Policy, Decoded

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded steps back from the churn to unpack one policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week: after fifty years of calling cannabis dangerous and useless, the federal government has to stand up in a courtroom and argue the opposite, and the reform is overdue, right, and far easier to lose than anyone wants to admit. For fifty year...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded steps back from the churn to unpack one policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week: the cannabis industry just graduated to Schedule III, and the commencement address it is not going to get anywhere else. Every spring a famous stranger in rented robes tells a graduating class that the world needs them and the future is t...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded steps back from the churn to unpack one policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week: the campaign to repeal cannabis legalization in Massachusetts, and how the argument against legal weed quietly changed. Six kids went to a Detroit hospital this spring after getting into edibles at their elementary school. They are fine....

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we sit with a complaint a former cannabis commissioner used to make: we regulate cannabis like uranium. She did not mean it as a compliment. The framework is heavy, and the industry has not buil...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we sit with the institutional paradox at the center of federal cannabis policy. In the most polarized era in modern American history, cannabis is one of the few national issues where the country...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we look at federal cannabis rescheduling, and where the United States actually sits in a conversation the rest of the world has been having for decades. The April 22nd federal cannabis order arri...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we look at what 4/20 has become in 2026, and what the holiday reveals about an industry that is still growing up. 4/20 is now loud enough to reach you whether you are looking for it or not. In y...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we examine what coherent federal cannabis policy would actually require, and why rescheduling is not it. Rescheduling is closer than it has ever been, and it matters. It opens research pathways,...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we examine the structural failure underneath the legal cannabis market's most important promise. Everyone agrees that testing matters. Legislators say it. Regulators build their frameworks a...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we examine a shift the industry can no longer ignore. Cannabis is starting to fail like a real industry. In Massachusetts, regulators reported roughly 30 licensed businesses in receivership as o...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we examine the fight most of the cannabis industry is still misreading. Inside licensed dispensaries, THC beverages barely register. In Q1 2025 they represented about 1 percent of cannabis sales...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we examine the category war coming for cannabis. Legalization built a system around a specific product sold in a specific place: cannabis flower in a licensed dispensary. But the market that foll...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we confront the uncomfortable truth behind intoxicating hemp. Congress drew the line in the 2018 Farm Bill. The market engineered inside it. States inherited the consequences. We explain how “gas...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This week, we break down the repeal playbook now showing up in states like Massachusetts, Maine, and Arizona, and explain why the next fight over legalization will not be a culture war rerun. The strategy i...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets. This episode takes on the New York Times editorial board’s reassessment of marijuana legalization. We walk through what the board claims has gone wrong, then pressure-test the argument with the realities po...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group , this episode takes on the question we keep getting: how is hemp THC legal, and what makes it different from marijuana sold in dispensaries. We walk through how one plant ended up split by two legal systems, why dispensaries were built as closed, auditable markets, and how a federal hemp definition turned low-dose THC into a mainstream consumer product. From Instagram ads...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode examines how hemp-derived THC drinks quietly rewrote the rules of American social life. We trace how a generation that values wellness, clarity, and connection began trading hangovers for balance—and how a billion-dollar market emerged before Congress finished defining it. From convenience stores in Minnesota to liquor aisles nationwide, these drinks are resha...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode asks what a government shutdown really means beyond the headlines. We trace the origins back to a 1980 legal opinion that transformed missed deadlines into full stop crises, then explain how twelve appropriations bills tied to defense, health, transportation, and foreign affairs became bargaining chips in partisan standoffs. From national parks locking their g...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode asks whether Labor Day is just a three-day weekend or a rulebook for the future of work. We trace the holiday back to its 1882 origins—homemade floats, brass bands, and workers demanding dignity—and argue those lessons still explain today’s battles over AI, platforms, and modern strikes. From the Pullman Strike to the “stand-up strike,” from handmade banners t...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode tackles David Brooks' explosive NYT piece asking "Are We Really Willing to Become Dumber?" We examine whether AI in education is a cognitive threat or the catalyst for long-overdue reform of America's $1.81 trillion student debt crisis. From MIT studies showing 55% reduced brain connectivity in AI users to the apprenticeship renaissance bypas...

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode dives into Trump’s July 2025 AI Action Plan, launched just days ago. We unpack how AI could boost American innovation and global leadership - scanning regulations, powering infrastructure - while tackling risks like deregulation and environmental trade-offs. Join us as we explore balancing tech progress with democratic values. It’s a story of ambition meeting...

In this episode of Insiders Uncovered: Beyond the Headlines , powered by THC Group, we explore how artificial intelligence could reshape cannabis regulation in America. As agencies work to oversee a young, fast-moving industry with tight budgets and growing demands, AI offers tools that can scan license applications, flag inventory anomalies, and schedule fair, efficient inspections. We unpack how...

In this episode of Insiders Uncovered: Beyond the Headlines , powered by THC Group, we dig into how a little-known clause in H.R. 8281—better known as the “Big, Beautiful Bill”—could reshape the future of artificial intelligence in America. While marketed as an immigration and budget package, the bill quietly preempts states from passing most AI-specific regulations for the next ten years. We brea...

In this episode of Insiders Uncovered: Beyond the Headlines , powered by THC Group, we explore how the same compound is being treated in radically different ways depending on whether it comes from hemp or marijuana. From convenience store drinks with no warning label to Minnesota’s accidental legalization of edibles, this episode unpacks the regulatory confusion shaping today’s THC marketplace. We...

Long before dispensaries and discount codes, 420 was a number whispered between friends — a secret code passed from teenagers in 1970s California that grew into one of the most enduring symbols in cannabis culture. In this episode of Insiders Uncovered: Beyond the Headlines , powered by THC Group, we trace the true origin of 4/20, debunk the myths, and explore how it became both a cultural ritual...