Renato Moicano and Tom Nolan headline UFC Fight Night at Meta APEX in Las Vegas on Saturday, October 31. UFC’s current event page lists prelims at 2 p.m. and the main card at 5 p.m. for Phoenix viewers, giving Halloween an afternoon-to-evening sports option before the night’s other plans.

For cannabis-minded fans considering a Las Vegas visit, the useful connection is the setting and its rules. Nevada permits regulated adult-use cannabis, but that does not make a fight ticket permission to consume at the event. The distinction matters when a weekend combines a sporting venue, a hotel and an interest in the city’s cannabis scene.

A lightweight main event with two different positions

The current card places Moicano at No. 12 and Nolan at No. 14 in the lightweight matchup. Those are the rankings displayed on the event listing when checked, rather than numbers carried forward from an earlier announcement. The promotion’s September ticket release had a different ranking for Moicano, illustrating why the live card is the better starting point.

UFC’s September announcement explains how the matchup took shape: an injury to Brian Ortega removed his planned bout with Moicano from UFC 331, after which Moicano was assigned Nolan for October 31. That is the scheduling history, not a suggestion that Ortega is part of Saturday’s card.

For a viewer, the main event supplies a straightforward point of entry: two ranked lightweights meeting at the top of a Fight Night program. It is possible to follow that contest without treating the rest of the evening as background. Earlier bouts introduce different divisions and can change the pace of a viewing session well before the headliners enter.

What the current main card includes

UFC lists Randy Brown against Jacobe Smith at welterweight, Ode’ Osbourne against Cody Durden at flyweight, and Yana Santos against Luana Santos at women’s bantamweight. The Santos matchup is displayed as No. 6 against No. 7. Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani against Farman Hasanov is also listed at welterweight.

Those pairings make this more than a single-fight appointment. Fans interested in the smaller weight classes can note the flyweight bout, while the two welterweight matchups offer another thread to follow. This is a guide to the advertised card, not a prediction of winners or a report that the fights have already happened.

Cards can change. Use the official event page again on Saturday if a particular matchup is the reason for watching or traveling. Promotional announcements are useful records of what was planned; they should not override a later organizer update.

There is a full preliminary program

The current prelims include Francis Marshall against Dakota Hope at featherweight, Rodrigo Sezinando against Theodor Berggren at welterweight, and Julian Erosa against Jeongyeong Lee at featherweight. At middleweight, Zachary Reese is listed against Mickey Gall and Nick Klein against Joe Kropschot.

The women’s preliminary bouts listed are Talita Alencar against Piera Rodriguez at strawweight and Lucia Szabová against Tainara Lisboa at flyweight. Someone watching from the opening broadcast will therefore see several divisions before the main-card start. Someone joining later should use the scheduled main-card window rather than assume it is the headliners’ exact walkout time.

How to watch from Phoenix

UFC’s official broadcast announcement lists Paramount+ for the entire U.S. card: prelims at 5 p.m. Eastern and the main card at 8 p.m. Eastern. On October 31, that corresponds to 2 and 5 p.m. in Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Check the service’s current access requirements and local availability before settling on a viewing location. The preliminary and main-card times describe broadcast blocks, not guaranteed start times for individual bouts. Leave room for the program to unfold rather than organizing a watch party around an assumed minute for the main event.

For attendance rather than streaming, UFC’s event page links to its authorized ticket seller; check current availability there.

Keep the cannabis plan separate from venue access

The Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board says adult-use buyers must be at least 21 and purchase from a state-licensed retailer. It prohibits public consumption and consumption in a moving vehicle, including by passengers. Licensed consumption lounges are a distinct permitted setting; a sports venue is not automatically one.

The board also says private-property consumption depends on the owner allowing it and warns against impaired driving. Plan transportation before any consumption and confirm property rules rather than assume a hotel booking settles them. None of this implies cannabis use by Moicano, Nolan or any other athlete. It gives fans a practical way to enjoy the fight weekend while keeping the event, the accommodation and cannabis permissions clear.

Illustrative stock boxing gym; not the UFC Octagon, Meta APEX or the October 31 event. Photo: Ron Lach / Pexels.

Rep. Steve Cohen has proposed removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act as part of a much broader rewrite of federal drug policy. Announced October 29, the Public Health and Research Reforms in Controlled Substances Act would change how substances are classified, who oversees scientific research and how federal drug penalties are structured.

For cannabis readers, the central distinction is between a legislative proposal and an operative legal change. Cohen’s announcement does not itself deschedule cannabis, authorize a new business activity or change anyone’s existing obligations. It lays out a framework Congress would have to consider and enact.

More than a move between schedules

Cohen’s official announcement identifies marijuana’s removal from the CSA among the measure’s principal provisions. That is different from moving a substance from one controlled schedule to another. A change within the scheduling system retains a federal classification; the proposal seeks to remove cannabis from that system.

The scope also extends well beyond cannabis. The sponsor describes six titles addressing classification, scientific investigation, agency responsibilities and criminal sentencing. Treating it simply as a cannabis legalization headline would miss much of what makes the document significant: it proposes changing the machinery used to regulate many substances.

A different way to classify drugs

The office’s section-by-section analysis describes a two-axis model. Numerical schedules would address risks associated with misuse, substance use disorder and public-health threats, while alphabetical categories would address therapeutic value. The intention is to assess those dimensions separately rather than compress them into a single ladder.

The analysis also describes an expert committee and an expanded set of evaluation factors. Readers should distinguish that proposed method from evidence that a particular substance has already met a new standard. A more detailed decision process would still require assessments, records and implementation; the framework alone would not establish a medical benefit.

Another proposed shift would place core scheduling authority with the Department of Health and Human Services rather than the attorney general. Cohen’s office presents the division as allowing HHS to focus on science and medicine while enforcement authorities address diversion and illicit activity. That is the sponsor’s policy design, not an agency reorganization that has taken effect.

Research and sentencing are separate parts

The published bill text includes provisions addressing investigator registration and production quotas. The accompanying analysis describes moving research registration responsibilities to HHS and creating procedures intended to preserve continuity of research. These provisions concern how investigations can be authorized; they do not guarantee that a study will produce a favorable result.

The sentencing section would eliminate weight-based mandatory minimum drug penalties while retaining other enforcement tools and enhanced penalties in specified circumstances. It also directs revisions to federal sentencing guidelines. Removing a mandatory minimum is different from removing all judicial authority to impose a sentence, a distinction that is important when assessing the proposal’s reach.

The analysis further describes a court-based resentencing process for people whose offenses would carry lower penalties. It includes identifying potentially eligible individuals and allowing sentence-reduction motions. That should not be reported as automatic release for every person convicted of a drug offense: eligibility and the proposed judicial process remain material parts of the design.

Descheduling would not settle every cannabis rule

Title IV expressly preserves authorities under federal food, drug and public-health laws. The proposal also calls for public meetings about cannabis-product regulation, including manufacturing, safety, marketing and labeling. Its own structure recognizes that removing cannabis from the CSA would leave further product-policy questions to address.

The section-by-section document also says HHS could continue including marijuana in federal employee testing programs notwithstanding descheduling. That is a useful reminder that a substance’s controlled status and every workplace or product rule involving it are separate issues. A headline about descheduling should not be read as a universal promise that testing requirements disappear.

Federal reform would also need to be read alongside state law. The proposal’s federal scope should not be confused with an announcement that every state would adopt the same cannabis market or retail system.

How to follow the proposal

The sponsor-posted PDF reviewed for this story carries an unfilled House bill-number field. We are linking the actual document rather than supplying an unverified number or claiming committee progress that the announcement does not establish. The next useful evidence will be the formal congressional record, referrals, hearings and any revised text.

For now, the proposal offers a concrete document for debating federal cannabis reform alongside wider drug policy. Its significance lies in the combination of descheduling, research access and sentencing changes. Its practical limit is just as clear: a proposed framework is not permission to act as though federal law has already changed.

Stock photograph of the US Capitol; not an event announcing this proposal. Photo: Cristian Loayza / Pexels.

A new Michigan bill would suspend the state’s 24% wholesale cannabis tax for one year, reopening a debate with consequences for licensed businesses and the prices shoppers encounter. House Bill 6440 was introduced October 28 by Republican Rep. Jay DeBoyer and referred to the House Appropriations Committee. It has not become law, and the existing tax remains in effect.

The proposal targets the wholesale levy rather than Michigan’s separate retail taxes. That distinction matters: a pause upstream in the supply chain would not automatically erase the tax lines on a customer’s dispensary receipt or require a retailer to cut its prices by a matching percentage.

What the bill actually says

The introduced text adds a temporary exception to section 5 of the Comprehensive Road Funding Tax Act. It would stop the wholesale tax from being levied during a period beginning on the amendment’s effective date and ending one year later. It does not set an immediate October 28 start to a tax holiday.

The legislative record establishes introduction and committee referral, not passage. A bill number gives the proposal a concrete document to evaluate, but businesses should distinguish that milestone from an enacted change with an operative date. For now, there is no approved one-year suspension to build into a purchase or tax payment.

Tom Angell’s October 29 reporting for Marijuana Moment follows the filing after DeBoyer outlined his plan the previous week. It places the proposal within the wider political debate over Michigan’s cannabis tax. The actual bill offers a narrower and more useful starting point than campaign shorthand about eliminating taxes.

Where the wholesale tax sits

According to the Michigan Department of Treasury’s explanation, the levy began January 1, 2026. It applies to specified adult-use cannabis sales and transfers at the wholesale level, including the first transfer from a licensed establishment to a retail licensee. The state’s 10% retail excise tax and 6% sales tax are separate.

For a typical wholesale transaction, the wholesaler is legally responsible for paying and remitting the tax, even when it collects that cost from a retailer. This is one reason a wholesale-tax debate affects more than the final checkout screen: the obligation arises as product moves into retail inventory, before the eventual consumer purchase.

Treasury’s wholesale-price FAQ distinguishes transactions between unrelated businesses from transfers between affiliated entities. The former use the actual wholesale price as defined by law; the latter use Treasury’s quarterly average wholesale prices. A vertically integrated business therefore cannot assume that moving its own inventory avoids the tax question.

Why a pause would not equal a fixed discount

Treasury’s collection guidance provides a simple example: a $1,000 taxable wholesale sale, assuming no other invoice costs, produces $240 in wholesale tax. A wholesaler may collect that amount from the retailer. That illustrates the levy’s scale at one transaction point; it does not calculate the shelf price of each product in that shipment.

Retail pricing also reflects the underlying product cost and the business decisions made between acquisition and sale. Removing one cost could create room for lower prices, stronger margins or another adjustment. The proposed legislation does not promise which response an individual operator would choose. Shoppers should therefore be wary of translating a 24% wholesale rate into a guaranteed 24% retail discount.

There is also a timing issue for operators carrying unpaid customer invoices. Treasury says the wholesale tax is due for the quarter in which product is sold to the retailer, regardless of when that retailer pays. Changing a tax going forward is therefore different from resolving existing receivables or earlier liabilities. The introduced suspension language contains no blanket instruction to disregard prior transactions. Following the bill alongside Treasury’s published administration guidance gives a clearer picture than assuming a proposed pause would reset every outstanding business obligation.

The competing claims need evidence

In his October 22 statement, DeBoyer argued that a pause would give lawmakers time to reconsider the tax’s effectiveness and ease pressure on lawful businesses. His assertions about revenue performance and the illicit market are arguments for the proposal, not findings established simply by introducing it.

Treasury’s March implementation guidance identifies the department as the administrator and describes quarterly payments, calculations and transition-year provisions. It also explains that revenue supports roads and bridges. Evaluating a pause requires considering both business costs and the public funding affected, rather than treating either side’s desired outcome as automatic.

The next meaningful developments are committee action, any amended text and ultimately a change in law. Until then, HB 6440 is a proposal for temporary relief. The useful takeaway for readers is its precise scope: one wholesale tax, one proposed year, and no suspension currently in force.

Illustrative stock finance photograph; not Michigan tax records or a cannabis business. Photo: Kindel Media / Pexels.