💸 The Tape

The Congressional Cannabis Caucus turned nine years old this year. In Washington terms, that's old enough to have built a legislative record. The question is whether that record amounts to meaningful progress — or a well-intentioned exercise in frustration.

The answer, honestly, is a bit of both.

The Origin Story

The caucus was founded in 2017 during the 115th Congress by a genuinely bipartisan group: Republicans Dana Rohrabacher and Don Young alongside Democrats Earl Blumenauer and Jared Polis. The mission was straightforward — harmonize federal laws that conflicted with the growing number of states legalizing medical and recreational cannabis. At the time, roughly 30 states had some form of legal cannabis. Today, that number exceeds 40. The federal laws remain largely unchanged.

The caucus's current leadership reflects an intentional diversity of perspectives. Democratic co-chairs Dina Titus (NV) and Ilhan Omar (MN) took over in January 2025 from retiring co-chairs Blumenauer and Barbara Lee. On the Republican side, Dave Joyce (OH) and Brian Mast (FL) continue in their co-chair roles. Titus brings banking expertise from representing Nevada, Omar approaches reform through social justice and expungement, Mast — a military veteran who lost both legs in combat in Afghanistan — fights to de-stigmatize cannabis access for veterans, and Joyce pushes to remove marijuana from the federal controlled substances list entirely.

"We're coming at it from all angles," Titus has said. And that's both the caucus's strength and its limitation.

What They've Actually Accomplished

The honest accounting of the Cannabis Caucus's legislative wins is shorter than its members would like.

The most tangible achievement predates the caucus itself: the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment (now Rohrabacher-Blumenauer), first passed in 2014, which prevents the Department of Justice from using federal funds to interfere with state medical cannabis laws. That rider has been renewed annually and remains one of the only durable federal cannabis protections on the books. Caucus members have been instrumental in ensuring its survival through successive appropriations cycles.

The House has twice passed bills to federally legalize marijuana under Democratic majorities, and has advanced cannabis banking legislation seven times. Caucus members were central to shepherding those votes. The MORE Act — which would deschedule cannabis, provide expungement, and create a federal tax framework — currently has 60 cosponsors in the 119th Congress, making it the most widely backed cannabis bill of the session. The STATES 2.0 Act, the Veterans Equal Access Act, and the RESPECT Resolution focused on equity are all caucus-driven efforts.

In December 2025, caucus members introduced the RESPECT Resolution, encouraging state and local governments to adopt policies expanding cannabis business access for communities disproportionately harmed by prohibition.

And just weeks ago, Titus and Omar introduced the Higher Education Marijuana Research Act, aimed at eliminating barriers to academic cannabis research and protecting universities conducting studies on state-regulated products.

What They Haven't

Here's where the record gets uncomfortable: none of the major legislation the caucus has championed has become law.

The SAFE Banking Act (and its successor, the SAFER Banking Act) passed the House seven times but was never brought to a vote in the Senate. Under Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, the bill didn't even receive a committee hearing. Cannabis banking reform — the single most broadly supported, least controversial piece of cannabis legislation in Congress — has died repeatedly despite bipartisan backing.

Federal legalization bills have passed the House twice and gone nowhere in the Senate. The Veterans Equal Access Act has been introduced in multiple sessions without reaching the president's desk. Research reform bills have been filed, praised, and forgotten. The caucus has been extraordinarily effective at building coalitions and passing legislation through the House — and extraordinarily ineffective at getting anything through the Senate or signed into law.

The fundamental problem isn't the caucus itself. It's the structural reality that Senate leadership and House Speakers control what reaches the floor, and neither chamber's leadership has prioritized cannabis reform — regardless of the bipartisan support that exists among rank-and-file members.

Recent Commentary: The Frustration Is Getting Louder

This week, during what advocates are calling "Cannabis Week of Unity" on Capitol Hill, the caucus co-chairs delivered their most pointed commentary yet.

Rep. Ilhan Omar declared: "It is about damn time Congress caught up with where the American people are." But she went further than a simple legalization call, arguing that "if we legalize cannabis and simply allow large corporations to make huge profits while the very communities destroyed by the War on Drugs are left behind, then we have failed." She called for full descheduling, record expungement, community reinvestment, and an end to the federal hemp ban — a comprehensive vision that goes well beyond incremental rescheduling.

Rep. Dina Titus echoed the urgency: "States have been way ahead of the federal government the whole time. What we're trying to do here now is bring the federal government up to the level of the states, because dragging behind is just not realistic and just doesn't make any sense — morally, ethically, legally, health-wise, you name it."

On the Republican side, Brian Mast has continued his long-running advocacy for veteran cannabis access through the VA — a cause that carries particular moral authority from a decorated combat veteran. Mast's focus on removing the stigma around medical cannabis use among service members and ensuring VA physicians can openly discuss state-legal cannabis options with patients represents one of the most practically achievable reforms the caucus promotes.

Where This Leaves Things

Nine years in, the Cannabis Caucus has built awareness, introduced dozens of bills, passed legislation through the House multiple times, and created a bipartisan framework that didn't exist before 2017. Those are real contributions to the policy landscape.

But the scorecard on enacted legislation remains essentially blank. Banking reform hasn't passed. Federal legalization hasn't passed. Research reform hasn't passed. Veterans access hasn't passed. The caucus has been a prolific bill factory with a near-zero conversion rate — not because the ideas lack support, but because the institutional gatekeepers in Congress have consistently refused to let the votes happen.

The irony is that the executive branch just accomplished in weeks what the caucus has been unable to achieve in nearly a decade — moving cannabis to Schedule III through administrative action. That shift wasn't driven by legislation. It was driven by a presidential executive order.

The Cannabis Caucus has proven that bipartisan support for reform exists. What it hasn't been able to do is translate that support into law. Until the people who control the congressional calendar decide that cannabis reform deserves floor time, the caucus will continue to be the most effective advocacy group in Congress that can't get a bill to the president's desk.

The frustration, after nine years, is earned.

📈 Dog Walkers

$CBWTF ( ▲ 5.63% )  Auxly Crushes Q1 Profits

Auxly Cannabis Group is quietly putting together one of the most impressive financial profiles in Canadian cannabis — and Q1 2026 might be the quarter that forces people to notice.

The consumer packaged goods-focused cannabis company reported net revenue of $39.8 million, up 22% year-over-year, with adjusted EBITDA of $12.3 million — a 65% increase that produced a 31% EBITDA margin. Gross margin on finished cannabis inventory expanded to 55%, up from 48% a year ago. And cash flow from operations before working capital changes doubled to $11.3 million, representing a 92% conversion rate from adjusted EBITDA.

Those aren't just good numbers for cannabis. Those are good numbers for any consumer packaged goods company, period.

The revenue growth was driven by the Back Forty brand's continued market strength, contributions from new innovations including South Point and All-in-One Boosted Vapes, and improved distribution across the Canadian market. The flower segment was particularly strong, benefiting from increased demand and expanded retail presence. Vape pricing compression provided a partial offset, but the overall mix shift toward higher-margin products more than compensated.

The margin expansion story is equally compelling. The 700 basis point improvement in gross margin reflects manufacturing process improvements, higher cultivation yields, efficiency gains at the Auxly Charlottetown facility, and strategic procurement initiatives. When a company grows revenue 22% while expanding gross margins by seven full points, it signals an operating model that scales profitably — not just a business riding volume.

CEO Hugo Alves highlighted the balance sheet strength: Auxly finished Q1 with $42.7 million in cash, total debt of $45 million, and a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of just 0.9x. That's fortress-level leverage for a cannabis company and provides flexibility for the company's $10–$12 million capital investment program at its Leamington facility, the recently announced share buyback of up to 68.9 million shares, and potential opportunistic capital deployment.

Looking ahead, Auxly is actively evaluating international export opportunities, supported by its partnership with Imperial Brands and scalable production infrastructure. The company plans to invest in export capabilities through 2026, though Alves emphasized a "purposefully rigorous" approach to ensure international activities are accretive and don't compromise domestic momentum.

Net income was $3.5 million — the kind of bottom-line profitability that remains rare in Canadian cannabis.

In an industry still searching for operators that can grow profitably, Auxly is delivering 22% revenue growth, 55% gross margins, 31% EBITDA margins, and real cash flow. The quiet ones are sometimes the most dangerous.

$AVCNF Avicanna’s Science + Sales = Profits

Avicanna is building something most cannabis companies talk about but few actually execute: a pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoid platform backed by real clinical data, real revenue growth, and real peer-reviewed publications.

The Canadian biopharmaceutical company reported record Q1 2026 revenue of $6.68 million, up 6% year-over-year, alongside record gross profit of $3.84 million at a 58% gross margin — the highest in the company's history. The growth was driven by an 11% increase in revenue from MyMedi.ca, Avicanna's medical cannabis platform, and a 24% increase in Canadian product sales.

The numbers are modest by MSO standards, but Avicanna isn't competing on that playing field. This is a company positioning at the intersection of cannabis and pharmaceutical development — and the Q1 results show the commercial side catching up to the scientific ambition.

MyMedi.ca delivered its fourth consecutive quarter of growth, posting record unit sales of 220,246 units — up from 195,705 a year ago. Avicanna-branded product sales through the platform jumped 42%, while total proprietary product unit sales across all Canadian channels grew 24% to 45,419 units. The company ended the quarter with 52 commercial SKUs and 170 listings across medical and adult-use channels, representing 24% and 26% growth respectively.

On the clinical side, Avicanna advanced on multiple fronts. A real-world evidence study conducted through MyMedi.ca and led by Dr. Hance Clarke at the University Health Network was published in the peer-reviewed Canadian Journal of Pain, demonstrating statistically significant improvements in pain, anxiety, depression, and quality of life over 24 weeks. The company also initiated a Phase I dose-finding clinical trial with the University of Calgary evaluating oral THC for anxiety and stress using Avicanna's proprietary self-emulsifying drug delivery system.

Internationally, subsidiary Santa Marta Golden Hemp completed its first commercial export to Australia — the 21st market for SMGH and 24th for Avicanna products overall — validating the platform's ability to produce standardized, organic-certified flower at commercial scale.

CEO Aras Azadian framed the quarter as evidence of "increasing operational leverage" and "growing alignment between our commercial execution and scientific strategy."

With U.S. Schedule III rescheduling now in effect, Avicanna is evaluating pathways to leverage its scientific platform, proprietary formulations, and clinical data for potential U.S. market entry — focused on FDA-aligned pharmaceutical development and evidence-driven medical cannabis models.

Small company. Big thesis. And the data is starting to back it up.

🗞️ The News

📺 Trade To Black

Cannabis Earnings Keep Rolling As Reform Momentum Builds | TTB Presented by Flowhub

• Rubicon Organics: CEO Margaret Brodie discusses Q1 revenue of $13.7 million (up 11% YoY) and why management is accepting near-term margin pressure from the Cascadia facility ramp to position brands like Simply Bare, 1964 Supply Co., and Wildflower for a stronger second half of 2026.

• Jushi Holdings: CEO Jim Cacioppo breaks down the company's $66.4 million quarter, improving margins, wholesale momentum, and a major refinancing, plus his outlook on Virginia adult-use, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and why tightening hemp enforcement could be a significant catalyst for licensed operators.

• The Bigger Picture: Earnings season is revealing a clear split — some companies are betting on operational execution and premium brands, while others are positioning for regulatory upside and market expansion — and both strategies are starting to show which operators are built for what comes next.