A Colorado-based organic gardening supply giant has announced that it is terminating a contract with a chain of Michigan hydroponic garden centers and has now acquired an Albuquerque gardening supply shop.
According to a press release, GrowGeneration Corp., the nation’s largest chain of specialty hydroponic and organic garden centers, said it was mutually terminating the acquisition of HGS Hydro, a Michigan company that owns a chain of hydroponic gardening suppliers. “Following appropriate due diligence and capital allocation analysis, we decided to mutually terminate the acquisition,” said GrowGeneration CEO Darren Lampert.
In the same statement, GrowGeneration announced that it had acquired All Seasons Gardening, an indoor-outdoor garden supplier specializing in hydroponics systems and indoor garden lighting located near I-40 and Jefferson. “The All Seasons Gardening acquisition is a testament to our continued investment in best-in-class hydroponic suppliers in emerging adult-use markets across the U.S.,” said Lampert. “Importantly, it represents our entry into New Mexico’s cannabis market, which is projected to become a $1 billion industry by 2026.”
VA Remains Opposed to Pot Research Bill
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said it will not support a bill that would require it to conduct clinical trials on the medical efficacy of cannabis.
Last week lawmakers in the House Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee discussed veterans-related legislation including the VA Cannabis Research Act, which would order the VA to head clinical trials to test whether cannabis is a viable treatment for veterans suffering from PTSD. The bill would require that the VA sample seven different cannabis strains for use in the studies.
“The proposed legislation is not consistent with VA’s practice of ensuring scientific merit as the basis for a randomized clinical trial,” VA’s David Carroll said in testimony before the subcommittee. The VA was at odds with the seven strain requirement and argued for “smaller, early phase, controlled clinical trials with a focused set of specific aims.”
Gupta Explains Pot Stance
During an interview on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta said he publicly changed his stance on cannabis after researching about the drug’s medical benefits.
“When you were first talking about marijuana, you were talking as if it had no medical benefit—it was just a recreational drug that was possibly or probably harmful,” said host Joe Rogan.
Gupta said that at the time—over a decade ago—marijuana studies that were being funded were biased to look for harm. “If you were just to look at the bulk of evidence around cannabis … in 94 percent of [studies], the hypothesis was ‘Where’s the harm here? Show me the harm.’ The hypothesis was not, ‘Show me the benefit.’ That was only true for about 6 percent. So right away, you’re already dealing with a very biased set of data.”
Gupta told Rogan that he changed his mind when he found evidence that cannabis was able to curb symptoms of epileptic seizures in children.