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I Gotta Horse !

ijavee (59) in horseracing •  20 minutes ago

Australian racehorse Winx extended her record-breaking win streak to 32 with victory in the George Ryder Stakes at Rosehill Gardens.

The mare, trained by Chris Waller, won the race for the fourth straight year in what may be her penultimate outing.

Winx justified odds of 1-17 ( You risk 17 units to win 1 ) as she claimed a 24th top-level Group One win under jockey Hugh Bowman.

"When the crowd erupted I could feel the energy increase in her body, it was just so exciting," he said.

"I'm so proud of her and proud to be part of it."

After victory. the seven-year-old horse was welcomed back by the crowd chanting "Winxy, Winxy".

It is expected Winx's extraordinary career will to come to an end after the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Royal Randwick next month.

What rising tension there will be in the days leading up to that

Today 23rd March 2019. For a bit of fun and interest I'm backing JOKE DANCER £2 each way in the 2.25 at Kelso.

I've been given this tip by someone who knows someone who used to go out with the daughter of the bloke who mucks out the horses stable.

Think of me at about 2.35pm this afternoon U.K time, counting my winnings,and not needing to earn on Steemit again !

Caution - For my reputation as a tipster see this picture -

The Scottish track are in the ITV spotlight for once.Well deserved recognition for an independent track who always put up decent prize money. They have been rewarded with plenty of entries on a competitive card.

The 2m handicap hurdle is typical but Joke Dancer looks to have a great chance. He won a decent race at Newcastle last month comfortably after a year off, and a wind operation, and connections will not be complaining at a 5lb rise.

He was declared for the Coral Cup at the Cheltenham Festival but that 2m5f on soft ground was deemed too stiff a test. However, he will surely stay further than the minimum and that stamina is a big plus as there is a stiff run-in at Kelso.

And there are plenty of front-runners in the line-up, which should make this a true test. Champagne City, who ran a blinder at Newbury last time, Aristo du Plessis and the novice Ingleby Hollow have all shown their best from the front.

Winston C is another progressive novice but the handicapper has given him no easy mark to start handicap life from.

CAPTAIN DRAKE can take command of the 3m2f handicap hurdle at 3.35. He was having a great battle with Tomkevi at Southwell last time when that rival came down at the last but Harry Fry's six-year-old looked to be just getting the better of the argument.

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20 minutes ago by ijavee (59)

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Brexit- The End Of June? - Many of us would prefer -

The End Of May !!

Cartoon Credit - cartoonmovement.com

Cannabis Chaos! - And The Winner IS - Picks & Shovels !

The illegal market in Cannabis has proven to be a tenacious competitor against the legal one

A powerful reason to legalize cannabis is to wrest the market away from criminal enterprises and tax the proceeds. But in Canada and the US states where weed is legal, the illegal market has proven to be a tenacious competitor – and it’s likely to remain so for years.

For example, California is the largest and most complex of the legal US markets. Here underground sales can be divided into two broad categories: the illegal or “black” market that includes everyone growing and manufacturing products for export around the world, which is against the law.

 The so-called “grey market” refers to companies that continue to operate locally in California but take a risk by saving the time and expense to acquire licenses.

For licensed businesses trying to follow the rules, California’s grey market presents the bigger problem. Because these companies don’t adhere to the complex regulations covering everything from security to product testing, they can undersell their law-abiding counterparts by up to 50%, according to Bryce Berryessa, the president of the licensed California cannabis company La Vida Verde.

Beneficiaries of this conflict will be ‘Pick & Shovel ‘companies. So called from the example of ‘The Gold Rush’ where more money was made by a few enterprising individuals providing the means to dig for gold than the thousands scrambling and sweating doing it.

KushCo Holdings Inc. is the largest supplier to the cannabis industry. Currently, 60% of the company's sales come from low-cost vape pens, and vaping is becoming an increasingly popular method for consuming CBD. Vaping gives an immediate effect, both faster and easier to discern than when CBD is consumed as a sublingual tincture.

KushCo's low-cost vaping devices will be the product of choice for many new CBD consumers. KushCo also has another business - it provides the solvents necessary to extract oils from cannabis, whether that cannabis contains some intoxicating Psychoactive THC or not.

With hemp processing facilities popping up across the country, supplying the ingredients necessary to extract CBD could turn out to be a much bigger business than even Kush imagined.

In much of the state, grey-market cannabis companies operate in plain sight, and it’s not necessarily clear to customers whether a store is legal or not. Weedmaps, a popular online dispensary locator, doesn’t distinguish between licensed and unlicensed dispensaries – nor do mainstream sites like Google and Yelp.

 Grey market dispensaries and delivery services also stock counterfeit products, which are packaged to mimic the best known legal brands. (Consumers who want to be certain they are shopping at a legal dispensary can check on the state regulator’s website.)

To combat the illegal market and foster legal businesses, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said last month he would be sending national guard troops into northern California’s cannabis-growing regions. There have been crackdowns on unlicensed dispensaries as well, though legal businesses have called for more. Lawmakers have also proposed lowering marijuana taxes so legal businesses can compete against the grey market.

But these proposals do not address what could be the most significant problem for legitimate businesses: while California has legalized personal marijuana sales to all adults, most jurisdictions in the state do not yet allow new marijuana business start ups. (Marijuana is the Mexican word for Cannabis)

 This in effect forces millions of customers to shop on the grey market. “Hundreds if not thousands of companies who intend to shift into the legal market are forced to participate in the grey market infrastructure that has been in place for decades Berryessa said.

 In January 2018, the month California’s adult market opened, he says, there were about 200 fully legal pot shops in California, compared with roughly 4,000 grey market dispensaries.

Unlicensed businesses have continued to thrive in other markets as well. Canada’s grey market has capitalized on rolling supply shortages. In Oregon, where there is a glut of product, growers offload their crop on to the illegal market, sometimes referred to as the “traditional” or “free” market.

As legalization becomes more widespread, it seems likely that the black and grey markets will recede, though many law-abiding businesses are likely to go under in the meantime. Without a mandate from the state capital in Sacramento, every city in California can legalize marijuana businesses on its own timeline. The resulting uncertainty nourishes the grey market.

It also has the ‘Pick & Shovel’ companies legally providing the tools and products to consumers of legal and illegal Cannabis, and go laughing all the way to the bank.

Electric Cars- Battery Technology Breakthrough?

Three separate energy news items recently hit my in box and has me interested.

The first was a video about an area in the south west of England which claims to hold the secret to the next big energy break through. The presenter couldn’t say too much about it as he was sworn to secrecy. He managed to talk for half an hour without revealing anything other than it was nothing to do with Fracking.

The second news snippet was about a Quantum Glass Solid State Battery invention. I’ve had difficulty in finding a definition of Quantum that I can understand. After looking at many examples I see it as ‘The least to achieve the most’

Here is the Wikipedia definition –

In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization".[1] This means that the magnitude of the physical property can take on only discrete values consisting of integer multiples of one quantum.

For example, a photon is a single quantum of light (or of any other form of electromagnetic radiation). Similarly, the energy of an electron bound within an atom is quantized and can exist only in certain discrete values. (Indeed, atoms and matter in general are stable because electrons can exist only at discrete energy levels within an atom.) Quantization is one of the foundations of the much broader physics of quantum mechanics. Quantization of energy and its influence on how energy and matter interact (quantum electrodynamics) is part of the fundamental framework for understanding and describing nature.

Solid-state batteries are predicted to replace the liquid or polymer electrolyte found in current lithium-ion batteries, with a hard conductive material such as a solid polymer or ceramic.

The challenge, however, is in finding such a solid material that is conductive enough to be used in large batteries. This is what the likes of Toyota and Sakti3 aim to solve.

The third bit of information said that James Dyson of Dyson Vacuum Cleaners would be using solid state batteries to power the electric cars he will be producing at his new factory in Singapore. He would not give any details about the solid-state battery technology other than he was very excited at the development potential of his company’s battery.

My imagination can run wild at times, but I think the secret area that is claimed to be the source of the next big energy breakthrough, contains a mineral or raw material that is the secret Quantum ingredient, to make solid state batteries capable of quick charging and be a store of high electric power.

The target must be a battery that fully charges as quick as filling a car’s fuel tank. Such speed would eliminate the present situation of price points per various charging speeds.

The battery should also have the electric energy capacity to deliver the same or better miles travelled per recharge as the equivalent size tank of fossil fuel.

That there is confidence this will be achieved is evident by the rapid growth of recharging points. Some Supermarkets are considering charging points in car parking bays so that customers can top up with a trickle charge while they shop.

Many filling station chains are installing evcharging points alongside petrol pumps. Sat Navs on evehicles give the nearest EV charging points.

Here’s a thought - With the equally big strides being made with self-drive vehicles, I might yet be able to have another car. At my age 92, that will pose some problems. As I would be in charge of the vehicle, I would need a driving licence. But I couldn’t pass a practical driving test, so will a theory test be enough?

A Nissan engineer said a true totally driverless car with no human input is years away from success.His definition of a true 'think for itself driverless car' is one where you ask it to take you to work,and it decides to go to the beach!

Cannabis - My Journey from Pharma Executive to Cannabis Entrepreneur by Dr Avtar Dhillon.

A guest post on my blog by Dr Avtar Dhillon

Canada has become a global leader of cannabis regulation and the first G7 country to legalize it for medical and recreational use. Legalization of cannabis in Canada, and slowly across the world, is a giant step toward realizing the full health potential of this versatile plant.

While this is a major accomplishment, there are lingering misconceptions and myths about cannabis, and people are still hesitant to enter the industry. As a life sciences executive and former family practitioner, I admit I had my reservations. I was soon bowled over by the research of a few brave scientists who took on the risks to conduct studies in a time when cannabis was still considered taboo.

By way of background, I'm a life sciences executive who came up through the ranks by first completing an honors bachelor of science degree in human physiology, and then went on to complete a medical degree. I started a medical clinic and subsequently practiced family medicine for over 12 years. I've always focused my career on how to best serve the needs of patients and embraced the use of natural remedies along with traditional medicine.

I also founded and developed a number of biotech companies, including OncoSec and Arch Therapeutics.

The last thing on my mind, of course, was cannabis. Like most non-cannabis users, it seemed far-fetched a few years ago that I would even consider embracing the cannabis industry to apply all of these assets that I've worked so hard to weave together.

Even though I had read about the use of cannabis for nausea in cancer patients and weight loss control in AIDS patients, I had never prescribed it as a practicing physician, nor did I know about its additional medical benefits. At the time, medical cannabis was starting to gain more notoriety in the media for its novelty, which piqued my curiosity.

After reading more literature on medical cannabis and speaking with researchers in the space, I couldn't stop myself from going deeper into the science and evidence, particularly for children with intractable seizures. Once I learned about its use in medical indications such as epilepsy, pain management, and multiple sclerosis, as well as its potential to reduce opiate use, I was hooked.

I couldn't believe how much potential existed.

While I plainly saw the vast amount of potential, I also realized that cannabis had been marginalized by stereotypes and legislation not founded on scientific evidence - it was all driven by power, politics, and prejudice. With my background as a scientist, clinician, and entrepreneur with operational experience in the healthcare industry, I decided to make the transition into cannabis.

For me, cannabis was the unexplored new frontier, and I saw it as an exciting opportunity to apply my skillset to help shape the industry.

What was also plainly clear was the tremendous need to apply the knowledge, tools, and processes of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to this untapped plant. Scientists needed to validate what appeared to be huge numbers of anecdotal observations regarding the medical potential of cannabis with human studies. At the same time, we also needed to raise awareness of cannabis as a legitimate and potentially mainstream product for health.

Once I saw the opportunity, I immediately started looking for the right vehicle. As a first step, I brought together friends, family, and other high net worth investors with relevant backgrounds in biotechnology, finance, and even farming to fund a new private venture company, called Emerald Health Sciences.

I recognized that Canada was on the path to becoming the first G7 country to legally permit medical and adult-use (recreational) cannabis and in doing so, creating an opportunity for new research and clinical studies. We decided that our first foray into the cannabis world start in Canada.

In my analysis of various companies, I found a Canadian Licensed Producer, called T-Bird Pharma, of which we could acquire majority ownership. We renamed the company Emerald Health Therapeutics and hit the floor running.

Today, Emerald is a Health Canada Licensed Producer and emerging leader in the global cannabis industry. Our vision is to bring the same consistency, accuracy, and measured outcome of pharma products to cannabis. We are taking steps to develop clinically proven formulations and delivery methods that will result in a variety of delivery methods (pills, oils, etc.). Our aim is to develop and license intellectual property and facilitate value-added product manufacturing and sales worldwide.

What is equally exciting is that we have other global operations. Emerald Health Sciences owns a research group in Spain, called Vivacell, which is guided by two global leaders in cannabinoid research, Dr. Eduardo Munoz and Dr. Giovanni Appendino. We also have two U.S.-based biotechs that are working with synthetically produced cannabinoids for serious medical issues, including Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, MRSA, and glaucoma. Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals and Nemus Bioscience are developing novel and proprietary classes of product candidates that have a global patent footprint with a goal of enhanced chemical engineering, leading to more predictable bioavailability and pharmacokinetics for optimized efficacy and safety.

The future of cannabis is bright. We'll continue to see the space evolve in Canada and across the world. I'm excited to bring this industry out of the darkness and into the light, and it's only just the beginning.

Dr Avtar Dhillon. Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals.
Cannabis Investor's Report.

CBD From Cannabis Hemp Without Prescription Predicted?

Marijuana is the Mexican Word for Cannabis.It is a wonder plant that has been hijacked and given a bad name by underworld gangs, exploiting a chemical compound in the plant called THC that produces intoxicating highs sought by drug users.

From the same Cannabis plant there is a chemical compound called CBD. This has negligible intoxicating THC content and will increasingly become freely available online and in supermarkets, pharmacies and health shops

Bad publicity, and confusion, prompted governments around the world to apply a blanket ban on all cannabis products until recently. Now as more reliable information is becoming available, Cannabis CBD is about to play a big part in health and wellness programmes worldwide, as this headline proclaims

Prescription-Free CBD products from Cannabis set to Disrupt the $1.1 Trillion Pharmaceutical Industry

Traditionally, most people thought about cannabis as a banned drug. For the last 100 years it has been illegal virtually throughout the entire world. It seemed its only use and feature was to give an illicit intoxicating high that is potentially addictive and harmful.

The intoxicating high, produced by the cannabinoid THC (tetrahydrocannabinol),is accompanied by the risk of developing addiction dependency leading to possible mental health damage.

People using illegal psychoactive cannabis products make up a $40 billion market in the United States alone. Simply converting those users to legal cannabis multiplies the market five times. And, of course, once cannabis is legal, entire new groups who have not used the drug because they respect or fear the law will grow the industry further. After that, new products like CBD beverages will fuel even more growth.

Focusing solely on the intoxicating high feature of cannabis is a mistake. Cannabis was used as a medical product in Biblical times. And, today, medical applications could be many times larger than the THC intoxicating highs psychoactive market.

And the biggest opportunity of all could be in non-regulated health products. CBD (cannabidiol) and the other non-psychoactive cannabinoids in cannabis can do much of what the pharmaceutical companies promise. And they can do it without a prescription and at a comparatively modest cost.

Brightfield Group, a cannabis research firm, projects that this mainstreaming of the product will cause the hemp-based CBD market to grow from $519 million in 2018 to an incredible $22 billion by 2022.

CBD, or cannbidiol, is the primary non-psychoactive component of cannabis. It is a powerful health chemical with the potential to alleviate or cure dozens of diseases

These days, instead of specially bred low-THC cannabis, some of the top companies in the industry use Hemp to produce CBD.

This variety of Hemp CBD from Cannabis, naturally contains low levels of THC – under .3% – far too little to cause a high,and gives it a major advantage over the kind of cannabis consumers usually think about: It can be shipped across state and some national lines, allowing a domestic and export market to develop.

Hemp production is growing across the country at an astonishing rate – supply is unlikely to be an issue even with the massive predicted growth of products produced from raw hemp.

Hemp-farming on its own is unlikely to be an outstanding performer – the added value is in extracting the CBD and other cannabinoids, in quality manufacturing, and in designing and selling great products.

This variety of Hemp came about when a family in Colorado, the Stanley Brothers, began growing cannabis and developed a strain with a very high ratio of CBD to THC. It led to the idea of helping patients who did not want to experience the high which THC brings.

This strain of high CBD-low-THC cannabis turned out to have a dramatic effect on children with a seizure disorder called Dravets syndrome. Children who took the medicine saw the frequency and severity of their seizures plummet

If Dravet’s syndrome sounds familiar, it should. Dravet’s is one of the two rare forms of epilepsy for which GW Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval for Epidiolex. It broke the glass ceiling, becoming the first U.S. Food & Drug Administration-approved drug formulated from Hemp CBD.

AND. AND – Epidiolex’s only active ingredient is CBD!

It’s stories like that which inform Brightfield Group’s optimistic assessment of the industry. CBD and other such non-psychoactive cannabinoids have the potential to treat dozens of conditions from minor inflammation to the most serious seizure disorders.

CBD and its cannabis chemical cousins have the potential to completely disrupt massive chunks of the medical industry, from over-the-counter medications like aspirin, to exotic treatments costing tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Make a note – CBD.

Cannabis Products - Explosion - or - Damp Squib?

Marijuana is the Mexican word for Cannabis.

Many people are wondering where the legal cannabis products are that were predicted to flood the market following Canada’s legalisation of recreational cannabis in September 2018.

The hold up is caused by unclear regulations and high taxation.

To say legal cannabis sales in California have been disappointing is an understatement. The first full year of recreational legalization brought in a little over $350 million in taxes, well short of the projected $643 million.

The black market is still flourishing in the Golden State, and legal cannabis entrepreneurs are having a hard time getting their businesses up and running.

In the U.K., medicinal cannabis was legalised from September 2018 for certain medical conditions like epilepsy to be prescribed only by authorised medical specialists. But few are prescribing. As the cannabis medication is free through the NHS, price to the user in this instance is not a factor.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that there is time to right the situation, and we are starting to see that in California.

Lawmakers in other states can look to the troubles in California and learn what not to do

If Governors Andrew Cuomo (New York) and Phil Murphy (New Jersey) can get this right, these could be two huge cannabis markets.

The winning playbook is out there for cannabis regulations, and politicians and lawmakers just need to be able to execute on it.

Here’s what went wrong in California, and here’s how lawmakers in other states can get it right…

One of the problems in California is dual licenses – the requirement of having permission from the state and the city to operate.

“I think we all wish we could license more businesses, but our system is based on dual licensing and local control,” said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Bureau of Cannabis Control.

With such restrictions, only 547 temporary and annual licenses were given to California dispensaries and cannabis retail stores. State officials estimated there would be 6,000 licensed shops in just a few years, so they have a long way to go.

And for cannabis growers, it’s been no picnic working with California regulators. In the first year of legalization, a little over 2,000 growers were registered with the state. That’s far below the estimate of the 5,000 commercial growers that were expected.

As well as too much red tape, taxes & fees on cannabis are out of control. The criminal gangs will be rubbing their hands with glee. A lucrative market they thought they were going to lose, will still be open for their exploitation with lower prices through corner cutting on production standards, regulation laws, and tax avoidance.

Javier Montes, the owner of Delta-9 THC in Wilmington, California, told the Los Angeles Times that he must pay a 15% excise tax, a 10% recreational marijuana tax to the city of Los Angeles, and a 9.5% tax in sales to the county and the state.

The excessive taxes and fees could drive up the cost of legal cannabis in some parts of California to as much as 45%, according to credit ratings firm Fitch Ratings. In Oregon, for example, state and local taxes are capped at 20%.

With taxes so high, that means cannabis users stick to the black markets. Not only does that hurt sales for legal cannabis operators, but local and state police must focus on stopping illegal marijuana transactions.

In the end, with a complicated framework and too many taxes, no one wins. The consumer turns to the black market, dispensaries go out of business, and the promises politicians made with what they would do with the tax revenue from legal cannabis go unfulfilled.

Learning from California’s Mistakes

Let’s hope New York and New Jersey can learn from these lessons, and I still believe California will get its act together.

Remember – an effective cannabis regulatory framework allows for more legitimate companies to enter new markets. Dispensaries can expand from just a handful of locations to dozens or even hundreds when a state knows what it is doing.

If investing in cannabis companies is anything to go by then the volumes of cash flooding into stocks and shares in the cannabis sector indicates huge expectation, and will bring pressure to overcome the regulatory and taxation hold up and ensure these problems will be overcome.

As former Speaker John Boehner said, HUGE institutional investors are set to push billions of dollars into the legal marijuana market.And money talks.