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August 20, 2025
Built by a former cannabis regulator, Policy, Decoded is your high-signal daily briefing for operators, investors, and policymakers navigating the collision of law, regulation, and business.
We of course want to thank our sponsor 1440 Media for supporting today’s edition. Thanks, too, to the actual journalists working this beat and building these stories. We’re glad to be able to promote their work and hope you’ll support them by clicking the links and getting the full story.
As for the news…Ohio Medical Alliance's spectacular exposure of nearly one million medical cannabis patient records has laid bare the absurd regulatory fiction that passes for health care privacy in America's cannabis industry. The unencrypted database containing detailed health conditions, Social Security numbers, and driver's license images represents just the latest disaster in an industry collecting the most intimate details of human suffering while operating under cybersecurity standards that would embarrass a community college IT department. Meanwhile, the cannabis world mourns the loss of Richard Lee, the Oaksterdam University founder whose failed 2010 Proposition 19 sparked the domino effect that delivered today's 24-state recreational landscape.
🎯 Consider patients when storing data.
📊 Invest in IT security.
📬 Forward to compliance teams.
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