5 Reliable Places to Find Hemp & Cannabis Information

One of the most frustrating parts about the legal cannabis and hemp industries is that there are so little places to find reliable and important information. New information sporadically comes up but it’s difficult to stay up to date, especially when both legal industries are extremely reliant upon local jurisdiction’s laws.

Ever since cannabis hit the headlines in the early 2000’s as “legal”, it has become an even larger controversy: what should be legal, what limits, who can access it and more! Hemp, in 2008, became slightly legal under Obama’s Farm Bill and more recently in 2019 was finally recognized as “federally legal” to grow in the US (despite some states’ dissatisfactions). Along the years, various small and large wins have occurred for both industries leading them to the stronghold they are at now. The industries have even made powerful impacts on BLM protests and modern equality revolts, fighting for those in prisoned for drug possession prior to the legal industry explosion.

Cannabis and hemp are up and coming hot commodities and having reliable places to learn, read news, and understand changes is pertinent to the industry’s growth. Check out these 5 places that you can count on to have the industry inside information!

Leafly

Leafly has built a powerful repository of news articles, informational videos and blogs, dispensary information, and much more. Their platform is available both on mobile and PC making it perfectly suitable for you to access at any time with any intention in mind. Use Leafly as the ultimate source to learn about products by simply searching their repository of articles.

One of the most unique parts of Leafly is their visualization of different strains, which they created for the sole purpose of educating those that are unfamiliar with cannabis or hemp entirely. One of the visualizations is shown below for the strain “Blue Dream”.

Leafly is known for their visualizations because they perfectly demonstrate the terpenes of each strain, a highly overlooked factor of various cannabis and hemp strains. Terpenes are the natural aromas and fragrances of the cannabis plant that heighten certain aspects of using the strain, for example Blue Dream is herbal(blue long diamonds), pine (green), and peppery (red). These particular terpenes for each strain play a role in how each strain makes the user feel. Read more about terpenes on Leafly’s website.

NCIA

The NCIA is the National Cannabis Industry Association, who advocates to defend and expand the responsible cannabis industry in the US. They typically hold multiple conferences and industry networking nights throughout the year within various large cities such as LA, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, and more! NCIA is a non-profit with the pure goal of advocating for the legal industry, which gives them credibility for news, updates, and other legislation information.

NCIA builds a strong cannabis network and community through their events, but they also have built a reputation to education others and push for legal changes. Check in with their resources regularly to get updated and reliable information about regulations and political change.

Given the current times without the ability to host large events, NCIA has been providing a multitude of online webinars for training, awareness, and advocacy. Check out their website for more information about current events going on.

High Times

High Times is a publication that really suits the ideal culture of the marijuana industry, they keep the pre-legal aura alive while showcasing what modern cannabis businesses look like. Their publication is awesome because they aren’t afraid to get into the details of what’s going on with marijuana businesses, marijuana, hemp, and various subjects that may be less approached on in other legislative focused publications.

High Times is a great place to get to know real cannabis culture as well as learn what the real OG users know about the industry. Their culture related categories include entertainment, food, people, science, and sports – all leading to how these parts of life are impacted by the newly legal cannabis and hemp industries.

Although they have information about legislation, business, and politics, their publication is more of a lifestyle and open-learning type news for the purposes of intriguing the audience, teaching them something new, and entertaining them. Check out High Times to get a good dose of raw marijuana culture content.

Ganjapreneur

Ganjapreneur is an extremely consistent and non-bias source of hemp and cannabis information, especially for legalization news, strange scientific findings, and industry interviews and podcasts. They keep their social media fairly up to date, and they always manage to have the most interesting articles for quick repost and comments. Their online platform is super easy to navigate and stems from the basic subjects such as CBD, Business, Politics, Legalization, Recreational, Medical, and Industrial Hemp.

One of my favorite things about Ganjapreneur is that they publish a whole set of resources for people to gather information from and to get involved with: events, jobs, reviews, books, studies, vocabulary, domains, and stocks. Their podcasts are also unique to their site, with interesting interviews with industry professionals, leaders, and spokespersons.

Their consistent imaging and site visualization make surfing their website fun and interesting, and as shown above, you can expect interesting articles about various subjects such as Hemp!

ICBC

The ICBC is the International Cannabis Business Conference, which is actually more of an organization than just a conference group. They represent outside North America, which gives them credibility to speak to international legalization matters and world wide impacts of hemp and cannabis production. They hold about 5 different conferences a year typically, of which they currently have scheduled three: Berlin, Zurich, and Vancouver. Their ultimate goal is to cultivate international connections among industry leaders and companies, but they also pave the way for international legalization advocacy.

ICBC publishes a news page where you will find some of the best articles about legalization around the world – which is truly the best way to start to learn information, by knowing where it’s even legal and in what capacity. Finding information about legality in the cannabis industry is quite difficult especially since so many jurisdictions have limited legality, only decriminalization, or their jurisdiction is extremely unclear or, worse, in another language. ICBC patches the gap between doing hardcore legislative international research and understanding the global cannabis and hemp markets.

ICBC has also been publishing online networking events for people to attend to keep the world cannabis industry alive! Check out their website for more.

Start Learning

Both cannabis and hemp industries are extremely foreign to most people because finding reliable and understandable information is still somewhat inaccessible.

If you want to learn about strains and products, try out Leafly, search from their large article pool whatever your heart desires to understand cannabis or hemp usability and benefits. If you want to know about the various legality and ways to get involved, try NCIA or ICBC since both are organizations with political connections as well as lead in cannabis/hemp legalization advocacy. Finally, if you simply want to get intrigued by the crazy stuff going on in this popping industry – try Ganjapreneur or High Times! Get the daily updates about new findings, new uses, and entertaining stories so you become more familiar with the industry.

You’re ready to get acquainted with the high industry – let me know how it goes!

By, Delaney Lawrence