Good morning. Welcome to The Greenfields. We are the Kochie of the cannabis business except probably higher and with more hair.

What’ve we got for you today?

• Cannabis Pre-rolls and Hotdogs

• Queensland still chicken on drug reform

• Are there high horny people on the internet?

• Photos of People (or Cats, maybe dogs) Surrounded by Cannabis

• Avecho Biotechnology expands trials

Cannabis Pre-rolls and Hotdogs

Pre-rolled joints and blunts have become very popular in the US, particularly with people that can't roll a joint.

$1.5 Billion dollars of pre-rolls were sold in 2022, up 12.7%. The dried flower market is estimated to be worth about $5B in 2021.

The quality of pre-rolls has been a hot topic since they started becoming more popular. Cannabis industry researcher Jesse Redmond visited a pre-roll manufacturer in California and didn’t like what he saw:

Oh dear.

Now we feel this comparison is unfair because we love hot dogs, but Jesse says the pre-rolls are full of shake, small buds and dust left over after all the good stuff has been packed up for sale as flower.

Other tricks he observed were:

• Mixing in up to 25% of a different cheaper strain

• Adding kief to increase the THC content

The thread was full of pre-roll manufacturers doing an “OH NOT US WE WOULD NEVER DO THAT”, but these sort of tricks are believed to be widespread.

As far as we can confirm, pre-rolls are not available in Australia through the medicinal cannabis system, so this isn’t an issue for the average Aussie cannabis patient.

Unplugging the doctor bottleneck

The biggest bottleneck in medicinal cannabis access in Australia is the lack of prescribing doctors. Only 1700 doctors are approved to prescribe medicinal cannabis in Australia.

Three new efforts to unplug this bottleneck were launched in the last week as part of Medical Cannabis Awareness week:

• Australian Cannabis Nurses Association (ACNA) - Training for nurses

• Training and Education About Cannabis in Healthcare (TEACH-hub) - Independent cannabis education for healthcare practitioners

• Veteran-owned group The Provocatus are recruting GPs in the Gosford region to prescribe medicinal cannabis to veterans

The most interesting is TEACH-hub, which will include courses accredited by the Australian association of GPs (known as RACGP).

RACGP’s official position on cannabis is ‘more evidence is needed’. It’s not clear if this represents a change in their position.

It’s good news for patients. Making prescribing more common should help bring down the barrier of entry for some people. Broader education will also help remove some of the stigma that remains around cannabis as a medicine.

It still doesn’t address the issue of the high (😉) prices of medicinal cannabis itself, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Photos of People (or cats) Surrounded by Cannabis

This weeks photo comes courtesy of The Honeybee Collective. Honeybee Collective are an Employee-owned, community-driven, sustainable cannabis company from Colorado.

They've sent us a photo of their cat, Teddy, surrounded by Cannabis. Good for you Teddy.

If you'd like to see your photo in next weeks Photos of People (or cats) Surrounded by Cannabis share it with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.

Queensland dips toe in drug reform waters and says its too cold to get in

Queensland have expanded their drug diversion program to include heroin cocaine and ice.

People caught with small amounts of the drugs and aren’t facing any other charges will receive a warning. After that you’ve got two more strikes before you face criminal charges.

Even though they are ‘listening to the evidence’ it seems like there's a bit of selective listening going on here. Not a huge surprise for any casual observers of Queensland politics.

Real drug law reform in Queensland probably won’t happen until one of the other states jumps into the pool first.

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Are there high horny people on the internet?

A new study from the Journal of Cannabis research set out to find out if cannabis improves sexual quality, but instead seems to have proven that there are high horny people on the internet.

They conducted an online survey of 811 people and found that over 70% reported increased sexual desire and orgasm intensity with cannabis use and 40% of the women surveyed reported increased ability to have multiple orgasms.

Look, we are all for research that proves cannabis is great, but we wonder what role conducting the survey on the internet, the horniest place on earth, had to play in these results.

The study has replicated the results of earlier studies, but we feel like it's not adding much to what we already know about sex, the internet, or cannabis.

Dr. Lenny's Lab

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Dr. Lenny is a plant and brain scientist that can answer your questions about cannabis, plants, brains, research, medicine, and biology.

Reply to this email with your questions and the best one will get an answer in an upcoming newsletter.

Avecho Expand Trials to Include Oral CBD

Avecho Biotechnology (ASX:AVE) are looking for new applications for their oral CBD soft-gel tablets.

They’ve expanded their research to include trying the tablets to treat a number of new clinical symptoms.

These are the same tablets that the company is currently taking through Phase 3 trials for insomnia treatments. And very similar to the over-the-counter products that Ecofibre and Cann Group have been trying and failing to get approved.

It sounds tlike Avecho are hedging their bets in case their phase 3 trials are also unsuccessful.

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That’s your walk through The Greenfields of the cannabis industry today. We hope you've enjoyed it.

We’ll see you again next Tuesday, but if you want more follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is not financial advice. It is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell anything or to make any financial decisions. Please do your own research and do not buy anything dodgy.