🏛️ Trump Orders Schedule III Reclassification in Most Significant US Policy Shift Since 1970s, recognising medical use yet leaving criminalisation, banking barriers and hemp bans largely intact, creating uncertainty in most significant US policy shift since 1970’s.
💼 California’s once‑flagship market enters a shake‑out phase as taxes bite and capital dries up, with legal cannabis sales falling 9% year‑on‑year to $939m in Q3 2025 and this California sales analysis linking the slump and a ~27% equities drop to tax pressure and accelerating M&A consolidation across key US markets.
🔬 Inconsistent “cannabis user” definitions across studies, and weak characterisation of dose, product type and lifetime patterns, undermine comparability across more than 53,000 cannabis papers and bias risk estimates by obscuring who actually counts as a meaningful “user” in the underlying evidence base.
🏛️ Bundestag Restricts Medical Cannabis Access Amid Coalition Divide Over Supply: the ****approved ****amendment tightens rules by mandating in‑person consultations and a mail‑order ban, prompting SPD and Greens to warn of black‑market relapse and rural access gaps.
💼 German Cannabis Market Faces €2.9bn Ban Cost as 143‑Tonne Import Wave Drives Expansion: a proposed telemedicine and mail‑order ban would add around €2.9bn to GKV costs according to an impact evaluation, even as a 143‑tonne import wave, €3.7bn in economic impact and Cantourage’s above‑consensus EBITDA figures signal rapid but fragile market growth.
🔬 Medical cannabis cuts sickness absence by 58% in an 8,831‑patient real‑world survey from BPC Deutschland, reducing average days off from 37.6 to 15.7 per year and modelling productivity gains above €3.7bn, reinforcing arguments that tighter access could undermine measurable health‑economic benefits.
🏛️ British Columbia strike halves monthly cannabis sales and drags national revenues down 5%, while Nova Scotia’s justice minister’s enforcement directive against illegal dispensaries, tighter promotion rules and high‑profile recalls signal a stricter compliance era that raises costs, heightens legal risk and keeps Indigenous‑run and grey‑market outlets under sustained pressure.