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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.

Colorado cannabis biotech snags $10 million for expansion

Published October 5, 2018

A Colorado-based cannabis biotech firm announced Thursday that it has secured $10 million in private funding to accelerate production in California and Canada. Front Range Biosciences of Lafayette said it plans to invest some of the money in investigating new strains of cannabis. The company uses tissue-culture technology to make “plantlets” for both hemp and […]

Connecticut lawsuit seeks to open state for hemp farming

Published October 3, 2018

A Connecticut landowner who wants to grow hemp is suing to force the state to adopt a hemp pilot program. If he succeeds, Aaron Romano would make Connecticut the first state to be ordered by a court to regulate private hemp production. According to the Hartford Courant, Connecticut adopted a law in 2015 removing hemp from state […]

Capitalizing on CBD: Seniors primed for nonintoxicating cannabis, but marketing needs to shift

Published October 3, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

Talking about CBD in a nursing home? You’d better bring extra chairs and slices of cake for the overflow crowd. Your audience will be all ears.

That was the case at one northern Colorado nursing home that offered a lecture about cannabis and Alzheimer’s.

FDA: CBD shouldn’t be a controlled substance, but treaties require it

Published October 1, 2018

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that cannabidiol shouldn’t be a controlled substance, but international treaties require the United States to treat it as one. That revelation from the federal agency appeared in a 27-page memo written after it approved the first drug made with CBD earlier this year. “CBD has negligible potential for abuse,” wrote Dr. Brett […]

What Farm Bill? Hemp industry shrugs off law’s expiration

Published October 1, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

The law that ushered in the modern hemp industry in the United States has expired, but hemp growers, processors and retailers are counting on legal assurances that the nation’s experiment in allowing limited hemp production won’t immediately end.

The 2014 Farm Bill, which authorized hemp production under state research programs, expired Sunday – the last day of the federal fiscal year.

Australian CBD maker raises $29 million, ups investment in Japan

Published September 28, 2018

Australian CBD company Elixinol Global raised 40 million Australian dollars ($29 million) in a new share placement to ramp up sales and marketing efforts in the United States and Europe. The capital raise comes less than a week after the company announced its wholly owned subsidiary, EXL International Holdings, increased its stake in Hemp Foods Japan, from […]

DEA takes some CBD off Schedule 1 – with FDA approval

Published September 27, 2018 | By Hemp industry Daily staff

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has taken some cannabidiol off the most restrictive class of controlled substances, a move that allows the sale of the first nonsynthetic, cannabis-derived medicine to win federal approval.

The agency announced Thursday that drugs including “finished dosage formulations” of CBD with THC below 0.1% will be considered Schedule 5 drugs, as long as the medications have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Multistate medical marijuana operators tapped for Virginia’s CBD program

Published September 26, 2018

Virginia named its first five CBD-only medical cannabis business licensees – three of them multistate operators. Virginia’s Board of Pharmacy reviewed 51 applicants to produce CBD products in five areas of the state. The winning applicants are called “pharmaceutical processors” and must grow, process and sell the products at one location, though Virginia patients can visit any […]

Hemp Notebook: What the railroad industry can teach today’s hemp businesses

Published September 26, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

Hemp is in an economic fast lane, with new ventures starting every day.

So, it may seem odd to say modern entrepreneurs should consider 19th century railroads.

‘One day you’re legal, the next day you’re not’: Confusion from spotty CBD enforcement

Published September 21, 2018 | By Hemp Industry Daily staff

CBD producers and retailers in some of the nation’s largest markets say they’re pressing on despite hostile statements from their state regulators that CBD won’t be allowed. Bans in several markets have largely been met with spotty enforcement, CBD entrepreneurs say, and the impact to business has been mixed. Ohio is one of the latest […]

North Carolina hemp firm seeks tax breaks from CBD extraction facility plans

Published September 21, 2018

A North Carolina hemp producer’s renovation of a former factory for CBD extraction sets it up for roughly $238,500 in tax incentives over the next four years. City of Wilson officials are lauding Criticality’s retrofitting for CBD production as an innovative new use for the building, The Wilson Times reported. The tax incentive package will be […]

Capitalizing on CBD: New market opportunities with athletes

Published September 19, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

Athletes have long used cannabis products to fight inflammation and recover from injury, but drug-testing rules and marijuana stigma have often kept it a locker-room secret.