This is exactly the point I’ve been making. Rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III is not legalization. Schedule III is still controlled under federal law, and moving marijuana there would not suddenly make state recreational sales federally legal. The schedule may change. The Controlled Substances Act does not disappear. Kristy’s answer says it plainly. The schedule number doesn’t magically turn non-medical distribution into lawful medical practice. People need to stop confusing rescheduling with legalization. They are not the same thing.

Hello Hemp Haters. 😉 It’s F Around and Find Out Friday. 😎 I’m about to give away the dirty little secret they really don’t want you to know. You are all smoking THCA flower. Yep. You too marijuana people. That $60 eighth sitting under mood lighting in a licensed dispensary? Mostly THCA before you put a flame to it. Then you light it. Heat converts the THCA into Delta 9 THC. You’re sitting on cloud D9. Crazy right? Apparently the hemp haters thought THCA was invented in 2018 by a guy named Chad behind a vape shop. It wasn’t. You’ve been smoking it for years. They just taught you to hate it when somebody puts the word “hemp” in front of it. Congratulations. You got hemmed up by the hemp haters. The Devil’s Lettuce is in the details. Happy F Around and Find Out Friday. 😂

This is the part the recreational marijuana industry should be paying attention to. Trump reportedly wants the broader move to Schedule III sped up. But Schedule III does NOT federally legalize recreational marijuana. The Congressional Research Service has already made this clear. Even under Schedule III, the manufacture, distribution, and possession of recreational marijuana would remain illegal under federal law and potentially subject to federal prosecution. That means state recreational licenses do not suddenly become state medical licenses. The President could still direct DOJ and DEA to prioritize enforcement against recreational marijuana operators. State licensed recreational marijuana is still a completely different lane under federal law. Schedule III may actually make that distinction a whole lot harder to ignore. The Devil’s lettuce is in the details. themarijuanaherald.com/2026/…

If we move it all to schedule 3, how do people who are not patients get legal access?

I guess you don’t have to pay to play when you’re a billion dollar MSO. This is the part of the MSO model people should probably pay a little more attention to. Curaleaf subsidiaries entered into a contract with a Michigan grower to buy its cannabis. When prices dropped, they stopped accepting deliveries. The grower sued and a jury found Curaleaf’s companies breached the contract and awarded the grower $31.8 million. So what did Curaleaf do? They argued in federal court that the marijuana contract they signed should not be enforceable because marijuana is federally illegal. And they won. Think about that for a minute. A massive MSO participates in the state legal marijuana industry, signs contracts with growers, breaches the contract, loses in front of a jury, then uses federal marijuana prohibition to avoid paying a $31.8 million judgment. Apparently federal illegality is the argument when it is time to pay the people you did business with. harris-sliwoski.com/cannalaw…

Hello Hemp Haters. 😉 This one should wind you up. 🤣 “The senator is asking her colleagues cosponsor the forthcoming bill “to protect Pennsylvania’s responsible consumable hemp industry, give law enforcement a clear state standard, and keep harmful intoxicating products out of the hands of children.”” marijuanamoment.net/pennsylv…