Democrats Reject Cannabis Legalization in Party Platform

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The Democratic Party’s platform committee on Monday rejected an amendment to support federal cannabis legalization, Boulder Weekly reports. The vote was 50-106 with three abstentions.

The committee did approve language supporting federal cannabis decriminalization and rescheduling, along with language calling for reforms on how drug-related crimes are prosecuted.

“We will support legalization of medical marijuana, and believe states should be able to make their own decisions about recreational use. The Justice Department should not launch federal prosecutions of conduct that is legal at the state level. All past criminal convictions for cannabis use should be automatically expunged.” – The Democratic Party platform

In the platform, Democrats call substance use disorders “diseases, not crimes” and says the party believes “no one should be in prison solely because they use drugs.”

“And rather than involving the criminal justice system, Democrats support increased use of drug courts, harm reduction interventions, and treatment diversion programs for those struggling with substance use disorders,” the platform states.

The platform follows the lead of Joe Biden – the former vice president who will challenge President Donald Trump in November – who has stopped short of calling for federal cannabis legalization throughout the campaign. Biden has indicated support for legalizing medical cannabis nationwide but, with regard to broad legalization, the nominee said in a February recording on the campaign trail that he was “not prepared” to enact the reforms.

Biden has said throughout the campaign that he supports expunging low-level cannabis crimes. During a Tuesday speech, Biden called criminal records “the weight that holds back too many people of color, and many whites as well,” according to a Marijuana Moment report.

“Under my plan, if a state decides it wants to implement an automated system for the sealing and expunging of certain nonviolent criminal records if a state chooses to do that, the federal government will help put together the process and allow them the money to be able to know how to organize to do that,” he said during his remarks.

The Republican Party platform calls neither for cannabis nor broad criminal justice reforms.

Only the Green and Libertarian platforms include nationwide cannabis legalization. The Green Party will be represented by Howie Hawkins in the general election, while the Libertarian Party nominee is Jo Jorgensen.

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Cannabis Social Equity Program Offers Debt Instead of Equity

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Editor’s note: this article is submitted by the Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council, an organization advocating for restorative justice in the Massachusetts legal cannabis industry.

If we as a country dealt with the realities of racial capitalization, we would have a legal cannabis industry thriving as a free equitable market that prioritizes true craftsmanship and restorative justice. Instead we are pushing along state by state, choking for progress under the guise of social equity. As the country pushes forward, Massachusetts finds itself falling stagnant with liberal attitudes cloaking the truthful inequities of racial capitalization. Instead of moving forward with innovation, Massachusetts developed the legal cannabis industry to mimic other (broken) industries. These industries are reeling with the disasters of capitalism today. It’s apparent when you listen closely that Massachusetts is tone deaf in comparison to what the people who have suffered from the war on drugs are saying. What leads a state that prides itself on liberalism and innovation to fall so short in comparison to other states that have legalized and addressed the need to prioritize social equity in the cannabis industry?

Legalization Was Made Possible by the Traditional Market

The traditional market is a beautiful network of phenomenal spirits who understand the spirit of the cannabis plant and work to honor it. It is because of the traditional market you can gift up to an ounce legally in Massachusetts. It’s something the people championed for, like so many other things. And more could be legal but only if the traditional market is respected and consulted – not ignored, disrespected, preyed upon, and whitewashed. The Massachusetts legal industry is a sharp contrast to the traditional market in several ways including lack of access. The legal industry (in MA) has one access point and this access point requires millions of dollars in startup capital. This is by negligence. This is by capitalism. This is by design.

Across the state of Massachusetts, countless horror stories about the crushing debt of waiting for your license application to be processed by the Cannabis Control Commission can be heard. “LET THEM FEEL WHAT WE FEEL” Leah Daniels cried in dismay after waiting over 610 days for her application to be processed. After CCC Chairman Steve Hoffman attempted to turn a room filled with a majority of white cisgender men against a black woman in a plea of support for racial capitalism, the CCC has still failed to issue a public apology to Leah Daniels for its failed leadership in dealing with its own failures and miscommunication, even after the public outcry and headlines by local journalists. It’s apparent there is an extreme disconnect between the people and the legislators/regulators shaping our cannabis industry across the country, but this is especially true in Massachusetts. We must bridge this miscommunication TODAY.

How to Build an Equitable Industry

Only today is Massachusetts starting to have a serious conversation in regards to creating a social equity fund with bill s.2650 sitting before the Senate Ways and Means Committee pushing for traction to pass before the end of the July. Tragically, Massachusetts is still processing that it has already borrowed from the traditional market and chose to invest in the prison industrial complex, along with the rest of the country. The people who founded this industry have already paid the state of Massachusetts – with their lives. It’s time for Massachusetts to SHIFT and join the rest of the country by prioritizing social equity in the quest for a free equitable market.

Shifting requires acknowledging that debt is not equity. A loan is being dressed up and called social equity in Massachusetts through support of bill s.2650. Never is there an acknowledgement from the Cannabis Control Commission that loans are a form of borrowing that create debt, nor that the financial shortfalls of 10% set aside for social equity funds when it takes millions of dollars just to open one dispensary. It is alarming how basic banking practices are being spouted as progression and slapped with the social equity stamp for approval. How can you borrow from something you created and own? This is the insanity the legal industry in Massachusetts is proposing to the traditional market today. Instead of building debt Massachusetts needs to build bridges. There is no free equitable market without acknowledgement of the failures of racial capitalism.

Massachusetts is taking baby steps towards social equity and everyone across the country knows it. Bill s.2650 simply takes 10% of cannabis tax revenue and puts it towards a social equity fund with a social equity loan for social equity and economic empowerment licenses.  “In California, the Bureau of Cannabis Control awarded $10 million in equity grant funding in October 2019, and an additional $30 million in equity grant funding was awarded by the Governors Office of Business and Economic Development in April 2020” Shaleen Title tweeted in acknowledgement of social equity grant funding in other states.

Yet Massachusetts supports loans. Loans are debt. Massachusetts should be proposing grants but apparently grants are too radical for such a liberal state. “This bill would give the support needed to these entrepreneurs, in the form of loans. In addition, I support the amendments included in Sen. Collins recent Amendment 179 to S2842 that expanded the bill to include loan forgiveness and grants, as well as a stipulation that municipalities grant host agreements to one equity business alternating with one general applicant.” Senator Patricia Jehlen.

This amendment was struck down by the Senate and Bill S.2650 still has not been amended to include anything from amendment 179 of Bill S.2842 as of today. It’s been noticed that no cannabis non-profit nor Senator has made public statements to push support of amending s.2650 to include grants other than Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council and Senator Jehlen. S.2650 should simply be amended to include a loan forgiveness program that SE/EE licensees automatically qualify for. Or even simpler: join the rest of the nation and offer grants. Either way, Massachusetts legislators and the Cannabis Control Commission need to SHIFT today.

The horror stories of securing your Host Community Agreements licenses with municipalities is never-ending. Bill s.2650 needs to address lack of protective language if it wants the funds to get out and not sit unused and poorly dispersed. In an interview with Enterprise news, entrepreneur and social equity applicant Vanessa Jean Baptiste stated “We don’t have many resources. As an economic empowerment applicant and criminal justice major, I want to help people affected by the war on drugs. It’s really not fair that people with connections can get licensed, and people without government connections have to deal with the black market, knowing that they can get arrested at any point in time.”

Including a 1:1 priority between General and SE/EE licenses on a state level would be one way to address the problem, as currently licenses are being dealt with on a municipal level and often utilize a pay-to-play system which further marginalizes our SE/EE applicants. There are federal investigations occurring in municipalities across the state of Massachusetts because of this issue. Ignoring its existence doesn’t achieve anything and only widens the systemic damage from the inequities of prohibition. The people have been championing for a 1:1 ratio for YEARS. End the corruption. Our legislators need to SHIFT today.

Follow the Money

Illinois devotes 25% of cannabis taxes toward social equity. In Massachusetts, it’s noted that the bill the CCC supports proposes a mere 10% of cannabis tax revenue. Keep in mind: it takes millions in startup capital to open one dispensary. There are 70 social equity/economic empowerment applicants with their licenses yet only 3 are open, with lack of startup funds being the number one barrier. Since the legalization of cannabis, millions of dollars have gone to pay police for traffic details at cannabis dispensaries, deemed mandatory mainly due to reefer madness mentalities. Zero dollars from cannabis tax revenue have gone toward areas disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs. 10% will assist only a few and ignore the hundreds. Who said that the people who lost the lives of loved ones, their community, & years of their own to the war on drugs only need 10% to successfully gain entry into the legal cannabis industry? Fuck liberalism. The people whose backs this industry STILL sits upon want their coins. All of them. They are not an afterthought. Our legislators need to SHIFT and amend 100% of cannabis tax revenue to the social equity fund.

It shouldn’t be hard to get social equity passed in Massachusetts, but this is a state that literally wrote into the legalization of cannabis that cannabis tax revenue would fund municipal police trainings. Prohibitionist indoctrination has shaped the legalized cannabis industry in Massachusetts from the start, and the failings of racial capitalization have already caught up with it. It will repeat over and over until there is acknowledgement. We cannot move forward until the issues on the table are addressed.

Take Action Now

The MRCC has proposed multiple amendments to the current bill that would work to address the institutional trauma of the drug war, create opportunities for impacted communities, and set Massachusetts up as an example for other states to follow.  Read about our objectives and learn more about our organization on our website, and if you believe that the people deserve an equitable industry, let the Massachusetts Senate Ways and Means committee know that you support our amendments by clicking here to call or send an email today.

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Texas’ Smokeable Hemp Ban Takes Effect on Sunday

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As of Sunday, smokeable hemp will no longer be allowed for sale in Texas, KENS5 reports. The state’s recently-approved hemp rules prohibit smokeable forms of the plant; however, other consumable hemp products will remain for sale in the state.

Some smokeable products will remain on retailer shelves but they cannot be marketed or sold as a smokeable product. The rules do not prohibit raw hemp from being cultivated, manufactured, or sold in other consumable forms. The bill does not prohibit Texas from ordering smokeable hemp products online.

Alex Reyes, manager of Mary Jane’s CBD Dispensary-Smoke & Vape Shop, estimated that 30 percent of the company’s sales come from smokable hemp, calling it “the most convenient way to ingest CBD and get the benefits of all the cannabinoids.”

Heather Fazio, executive director for Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy, called the hemp rules “bad for businesses” and said officials are “allowing fear and misinformation” to guide them.

“This is bad for safety and making sure that there’s accountability for the products consumers are purchasing.” – Fazio to KENS5

Texas issued its first hemp license in April. That month, officials said they had received a total of 546 industrial hemp applications including 458 producer applications, 58 handler applications, and 30 handler sampler applications. The law includes legalization and regulation of CBD – which is often sold in smokeable forms including flower and concentrates. All hemp-containing edible products produced in the state, including CBD, are regulated by the Department of State Health, under the law.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) approved the hemp legalization bill last June.

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Maryland High Court: Cannabis Odor Not Enough to Search a Person

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Maryland’s Court of Appeals has unanimously ruled that law enforcement officers in the state cannot make an arrest based on the odor of cannabis alone, the Baltimore Sun reports. The ruling, though, does not prevent officers from searching a vehicle based on the odor of cannabis. State case law says there is a reduced expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle and the court’s recent opinion does not challenge that law.

“The odor of marijuana, without more, does not provide law enforcement officers with the requisite probable cause to arrest and perform a warrantless search of that person incident to the arrest,” Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera in the ruling.

Barbara wrote that there is “a heightened expectation of privacy enjoyed in one’s person” that “do not attend the search of a vehicle.”

“Arresting and searching a person, without a warrant and based exclusively on the odor of marijuana on that person’s body or breath, is unreasonable and does violence to the fundamental privacy expectation in one’s body,” she wrote in the opinion.

The ruling also requires a “probable cause” search based on cannabis odor to require police to “possess information indicating possession of a criminal amount” of cannabis since it is decriminalized throughout the state.

The ruling comes in the case of Rasherd Lewis, who police said in on Feb. 1, 2017 fit the description of a man in a tip about an armed person and was followed by police into a store.

Inside the store, officers said Lewis walked past “emitting” the smell of cannabis, and Lewis was handcuffed and searched based on the smell. During the search, police found a handgun inside a bag strapped to his chest and a small amount of cannabis in his pocket.

The Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office argued that “the odor of marijuana” provided the officer with probable cause to arrest and search Lewis because any amount of cannabis is contraband, despite the 10-gram threshold for decriminalized possession.

Lewis was convicted of possessing a handgun and sentenced to three years in prison. The ruling sends the case back to Baltimore City court with instructions that prosecutors cannot use the evidence of the search that found the weapon. Lewis’ sentence and conviction will likely be vacated due to the ruling.

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Run the Jewels Announces First Branded Cannabis Strain

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Hip-hop artists Killer Mike and El-P – better known collectively as Run the Jewels – have partnered with cannabis companies Cookies and Lemonnade to release their first branded strain called Ooh LaLa. Cookies was founded by rapper and entrepreneur Berner.

The Run the Jewels line will include pre-rolls, vapes, extracts, and blunts. It will be available at Cookies and Lemonade retail stores throughout California, along with the Cookies store in Detroit, Michigan. Ooh LaLa flower and pre-rolls will also be available in Washington state, through the Hash Agency; Colorado, at Veritas Fine Cannabis; Oregon and Oklahoma, via ElectraLeaf; and later this year in Arizona and Illinois, the duo said on their website.

“We have huge respect for Berner and what he’s accomplished and we fucking love weed so this is very exciting for us.” – El-P in a statement

Berner and Killer Mike have previously worked together on Berner’s 2011 release The White Album. The strain name, Ooh LaLa, is based on the lead single of the same name from Run the Jewels’ latest album RTJ4.

Killer Mike and El-P join a long list of rappers to launch a cannabis brand or product, including Kurupt, Xzibit, Wiz Khalifa, The Game, B. Real, 2 Chainz, Jim Jones, Lil Wayne, Drake, and Snoop Dogg. Snoop’s brand, Leafs By Snoop, was found by a Green Horizons analysis as the most recognizable cannabis brand in the U.S.; however, just 23 percent of respondents had heard of the brand and no other brand had a higher rating of consumer recognition.

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Fake Cannabis Certification Scheme Claims Another 350 Missouri Patients

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At least 350 more Missouri patients have reportedly been scammed by fake physician certifications for the state’s medical cannabis program, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The number of total affected patients is about 1,000 after Department of Health Officials announced last month that 600 patients were victims of the fraud.

All of the patients believed they were talking to a real physician when completing the program paperwork required by the state; however, the person on the other end of the phone wasn’t the doctor listed on their certification paperwork and may not have been a doctor at all. Health officials believe that all of the affected patients completed the approval process through WeedCerts. According to the report, the company was offering medical cannabis certifications for $50; they usually run $150-$200.

In a July 23 Facebook post, the company said it had been able to fix about 280 of the “fraudulent certifications” and is working with another clinic to get affected patients recertified at no cost. The company said it has also issued some refunds.

The first 600 applications found to be fraudulent listed the information of Dr. Allison Medlin of Independence who denied that she had anything to do with the scheme. She said in a statement to the Post-Dispatch that she was “extremely disappointed that any company or individual would fraudulently use [her] signature.”

In a June 27 post, the company said it “thought” it was working with Medlin but “that was not the case.”

On June 22 post, WeedCerts Head of Marketing Lou Moynihan said the company “is not going to survive” the scandal but argued that “not one single employee, manager or owner, past or present, ever did anything malicious, fraudulent, or with ill intent.”

Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Senior Services, said at least one other physician’s signature was fraudulently used in the scheme and that the agency has conducted random checks of the state’s 55,000-plus certifications to make sure they were legitimate.

Affected patients have 30 days to recertify for the program.

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Thailand Allowing Hospitals to Produce Cannabis-Based Medicines

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Hospitals in Thailand can now make and provide cannabis-based medicines selected from a government-approved list of 16 recipes for traditional Thai medicines that contain cannabis as a base ingredient, the Bangkok Post reports.

Dr. Marut Jirasetthasiri, director-general of the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine, said that health promotion hospitals in the country are now free to make the medicines so long as there is an expert in traditional Thai medicine on duty to prepare them. The medicines were traditionally prescribed to help treat common illnesses in each region of the country.

Dr. Marut said the demand for traditional medicine treatments has increased so the department has allowed 152 health promotion hospitals to expand their cannabis farms. There are currently 291 units offering cannabis-based medicines at state-run medical outlets throughout the country, and more than 60,000 cannabis-based treatments have been issued so far this year, according to the report.

In January, a health clinic in Chiang Mai became the country’s first medical outlet to offer the cannabis-based medicines.

Thailand legalized the medical use of cannabis in late 2018, making it the first Southeast Asian country to do so. Adult-use cannabis, however, remains prohibited.

A proposal last November would have allowed Thai citizens to cultivate up to six cannabis plants at home and sell their harvests back to the government to be processed into medical cannabis products.

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Poll: 68% of New Jersey Voters Will Vote to Legalize Cannabis

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A new poll has found 68 percent of New Jersey residents said they would vote in favor of the cannabis legalization ballot question in November, according to a survey commissioned by law firm Brach Eichler LLC and conducted by DKC Analytics. Twenty-six percent opposed the measure.

Interestingly, 57 percent of the poll respondents indicated they were not current cannabis users. Another 17 percent said they were current users, while 14 percent said they had used cannabis in the past, and 9 percent said they would consider trying cannabis if it were legalized in the state.

The reforms were supported by 78 percent of Democrats, with 19 percent opposed; 57 percent of Republicans, with 39 percent opposed; and 63 percent of independents, with 27 percent opposed. In all, just 6 percent of respondents said they were unsure.

John D. Fanburg, co-chair of the Cannabis Law Practice at the firm, said the results confirmed that “there is overwhelming support for the creation of a regulated, adult-use cannabis marketplace in New Jersey.”

“Respondents supported it because it will create tremendous opportunity. It will create vitally needed new businesses, the state will receive significant tax revenues and illegal sales will be dramatically reduced, if not eliminated. Voters see this as a win for everyone.” – Fanburg in a statement

Poll respondents were split about whether the reforms should include local control of cannabis sales – which would allow municipalities to decide whether to allow cannabis sales within their city limits. The majority – 44 percent – of respondents favored home rule, with 41 percent opposed, and 51 percent unsure. Respondents also favored social-use lounges (50-38 percent), home delivery (55 to 33 percent), and limiting cannabis use to private property (71 to 26 percent).

Additionally, the poll found 68 percent supported expungement of low-level cannabis crimes that would be legal under the new regime. Fanburg said it is “well recognized” that minorities in New Jersey “were arrested and incarcerated for cannabis-related offenses disproportionate to non-minority populations.”

Charles X. Gormally, another co-chair of the Cannabis Law Practice, said the “strong level” of support for criminal reforms among respondents “should be well noted” by New Jersey lawmakers who will be tasked with writing and implementing the rules for legalization.

The poll surveyed 500 registered New Jersey voters from July 7-12. The poll has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

An April poll from Monmouth University also found New Jersey voters supported the reforms 61-34 percent.

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Review: Pacific Northwest Roots Hash & Rosin

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Cannabis companies come in a wide range of varieties. One of the rarest and most respected varieties are cannabis companies that successfully make the transition from the medical cannabis market to the licensed recreational market. It takes an extraordinary combination of skill, grind, and luck to make the jump.

That’s why it is so nice to tour the Pacific Northwest Roots facility on their five acres in Tahuya, Washington, along the Hood Canal fjord, one of the Puget Sound’s four major basins. A gardening oasis in a thick forest, the location is modestly sized for a Tier 3 cultivator consisting of a couple of greenhouses and a small building for propagation and making hash.

Pacific Northwest Roots overview

The setup is clearly bootstrapped and the team likes it that way. Much of the gear came right out of the team’s medical cultivation operations. And it’s interesting — even though the lighting equipment is unmatched and some walls are still lacking drywall, when you interact with the team it becomes quickly apparent that these guys know every inch of their gear, have fixed them and rebuilt them, and know how to maximize the capabilities of everything from the lights to the air conditioners. On its face, the team is more of a deeply experienced band of brothers than a commercial enterprise.

Peeking into a greenhouse grow at Pacific Northwest Roots. Photo credit: Shango Los

The company is proud to have never taken investment capital from outside sources, which gives them a certain extra amount of freedom. For example, when it was time to build out the hash lab, the team received a bid for $30,000 but the folks decided they already had all the skills amongst them and did it themselves for $10,000. By building their business on a shoestring budget, with used gear, and waiting to get their property and license at a good price, Pacific Northwest Roots was continually able to capitalize on their calm patience — an attribute in short supply during the Green Rush.

Pacific Northwest Roots founder Ras Kaya Paul established the brand in 2010 while participating in the Washington medical market. While Kaya had already established himself as someone to know for obtaining elite genetics and specialty flower, Kaya saw PNW Roots’ first serious opportunity as a hash-maker in a market accustomed to what is considered today as barely passable quality. Kaya is quick to mention that his wife Tatiana was there before day one and, while he may be the founder, Pacific Northwest Roots would not exist without her ideas and efforts.

Primarily self-taught, source material was inexpensive enough in the medical market that Kaya and the early Roots Crew were able to do a great deal of experimentation on their own while slowly establishing a collection of best practices used to guide the company’s hash-making to this day. While their in-house genetics are easily as popular as their hash, the hash is clearly what has firmly established the Pacific Northwest Roots brand in Washington State. It is the Pacific Northwest Roots genetics that have extended their brand’s reach across the entire country.

The renowned hash-makers at Pacific Northwest Roots have found success by using their own premium, sun-grown cannabis flower. Photo credit: Shango Los

While it seems like an obvious outgrowth of the company now in retrospect, it was not an original goal of Pacific Northwest Roots to put out a venerable line of seeds. Clearly, Kaya and his team were able to find genetics that they could grow that would hash well. However, Kaya’s dad was a world renown game fowl breeder and, between the game fowl and sporting hounds they raised, Kaya learned breeding basics at an early age. Kaya was hardwired for breeding and he finally felt the call to breed cannabis after wanting to produce a terpene profile that he could imagine but had not tasted.

Pacific Northwest Roots focuses on growing outdoors under the sunshine. They are going for the full terpene profiles that sun-grown is known for, as well as some of that earth magic that comes from growing with the sun instead of a sterile grow room. During the late fall when the Pacific Northwest weather gets too gray to grow, they get some assistance from lights and heating coils in the living soil beds. Indoors there is a propagation room and a Mother Room holding their genetics and the in-house breeder’s cuts of their own lines.

Pacific Northwest Roots does not use synthetic fertilizers, nutrients or pesticides, instead focusing on natural farming and permaculture techniques with a heavy dose of Korean Natural Farming (KNF) fermentations and other preparations. The farm has put in the additional effort to become Dragonfly Earth MedicineDEMPure Certified” working under the most rigorous regenerative and organic growing standards in the cannabis industry. They eschew growing in individual pots and instead opt for large raised beds in the greenhouses and hugelkultur under the naked sun. The hugels are filled with locally scavenged fallen trees, forest duff, last year’s soil, and inoculated with indigenous microorganisms. The canopy is primarily their own cultivars but you can see some other connoisseur grade rarities in the mix as well, like “Pinkleberry” from breeder Nicholas Mahmood of Green Source Gardens. The obvious omission of a large indoor cultivation area means that the team takes a break from growing during the winter and instead focuses on making hash with the fresh-frozen flowers they grew all summer long.

Photo credit: Pacific Northwest Roots

This seasonal inhale and exhale makes for some incredible hash. Pacific Northwest Roots provides five and six star hash and hash rosin as well. Controlling every aspect from the breeding of the seeds, to the cultivation, harvest time and then finishing up with the hashing and curing gives the Roots Crew an infinite number of variables to tweak while seeking to create the best hash.

The Pacific Northwest Roots genetics are collected and grown by many but there is nothing like enjoying the original breeder’s cuts when buying direct. Founder Kaya has had access to hard-to-find elite medical genetics by working with allies across the country. Due to this, the Pacific Northwest Roots library of options for crosses was significant since before normalization started rolling out nationwide.

Reviewing products

For this feature, we chose five lines of PNW Roots hash. Four hash rosins and one 6* sandy blond hash that was still unpressed.

We started off as any good morning should with Koffee, specifically Koffee Breath, an OG Kush Breath cross to Kaya’s Koffee. Kaya’s Koffee is likely the cultivar that first gave Pacific Northwest Roots seeds its national reputation. It captures coffee terpenes in a way none of us had experienced before. When Kaya’s Koffee is on its own, it is a straight hit of Koffee terps unlike many other coffee-tasting cultivars that simply mix coffee in with a range of other flavors. Kaya’s is a cleaner experience which, we suspect, is why it is such a champ to breed with. This blending of Kaya’s Koffee and OGKB pretty much tastes like drinking your morning coffee while pumping gas into your car. It has that warming and life-giving Koffee terpene but with fuel swirling all around.

Photo credit: Pacific Northwest Roots

Next was PNW Roots’ Hamma Hamma which is a cross of the legendary 9lb Hammer by Jinxproof with Kaya’s Koffee. We expected the Hamma Hamma to have that same Koffee terpene profile. We were certainly surprised to find that the usually barely-there taste of lemongrass that often comes with 9lb Hammer was right up front when made into a hash. That lemongrass blended with the roasted humus taste of the Kaya’s Koffee and became something more like chai or maybe even sweet chicory root. We all agreed that there was a delightfully distinct Play-Doh taste when dabbed onto an enail as well, which we all liked. I found that this is the one that I came back to first the next day.

Pacific Northwest Roots’ Strawberry Yogurt originated in a Strawberry Kush bagseed but then was bred, after a large sift, for its strawberry and dairy duality. One of the fun things about this strawberry hash is that it is not natural berry strawberry tasting. Rather, it tastes like the enduring strawberry taste of breakfast cereal. More like Crunchberries and less like fresh fruit. When smoking it, you get an immediate hit of breakfast as a kid that dissolves into a dairy taste, more milk-like really than yogurt because it doesn’t have that fermented bite that yogurt has. The finish is very balanced and makes you want to take that ride again right away.

The Key Lime Koffee we enjoyed was more lime pith and rind taste than the bright green lime we usually think of when we think Key Lime. That understatedness worked for us though since we had just sampled that bright strawberry cereal taste prior. This was a bit more sophisticated with that lime being accompanied by oiled leather and earthen notes. It was a bit more gentle on the palette than the other four and I’d choose to start with this one if taking it to a sesh so that my tongue could pick up the subtitles before getting blown out by less subtle OGs and heavy fuels.

Finally, Vanilla Koffee was a blend of cultivars pressed together as a wine vintner would do. I’ve become a big fan of whole-plant rosin hash blends. So long as the hash maker is blending whole plant hash and not adding outside terpenes, I’m all for it. Vanilla Koffee starts with warming roasted coffee overtones mixed with fuel. As that opens up, more of the vanilla bean comes through ending in kind of a creamy caramel dairy finish. When dabbed, a raw almond flavor comes out too and blends with the fuel.

No doubt, when you are standing in the Roots farm office with exposed wood walls while hearing about their vinyl LP records and resin floor, you definitely get the idea that you are visiting a clubhouse of artisans more than necessarily a business. Sure, I saw the signs of business, and certainly it takes mature business systems to interact with the state regulators and turn a profit, but there is a vibe that “great work” is happening here and that is what the team is constantly focused on. And this brings us back to why cannabis companies that started in the medical days are in a category of their own — there is a certain something that prohibition-era producers have that those new to cannabis just don’t have. For better or for worse, these same casually-driven work habits sink many cannabis companies but for Pacific Northwest Roots, persistence and patience are paying off.

Pacific Northwest Roots Instagram: @PacificNwRootz & @PacificNwRoots_
Pacific Northwest Roots Seeds Instagram: @worldwideroots

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EU Considers Labeling Some CBD Products as Narcotics

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The European Commission is considering labeling naturally-derived CBD food products “narcotic-related” and has suspended applications for novel food with non-synthetic CBD, according to a Just Food report. The plan would not add the label to novel foods – described by the European Union as a product not widely consumed before 1997 – that contain synthetic CBD.

A spokesperson for the European Commission said the label would be added to products containing “CBD extracted from the flowering and fruiting tops of the hemp plant.” The spokesperson added that the commission has informed applicants of the novel food program about their “preliminary views” and has asked them to comment on the proposal.

Those “preliminary views,” the spokesman said, consider hemp-derived CBD as a narcotic drug under the 1961 United Nations Single Drug Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

“The commission must verify whether the individual applications fall within the scope of the Novel Foods Regulation and whether the data requirements are fulfilled. This includes a verification of whether the specific product falls within the definition of food. The commission will make a decision on the validity of the concerned applications afterward. … Applications for synthetic CBD can be considered valid and some have already been sent to the European Food Safety Authority for risk assessment.” – European Commission spokesperson via Just Food

The commission will also review applications for other hemp-derived products “including extractions from the flowering parts but also from other plant parts,” the spokesperson said, alluding to flavonoids and terpenes.

While the policy is being considered, businesses will be allowed to continue selling hemp-derived CBD food products that have been previously approved.

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France Reduces Drug Possession Penalties to €200 Fine

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Police in France will issue on-the-spot fines of €200 for illegal drug use, including cannabis, beginning in September, French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Saturday. According to the France24 report, the fines had already been tested in several French cities but under the new policy, the penalties will now be enforced nationwide.

French law permits fines up to €3,750 and jail time for the public but few are incarcerated under the law, the report says. French people are Europe’s leading consumers of cannabis and a 2015 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction report found that the number of 15-and 16-year-olds who use cannabis is higher in France than any other country in Europe.

In 2015, 140,000 people in France were arrested for drug offenses, with just 3,098 sentenced to incarceration.

Castex said on Saturday that the new rules allow police to apply a “punishment without delay.” The policy includes provisions reducing the fine to €150 if paid within two weeks, but courts can levy a fine up to €450 if the payment is not settled within 45 days. Castex told reporters that 150 law enforcement jobs would be created along with the new policy to “strengthen local criminal action for the repression of everyday delinquency,” according to a Euronews report.

President Emmanual Macron supported spot fines during his presidential campaign, saying they could be used to deter petty crimes that often go unpunished.

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Portland, Maine to Vote on Removing Cannabis Industry License Caps

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Voters in Portland, Maine will vote in November whether or not to remove the city’s cap on cannabis businesses, News Center Maine reports. The successful campaign comes more than two months after the state reached a legal agreement with cannabusiness that had sued the state that will prevent officials from enforcing an industry resident requirement.

David Boyer, who led the campaign, said removing the cap will allow for “a fair and open market” since “the state has proved it will not defend Maine from outside, big corporations” entering the state’s industry.

“At a time of such economic uncertainty, it does not make sense to cap legal jobs and legal businesses. We are confident that Portland voters will endorse cannabis regulations rooted in fairness and inclusivity this November.” – Boyer in a statement via News Center Maine

The campaign collected more than 2,400 petition signatures; 1,500 were required. The initiative will be read during an Aug. 3 City Council meeting, with a public hearing on the measure expected on Aug. 31.

Maine was sued by the Wellness Connection and Wellness and Pain Management Connection of Delaware, subsidiaries of High Street Capital Partners of Delaware, arguing that the residency requirement included in the state’s cannabis legalization law violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution which forbids restrictive and discriminatory commercial regulations between the states.

In May, the Portland City Council voted to keep the residency requirements intact despite the outcome of the lawsuit against the state. Supporters of that decision said the city’s residency regulations would be easier to defend in court because unlike the state’s four-year residency requirement locals will get preferential treatment by the city only if it gets more than 20 applications and must break a tie among those with similar business experience, bank deposits, and employee wages.

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Clint Eastwood Sues CBD Brands for Using His Likeness to Promote Products

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Clint Eastwood is suing 20 CBD companies claiming they used his name and likeness without his permission, along with made-up quotes from the actor, to promote their products, according to a Fox News report. His lawyers told the BBC that Eastwood “does not have and never has had” any partnership with any CBD company.

Sera Labs, one of the firms named in the suit, said in a statement that they “worked for a limited time with a publisher and gave them specific advertisements they could use which follow our very strict guidelines and shut down the ads immediately after learning that they used Eastwood’s name and likeness.” The firm said they are no longer working with the publisher in question.

The lawsuit takes aim at “fake news” articles about Eastwood and CBD. One titled “Big Pharma In Outrage Over Clint Eastwood’s CBD” claims that the actor is leaving the movie business to promote CBD products. Another “internet scam” uses the actor’s image and tagged their websites with his name to make it appear he backs the products.

“By using Mr. Eastwood’s name in hidden metatags, Defendants have figuratively posted a sign with Mr. Eastwood’s trademark in front of their online store to attract consumers and caused the consuming public to believe that Mr. Eastwood is associated with and/or endorsed the CBD Online marketplace Defendants’ CBD products, when no such association actually exists.” – Court documents via Variety

A representative told Variety that the actor “does not express a point of view about CBD products or the legal CBD industry” and that the lawsuit specifically targets “the illegal use of Mr. Eastwood’s name and likeness, and dissemination of false and defamatory statements about him, to sell someone else’s products.”

The defendants named in the suit include Sera, Greendios, For Our Vets LLC, Norok Innovation, Natural Stress Solutions, and Mabsut Life US Corp.

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San Francisco City College Offering Cannabis Studies Degree

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City College of San Francisco is rolling out a two-year cannabis studies degree program for the fall semester – an expansion to the cannabis industry courses it already offers, San Francisco News reports. The college first announced it would offer industry-related courses in 2017.

The associate degree program requires three courses: Introduction to Cannabis – which the college has offered previously – Anthropology of Cannabis, and Psychology of Psychoactive Drugs. Students must also take four electives.

Jennifer Dawgert Carlin, Chair of the Behavioral Sciences Department and head of the program, told the News that students could use the degree as a “specialized area” to transfer to a four-year program and study public policy, anthropology, or public health.

“We’re not here to teach people what to think about cannabis and the subjects. Our job is to teach people how to think about it. Our hope is that students will come and not only learn about cannabis if they want to be working in the industry, but also to understand how powerfully important cannabis as a concept and as a phenomenon is.” – Carlin to the San Francisco Examiner

CCSF Chancellor Rajen Vurdien told the Examiner that the program “shows how fast the college moves to address societal problems and issues and at the same time to address the needs of the job market as they emerge.”

When the college first announced it would offer a cannabis industry-related course, it was a partnership with the United Food and Commercial Workers union and Oakland-based Oaksterdam University and program enrollees had to be sponsored by the UFCW or another union with apprenticeship programs in the cannabis space.

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Michigan Cannabis Company Partners with Tribe for Retail Dispensaries

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Lume Cannabis Company has been awarded an adult-use cannabis license for the tribal lands of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Chippewa County, Michigan. The deal allows Lume to open a retail dispensary this year with up to five more through 2022.

Joel Schultz, Sault Tribe economic development executive director, said the tribe is “honored” to work with Lume, which is the largest vertically-integrated cannabis company in Michigan, calling it “a big moment” for the tribe.

“The Sault Tribe is working progressively to diversify economic development to enhance revenues to expand services to Sault Tribe Members. Lume has the expertise, passion, values and philosophy that make them the ideal company to work with to bring recreational cannabis to Sault Ste. Marie.” – Schultz in a statement

Lume President and COO Doug Hellyar said the deal will take the company’s operations “to the next level.”

“We are excited about our partnership with the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and pleased to announce we’ve received an adult-use marijuana retail license to open our newest Lume location,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to introducing our high-quality cannabis products to adult-use customers and medical patients age 21 and up with a valid medical card in Sault Ste. Marie and the surrounding communities.”

Lume currently has 10 locations throughout Michigan. It’s cultivation and production facility is in Evart. The tribe is the largest east of the Mississippi.

According to a High Times report, Lume also has a partnership with the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians for retail shops in Petoskey and Mackinaw City. Mackinaw City does not allow retail cannabis sales but has no control over tribal lands.

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Massachusetts Cannabis Commissioner ‘Embarrassed’ by Industry Inequities

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Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commissioner Shaleen Title said in a Boston Public Radio interview that she is starting to become “embarrassed” by the state’s cannabis industry inequities along with a plan by the House to use cannabis-derived revenues for police training.

During the interview, Title said the House plan “struck a chord with a lot of people” and she had “a visceral reaction … to see an equity bill funding police before equity has been funded in many ways.

“The chairman said earlier he was proud other states are following in our lead,” she said, referring to comments by MCC Chairman Steve Hoffman. “And I was proud, but at this point, four years later, I’m started to becoming embarrassed, to be honest.”

Just three of the 70 economic empowerment applicants approved by the commission have opened for business.

Title also took aim at the so-called community host agreements – deals between cannabis companies and their host cities – as “a way to extract money” from businesses.

“The local approval process, particularly the host community agreement, was meant to be an agreement between businesses and the municipality they’re located in to discuss things like hour of operation, signage, the typical things a city would control. But what it turned into was this perversion where many – not all – but many towns and cities are using the host community agreement as a way to extract money, donations, sometimes from businesses.” – Title to WGBH

Hoffman has previously criticized the agreements as a barrier to entry for potential social equity applicants who might not have the ability to pay the 3 percent required under the law, and often cannot pay more than that. Hoffman told MassLive that the host agreements do “give a disproportionate advantage to bigger companies that can afford to throw in a fire truck on top of their 3 percent.”

Those host agreements came under fire initially after the arrest of Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia, who allegedly used the host agreement to extort tens-of-thousands of dollars from cannabis companies. Last year, U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling convened a grand jury focused on the potential bribery of government officials by Massachusetts cannabis companies and subpoenaed the municipalities of Eastham, Great Barrington, Leicester, Newton, Northampton, and Uxbridge as part of his investigation.

In an opinion article published in the Boston Globe last week, Title and Hoffman urged lawmakers to pass a Senate bill that would establish a loan fund for equity applicants, along with other reforms to make the industry fairer.

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Curaleaf Completes Acquisition of Grassroots

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Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. has completed its acquisition of GR Companies Inc. – better known as Grassroots – making it the largest vertically-integrated multi-state cannabis operator in the U.S. by revenue.

The deal expands Curaleaf’s presence from 18 to 23 states, 135 affiliated dispensary licenses, 88 operations dispensaries, more than 30 processing facilities, and 22 cultivation sites with 1.6 million square feet of growing capacity.

The deal was announced last July for $875 million in cash and stock. Grassroots Co-Founder and CEO Mitchell Kahn, who was named to the Curaleaf board of directors at the deal’s close, said the companies have “a combined strategic vision to create a dominant position in the industry.”

Joseph Lusardi, CEO of Curaleaf, said the deal firmly established the company’s market leadership position.

“The integration of Grassroots is expected to be immediately accretive to our financial performance, with our unprecedented scale providing significant opportunities to leverage Curaleaf’s powerful consumer brands as well as new form factor innovations across our expanded national presence.” – Lusardi in a statement

Curaleaf now operates in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, and Vermont.

Under the announced terms of the deal, Curaleaf paid $75 million in cash, 102.8 million subordinate shares of Curaleaf, and $40 million in Curaleaf shares priced at the 10-day volume-weighted average price prior to the transaction’s closing.

Curaleaf also this year completed their acquisition of Select brand parent company Cura Partners Inc. and last month announced that they were expanding that brand into four new state markets through next month.

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Cannabis Brands Accuse New Mexico of Copy-Pasting Rules From Other States

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Four more New Mexico cannabis businesses and a patient licensed to grow their own have filed legal complaints in state district court asking a judge to throw out the industry rules adopted by the state Department of Health earlier this month, according to New Mexico Political Report. The two producers, manufacturer, and testing laboratory join Ultra Health in the bid to have the new testing, labeling, and safety rules annulled.

Like Ultra Health’s petition, the businesses and patient are calling the rules “arbitrary and capricious.”

Former Public Regulation Commission Jason Marks is representing Scepter Labs – one of just two cannabis testing labs in the state – and medical cannabis manufacturer Vitality Extracts in their case. The plaintiffs argue that the testing language included in the reforms used rules from other states and that out of more than 15,000 tests conducted in New Mexico since the rule was implemented, none of the medical cannabis tested was positive for mycotoxins. Marks argues that the relatively small number of positives for mycotoxins in cannabis are from “climates more likely to lead to mycotoxin production than New Mexico’s.”

Marks also argues that the new rules increasing the sample size required for testing wind up “wasting medicine and increasing costs” for patients and that sample sizes should be left up to labs doing the testing.

Jacob Candelaria, a Democratic state senator representing G&G Genetics who joined the initial petition with Ultra Health, argued in the new filing that the Health Department “did not adequately or sufficiently evaluate the effect that its new testing regime will have on the price of medical cannabis to qualified patients.”

Heath Grider, who is represented by former Libertarian attorney general candidate Blair Dunn and Jared Vander Dussen, contends that the new rule prohibiting cannabis and hemp from being grown at the same facility prevents him from making money from hemp and growing his own medical cannabis. Grider is a patient licensed to grow his own but also grows and sells industrial hemp to supplement his income.

“Depriving patients of the benefits of a personal production license unless they forego their statutory right to engage in hemp production pursuant to a permit from the Department of Agriculture is not just arbitrary and capricious; it is completely unmoored from logic and fairness.” – Dunn and Vander Dussen in the petition via the Political Report

The petitioners also argue that the Health Department has no jurisdiction over hemp cultivation and, therefore, the rule is invalid.

Medical cannabis producer Pecos Valley Production is also named as a plaintiff in the initial suit filed against the Health Department last week. Ultra and Pecos gave the DOH 30 days to respond to the filing. The agency has neither commented on the suit nor filed a response in court.

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Jake Bullock: Redefining ‘Social Drinking’ With Cannabis

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Cannabis beverages are becoming more and more common as the industry takes shape. As a self-made expert in cannabis beverage infusions, Jake recently joined our podcast host TG Branfalt to discuss Cann‘s company history, explain how his background in mainstream finance influenced his decision to enter the cannabis space, and describe cannabis consumers’ rapidly changing preferences, which have placed a new emphasis on low-dose and microdose cannabis products.

Tune in via the player below, or scroll down to check out a full transcript of this week’s Ganjapreneur.com podcast episode!


Listen to the podcast:


Read the transcript:

Commercial: This episode of The Ganjapreneur Podcast is brought to you by CannaPlanners. CannaPlanners is on a mission to normalize the emerging cannabis industry through beautiful design and professional web and marketing solutions. Whether you’re looking to create a new cannabis brand, improve your packaging design, or get your company online, CannaPlanners has the perfect solution. Your website is the window into your cannabis company. Make sure that you look awesome, that your messaging is on point, and that traffic converts to customers through SEO. From CBD companies to dispensaries and everything in between, CannaPlanners has you covered. Visit them online today at cannaplanners.com for a free web demo. That’s cannaplanners.com.

TG Branfalt: Hey there, I’m your host TG Branfalt. And thank you for listening to the ganjapreneur.com podcast, where we try to bring you actionable information and normalize cannabis through the stories of ganjapreneurs, activists, and industry stakeholders. Today I’m joined by Jacob Bullock. He’s one of the co-founders of Los Angeles, California-based Cann. They’re the makers of Cann social tonics, a low dose cannabis-infused beverage. How are you doing this afternoon, Jake?

Jake Bullock: Doing all right. How are you TG?

TG Branfalt: I’m great, man. I’m great. I’m really excited to talk about this. So, as many of the listeners on this show know, I actually don’t consume any alcohol. I don’t live in a legal state. I’ve actually never lived in a legal state, but through the underground markets, I’ve obtained many different sort of beverages, from the syrups… When I went to Michigan, I bought a bunch of root beer. I went to a Cannabis Cup there. When I go to Massachusetts, I try to find drinks. They’re not often available there, which is really frustrating. So talking about drinks in particular is something I’m very excited about.

So before we get into the culture and the products, tell me about yourself, man. How’d you end up in the cannabis space?

Jake Bullock: It’s kind of an interesting story. So I had grown up in Colorado and that kind of was the foundation for me. I’d followed the legal industry there as they sort of went recreational legal as the first state. And have been prior to starting Cann, worked with consumer brands. I’d done stuff in finance, banking, investing, consulting. Actually met my co-founder, Luke, as a management consultant in San Francisco. And the common thread there was really working with consumer brands.

And I always knew that I wanted to start a consumer brand. And it was right as I got to business school in California that California went through its Legalization process for the rec market. And it kind of was like this perfect storm of timing, where I had these two years of business school where you wake up every day and go to class to sort of think about these ideas and this new industry that was sort of transitioning into a legal industry in California right at the same time.

And so I got really excited about spending those two years thinking about, what would you do in the space and what would that look like? And for me, having followed what happened to Colorado and thinking as a consumer or sort of what products would resonate, a beverage was the most obvious thing. We have thousands of years of human history socializing around beverage. If you think about how most folks consume mild intoxicants, whether that’s caffeine or alcohol, we’re doing it in a beverage and we’re doing it in a micro dose in a beverage. And so the idea was, what happens? What does that look like in the cannabis industry? Can you create a product that sort of looks and feels like an alcoholic beverage, but with maybe not a lot of the downsides and a lot of the really positive sort of social buzz. And so that was the idea.

TG Branfalt: So you end up at some point during your career at Bain Capital, correct?

Jake Bullock: Correct.

TG Branfalt: And a lot of people associate Bain Capital with Mitt Romney Republicanism, right? And this sort of vulture atmosphere, right? And that’s not to say that that’s true or false, that’s just sort of the social conscious sort of way that they think about it. So how do you go from Bain Capital to the cannabis space? I mean, it seems like such a jump.

Jake Bullock: Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, in some ways it is, right? I spent a lot of time at Bain Capital, before that at Bain & Company, before that, investment banking. Works in sort of a traditional mindset, right? Whether it’s client services or whether it’s investing. Waking up, having a very clear path about what you’re supposed to do, you’re working on a team, often with a lot of really smart people, but you sort of do the same thing over and over again. And in some ways there’s differences, but for the most part, it is sort of a corporate grind. And you think about that path and the politics and how do you move to the next level? And what does that require? And do you even like what you’re doing every day, right?

All those questions were ones that in more ways or not hit me while I took this two years to go to business school. And I think personally about my career in life up until this point, have always been really rewarded by taking risks that felt really uncomfortable and really different than what was expected of me. Even though in those moments there was a lot of short term anxiety and fear, potentially that things would go wrong and it would be terrible mistake. Leaning into those experiences in my life has actually served me really well. And so I kind of approached this problem similarly, which was, wow, are you really going to give up a career in investing and start brewing a cannabis beverage in your basement or garage? Which is where we started.

And you kind of approach it the way that I think smart people do, which is you talk to consumers. You ask them like, am I crazy? What do you think of this product? Would you use this? And you try to convince yourself that it makes sense. But that doesn’t take away how big of a risk it felt at the time and how scary it is in the moment.

But like I said, I think that to really break out of that grind, out of those expectations, and do something that you really love and that you’re excited about. We first started testing some of these beverage products and some of them were terrible, but some of them were really good, and the good ones were exciting. I mean, you would see people’s eyes light up and they would be like, you have to do this. You’re telling me that you’re going to do this. This needs to exist. And those are really cool moments where you’re like, okay, maybe there’s something here.

TG Branfalt: So what about your peers in the investment industry? What was their response when you told them that that’s what you are passionate about and that’s what you were going to do next?

Jake Bullock: Yeah, it’s interesting. So one of the things you learn while investing, and I learned, was how to describe an opportunity, particularly a financial one, right? I think I did a good job of selling them on the opportunity. I had no idea how hard and how crazy it was going to be, and in hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have done it if I knew.

But the interesting people were actually not my investing peers. It was friends and family, people really close to you that are sort of saying, what are you thinking? This is crazy. And one of the hardest things I think about starting any company, let alone something in the cannabis industry where there still is a little bit of a stigma, particularly in certain parts of the country, is the people closest to you are often the ones that are the least supportive, are the ones who have relationships that are sort of founded in fear and want you to sort of be the least risky as you can possibly be. And that’s really hard, because in those moments when you’re thinking, do I do this or not? They’re really lonely moments.

TG Branfalt: You had mentioned the challenges that you had. Can you describe to me some of those challenges that you faced when launching this company? I mean, you say you started it from your garage. I mean, that alone, to build something from your garage is a testament, right? So can you just sort of tell me about the journey, of the challenge?

Jake Bullock: Yeah, definitely. So we started kegging prototypes of this product in our garage, force carbonating it. We got a little pony keg and a little CO2 tank. Juicing ginger in a blender to try get that extract flavor. Playing around with all sorts of different formulations, dosage levels. And then bottling them in these brown bottles and sending them off. At the time I was in business school so I was sending these off with classmates basically, in six packs, and having them come back and say, okay, how many did you have? Did you share them? What was the effect? What did you like? What didn’t you like?

TG Branfalt: You had to do your own marketing research.

Jake Bullock: Yeah. A hundred percent.

TG Branfalt: Wow.

Jake Bullock: And did it face to face with consumers. And I think that was such a powerful point in the early development of the product, because you learned a ton. This is when we sort of settled on two milligrams as being the right amount of THC in a product. And that still to this day is somewhat controversial, but we saw it. We saw it in people’s eyes and in the data, in their feedback when they talked about this product. And that was the sweet spot. That was what allowed people that were first time, never to cannabis consumers, to consume one or two. And it allowed people that were more casual consumers of the product to do three, four, five. And that felt right, that’s sort of like how you might drink alcoholic beverages. And so, those types of learnings were huge.

I think the hard stuff… There’s so much, there’s so many things that were hard. For me personally, moving to my parent’s basement and living out of there for six months while we tried to formulate and fundraise and do all that stuff, was quite the experience.

And something that I wasn’t really expecting, if you would have asked me maybe five years ago where my career would have led me, me and Luke trapped in a room for six months, just the two of us, trying to figure out what this brand really stands for and what it says about people and what the voice and the culture and what matters in the company is. Convincing first people to come work for us was really, really hard. I mean, why would anyone do that? That seems like a crazy idea. And having to sell them on the vision and why this product matters and then actually having them join was this incredible experience.

And then thinking about how this job more from developing a product to then making that into a company and how does that fit strategically into this industry that has a whole host of challenges? In some ways we started out getting really excited about developing a consumer brand, right? That was our energy. That’s where our backgrounds were. And we probably spend 10% of our time talking about brand. We’d love it to be a hundred. The other 90% we’re spending on regulatory compliance, operations, all this stuff that’s just not very fun or exciting and only has downsides. But you have to do it because that’s what we signed up for. And so, I could go on and on about all the crazy hard things we’ve had to go through, but-

TG Branfalt: It’s sort of wild because you don’t have this background in brewing. You don’t really have this background in market research. But you do have this background in investment and money. And in January, you guys closed a $5 million financing round, which congratulations.

Jake Bullock: Thank you.

TG Branfalt: And then since then, I’ve read several reports that indicate financing in the space has been drying up lately due to first low company valuations and now the coronavirus. What’s been your experience either trying to find maybe additional financing or conversations with others in the space about financing right now in the industry?

Jake Bullock: Yeah. It’s really hard. And it’s been hard, really, since the fall. I think there are sort of two things that you identified there that are important. The first was, the cannabis industry, before even COVID-19 really, we started talking about that in a serious way, cannabis industry was having some issues. And I think it was primarily driven by the public market, the really big cannabis companies underperforming expectations, which had sort of an effect all the way down the entire market, just even to small folks like us. And I think primarily that’s been because in the early days of states legalizing recreational cannabis, there was a lot of energy behind oh, the entire industry in the state that wasn’t the black market is now going to the legal market and that just hasn’t happened. It’s been much slower. The implementation of regulations have real impacts. There are tons and tons of taxes which can often protect a black market.

And the biggest thing that we think is really slowing the transition in a lot of these states is the product mix. That you still have a lot of products that make sense for really, really heavy cannabis users, folks with high tolerances. We know cannabis tolerances are exponential, so they’re folks that over time, and particularly daily cannabis users, that need those products. But there’s so many more that don’t, and they come into a dispensary for the first time, say when you open up in Illinois or California, in these big cities, and they have no idea what to do. Or they’re recommended a product and they have a budtender tell them, oh, this is 10 milligrams, maybe take half of it and they take the whole thing. Or they even take half of it and that’s too much, right? So we think the product mix needs to evolve.

And the products at Cann are two milligrams. We’re the lowest dose on the market in California for THC, and that’s a perfect entry point for somebody that is looking to have a good cannabis experience and never have that scary, anxious, “I was too high,” or paranoid feeling. So we think that needs to transition.

The other big thing that you pointed out was COVID. And so that’s creating a lot of issues now as well. And I think it’s one of those things where it’s very much a wait and see. I know that for us, the retail side has been really challenged with shelter in place and curbside pickup only. A lot of dispensaries either didn’t have that in place or had to very quickly spin it up, which has been challenging. They’re seeing traffic way, way down. Where on the delivery side, it’s the complete opposite, right? Delivery platforms are adding thousands of customers every week. And there’s a real sense that folks that maybe weren’t interested in trying cannabis products are trying them for the first time, maybe after spending six weeks quarantine drinking alcohol every night, it’s driving them crazy.

So, all those things are creating a really, really challenging fundraising environment. Our view has been, in one way, we’ve been really lucky, which is we’ve been able to access capital outside of traditional cannabis investors. We’ve got both cannabis investors and non-cannabis investors in our portfolio. So the round that you mentioned, the five million that we recently closed, was led by Imaginary Ventures out of New York city, who this is their first investment in cannabis. And they think of us as a social beverage, right? THC happens to be our functional ingredient. Just like a lot of other social beverages may use caffeine or other adaptogens as their functional ingredient in their beverages, ours is THC.

And really what we’re trying to do is get people to drink 10, 20, 30% less alcohol and drink Cann instead. That story is a really interesting one that sort of transcends what’s happening in cannabis, into what’s happening in traditional consumer CPG. If you think about all these better for you products that take sort of an existing product, like for us it’s alcohol, but for others it may be meat, or it may be pasta, and they swap out the negative ingredient with an alternative. It’s kind of what we’re doing in some ways. And so, there’s a real opportunity for that.

We also had Global Founders Capital come in. It was their first cannabis investment. And that round was also led by …, which is a great cannabis investor. And so you have a little bit of both. We’ve taken the approach of, for us to really be successful we need to have one foot in the cannabis industry and one foot out of it because we’re constantly taking learnings from both places and bringing them together in this company.

TG Branfalt: So in your opinion, why did these institutions, these capital institutions, take that shot on you guys and your company for the first time, for their first investment?

Jake Bullock: Right. Yeah. I think there’s a lot of things we have going, and the first thing is the product. You have to try the product. I mean, every meeting we have with folks we’re like, have you tried the product? How do we get you to try the product? Because there’s really something special about the flavor. I mean, this is something we designed to be an innovative product in and of itself. This is not sort of, oh, it’s X, but we added cannabis. We were like, what is that new category of cannabis beverages that function a lot like light beer in that they have the same potency, but no hangover, low calorie, but not like zero calorie. We don’t need fake sugar or sugar substitutes. And so we spent a ton of time formulating this product to be that. People love it. They fall in love with it. They try it, they’re like, wow, this is incredible.

And then you have, I think, the moment, the timing, which is… When we first started this company, people were like, this is way too early. You should wait. Wait another two years. It’s too early for cannabis beverage. And then everything came out about Constellation and Canopy and they’re saying, oh, it’s too late. You missed the boat. And it’s like, okay, well maybe if people are saying it’s too late and too early, we’re probably somewhere in the right zone there from a timing standpoint. If you think about broad consumer trends, a lot of people are frustrated with their alcohol consumption. 21 out of 25 adults want to moderate or reduce their alcohol consumption. We’re seeing it even grow further with quarantine.

And a lot of folks are saying, oh, I’m not going to a bar or a restaurant. How do I socialize? What does that mean? What does socializing look like where I can’t drink a handful of alcoholic drinks at a bar? And that’s really cool. We’re taking advantage of that in some ways, by trying to get people to swap out Canns for their alcohol. And so the timing I think is also pretty good, which helps get an investor like that over the hump.

And then I think the third thing is, we have an awesome team and they’ve done an incredible job of executing in a really tough environment. I mean, the California cannabis market is hard. We’re selling a product we often say, which is like selling light beer in speakeasies at the end of prohibition, right? No one in a speakeasy wants light beer. They’re looking for liquor, and they’re totally fine with the liquor. And liquor is going to continue on and be a huge market. But so was light beer. And then that opportunity is what’s being missed, and it’s primarily because of the distribution sort of restrictions that we have in place. But we think that will change. Now it may take a while, but waking up every day and trying to convince folks that, hey, cannabis is not that scary. It’s better than alcohol. Alcohol is the worst thing you do to your body. We feel good about our ability to do that.

TG Branfalt: So, as I said at the top, I love cannabis beverages. I also love low dose beverages. I regularly will take five milligrams and it makes me feel great. I’m also a heavy consumer. I mean, I smoke quite a bit. So for me, I sort of bridge both, right? Because I don’t drink, I do use low dose cannabis in social situations, so I’m not eating everybody’s meals. What’s the pitch or what’s the appeal for Cann tonics for daily heavy cannabis consumers? Is that a demographic that’s included in your marketing, your longterm vision?

Jake Bullock: Yeah, it’s a great question. So the way I would try to sell you if you came into a dispensary and they were sampling Cann wouldn’t actually be, this is the perfect product for you. It would be something little bit different, which is, have you ever been in a situation where you have a bunch of friends that aren’t huge cannabis consumers, but you are? You don’t really want to drink alcohol, they tend to drink alcohol. And how do you sort of introduce them to cannabis? Your friends, people that you want to spend time with, but maybe choose to drink alcohol as their mild intoxicant of choice. And so what a cool way, if you’re hosting a party, if you’re going to a party, to bring a six pack of Cann and sort of introduce your friends that aren’t as into cannabis as you, to cannabis. It’s such a safe product for them, they are guaranteed to have a good experience. And it’s controllable, right? So they can have one, two, three, four, depending on what they want to feel and the timing that they’re thinking about spending.

And so that’s kind of how we think about it for folks that are maybe daily cannabis users. Now we hear interesting stories of people that are saying, oh, I love drinking Cann while smoking, because I get high and then it’s this nice sort of like THC/CBD blend that helps me through that. Or folks that say, yeah, I can’t always smoke everywhere I go, so crushing a couple of Canns is great. But again, that’s going to be a really, really mild buzz for them, but we hear it, so…

TG Branfalt: So is it sort of your thought that the industry is… Or are you seeing the industry in California… Said that your product is the lowest THC on the market. Do you think that it’s trending towards low dose and microdosing?

Jake Bullock: We’re definitely seeing that. I think one of the things that’s slowly happening, but it’s definitely happening, is you’re seeing folks that had a bad experience with cannabis in the past. Maybe this was like a brownie in college that they’ll never forget, or maybe recently in sort of the early days of the rec market in California were eager to get in and had a bad experience, that were sort of lapsed cannabis consumers that are coming back. And when they come back they know to say, I do not want to get too high. I had this horrible experience. What is the lowest thing? And there’s some great products on the market. And I think some of the really interesting ones that we see that aren’t beverages that are also low dose are growing really well. The mints that often can be really low dose seem to do really well as well. And so you’re starting to see that.

I think the other thing is beverage as a whole as a category is getting a little bit more traction, both low dose and some of the more moderate and higher dose beverages as people start thinking about… One of the biggest change has happened is emulsion technology has improved a lot. And so you don’t have those like really oily mouthfeel, sediment, particulates coming out of the beverage. They tend to be much stronger than maybe they would have been two years ago. And so you’re starting seeing people going to the one you’re seeing dispensaries putting in refrigerators and then the bud tenders and folks going to those refrigerator and being oh, this is interesting. I never thought of a cannabis beverage.

And we’re shocked the amount of times people say, I didn’t even know there were cannabis beverages. And we’re like, oh, this is what we do every day. But it’s still so new. I mean, I think it’s one or two percent of the market today in California. But of all the products that you look at in a dispensary today or on a delivery platform, I think it’s the category that has the potential to take the most share going forward. It would not surprise me in 10 years if you look back and 50% of the cannabis industry is beverage. It would kind of make sense. And you’d be like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Like, alcohol is in a beverage, so is cannabis.

TG Branfalt: Yeah. And something I’ve noticed about cannabis beverages in my experience with them is that, with alcohol, a beer tastes like a beer, right? I mean, your light beer tastes like a light beer. And that the cannabis beverages that I’ve generally tasted have always been very flavorful. And this goes to the root beer and the other stuff that I’ve tried. So just sort of a question, so in Massachusetts, for example, the dosing is capped at five milligrams. You cannot get an edible that’s a dose more than five milligrams singular dose. Are you guys sort of banking on these low dose sort of regs to keep passing? Was that something that was integral in your thinking? Is going, hey, they’re going to cap these at five or ten milligrams, so if we’re at two, we’re already well under. Are you sort of positioning yourself for future markets with that milligram?

Jake Bullock: Yeah, it’s interesting. So it was never a thought process of ours that the regulations would force us to be low. We actually kind of thought about it as, what is the right number of Canns you can have in any given setting? We think about sessionability a lot, which is like, okay, how do you think about dosing? Well, who’s your consumer and how many can they have? And we believe very strongly that that number was more than one. And a lot of the products on the market were definitely one or under that. And so, that was the foundation for thinking about where we should be from a dosing standpoint.

I think when we look at the bigger picture, having been in it for a couple of years, the way that we think this really takes off our product specifically, is that you have a bifurcation in the cannabis industry where products under a certain milligram of THC are treated differently. So if you think about some states where you have alcohol laws and essentially liquor can only be sold in one type of store, a liquor store, a state run liquor store, whereas beer and wine, you can get in the grocery store. It’s kind of that model. So we don’t know where those thresholds will ultimately land. Maybe it’s five, maybe it’s under five. But they’re just different products. And the risk in the safety level around a two milligram edible or beverage is so different than what you might find on the higher end, and so they should be treated differently from a regulatory standpoint. If we’re ever going to have consumption of cannabis and alcohol alongside each other, if we’re ever going to have cannabis sales in traditional retail, it’s going to have to be the lower dose stuff.

And that’s kind of the path that we think we have forward to ever being in a bar, for example, or ever being available in a grocery store. It’s probably a ways away. But I think one of the things that will be interesting to observe is, as more states continue to legalize recreational programs, and you start to see a lot of the really positive benefits from that, I don’t know a bar or restaurant owner that wouldn’t rather have a mix of their cannabis consumption. Just tends to be better for all of the negative outcomes that they’re worried about. Liability issues, people getting sick, people fighting, consumption of food. So there’s all sorts of really good, positive things, I think, over time that we’ll start to see. And I think you’ll see some of the folks that are opposed to those regulations will start softening.

TG Branfalt: I can definitely tell you, I know a couple of bartenders who wish that they never saw me drunk in my life. Wished they just saw me years later when I would just come in ripped.

Jake Bullock: Right, right.

TG Branfalt: Do you think that the future that you envision, where alcohol is sold alongside of cannabis or alongside cannabis beverages, do you think that that would require sort of a mass shift towards social use laws as programs go online? Because right now you just have basically California, they allow it city by city, Alaska allows it statewide, Denver, Colorado allows it, but that’s really about it. Do you think that would really sort of move the industry, especially the beverage industry, the canna beverage industry in the direction that you sort of foretold?

Jake Bullock: Yes. I think a hundred percent it will. I mean, one of the big challenges we have is around trials. If you think about, we sell our product in six packs. We think that’s the right amount to purchase at one time, similar to how you might buy a six pack of light beer. But the reality is, you probably tried that light beer in a bar and you just got one. And then you’re like, oh wow, I really like this brand, I’m going to go find it in the store. We don’t really have that ability in cannabis beverage. And so, how do you get people to try that first product and then want to come back and purchase more? And there’s something special about trying it in a social setting.

Now what’s interesting. And what we think a lot about at Cann is, what are the right social settings and spaces for our product? And maybe it’s not a loud bar dark with a lot of music and bar stools. It could be a totally different environment. We have fun as a team thinking about, if we could design one of those spaces, how it might be different than what’s optimized for our current alcohol consumption. And I think we’re starting to see that. You have a few in California, consumption lounges popping up. If those experiments go well and are successful and they manage the model and the risk really well, I think it provides a great example for other states looking to safely sort of expand their cannabis industry into social consumption.

TG Branfalt: So, you had said earlier that right now the canna-beverage space is about a one to two percent in California. Like I said, in Massachusetts, I’ve been to three dispensaries there and could not find a beverage in any of them. It’s something that just weren’t on any of the menus. Why do you think A, that right now, it’s still such a small percentage of the California market and B, why aren’t we seeing them sort of more ubiquitous on dispensary menus?

Jake Bullock: So we think, I mean, at a very high level, there are two things that are probably causing this. The first is, we talked about the dosing. When you do see beverages, they’re often way, way too strong for somebody to consume the entire thing. And that just doesn’t really make sense. The value of a beverage, the reason we drink beverages, is that you can kind of have this over time sipping, whether it’s a tea or coffee or an alcoholic beverage. It takes up time. It takes up space. It’s sort of an event in and of itself. You might sit down and do it with a friend or a handful of friends. That doesn’t really work in the context of a hundred milligram, 50 milligram beverage. And so it’s like you almost lose the social benefit of the form factor.

And then the other big thing is, this is not an easy product to manufacture. It requires expensive capital equipment, for sure. The processing is tricky, the emulsion science, stability, depending on your formulation. There are all these really tough sort of food, manufacturing, food science, questions that have been sort of slow to be adopted in the industry, primarily because there just hasn’t been the demand. It’s like one of these things, if it’s 1% of the market, why would you go invest in really expensive equipment and food scientists to help you go do this, when you can just start cranking out all these tried and true products. That’s going to change. I think it will take some time, but it takes products like Cann that are low dose that still tastes delicious for people to really come around and be like, oh, I see the potential. I see the future.

And these products are popping up. I mean, we probably follow it more closely than others, but we’re really excited to see more beverages like ours, because we think that you need that category to really exist. And you need dispensaries, like you say in Massachusetts, to put in big refrigerators and add a bunch of beverage brands, whether they’re like us at two milligrams on the low end of the spectrum, or even all the way up to a hundred. Just making this a category where people think about beverage and what use cases are right for what type of beverage, is going to be a great improvement over what we have now, which is in some cases, nothing and in others, very limited selection.

TG Branfalt: This, Jake, has been a really, really super insightful conversation about a space that I think is overlooked because I love it. When I go to dispensaries, I’m heartbroken when there is not a beverage, because I’m there with my friends. My friends, they end up going to the bar and what am I to do? So I really want to thank you for just being so forthcoming and really sort of peeling back some of the layers, because there’s so few opportunities for me to have this discussion. Before we get to further information about how to contact you, what advice would you have for entrepreneurs either in the cannabis space at large or those who are thinking about the cannabis beverage space?

Jake Bullock: Yeah. So I would say the most important thing and some of the best advice that we got early on, when you’re thinking about entering, developing a product, does it make sense? Is it worth committing to this career? Is really approach the prototyping process like you’re right. And approach the testing process, the listening process to your consumers, like you’re wrong. And so we would say prototype like you’re right and listen like you’re wrong. You will learn so much from consumers. And I think that the real success behind Cann was doing that early human centric design that set us up for success.

TG Branfalt: So finally, where can people… That’s great advice, by the way. I mean, that’s something I’ve never heard on the show before and I’ve asked this question literally hundreds of times. So, it just sort of goes to show, the insight that you have is really sort of different than a lot of people that I do have on the show. So, where can people find out more about you, find out more about Cann, and find out more about Cann social tonics?

Jake Bullock: Yeah, definitely. So we are www.drinkcann.com, and also on Instagram at @drinkcann. And if you’re in California, you can order our 24 packs from our shop.drinkcann.com site, which is the best price for Cann out there.

TG Branfalt: That’s Jake Bullock. He’s one of the co-founders of Los Angeles, California based Cann. They make Cann social tonics, a low dose cannabis infused beverage. Thank you so much, Jake, for taking the time to come on the show. And I may one day make it back to California if I ever get out of my house, and I will definitely be on the lookout for the Cann social tonics. Thank you so much.

Jake Bullock: Yeah. Thank you, TG.

TG Branfalt: You can find more episodes of the ganjapreneur.com podcast in the podcast section of ganjapreneur.com and in the Apple iTunes store. On the ganjapreneur.com website you’ll find the latest cannabis news and cannabis jobs updated daily, along with transcripts of this podcast. You can also download the ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google play. Oh yeah. We’re also on Spotify. This episode was engineered by Trim Media House. I’ve been your host TG Branfalt.

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Study: CBD and Terpene Formulation Effective Against COVID-19 Symptoms

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A study led by Israeli research and development firms Eybna and CannaSoul Analytics suggests that a combination of CBD with terpenes is three times more effective at preventing cytokine activity than corticosteroid dexamethasone, Forbes reports. So-called cytokine storms are one of the symptoms of COVID-19, causing inflammation, swelling, pain, loss of organ function, and can cause the immune system to kill the body’s own cells.

The study investigates Eybna’s NT-VRL – a proprietary terpene formulation which aims to treat inflammatory conditions such as the cytokine storm syndrome experienced by some COVID-19 patients. The product contains 30 individual terpenes that may be anti-inflammatory agents and are generally considered safe for consumption, the report says. Dexamethasone was found in a recent United Kingdom study to reduce mortality by one-third in COVID-19 patients on ventilators.

Researchers used a “Cytokine Storm Assay” from Cannasoul, whose founder Dr. David Meiri indicated is well-established and allows for evaluation of cytokine storm syndrome. Using human blood cells, the assay helps researchers assess the effect of different treatments on cytokine secretion, which drives the storm in severe COVID-19 patients.

CBD alone inhibited around an average of 75 percent of the cytokines, while the terpenes alone inhibited around 80 percent, while NT-VRL inhibited around 90 percent. Dexamethasone inhibited around 30 percent, the report says.

Eybna Co-founder and CEO Nadav Eyal called the preliminary results “highly positive” and said that the compound demonstrates “significant anti-inflammatory activity of terpenes.” He says the findings break “the perception that terpenes are just flavorings and fragrances compounds with a placebo effect.”

“This is opening a new world for synergistically-effective natural formulations – holding therapeutic capabilities in which single Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients will have difficulties to match.” — Eyal, in a statement

The study has neither been peer-reviewed nor published.

Another study published last month – which also has not been peer-reviewed – purports that certain cannabis strains have the potential to quell an immune system in the midst of a cytokine storm.

The Food and Drug Administration has also approved a bid by FSD Pharma to submit an Investigational New Drug Application for a clinical trial using a synthetic cannabinoid drug called ultramicronized palmitoylethanolamide (micro PEA) to treat COVID-19.

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Nevada Cannabis Brand Fined $1.2M for Selling Untested Products, Destroying Evidence

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Nevada’s Cannabis Compliance Board has issued $1.25 million in penalties and revoked some licenses of CW Nevada following a slew of violations, including selling cannabis off-the-books, destroying evidence, and selling untested products, the Nevada Independent reports.

The penalty is the largest in state history against a cannabis company.

CW had 14 licenses for “Canopi”-branded dispensaries, cultivation facilities, and other operations. The state began investigating the company in 2018 after it fell behind on its taxes, the report says. As of March, the firm owes $1.5 million in back taxes.

In 2019, CW sold 1,793 products in less than three months that were not laboratory-tested along with another unregistered 4,100 plants. Regulators have destroyed all of the “untagged” products.

Additionally, the company was accused of illegally moving products, failing to maintain video surveillance, and inaccuracies in METRC, the state’s seed-to-sale tracking system.

Regulators revoked six of CW’s licenses and its eight remaining active licenses will be sold within the next six months to help pay the company’s debts. In a public comment, court-appointed receiver Dotan Melech estimated the revoked licenses are worth a total amount of $4.5 to $6.75 million.

In addition to its tax burden, the company owes more than $1 million to its employees, and has claims against it totaling $207 million; however, Melech determined that about $32 million of those claims are allowable.

The agreement allows the state to continue to pursue civil penalties and fines against owner and manager Brian Padgett individually. The state will also revoke his marijuana agent card.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly reported that the revoked CW licenses were worth $4.5 to $6.75 million each. That range actually represents the revoked licenses’ total, not individual, value.

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Anti-Cannabis Group Sues to Keep Legalization Off Arizona Ballot

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Anti-cannabis activists in Arizona have filed a lawsuit against the legalization ballot initiative arguing the 100-word summary of the petition did not tell voters the reforms would allow more potent forms of cannabis – such as concentrates – changes state driving under the influence laws, and doesn’t specifically say that the proposed 16 percent tax on sales can’t be increased by the Legislature, the Associated Press reports.

The lawsuit was filed by Arizonans for Health and Public Safety, which is backed by Center for Arizona Policy – a conservative group that promotes religious freedom and anti-abortion legislation. Lisa James, the group’s chair, said in a statement that the initiatives are “virtually impossible to fix or update … after the fact when there are unintended consequences.”

Former Arizona Rep. John Shadegg, one of the lead attorneys for law firm Polsinelli who is representing the group, called the summary language “confusing and deceptive in numerous ways, beginning with the very definition of marijuana.”

Chad Campbell, chair of the pro-legalization group, Smart and Safe Arizona that backed the campaign, called the lawsuit “frivolous and ridiculous.”

“There’s no legal or technical merit to it – their arguments are campaign arguments. This is just a desperate attempt by very small group of people funded by the Center for Arizona Policy to try to keep the voters of Arizona from having their say in the matter.” – Campbell to the AP

Earlier this month the initiative campaign submitted 420,000 petition signatures to put the issue to voters in November.

If approved, individuals 21-and-older would be allowed to make legal purchases and possess up to 1 ounce. The 16 percent excise tax would be implemented, along with regular sales taxes. Industry-derived taxes would be mostly directed toward public safety and community colleges. Edibles would be permitted but THC in edible products would be capped at 10 milligrams.

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Feds Investigating Multiple Maine Cannabis Companies

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At least two Maine cannabusinesses are the target of a law enforcement investigation but officials have not yet indicated what the charges against the companies are, News Center Maine reports. The investigation is being conducted by the Maine State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The court-approved investigation into Narrow Gauge Distributors and Homegrown Connection is part of an ongoing federal inquiry, officials told NSM, adding that there is no threat to the public.

Narrow Gauge is a cannabis and CBD cultivation and distribution company with a 60,000-square-foot facility in Farmingham. It bills itself as “the largest cannabis distribution company” in Maine.

Homegrown Connection is a hydroponics grow shop also in Farmingham.

Neither company has addressed Tuesday’s law enforcement action.

According to a Sun Journal report, law enforcement agents were filling U-Haul trailers with boxes marked “DEA Evidence” and filling a shipping container with plants confiscated from the facilities.

U.S. Assistant Attorney Craig Wolff did not provide a comment to either of the news organizations, saying it is an ongoing investigation.

Maine voters legalized cannabis for adult use in 2016; however, implementation of a taxed and regulated regime has been slow to materialize. First, the implementation bills were blocked by then-Gov. Paul LePage (R) and, more recently, by the coronavirus pandemic.

In May, the federal government said it would withhold $3.3 million in funding from the state for mental health programs for children because the state allows students to use medical cannabis.

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California Cannabis Arrests Predominately Target Black and Latinx People

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Felony cannabis arrests in California have dropped 27 percent since recreational cannabis legalization in the state in 2018; however, Hispanics represented 42 percent of those arrests, while Black people comprised 22 percent, and whites at 21 percent, according to state Department of Justice data outlined by the Associated Press.

Misdemeanor arrests in the state fell from 3,835 in 2018 – the first year of California’s legalization – to 3,769 last year, according to NORML. The advocacy organization pointed out that last year Blacks were 4.47 times more likely than whites to be arrested for a cannabis-related crime in California, compared to 4.05 times as often in 2018, when weighted for population. Latinx people were about twice as likely as whites to be arrested, also up from 2018, the organization said.

Ellen Komp, deputy director of California NORML, called the percentage of minorities arrested for cannabis-related drug crimes “troubling” especially in the wake of broad legalization.

“It’s legal if you have the venture capital to open up on Main Street.” – Komp to the AP

Nationwide, Black people are 3.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for cannabis, despite similar usage rates, according to data from the American Civil Liberties Union.

A recent ACLU report found that in Maricopa County in neighboring Arizona, Latinx people charged with simple cannabis possession are sentenced to significantly longer jail and prison terms than their white and Black counterparts and that Black people convicted of personal possession of drug paraphernalia receive longer sentences than whites and Hispanics.

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