💸 The Tape

On Thursday — one day after the DEA's rescheduling hearing concluded — Sen. Cory Booker, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Ron Wyden reintroduced the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), a sweeping proposal to deschedule cannabis entirely, expunge federal convictions, create an FDA Center for Cannabis Products, impose federal excise taxes up to 25%, and stand up a Cannabis Justice Office at DOJ. The press release quotes are stirring. Booker invokes the failed War on Drugs. Schumer says "the movement is budding." Wyden jokes about reefer madness.

If it all feels familiar, that's because it is. This is the third consecutive Congress in which this exact bill has been filed — and if history is any guide, it will meet the exact same fate as its predecessors: a press conference, a news cycle, and a quiet death without so much as a committee markup.

The Receipts

Let's review the record, because the record is damning.

In 2018, Schumer announced — on 4/20, naturally — that he was introducing legislation to decriminalize marijuana. It went nowhere. In 2020, the Democratic-controlled House passed the MORE Act, a full descheduling bill. The Senate never touched it. The House passed it again in 2022. Same result.

Then came the CAOA saga. Schumer, Booker, and Wyden released a "discussion draft" in July 2021 with enormous fanfare, promising comprehensive reform was imminent. The actual bill didn't arrive until July 2022 — a full year later — and never received a hearing, a markup, or a vote. It was refiled in May 2023. Same outcome. Now it's back in July 2026, filed by a party that no longer controls the chamber, with zero Republican co-sponsors, zero path to sixty votes, and zero chance of reaching the floor.

And here's the part that should make every cannabis operator's blood pressure spike: during the years Democrats held the White House, House, and Senate simultaneously — 2021 and 2022 — they passed nothing. Not legalization. Not banking. Not expungement. Schumer famously blocked the SAFE Banking Act — a bill with bipartisan support that had passed the House seven times — because he insisted comprehensive reform had to come first. Comprehensive reform never came. Neither did banking. The industry got neither the whole loaf nor the slice, because the majority leader held the achievable hostage to the aspirational and then delivered neither.

Even President Biden's contribution — the scheduling review he initiated in October 2022 — was slow-walked so thoroughly that the DEA hearing process stalled for fifteen months and died without a single day of testimony. The rescheduling Democrats now dismiss as "merely" incremental? Their own administration couldn't finish it in over two years. It took a Trump executive order and a Blanche directive to get it done in months.

So forgive the skepticism when the same three senators, now in the minority, refile the same bill the day after a Republican administration's rescheduling hearing concludes. The timing isn't legislative strategy. It's counterprogramming. The CAOA in 2026 is not a bill designed to pass — it's a bill designed to remind Democratic base voters who the "real" cannabis champions are, just as Trump threatens to permanently claim an issue Democrats spent a decade treating as a messaging prop.

Why This Is Actually Good News

Here's the twist: this transparently political filing may end up being one of the most helpful things Democrats have done for cannabis reform in years — precisely because of how the Trump administration is likely to respond to it.

This White House does not share issues. It claims them. Trump has already demonstrated — with rescheduling, with the psychedelics executive order, with the Medicare CBD pilot — that he views cannabis and drug policy reform as his legacy items, taken directly from the Democrats' abandoned playbook and executed while they watched. The political logic is straightforward: cannabis reform polls at supermajority levels, including with independents and a growing share of Republicans. Whoever delivers it owns it.

Now Schumer and Booker have publicly framed the contrast: Trump is "merely" reclassifying while Democrats would "fully legalize." That framing is meant as an attack. But inside the White House, it reads as a challenge — and a warning that if the administration stalls, hedges, or lets the ALJ recommendation gather dust, Democrats will spend 2028 campaigning on the unfinished business.

The rational response from an administration that hates being outflanked? Finish the job, and finish it big. Adopt the ALJ's recommendation swiftly. Extend Schedule III to all marijuana. Push Treasury and FinCEN guidance out the door. Lean on Senate Republicans to move the banking bill that Tim Scott is already warming to. Every step Trump takes toward completion is a step that makes the CAOA look redundant — and that's exactly the dynamic the industry should want: two parties competing to deliver, instead of one party pandering and the other prohibiting.

For fifteen years, cannabis reform suffered from the opposite dynamic — Democrats who talked and didn't act, Republicans who acted only to block. The CAOA filing, cynical as its timing may be, formalizes a new competition. Democrats have planted their flag at full legalization. If Trump wants to deny them the issue — and everything about his political instincts says he does — the only move is to keep delivering tangible reform faster than they can hold press conferences about theoretical reform.

The Bottom Line

Judge the CAOA by the standard its own sponsors set: they had total control of Washington and produced nothing. They blocked banking while promising everything. Their administration slow-walked the very rescheduling they now belittle. Three filings, zero hearings, zero votes.

But politics is a game of pressure, and pressure is finally pointed in the right direction. The Democrats' bill won't become law. What it will do is make absolutely certain that a president who despises being upstaged has every incentive to take the ALJ's forthcoming recommendation and run through the finish line with it.

Sometimes the most productive thing an empty gesture can do is provoke a real one. The industry should send Schumer a thank-you note — and address the follow-up to the White House.

📈 Dog Walkers

$TLRY ( ▼ 1.63% ) BrewDog pays for a $1M Bar Tab for UK World Cup Fans

The company's BrewDog brand announced a £1 million bar tab for football fans across England, Scotland, and Ireland, running from July 20 through September 30 at participating Tilray-owned pubs. Fans can redeem two free pints per person through BrewDog's Treats loyalty platform — show the QR code, collect the beers, celebrate the summer of football. First-come, first-served until the million runs dry.

CEO Irwin Simon framed the activation around community: "The greatest moments in sport are not defined only by the scoreline... they are defined by the people who come together to share them."

Strip away the sentiment and the strategy is sharp. The mechanics require Treats enrollment — meaning every free pint converts a walk-in football fan into a registered loyalty member with a digital wallet card and marketing opt-in. A £1 million tab that builds a permanent customer database across three countries is customer acquisition dressed as generosity — and smart acquisition at that.

The timing stacks with Tilray's broader summer sports blitz: SweetWater's World Cup activations in Atlanta, Village Farms' WK Duo-Pack in the Netherlands, and now BrewDog anchoring UK match-day culture with watch parties extending into auto racing, golf, and the August return of top-flight football.

For a company rebuilding BrewDog toward its former $1 billion valuation ambitions, packed pubs, full screens, and a loyalty funnel running at capacity all summer is exactly the playbook. The beer is free. The data — and the repeat visits — are the payment.

📺 Trade To Black

Early Repayments, Hemp Bans & Market Games: The Episode Wall Street Should Watch | TTB by Flowhub

• Lending Data Deep Dive: FundCanna CEO Adam Stettner shares exclusive market-specific lending data — what operators are borrowing for, which state markets show strength, and what an early repayment cycle reveals about improving operator health and cash flow under Schedule III.

• Earnings Season Preview: The lending trends offer a leading indicator heading into Q2 cannabis earnings, with debt paydowns ahead of schedule suggesting stronger balance sheets across the industry than headline stock prices imply.

• Cohodes Unfiltered: Famed short seller Marc Cohodes breaks down how naked shorting, spoofing, and manipulation tactics distort small-cap markets — and why cannabis stocks have been particularly vulnerable to these games.

• Glass House's NYSE Moment: Cohodes and Anthony preview the upcoming bell-ringing ceremony for Glass House Brands (NYSE: GLAS) — the second U.S. plant-touching operator on a senior exchange — plus his take on the November 12 hemp ban and what it means for the industry.