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The Connecticut Capitol Building in Hartford, Connecticut.

Connecticut Lawmakers Debate Legalizing Recreational Cannabis During Committee Meeting

Connecticut legislators debated legalizing cannabis for adult use in front of the General Assembly’s public health committee yesterday but found only disagreement, the Connecticut Post reports. As usual, opponents stuck to the usual prohibitionist talking points and pointed to recent comments from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Attorney General Jeff Sessions as justification to keep the status quo.

During her testimony, Republican state Rep. Melissa Ziobron, a sponsor of a recreational use measure, argued that “legal marijuana is safer than alcohol and tobacco.”

“Marijuana has never caused a fatal overdose in the 7,000 years of reported human use,” she said in the report.

Ziobron noted that the potential tax revenues – estimated between $30 million and $100 million annually – would help bridge the state’s budget gap and could boost tourism interest in the state.

“It’s not just about the revenue,” she said. “In Denver tourism is at all-time high, no pun intended. They found marijuana laws increased the decision to go on vacation in Colorado by more than 50 percent.”

She added that by not legalizing cannabis as Massachusetts and Maine roll out their voter-approved legal regimes Connecticut would lose tourism dollars.

“What’s going to happen when they start driving through Connecticut to Massachusetts and Rhode Island to enjoy something other states have legalized?” she asked.

The bills in the state legislature would regulate and tax legal cannabis sales while requiring product testing.

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Spark the Conversation: Dale Sky Jones, The Oaksterdam Story

Dale Sky Jones is the executive chancellor of Oaksterdam University, an internationally recognized cannabis education institution based out of Oakland, California.

In this podcast episode, Dale is interviewed by renowned cannabis advocate Bianca Green for the first episode of her Spark the Conversation podcast, produced in partnership with Ganjapreneur. This interview was recorded last fall during the Spark the Conversation bus tour across California, during which Bianca and her team bused around the state talking to cannabis advocates and experts in preparation for the November elections. This means that the conversation took place before California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts voted to legalize adult-use cannabis — and before Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election.

The following interview contains some truly amazing stories from Dale. Tune in below to hear about how Dale quit her corporate career to dedicate her life to cannabis education and activism; her experience being targeted in a 2007 federal raid on Oaksterdam University; the moment she realized that motherhood, specifically the ingrained instinct to shelter and protect her children, goes hand-in-hand with advocating for safer and smarter cannabis policies; and much, much more.

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Read the transcript:

Bianca Green: Welcome to the Spark The Conversation podcast in partnership with Ganjapreneur.com. I’m your host, Bianca Green. I’m super stoked today to be talking to a drug war veteran and dear friend, Dale Sky Jones. She is the chancellor of Oaksterdam University, a mother, a wife, and an overall badass. She inspired me many, many years ago in a lot of advocacy realms and she’s been fighting the good fight for a long, long time.

She has seen Oaksterdam get raided. She has seen people have their children taken away for being cannabis patients, and today I’m really excited to sit down with her so she can share a bit of her journey and talk about where we’re at today. Dale was very instrumental in making sure that California legalization was a priority. She put together the reform California Coalition last year and then that morphed into some amendments that went into 64.

Now cannabis is legal. I did get a chance to sit down with her before legalization and I think by the time this podcast comes out, she’ll be out of the closet that she had found out she was pregnant the same day of recording the podcast, so I’m super super stoked to sit down with her. I admire her so much, and she drops knowledge every time she speaks, so I’m looking forward to this today.

Hi, we’re at Oaksterdam University with Dale Sky Jones today. Thank you so much for being here with me. You and I have been friends for quite some time, drug policy comrades to a degree. Coming to Oaksterdam over the years to visit you, why don’t you tell me and our listeners what it is exactly that Oaksterdam University’s mission is and what you guys do here.

Dale Sky Jones: Sure. Well, I’m just thrilled to have you Bianca, so thank you for bringing Spark The Conversation and just lots of fun. Oaksterdam University, I think a lot of folks think that they know what we are, but having not been through the doors, it’s hard for them to contemplate. Some people just picture it’s some dark smokey room where we’re doing joint rolling classes in the back.

The reality is, we were founded back in 2007 with a mission to provide quality training for the cannabis industry. This was back before it was an industry. In fact, we got a lot of guff’s that we even called it an industry. It was still very much a movement, but we believed that the only way to be taken seriously, the only way to actually become regulated was to start treating ourselves as an industry and self-regulating in the process. That started with education.

Over time, it began really focused just trying to learn how to grow their own medicine, how to be a qualified patient, and their rights and responsibilities under the law. Our founder first started teaching classes, honestly just to get people to show up to the City Council meetings. He thought, “Well, what do people want from me? They want to learn how to grow? What do I want from them? I want them to show up.”

He put out this idea of education almost as a quid pro quo, “I’ll teach you to grow and then I need you to help me go move this policy because it’s going to take a lot of hands to lift, so we’ll give you the horticulture class, but first, first you have to take the prerequisites which are politics, history and legal.”

What that did was convert otherwise law-abiding citizens who just wanted to become a student into freedom-fighters because once you know, you can’t unlearn what you just found out, so that was the trick was, “Get in here and let us tell you the truth and then by the way, we’ll teach you how to grow and once you know the truth, you can’t help but join the fight.”

The students that first came to us were just trying to be patients and then they wanted to get a job, so we started adding classes and it went beyond just the, “Here’s how to be a patient. Here’s how to cultivate for yourself.” We started adding cooking with cannabis and extraction classes, and then an advocacy and an economics class, and then a budtending class, which we quickly renamed “Patient consultant” because I swore I wouldn’t call it “Budtender” until we legalized, so hurry up so I can change the name of my class.

Then it slowly went from people trying to find a job to people wanting to start a company. We got this influx of entrepreneurs and folks that were looking to invest and understand. Then the federal raid happened, the smack down happened, and it went back to bam, people just learning how to be qualified patients and grow in the closet because everyone was scared back out of what had been going on here in California.

Over the last couple of years since Colorado, Washington have passed, since California has finally enacted the MCRSA and other states including Guam, go Guam, nobody ever mentions Guam, not much love for Guam, that it’s progressed to the point where now we’re training regulators, we’re training legislative analysts, we’re training bureaucrats on how to regulate the cannabis industry. I dare say that that’s what I’ve almost had the most fun with lately.

It’s very heartening to see bureaucrats, people that were very fearful. Now that it’s their job to do so, they are embracing it wholly. These folks are trying to do a good job. They’re trying to do it the right way the first time, and that is inspiring for me when I see our government officials really trying to get it right for Californians.

Bianca Green: That’s amazing because it was so opposite when you first started freedom-fighting for the plant. Tell me about some of the roadblocks that you hit when you first came out as an advocate and educator in the cannabis space.

Dale Sky Jones: Well, there’s a couple times that I can think of that were really informative for me. The first was, I got a call from a patient, and this was back when I was still working with doctors down in Orange County. This is how I got started in the cannabis industry was managing doctors who worked for LA General and they saw a lot of patients come through but they weren’t allowed to talk about cannabis with them. This group of doctors formed a side clinic where each of them would work one day a week at this clinic doing medical cannabis recommendations.

Bianca Green: What year was this?

Dale Sky Jones: This was back in 2007 in Orange County.

Bianca Green: Wow.

Dale Sky Jones: Yeah. Can we say right-wing conservative?

Bianca Green: Where they’re still not very friendly.

Dale Sky Jones: No.

Bianca Green: They wouldn’t, Irvine wouldn’t even, didn’t accept our bus tour.

Dale Sky Jones: Irvine is exactly where my office was.

Bianca Green: Yeah. Yeah. It’s still-

Dale Sky Jones: I’m very familiar with the conservative Orange County, but what was remarkable is there were task forces, these roaming task forces over Tri-County areas that were just looking for doctors to try to put them out of business. They were trying to get doctors to either do questionable recommendations or get paperwork that they could somehow turn in total setup.

I got a phone call from a patient who had actually gone through the process, and while he was in the office, he says, “Congratulations Dale.” It’s like, “For what?” He’s like, “You run the best office that we have in Southern California. You’re the only office that wouldn’t let them in.” I was like, “I’m sorry. What are you talking about?”

He’s like, “Well, my brother is on this task force and they’ve been trying to get an appointment with you for the last three months, and the only way they could get in was to send me because I’m a real patient, and you almost didn’t give me a recommendation, so clearly you guys are doing it right, you’re doing it well.”

In fact, one of the doctors that worked for me no more than you’ve said yes because you wanted people to try other stuff. Whether or not you agree with that, this was how we had to operate in conservative Orange County California. Just realizing that we had been under the microscope like that and I remembered some unusual calls of people trying to get an appointment but they couldn’t really tell me what was wrong with them, so I just simply don’t set appointments for people that didn’t seem to have their act together.

It turns out it was because they were used to just winging it and getting what they wanted, so just realizing that I came that close and the actions that we did protected five doctors from potentially being in trouble for something that was truly helping people, that was my first taste that even though you think what you’re doing is right, even though you’re doing it entirely by the letter and the spirit of the law, there is still people looking for you to take you down and make an example of you.

They will use any thread, any thread they can, they will yank on and unravel you and that’s why you’ve got to keep it tight. That’s part of what we teach at Oaksterdam is how to set yourself up for success, how to prepare for the worst and then we’re going to show you how to wing it because everyone is still very much winging it these days. You just have to find your parameters.

The next time that I truly personally had, it’s the only time I’ve ever been attacked in my mind for being an advocate or an activist on any level. I kept waiting to be attacked, I kept expecting to be attacked and I was very fearful the first few years. I didn’t know how to talk about it. I didn’t know how to introduce the concept of what I did for a living. I would just say, “Oh, I work in medicine. I work with patients,” but I wouldn’t find ways to explain what I did or why I did it because I was always afraid that somebody was going to attack me.

Again, remember, this was 2007, 2008. I just quit a corporate job where I was fully vested to go do what? Move to California to do what? They thought I was crazy. I couldn’t explain that to people, so I lied to everyone about what I was going and doing because it felt right to be doing it but I hadn’t quite figured out how to explain it. I just didn’t talk about it.

I said, “I work in medicine,” and if they asked me anything else, I’d start talking about billing and people would just shut down, turn off, and tune out, so it was a really easy way to never talk about it because people don’t actually care.

Bianca Green: Well, once you start telling the truth, people disconnect. They like to be entertained a little bit more than they want the facts.

Dale Sky Jones: Right. If I had just said, “Cannabis,” they would’ve been entirely entertained but I was not looking to be their entertainment for the day. I hadn’t figured out how to defend myself yet, but here’s what’s so remarkable, Bianca, I never had to. This is the part that I want to get across to your listeners is all of that fear was internal. It was my own head attacking myself with all of the same stigmas.

I didn’t need anybody else to do it. I was doing it to myself to the point that I wouldn’t even tell my grandma what I was doing and then all of a sudden, she died. I didn’t even get the chance to explain to her that I might be trying to save the world over here because I couldn’t figure out how to explain to her what I was doing. It was years later that I finally got to the point of being out and being unafraid and being vocal.

I showed up to a press conference, a press conference mind you, this was not a cannabis event. This was not a smoke out. This was a … the most dangerous thing in the room were the cameras. It was a peer press conference in a hotel in San Francisco. It involved the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. There were a couple other people on the stage. I think Dale Gieringer was there as well as herbicide Steve DeAngelo who, when he saw me arrive, asked me if I would participate in the press conference.

I had arrived with my two-year old and I wasn’t planning on participating. He was maybe two and a half at the time. He sat in the audience with Nate Bradley of the CCIA, actually grabbed him, and he just walked around the room while the press conference was going on. He didn’t actually say anything because the kid didn’t talk until he was three and a half, so not a peep even came out of him, but he was present. He was there.

At a certain point in the middle of the press conference, he came right up, crawled into my lap and sat there while Vicente Fox was talking. I suddenly had a two-year old in my lap so I went ahead and addressed that this was also about the children. The people on the stage agreed with me that this was, “This is why I’m doing it is for the children. It’s to keep children with their families.”

After the fact, a reporter from San Francisco, instead of writing about Vicente Fox, instead of writing about his message or the message, the importance of Mexican and American relations, instead she chose to attack me for having a child involved in a marijuana event, and called it “Smoke gets in your smoke,” and said, “You know, I can’t even hear anything that they said over a two-year old being present in the room,” that “There shouldn’t have been a child in that room, certainly not during a conversation about drugs.”

I’ve got to be honest with you Bianca, I was pregnant with my second child at that point, had never experienced such vitreal from another woman. She accused me of treating my child as thought it was a bracelet, something that you accessorize, that I brought my kid with me as an accessory because apparently she’s never had to raise a child largely by herself because I wasn’t getting a paycheck. We had just been raided very recently.

When we were raided, we lost everything including a paycheck and health insurance for the very kid we were talking about there, and my husband was working six days a week to try to support the family, so I couldn’t afford childcare. It wasn’t an option for me at that time because I didn’t have anything extra and she’s attacking me for being a mother with her child present. That was probably … It knocked me to my knees.

Bianca Green: I can imagine.

Dale Sky Jones: I didn’t come back out for probably nine months after that. I was still pregnant and I felt like I was a bad person for being pregnant and talking about this at the same time. I’ve come to realize that it’s going to take women like me to do that anyway, to make it okay for everybody else.

Bianca Green: You’ve been such an amazing advocate and such an amazing face and voice for this industry and more importantly the movement before it became one. You should be very proud of everything that you’ve done. People forget often that it’s a war and there are casualties of war. I’ve fought the front lines in DC with patients who’ve died fighting for the freedom of the plant. I think you, as a female, and a lot of the females that have been coming forward throughout the years, based on people like yourself and myself coming out of the closet has really opened the compassionate side of this movement, so Mazel Tov to you for bringing your child to that event because to identify a family as not a unit because you believe in something is completely inappropriate.

Now we’re looking at it as plant-based medicine. We’re changing the narrative about it and that’s not easy. It’s not easy for conservatives to accept that. It’s not easy for people who have been hit with propaganda all of these years to understand that, and you’ve done it so gracefully. You really have. There’s a lot of really great drug war veterans but you are one of them that’s definitely led California into the place that it’s been and Oaksterdam University is famous around the globe.

One of our social media people that’s on this tour today was talking about how in high school they all wanted to go to Oaksterdam University instead of another university because they wanted to come and get cannabis education. That, in and of itself, is a huge … She’s from Virginia. That’s a huge thing. You’re making a global impact and that, I know it sucks. These people can be mean, but good at you, good on you, however that expression goes. If you really, you set the tone for other women to come out who wanted to seek alternatives and fight for people who need it the most.

Dale Sky Jones: That’s the truth I think that what made it all okay was the women that came to me after the fact. I didn’t realize that I was becoming a spokeswoman for motherhood at the same time I was being a spokeswoman for cannabis policy reform. That was, I think, the shocker to me when I realized that it was not only hand-in-hand but that my power as an advocate came because I was a mother. Not only you can’t remove them from one another, but you shouldn’t.

I’ve also realized on another level, I’m introducing a concept that I never believed in myself as a young entrepreneur, as a young person. I’m 41 now, and I went straight into corporate at 18, actually 15, but I didn’t get the titles until 18. You start to realize that there are no babies in corporate, there’s no crying in corporate, there’s no crying in baseball. There’s a few things that you are and aren’t allowed to do, but you’re certainly not allowed to be a mom out loud when you’re in any of these scenarios.

I realized that the young women and young men that I hire today that watch me, I didn’t have a choice at the time. I was working from home like I was supposed to when my first child was born. I took a leave of absence for maternity and then I just came back to work one day a week and did everything from home or phone. When the raid happened, I had to be present. I had to show up which meant I had to strap the baby on and go to work because I didn’t have anywhere or anyone to leave him with.

We didn’t have family, so it was just me, my husband and my baby. Now I look back and realize that all of these young people that have worked for me since 2012, since the raid at the very least, since that happened-

Bianca Green: The Oaksterdam raid.

Dale Sky Jones: Right. We’ve been here since 2007. Right, the raid it was right down the street, the big … It was actually six locations were raided simultaneously. At that point of the raid, when you do what you have to do because there’s no options, I just introduced to a whole other group of people that the new concept of working mom is that you can actually bring your kid to work with you. I have a baby run in my office, and when people come for meetings with me, there’s often a nanny and a kid present. People get accustomed to that. The first time it’s a little bit weird, but I’ve actually found it gives better meetings. It brings out the best in people to have kids around.

Bianca Green: Well, we had that time where we interviewed Gavin Newsom. I interviewed Gavin Newsom and you were there with Jackson, right?

Dale Sky Jones: I think it was Jesse actually.

Bianca Green: Jesse?

Dale Sky Jones: Jesse was strapped on.

Bianca Green: Jesse was your youngest, strapped on. He was only like two months, if, and you were standing behind the camera manning it.

Dale Sky Jones: I know, and I’m trying to keep the baby from cooing into the microphone while we were interviewing Gavin Newsom.

Bianca Green: Yeah, because that’s how advocacy goes.

Dale Sky Jones: Bootstrap.

Bianca Green: It’s very bootstrap. Now we’re getting a lot more attention on it because it’s popular, but that was only two years ago.

Dale Sky Jones: It’s kind of hard to believe.

Bianca Green: It’s really hard to believe how far it’s come. I really like having the elevated conversation about the entrepreneurialism and I appreciate it but I think it’s important for people to understand where we came from, the challenges we still face and where we’re headed. Speak to that a little bit. Do you have any advice for inspiring entrepreneurs?

Dale Sky Jones: Well, I know here at Oaksterdam, what we always try to talk to people about, and it’s after four days of intensive training, so we’ve filled your five pound brain with ten pounds of information, just stuffing it in the ear at that point by the end, but there’s a couple of things that I really try to impart to the students because folks come to us for so many different reasons. Sometimes it’s very personal, they’re trying to help someone very close to them or themselves in some cases.

In others, it’s very entrepreneurial. They’re trying to figure out either, whatever industry they used to be a part of has collapsed or they’ve realized that the best way to get ahead in their current industry is to figure out how to also cater to the cannabis industry as an ancillary option. We train gladiators here at Oaksterdam, and when I say “gladiator” this is a trained fighter. Our gladiators are often first through the wall.

They sometimes get the most bloody. They sometimes make the most money, but in that process of training them how to fight, I ask them to do two things: say, “Please, please, as you move forward, you need to show up and that means show up to vote and once you show up to vote, you get called for jury duty and you need to show up to that, too.”

Bianca Green: Civic duties.

Dale Sky Jones: That’s actually, that is the big one. Then when you get jury duty, you sit and you pray to get that marijuana case.

Bianca Green: That must be really hard because a lot of advocates and a lot of people who I know that are getting into this industry are revolutionists to some degree and they are against the system to … I don’t know.

Dale Sky Jones: Well, some are and I dare say that some of the inspiration of the industry were the very instigators that you speak of, but a lot of the folks that are coming in now think of themselves as otherwise law-abiding citizens. They’re just practicing a little political discord by tip toeing into the cannabis industry. They don’t even realize how illegal it really is.

Unless you are part of the national discussion, unless you are part of moving the national issue forward, and when I say “national” I mean act of congress to legalize cannabis because right now, we are looking at a policy decision and a change in the face of the White House, a change in the face of some of these elected positions, a change in the Attorney General can entirely change the face of everything that we are looking at right now, entirely.

God forbid it’s President Trump with an AG Christie in there. Although I think Christie’s probably ruined it for himself by now, but at the end of the day, if you are not part of the federal discussion and there’s only two groups really genuinely working on the national conversation and that’s Americans For Safe Access For Patients and the National Cannabis Industry Association For Business, and if you’re not part of one of those two groups and tithing to at least one or both of those two groups, if you’re not part of that solution, you are part of the problem and you’re barely above the ostrich awaiting the fate of the dinosaur. The second thing that I ask people to do other than show up, which is really most of it-

Bianca Green: Because that’s the biggest thing, showing up.

Dale Sky Jones: Well, showing up, oh my God, and it’s the hardest part.

Bianca Green: Power numbers, it’s an important thing.

Dale Sky Jones: Very … It sounds simple but it’s not. That’s why I remind people, “Show up.” It’s just it’s important to do that, but the other is continue to advocate. In advocating, that means both advocating up and down. The way I explain it to them is you have to continue to advocate up to your elected officials, to the thought leaders, that we have responsibilities.

Don’t say the word “recreational” because that makes it sound fun for kids. We don’t want this to sound fun for kids, and we don’t want other parents thinking about their kids recreating when they’re walking into the voting booth either because that is not helping our cause, so let’s stop calling it recreational. Just things along those lines of being a thought leader-

Bianca Green: Responsible.

Dale Sky Jones: -and being responsible and advocating up for these things to the powers that be, so to speak, but what I leave every class with is this concept that you have to keep looking back and you have to make sure that you always advocate down as you rise yourself up in your company, in your business, and everything else, that you must advocate for the very people that got us here, that we got here on the backs of patients, and no matter what you do whether you’re the guy that gets bloody or you’re the guy that makes money, if you’re the guy that makes the most money, you had better find ways to give back whether that’s compassion programs for people that can’t afford it, or if your local boys and girls club, you have to find a way to make sure that you are leaving your community better than you found it.

Then I get a “Whoop” and cheer out of the audience and everyone says, “We’re with ya,” and out the door they go. You know what I found Bianca is every room I’ve walked into in the last few years, a third of the room is Oaksterdam alumni.

Bianca Green: That’s amazing.

Dale Sky Jones: It’s our alumni who are going out and changing the world. That’s who’s changing the laws in New York and Florida and Uruguay. This is our alumni that are coming in and learning how it’s done and they are going out and they are making it happen.

Bianca Green: Well, it’s a very impactful brand. You’re a very impactful advocate and the movement, and the newfound industry really appreciates all the hard work you’ve put into it. Tell me about some of the social responsibility you have at Oaksterdam. What is it in your own business model and then how do you encourage your students? You just sort of tapped on it, but let’s talk about it a little bit more, the social responsibility that you advocate for your students to go out and bring to the table.

Dale Sky Jones: Well, in addition to what I just mentioned and just truly encouraging people to think about how they can give back and do more, and a lot of people will. You just have to ask them. Also remembering to ask the people that you’re working with, “Hi, we’re new. We have a memo of understanding. We’re going to go do business together. I’m going to ask you what is your philosophy on this,” and trust me I do, and I find out and that’s how I decide whether or not I work with you.

Bianca Green: Yeah, me too.

Dale Sky Jones: If this is not your philosophy, you are not somebody I’m ever going to work with and you’re going to find that there’s a lot of other rather successful brands out there that will not work with you unless you have a strategy for that. The other thing that we do is try to impress upon our students that this revolution that we’re in right now, this social revolution, is the most important civil rights revolution of our time, and it’s the next iteration of what happened in the 50s.

This could be the end of the new Jim Crow. If we do this properly, we can finally disassemble the school to prison pipeline that’s currently in our country that is happening on the back of the drug war, but the reality is, if we’re not careful, we’re just simply going to usher in the next Jim Crow. That’s going to happen through our regulatory regimes.

If you look to what Florida recently did, last year they put out for five, an RFP for five businesses to apply to be cultivators. You had to have thirty years continuous in cultivation in the nursery industry in order to even apply. How many black people do you know owned a nursery thirty years ago in Florida?

Bianca Green: None.

Dale Sky Jones: How many women?

Bianca Green: None.

Dale Sky Jones: How many veterans?

Bianca Green: None.

Dale Sky Jones: So therein lies the problem. In Florida, fortunately, the Black Farmer’s Association, pardon me, sued and actually got, based on the fact that there were none, two extra permits issued, one for themselves. When you even look to Maryland, how many … I don’t think that there was a single solitary person of color, no one ethnic earned any of the permits. How is it that we’re now writing these new laws to still make impossible … These were the same people that are going to jail while there are people making money and now we have to make sure that we’re writing laws that don’t keep them out because they’ve been in jail.

These are experts, people. These are not the people we should be kicking out of the industry, but also, back to something that I said early on about small business and needing to protect small business, and I don’t mean small business like fifty and under employees. I mean micro businesses because this is where women, people of color, and veterans thrive is in small business.

Bianca Green: Absolutely.

Dale Sky Jones: Small business was 86% of our American economy last year. There’s no reason it should be any different in the cannabis industry.

Bianca Green: Well Dale, thank you so much for being with us today. It’s an honor. You and I have seen each other through a lot through this whole process. November 8th is right around the corner. It’s bitter sweet in a lot of ways, but I definitely feel like the advocacy that you and your organization that you put together, CCPR, really had insurmountable … I can’t even talk.

Dale Sky Jones: It’s true.

Bianca Green: Participation in that, and really did a lot to advocate for things in that initiative, so congratulations to you on all of the efforts that you’ve put forth and keeping Oaksterdam alive even after a raid. It’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty amazing. Can you tell me where people can find you?

Dale Sky Jones: Well, you can find me at Oaksterdam.com. We’re also at ReformCA.com, but I think Oaksterdam.com is probably the best place to go, O-A-K-S-T-E-R-D-A-M.

Bianca Green: Your semesters, how does that work if people want to get involved?

Dale Sky Jones: You can come take classes one of two ways. We do have a very comprehensive program in the semester form. There’s two different courses: the classic course which covers a little bit of everything and then we developed a specific horticulture course that really does a deep dive on both indoor and outdoor. If you’re unable to come for fourteen full weeks, we also have the express program, if you will.

You can come and take a seminar in four days and so you get most of the materials that you would in a semester condensed into four days. The only difference is with horticulture, if you want outdoor, you do have to come to the semester. We just focus on indoor in the seminar. We also have a seminar coming up here Las Vegas November 11th and then we’re taking a bite of the Big Apple at the beginning of December as well.

Bianca Green: Oh, that’s wonderful. Expanding.

Dale Sky Jones: Yes, so you don’t have to come to us. We come to you. We’ll be online next year so you can just come to Oaksterdam in your underwear. No, you can’t actually come through my doors in your underwear. You can sit on your couch online.

Bianca Green: That’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much. We want to keep in touch with you, and keep track of your progress with Oaksterdam and keep us informed on where you guys are at.

Dale Sky Jones: Absolutely, and make sure you get out and vote. Nothing is inevitable. Thank you.

Bianca Green: We know that. We talked about that a lot. Nothing is inevitable. It is-

Dale Sky Jones: I’ve worked way too damn hard for inevitable.

Bianca Green: Yeah. Yeah, we’re not leaving it up to people who aren’t being active, right?

Dale Sky Jones: Show up.

Bianca Green: Show up.

Dale Sky Jones: Show up.

Bianca Green: That’s how it works.

Dale Sky Jones: Thank you Bianca.

Bianca Green: Thank you Dale.

Spark The Conversation is really excited to do this partnership with Ganjapreneur.com creating these podcasts. It’s a resource for cannabis professionals, advocates, patients, business owners, anyone really who’s in favor of responsible growth, so visit Ganjapreneur.com for daily cannabis news, career openings, company profiles and of course more episodes of this podcast. We’re thankful to them and the partnership that we have with them. We appreciate the fact that they spark the conversation and help ganjapreneurs grow.

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The cola of a commercial cannabis plant in Washington state.

Construction Begins on Mayflower Medicinals Mass. Cultivation and Processing Facility

Construction has commenced on a $6 million, 36,000-square-foot Mayflower Medicinals facility in Holliston, Massachusetts capable of producing 8,700 pounds of cannabis annually. The facility, which could earn more than $35 million per year, is a partnership between Mayflower and iAnthus Capital Holdings.

According to a press release, the space is located within an existing warehouse building and interior demolition and installation of cultivation and processing equipment has been completed. The company expects the first harvest in the third quarter of this year.

“We are excited to have broken ground on our cultivation facility and look forward to the start-up of cultivation in the second quarter of 2017 and the subsequent opening of our first two dispensaries, including one in Boston, the largest city in the state,” John Henderson, CEO of Mayflower, said in a statement.

Randy Maslow, iAnthus President, indicated that the investment firm expects to inject another $7.5 million to build out the facility and its three anticipated dispensaries in the state. He suggested that Mayflower has a “first mover advantage” as the company holds one of three Boston dispensary licenses and is one of just nine registered dispensaries approved by the Commonwealth.

“Our investment in support of Mayflower’s mission and operations positions iAnthus to realize significant cash flows once the cultivation facility and dispensaries are fully built out and Mayflower commences sales,” he said in a statement.

From Dec. 2015 to Dec. 2016 the number of registered patients in Massachusetts jumped from 22,000 to 40,000, and it is one of just two states on the East Coast to legalize adult-use cannabis.

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A mature cannabis cola inside of a licensed Washington cultivation center.

Trump Press Secretary Hints at “Greater Enforcement” of Federal Cannabis Prohibition

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said during the daily White House press briefing on Thursday that the Trump administration is likely to increase the enforcement of marijuana laws in states that have legalized recreational cannabis.

“I do believe you will see greater enforcement,” Spicer said, in what has become the Trump administration’s first official statement on the cannabis industry since taking control. The statement was made in response to questions from two separate reporters.

News broke on Twitter almost immediately:

Notably, Spicer took care to differentiate between medical and recreational cannabis, indicating that enforcement actions would not target patients who are using the plant medicinally and legally under state laws. Spicer linked cannabis use to the abuse of dangerous opiates across the U.S., despite multiple reports that have shown medical cannabis laws can actually reduce the number of opioid overdose-linked deaths in a state.

When asked if federal enforcement would target companies who are currently working in the recreational cannabis space, Spicer said:

“I think that’s a question for the Department of Justice. I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement of it, because again, there’s a big difference between the medical use, which Congress has, through an appropriations rider in 2014, made very clear what their intent was on how the Department of Justice would handle that issue. That’s very different from the recreational use, which is something the Department of Justice will be further looking into.”

The Department of Justice, however, is now run by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has historically condemned cannabis as a dangerous and addictive substance, despite endless evidence to the contrary, at one point even saying that he used to be “okay” with the KKK until he learned that some of their members smoked marijuana. Sessions did indicate during his confirmation hearings that, despite his personal beliefs, he would let President Trump take the lead in terms of any federal marijuana enforcement actions.

However, in an interview with Marijuana Business Daily, Massachusetts-based attorney Bob Carp displayed a more hopeful position. According to Carp, Spicer’s comments aren’t “that big of a deal.”

“This was a sound bite from him, from his playbook he’s been given,” Carp said. “[Spicer] doesn’t make decisions for the Department of Justice, he doesn’t make decisions for Donald Trump. All he does is report what he’s told to report, and this was essentially just a little snippet he was told to give when that question was posed.”

“I don’t think there’s any real platform that’s been adopted by the White House or the Justice Department yet with regard to enforcement of marijuana,” Carp told Marijuana Business Daily.

End


Stacks of $100 bills in rubber band rolls.

U.S.-Based Kalytera Therapeutics Acquires Israel-Based Talent Biotech

Kalytera Therapeutics has completed the acquisition of Israel-based Talent Biotech in a deal worth more than $10 million, the company announced in a press release. To date, the Massachusetts-based firm has made $10 million in cash payments and issued 17,301,208 common shares to Talent, and will pay up to $20 million in aggregate future contingent payments and other securities considerations.

Talent, which is privately held, studies the use of CBD to prevent and treat Graft versus Host Disease – which sometimes arises following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The procedure is often performed for diseases of the blood and bone marrow, including sickle cell anemia, leukemia, and Hodgkin and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Talent has so far completed two clinical trials at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, according to a Times of Israel report.

Dr. Andrew Salzman, Kalytera CEO, said the company is “incredibly fortunate” to continue Talent’s “groundbreaking work.”

“There are currently few options to prevent or treat persons with GvHD, a large and critically underserved market. The results of Talent’s Phase 2 clinical studies are unprecedented, and mark a major milestone in the potential prevention and treatment of this severe and life-threatening disease,” he said in a statement. “We are encouraged by the data and seek to rapidly advance the GvHD program into FDA Phase 2b clinical studies.”

The deal has been conditionally approved by the TSX Venture Exchange but is subject to final approval.

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The Eiffel tower in Las Vegas.

Nevada Official Wants Tandem Recreational & MMJ Market

The official in charge of Nevada’s medical cannabis program told the state Senate Finance Committee that the same products should be sold in both the medical and recreational cannabis markets in the state, with only different taxes applied at the point-of-sale, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

Joe Pollock, the deputy administrator of the Division of Public and Behavioral Health, said treating the products differently would create regulatory burdens on the industry.

“I think there’s a lot of advantages of having recreational and medical marijuana treated the same, right up until the point of sale,” Pollock said in the report.

The setup would be different than the current system in place in Colorado, where there are different checkout counters for medical and recreational sales.

Pollock’s comments are the latest sign that Nevada’s adult-use market could differ from the infrastructure in other states. Lawmakers are expected to take up a public-use bill this session that would allow social clubs to operate in the state. And while the state legislatures in Maine and Massachusetts have both passed legislation delaying the implementation of the voter-approved cannabis measures, Nevada officials have indicated that they are six months ahead of schedule, anticipating adult-use sales to begin as early as July 1.

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Flags flying on top of an adobe-style building in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

New Mexico Hemp Bill Passes Second Committee, Moves to House for Vote

A bill that would remove hemp from New Mexico’s controlled substance list has passed through the state’s House Labor and Economic Development Committee, moving it to the House for a full vote, according to a report from the Tenth Amendment Center. If approved, the measure, HB.166 sponsored by Republican Rep. Ricky Little, would allow full-scale commercial hemp farming.

Under than plan, hemp cultivation would not require any special license, treating the crop like any other agricultural product so long as it’s THC content is not more than .3 percent, as defined under the 2014 federal Farm Bill. The bill passed the committee 10 to 1 after passing through the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee 7 to 1 last month.

According to the fiscal impact report accompanying the bill, no government agency reported a positive or negative financial impact in the state, although Little wrote that “there could be some reduction in prosecutions for cultivation, possession or trafficking in this substance.”

If the measure is approved, New Mexico would join California, Massachusetts, Maine, Oregon, Colorado, and Vermont in allowing industrial hemp production within the state.

Little has also introduced HB.154 this session, which would establish an industrial hemp research and development program in the state, which would require licensing. That bill unanimously passed the House Agriculture and Water Resources Committee on Jan. 31.

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A dispensary worker at Chalice Farms in Portland, OR stuffs pre-rolled joints in the back room.

Poll: RI Voters Favor Adult-Use Cannabis Market

According to a Public Policy Polling survey, Rhode Islanders are slightly more in favor of legalizing adult-use cannabis today than they were in 2015; finding 59 percent of voters support a regulated cannabis industry compared to 57 percent two years ago. About one in three, 36 percent, said they were opposed in the poll taken between January 27 and January 29, WPRI reports.

The survey comes as Democratic lawmakers Rep. Scott Slater and Sen. Joshua Miller, chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, introduced legislation to enact an adult-use market. Their proposal would allow adults 21 and older to possess 1 ounce of flower, grow one mature cannabis plant, providing for retails sales taxed 23 percent in addition to the 7 percent state sales tax.

“Our job is to represent the people of this state, and their position on this issue is pretty clear,” Slater said in a Rhode Island Public Radio interview.

The poll was commissioned by Regulate Rhode Island. A 2016 survey by Brown University found 55 percent of registered voters supported legalizing cannabis for adult use.

“The results of this poll confirm that our constituents want us to follow the same path as Massachusetts and Maine,” Miller said in the report.

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Snow-covered downtown Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Holyoke, Mass. Mayor is Welcoming Cannabis Industry

If the mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts has his way, the city will reinvent itself as a cannabis cultivation hot spot in New England, according to a Telegraph report. Mayor Alex Morse, 27, is encouraging growers to move into the vacant textile mills which take up 1.5 million square feet of space in the town of 40,000, of which nearly a third live below the poverty line.

“One cultivator using 40,000 square feet would create 50 jobs,” he said in the report. “We could be talking about hundreds of jobs for residents of our community.”

In addition to job creation, Morse believes that a thriving cannabis industry would be an economic and tourism boon for the town.

“People already come up in the fall to enjoy the foliage. Adding legal cannabis will do a lot to encourage tourism,” he said.

However, City Council President Kevin Jordan stands opposed to the plan, saying they “don’t want to be known as the marijuana Mecca of Massachusetts.”

Last month, state lawmakers passed legislation delaying the opening of retail dispensaries from January to July 2018, and officials are still developing the rules for the recreational industry. But Morse indicated that negotiations are already underway with at least one producer.

End


Marc Shepard: Preparing for Legalization in New England

Marc Shepard is an active member of NORML, MassCann, and the Patient Advocacy Alliance. He is also co-founder of the New England Cannabis Convention: an extensive and affordable cannabis industry business conference that is returning to Boston this April.

In the following interview, our podcast host TG Branfalt and Marc discuss what can be expected for Massachusetts and Maine (the first states in New England to legalize adult-use cannabis), what is likely to happen to the states’ medical markets as recreational laws come online, how lawmakers and entrepreneurs are preparing for the changes, and more!

Listen to the episode below, or keep scrolling for a full transcript of the interview.

Subscribe to the Ganjapreneur podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play.


Listen to the interview:


Read the transcript:

TG Branfalt: Hey, I’m TG Branfalt. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, where we will bring you essential cannabis business news and insights, by speaking with stakeholders, experts, and entrepreneurs, who are focused on normalizing and demystifying the cannabis industry. Since November’s election, the General Election in particular, attention has been paid to California, after all, it is the nation’s most popular state and has led to … The industry is the first state to pass medical cannabis laws, in 1996. New England is quickly making its own mark with two states passing their own adult use measures, a couple of months ago.

Today, I’m joined by Marc Shepard, a member of NORML and MassCann and the Patient Advocacy Alliance. He’s also the co-founder of the New England Cannabis Convention. We’re going to discuss the newly legal eastern states. How are you doing today Marc?

Marc Shepard: Terrific TG, and thank you so much for having me on today.

TG Branfalt: It’s my pleasure, my man. I’d like to kick off our discussion today with Massachusetts. Massachusetts has a medical program, which was pretty new by the time that voters approved the ballot initiative, so let’s start … What’s the status of the medical market, and how might the adult use market impact the current structure?

Marc Shepard: Sure. The brief history in Mass., possession was decriminalized less than one ounce, back in 2008. The medical programs were approved in 2012. The first dispensaries, unfortunately, didn’t open until 2015. You get a taste of the Massachusetts bureaucratic process there. I’m sure that will apply to the new rec market.

The medical program has been up for four years. There’s 35 licenses approved. There are only eight or nine dispensaries active and open. We still have a long way to go just to get enough medicine out to patients. With rec passing now, obviously, the immediate impact, if you’re a patient and you’re having trouble getting to a dispensary, you can now grow up to six plants yourself, possess 10 ounces at home, two ounces in public … You can also be gifted up to an ounce from another person. The first impact of the medical program is just that, patients now who don’t have easy access to a dispensary or a caregiver, have it a little bit easier to try to get medicine now.

TG Branfalt: There’s no indication that the medical market is going to be decimated by the rec initiative?

Marc Shepard: No. I can’t see that. This isn’t a perfect analogy, but I just kind of say, you can get brandy at a liquor store but that’s not medicine. Yeah, there’s cough medicine … Brandy has alcohol in it. It’s kind of the same thing with medical mariajuana. You can go to a rec store and buy cannabis, but honestly, that’s cannabis that’s grown and developed in order to produce a good high for people, whereas medical mariajuana is going to be produced specifically to treat ailments and specific symptoms people have. So the rec market isn’t going to produce the medicine people need for their ailments.

TG Branfalt: So you said that there were 35 licenses, given in Massachusetts, but there are less that 10 dispensaries operating. Do you have any indication when the rest might come online?

Marc Shepard: It’s picking up speed. I think there were more than 90 approved applicants, and they are all going through the process. It’s an arduous, obstacle course of getting through all of the state regulations and then finding a town, and getting all that done. Everybody makes their estimates as to how soon those 35 will open. All I can say, is it’s starting to happen faster and faster. Certainly before there’s recreational stores open, I would guess the number of medical dispensaries will at least double in the next year.

TG Branfalt: Let’s talk about the recreation in Massachusetts. According to Arcview Group and New Frontier Data, they estimate that the state market could be worth one billion by 2020. Much of that figure could be driven by Boston … It’s 200 miles away from New York City. How much of that estimated one billion dollar figure, would you think would be driven by tourism?

Marc Shepard: I’ve been reading a lot about that, and a couple of people have written about how Boston is going to become the capital of cannabis by 2020, for some of the reasons you mentioned. I’m a little bit skeptical of that. I think right now, these estimates are making some assumptions. One, that things are going to progress quickly in the Mass. market, which I don’t think is going to happen, unfortunately. I think it’s going to be much slower than what people think. Also, that’s four years from now. That gives, be it Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania … That gives them four years to pass their own recreational ballot. I think those estimates, they’re based on some pretty big assumptions. I think it will be a great market. I think it’ll be a terrific tourist market. I think Cape Cod is a great tourist destination, and obviously Boston can be too. I would just say, in general, my experience with industry forecasts, they’re always wildly positive. I’m not trying to be negative. I just think that’s a little bit high.

TG Branfalt: Now you said several times that you anticipate the roll out of the recreational program being slow. Is this due to the blowback that occurred during the election? During the run up to the election by the governor and the mayor of Boston? Do you think that they’re going to try to stand in the way, or do you think that it’s just going to be a slow process?

Marc Shepard: I think it’s both. I think when you have the mayor of Boston and the governor both openly, fully opposed to this, there’s just so many ways that the sitting government can drag their feet on a process. Also, just with the law itself, it’s pretty vague, and gives states a lot of control on zoning, and on licensing, and how thing are done. So just the normal process of saying, hey, we’ve got to set up a commission. We’re going to set up a brand new control commission and give them nine months to set up rules and regulations. Even out of the gate, you’re talking about a year before a license could even be issued. It’s just going to move slow. It’s going to happen. I think it’s just going to move slower than people think. I don’t think anybody anticipated three years, from the time the medical program was approved till the first dispensaries sold marijuana. If you apply that here, you’re talking 2019 before rec would be sold, which I’m not saying will happen, but that’s what happened with medical.

TG Branfalt: Are there a lot of municipalities seeking to bar a recreational market from existing in their townships?

Marc Shepard: There’s been a decent amount of talk, so far, especially when you’re saying nobody can even apply for a year. The fact that it’s coming up, shows that people are looking at that and are concerned with it. The easiest way for towns to do it, is to set up zoning laws that sort of make it impossible. In my hometown, in North Attleboro, the zoning law for medical dispensary … You have to be separated a certain amount from schools and by churches. When you draw a map of the town, there literally isn’t any space in the town that meets the zoning qualifications. There’s lots of things that people can do to slow things down.

TG Branfalt: What’s the next step in Massachusetts? I know that we’re very early, and that no licenses, even preliminary licenses, have been issued. Where are we now in the process, and what’s next?

Marc Shepard: Sure. Right now, in this first year, there’s 75 available licenses for retail. Each license holder can apply for four different licenses … A retail shop, a product manufacturer, cultivator, and testing facility license. So you theoretically have up to 75 licenses available. In this first year, the only applicants that will be considered for those 75 licenses, will be the 90 people who successfully submitted medical marijuana applications back in 2015, and received a provisional approval. The first 75 will come out of that group. Starting in 2018, the process will be open to everybody. As those licenses are being submitted and applied for, there’s going to be a three person cannabis control commission, that’s going to be named by the state, and they’re actually going to be writing the regulations as they’re getting applications submitted and going though the process.

TG Branfalt: Have any representatives or officials or lawmaker … Have they gone to Colorado, or one of the other legal states, to get an idea of what the regulations might look like?

Marc Shepard: Yeah, there was a group of state reps, and local reps, that did go out to Colorado. They came back with a mixed bag. A lot of their quotes about what they saw, and statistical quotes that they gave to the Boston Globe and the Herald, flew in the face of statistical information from Colorado. You have people coming and saying that there was high crime and social decay, and all these problems that the state itself, in Colorado, claims that’s not true. There was some effort put into that but it seemed there were people out there just looking to sort of validate what they had heard, or what they wanted to say. It’s tough out here. There aren’t many local legislators who think it’s going to be good for them politically, to be at the forefront of this, so everybody is going to kind of … Go along for the ride, but no one is going to lead, because nobody thinks it’s politically advantageous to do so.

TG Branfalt: It’s very interesting that, in a state that has … It wasn’t an overwhelming passage of the law, but that the officials really aren’t behind this at all. It shows the will of the people kind of shining through. Applause to the activists in Massachusetts. We’re going to step away from the show real quick and take a short break. When we come back, we’re going to talk about the other state that legalized adult use cannabis in the northeast, Maine. This is Ganjapreneuer.com podcast. We’ll be right back.

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TG Branfalt: Hey, welcome back to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m TG Branfalt here with Marc Shepard, member of NORML, MassCann, Patient Advocacy Alliance, and co-founder of The New England Cannabis Convention. We’re here discussing the northeastern states that recently passed adult use cannabis legislation during the general election. We talked about Massachusetts. Let’s move on to Maine. Very similar to how we approached Massachusetts, how will … What’s a brief history of Maine’s medical market, and how do you think that program will jive with the new recreational market?

Marc Shepard: It’s interesting, Maine’s question, really got into the medical program, and tried to protect it a lot more than Mass. It’s a much older program. It started in 1999, passed with a huge majority. There are eight dispensaries open in Maine, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but there’s only a million people in Maine, so it’s the equivalent to maybe six times as many dispensaries, say in Massachusetts. There’s close to 50,000 registered patients and there’s a huge caregiver network in Maine, where people, individuals, can register as caregivers and grow plants, and provide medicine for up to five patients. It’s a huge program that also is an industry. You’ve got 3,000 caregivers making a living off of this. The referendum for rec in Maine, did a lot to protect that. The growing licenses, as they come out … I think it’s 40% of them, are set aside and can only be used by what they call small grows, which wouldn’t be practical for somebody coming from out of state. The laws specifically to have a huge portion of the rec market be awarded to local growers, and more than likely it’ll come from the existing caregivers, those 3,000 caregivers.

TG Branfalt: They were the only state initiative … The city of Denver also did this … to include Cannabis clubs in the legislation. Do you think that this is a good thing? Will it help drive the program, and to what extent?

Marc Shepard: I think it’s a great thing, to be honest with you. There’s a social aspect to cannabis use, just as there’s one for alcohol. It’s sort of legalizing it but making it something that you can only do when you’re hidden in your home, that doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m very excited by that piece of it. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out in Maine.

TG Branfalt: There’s also been political attempts to thwart the voter initiative. The opponents forced a recount, which was verified as a pass. Governor LePage, has actually said that he wants to get rid of, to quote, “the medical marijuana program.” Similarly to what was done in Washington, which is now forcing patients to pay the 37% excise tax. Who, or what agency would have to implement such changes in Maine, and are activists concerned that LePage will have his way?

Marc Shepard: On the first part, on the recount bit, it was … When you’re trying to get something passed it’s always disappointing, but I think people have to admit, it only passed by 4,000 votes. Any valid question that … is that close … I think a recount is warranted. It was dropped pretty quickly when they saw that there wasn’t enough movement to do anything. I wasn’t really that upset about that.

As far as LePage, as the governor, his lack of information and lack and total refusal to educate himself on the issue, just …. It’s really reprehensible. For anybody again, to think somehow, that recreational marijuana is the same as medical marijuana, it shows that they haven’t made the least amount of effort to look into it. That being said, the medical marijuana program was a people’s referendum. The governor can’t outlaw it. He just doesn’t have anyway to do that. Gay marriage passed in Maine. If the governor is not for that, he can’t overturn it because he doesn’t like it. I think that’s a lot of saber rattling, and that’s just him getting the word out to his constituents, that he’s against it. I don’t see how he can do anything about it.

TG Branfalt: What’s next for Maine? I haven’t really seen any numbers about the projected revenue, such as I did in Massachusetts. Do you have any insights as to what the market might bring in, in Maine?

Marc Shepard: The same survey that you had quoted earlier about Mass. puts Maine at potentially 250 million by 2020. The interesting thing is that Maine is a huge tourist market, not just for New Englanders but also for New York. I think that piece of it, and the fact that there’s the social club aspect, maybe not dollar for dollar bigger than Mass., but I do think it will become a bigger tourist destination than Massachusetts will, just because it’s a great tourist place … The southern coast of Maine.

Right now, where the law stands is the governor, I think 10 days after the recount, to sign off on this, it’s really just a ceremonial thing. It goes into effect in 10 days after the recount ended, whether he signs it or not. It might even be tomorrow that those 10 days are up, and then possession, and growing, and use become legal 30 days after that. We’re looking at, say, the end of January. It’s going to be legal to possess and grow. The commission then has nine months to finalize their regulations. In Maine, it’s actually the Department of Agriculture. They’ll have until October 30, 2017 to finalize the regulations. Then the license application process will open for 90 days for existing dispensaries and care givers. Again, October 30th or so, 2017, is when those applications will start.

TG Branfalt: The legislation is a bit more clear than Massachusetts, in terms of time frame?

Marc Shepard: Yeah, I think so. Mass. Hasn’t even named the three people who are going to make the laws yet.

TG Branfalt: So let’s talk a bit about New England as a whole. Who’s next? Neither Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, nor Rhode Island have voter referendums. Vermont’s tried a couple of times to legalize adult use. It’s failed. They’ve come the closest to a legislature actually legalizing cannabis for adult use. Do you think that Massachusetts and Maine might start a domino effect in New England?

Marc Shepard: I mean, obviously if they’re successful and well run, I think it certainly puts pressure on the other states. I would think, probably, Rhode Island has the biggest stake in that. They were the first state after the Connecticut casinos opened … The indian reservations … Rhode Island was the next state, as they saw they were losing revenue, they opened the first casinos after Connecticut. They’ve got probably the best and biggest, organized, advocacy groups, led by Regulate Rhode Island … Campaigning and lobbying the legislature. I think Rhode Island might be next.

It could happen in Vermont, from what I saw, the failure in the legislative bill was really just about the fact that it was written to benefit retailers. I think that sort of, Vermont attitude, of if we’re going to make anything legal, it’s going to be for people in Vermont to grow and possess this themselves, not to make it just legal to sell. I think it was a case of poorly written legislation that led to the state house to reject it. I think Vermont could pass as soon as the right bill is written.

New Hampshire’s still in it’s baby stages of medical, so I don’t think anything will happen there. I honestly don’t know that much about Connecticut, although they have a functioning medical program, but I haven’t heard much in the way of a thrust from the people for rec. Once these … Maine and Mass. … are up and running, and people are able to either critique them or see the success, I think it does change everything.

TG Branfalt: What might your advice be to potential investors in Maine and Massachusetts?

Marc Shepard: This may run contrary to what a lot of people think, but to me, if you want to get into the business, and you’re not already in it and experienced, look at the ancillary businesses that don’t touch the plant. It’s difficult to navigate, and expensive, and risky, to get into the license lottery. You’ve got to know what you’re doing. You’ve got to be connected. You have to have a lot of cash flow, and you have to be prepared to get shut out, even if you do everything right. If you’re able to capitalize on the ancillary business, be it … There’s millions. There’s lighting, there’s growing. There’s security. There’s transportation. There’s so many ancillary business connected to this industry. I would look at my own skill set and say, what skills are applicable to those ancillary businesses. I would try to establish myself there.

TG Branfalt: We’re going to talk a bit about you bringing some of these businesses together at the New England Cannabis Convention, but first we have to take one more short break. This is the ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m TG Branfalt.

Recorded Voice: At Ganjapreneur, we have heard from dozens of cannabis business owners, who have encountered the issue of canna-bias, which is when a mainstream business, whether a landlord, bank, or some other provider of vital business services, refuses to do business with them simply because of their association with cannabis. We have even heard stories of businesses being unable to provide health and life insurance for their employees because the insurance providers were too afraid to work with them We believe that this fear is totally unreasonable, and that cannabis business owners deserve access to the same services and resources that other businesses are afforded. They should be able to hire consultation to help them follow the letter of the law in their business endeavors, and that they should be able to provide employee benefits, without needing to compromise on the quality of coverage that they can offer.

This is why we created the Ganjapreneur.com business service directory, a resource for cannabis professionals to find and connect with service providers who are cannabis-friendly and who are actively seeking cannabis industry clients. If you are considering hiring a business consultant, lawyer, accountant, web designer, or any ancillary service for your business, go to ganjapreneur.com/businesses, to browse hundreds of agencies, firms, and organizations who support cannabis legalization and who want to help you grow your business. With so many options to choose from in each service category, you will be able to browse company profiles and do research on multiple companies in advance so you can find the provider who is the best fit for your particular need.

Our business service directory is intended to be a useful and well-maintained resource, which is why we individually vet each listing that is submitted. If you are a business service provider who wants to work with cannabis clients, you may be a good fit for our service directory. Go to ganjapreneur.com/businesses to create your profile, and start connecting with cannabis entrepreneurs today.

TG Branfalt: Hey, welcome back to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m TG Branfalt, here with Marc Shepard, co-founder of the New England Cannabis Convention. So I want to talk to you about the NECC. You guys were the first organization to hold these events in the northeast. Why don’t you tell me about it, and what’s the purpose?

Marc Shepard: We’ve actually been doing it for a little while. We came up with the idea in 2014, to sort of create a networking and resource hub for the local cannabis industry. We sort of said, look, medical is here. Rec is going to come, and sort of, our fear, myself and my co founder, Jeff Lawrence, was that with all the successful, existing business models in the other recreational states growing and competing there, when recreational use comes here, how easy is it going to be for them to take their proven models, and just plop them down in New England, and sort of take over the industry and send all the money back out west? Our idea was, how do we get all of the people who are interested in this industry, who are local, in the same room, to network and educate, and learn from each other, and build a framework for a New England-based cannabis economy?

We started with a series of small, local shows in 2015. We did shows in Providence, Rhode Island, Portland, Maine, a couple in Boston, Mass. with the idea of introducing ourselves and the idea, and then circling back to one major show. We did the first one at the Hines Convention Center in Boston this April, and brought in people from all over New England. Obviously, we welcome companies from the outside. We’re not trying to shut out other people, but we just want to give the people locally a chance to compete.

TG Branfalt: Did you have any issues with the Hines Convention Center, specifically as hosts for a cannabis con.?

Marc Shepard: I have to say, we’re very grateful to the Hines. No other convention center in Boston would even accept our show last year. They let us in. When we did sign, recreational use was illegal in Massachusetts. It’s still illegal federally. This is a state-owned facility. We had to sign an agreement saying that there’d be no actual cannabis product onsite. They asked us to sign that again, for our show next April. We signed the contract before the rec ballot passed. We’re sort of in negotiation now about what we can do, for people who have been to cannabis cups, in legal states … The vision of, a gigantic sort of farmer’s market with people sampling and partaking. That’s not going to happen anywhere in Massachusetts. We’ve got to build a model where maybe we host, sort of an event off site, and then for the convention itself, we’ll really just be doing an award show to highlight and celebrate the winners of the cup.

TG Branfalt: What was the turn out like? Was it more than you were expecting? Was it a little less?

Marc Shepard: The one in April, this year, was more. You never know when you haven’t done them. We did smaller shows in 2015 with between 55 and 70 vendors and maybe a couple thousand attendees. Then we did the show in April. We sold out the floor of the Hines. We had about 120 vendors. We had over 4,000 people come in, which certainly beat our projections of what would happen.

TG Branfalt: I was going over the website for the convention, and I saw a very interesting page about a canna-pitch slam. Do you want to elaborate as to what that is?

Marc Shepard: Sure. It’s a stolen idea, for anyone who is familiar with shark tank. It’s something that I had seen at a couple of other conventions, where you encourage young cannabis businesses, or not even born yet cannabis businesses, to submit their business proposal and their investor plan. What we’re going to do, is collect three or four veterans of the cannabis investment community to serve as judges. We’re going to take all the entries, read through them, pick our finalist, and then they’re going to do a live pitch to these people, shark tank style. It’s not going to be the same in that there’s not going to be a massive, onsite investment by these people, but it’s more just the idea of the entertainment of seeing the ideas come out, people competing, and getting hammered by questions in a very interactive type show at the convention.

TG Branfalt: How did you go about working around some of these issues with not being able to have cannabis onsite, and did this impact the expectations, I guess, of the attendees?

Marc Shepard: You certainly field plenty of questions from people asking, can I smoke inside? Can I buy cannabis inside? I understand those questions. I think it’s a little silly when people’s expectations is that they’re going to be able to smoke inside a state building. You can’t smoke a cigarette in there. How are you going to be able to smoke cannabis? Again, at the time, it was illegal.

The people who come to our show we’re really looking at two components. One, people who want to get into the business or are already in the business, and want to network … They don’t care if there’s plants in the show or not. Maybe some people want to demo a product they have and it’s easier to demo with actual cannabis. It’s not very hard to substitute a similar plant. The other half is people who are interested in the medical program, whether they want education for themselves or a loved one, or are trying to understand how to navigate the system, or get involved in that industry. Again, the absence of having an actual cannabis plant, doesn’t really impact that experience.

What we’re missing, and I’m a recreational user myself, I’d love to go to what I would call a pot festival, where there’s buying and selling and comparing. That would be great. I do understand that that’s illegal and it isn’t going to happen in Massachusetts, or anywhere in New England, for a couple of years on. I’m eagerly awaiting when we can do that, but it’s going to be awhile.

TG Branfalt: So, before we go, we’re getting short on time here, could you give me an idea of what was most exciting? What’s the most exciting kind of event or product was, at the last convention, and give our listeners an idea of how they can actually attend the next event?

Marc Shepard: Probably the most well attended and best feedback we got, was we had a programming stage of live demos. The demos went everywhere from cloning, growing, trimming, creating tinctures, making edibles … Every single aspect of home growing and using of cannabis, both for medical and recreational. I think there was a lot of great information there. People got very excited. They met instructors. They were able to get directions on what to do. We’re obviously going to greatly expand that now, for legal home growing and processing. I’m very excited to have a huge expansion of programming for that. The convention is April 22nd and 23rd, 2017. All the information for tickets are on our site, which is NECANN.com, which is N-E-C-A-N-N dot com.

We have very inexpensive tickets for people looking for medical information. They can just go in, pay a small fee to get in, and get access to all of the medical programming. Then there’s a more expensive ticket that gives you access to all of the demos, the business and career advice, and the main keynote speakers, and the full convention experience. It’s still, compared to the national shows that are charging $200, $300, $600 for admission, our ticket prices range between $20 and $70. It’s very affordable for anybody who’s looking to get into this industry.

TG Branfalt: Well Marc, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. It’s really refreshing to get … I’m from New York. I went to college in New York. I’m living in Michigan now, but to see the proliferation of the legal cannabis market, in the northeast, which I adore New England, it’s very refreshing and great that there’s somebody out there who’s already doing conventions and bringing would be cannabusiness owners together.

Marc Shepard: It’s fantastic. It’s a very exciting time in new England for this industry. Everybody I meet, it’s that enthusiasm. You get to be surrounded by smart, driven, motivated people, who are excited to be part of a brand new successful industry that will bring a great economic boom for this region. It’s fantastic to be involved in it.

TG Branfalt: All right. That was Marc Shepard, the co founder of NECANN. I’d like to thank you so much for coming on the Ganjapreneuer.com podcast, and wish you the bet of luck in April.

Marc Shepard: Thank you so much TG. It’s a real pleasure to be here, and I really appreciate the invite. Thank you so much.

TG Branfalt: Thank you, Marc. You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, in the podcast section of Ganjapreneur.com, and the Apple iTunes store. On the Ganjapreneur.com website, you’ll find the latest cannabis news and insights and cannabis jobs updated daily, along with transcripts of this podcast. You can also download the Ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google Play. I’ve been your host, TG Branfalt.

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A cannabis grower proudly displays his product during a Cannabis Cup event.

Looking Past Christie, Former NJ Lawmaker Launches Cannabis Industry Association

Despite the limited scope of the state’s medical cannabis law, and the strong opposition by its governor, the president of the newly-formed New Jersey Cannabusiness Association is optimistic about the industry’s future in the Garden State, but any major overhauls will most certainly wait until 2018.

“No one expects Gov. [Chris] Christie to sign an adult-use bill,” Scott Rudder, the association president and former state legislator, said in an interview with Ganjapreneur. “Gov. Christie’s term ends in January 2018 – so one year from now we’ll have a new governor. Our job is to work with the various candidates…to get their buy-in and support for both the expansion of the medical program as well as the migration into an adult-use program.”

Admittedly, it took a while for Rudder, 47, to get here – actively supporting an adult-use program in the state where the Republican served two terms in the legislature (he did not seek reelection in 2013). In 2009 he had an opportunity to vote on the medical cannabis bill and abstained. “I was not there yet,” he explained, describing his mindset eight years ago. “I was uncomfortable.”

But as time went on, Rudder did more research and spent time with the Wilson family – who moved from New Jersey to Colorado in 2014 in order to access medical cannabis for their then-3-year-old daughter Vivian, who suffers from Dravet syndrome. He called the experience “transformational” and realized that New Jersey’s medical cannabis program had failed the family.

“Who are we to say, as legislators, what a doctor should and should not prescribe to somebody in need,” Rudder said. “So that was sort of the awakening if you will.”

He was one of the members of the New Jersey delegation that went on a fact-finding mission to Colorado last October, where legislators and stakeholders met with state health officials, members of law enforcement, and industry leaders. He came away thinking, “The benefits dramatically outweigh any of the concerns.”

“After discussions with folks in the legislature and folks in the industry, I felt that there was a need for an industry-based trade association to help businesses that currently exist in New Jersey, that currently operate in New Jersey but also to help grow the industry as we are moving forward.”

From the organization’s website:

The New Jersey CannaBusiness Association’s mission is simple: “Promote jobs and growth in a sustainable and responsible cannabis industry. Starting with the pioneers in the medical marijuana market to the emerging players in the adult-use space, our focus is to make certain that decision makers and regulators understand and respect the needs of the CannaBusiness community and that our community remain responsible corporate citizens.”

In addition to the companies already operating under New Jersey’s medical cannabis program, Rudder explained that there are people living in the state that are engaged in other state markets, whether it’s ownership or investment, and many individuals and entities have already started preparing for eventual legalization in New Jersey after Christie’s term ends. The association is not only building a network between business owners and stakeholders but also hopes to educate the public and lawmakers through outreach, while advocating for a “welcoming and not limited” regulatory structure. Based on conversations with his former colleagues, Rudder said it’s clear that eliminating the informal market is a bipartisan issue.

“Everybody wants to make sure it’s not something kids are buying on street corners,” he said. “You see time and again where cannabis is legalized… crime goes down, teenage use goes down – and that’s something we are going to experience in New Jersey as well.”

The association is still debating which regulation model best suits the state but it’s important to the organization that the medical cannabis program not only remains intact but is expanded. Rudder applauded the recent move by Christie to add post-traumatic stress disorder to the qualifying condition list but would still like to see more comprehensive reforms, including the number of qualifying conditions and dispensaries operating in the state.

According to a New Jersey Policy Perspective and New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform report, a “fully implemented” adult-use market in the state “could generate at least $300 million in annual direct tax revenues.” Rudder predicts – based on Colorado’s sales numbers and studies on New Jersey’s informal cannabis market – that his state could “surpass Colorado in terms of jobs created [and] revenue generated.”

“This movement in New Jersey has been happening for quite some time,” he said, commenting on whether or not the push in the state is the result of the recent electoral success in fellow Eastern states Maine and Massachusetts. “It’s more of a groundswell at a local level here in Jersey than anything that is a direct result of what’s happened in other states. Though, it’s fantastic to see how other states are reacting to it.”

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New York Gov. Urges Lawmakers to Decriminalize Cannabis Possession

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is calling for decriminalizing cannabis in his annual State of the State address, saying that “recreational users pose little to no threat to public safety” in the state, New York Upstate reports.

“The unnecessary arrest of these individuals can have devastating economic and social effects on their lives,” the Democratic governor’s office wrote in the 383-page book.

The proposal comes after voters in Massachusetts, a New York border state, legalized cannabis for adult-use during November’s general election.

According to the report, arresting and jailing low-level cannabis possession crimes cost the state $75 million in 2019; about 90 percent of those convicted had no felonies later.

New York does have a medical cannabis program; however, it is very tightly regulated – not permitting full-plant use and allowing just five licensed operators. Recently, the state Health Department did make changes in an effort to expand the program, including adding chronic pain to the qualifying conditions list, approving physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners to write medical cannabis recommendations for patients and lifting the number of brands sold by dispensaries.

Just because the governor is pushing for reforms does not mean the legislature will heed his call. A bill would need to be authored, introduced, and passed through both houses of the legislature before heading to Cuomo for his signature.

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‘Cannabis Keurig’ Readying for April Launch

Massachusetts-based CannaKorp closed a $4.1 million Series A round of funding bringing it closer to launching its ‘cannabis Keurig’ – a single-use, pod-based vaporizer – in April, according to a BostInno report. The funding was led by cannabis investment firm Singularity Capital Management.

The company plans on first selling the CannacCloud through a network of dispensaries and processors in their home state, Rhode Island, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and, eventually, Canada.

According to CEO and Co-Founder James Winkour, the system is expected to retail between $150 and $170. The pods are expected to run $6 to $10 depending on the strain. The products will be available at partnering dispensaries in legal U.S. states and would be available online for the Canadian market. The pods are made of recyclable aluminum in order to mitigate potential waste – a pressing sustainability concern of the traditional Keurig K-Cup.

Winker said people believe the device “helps normalize the industry” due to its design and that it would appeal to both current cannabis users who want a convenient and controlled way to consume, and those who are curious but uninterested in consuming it via traditional methods.

“We’re really focusing on ‘how do we educate the mainstream that cannabis has a beneficial effect?’” Winokur said in the report. “And that’s what we’re really after.”

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A selection of clones held by a commercial cannabis grower in Washington state.

Construction on Americann MMJ Facility in Mass. Set for March

Construction on a 1 million-square-foot canna-business park in Freetown, Massachusetts operated by Americann is slated to begin in March, according to a Quartz report. Businesses that lease or buy space in the park will be given streamlined preferential licensing thanks to an agreement between Americann and the city.

Space at the park will only be available to companies registered under the state Medical Marijuana Program and will include a 130,000-square-foot cultivation and processing space, a testing laboratory, corporate offices, training centers, and a 30,000-square-foot research and development center. In an interview with the Boston Business Journal, Americann CEO Tim Kough said development for the first phase of construction could run $25 million.

In a statement, Americann said the facility “will set a new cannabis industry standard for energy efficiency, cost control, clean cultivation practices, and the production of Nutraceutical-grade infused products for the patients of Massachusetts.”

The site was purchased by the Boston Beer Co., makers of Samuel Adams and Angry Orchard hard ciders, for $6 million in 2007. The company planned to build a brewery, however those plans fell through and the site was relisted for sale in 2008. Americann, who is based in Colorado, bought the property in the fall for $4.475 million.

According to the Business Journal report, Americann is also eyeing property in Florida, Pennsylvania, and California for medical cannabis facilities.

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Jason Snyder a.k.a. the Renegade Chef posing in his kitchen.

Renegade Chef Co. Elevates Infused Cuisine

The Renegade Chef is the most health-minded badass you’ll ever see in the kitchen.

Chef Jason Snyder is reemerging on the California cannabis scene as the go-to high-end cannabis chef.

He’s been schooled by the best and graduated from the world-famous E.N.S.P pastry school in France. Now, it’s his turn to turn his passion into a delectable reality.

“I’m still doing my Michelin quality food,” Snyder said, “but also incorporating the cannabis part to it on a medical level.”

Working under chefs for the past seven years was difficult, he said, especially spending long hours at restaurants, away from family and friends. Today, he knows it was all worth it because he’s doing what he believes in — healthy, cannabis-infused alternatives to the often fatty, sugary foods in America.

A true renegade

Formerly The Crafted Chef, 2017 is going to be his breakthrough year with his own company, The Renegade Chef Co.

Chef Snyder is preparing for his own edible oils using top-quality flower. He’s experimenting with infused grapeseed and coconut oils. As a specialist in handmade, artisanal, top quality food, he’s experimenting with infused grapeseed and coconut oils. Think cold pressed juices, granolas, and goji berries — not gummies and cookies.

Vegan and super foods with the theme of eating healthy — it’s part of a food movement to transition Americans away from pills. “I’m trying to make nothing in a pill form because it can be a drug abuse trigger for some people,” Snyder said.

The Renegade Chef is working to penetrate the edible market in a thoughtful, professional, and responsible way. “I’m working with CBDs too, I’m developing a line of patient-friendly food for those who have to medicate daily – it’s a better option than brownies all day,” he said.

It’s also tastier than medicating with cannabis oil, which can leave an arguably bad taste.  

“There’s more to medical edibles than you see right now on the shelves, I’m working on ice creams and sorbets for those who can’t eat solids,” he said.  

The cost of business

It’s not about the money or fame for the renegade — it’s a mission.

“I’ve discovered my true purpose, and how I want to display it,” said Snyder.

Aside from developing his cabinet of cannabis edibles, he caters private parties in adult-use states like California. He prides himself on his safety-conscious private events, where alcohol and cannabis are never mixed and the event includes a ride home to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone.

The chef believes he’s onto something bigger than just a celebrity brand, and he’s willing to put in the hours because, as he said, “when you believe in what you do, then it’s not work.”

Caution for aspiring cannabis chefs

The chef’s advice is simple: “Make sure your food speaks for its taste, then infuse it.”

Also, your passion will help make your food shine. “It’s not as easy as it looks or sounds but if you believe in your cause it makes it easier,” explained the expert chef.

A word of caution from the canna chef is to make sure this is your calling, as the traditional culinary world is not welcoming cannabis – yet.

“Many look down on what I do, but I stand for my cause,” he said. “You must think about all the pros and cons before crossing that line.”

Chef Snyder tells Ganjapreneur that he’s in it for the right reasons, and wants to collaborate with other likeminded ganjapreneurs. In 2017, expect the Renegade Chef Co. to be breaking onto the scene in California, Colorado, and Massachusetts with an edible line coming to fruition soon after.

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Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.

Analysts Predict Mass. Legal Cannabis Market Worth $1B by 2020

According to ArcView Market Research and New Frontier Data, Massachusetts’ legal cannabis industry could be worth over $1 billion by 2020 with an annual growth rate of 113 percent, driven largely by tourism.

The analysts are forecasting $52 million in growth in 2016 solely from medical sales, while the $1.07 billion figure in 2020 is from both adult-use and medical markets.

Troy Dayton, CEO of the ArcView Group, indicated that Boston’s location – about 200 miles from New York City – will make Beantown “the cannabis capital of the world in short order.”

“Unlike other places where cannabis is legal, Boston is within driving distance of many of the most populous places in America,” Dayton said in a press release. “This cannabis tourism will drive significant revenue, tax dollars, and job growth which will make legalization very attractive to neighboring states.”

Although the rules guiding the program have yet to be developed by the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, the analysts say, as written, the “broad parameters of the law create an opportunity for an open and expansive market.”

“As one of only two states on the East Coast to legalize cannabis for adult use, Massachusetts represents a significant opportunity for business owners and entrepreneurs in the space,” New Frontier Data CEO and Founder Giadha Aguirre DeCarcer said. “The law does not limit product forms nor does it cap retail dispensary licenses, which are both factors that will positively contribute toward the billion dollars in sales projected by 2020.”

The state’s legal market is expected to roll out in 2018. Some provisions, including those for possession, are already effective.

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An abstract painting of a leaf from a cannabis plant.

Cannabis-Friendly Art Classes Expanding to Newly Legal States

Puff, Pass & Paint is coming to states with recently minted legal cannabis use laws – the expansion is headed to California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts the company announced in a press release. The cannabis-friendly art class already holds regular events in Denver, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, and has held previous sessions in Seattle, Washington.

“Cannabis and art are both so therapeutic, and the combination of blending them together in a setting that is welcoming and warm is an amazing thing to witness,” Heidi Keyes, creator of the program said in the release. “With each class I teach, I’m reminded again how much I love what I do, and why.”

The first Puff, Pass & Paint classes in Las Vegas are scheduled for Jan. 20, 2017 and San Francisco, California on Jan. 24. For their expansion, the company is targeting the cities of Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland, Maine, and aims to host events in Orange County, California.

In 2015, Puff, Pass & Paint merged with Denver’s Cannabis Tours to create CannabisTours.com, which had cooking classes available in addition to the art class. CannabisTours.com was founded in 2015 and plans to offer options in Las Vegas and California next year.

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Medical cannabis plants of the Lemon Kush varietal, pictured in a Colorado home grow site.

Provisions of Mass. Legalization Initiative Take Effect Today

Massachusetts is officially the sixth state to eliminate criminal penalties for adult possession and personal use of cannabis, as some provisions of the Bay State’s voter-backed legalization initiative take effect today.

The law, passed on Election Day, allows adults who are not registered in the state’s medical cannabis program to legally grow and harvest up to six plants, possess up to 1 ounce of flower and 5 grams of concentrates in public, and possess up to 10 ounces of cannabis in their home.

“By legalizing the adult use of marijuana, Massachusetts will shrink the illicit black market, generate millions in tax revenue, end the arrest of otherwise law abiding citizens, and better enable society to keep marijuana out of the hands of children,” NORML Executive Director Erik Altieri said in a press release.

Altieri’s colleague, Deputy Director Paul Armentano, noted that in 1914 Massachusetts was the first state to outlaw and impose criminal penalties on cannabis.

“…It is time to bring prohibition to an end in Massachusetts,” he said.

The measure will license and regulate retail dispensaries, but those provisions don’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2018. The state joins Colorado, California, Alaska, Oregon and Washington as states which currently permit adult-use consumption and possession. The District of Columbia also allows adult possession and home cultivation.

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Baker Platform Offers Automatic ‘Strain Alerts’ for Dispensaries

The core foundation of any retailer’s success story almost always depends on a quality line of communication with their consumers — and one of the biggest bummers for any consumer is not being able to get what you want.

Particularly with dispensaries, patients are often drawn to a certain strain or product for its specific medical benefits. But when a sickly person makes a long trip into town or (in some instances) over to the next county, it can be extremely frustrating to learn upon arrival that their particular medication has sold out. One strategy is for the budtender to write down the patient’s contact information using a notepad or sticky note, with the specific product they were hoping for, and promise to call or email the customer when their product has been stocked again — but Baker Technologies has a better solution.

Baker is a software and sales analysis firm whose web-based app helps facilitate quality communication between cannabis dispensaries and their patients/consumers. The company’s new ‘Strain Alerts’ service is the latest addition to Baker’s online platform and allows dispensaries to issue automatic updates to customers who want to know when a specific strain of flower, brand of edibles, or other product becomes available.

According to Eli Sklarin, Marketing Director for Baker, “Specific products are very important to the dispensary shopping experience, and can make or break whether or not someone goes to your dispensary or stays loyal” — and the haphazard sticky note method described above is “extremely unscalable, takes dozens of hours, and is not great for the consumer.”

Using the Baker app, dispensaries can instead “have people sign up through our loyalty program and say, ‘I want to know when Blue Dream comes back in stock,’ and the dispensary — in one click — can let them know about the product,” said Sklarin.

The Baker app is an online platform dedicated to improving the dispensary shopping experience. Visitors to the Baker website can create accounts in order to receive live updates from registered dispensaries about current inventory, new products, prices, and product availability. Dispensaries who are currently enrolled with Baker have access to four core offerings, which include a platform for online ordering, loyalty program strategies, the opportunity for personalized messaging and direct interaction with patients and consumers, and unique analysis services that utilize Baker’s extensive and international database.

In the two years since its launch, the Colorado-based company has expanded dramatically and is currently serving 186 dispensaries in nine U.S. states — including Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Hawaii — and several Canadian provinces.

Visit www.TryBaker.com to learn more about Baker Technologies, or go to http://trybaker.com/shop/ for firsthand experience with the Baker app.

Baker’s dispensary clients average an ROI for the year within 2 months. Dispensaries who schedule a demo to learn more and sign up before the end of the year will receive a 15% discount on Baker’s services.

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Infused chocolate-covered popcorn, photographed in Washington D.C.

Lessons From a Cannabis Culinary Venture in Washington D.C.

Editor’s note: Every cannabis entrepreneur has a different story, and we love to hear about the different paths that have led different people to pursue opportunities in this industry. This article is a first-hand account by cannabis and culinary entrepreneur Victoria Harris of DC Taste Buds, detailing how she transitioned from her culinary career to crafting medical cannabis infused products in Washington D.C.


Have you heard chefs brainstorm about cannabis product ideas together? It’s incredible.

So rarely are we given an opportunity to dive into a brand new, underdeveloped, culinary venture. Globally, it’s arguable that the U.S. is behind our European cannabis aficionado counterparts, but we always make up for lost time. Just ask Charles Krug if he regretted making wine a “thing” in Napa Valley. France had a big head start, but look how that played out.

Culinary meets cannabis

I co-founded D.C. Taste Buds with culinary professionals Warren Brown and Anna Bran-Leis, knowing our business model did not exist yet — but we agreed that, in theory, it should work. We also thought that culinary professionals ought to play a larger role in the cannabis edibles industry, and we felt confident we had the experience to help open up the underdeveloped East Coast market — south of Massachusetts, D.C. remains the only city producing infused edibles and that, once the new regulations pass, will offer reciprocity.

But, as we had yet to learn, there remains a lot of uncertainty around current restrictions and the legality of certain business strategies.

annavictoria
Anna Bran-Leis (left) and Victoria Harris (right) in a behind-the-scenes discussion at DC Taste Buds.

When we started looking into who was making edibles outside our bubble, we reached out to people who could offer insight on developing trends. Amanya Maloba — who has been a budtender at some of the biggest recreational stores in Washington and is currently a cannabis consultant — said, “The smart companies are trying to collab with culinary professionals because people can tell the difference in quality. They taste better. The companies that are not recruiting culinary talent? They’re going to get left behind.”

The day after our first in-person meeting (where Anna and Warren actually met for the first time), Anna started our trademark process. A month later, we launched the brand at the The National Cannabis Festival and started determining how to enter D.C.’s medicinal marijuana industry.

Anna had tried two dozen edible companies in the District during our research and development. We all agreed on her assessment that, “we have to be focused on the food first because nobody is concerned about the taste, only the potency.”

We were excited: we already had the perfect product, infusion process, and plan for producing to scale.

Underestimated realities

That excitement didn’t last long. There was so much to learn about cannabis, and the legal regulations in D.C. are incredibly vague and difficult to navigate.

The reality was the learning curve would prevent us from entering the market with the best product possible, never mind if it was completely legal. Warren, who runs our recipe development, determined that “the regulatory structure surrounding how the product would get to market would completely change whatever process we initially decided on.”

It wasn’t until we started working with Dr. Chanda Macias, owner of National Holistic Healing Center, and Corey Barnette, who owns District Growers Cultivation Center and Metropolitan Wellness, that we realized we’d ignored a huge part of the equation. We hadn’t considered the limitations D.C. had placed on cultivation centers and dispensaries. We never considered which infusion method would be the most cost effective for the cultivation center, or how their inventory rotated.

We have only become confident in our new process because of the real collaborative effort to develop it.

The East Coast may be late to the party, but we’re en route.

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The Denver Mall in downtown Denver.

Cannabis Investment Firm Buys Denver’s Organix

Cannabis industry investment firm iAnthus Capital Holdings has purchased Denver, Colorado-based Organix LLC in a $4.375 million deal that will see iAnthus take over Organix’s brands, intellectual property and all real estate holdings of Organix’s affiliate DB Land Holdings, Inc., the company announced in a press release.

Organix owns a medical and adult-use operation in Breckenridge, along with a 12,000 square-foot cultivation facility in Denver. The deal does not include any cannabis, or any licenses to manufacture or sell. However, Bellflower, a newly formed Colorado limited liability company in which iAnthus holds no ownership stake, has agreed to purchase the inventory and licenses for $300,000. The Bellflower deal requires the approval from the Colorado Enforcement Division.

Once the Bellflower deal closes, iAnthus will provide the company with professional services, such as real estate and financing, through two newly created, wholly-owned subsidiaries Scarlet Globemallow, LLC, and Bergamot Properties, LLC.

“With the closing last month of our successful financing of [$16.2 million] in gross proceeds, iAnthus has the financial resources to diversify its footprint across the U.S.” Hadley Ford, iAnthus CEO said in the release. “This acquisition is the first deployment of capital from our recent financing and helps set the stage for our growth strategy in Colorado.”

Organix held approximately 40 percent of Breckenridge’s market share this year, with $4.4 million in estimated gross retail sales. They are the only Brecknridge outlet which holds both a medical and recreational license.

iAnthus has also made investments in Vermont, New Mexico, and Massachusetts.

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Alcohol and cannabis are the two most popular psychoactive substances on the planet.

Cannabis and Alcohol: It’s Complicated

The business relationship between the cannabis and alcohol industries remains strained and detached. In states permitting adult use, the sectors’ overlap is only provided by the state boards that regulate both; however, nowhere are the two legally bought, sold, or consumed at the same location.

Big Alcohol and prohibition

During the previous election cycle, the alcohol industry bankrolled anti-legalization campaigns in both Massachusetts and Arizona. The Beer Distributors PAC donated $25,000 to the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts, and the Arizona Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America donated $10,000 anti-legalization Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy. Moreover, in May, the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America paid for an ad in Politico’s daily Congressional newsletter Huddle, asking lawmakers to fully fund Section 4008 of the FAST Act, which would force a study on “marijuana impaired driving.”

So it surprised many when Rob Sands, CEO of Constellation Brands — an alcohol distributor — indicated the company would consider adding cannabis-infused beverages to their portfolio.

A flight of beer samplers for taste-testing the options at a local brewery. Photo Credit: Diva Thakur

Combining alcohol with CBD

The recreational link between alcohol and cannabis is culturally engrained — ask anybody that partied in college (or has attended a festival, concert, backyard, etc.) whether they used both substances and whether or not they used them together.

Research into the interactions between CBD and alcohol dates back to 1979, when Paul Consroe, PhD published in the journal of Psychopharmacology, “The combination of alcohol plus CBD resulted in significantly lower blood alcohol levels compared to alcohol given alone.” More than 30 years later another study, published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, concluded CBD prevented acute alcohol-induced liver steatosis in mice. The disease is marked by an increased buildup of fat in the liver — it cannot be cured and afflicts more than 3 million people annually, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Bruce Milligan, Mobius Beverage Corporation CEO, has worked in both industries. Mobius got its start importing tequila from Mexico, and tequila and cannabis have an interesting history. “For a long time in Mexico it was tradition, to put cannabis into [tequila] as a way of preserving your harvest of cannabis,” Milligan explained. The company is now in the early stages of a cannabis-based product that would be added to spirits, which would be sold in dispensaries.

However, it wasn’t that historical relationship that led Milligan to develop a cannabis product for use with alcohol — it was the aforementioned Free Radical Biology and Medicine study.

“As I got further into it I found cannabis was also a neuroprotectant and I thought ‘well alcohol messes up your liver and brain’ so why not put a simple additive to it and make it safer,” he said. Milligan anticipates that as the relationship between CBD and alcohol in humans is further researched, it could become clear that adding CBD to alcohol will help reduce much of its harm.

Anecdotally, Milligan said, he has found that when people use CBD with booze, “people drink less” — which, he suggests, might be why Big Alcohol poured money into anti-legalization campaigns. Additionally, he pointed to several studies that have shown cannabis to be an effective therapy for individuals trying to kick more harmful drugs, including alcohol and opiates.

A cannabis worker in Washington state inspects recently trimmed product.
A cannabis worker in Washington state inspects recently trimmed product. Photo Credit: Rory Savatgy

Federal distribution laws

But there’s more stopping Big Alcohol from entering the market than their desire to protect their bottom line. The disconnect between federal and state drug laws would prevent a company such as Constellation from distributing cannabis-infused spirits. Even distributing state-by-state would be “a pretty hard lift,” Milligan said, because once you cross state lines with a cannabis product, even from one legal state to another, it’s considered drug trafficking by the feds.

Alcohol distributors are regulated by the U.S. Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau, who could choose to revoke or suspend the license of any alcohol business that started distributing cannabis products. An alcohol distributor could, however, create a new company and apply for a distribution license. The three-tiered distribution system of California’s Proposition 646 is modeled after the one already in place for alcohol – and there is no reason not to expect that alcohol distributors aren’t going to try to cash in on being the middleman.

In a Politico report, Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, said that advocates “made some challenging compromises” with the Adult Use of Marijuana Act and the distributor model was “the most challenging.”

“There’s going to be big business in this industry, we can’t keep it out,” he said. “[With this model], we can put all the distributors in the Big Business box and we keep the boutique businesses for ourselves. Yeah, this is big money, big business, but it’s contained.”

Regulatory pushback

It’s worth noting that regulators are in no hurry to close the alcohol-cannabis gap — after Denver’s social use initiative recently declared victory, it took less than a week for the Colorado Revenue Department to ban cannabis from businesses that hold a liquor license. Bans in Maine and Alaska, whose laws permit for so-called cannabis clubs, could follow (comment requests from regulators in both states went unanswered).

Business owners, advocates, and enthusiasts alike are rightfully concerned about Big Alcohol getting into the cannabis space — the industry spent tens of thousands seeking to maintain the status quo and, according to Milligan, it’s taken “entrepreneurs putting their risks, passions, and intelligence on the line” to mold the multi-billion dollar cannabis industry. But Big Alcohol, for now, is more likely to continue funding prohibitionist efforts than they are to prioritize entrance into the cannabis space.

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Maine and Mass. Legalization Could Affect Possession Laws in New Hampshire

A New Hampshire Democratic state Representative called the adult-use cannabis legalization in Maine and Massachusetts — two of New Hampshire’s border states — a “game changer,” saying it could pressure the state legislature to at least consider decriminalization of cannabis possession, according to a Seacoast Online report.

“There’s going to be a product that’s legally purchased and available to people on our borders,” Rep. Renny Cushing said in the report. “With that same product, someone goes to New Hampshire, they could have someone put in jail for a year.”

New Hampshire has a limited medical marijuana program, which does allow for out-of-state reciprocity for conditions listed on the state’s own qualifying condition list. According to an August report from the New Hampshire Union Leader, about 1,300 patients are registered under the New Hampshire program.

However, just because people could be driving through the state with cannabis legally obtained in either Maine or Massachusetts, at least one law enforcement official does not intend to increase efforts to arrest people for cannabis possession. Hampton Police Chief Richard Sawyer says he has more prominent priorities, such as the opioid crisis.

“In the world we live in today, there are much more serious issues we are dealing with,” Sawyer said in the report. “I have no intentions of increasing our efforts in that area.”

Nevertheless, Portsmouth Police Chief Davis Mara said until the legislature changes the state law regarding possession he would continue to make arrests.

“The bottom line is we have to enforce the law,” he said.

Seakbrook Police Chief Michael Gallagher suggested that people in possession of cannabis need to make sure they know where the New Hampshire border is because some roads weave throughout the borders.

Gov.-Elect Chris Sununu said he would support decriminalization legislation but that jumping “all the way to full legalization” was not a step the state should consider taking until it’s clear how other states deal with their new laws.

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Alcohol Distributor Considering Cannabis-Infused Booze

The distributor of Corona beer and Svedka vodka, Constellation Brands, is considering adding alcoholic beverages that also contain cannabis to their portfolio, according to a report from AdvertisingAge.

“Why wouldn’t big business, so to speak, be acutely interested in a category of that magnitude?” Constellation CEO Rob Sands said in the report. “If there’s a lot of money involved, it’s not going to be left to small mom-and-pops.”

However, don’t expect the company to get into the cannabis business right away — alcohol sellers need federal government approval for their permits and licenses, and cannabis remains outlawed on the federal level. And while data from Cowen and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health purport that the number of cannabis user who also consume alcohol has declined, there has been no drop in alcohol sales in neither Washington nor Colorado since cannabis legalization.

“People who are using cannabis may be disinclined to drink as much as they might have otherwise, but maybe they weren’t going to drink in the first place and then they drink something,” Sands said. “Maybe the whole thing will work out synergistically.”

During the run-up to the campaign, alcohol trade groups donated money to anti-legalization groups in Massachusetts and Arizona, but voters in both states approved their respective ballot initiatives.

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