🤺 "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

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Treasury and the IRS put Section 280E on their guidance plan for the year, in a single line. Senate President Nicholas Scutari wants New Jersey's hemp drink deadline to move whenever Washington's does, and Idaho voters decide November 3rd whether only the Legislature can legalize cannabis. Connecticut now sends every new shipment of concentrates and tinctures to patients first, and New York passed $4 billion in sales as average sales per store slipped.

📑 One line of guidance
🥤 A moving deadline
🗳️ The initiative door
💊 Patients first, for 14 days

Treasury and the IRS released their 2026-2027 Priority Guidance Plan on September 29th. Under "Other Priorities," the entry reads, in full, "Guidance under §280E." It gives no scope and no date, and the plan year now runs through September 30th, 2027. It is still the first time Treasury has written 280E into its own work plan since April's order moved state-licensed medical cannabis to Schedule III. The question waiting on it is the dual licensee, selling to patients and adult-use customers under one roof. Reps. Dina Titus, Dave Joyce, Ilhan Omar and Greg Steube put that question to Treasury Secretary Bessent, Attorney General Blanche and HHS Secretary Kennedy in August, with a September 30th deadline. The plan came out the day before. Refund years are a separate fight, already in federal court in New Jersey, where the government sued TerrAscend to recover an $8.36 million refund. A priority listing commits staff time and leaves the position open. I think the first document out of this project tells dual licensees how to allocate costs and says nothing about refunds, since allocation can be answered going forward while DOJ is still defending the scheduling record. An early notice taking on amended returns would tell me Treasury is more confident in the April order than DOJ's litigation posture suggests. (The Marijuana Herald; IRS 2026-2027 Priority Guidance Plan)

📰 If someone forwarded you a hemp story this weekend, it was probably the Associated Press piece that ran on PBS, the Washington Times, FOX40 and a long list of local papers. Cornbread Hemp's Eric Zipperle says his place is "toast" in December. Cory Harris, who lobbies for state-licensed operators, tells hemp companies that a business built inside a loophole carries that risk. Two cautions before you pass it along. The $28.3 billion and 225,000 jobs are Whitney Economics projections. And the piece moves the whole ban to December 11th, when the synthetic-cannabinoid piece of Section 781 still lands November 12th. Milwaukee Magazine has the state-level version. Rep. Rob Swearingen, a former Tavern League president, and Sen. Patrick Testin each wrote a regulatory bill, split over the alcohol three-tier system, and left the session in March without a vote on either. Erin Kelly plans to close Kelly's Greens in Wauwatosa and let seven employees go when the federal change arrives. (Associated Press via PBS; Milwaukee Magazine)

Senate President Nicholas Scutari introduced S.4635 on October 1st, with Assemblyman Robert Karabinchak's A.5604 as the companion. New Jersey's temporary beverage law lets licensees under the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control or the Cannabis Regulatory Commission sell intoxicating hemp drinks until November 13th. Scutari's bill replaces that date with a "federal compliance date": December 11th, or whenever the federal hemp definition change takes effect, whichever is later. The 10-milligram can limit, the 750-milliliter bottle capped at 200 milligrams and the certificate-of-analysis rule all stay. Without the bill, New Jersey would close its own licensed beverage channel four weeks before Congress requires it. Scutari wrote a date that moves, so each time Congress slides the deadline, New Jersey slides with it and nobody in Trenton votes again. I'd put money on it reaching the governor's desk before November 13th, since the Senate president sponsors it and it takes effect on signing. A Judiciary Committee that hasn't posted it by the end of October would change my mind. (The Marijuana Herald; New Jersey Legislature)

🎬 "Everybody needs medicine!" That is Jim Belushi, in the No on 8 campaign's release Thursday endorsing the fight against Massachusetts' Question 8. The question would end licensed adult-use sales while leaving adults the right to possess up to an ounce. Belushi's Farm started in Oregon and now grows its genetics through partners state by state. The star of K-9 joins a coalition that already includes the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce and the SEIU State Council, a lineup only a Massachusetts ballot question could assemble. Stop the Repeal chair Ryan Dominguez has four weeks to close, and StoptheRepealMA.com has the campaign's case. (Cannabis Business Times)

House Joint Resolution 4 is on Idaho's November 3rd ballot. It would amend the state constitution so that only the Legislature can legalize or decriminalize cannabis, narcotics and other psychoactive substances, closing the citizen initiative as a route to any of them. Idaho has no medical program, and this year's medical initiative fell short of valid signatures. Victor Miller of Idahoans for Healthy Kids and Communities says the measure keeps out-of-state drug money from financing Idaho ballot campaigns. Constitutional scholar David Adler answers that voters would be surrendering their role as co-legislators and a check on the Legislature's judgment. Both describe the measure accurately. Utah, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska all got medical programs through the initiative. If HJR 4 passes, the only route to one in Idaho runs through the body that has declined to create it. Undoing it would take another amendment, which in Idaho needs two-thirds of each chamber before it reaches voters. (KXLY)

The seven businesses challenging Virginia's 2-milligram-per-package hemp limit moved Thursday to dismiss their Western District of Virginia suit without prejudice. That came about seven weeks after Judge Robert Ballou declined to block the rule. "We're withdrawing the case without prejudice to refile it," their lawyer, former state Sen. Chap Petersen, told Cardinal News, though he wouldn't say where or on what theory. Petersen said in August that he wanted the limit held until the General Assembly could revisit it. Lawmakers return in January. (Cardinal News)

Public Act 26-8 took effect October 1st, and the Department of Consumer Protection issued guidance the same day. Hybrid retailers must now offer every new shipment of concentrates, extracts, tinctures, rosin, tablets, capsules, sublingual products and most topicals only to medical patients for 14 days before any of it reaches an adult-use customer. The window covers caregivers and qualifying out-of-state patients too, and the clock restarts with each shipment. A store holding 30 units from a delivery 15 days old can sell those to anyone, while the 1,000 units that arrived this morning wait two weeks for patients. Patients only have to be offered the product, in the store and online, and stores can't charge them more during the window. Massachusetts spent years on the same problem when dual licensing arrived. Its answer was a percentage reserve, which asks an inspector to reconstruct inventory over weeks. Connecticut chose a date, and an inspector can check a date against a manifest. Hybrid retailers may well answer by ordering smaller and more often. (The Marijuana Herald; Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection)

The Marijuana Enforcement Division said Thursday that consumers of StayCon's recalled Craft vaporizers have filed adverse health reports with MED and the state health department. The reports came in after MED's September 25th advisory covering 21 flavors. MED didn't say how many or what symptoms. Denver's Bona Fides Laboratory found methylene chloride in August, and the 49-product recall reached more than 400 stores, with some units on shelves for 18 months. MED is asking anyone affected to use its reporting form, and causation is what those reports now have to establish. (MJBizDaily; Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division)

🌾 The Office of Cannabis Management has answered Nonna Farms. When the Vernon grower's owners laid out their account of a stalled settlement and an August stop-work order last week, OCM declined to comment. Now OCM tells the Utica Observer-Dispatch that the company's description of simply waiting on the agency "is an attempt to skirt the facts." OCM says it acted after gathering evidence of violations, chiefly in how medical cannabis was stored, including product found in bags labeled as coming from out of state. Co-founder Fred Polsinelli says every unit was in the company's inventory system before New York implemented Metrc and was entered into Metrc the moment it went live. He adds that the bulk sacks holding the crop are what every outdoor grower in the state uses. The hearing before an administrative law judge resumes in mid-October, and the provenance question will turn on what those records show. (Utica Observer-Dispatch; Rome Sentinel)

New York's adult-use stores have sold $4.1 billion since late 2022, the Office of Cannabis Management told the Cannabis Control Board Thursday. That includes $1.41 billion through September, which clears last year's $1.68 billion but sits well short of the $2.6 billion Executive Director John Kagia called possible this spring. Deputy Director Kevin Brennan showed average annual sales per store down 3.4 percent to about $2.7 million. The average unit price is $27.65, down 8 percent since January, while units sold rose 7.3 percent. And 1,039 retailers hold licenses while 712 are open, in a state where more than half of municipalities have opted out, so the stores still to open will share the same map. That is a market filling in, at 5.4 stores per 100,000 people against Michigan's 8.6 and Colorado's 14.8. I think average sales per store keep falling through 2027 as the licensed but unopened stores open. Only a wave of municipalities lifting their opt-outs would change that. (Marijuana Moment; MJBizDaily)

Eric Taubel told about 25 people in Rochester on October 1st that Minnesota has issued five testing licenses. He asked anyone who knows "a Ph.D in microbiology and chemistry that has access to millions of dollars and facilities" to encourage them to apply. Jordan Killian of Float Cannabis described the operator's side, with answers to OCM tickets taking three to nine days while finished product stacks up in the back. Taubel expects the 200,000 to 300,000 plants introduced this summer to start pulling flower prices down over the next few months. OCM's Cannabis Market Monitor will show by December whether they did. (Post Bulletin; KAAL)

Ingham County's 30th Circuit Court granted the state summary disposition September 23rd against Bliss Corporate, Inc., doing business as Bliss Cannabis and Bliss Farms, and the property owner, 3227 S. National Road LLC. The court found they violated Michigan's wetland law by clearing, dredging, draining and filling 15.9 acres of protected wetland in Iosco County, starting in fall 2022. By Attorney General Dana Nessel's account, environmental regulators opened their investigation on a complaint from the Sherman Township supervisor. They then sent violation notices and met with the company several times through 2024 while the work went on. The statute allows fines up to $10,000 per day, and Nessel wants full restoration. Cannabis inspectors are trained on plants, tags and security. In my experience, wetland lines sit with the environmental agency's file rather than the licensing one, and the two meet only when somebody complains. The court takes up penalties and restoration on November 24th. (Michigan Department of Attorney General)

🚜 Oklahoma licensed more than 9,000 grows at its 2021 peak, and Sen. Darcy Jech counts fewer than 1,800 today. Brian Surber of the Bureau of Narcotics told a House committee that as many as 6,000 may have been abandoned, some with pesticides dumped in holes, though no official count exists. The Legislature's 2023 answer was a $50,000 cleanup bond for each licensed grow. Adria Berry, who runs the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, told The Oklahoman the agency has tried to pull bonds after revoking licenses. Not one has paid to clean a site, because the law never settled which office supervises a cleanup or disburses the money. Jech has that question on the agenda at a hearing tomorrow, October 6th. (The Oklahoman via Lee Enterprises)

Floridians for Marijuana and Let Florida Vote IV filed adult-use amendments this week, from committees that share a chair and a treasurer. Both would let adults 21 and older possess up to 2 ounces and let existing treatment centers sell six months after passage. Both would also open licensing to new businesses without the vertical integration today's medical operators carry, and Let Florida Vote IV adds a separate licensing agency. Each needs 880,062 valid signatures for 2028 and then 60 percent at the polls, the line the 2024 amendment won a majority and still missed. (Marijuana Moment)

The Oregon Health Authority filed testing amendments September 30th that would let a business declare a target potency before sampling. If the result lands more than 10 percent off while staying inside legal limits, the business could document an investigation and request a retest. The package also fails any product with a single over-limit sample even when the average passes, bars labs from manipulating calibration data, and moves flower to 1-millimeter homogenization on March 1st, 2027. The hearing is October 19th, and comments close October 21st, both on our Deadlines, Decoded tracker. (The Marijuana Herald; Oregon Health Authority)

💧 The American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp and FTI Consulting looked at nearly 145,000 lab results from 10 states. The average flower sample in every state dried below the 0.55 to 0.65 water activity range in ASTM D8197. Too dry costs terpenes and weight, about 18 grams a pound between 0.65 and 0.45. Too wet invites mold and Aspergillus, which is why the standard has a ceiling as well as a floor. FTI's modeled gains run from $18 million for Nevada producers to $34.1 million in Massachusetts, figures that assume every pound comes up to the range. The standard already sits in NIST Handbook 130, which cannabis regulators aren't bound by. Chris Lindsey presented the findings with David Vaillencourt of the S3 Collective, Nico Pento of Elevate Cannabis and Tyler Klimas of Leaf Street Strategies. Writing D8197 into a cannabis rule is the easy part. The longer conversation is whether the cannabis inspector or the weights-and-measures inspector checks it. (Cannabis Business Times; MMJ Daily)

The SEC sued Thomas J. Moore III in the Southern District of Mississippi on September 30th. It alleges he raised about $4.94 million from roughly 20 investors for Mississippi Green Oil between December 2021 and August 2024 and misappropriated about $1.94 million. The agency seeks an injunction, disgorgement and civil penalties, and the allegations are untested. The money was raised over the same stretch Mississippi's medical program went from a February 2022 statute to its first sales. (SEC Litigation Release; The Marijuana Herald)

🏝️ Jamaica's Cannabis Licensing Authority has opened two new ways in for the farmers who grew ganja long before a licensed industry existed. The Cultivator's (Transitional) Special Permit gives an individual with at least half an acre two years to build toward a Tier One license while selling into the licensed market. The Special Community Permit lets a group of small farmers cultivate up to 10 acres together under a registered entity. Shandel Hannam of the CLA put the supply problem plainly, with about 70 percent of the industry's participants working in retail. Maurice Ellis of the Ganja Growers and Producers Association calls the permits a start and wants a reliable route to sell the harvest. That last item decides whether the permits fill shelves, since a farmer licensed to grow still needs a licensed buyer. (High Times)

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