🗳️ “A week is a long time in politics.”

Today's edition is sponsored by The Deep View. Their support keeps these briefings free and focused on what actually matters.

Delaware opens its THC drink market today, seven weeks before the federal hemp line takes full effect. A second poll has Massachusetts voters rejecting Question 8 by 50 points, and Smart Approaches to Marijuana reported $310,000 in federal lobbying while its affiliate pays for the yes campaign. UPS set its hemp shipping terms for December 11th as Minnesota taprooms moved THC drinks to cash only. Missouri’s market study couldn’t see who owns the stores, and Alabama’s cannabis director says he will retire once integrated licensing is done.

🍹 Seven weeks, one barometer
🗳️ Fifty points, thirteen days
📦 Cash at the tap
🎭 Retiring, eventually

Starting today, licensed liquor stores, marijuana dispensaries and some microbreweries in Delaware can sell nonalcoholic drinks infused with delta-9 THC, once each holds the right state authorization. H.B. 373 caps a single drink at 10 milligrams, a multipack at 60 and a 750-milliliter bottle at 170, limits sales to adults 21 and over, and bars drinking on site. The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner runs the endorsement, at $1,500 to apply and $1,000 to renew, with lower fees for social equity and microbusiness applicants. A tax of 50 cents a can and $8.50 a bottle starts February 1st, 2027. The bill was introduced in April and Gov. Matt Meyer signed it July 23rd, eight months after Congress wrote the federal hemp redefinition that takes full effect December 11th. Delaware saw a market opportunity. The state can certainly revisit that choice, and the short window will also serve as a bit of a barometer of consumer interest. Time will tell, but it is an interesting data point on the fallout from what Congress did. (The Marijuana Herald; Delaware Office of the Marijuana Commissioner)

📉 Approval of the administration’s cannabis actions fell to 29 percent among cannabis consumers in the October wave of the NuggMD and Marijuana Moment tracker. It was 73 percent after the rescheduling executive order and 48 percent last quarter, and 51 percent of the 654 respondents had no opinion. A separate NuggMD question asked for NORML found 78 percent say a candidate’s cannabis views will influence their vote. I don’t know how much I believe the cratering nature of the poll, and there may be more to it. At the same time, if the pendulum swung that fast, it can swing back quickly. (Marijuana Moment; NORML)

A Suffolk University and Boston Globe poll of 500 voters, taken October 14th through 17th, has Question 8 failing 71 percent to 21, with a margin of error of 4.4 points. It follows Monday’s UMass Amherst and WCVB survey at 61 to 31. The Globe editorial board came out against repeal on Tuesday. In the Berkshires, the Berkshire Eagle’s Nate Harrington told WAMC the county holds 10 percent of the state’s grow facilities and 1.8 percent of its population, and that the loss would run through every step from cultivation to the counter. Election Day is 13 days out, and early voting is underway. It will be close. Take nothing for granted. Talk to customers, talk to patients, talk to family, talk to neighbors. The case for voting no is at StoptheRepealMA.com. (Marijuana Moment; The Boston Globe; WAMC)

Smart Approaches to Marijuana and SAM Action reported $310,000 in federal lobbying for the first nine months of 2026, $210,000 in SAM Action’s own expenses and $100,000 to Off Hill Strategies and Blue Mountain Strategies. The filings list blocking rescheduling through appropriations, opposing SAFE Banking and restricting hemp intoxicants. SAM is too busy suing the feds, and it leads one of three consolidated D.C. Circuit challenges to rescheduling. It’s also too busy dumping money into fruitless ballot campaigns in states, and SAM Action put up nearly all of the $3.5 million behind Question 8 through September, a campaign answered at StoptheRepealMA.com. Obstructionists don’t invest all their money into lobbying. They spend elsewhere. (The Marijuana Herald; Marijuana Moment; MJBizDaily)

🎭 John McMillan told 1819 News on Tuesday that he does plan to retire from the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission and will announce his plans October 29th, staying until integrated licensing wraps up around the first of the year. On Monday he answered “Not me” when asked about the chair’s announcement that he would leave October 29th. Getting their story straight makes sense, and the confusion should have little impact on the status of the market. The program counts close to 2,500 patients and 58 doctors. (1819 News)

Starting December 11th, UPS will want a certificate of analysis with every raw hemp shipment showing total THC, THCA included, at or below 0.3 percent on a dry-weight basis. Its earlier policy looked at delta-9 alone. Vapes and synthetic cannabinoids are out, and UPS won’t accept hemp from any location that sells marijuana. Attorney Michelle Bodian told Cannabis Business Times that USPS and FedEx haven’t followed. That makes sense, since UPS has too much at stake across state lines. In Minneapolis, Indeed Brewing and Bauhaus Brew Labs moved THC drinks to cash only after Square, their point-of-sale system, said it would stop handling the sales. Square didn’t respond to Bring Me The News. InBound BrewCo has already stopped, and Blacklist in Duluth ends THC drinks October 31st. Ryan Bandy of Indeed expects most point-of-sale providers to adopt similar rules by the deadline. Cash only is just another friction point that is likely to reduce the curiosity in the product, though it still may satisfy an existing loyal customer. (Cannabis Business Times; Bring Me The News)

🏔️ The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ cannabis business reports about 270 employees, more than 85 percent of them tribal members, and over $5 million in tribal sales tax this year. Its chief executive, Forrest Parker, sits on Gov. Josh Stein’s Advisory Council on Cannabis. In jurisdictions with a lot of tribal activity, to my knowledge at least, tribes have been good partners and good stewards. Whether this is a model is up to the council, and I’d defer to its judgment. Its recommendations are due December 31st and carry no legal force unless the General Assembly acts. (Citizen-Times via MMJDaily)

The study Mackenzie Slade’s Cannabis Public Policy Consulting did for the Division of Cannabis Regulation found no sign that statewide or regional markets are overconcentrated, measured by how sales spread across licensed facilities. It couldn’t measure ownership, because researchers lacked usable data on who owns which licenses. Director Amy Moore said the division intends to add that information, and proposed rules filed this month would require an annual ownership report from every licensee. It is certainly a gap, and one that came up in the antitrust lawsuits filed in May. Ownership limitations and constraints garner a lot of attention among cannabis regulators, and there are plenty of opportunities and systems to confront them. We leveraged a lot of data in Massachusetts, and I know other states do, too. (Missouri Independent)

🗺️ Around the map: Illinois’ Department of Financial and Professional Regulation wants a contractor for a statewide campaign steering consumers to licensed sellers, with proposals due November 16th. Safe Harbor Financial has until April 19th to get its Nasdaq share price back to $1 for ten straight business days. A review of 41 studies by Isabella Goodwin and Amir Englund found that doubling an inhaled THC dose from 5 to 10 milligrams moved infrequent users’ self-rated high from 34 to 39 on a 100-point scale. (The Marijuana Herald; Cannabis Business Times; Medical Xpress)

If you’re a decision maker at your company, you need to be on the bleeding edge of, well, everything. But before you go signing up for seminars, conferences, lunch ‘n learns, and all that jazz, just know there’s a far better (and simpler) way: Subscribing to The Deep View.

This daily newsletter condenses everything you need to know about the latest and greatest AI developments into a 5-minute read. Squeeze it into your morning coffee break and before you know it, you’ll be an expert too.

Subscribe right here. It’s totally free, wildly informative, and trusted by 600,000+ readers at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and beyond.

Policy, Decoded grows best when it's shared deliberately. Refer three people and you get 30 minutes with me, one on one, on whatever policy issue is actually in front of you. One referral earns a sticker pack, five earns How to Be Heard, our guide to making public comment that regulators actually read, and ten earns the Field Kit.

🎧 Listen on Spotify | ⚖️ Share with a colleague

Policy, Decoded reaches operators, investors, counsel and regulators every weekday morning. Three founding sponsorships are open.