EMAIL: kristenn@mjbizdaily.com
PHONE: 720.643.4450

Kristen Nichols

Kristen is a Denver-based reporter for Marijuana Business Daily specializing in the hemp and CBD industries. Previously, she worked at the Associated Press for nearly 20 years. She started covering the marijuana legalization movement in 2009 – when medical stores started popping up around Denver – and wrote about the state’s first legal hemp harvest. Kristen also covered agriculture and politics in Maryland and her home state of Georgia.

Standardized labeling may be key to CBD legality

Published February 25, 2019 | By Kristen Nichols

The CBD industry is in desperate need of an idiot-proof way to distinguish legal CBD from illegal varieties derived from marijuana.

Could the solution be found in Utah?

What is CBD skin care worth? Industry executives talk market opportunities as retailers buy in

Published February 20, 2019 | By Lindsey Bartlett

As companies prepare for legal changes to the hemp industry after the plant’s federal reclassification, a sleeping giant in the CBD sector is beginning to step into its full financial potential: skin-care products. The $18 billion U.S. skin-care industry is seeing a flood of CBD entrants, including large retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Sephora and Barneys. The skin-care scramble makes […]

Congress to FDA: We need CBD answers by Friday

Published February 19, 2019

Saying that states need “immediate leadership” on CBD in food, drugs and cosmetics, 12 members of Congress have asked the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release updated guidance by Friday.

CBD advertisements removed from Alaska city’s buses

Published February 18, 2019

Advertising restrictions continue to affect the hemp and CBD industry, with one Alaska town removing CBD ads from city buses rather than face possible complaints about them. A borough in Fairbanks took down Aurora Apothecary ads on buses promoting CBD. The bus system said that no one complained about the ads, but pointed out they should […]

As CBD crackdown spreads, New York politician vows to halt ‘overreaction’

Published February 18, 2019

More restaurants and facilities nationwide report they can’t sell CBD anymore, even as an official in New York City vows to turn back the Big Apple’s crackdown on CBD use in eateries. In the past week, enforcement letters and product seizures spread to new jurisdictions, a response to December comments from the U.S. Food and Drug […]

Nasdaq accepts Canadian company planning to grow hemp in Texas

Published February 15, 2019

Village Farms International, a Canadian company that’s adding U.S. hemp to its business producing greenhouse-grown tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers, has graduated to the Nasdaq exchange. The company says it will leave the over-the-counter markets – where it trades as VFFIF – and list on the Nasdaq Capital Market as VFF. A date for the […]

White-hot New York CBD manufacturing scene undeterred by tougher regulations

Published February 14, 2019 | By Hemp Industry Daily staff

CBD manufacturing in New York continues to heat up with at least two hemp companies announcing plans for extraction facilities to compete with huge manufacturing investments expected from out of state. The new factories – one in a former newspaper printing plant near Binghamton and the Pennsylvania border, the other in a former U.S. Postal […]

Tobacco money tapped to fuel new hemp testing facility in Virginia

Published February 12, 2019

Virginia will spend nearly $400,000 to develop a testing facility for agricultural products – including hemp – with funds coming from a state agency set up to revitalize tobacco-growing areas in the state. The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission awarded the money to buy a high-end Waters UPLC mass spectrometer for the Institute for Advanced […]

South Dakota lawmakers vote to join hemp boom, despite governor’s concerns

Published February 12, 2019

South Dakota lawmakers have given hemp production a huge thumbs-up, against the governor’s wishes to table the proposal, to join at least 41 other states with laws allowing hemp cultivation. The House voted 65-2 Monday to allow hemp farming, a solid rebuke to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who last week asked lawmakers to shelve […]

New York City, Maine latest jurisdictions mired in CBD legal confusion

Published February 7, 2019

CBD’s legal problems have hit the nation’s largest city, with New York health inspectors seizing CBD-infused baked goods and warning restaurants to stop serving cannabidiol-infused foods. And in Maine, hemp entrepreneurs are protesting similar plans to take CBD foods off shelves. New York City officials said they’re not going to allow the sale of CBD-infused […]

USDA chief questions hemp’s use in animal feed, gives nod to plant’s mounting interest

Published February 7, 2019

Hemp’s suitability as an ingredient in animal feed “remains to be seen,” according to the nation’s agriculture chief. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters at a cattle-industry conference in New Orleans that he didn’t know animal feed was a potential use of hemp. “We hear a lot of industrial uses for (hemp), but I […]

Interstate hemp commerce under fire despite Farm Bill assurances

Published February 6, 2019 | By Hemp Industry Daily staff

Hemp entrepreneurs are facing jail time and hefty legal fees for transporting the plant across state lines, despite a federal guarantee that states can’t block legal hemp transport. Massive police seizures in Idaho and Oklahoma raised questions about how state and local law enforcement are supposed to tell the difference between hemp and marijuana. Since […]