An email obtained by The Times shows that one committee leader, Representative Sharon Wylie, a supporter of the industry, shared a draft of the bill with a cannabis lobbyist. “Thank you for being open to the compromise approach,” she wrote. In an interview, Ms. Wylie said that “the jury’s still out” on the potential harms of cannabis, and that regulated business brings revenue to the state. Ms. Davis is not giving up. She plans to introduce legislation to another committee this month that would prohibit all concentrates exceeding 35 percent THC, with exemptions for medical use. “The industry needs limits,” she said. The New York Times examined sales data from two cannabis industry data firms, BDSA and Headset, for October 2023 to September 2024. Reporters then located each brand’s page on Weedmaps, where available. In November 2024, The Times downloaded the entire Weedmaps product catalog for each of the remaining 20 brands: a data set containing nearly 18,000 products. The Times identified dozens of medical- and health-related keywords that appeared in the descriptions. For each brand, reporters confirmed that the keywords were used to suggest that products could help treat specific health issues.
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