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SXSW Is Taking Votes On Dozens Of Marijuana And Psychedelics Panel Proposals For 2026 Festival

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2 days agoon

Voting is now open for panels to be part of next year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, allowing anyone with an opinion to weigh in on what topics the event covers and whose views are featured onstage.
And once again, like in past years, there are dozens of marijuana- and psychedelics-related panels up for consideration.
There are 16 proposed panels touching on cannabis and more than 40 on psychedelics, though that’s a decline compared to what’s been offered in recent years.
The marijuana-focused proposals fall into broad categories such as culture, criminal justice, agriculture and business.
Overall, the drug policy panels run the gamut—with discussions on the need for marijuana clemency, putting cannabis products in convenience stores, the therapeutic potential of ibogaine to treat head trauma in athletes and even a psychedelic “puppet show.”
Here are summaries of some of the noteworthy panels being considered for SXSW 2026:
Marijuana
Cannabis Prisoners in the Era of Legalization, featuring Last Prisoner Project’s Stephanie Shephard and former NFL player Ricky Williams
As cannabis becomes legal across the country, tens of thousands of Americans remain incarcerated for the same plant. This panel brings together advocates and directly impacted leaders—Ricky Williams and Stephanie Shepard—to examine the state of cannabis legalization, expose how cannabis prisoners are being left behind, and offer solutions. From clemency to re-entry, the panel will share strategies to ensure justice is at the center of cannabis reform, not just profit.
C-Stores and the Mainstream-ification of Cannabis
Cannabis is no longer confined to dispensaries and head shops—it’s riding shotgun at the local gas station. From THC beverages and gummies to hemp pre-rolls and vapes, convenience stores are becoming the frontline of cannabis normalization. This panel will explore how C-Stores are becoming the unlikely accelerators of the cannabis industry’s march toward mainstream acceptance. We’ll examine the intersection of regulation, retail innovation, and consumer demand-and what this means for CPG investors, functional beverage brands, and legacy cannabis players eyeing broader distribution.
The Censored Playbook: Marketing When You Can’t Advertise, featuring David Downs
Marketing in industries like cannabis, psychedelics, and sexual wellness means playing a high-stakes game of strategy, creativity, and compliance. With mainstream advertising channels off-limits and social media platforms quick to censor, how can brands in regulated spaces break through the noise without breaking the rules? This panel brings together leading marketers from highly regulated industries to explore how to build brand credibility, navigate evolving legal landscapes, and engage audiences through education-first content, community-building, and boundary-pushing creative campaigns.
Marijuana & Monopolies: The Fight for Free & Fair Markets, featuring Shaleen Title, founder of the Parabola Center
This panel explores the risks and consequences of monopolization within markets through the lens of America’s evolving cannabis industry. Leaders engaged in the fight against monopolies will provide a closer look at their process for implementing regulatory frameworks designed to ensure emerging industries are built on a foundation of fair competition; opportunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs across all communities; and the empowerment of consumers through true choice in how they spend their money.
The Wellness Revolution: Living and Leading For Good, featuring JoJo Simmons, Andrew DeAngelo & Steve DeAngelo
Join JoJo Simmons, host of the acclaimed For Good Podcast, for a live and candid conversation with legendary cannabis reformers Steve & Andrew DeAngelo. They’ll explore the evolving role of cannabis and psychedelics in a wellness-driven future focused on health, inclusion, and liberation for historically marginalized communities. With decades of advocacy, innovation, and healing behind them, the DeAngelo brothers offer a powerful lens on what it truly means to live—and lead—for good. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to listen, learn, and grow with two of the movement’s most influential voices.
Psychedelics
The Psychedelic Puppet Show: Tripping Down the Art Hole, featuring Paul Stamets
Get ready to tumble down the rabbit hole in the trippiest way possible! The Psychedelic Puppet Show is a panel extravaganza featuring visionary artists, mischievous puppets, and wild stories collected from global psychedelic communities. We’ll discuss tales, and creative explorations—with felt, foam, and far-out ideas—to spotlight the future of psychedelic art, celebrate the storytellers behind the scenes, and ensure that artists are paid as well as the mushrooms’ therapist.
Expediting psychedelic research to qualify for Right To Try, featuring Sue Sisley, principal investigator at the Scottsdale Research Institute Field To Healed Foundation
This session explores intersection of psychedelic science & federal Right to Try (RTT) law, which allows patients with life-threatening conditions to access investigational treatments outside of clinical trials. Focusing on ibogaine research for treating PTSD and opioid dependence, session will examine scientific, legal, and ethical considerations involved in making this powerful but under-researched compound accessible under RTT. Experts in medicine, law, policy will discuss current state of ibogaine research, pathways to FDA authorization, how to qualify ibogaine for compassionate use.
Building Bridges: Psychedelics and Conflict Transformation, featuring Rick Doblin, president and founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
In a world plagued by polarization, division, rupture, and war, could psychedelic-assisted therapy help build bridges? While not a panacea for complex, systemic issues, psychedelics, when used carefully in therapeutic settings, may support willing participants on the road to repair. Explore the potential of MDMA-assisted therapy in conflict transformation—across ideologies, identities, and borders, and in couples therapy. Discover international efforts at MAPS and beyond aimed not at simple solutions, but at nuanced processes of transformation.
What Psychedelics Reveal About Creating Anything, featuring the University of California San Francisco’s Robin Carhart-Harris and Zoe Wilder
This panel explores how insights from psychedelic experiences can inspire innovative design approaches to today’s social, environmental, and existential challenges. Psychedelics teach us that set and setting—our mindset and environment—shape every outcome. As non-specific amplifiers, they show how context influences experience. What if we applied this to creativity? Drawing from science, design, and culture, we explore how altered states can reframe process and deepen awareness. What if we learned to listen to a river before building space around it?
Ibogaine: A Hail Mary for Pro Athletes with Head Trauma
Concussions and brain injuries are a silent epidemic in pro sports. With few treatment options, many players are now heading to Mexico seeking ibogaine, a powerful psychedelic that is proving to repair the brain. This session brings together pro athletes and clinicians to reveal how ibogaine is emerging as a powerful intervention for traumatic brain injury and what it could mean for the future of care in professional sports, neuroscience, and people with brain injuries and illness once thought irreversible.
Broken Barriers: The Texas Ibogaine Initiative & Its Impact, featuring Texas Rep. Cody Harris (R)
This panel will spotlight the Texas Ibogaine Initiative, a groundbreaking legislative effort aimed at using psychedelic-assisted therapy to address PTSD, TBI, and opioid use disorder among veterans. Attendees will hear from key leaders who made the initiative a reality, including veterans, legislators, and advocates. The session will explore the bipartisan support behind the bill, the science of ibogaine, and the broader national impact of Texas’ leadership in psychedelic policy. This conversation will inspire hope for the future of mental health care for veterans.
Healing the Helpers: Psychedelics, Police & First Responders
Police and first responders carry invisible wounds from years of service – trauma, loss, moral injury–that conventional care often fails to treat. Psychedelics are emerging as transformative therapies for those on the front lines. This panel brings together a former SWAT officer, a retired federal agent, a nonprofit leader, and a pioneering psychedelic treatment provider to explore how ibogaine and other plant medicines are helping first responders reclaim their lives, challenge stigma, and shift the conversation around trauma, resilience, and recovery.
Cosmic Trip: Unlocking the Power of Psychedelics—in Space
Psychedelic drugs like ayahuasca are known for their potential to boost mental health. Can they also treat or even prevent neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, ALS, & Parkinson’s? Could they ease functioning for those with neurodevelopmental conditions like autism & ADHD? Hear from Alysson Muotri, PhD, a scientist who’s taken the question to outer space; an Amazonian indigenous leader who has witnessed the drugs’ transformative power; & a former MTV VJ-turned-psychologist—all of whom are on a quest for answers that spans the globe & beyond.
Rewiring the Brain: Psilocybin and Neurological Healing
Join former NHL player Daniel Carcillo as he shares how psilocybin-assisted therapy helped him overcome traumatic brain injury (TBI) after years of failed treatments. Highlighting real-world cases and emerging clinical research, Daniel discusses psilocybin’s potential to heal TBI, Parkinson’s, and neurodegenerative disorders through neuroplasticity and inflammation reduction. This conversation reveals a hopeful frontier in brain health recovery.
Image element courtesy of Kristie Gianopulos.

Author: mscannabiz.com
MScannaBIZ for all you Mississippi Cannabis News and Information.
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Klutch Cannabis Opening 5th Ohio Dispensary in Northfield

Published
10 minutes agoon
August 15, 2025
[PRESS RELEASE] – NORTHFIELD VILLAGE, Ohio, Aug. 15, 2025 – Klutch Cannabis, one of Ohio’s leading vertically integrated cannabis companies, announced the grand opening of its newest dispensary, located at 10650 Northfield Road in Northfield Village, Ohio. Doors will officially open at 10 a.m. Aug. 21, 2025.
The new location marks Klutch’s first dispensary in Summit County, where the company is headquartered. Conveniently situated directly across the street from the MGM Northfield Park Casino and Racetrack, the dispensary is easily accessible from Route 8 and I-271, finally bringing much-needed access to medical cannabis patients and adult-use consumers in Northern Summit County communities, including Northfield Village, Macedonia, Northfield Center Township, Twinsburg, Hudson, Sagamore Hills, Boston Township, Richfield Township, Bath Township, and more.
The expansion further solidifies Klutch’s retail footprint in Northeast Ohio and represents an important milestone as the company begins delivering its renowned top-shelf products on its home turf. Offerings will include exclusive drops and limited releases along with customer favorites from the company’s Klutch Cannabis and Habitat by Klutch lines, its Ohio-exclusive brand partners, and other Ohio cannabis companies. The Northfield dispensary will also feature Klutch’s signature aesthetic and exceptional customer service, as well as a convenient drive-thru pickup window for pre-orders.
Hours of operation for the new Northfield Village location will be:
- 10 a.m. to 10:45 p.m. Thursday through Saturday
- 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday
“We’re incredibly excited to expand Klutch Cannabis’s retail footprint to Summit County,” Klutch founder and CEO Adam Thomarios said. “This location has been years in the making and will finally provide patients and adult-use customers in Northern Summit County with access to the quality, care, and consistency that Klutch is known for. Our thanks go out, especially, to the community, administration, and officials in Northfield Village for being such great partners from the start. The Village is a great place to do business, and we can’t wait to start making a positive impact in the community.”
For more information about Klutch Cannabis, its dispensaries, and its award-winning products, visit KlutchCannabis.com and HabitatbyKlutch.com or follow @KlutchxCommunity and @HabitatbyKlutch on Instagram.

Author: mscannabiz.com
MScannaBIZ for all you Mississippi Cannabis News and Information.
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Book Review: The Traveling Cannabis Writer’s Guide to America’s Hidden Gems

Published
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August 15, 2025
Every so often, a cannabis book comes along that feels like it has been missing from the shelf for years. Veronica “Vee” Castillo’s Cannabis Legacy Chronicles Series: The Traveling Cannabis Writer’s Guide to America’s Hidden Gems – Part 1: The 30,000-Foot View is one of those rare finds.
We read it cover to cover and it is clear: Vee has built something more than a travelogue. This is six years of crisscrossing the United States, living out of suitcases, rental cars, and guest rooms, documenting over 200 stories that mainstream media rarely touches.
The book brims with voices from every corner of the cannabis map: Black, Brown, and woman-owned businesses, legacy cultivators preserving genetics through prohibition, Caribbean entrepreneurs blending tradition with modern cannabis tourism, and women who left corporate jobs to open dispensaries, grow medicine, and build communities.
What sets it apart is Vee’s perspective. She writes like someone who has been in the grow rooms, sat at the kitchen tables, and walked the fields, not parachuting in for a quick profile but staying long enough to see the heartbeat of each place. Her chapters on women innovators, cultural preservation, and equity-driven tourism do not just inform, they inspire.
This is not a story about cannabis, the commodity. It is about cannabis, the connector.
If you care about the soul of this industry, if you want to see the people and places that make cannabis culture rich and resilient, this book delivers. It is equal parts history, advocacy, and celebration, wrapped in storytelling that is as authentic as it gets.
Vee will soon be bringing that same depth of reporting to High Times, and if Cannabis Legacy Chronicles is any indication, readers are in for something special.
We cannot recommend it enough. Grab your copy of Cannabis Legacy Chronicles: Part 1 here and see why we are so excited to welcome her to the High Times family.

Author: mscannabiz.com
MScannaBIZ for all you Mississippi Cannabis News and Information.
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Texas Senators Unanimously Pass Hemp THC Ban Bill Hours After Governor Convenes Second Special Session

Published
2 hours agoon
August 15, 2025
The governor of Texas has convened another special session—again directing lawmakers to advance legislation regulating consumable hemp and setting an age limit to access cannabinoids. Within hours, a Senate committee quickly and unanimously approved a reintroduced bill that would simply ban hemp THC products in contravention of Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) call for regulation.
After Democratic House lawmakers staged a walkout during the first special session Abbott convened—denying the chamber a quorum in protest of a proposed redistricting plan for the state’s congressional map—the governor on Friday issued a proclamation to start a second special session. The session cannot last longer than 30 days under the state constitution, but there’s no limit on how many can be called.
On the same day Abbott declared the new session, the Senate State Affairs Committee quickly passed a reintroduced hemp bill from Sen. Charles Perry (R) in a 9-0 vote.
The legislation would continue to outright ban cannabis products with “any amount” of cannabinoids other the CBD and CBG. Even mere possession of a prohibited cannabis item would be punishable as a Class B misdemeanor, carrying up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.
The governor’s latest proclamation also renews his call for legislation “making it a crime to provide hemp-derived products to children under 21.”
But while Perry’s bill that moved through committee would impose a complete ban on hemp containing any THC, Abbott said in his latest proclamation that he wanted to see a measure sent to his desk that would “comprehensively regulate hemp-derived products, including limiting potency, restricting synthetically modified compounds, and establishing enforcement mechanisms, all without banning lawful hemp-derived products.”
Heather Fazio, director of the advocacy group Texas Cannabis Policy Center, told Marijuana Moment on Friday that the group is “disappointed to see the senate suspend their own rules to circumvent public notice requirements, disenfranchising the many Texans who would have testified in opposition to SB 6.”
“This is yet another sweeping ban on THC products,” she said. “Most Texans agree with Governor Abbott: The Texas legislature should regulate, not ban, THC products.”
(Disclosure: Fazio supports Marijuana Moment’s work via monthly Patreon pledges.)
An initial version of the governor’s new proclamation for the second special session said cannabinoid products should be age-gated to prohibit access for people under 18, but that was quickly revised and republished with the age limit of 21—similar to the call for the prior special session—for reasons that are unclear.
The proclamation for the new session also specifies that regulations should not ban “lawful hemp-derived products,” whereas the proclamation for the first session referenced a “lawful agricultural commodity.”
Special Session #2 begins immediately.
There is critical work that is left undone.
Texas will not back down from this fight.
That’s why I am calling them back today to finish the job.
Read my Special Session #2 agenda here: https://t.co/z9i949oQCw pic.twitter.com/jVE4S9hHAS
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 15, 2025
Hemp advocates and industry stakeholders say that would effectively eradicate the state’s market, as there are very few businesses that manufacture isolated CBD or CBG products that contain no traces to THC or other cannabinoids. Federal law allows hemp products containing up to 0.3 percent THC by dry weight.
A similar bill from Perry passed the Senate during the first special session but did not advance in the House.
The other new bill filed for the second special session from Rep. Charlie Geren (R) would follow the governor’s directive to make it so consumable hemp products could only be purchased by adults 21 and older.
Ahead of the end of the first special session, the House Public Health Committee took up the prior bill to ban consumable hemp products containing THC, without taking action on it.
Abbott vetoed an earlier version of the controversial proposal that passed during this year’s regular session, and he more recently outlined what he’d like to see in a revised version of the bill.
Some, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) and Senate bill sponsor Perry, have insisted that an outright ban is a public safety imperative to rid the state of intoxicating products that have proliferated since the crop was federally legalized in 2018. Others say the legislature should instead enact regulations for the market to prevent youth access while still allowing adults 21 and older to access the products and preserving the massive industry.
—
Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.
Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
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Meanwhile, Abbott in June signed a bill into law that expanded the state’s list of medical cannabis qualifying conditions, adding chronic pain, traumatic brain injury (TBI), Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases, while also allowing end-of-life patients in palliative or hospice care to use marijuana.
Texas officials took another step toward implementing that law this week—posting a draft of proposed rules to let physicians recommend new qualifying conditions for cannabis and create standards for allowable inhalation devices.
That came about a week after the the Department of Public Safety (DPS) previewed a separate set of rules to increase the number of licensed dispensaries under recently passed legislation.
During the first special session, Rep. Nicole Collier (D) introduced a one-page bill, HB 42, designed to protect consumers in the state from criminal charges if what they believed was a legal hemp product turned out to contain excessive amounts of THC, making it illegal marijuana. It would prevent the criminalization of someone found in possession of a product that’s labeled as hemp but is determined to contain “a controlled substance or marihuana.”
In order for the person to obtain the legal protection, the product would need to have been purchased “from a retailer the person reasonably believed was authorized to sell a consumable hemp product.”
Another bill—HB 195, introduced by Rep. Jessica González (D)—would legalize marijuana for people 21 and older, allowing possession of up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis, with no more than 15 grams of that amount being in concentrated form.
Yet another proposal would order state officials to conduct a study on testing for THC intoxication.
As for what Texans themselves want to see from their representatives, proponents of reining in the largely unregulated intoxicating hemp industry in Texas shared new polling data indicating that majorities of respondents from both major political parties support outlawing synthetic cannabinoids, such as delta-8 THC.
The survey also found that respondents would rather obtain therapeutic cannabis products through a state-licensed medical marijuana program than from a “smoke shop selling unregulated and untested hemp.”
Ahead of the governor’s veto in June of SB 3—the earlier hemp product ban—advocates and stakeholders had delivered more than 100,000 petition signatures asking Abbott to reject the measure. Critics argued that the industry—which employs an estimated 53,000 people—would be decimated if the measure became law.
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.

Author: mscannabiz.com
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