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 BostInnoreport. 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.”
According to a study published in the Drug and Alcohol Dependence journal, children who live in states with medicinal marijuana programs are not more likely to use cannabis. The study did find, however, that people over the age of 25 did use the drug more after the laws were enacted.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Silvia Martins, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said that despite the fears expressed by some researchers, physicians and laypeople, medicinal cannabis is not easily available — and is not being diverted — to young people. The authors reviewed the results of national surveys in Illinois, Arizona, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island and New Jersey, which included more than 53,800 people ages 12 and up, between 2004 and 2013.
“The laws seem to be working as expected with little unintended consequences for youth and young adults to date,” she said in a HealthDayreport. “It’s harder for [young people] to access it for recreational purposes and most of the medical indications of marijuana are for ailments that typically affect a larger proportion of older adults.”
The researchers found that 26 to 39-year-olds who reported using cannabis within the past month grew, but not significantly, after the laws were passed — from 9 percent prior to the enactment of the laws to 10 percent after the law’s passage. The percentage of people aged 40 to 64 who used cannabis within the month after reforms were passed climbed slightly higher, from 4.5 percent to 6 percent. Less than 1 percent of people over the age of 65 said they used cannabis within the last month after medical marijuana laws were passed.
Four more states will voting on medical cannabis programs in next month’s general election.
A petition calling on New Jersey Gov. Christ Christie to sign legislation adding post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of medical marijuana qualifying conditions has garnered nearly 18,000 signatures. The petition, started by The Joint Blog, comes a month after the state legislature approved a bill adding the condition, sending it to the governor for his signature.
“The measure sits on the desk of Governor Chris Christie, who has the option of signing it into law, allowing it to become law without his signature, or vetoing it,” the petition reads. “We are calling Governor Christie to quickly sign it into law, allowing those suffering from the ailment to use a medicine that research has continually shown is beneficial.”
The bill (A457) passed the Assembly, 56-13, in June, moving through the Senate, 29-9, in August.
The petition includes links to two separate studies that found marijuana therapies to be effective in the treatment of the condition, which according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, affects about 8 million adults during a given year.
Michigan, California, Illinois, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Arizona all recognize PTSD as a qualifying condition for their respective medical marijuana programs.
Patients enrolled in New Jersey’s medical cannabis program are paying about 37 percent more per ounce than their counterparts in states with similar programs, according to a state Health Department report.
The five dispensaries in the state charge an average of $489 per ounce, while the average price at dispensaries in Arizona, New Mexico, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island is $311 per ounce. The study took into consideration that those five states also have a 10 percent lower cost of living than New Jersey.
The report noted that the Drug Enforcement Agency found that the price of “hydroponic black market marijuana” in the state is around $400 to $450 per ounce.
Taking into consideration that Alternative Treatment Centers are held to rigorous cultivation and production standards in the state – cultivation, packaging and dispensing occur in “sanitary environments” and cannabis is grown without pesticides – the report concluded that “no ATCs are charging excessive prices for medical marijuana.”
“New Jersey medicinal marijuana is regulated and tested, patients are afforded protection under the Act and are able to change ATC affiliation at any time at no cost,” the report said. “ATCs are required to pay federal corporate tax at a rate of 34 percent.”
The 34 percent corporate tax equates to $166.26 per ounce sold at the $489 rate.
In an interview with Philly.com, Michael Nelson, general manager of Compassionate Sciences in Bellmawr, objects to the report’s accuracy. He says it fails to take into consideration monthly discounts and reduced prices for low-income patients, whose final price is closer to $300.
Donna Leusner, spokesperson for the Department of Health, said in the report that in addition to the discounts granted by some dispensaries to certain customers, about 48 percent of program participants receive a discount on their registration fee, cutting it from $200 to $20.
Though the west coast has had a lock on U.S. cannabis culture for some time, the tides are turning nationwide, and it’s due time for some representation from America’s birthplace.
On the whole, New England is shaping up to be a promising locale for cannabis. Its growing medical marijuana industry includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
Vermont has three pending legalization laws in the legislature, finally getting the chance to make official its long relationship with industrial hemp and cannabis. Lots of self-identified marijuana users hail from this state, and a recent poll showed that 56 percent of Vermonters support legalization while only about 34 percent would oppose it.
Massachusetts, though home to the business and technology hub of Boston, has had trouble gaining government support for adult use legalization. Two competing ballot initiatives faced off, but only one campaign collected enough signatures for 2016. With just a handful medical marijuana dispensaries just recently having opened, three years after the law permitting them was passed, Mass. pot shops are still having trouble doing business with low product supply and very high patient demand.
The New Hampshire House recently shot down a couple of legalization bills, but progress in neighboring states could provide a more supportive environment for policy change, especially given the fact that two thirds of voters showed their support for drug decriminalization, according to a recent poll.
Though New York is typically not considered part of “New England,” it’s the population center of the region and the state’s advances in medical cannabis policy cannot be overlooked. The state finally implemented its own government-supervised retail dispensary program last year, with a total of 393 physicians and 921 patients registered for the program in the first six weeks, and around a dozen storefronts either in operation or set to open soon.
Overall, the East Coast is home to a lot of individuals that support the legalization of marijuana; though stigma and federal illegality is still keeping many prospective New England patients out of the dispensaries. The legislative process seems to be the only hurdle here.
Even if for some reason these campaigns fall short, success is inevitable in the western states. If California, Nevada, and Arizona all choose to legalize adult use come November, it will create a cannabis super-region that will no doubt influence policy across the U.S. for the foreseeable future.
Will New England really be the next hotbed for cannabis, or will traditional values keep the industry low key? Time will tell – but what matters is that just about anywhere you choose to live in the United States, some form of legalization is well on its way.
A new report spotlights the U.S. states that are the most and least likely to legalize cannabis by 2017. The 270-page report by the Anderson Economic Group was published to estimate future market demand for legal marijuana.
Anderson CEO Patrick L. Anderson stated that “American opinions about marijuana are changing and it’s time that voters and investors have a sober and realistic look at the potential market for these products in each state.”
The report cites Arizona, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Rhode Island and Vermont as the most likely candidates to legalize marijuana in the next couple of years. On the flip side, it highlights Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, North Dakota, Texas and West Virginia as the least likely to legalize pot.
“This was no small task, but we believe our state-by-state approach provides readers with the best picture of the market for state-sanctioned cannabis products in the United States,” said Jeff Johnson of Supported Intelligence, an analytics firm that contributed to the report.
Mike Rego’s path to the medical marijuana industry is unique. In a former life as a Newport, Rhode Island police officer (and later narcotics detective), he arrested cannabis producers – now he protects them.
His career in law enforcement began in 1993 as an officer for the Newport Police Department. In 1998 he was promoted to narcotics detective, a role he served in until 2010 when he was forced to retire following “numerous” knee surgeries. In an effort to treat his injuries he began acupuncture and it was his acupuncturist who ultimately approached him about working on a medical dispensary venture in Rhode Island.
“It started very organically,” Rego, 48, explained. “I was trying to get back to work at the time, he asked if I was interested in being on the board of directors – I said, ‘sure.’”
Mike Rego, retired narcotics detective and current consultant for the medical cannabis industry.
During the transition into what would eventually develop into his second career, Rego became a licensed caregiver in Rhode Island. The first individual he treated was a friend’s brother who suffered from multiple sclerosis.
“I saw a remarkable, dramatic improvement in the quality of his life from marijuana,” he said. “It became crystal clear to me.”
At first, he considered the medical marijuana industry to be a job that would “tide him over” until he and an associate got a leadership training business off the ground. But his roles as a caregiver and board member soon morphed into dispensary work and sometimes consultant for marijuana startups. Seeing the health benefits first hand made him more active in the community and soon the benefits of recreational use would become apparent as his two sons, now 23 and 21, reached legal drinking age.
“I’ve seen the devastating effects of alcohol and other hard drugs – but mostly alcohol – and there is no comparison between marijuana and alcohol,” Rego said. “It was a very easy leap for me to recognize that – not only from a purely medical standpoint, but recreationally it pales in comparison to what happens when people are under the influence of alcohol.”
Rego admits that as a law enforcement officer he didn’t believe that marijuana was a viable medical option, saying that the law enforcement “culture” he was in didn’t endorse that line of thinking. Although, he said, during his time busting drug criminals, marijuana was viewed as “more of a nuisance” than other illicit drugs such as heroin, which he considers a “huge problem” in the Northeast.
Recently Rego has stepped away from his caregiver role in order to focus more on his second career – securing medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation sites, consultation for potential and active cannabis businesses , and outreach with town boards and local police departments in municipalities that could host a cannabusiness.
His first security consulting gig was with Greenleaf in Rhode Island, where he served as the dispensary’s head of security. Rego’s primary responsibility is setting up both the technology, and the people, to secure a site. He says that technology is usually enough to thwart would-be thieves and in the event they successfully enter the site, it’s almost guaranteed they will get caught on camera. He does employ guards, who are not armed because, he says, adding a firearm will likely just escalate a situation. Instead, he trains those working inside of dispensaries and interacting with patients to de-escalate situations. Some of the most prevalent problems, according to Rego, are employee diversion – stealing to sell on the black market – curiosity seekers, and individuals who want to hang out at the dispensary. In New York, where Rego is presently working with Etain, LLC, the medical marijuana products are less desirable on the black market, making security at dispensaries slightly easier.
The first thing Rego looks for in his security staff is an understanding of the culture. They need to be empathetic while keeping a safe and comfortable environment. Historically he has hired people with a law enforcement background because “they are used to dealing with the public in stressful situations,” but instructs his staff to only call the police “as a last step if something goes really wrong.”
“You’re dealing with, often, medically compromised individuals,” he said. “You need to be very mindful of the complications that come along with that… It’s an environment that, very much, needs to be kept in a medical setting.”
His advice to those interested in getting into the security aspect of the medical marijuana industry is this: become valuable. Rego credits his success to having been a law enforcement officer and working in a dispensary and as a caregiver. Whether the individual has a degree in criminal justice or law enforcement experience he encourages them to “get their foot in the door” at a dispensary or a cultivation site. Since there is no uniform or formal training, yet, the best way to learn how the industry works it by doing, which Rego says might not be the best financial decision at first, but “it’s kind of like school.”
“You’re learning the language, the culture, learning peripherally what it takes to grow – these are all beneficial things if you want to move forward,” he said. “I want, as much as I can, to influence people to look at this differently. It’s not what you see on TV – it’s not a big stoner mentality.”
In order to destigmatize the industry Rego sometimes acts as a liaison between business owners and the police department, trying to educate them on how to handle medical marijuana patients. As a former cop, he often lends “an air of credibility” for police officers, which helps breed the culture he is looking to build in the regions he works.
“You have to have a certain skillset that goes between analytical intelligence and social intelligence,” Rego said. “You get the skillset to know what you’re talking about from the security end and you can also play golf with the CEO, and then maybe grow some plants with the growers, it’s all hands on deck – to me that’s the culture.”
Over the next few weeks, an old horse barn will be transformed into one of the first medical marijuana cultivation facilities in New York.
The 8,000-square-foot barn in Chestertown is still being renovated but once complete it will serve as the extraction, curing, processing, separating and lab site for Etain, LLC’s production facility. Alongside the barn, nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, is the footprint for what will soon be a 13,000-square-foot greenhouse.
During an open house of the facility, led by Etain COO Hillary Peckham, local government officials and media members were allowed inside the horse barn for the first, and last, time. Soon clones will be brought to the site and it will be locked down, per Department of Health regulations. Presently an 8 foot fence surrounds the perimeter of the site. Additional security measures, such as cameras, motion detectors and guards, will be in place before the first marijuana shipment arrives.
In accordance with state law the plants will be used to extract oil. New York’s Compassionate Care Act forbids smoking as a delivery method, and because of this Etain has narrowed their offerings to four products: capsulated pills, sublingual drops, oral sprays and concentrates for use in vaporization pens. Etain has partnered with Clean Room Extract to create the concentrates using carbon dioxide extraction methods. The law allows for each of the five state-approved companies to have five “brands,” determined by the THC to CBD ratio in the final product.
“Clean Room Extracts [process] gives the highest yield for the amount of extractable oil,” Peckham said during the tour. “Most industry standards are about 14 percent of the usable oil…Clean Room Extracts has a minimum of 35 percent.”
Etain is currently the only New York company using Clean Room Extracts for their oil processing. Clean Room Extracts entered the marijuana extraction sector three years ago, according to Alfonso Liu, a Clean Room Extract representative who attended the event. Prior to getting involved with the marijuana industry they utilized their methods to extract liquids from algae and fungi. The firm also works with companies in New Jersey, Colorado, California and Kentucky.
“The industry standard [for extraction] is getting about 50 to 60 percent,” Liu said. “We have a proprietary method that we can go all the way to 95 percent. So depending on what method we use, we can get 95 percent of the oil.”
No products will be sold directly from the rural Chestertown location. The law allows for each of the five companies granted permission to operate in the state one production site and four dispensary sites. Peckham explained that despite there currently being zero enrollees in the program, their business plan has prepared them to handle a customer base of 500 patients. Their first, and currently only in-progress, dispensary is set for North Pearl Street in Albany – a stretch currently occupied by warehouses, mechanics, breweries and bars. Peckham expects a slow start to the program, hence her focus is on the small-scale grow-op and just one dispensary. During these early stages she expects to have about 20 employees working between both sites. Peckham is hopeful that her other locations will be ready by the end of February.
The security for both the cultivation and dispensary sites are headed by Mike Rego, a former Newport, Rhode Island narcotics detective. Rego helped open Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center in his home state and has worked with other medical marijuana sites with securing their locations.
Rego says that the rural setting for Etain’s cultivation center might make his job a little easier but he is going about securing the site in the same fashion he would any active grow facility. The fact that the plants are useless once used for extraction eases his mind a bit compared to other sites because it makes the site less appealing to thieves. Rego explained that oil is less likely to be “diverted,” or sold illegally. At the cultivation site the products will be stored in an 800 pound safe so, “even if someone were to get past the fence and into the vault, the cops are going to be there in no time and your face is on camera.”
“There is a general interest here that this is a place that is not going to have any problems,” he said. “We want to be a good neighbor.”
Rego said that one of his primary goals is to ensure patient comfort at the sites in his charge.
“My experience has been patient interaction is very important… You want to feel like you’re in a safe and secure place,” he said. “You don’t want to have an armed guard hanging over you. That’s not the environment we want to create.”
Rego’s approach to security seems in line with the “compassionate” namesake of the bill, while the cultivation facility’s tranquil location elicits a peaceful vibe. Although the Department of Health can shut down the program at any time for any reason, Peckham is confident that this is just the beginning for the industry and the Health Department realizes that medical marijuana therapy is long overdue, and much-needed, for patients in the state.
“It’s compassionate care, it’s palliative care and you can make an impact on patients’ lives,” she said.”
A recent study published in Urology medical journal’s February issue supports the hypothesis that cannabis use may be linked with a lowered risk of developing certain types of cancer. This is not the first study to demonstrate this result. Researchers around the world have studied the linkbetween marijuanause and cancer for decades.
Cannabis has been used for medicinal purposes for over 3,000 years. In the United States, its use as a palliative drug for individuals suffering from pain, sexual problems, and low appetites stretches back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, thousands of Americans rely on the substance for pain relief and other medical benefits.
A Decreased Risk of Bladder Cancer in Men
The study was conducted by researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center Department of Neurology. During its course, the researchers tracked 80,000 men ages 45-69 over a period of eleven years to determine any correlation between cannabis and tobacco use and the development of bladder cancer. After adjusting for race, age, ethnicity and body mass index, the researchers found that tobacco use was associated with a higher than average risk of developing bladder cancer while cannabis use was linked with a lower risk of developing the disease.
34,000, or 41%, of the participants reported using cannabis during the study period. 47,092, approximately 57% of the men, reported tobacco use.
Of the men who reported using cannabis, 89, approximately .3%, developed bladder cancer. Of those who did not use cannabis, 190, or approximately .4% of the participants, developed the disease.
Brown University and Other Studies
In 2009, researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island published a the results of a similar study that they had conducted in Cancer Prevention Research. This study examined the correlation between long-term cannabis use and neck and head cancers. In this study, 434 patients suffering from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma were tracked alongside 547 matched controls. The researchers focused on the participants’ cannabis use and found that the individuals who used cannabis in moderate amounts had lower incidences of developing this disease. This included individuals who also used alcohol and tobacco, two known contributors to developing head and neck squamous carcinoma.
A 2006 study by researchers at UCLA showed no link between moderate to heavy marijuana use and respiratory cancers.
Cannabis: The Cure?
We still can’t say for sure whether or not moderate marijuana use can reduce your risk of developing cancer. We do know that cannabis smoke, much like tobacco smoke, contains known carcinogens such as benzopyrene. However, unlike tobacco use, cannabis use has not been definitively linked with the development of certain cancers.
What we do have is a growing body of research that indicates a link between a lowered risk of certain cancers and moderate cannabis use. We also know that the human immune system contains cannabinoid receptors, further supporting the theory that cannabis is positively linked with immunity.
As more studies are published about the link between cannabis use and increased immunity, it will become more difficult to ignore the role this plant can have in helping millions of Americans suffering from a myriad of diseases.
With recreational use legalized in two different states, 2013 was a big year for marijuana enthusiasts. 2014 is gearing up to be even bigger and more monumental if social and political patterns are to be trusted.
The nation has watched Colorado and Washington very closely since the states began the great legalization experiment last year, and with recreational stores open in Colorado for one and a half months already, it’s clear that marijuana legalization is not, in fact, the end the world. The state of Colorado is benefiting both socially and economically, and other states are now considering hopping on with this legal reefer madness. According to the NORML blog, almost 30 different states are currently considering marijuana law reform in one way or another.
The 14 states considering recreational legalization are: Arizona, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. 12 states (and the District of Colombia) are considering decriminalization: Alabama, Arizona, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wyoming. 11 states will vote on medical marijuana legislation: Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Hawaii, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, Minnesota and Wisconsin. And 3 states will be considering industrial hemp: Indiana, New York, and Tennessee.
And state legislators are not the only ones pushing for change, as demonstrated in an open letter sent to President Obama from 18 members of Congress this Wednesday. The congressmen call for a minimum action of reclassifying marijuana at the federal level, if not declassification entirely, stating that “Classifying marijuana as Schedule I at the federal level perpetuates an unjust and irrational system. Schedule I recognizes no medical use, disregarding both medical evidence and the laws of nearly half of the states that have legalized medical marijuana.” The letter’s lead author, Oregon State Representative Earl Blumenauer, believes that they have identified a “step the administration can take to start to rationalize federal marijuana policy to bring it in line with the advances that are happening in the states.” This bi-partisan letter is just another piece of what’s beginning to resemble a frenzied legalization stampede.
In many ways, 2014 is shaping up to be a potential landslide victory for marijuana reform. Enthusiasts believe this victory could also make for advances in economic growth and social justice. With cannabis still considered a schedule 1 controlled substance by the federal government, however, the entire industry continues to operate in a state of legal limbo.
