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.

Cannabis data firm New Frontier buys Hemp Business Journal

Published February 8, 2018

New Frontier Data, a market-analysis firm that caters to the marijuana industry, is expanding its focus to hemp with the purchase of Hemp Business Journal. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. New Frontier is headquartered in Washington DC but has a Denver office. Hemp Business Journal is based in Denver. New Frontier CEO Giadha Aguirre de Carcer said […]

Hemp State Highlight: Nevada enjoying sky-high prices, but can farmers’ luck last?

Published February 7, 2018 | By Hemp Industry Daily staff

Far from the flashy marijuana dispensaries in Las Vegas, hemp farms in rural northern and southern Nevada can’t keep up with booming demand for flower for CBD production.

The result is a blazing-hot wholesale market for hemp flower, with growers reporting prices of up to $350 a pound for quality, high-CBD varieties.

Vermont hemp legal dispute snags processor

Published February 7, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

Hemp may be easy to grow, but raising a profitable crop is no slam dunk. That’s what a Vermont hemp processor is learning after a landowner sued him for not delivering thousands of dollars she was hoping would save her mother’s home. A lawsuit filed in a state court in Burlington accuses Vermont Hemp Co. […]

CBD confusion rallies conservative-state lawmakers

Published February 7, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

A raft of CBD-related measures are advancing in conservative states where lawmakers seem unwilling to wait for federal courts to decide the legal fate of cannabis-derived treatments low in THC. Kansas lawmakers are looking at giving CBD legal cover, a week after the Sunflower State’s attorney general ruled the treatments illegal. Indiana lawmakers are nearly […]

Mobile processor promises new fiber opportunities for hemp farmers

Published February 1, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

If hemp fiber is so strong and easy to grow, why is so much of it moldering in barns awaiting a buyer? Two hemp companies say they have the answer, and they plan to bring it to farmers who can’t find buyers for hemp’s tough stalks. HempLogic in Washington state and Power Zone Agriculture in […]

Cannabis Wheaton acquires Uruguayan hemp CBD producer for $15 million

Published January 30, 2018

Canada’s global cannabis-buying spree is moving to Uruguay. Vancouver, British Columbia-based Cannabis Wheaton announced Tuesday that it plans to spend up to $15 million to acquire 80% of Inverell shares. Based in Uruguaya’s capital, Montevideo, Inverell produces high-CBD hemp and low-THC marijuana. While Canadian marijuana companies have expanded their international reach by purchasing businesses in […]

Colorado hemp grower wins processing appeal

Published January 29, 2018

A western Colorado town is changing its land development rules to allow CBD extraction from hemp, a change prompted by a hemp grower who appealed zoning rules that allowed him to grow hemp but not process it. David Cox, who is licensed to grow 100 acres of hemp, successfully argued that processing hemp is similar […]

CBD, hemp changes advancing in state capitols

Published January 26, 2018

Federal confusion about CBD and hemp is giving state lawmakers in three of the most conservative parts of the country a reason to back cannabis legislation that addresses the cannabidiol conundrum.

Indiana’s Senate voted this week to legalize all CBD oil products in Indiana that contain up to 0.3% THC, Indianapolis TV station WTHR reported.

Maricann plans to acquire Swiss hemp grower for 8 million Swiss francs

Published January 25, 2018

Ontario-based Maricann plans to acquire a hemp farm in Switzerland for 8 million Swiss francs ($8.5 million), making the Canadian medical marijuana producer the latest to seek a toehold in the lucrative European hemp market Maricann announced plans Wednesday to acquire hemp producer Haxxon AG, which grows hemp for CBD products in a 60,000-square-foot facility in […]

Texas CBD program stalls as growers produce oils but have no patients

Published January 24, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

Texas’ long-awaited CBD program is underway. Sort of. The nation’s second-most populous state has a limited CBD program, three licensed growers and plants harvested. But Texas has no patients just yet, a signal that the state’s elaborate hurdles are blocking consumers from accessing marijuana-derived medicine even if it’s a cannabidiol product low in THC. “We […]

Hemp State Highlight: Tennessee fights humidity, lack of processing in bid to gain market share

Published January 23, 2018 | By Hemp Industry Daily staff

Some hemp growers struggle to get water for their crops.

In Tennessee, hemp farmers have the opposite problem: They must grow a plant – one that doesn’t like soggy roots – in a climate with high humidity and more than 50 inches of rain a year.

Colorado company develops first US-bred hempseed variety

Published January 19, 2018 | By Kristen Nichols

A Colorado cannabis company has developed the first hempseed bred entirely in the United States in the modern era, according to the state’s agriculture department. The Colorado Department of Agriculture said the seed variety, called NWG-Elite, was developed by New West Genetics, a cannabis biotechnology company in Fort Collins. “This is the first U.S.-bred variety […]