Cannabis News

Good Behavior dispensary applies to open in Yorkville

Published

4 weeks ago

June 25, 2026

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A cannabis company called Good Behavior is seeking approval from the city of Yorkville, Illinois, to open a dispensary on a 0.93-acre plot along Saravanos Drive, west of South Bridge Street and south of Stagecoach Trail, becoming the latest entrant in a string of cannabis proposals the city has previously rejected. The company has filed a special-use application with the city and is staking its case on the tax revenue a dispensary would generate for Yorkville.

Full details of the application, including projected tax figures, the company’s ownership structure and details of any board discussions, are available to Shaw Local News Network subscribers. The article, reported by Shaw Local News Network’s Joey Weslo and published on June 23, 2026, notes that cannabis companies had previously failed to get city approval before Good Behavior presented its proposal.

The proposed site places the dispensary in a commercial corridor to the south of the city. Good Behavior’s application requires a special use permit from Yorkville before the project can proceed.

Source: local Shaw

Related Topics:applies Behavior Dispensary Good open Yorkville

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Cannabis News

Standard Wellness expands into Cleveland with dispensary acquisition

Published

16 hours ago

July 19, 2026

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Standard Wellness has entered into an agreement with License in the Flats, LLC to enter into definitive agreements to acquire a dispensary license in the Flats following the required regulatory review period. At the end of that period, the company and License in the Flats intend to execute those agreements and then continue to develop the dispensary into a retail location branded The Forest Cleveland.

Following regulatory approval of the change of ownership by the Ohio Division of Cannabis Control, the new dispensary will become the Company’s first retail location in the city of Cleveland, where the Company is headquartered.

Additionally, the Company announced the divestiture of The Forest Sandusky and The Forest Springfield, its Ohio dispensaries, to Greenlight, again subject to pending regulatory approvals.

“We are excited to expand our presence in the city of Cleveland and serve guests in our hometown,” said Kate Ols, Vice President of Retail for Standard Wellness. “As our business continues to grow, we are focused on building a retail network that will best position us to serve our communities for the long term. At the same time, we are proud of the role our Sandusky and Springfield dispensaries have played in Ohio’s cannabis history, and we are confident that those communities will continue to grow under Greenlight’s leadership.”

Standard Wellness and Greenlight are working closely together to support a smooth transition for staff and guests throughout the transfer process. As established operators in Ohio and Missouri, the companies share a commitment to strengthening the regulated cannabis industry and serving the communities in which they operate.

The new dispensary is expected to serve both local residents and visitors while completing the Company’s Northeast Ohio footprint.

Under Ohio law, a cannabis operator cannot hold more than eight dispensary licenses statewide. The acquisition of the Cleveland license and divestiture of The Forest Sandusky and The Forest Springfield allows Standard Wellness to continue to meet Ohio’s property limits while strategically repositioning its Ohio retail footprint and focusing investments in key markets.

Forest Sandusky and Forest Springfield have played significant roles in the evolution of Ohio’s cannabis industry. Sandusky was the site of the state’s first legal cannabis sale in January 2019, and Springfield became the first part of Ohio’s cannabis industry merger and acquisition transaction when Standard Wellness purchased Pure Ohio Wellness’ dispensary.

For more information:
Standard Wellness Holdings
standardwellness.com/

Cannabis News

Missouri Hemp THC Product Ban Challenged With Federal Lawsuit Filed By Industry

Published

16 hours ago

July 19, 2026

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“This is not consumer protection. It is the elimination of an entire legal industry, along with a government-mandated monopoly.”

By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent

A coalition of hemp businesses filed a federal lawsuit Thursday a Statewide ban on intoxicating hemp products from entering into force in November.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District, says the ban passed by state lawmakers this spring contains “constitutionally vague” definitions of hemp and marijuana.

Craig Katz, St. Louis-based MNG 2005, Inc. A government relations and compliance manager for one of the plaintiffs said the problem starts with lawmakers’ lack of understanding of the cannabis industry.

“A lot of this stuff is in the weeds,” Katz said. “It’s very hard to understand. And when people are trying to legalize it, if they don’t understand it, you come up with something like HB2641, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

The coalition includes MNG, which is the parent company of 55 CBD Kratom shops nationwide, the Missouri Hemp Trade Association and a Wisconsin-based hemp business, Lifted Liquids Inc.

The bill in question was one of the first to be signed by Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) this year remove all intoxicating hemp products from the shelves as of Nov. 12, including THC seltzers currently sold in bars and grocery stores.

The legislation largely aligns state law with the subsequent federal ban passed by Congress last year.

According to Missouri’s bill, if Congress reverses course and decides to allow the sale of these products, the state would only allow them in licensed marijuana dispensaries. And if Congress delays the ban for a couple of years, the Missouri law would ban all products except alcoholic beverages.

It also provides enforcement to Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R).

Kehoe, Hanaway and Sarah Wilson, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which oversees the state’s marijuana program, are the defendants.

A spokeswoman for Hanaway said the office was not served the case. Kehoe’s office and DHSS declined to comment because of pending litigation.

Similar bills have been discussed since 2023, but have not been adopted. Without regulation, intoxicating hemp products containing 1,000 mg of THC are currently sold in smoke shops outside of Missouri’s licensed marijuana dispensaries.

The bill’s sponsor, Dave Hinman, R-O’Fallon, said the legislation would largely give state law enforcement and prosecutors the authority to enforce the federal hemp ban starting Nov. 12.

“I think this is a last ditch effort for the hemp industry,” Hinman said. “HB2641 passed the Missouri House, Senate and was signed by the governor. It was vetted throughout the process. I don’t think this Hail Mary will get the results the Hemp Trade Association wants, and Missouri will mirror the federal government.”

The lawsuit argues that the bill defines the same products as “hemp” and “marijuana” in different provisionswhich leaves businesses, law enforcement and prosecutors confused about what is legal.

“Because unlicensed marijuana activity is a crime in Missouri, this confusion carries criminal consequences,” reads the coalition’s press release announcing the lawsuit.

While the bill “promises” not to interfere with interstate commerce in hemp, the coalition notes that it also limits who can transport hemp products across the state, the press release says.

And it has effective date provisions that are “so complicated that companies can’t determine which products are covered or when,” he said.

The coalition believes the “confusing” definitions will also remove non-intoxicating CBD products from Missouri’s shelves.

“This is not consumer protection,” said association president Jay Patel. “It’s about wiping out an entire legal industry along with a government-mandated monopoly.”

This story was first published by the Missouri Independent.

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Cannabis News

Most cannabis flower on the European market would fail a human-consumption standard, Fundación CANNA finds

Published

2 days ago

July 18, 2026

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Cannabis extracts and isolates carry pesticides and heavy metals more often than raw flower, which means that the purification step that the industry sees as a path to a cleaner product is concentrating the contamination it’s supposed to remove. These are the findings of Fundacion CANNA, a non-profit initiative that studies the cannabis plant and its active ingredients.

Iñaki García, agricultural engineer and biotechnologist at the CANNA Foundation, has analyzed samples in research from 2018 to 2023. “An important finding is that the CBD purification processes do not always clean the product from contaminants. The data show that the presence of pesticides is more evident in the extracts and isolates than in the raw materials. The presence of lead in all the matrices analyzed, from flowers to purified oils and crystals, is significant, also the presence of mercury is highlighted, certain solvents used in the purification may be contaminated or may have selectivity for this metal”, says Inaki. A buyer reads “isolate” as “cleaner,” and the analysis reads the other way because everything the plant carries travels with the compound and is reduced to a smaller volume, so the concentration goes up instead of down.

The same sample body continues its increasing strength at the top of the market. “A significant change in the concentration of THC has been observed in THC-dominant flowers, reaching the highest peak in 2023 (17.95%). Technical improvement has also been noticed in Broad Spectrum oils and extracts, and over time they have significantly increased their CBD concentration. This is probably because the other THCs that are more efficient extraction processes are kept more efficiently. It reduces the efficiency in both directions. Learned to extract THC and retain CBD it is the same process that transfers the pesticides to the final product, so improvements in cannabinoid selectivity do not necessarily translate into improvements in contaminant control.

Purification concentrates what it needs to remove
Fundación CANNA analyzes microbial, metal and chemical contamination in all types of products it receives. “Regarding microbiological contaminants, plant materials consistently have high microbial loads. Among the most dangerous are fungi of the genus Aspergillus, which can cause aspergillosis in immunocompromised people, and their aflatoxins are carcinogenic. Lead is widespread in most types of samples. It should be noted that cannabis is potent. 60% of plant materials and extracts are cross-contamination in the cultivation or surrounding areas. One of the most striking findings is the sale in Europe It was the detection of vitamin E acetate in e-liquids, a substance associated with serious lung injuries.

The bioaccumulation point explains why lead appears downstream. A plant grown in contaminated soil leaches the metal directly from the soil and into the tissues, so all oils and crystals made from that plant inherit it. The finding of vitamin E acetate indicates something added to the formulation rather than being absorbed from the field, which means the European vape supply chain may be carrying a substance linked to serious lung injury.

The stage at which this contamination enters is usually the one that growers pay the least attention to. “Growers often underestimate the importance of the final stages of cultivation and processing. For example, the use of contaminated tools or improperly composted manure at the end of the cycle facilitates the emergence of pathogens such as E. coli. The duration of systemic pesticides that remain on the plant after application is also often underestimated,” said Inaki.

The systemic pesticide problem is the more difficult of the two to design because a compound that moves inside the plant cannot be washed off the surface during harvest, and a grower who applied it early in the cycle is still in flower months later.

The industry has already arranged tools for a pathogen. “The problems caused by HLVd in crops are already well known, as the viroid is now widespread. In this case, the industry has reacted with testing services now available to growers to determine whether a plant is infected, along with in vitro cultivation protocols to repair infected plants,” says Inaki. This is the case where hidden hop viroids came to a detection and fix, an exception to the contaminant that Inaki works with the model.

Tags and content match
The CANNA Foundation also tests finished consumer products against the numbers printed on them. “Based on our research, only one-third of CBD oil products met the label specifications. E-liquids also showed a lack of rigor in terms of label specifications. A major problem with cosmetic creams is that less than half of manufacturers specify the alleged CBD content, and only a minority of them met their negative deviations.” he says A negative deviation of 99.9% describes a product sold as having almost no CBD, which puts it in a position to charge for an active ingredient that does not provide a share of the cosmetic market.

The same decline occurs in the entire movement of processed goods. “Moving from calabash flower to oils, cosmetics or evaporative liquids should, theoretically, guarantee greater quality control. However, research shows that in this transition quality decreases and the consumer is left without protection. When moving from flower to processed product, the industry often gains commercial appeal and ease of use, but loses significantly in transparency and chemical product, in regulatory safety, which consumers often do not pay for. Inaki stated. The processed format is the one that gives a consumer the most finished and controlled, and the analysis finds the least correspondence between the claim and the content.

Operators bring their questions to the lab. “Customers often ask how to interpret the terpene profile. They also have great doubts when a contaminant appears in the product, trying to understand if its presence is harmful or within the recommended limits,” says Inaki. The second question reveals where the gap grows the hardest, because an operator with a positive result has no authority anywhere to verify that the level clears a threshold, because in a large part of the market the threshold does not formally exist.

Lack of regulation leaves consumers without protection
The market still classifies cannabis as Indica and Sativa. “Terpene data is fundamental and much more accurate for classifying varieties than commercial labels. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the terpene profile allows the grouping of plants according to their true aromatic profiles. For example, it has been found that what the market labels as Indica usually has myrcene, and then perfume, a little more, research and alpha-pine mainly myrcene, and a little more correlates with the profile. Rather than pure THC potency, it is the subjective experience for the consumer that determines pleasantness,” said Inaki. The commercial consequence is that the number of producers competing, the THC percentage, is not the number that predicts whether a consumer will enjoy the product, leaving the industry to optimize for a figure that is not supported by aroma data as a driver of experience.

The CANNA Foundation’s testing addresses a basis that the European market does not currently have. “The lack of specific legislation for the recreational market and commercial CBD leaves consumers without protection. Most flowers have a level of contamination that would be unsuitable for human consumption. There is an urgent need to ban dangerous pathogens, such as Aspergillus fungi or E. coli bacteria, which are caused by poor cultivation hygiene. Lead appears in almost all samples, and companies believe that isolation processing removes mercury, analyzes show that even more that it is concentrated in the manufacture of isolates Reality must reflect the terpene profiles, which define the aroma Research shows that aroma is a good indicator of quality and effect, but the industry maintains trade names that do not match the actual chemical composition.

Every item on that list follows the same starting point, which is that a market without a mandatory test floor allows each of these failures to reach a shelf, and isolation step operators stoop to solve the metals problem, a step that Inaki’s mercury data worsens.

Instruments already find more than research can explain. “The main challenge is to clean the flower without degrading its composition. It is urgent to develop microbiological cleaning methods that replace irradiation and do not destroy terpenes or aromas, since these compounds define the quality and effect of the product. Moreover, although laboratories already identify small cannabinoids such as THCV, CBGV, CBC or CBDV, clinical studies suspect that they do not benefit from true clinical studies. it is not in isolated compounds, in the interaction and synergy between them all rather”, concludes Inaki.

For more information:
CANNA Foundation
(email protected)
fundacion-canna.es