St. Patrick’s Day Cannabis Sales Top $89M

3/30/2021

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St. Patrick’s Day saw the highest cannabis sales so far this year, totaling $89 million throughout the U.S., according to MJ Freeway data outlined by Forbes. The total was 50% higher than the average sales on Wednesdays so far this year.

From St. Patty’s Day through Friday, cannabis sales topped $230 million, the report says.

The uptick could be due to not just the holiday but also the most recent round of pandemic-related stimulus checks that started hitting bank accounts on St. Patrick’s Day.

Jessica Billingsley, CEO of Akerna, which owns MJ Freeway, said she was “astounded at the sales figures.”

“Historically, we have seen no large bumps or changes on St. Patrick’s Day, but we did see jumps in sales last spring amid the first stimulus check payments. Because of that, I expected to see an increase in sales from these larger checks but certainly did not expect to see this year’s largest sales day.” – Billingsly to Forbes

Billingsly also predicted another record-breaking day next month due to April 20 – or 4/20.

MJ Freeway found a 45% increase in flower sales, a 32% increase in vape sales, a 13% increase in concentrate sales, and an 8% increase in edible sales.

Customers 30- to 41-years old represented 31% of the holiday’s sales, according to the data, followed by those under 30 with 28%. Those aged 40 to 50 represented 20% of sales, with 50- to 60-years old comprised 12%, while customers 60-and-older represented 9% of sales, the report found. The majority of customers, 60%, were male while 40% were female.

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East Coast’s First Black Woman-Owned Recreational Dispensary Opens in Massachusetts

3/30/2021

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The first Black woman- and Haitian-American-owned adult-use cannabis dispensary on the East Coast has opened in Brockton, Massachusetts, Enterprise News reports.

Brockton’s Vanessa Jean-Baptiste — who co-owns Legal Greens with Mark Bouquet, of Boston — said, “As first-generation Haitian Americans, we are fulfilling our parents’ dreams of creating a better life for future generations to come.”

A recent beneficiary of Massachusetts‘ economic empowerment program — which was designed to help members of communities that were disproportionately affected by cannabis prohibition to obtain cannabis business licenses — Jean-Baptiste said she wanted to help revitalize the downtown of the city where she grew up. Legal Greens is the second dispensary located in downtown Brockton.

“I want to bring life into downtown. I want to be the first person in downtown to create some change.” — Jean-Baptiste, via Enterprise News

To help get things started, the company was given a loan for $100,000 in cash and $150,000 in product from Massachusetts- and Maine-based cannabis retail cannabis chain Theory Wellness. Legal Greens used the loan to renovate a former commercial building owned by Haitian activist Fred Fontaine.

Jean-Baptiste said she hopes to expand the business to cover both cannabis cultivation and manufacturing in the future. The company also intends to help people freshly released from prison rejoin society.

“We hope to inspire Black and brown residents in Brockton and across the country to pursue their dreams relentlessly because as long as you work hard and don’t give up, anything is possible,” Jean-Baptiste told Enterprise News.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Legal Greens was the first Black woman-owned dispensary on the East Coast. Rather, it is the first such recreational retailer, but there are multiple medical cannabis dispensaries on the East Coast owned by Black women including Mary & Main in Maryland and the National Holistic Healing Center in Washington DC. We regret our reporting error.

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Canada Starts Fining Border Crossers Who Don’t Declare Cannabis Products

3/30/2021

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The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) yesterday began issuing monetary penalties to travelers who fail to properly declare cannabis and cannabis products when crossing the border. The agency noted in a press release that while cannabis was legalized federally in 2018, it remains illegal to cross the border with cannabis without a valid permit or exemption.

The coronavirus has shuttered the border between the U.S. and Canada, and it remains closed to non-essential travel until at least April 21.

The financial penalties are “another tool, besides criminal prosecution” to enforce “unauthorized cross-border movement of cannabis in any form,” the CBSA said. The penalties will apply to travelers who provide false information to an officer or fail to report imported goods containing cannabis.

“The CBSA also reminds Canadians that although the possession of cannabis is legal in some U.S. states, it remains illegal under U.S. federal laws. Do not attempt to cross the Canada-U.S. border with any amount of cannabis in any form, even if you are travelling to a U.S. state that has legalized possession of cannabis.” – CBSA in a press release

Penalties will range from $200 to $2,000 CAD depending on the type of contravention, the severity of the offense, and any history of non-compliance. Those who disagree with the penalty will have 90 days to request a review of the officer’s decision.

The notice also notes that exporting cannabis products without a license – including CBD or hemp-derived products – remains illegal.

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Cannabis/Hemp Drinks: Intersecting the ‘Consciously Sober’ and ‘Drinks with Benefits’ Macro-Trends

3/30/2021

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Americans’ beverage preferences have always changed over time but never quite as rapidly as they have in recent years. Today, people of all ages choose different drinks depending on varying “use occasions.” Consumers are open to trying new beverage options and entrepreneurs have become increasingly adept at tapping into this flexibility through creative marketing.

There are several current trends within the overall beverage market but two of the most relevant to the cannabis/hemp industry are the growing number of people who are becoming “Consciously Sober” and the even greater number who opt for “Drinks with Benefits.”

The term “Consciously Sober,” also sometimes called “Sober Curious,” describes individuals who are more mindful about the decision to drink alcohol. These consumers are not alcoholics who have a dangerous problem and must completely abstain from alcohol. Instead, the Consciously Sober are people who choose to question the need to consume alcohol at every social occasion and have discovered personal lifestyle benefits from drinking less or not at all.

The term “Drinks with Benefits” references beverages that deliver desirable ingredients along with hydration. Originally simple, plain bottled water was the ultimate healthy drink without artificial flavors, heavy sugar, and lab-generated colors. But eventually, consumers and the entrepreneurs who serve them realized water could also be the ideal vehicle for delivering added benefits. Why not deliver good stuff with the water you need to consume anyway?

These social movements began small but gained momentum as consumers experimented with the burgeoning variety of beverages. They started choosing different beverages depending on whether they wanted a certain taste, health benefits, more energy in the afternoon, or a good night’s sleep. They also began to read labels. More knowledge about what was in beverages led a growing number of consumers to look for products with ingredients they wanted — or wanted to avoid.

How can Cannabis/Hemp brand owners position their products to benefit from these trends?

Hemp can be creatively positioned in a variety of ways to appeal to the non-alcoholic crowd. Bar and restaurant owners do not want to lose the revenue from alcohol but can charge more for drinks delivering flavor, function, or fun. Perhaps a bartender uses a hemp powder to enhance a mocktail in a “sober bar?” Maybe they prefer to use hemp in a liquid format like bitters where a dash is added for an additional charge. Shouldn’t the designated driver enjoy a good drink as well? Maybe something to help her chill while the alcohol drinkers tell bad jokes?

Cannabinoid-infused beverages are a rapidly growing segment in this new and explosively popular industry.

Hemp could also be the featured ingredient in a premixed beverage format for use at home or at a restaurant. Not surprisingly, a few enterprising brand developers are already pioneering this nascent market. Aplós is a new premixed hemp-based beverage which describes itself as a “plant-based, non-alcohol spirit, that calms and uplifts, without the negative side effects of alcohol.” Another take on the market from Oregon is Aurora, which was “created for an inspired aperitif experience that evokes balance and restoration without intoxication.” In other words, both of these woman-owned brands are delivering a fun, good-tasting social experience without the alcohol.

Rather than alcohol-free, what about “alcohol alternative” beverages with cannabis extract containing THC? A growing number of consumers seek the relaxation or recreational effects of alcohol but want to avoid hangovers and other unhealthy side effects. There are certainly more than a few companies exploring this market, most notably Constellation Brands with their investment in Canopy. It is certain other wine, beer, and spirits purveyors will jump into the fray once the regulatory environment is deemed safe. But the competition from established beverage giants shouldn’t prevent smaller companies from being successful long term. After all, craft breweries have been giving the beer giants fits for years and small distilleries are having success competing with the international liquor powerhouses.

An early “trend within the trend” appears to be making beverages with small or “micro-doses” of THC. Part of this is consumer preference as people want cannabis to elevate their social experiences and not hinder their good time. The other driving force for adding a small amount of THC to a beverage is brand owners want to sell multi-packs and bar owners prefer having the opportunity to sell several drinks instead of just one.

The first significant marketing influencers for cannabis drink brands are “celebrity mixologists” as well as famous users who initially became noted for reasons other than cannabis. Mixologists are known for their ability to create great-tasting cocktails and their followers rely upon them to “curate” their drinking experience. This trust should naturally translate to cannabis drinks as well. Many famous users ranging from Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, Tommy Chong, and Seth Rogen are already in the market with a variety of products. And Martha Stewart of all people has a CBD line!

How big is the opportunity?

Currently, the global cannabis beverage market is heavily fragmented due in part to the absence of larger traditional beverage companies from the segment. But even without the participation of the CPG giants, the market is estimated to reach $2.8 billion by 2025 on the basis of consumer demand.

The market will draw users from the pharmaceutical industry who will use hemp and cannabis to replace both over-the-counter and prescription pain and sleep medication. Users will also migrate from the alcohol market. Early data indicates beer and wine purchase orders have declined by around 15.0% in the last 10 years due to consumers’ use of cannabis.

A study jointly conducted by the Universities of Georgia and Connecticut suggests millennial populations are currently the primary consumers of cannabis beverages but the use should spread to more age groups with time. After all, Baby Boomers are the cohort with the most aches and pains and who have the most trouble sleeping! Boomers are currently frequent users of marijuana in other formats and the development of beverage formats appealing to the older demographic will likely be the key to reaching more of this group.

Making a Successful Beverage Brand

The most important and perhaps the trickiest part of creating a successful cannabis/hemp brand is formulating a functional beverage that also tastes great. This is because both hemp and cannabis react differently with varying flavor components. Carbonation can heighten the “peppery” effect of the cannabinoids. Glass, aluminum, and PET packaging have plusses and minuses. Getting it right requires coordinating all the moving parts so entrepreneurs will find there is a real benefit to working with professionals with practical beverage experience in this relatively new market.

Your hemp/cannabis extract supplier must be ready to work closely with you to “mass customize” their offerings because a certain formulation that works wonderfully in one type of beverage can be a total dud in another. Farmington Research has worked with entrepreneurs on an amazing range of applications including juices, teas, drinks shots, natural spring waters, sparkling waters, and drink powder sticks. Every single format has required a custom solution – even among flavor variations within a product lineup. We’d be glad to send you a sample of extract used in hemp/cannabis drinks but, more importantly, we’d love to work on your project in its earliest stages so we can help you create a great product!

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Poll: Two-Thirds of Louisianans Support Legalizing Cannabis in the State

3/30/2021

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Two-thirds – 67% – of Louisiana residents support adult-use cannabis legalization in the state, according to a JMC Analytics and Polling survey published yesterday. The firm found 54% support for the reforms in a poll last year.

Just about a quarter of respondents said that cannabis use and possession should remain outlawed in the state – a 6% drop from the firm’s 2020 polling. Sixteen percent of those surveyed in the March poll said they only favored medical cannabis legalization, with 8% wanting both to remain prohibited and 9% undecided.

A supermajority of respondents (75%) also favored allowing the use of smokable forms of cannabis in the state’s medical cannabis program, which currently only allows oils.

Another 65% of respondents said they were more likely to support a candidate for office if that person wanted to reform the state’s cannabis laws; 17% it would make them less likely to support a candidate, with 19% unsure.

The poll found 60% of Republicans supported legalizing use and possession, along with 67% of Democrats and 79% of those registered with another party of independents. The majority of Democrats (66%) and Republicans (56%) also said they were more likely to support a candidate that backs broad legalization.

The poll was conducted March 22-23 and included 1,160 respondents. Of those polled, 44% identified as an Evangelical Christian.

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New Mexico Gov. Calls Special Session Focused on Cannabis Legalization

3/29/2021

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New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has officially called lawmakers back for a special session specifically to reach a deal on cannabis legalization, the Associated Press reports. The session is set to begin tomorrow.

Grisham had indicated that she planned to call lawmakers back to the Capitol after they failed to approve the legalization package before the end of the state’s legislative session.

In late February, the state House of Representatives approved the reforms but the bill stalled in the Senate due to disagreements over taxation, licensing, and criminal justice provisions. Those issues persist but Grisham and legislative leaders hope to come to an agreement during the special session, which can only last 30 days.

Republican leaders in the statehouse seem amenable to two complimentary bills – one with the industry regulations and oversight and another with the criminal justice reforms related to legalization, the report says. Republicans want a bill with strong employers’ rights to limit cannabis use by employees, cannabis impairment enforcement on roadways, unlimited business licenses, and low taxes.

House Republicans also criticized Grisham for calling the session in the run-up to Good Friday and Easter celebrations.

The bill approved by the House includes strong social justice provisions – including automatic expungement – and allows for micro-licenses.

In comments to Sandoval County Democrats earlier this month, Grisham said she was not going to wait another year for the reforms and was confident lawmakers would come to a legalization deal during the special session.

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Iowa CBD Shops Re-Open After Owner’s Arrest

3/29/2021

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A chain of CBD shops in Iowa has finally reopened after being shut down by the police in 2019, the Des Moines Register reports. The shops were first shut down when the owner, Lacie Navin, was arrested for drug charges.

Charged with “controlled substance violations and “unlawful substance tax requirement,” Navin — who became a passionate promoter of CBD after seeing how it helped her dad with his fibromyalgia — labored at six jobs to pay rent on three locations for “Your CBD Store” while she worked towards securing an Iowa state hemp license, according to the report.

“I know I’m on the right side of history, I know that these products help people and I know they’re organic and they’re good. That for me was the driving force to say I’m not letting go because what I’m doing is right.” — Lacie Navin, via The Des Moines Register

Navin was arrested and her stores, located in Valley Junction, Urbandale, and Ankeny, were shut down in 2019. But last year, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signed a law paving the way for the Department of Inspections and Appeals to create a hemp licensing program. Lacy says she cannot sell Delta 8 THC, however, her store does provide CBD, CBG, and CBN products made from USDA-certified organic hemp.

“We want to make sure everyone’s getting safe products and everyone’s complying with the rules that Iowa’s made in terms of CBD and what’s allowable with hemp,” she told the Register.

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New Jersey Requires Cops to Notify Parents of Minors Caught with Cannabis

3/29/2021

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) on Friday signed another “cleanup” bill for the state’s cannabis legalization regime, requiring parental notification when minors are caught illegally possessing cannabis, the Associated Press reports. Under the law signed by Murphy last month, parents would not be notified the first time a minor was caught with cannabis.

According to the bill text, the measure requires law enforcement officers to provide written warnings to parents. The warning must include the person’s name, address, date of birth, a copy of the warning containing this information, and a sworn statement that includes a description of the relevant facts and circumstances supporting the officer’s determination that the person committed the violation.

Under the legalization law, parents and guardians would have only been notified upon a minor’s second offense. For subsequent offenses, the law requires underage offenders to be provided with informational materials on community substance abuse programs for their second possession offense, and on the third offense, the warning is sent to the community drug treatment program along with the parents or guardians of the offender.

Following final approval of the legalization law by the governor, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal directed state, county, and municipal prosecutors to dismiss any cannabis-related charges for offenses no longer illegal under the reforms. The order also prohibits officers from using the odor of cannabis – either burnt or raw – as a “reasonable articulable suspicion” to initiate a stop or search of a person or their vehicle to determine a violation of a possession offense or a fourth-degree distribution offense.

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France Launches Two-Year Medical Cannabis Experiment with 3,000 Patients

3/29/2021

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France’s two-year medical cannabis experiment launches today as the government seeks to study the positive and side effects of the plans and its derivatives, Morocco World News reports. The experiment will include 3,000 patients with chronic diseases and specialist physicians in pain, oncology, neurology, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and palliative care.

France’s Health Ministry has said that the experiment aims to gather data about the effectiveness of medical cannabis with the potential to legalize it for therapeutic use nationally. Nearly 20 European Union countries allow medical cannabis programs. The French experiment was initially set for September 2020 but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

MP Robin Reda, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on cannabis from the right-wing party Les Républicains, has criticized the medical cannabis experiment program, contending that the government would “do everything it can to drag its feet and ensure that as few people as possible get to use marijuana on this experimental basis.” Reda has said that “no one should be happy” with the nation’s cannabis policies which he described as “repressive” and “clearly not working.”

In January, the French government launched a public consultation about cannabis legalization asking citizens about their views on cannabis and what government policies people would prefer. That comment period ended February 28 and the results have not yet been made publicly available.

Editor’s note (3/31): A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that France’s medical cannabis program would limit the THC in cannabis products to just 0.2 percent. In actuality, products are anticipated to include a wide range of THC and CBD, with levels reaching up to at least 8 percent. We regret the error.

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The Human Toll: Documenting the Racist Realities of Cannabis Prohibition

3/29/2021

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The regulated cannabis industry has been developing for well over the past decade, and many entrepreneurs have entered the space with excitement. However, many of the entrepreneurs who founded the legacy cannabis market are still in jail or prison for crimes that are now regularly featured in the news and other media as a regulated industry. The harsh reality is that many of these legacy entrepreneurs are Black. The documentary series The Human Toll: How the War on Cannabis Targeted Black America illuminates the real stories of people who did time for cannabis sales while (mostly white) entrepreneurs are today selling weed with no repercussions.

The Human Toll, directed by award-winning filmmaker Øcean Vashti Jude and produced by Vanity Fair and PAX Labs, is presented in three parts. Part 1 explores the war on drugs and the direct correlation to policing Black and Brown neighborhoods. Part 2 humanizes the psychological trauma that this war has planted in Black communities, and Part 3 highlights the challenges of re-entry.

The documentary introduces the viewer to Evelyn LaChapelle, Corvain Cooper, and Michael Thompson, three non-violent offenders who faced incarceration for acts as small as depositing cannabis funds in their bank accounts or distributing small amounts of cannabis. This series shows that the regulated market blankets a fraudulent system that historically seeks out and incarcerates people of color and provides insight into how the current market players can support righting this wrong done to communities of color.

“Vanity Fair is doing the right thing by showing the racist reality of the criminalization of cannabis,” Michael Thompson explained.

“The justice system is discriminatory and people of color don’t get a fair chance and this needs to change. Just like Sam Cooke said, ‘A change is gonna come.’ The cannabis industry should show their support for returning citizens who were incarcerated for cannabis.” — Michael Thompson, in The Human Toll

Interviews with formerly incarcerated legacy entrepreneurs accompany insight from Natalie Papillon, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Last Prisoner Project, Steve Hawkins, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project, Major Neill Franklin, 34-year law enforcement veteran, and more. Each interview contributes to forming a well-rounded, in-depth view of how the American justice system continues to punish legacy cannabis professionals despite consistently celebrating the parallel, exponential growth of the regulated market.

“This docuseries was so important to me because it shows the true injustice of how cannabis laws were used to target Black and Brown communities,” said 40 Tons Brand Ambassador Corvain Cooper, “We wanted to share our story with the world and bring light to the fact the legal cannabis market can profit 60 million a year. but there are still 40,000 prisoners still locked up over this plant. Laws and minds must change!”

“The American people have this idea that the war on drugs ended in the ’80s, but it didn’t and it’s worse than it has ever been,” filmmaker Øcean Vashti Jude told Ganjapreneur. “It’s my duty as a filmmaker and activist to shine a light on the people affected by the war on cannabis and how it has decimated our communities.

“The systems that play a part in the war on cannabis are designed to dehumanize the situation or have us forget it. With this docuseries, the truth is out and people in and out of the systems are talking, which brings healing and knowledge. When we have those two things, change can come about.” — Øcean Vashti Jude, in a statement

Any person who has benefited from the regulated market, whether doing business or picking up an edible on vacation, should watch and engage with this three-part documentary. The wrongs done to Black and Brown people through the justice system should be reversed and atoned for — people doing business in the regulated market should be supporting work to expunge criminal records of those incarcerated for cannabis and helping to facilitate their re-entry after incarceration.

This series is a must-watch for all Americans, specifically those who do business in cannabis or who currently put their dollars into the regulated market. For those with the privilege of having the ear of a cannabis executive, specifically white people, it is essential to voice the need for putting dollars into expungement and re-entry efforts to further the mission of reversing the human toll. There are currently still 40,000 people incarcerated for cannabis crimes in the United States — make it make sense.

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New York Lawmakers Reach Legalization Deal, Vote Expected Next Week

3/26/2021

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New York lawmakers have reached a deal on cannabis legalization with a vote expected on the proposal next week, the New York Times reports. According to sources familiar with the soon-to-be-filed legislation, the law will allow sales, home grows up to six plants, and social-use clubs.

Possession limits would be set at three ounces and the measure provides for the automatic expungement of crimes now legal under the law.

The reforms were initially proposed as part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Budget but amid his ongoing scandals – accusations of sexual misconduct, reports that he gave friends and family access to coronavirus tests while they were still hard to procure, and that his administration underreported virus-related nursing home deaths – legislative leaders pressed for a deal that was more closely aligned to the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act. The M.R.T.A. was sponsored in the Senate last session by Democratic Sen. Liz Krueger and has broad support from statewide activists because the measure uses cannabis tax revenues to invest in communities most impacted by the War on Drugs.

“When this bill is finally voted on and signed, New York will be able to say we have finally undone damaging criminal justice laws that accomplished nothing but ruining people’s lives. We will finally be able to say we’re going to have an industry for cannabis that assures people who buy the product that they are buying a legitimate product from legitimate companies.” – Kruger to the Times

According to the Times report, 40% of most tax revenues would be reinvested in those communities, 40% would be used for public education, while 20% would go toward drug treatment, prevention, and education. Cuomo’s plan had most of the funds earmarked for the General Fund, which the executive has more control over.

Under the proposal, retail cannabis sales would be hit with a 9% state and 4% local tax, along with state sales taxes, putting the effective tax rate on sales at 21%.

Half of the industry’s licenses would be set aside for social equity applicants, including minorities, women, disabled veterans, and people most affected by the disproportionate enforcement of cannabis laws. Social equity programs would also be available, which would include loans, grants, and incubator programs for small farmers and individuals from disproportionately impacted communities who want to enter the space.

The proposal also includes reforms to the state’s medical cannabis program, including allowing flower and doubling the supply allowance from 30 days to 60 days, the report says.

The New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association estimates New York’s cannabis industry could be worth $5.8 billion by 2027.

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Maryland Cannabis Legalization Stalls In Committee

3/26/2021

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Despite a surge in cannabis legalization efforts across the country, Maryland has failed to pass adult-use cannabis reforms through the legislative process this year. The two bills in Maryland’s House that would have legalized adult-use cannabis failed to pass by their legislative deadlines, CBS Baltimore reports.

The bills did not make it out of committee. If passed, they would have expunged cannabis crimes, set up taxation and disbursement mechanisms, and enacted substantial social equity provisions, including lowered application fees and start-up funding for disadvantaged individuals.

“We are disappointed in the inaction to legalize cannabis for adult-use in Maryland this year. This means another year of Marylanders being subjected to the harms of prohibition — including thousands of life-altering stops, searches, and arrests for cannabis.” — Olivia Naugle, legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project, via Cannabis Wire

The missed opportunity comes after a recent Goucher College poll found that two-thirds of Marylanders, the most ever recorded, support legalizing adult-use cannabis, according to the report.

Dr. Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana — a political group that lobbies to maintain cannabis prohibition — said in a WJLA report, “This is huge, and we were proud to have taken part in testifying against these reckless bills. Given Governor Larry Hogan’s advocacy against commercialization, we were confident there would not be much of a push on this front, but we are even more pleased to see that neither of the two bills progressed past a hearing.”

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Utah Sober Living Home Allows Residents to Use Medical Cannabis

3/26/2021

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A sober living home in Utah, Men’s Tribal House, is the first in the state to use medical cannabis to help its residents, according to a KJZZ report. About half of the facility’s 27 residents are using medical cannabis to stay clean of drugs such as opioids.

Shane Ericksen, the owner of Men’s Tribal House, said that when he started supporting medical cannabis at the recovery center he was “kind of a pariah” in the state’s addiction support industry. However, the home has a license to use medical cannabis in this way from the Department of Human Services and a physician assesses every new resident to determine if cannabis would help them.

“They’re not going to run down the block and get heroin. … All I think I’m doing is not discriminating against somebody’s right to use medical cannabis.” – Ericksen to KJZZ

Joshua Kyle Liberator, one of the residents of Men’s Tribal House, said that medical cannabis helps him get through the day.

“Instead of me going out and picking up a needle and sticking it in my arm,” he said in the report, “I pick up a vaporizer or I pick up a cartridge or a I pop a gummy in my mouth.”

The state’s medical cannabis law does not allow smokable forms of the substance. The residents at Men’s Tribal House are registered with the state program.

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration does not allow federal funds to be used for addiction services that allow for the use of medical cannabis.

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Business Leaders Launch National Hispanic Cannabis Council

3/26/2021

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Aimed at empowering the U.S. Hispanic community, the National Hispanic Cannabis Council launched on Thursday. The nonprofit will focus on raising awareness around cannabis-related health, economic, and legal issues and promote participation and leadership in the industry.

The organization notes that Hispanics are currently underrepresented in the U.S. legal cannabis industry.

Brian Vicente, a founding NHCC board member and partner at cannabis law firm Vicente Sederberg LLP, said that “Cannabis prohibition in the U.S. was founded in large part upon prejudice toward Mexican immigrants, and it has disproportionately impacted the Hispanic community ever since.”

“The NHCC will work to repair the damage caused by old prohibition policies and to ensure the Hispanic community benefits from the new legal systems coming online to replace them. We are excited to launch this organization at a time of unprecedented economic opportunity in the emerging legal cannabis industry.” – Vicente in a press release

The NHCC was founded by industry leaders representing a variety of companies, including Can It Industries, LLC; Cresco Labs; Folsom and Forge; Moxie; Trulieve; and Vicente Sederberg LLP. It is led by executive director Antonio Valdez and governed by a national board of directors. Valdez is a consumer marketing expert with over 20 years of experience marketing to the Hispanic community and he was a founding board member in the launch of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, the nation’s first Hispanic trade association for the real estate industry.

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Florida High School Teacher Fired for Medical Cannabis Use

3/25/2021

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The Brevard County School Board in Florida voted this week 3-2 in favor of terminating Allison Enright, a teacher at the Space Coast Junior/Senior High School who tested positive on a drug test for medical cannabis use, Florida Politics reports.

Medical cannabis is legal in Florida but the plant remains a Schedule 1 substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act, which — members of the school board argued — meant that Enright’s continued employment could have jeopardized the school’s federal grants and other funding.

Enright was issued the drug test after she was injured when a student shoved her on a flight of stairs. She had confronted the student for disobeying rules related to slowing the spread of COVID-19 in the school. Enright said she had no idea that her use of medical cannabis was in violation of district policy, which only says that teachers can’t use “illegal drugs” — and which hasn’t been updated since 2003. Notably, students in the school district may be permitted to use medical cannabis under a 2019 policy but no such exceptions exist for teachers.

Enright said she takes a THC pill twice per day and that before switching to medical cannabis, she was taking opioids.

“I want to make it clear: I don’t do drugs. I don’t smoke pot. I don’t get high. … I love teaching. It’s not just what I do, it’s who I am. I have been at a loss without my students and colleagues. Space Coast high is my family, and I want to go back. Please, let me go back home.” — Enright, addressing the board during public comments, via Florida Politics

Despite this, and despite supportive statements from multiple co-workers who attested to her positive work record, the school board ultimately voted to uphold Enright’s firing, which officially took place Wednesday. The decision will receive a hearing for review within the next 60 days.

School board members all expressed regret at “having” to let go of an otherwise qualified and dedicated educator.

“I can’t tell you how unfortunate it is that this happened,” said board member Cheryl McDougall, who voted in favor of firing Enright. “I wish we could turn back the clock. But again, I feel like I’m bound to follow [my constitutional duty].”

Last November, Florida’s Marion County School Board fired high school dean Mike Hickman, a military veteran, over his use of medical cannabis to treat combat wound-related chronic pain.

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New Jersey Appoints New Cannabis Commissioner After NAACP Criticism

3/25/2021

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Following pushback from the NAACP chapter of New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) replaced a member of the Cannabis Regulatory Commission with Charles Barker, a staffer for U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D). Barker replaces William Wallace of the United Food and Commercial Workers, who was originally appointed to the panel by the governor.

“As a young Black man from an underserved neighborhood in New Jersey, I am humbled to join the Cannabis Regulatory Commission and bring my perspective to the table. For generations, the misguided War on Drugs has devastated entire families and communities. I know this experience first-hand from being unjustly profiled and pulled over, illegally searched, and scolded many times by the police simply for the color of my skin. This is very real for me.” – Barker in a press release

Earlier this month, the NAACP argued that the commission violated the law that created it by not meeting its own social equity requirements. The composition of the board was also blasted by Rev. Dr. Charles F. Boyer, founder of Salvation and Social Justice, who contended that “the demographic most targeted by prohibition ha[d] no representation on the commission?” In a Tuesday statement from the governor’s office, Boyer said he has “worked several years with Charles on cannabis and racial justice issues throughout his time in Sen. Booker’s office.”

“He is a brilliant young man from our community, who understands how prohibition targeted us. I am confident Charles will bring relevant insight and a strong work ethic for equity,” Boyer said in the statement.

Richard T. Smith, president of the NAACP New Jersey State Conference also supported the appointment of Barker, describing him as “a phenomenal young man” who “truly understands the importance of this commission and his pivotal role to ensure the law is implemented correctly.” Smith did note that he was “sincerely disappointed that the NAACP had to go to such lengths to ensure that the marijuana legalization law was followed and that this commission was reflective of the communities most harmed by this failed war on drugs.”

Since January 2017, Barker has served as Booker’s constituent advocate and projects specialist for U.S. Senator Cory Booker. During the 2018 election, he served as a strategic advisor to the campaign of Anthony Cureton, Bergen County’s first Black sheriff.

Barker has also served as associate general counsel for Alma Realty Corp. and legal intern for Wilentz, Goldman, & Spitzer; Enterprise Community Partners; the Elder Rights Clinic at South Brooklyn Legal Services; and the Community Development Clinic at Brooklyn Law School.

Barker earned his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University in 2010 and Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in 2014.

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GOP Congressman Calls Biden Out for Firing Staff Over Cannabis Use

3/25/2021

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Republican Congressman Dave Joyce (OH) on Tuesday sent a letter to President Joe Biden (D) outlining his concerns regarding punishing staffers over their cannabis use and calling on the administration to “discontinue punishment of staff for being honest about their prior cannabis use and reinstate otherwise qualified individuals to their posts.”

In the letter, Joyce – a co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus – noted it is his understanding that the White House “has begun to remedy this matter” and points out that several states, U.S. territories, and Washington D.C. “have exercised their state’s right and enacted sensible cannabis reforms and legalization measures which have overturned decades-long policies that are both arcane and discriminatory.”

The letter also outlines the potential therapeutic role in pain management and post-traumatic stress disorder and its role in reducing opioid use.

“Furthermore, aside from the obvious impact to the employees in question, I am also concerned about the message the federal government is sending by penalizing those who chose to be forthcoming and truthful. Simply put, in a nation where the truth is considered malleable, we need to demonstrate to our young public servants that telling the truth is an honorable trait, not one to be punished.” – Joyce in the letter to Biden

Last week, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the controversy and indicated that only five “of the hundreds” of people hired by the administration were fired as a result of the policy. The clarification came after a Daily Beast reported “dozens” of staffers were suspended, placed on remote work, or asked to resign over their cannabis use.

In the letter to Biden, Joyce offered to work with the administration “on establishing an effective federal regulatory framework which recognizes that continued cannabis prohibition is neither tenable nor the will of the American electorate.”

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Australasia Medicine Association Tells Doctors Not to Prescribe Cannabis for Pain

3/25/2021

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The Faculty of Pain Medicine at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anesthetists (ANZCA) is telling physicians not to use medical cannabis to treat non-cancer pain because of the lack of clinical evidence proving cannabis’ efficacy for pain, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Professor Michael Vagg, dean of ANZCA’s pain medicine faculty, said medical cannabis products on the market “are not even close” to showing they are effective in managing chronic pain. The recommendation was backed by the International Association for the Study of Pain.

“The research available is either unsupportive of using cannabinoid products in chronic non-cancer pain or is of such low quality that no valid scientific conclusion can be drawn. … “Substances like alcohol are more effective pound-for-pound but we don’t have extended opening hours at Dan Murphy’s for pain patients.” – Vagg via the Herald

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) does allow doctors to apply for special access to prescribe medical cannabis for pain. The agency’s head, Professor John Skerritt, said last week that the regulator had approved it’s 100,000th medical cannabis application this month. The majority of those approved applications were for chronic pain such as arthritis, neck or back pain, fibromyalgia, and migraines, while anxiety, insomnia, and cancer symptoms accounted for a fraction of medical cannabis prescriptions, the report says.

Iain McGregor, professor of Psychopharmacology and academic director of the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics at the University of Sydney, argued that if cannabis didn’t work to treat pain, why would people use it? He agreed that more clinical trials were needed but described the current system as “a galloping horse heading off into the future.”

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Oregon Targets Delta-8 THC With New Regulations

3/24/2021

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The Oregon Liquor Control Commission is moving forward with rulemaking on Delta-8-THC and other psychoactive hemp and cannabis products that currently fall outside of the agency’s purview, KTVZ reports. Under the state’s legalization law, the OLCC only regulates Delta-9.

The rulemaking comes as Delta-8 products emerge in non-cannabis brick-and-mortar shops throughout the U.S. and on the Internet. The cannabinoid can be derived from hemp.

Paul Rosenbaum, OLCC Commission chair, said that the rules reforms were required because minors could go into grocery stores and purchase the products.

The OLCC rulemaking would only apply to the state’s cannabis industry and legislative action would be required to further regulate the compound, the report says.

Steve Marks, OLCC’s executive director, said that the agency doesn’t “have sufficient authority over total THC in Oregon.” He added that unregulated hemp in the state “has no final product testing” and regulatory authorities can only test for Delta-9 in the field.

“But until we get that and ability to do final product testing to help get these things into the right markets where they’re supposed to be, either in the unregulated hemp CBD market or into our market, it’s going to be hard.” – Marks via KTVZ

The House General Government Committee is set to analyze the Delta-8 issue at a public hearing on Thursday and could consider legislation to allow product testing and labeling for all intoxicating THC products, only allow them to be sold at OLCC-regulated retailers, and ban the sale of Delta-9 products to minors.

Last year the federal Drug Enforcement Administration published an addendum to the 2018 Farm Bill that attempts to clarify that all “tetrahydracannabinols” – including Delta-8 – are illegal under federal law.

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Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Guarantee Cannabis Insurance Services

3/24/2021

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A bipartisan bill to guarantee insurance services within the cannabis industry was introduced last week in the U.S. Senate. The legislation, aptly named the Clarifying Law Around Insurance of Marijuana (CLAIM) Act of 2021, is sponsored by Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Jeff Merkley (D).

According to a press release from Sen. Menendez’s office, the bill was introduced in response to the fact that only six states in the U.S. still lack some form of medical or adult-use cannabis law. However, due to cannabis’s designation as a Schedule I narcotic under the Controlled Substances Act, these otherwise legal businesses are not generally insurable.

Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-NY) introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives on Monday, her office announced in a press release.

“The voters in New Jersey spoke loud and clear this November when they overwhelmingly approved of recreational marijuana use, the governor and state legislature have acted, and now it’s time for the federal government to take the shackles off of state-authorized cannabis businesses, allowing this burgeoning industry to thrive.” — Sen. Menendez, in a statement

The CLAIM Act would allow cannabis firms in states with adult or medical cannabis to obtain insurance products like workman’s compensation, property, casualty and title insurance, the press release says. The Act has both private and public stipulations designed to protect insurers as well as the insured.

“Current federal law prevents these small business owners from getting insurance coverage, and without it, they can’t protect their property, employees or customers,” said Sen. Menendez. “Our legislation simply levels the playing field for legal cannabis businesses, allowing them to fully operate just as any other legal small business would by permitting insurance companies to provide coverage to these enterprises without risk of federal prosecution or other unintended consequences.”

The proposal is particularly timely as the House and Senate are set to reconsider the widely popular SAFE Banking Act, which would legalize the cannabis industry’s access to traditional banking and other financial services.

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John McLeod: From Law Enforcement to Cannabis Proponent

3/24/2021

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John McLeod is the co-founder of Michigan-based Cloud Cannabis Co. — which operates dispensaries in Ann Arbor, Muskegon, and Traverse City — and a former police officer for the city of Detroit.

In this podcast interview, John discusses how an on-duty injury ultimately opened his eyes to the effectiveness of cannabis medicine, how cannabis saved him from a descent into opioid dependency, and the fateful founding of Cloud, whose motto “Live Higher” embodies the company’s vision of prioritizing patients over profits. John also talks about the need for more balanced representation in the cannabis industry, his former colleagues’ reactions to him having launched a cannabis business, Michigan’s transition into an adult-use marketplace, and more!

Listen to the podcast:

Read the transcript:

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Ganjapreneur is excited to announce the launch of our new YouTube series, The Fresh Cut, hosted by Cara Wietstock.

Cara Wietstock: Hi, I’m Cara Wietstock, host of The Fresh Cut by Ganjapreneur. In this interview series, we get straight to the source and speak with the real people working in the industry. In our first episode, I spend time with Nancy Southern, whose current mission is to educate seniors on cannabinoid medicine. She lets us know how to facilitate a comfortable retail setting for older adults and provides product recommendations directly from her own experience. Catch this and all future episodes on YouTube.

TG Branfalt: Hey there, I’m your host, TG Branfalt. Thank you for listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast, where we try to bring you actionable information and normalize cannabis through the stories of ganjapreneurs, activists and industry stakeholders. Today, I’m joined by John McLeod. He’s the co-founder for Michigan-based Cloud Cannabis Company, and he’s a former police officer for the Detroit Police Department.

We have a lot of issues to get through in terms of your background as a law enforcement officer, as well as your role founding a cannabis company. Before we get into that, why don’t you just briefly tell people how you ended up in the space without going into too much detail?

John McLeod: Yeah. Right on, and thank you, TG. It’s a great pleasure to be on your show. I appreciate the discussion and the ability to elaborate some on this. Cannabis for me as a business play really paralleled my own medical play as a cannabis patient. I was injured and was put on the opiate train, and I know we’ll get into this a little bit more further on. But cannabis became medicine to me and I had no experience with it prior to that, and it was really eye-opening.

What we wanted to do as a company is to help guide that experience for the future canna-curious or people who are new to the space or people that just need a natural healing alternative in these times.

TG Branfalt: The way that we got connected was you had reached out after we had published an article about a New York Police Department officer who had been denied medical cannabis after an on-the-job injury. The email that we received from you was that it made your blood boil. Can you tell me a little bit more about your reactions, the visceral reaction that you had when you read that report?

John McLeod: Yeah. Absolutely. It still makes my blood boil that anyone would be denied the ability to naturally heal themselves of any ailment with cannabis. The fact that this police officer was denied it just based off the simple fact that he was a police officer, I find just extraordinarily troublesome. Because I know as a former police officer, I could go to work hopped up on opiates and it be completely acceptable and normalized and run of the mill.

No one would think twice about it. But someone who used a very low-dose medicine cannabis would be looked at considerably different. I think the hypocrisy of it is just disgusting.

TG Branfalt: I appreciate you reaching out because it’s very rare, we had a little discussion before we went live, that people in this industry have the opportunity to have these open discussions with law enforcement or even former law enforcement. So I want to talk to you just a little bit about that. When you were a law enforcement officer in Detroit … And I mean, people who listen to the show know I lived in Detroit for a year.

I loved that city, but I also was keenly aware, while I was there, about the racial disparity in arrests, and especially when it comes to cannabis. I mean, it’s a predominantly Black city. What was your opinion about cannabis while you were an active duty police officer?

John McLeod: Yeah. I’m born and raised in the city of Detroit. I’m a Detroit public school kid, so being a police officer in Detroit was a decision that I made very, very early on in life. I don’t talk about this much, TG. I was in seventh grade, the middle of the day, walking home from my school bus when I was a victim of a violent robbery for my winter coat.

Now, as if that wasn’t traumatic enough for a seventh grader, when the police officers arrived at my home later that evening to take the report, they were extraordinarily disrespectful, very, very condescending and not helpful in the least. For me, at that very tender age, I learned two things. One, I got to watch my back a little bit better. Two, I wanted to become a police officer because I never wanted anyone to feel the way that I felt at that moment.

For me, it was, that’s the way I approach policing. My approach was to be a healer, to be a helper, to be someone that was never going to put a barely teenage child in that type of position, right? I was fortunate enough to become a police officer in Detroit. It was one of the best jobs I ever had. I worked with some of the finest people that I’ve ever met, but cannabis in Detroit is not really a huge focus of a lot of the attention, particularly of the patrol officers on a day-to-day basis.

Detroit has certainly had its challenges over the years and had some comebacks and some downfalls, but it’s a gritty city. It’s a city I love and it’s a city full of just really unbelievable people, great people. The police department, we never really went after weed, so to speak. It was never really a focus that I was ever around. When I was preparing for this, I was going through and I’m thinking, “I don’t really recall arresting anyone for cannabis.”

TG Branfalt: Really?

John McLeod: It’s the same thing. I never wrote a single speeding ticket, you know? I mean, those functions that I think most police officers do on a day-to-day basis. Maybe it’s because I was in Detroit so we had other things to do that it wasn’t a focus of ours. It was never anything that I ever dealt with, to be honest with you. I would say the challenge is, is just a basic understanding that the laws are the laws and the police officers do not write the laws. They’re just there to enforce the laws.

Just understanding that there is a difference between the two. In 2008, in the state of Michigan, there was a medical marijuana law that was passed, and that changed everything in Michigan. I think it changed everything on a policing standpoint too, in Michigan, because now fast forward in 2016, you have an adult use law that comes on the books. We’re a full adult use state in Michigan and we’re getting to be a relatively mature market at this point in time.

Cannabis is not a thing anymore here. I mean, I have friends that are still on the job and one of them who was a canine officer who actually got to bring his dog home because he cannot use it in service anymore because it’s trained to detect cannabis. Therefore, they can’t use that dog anymore. There’s a whole piece of evolution with the policing industry that has come along with cannabis as well. I think it’s a unique perspective that I bring to the table to understand that, listen, this is a legal industry now.

This is an industry that we should embrace and this is an industry that does a lot of good, both in people’s lives in communities that have been historically disproportionately affected by cannabis prohibition. When you look at these communities in Michigan that are benefiting from cannabis businesses, cannabis investment, and cannabis jobs, which I think is probably the biggest benefactor in all of the industry, is how many good paying jobs are created. A lot of these are centered in communities that were otherwise not desirable investments to a traditional business. The cannabis industry has been able to come in and revitalize huge industrial buildings or rundown retail locations, or invest in pockets of neighborhoods or communities that otherwise would not get investment, and certainly would not get the amount of jobs that come from this industry. There’s so much benefit to it and a lot of that benefit goes to a safer community with cameras and lights and visibility and walkability.

All of that stuff helps the police do their job, which is enforce the laws, which is what they’re intended to do.

TG Branfalt: As a native Detroiter, what’s your take on the push for social equity in the cannabis space in general? Specifically, do you think that regulators are doing enough, lawmakers are doing enough in Michigan, to help those communities that were most affected by prohibition?

John McLeod: Yeah. I think, is anyone doing enough? Probably not, right?

TG Branfalt: It’s true.

John McLeod: I mean, let’s be honest. Are they trying really, really hard? I believe so. There’s a couple of examples. Our own regulatory body in Lansing is headed up by a man by the name of Director Brisbo, Andrew Brisbo. He has set a tone for social equity in the state of Michigan, which I find is very, very loud. I mean, he’s letting it known that this is something that’s going to happen here. They’re pushing it very strong from a regulatory perspective.

Then at the municipal level, you have people like Councilman James Tate in the city of Detroit who has rolled out a program, which I think establishes legacy applicants and social equity, which potentially is second to none in the industry. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to do better. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to be more inclusive. I know from Cloud’s perspective, we’re constantly evaluating and looking at all opportunities to do so.

But from a regulatory perspective in Michigan, I think we’ve been very, very progressive the way our cannabis legislation has been rolled out. I think the intent is to do the same thing with social equity.

TG Branfalt: Well, I mean, you have such a unique perspective on the industry regarding your background. I want to just ask about your unique perspective with your experience with opioids and your journey to medical cannabis.

John McLeod: Yeah. I kind of alluded to it before, but I was a police officer, loved my job. I’m running down the alley one day, next thing I know, I tear my ACL, my MCL, and I’m just a hobbling mess. After several surgeries, the police department retired me out and said, “You’re on opiates the rest of your life and here’s your doctor’s number and this is pretty much how it goes.”

My wife and I tend to be more natural, more healing people. We’re yogis. We’re trying to do the right thing, you know? So we struggled with that quite a bit. I started off with very low-dose pills and eventually moved up to a patch, a long-release opiate patch. It just wasn’t working for me and I was unaware. One day my wife sat me down and said, “Look, it’s changing who you are. You’re not the best husband you could be. You’re not the best father you can be.” I think quite frankly, she was just telling me I wasn’t the best human I could be.

But for that conversation, I was unaware of how the opiates were changing me as a person. I was on a very low dose, very, very low dose. At that point in time, we said, “This has to change.” I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who’s a medical cannabis provider in the state of Michigan. He writes recommendations. He’s on the forefront of the industry, really just an unbelievable guy. He was ready for me to come see him.

He was ready for me to experience the healing benefits of cannabis. When I finally tried it for the first time, TG, it was like flipping a switch. It was unbelievable how I was able to heal myself naturally with no side effects and with nothing synthetic putting into my body. It was a game-changer for me. It was an eye-opener for me. I had no previous cannabis experience. For me, I was hesitant to even begin, but my transformation was instantaneous.

That really sparked my interest in spreading that word to the masses, because I think there’s a stigma that we’re fighting against first and foremost. But I think there’s an information gap in most people’s visibility when it comes to cannabis. We really try to strive to fill that gap for people.

TG Branfalt: Tell me about filling that gap for people. You’re somebody who had no experience, who started medicating with cannabis. That was your entry into it. Tell me how you used that experience to help educate people that-

John McLeod: Yeah. Well … Sorry to cut you off. That’s a great question. Listen, on your November 19 podcast, you’re talking to Shawn Gold. It’s a great podcast, by the way.

TG Branfalt: Thank you.

John McLeod: I would recommend everyone listen to it if they haven’t. He said a quote that really stuck with me. I had to write it down. He said cannabis for him was like a second opinion. It really stuck with me when he said that, because for me, I kind of felt like I was living a certain type of life. I thought that I was on a path and I couldn’t deviate from it.

Little did I know cannabis was waiting there for me as that second opinion, as saying, “No, look, this is not the path you’re supposed to be on. You can live a better life. You can live higher.” As we like to say. You can live the best version of yourself, right?

TG Branfalt: Yeah.

John McLeod: For me, being able just to explain that to people and to come at them as just someone who had no cannabis experience, someone who had a law enforcement background and who was very by the books, this is the way it is, cannabis is not some deviation from that. It’s not. It’s a tool to healing that naturally occurs in our world that’s here for us. Just explaining to people that it’s not the cookie that your uncle gave you at the holiday party, where you were high for a couple of days. That’s not what we’re talking about here.

That’s fun and everyone has a good time with that and it’s a great story. What we’re talking about is regulated, tested product. Product that you know what’s in it, and what’s not in it more importantly. Product that you can know your dosage amounts so that you can properly microdose yourself until where you get to that position where you’re healed, or you get to that position where you’re whatever you’re trying to go for so that cannabis can be the best tool to help you live the best version of your life.

TG Branfalt: I just got to ask, man, you’ve obviously become very, very passionate, not just about the industry, but I mean, the healing benefits of cannabis. Can I just ask, what is the reaction to your second act, if you will, from your previous colleagues in law enforcement or people like that? I mean, are they surprised where you’ve ended up?

John McLeod: Yeah. Absolutely. I’ll be honest with you. I’m surprised too. Listen, I’m very fortunate that I was able to have access to the people in a state that had laws that protected me as a patient that allowed me to make this progression into cannabis. I think of the people that live in states that don’t even have a medical program in this country and the lengths that they have to go to, to just heal themselves naturally. I think there’s a lot of surprise, but I also think that the story is real.

The healing is real, so regardless of the background or the order, it’s the information is just, it’s truth. Speaking that to whoever will listen to it, is really what I feel like my responsibility is, not only to this company, but to the industry as a whole, because we can be stewards of this industry. This is something that we live day to day. You live this every single day and have for a very, very long time, but for the majority of the mass public, this is the front end of this.

This is just the beginning of the cannabis movement in the United States of America. Really to be the right ambassadors of the industry to the general public, I think is a huge piece of this.

TG Branfalt: Tell me a bit about building your brand. One of the things I found really interesting, I read an interview with you and you said, “To be taken seriously, you have to be in Ann Arbor.” Obviously, you’re building your brand around this idea of being taken seriously by the right people. Why don’t you first tell me about building your brand? Then I want to ask you a question about Ann Arbor.

John McLeod: Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. We really have tried to build a brand that’s very inclusive to all, that’s very open, very cheerful, very accepting. I’ve been fortunate to build this brand with some of the finest business minds that you’ll ever meet. These just happen to be good friends of mine. This is a family business. We built this ourselves. We bootstrapped it all ourselves. This is something that we did because we feel like we have a better approach to the cannabis industry.

We feel like we have the right education-minded approach to the cannabis industry, and we have some really great people. I mean, one of my partners is one of the finest extractors in Michigan with a great brand, the business acumen on the top end is just unbelievable. We’ve been able to forge a hole in the space that’s allowed us to establish Cloud as an accessible kind of brand.

That’s what we look to grow. We have a couple of locations open and operating in the state and we have big plans for next year.

TG Branfalt: I want to go back to Ann Arbor just a little bit. For most people … I mean, again, I lived in Michigan, I loved Ann Arbor. I spent a ton of money on records in Ann Arbor. I had a great time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Explain briefly the culture of Ann Arbor and why you feel the need to be there in order to be, in your own words, taken seriously.

John McLeod: Yeah. As I said, born and raised in Detroit. The unique thing about Metro Detroit in particular or Ann Arbor’s proximity to Detroit is born and raised in Detroit, but 25 minutes down the road from Ann Arbor, which is this beacon on the hill when it comes to cannabis, right? I remember growing up, going and walking around the Diag and just hanging out and feeling like we were cool as teenagers in Ann Arbor.

Understanding that it was very progressive when it came to cannabis and really embracing that. My senior year government paper was on the legalization of marijuana, you know? It’s not-

TG Branfalt: Seriously?

John McLeod: Yeah. Listen, I’ll be honest with you. I was very, very proud of my teenage self at that point in time because I went from writing that paper, which I got an A in that paper, thank you, Mr. Dean. Shout-out to Mr. Dean on that. Then I went right into law enforcement, right thereafter. My thoughts on cannabis were certainly, I guess, probably little bit more progressive than most at that time. When I think of Ann Arbor, I mean, think about it.

The pioneers that came out of Ann Arbor in cannabis are too numerous to tell, but John Lennon did a concert for John Sinclair in Ann Arbor. I mean, this is John Lennon we’re talking about here.

TG Branfalt: Wow.

John McLeod: You know what I’m saying? This is someone who John Sinclair was incarcerated for having two marijuana joints and he got 10 years and there was a whole movement behind that and a big concert that John Lennon put together. I mean, this is how far Ann Arbor is ahead of, certainly the rest of the state, but probably the rest of the country when it comes to cannabis. I mean, this was 50 years ago. For me, I felt like we couldn’t really have a cannabis brand until we were in Ann Arbor. That’s just because that is the epicenter. Period.

TG Branfalt: I mean, another really interesting part about your brand, your philosophy, and this was something I didn’t realize until we started talking at the beginning, before we went live again. I’d gone through your intro and you’re like, “Hey, get rid of that chief position.” You said, “We’ve decided to get rid of the C-suite titles.” You’re the second cannabusiness entrepreneur that I’ve spoken to in the last two episodes that has had this shift by independent operators to get rid of these C-suite titles. What’s your impetus behind that move?

John McLeod: I think just having a more welcoming and opening environment. I mean, for us, we are only … Me as a co-founder or whatever position I hold within the company, I’m only as good as the patient advocate or the budtender that’s coming to see you when you pull up at one of our stores. If you have a bad experience with that person, your reflection of my company is going to be that. It’s a more collaborative effort, it’s a more collaborative approach to the way we handle business.

We’re about putting the right person in the right seat and making sure they have the tools to do their job successfully, and then getting the hell out of the way and letting them do what they have to do. There’s a reason why you put people where you put them. We’re not a company that’s afraid of making mistakes or doing something wrong. We firmly believe that you cannot grow without making mistakes. You cannot grow without doing the wrong thing one way or another.

As long as your mind and heart is in the right place, we’ll figure it out. It’s that second mistake that you got to watch out for. We want to be a collaborative company. We want to be a company that’s all about acceptance and growth and kindness. That’s the way we started this. Like I say, it’s a family company. It really is. I mean, it’s a family company.

TG Branfalt: Your name’s on it.

John McLeod: Yes, yes, yes. Ironically so, but it’s a family company from top to bottom and some of the finest people you ever meet started this company with me, and I feel very fortunate to be a small part of it.

TG Branfalt: As the co-founder of a cannabis business, what do you look for in the right person? Let’s say for a liaison to management position, or somebody who has a little bit of power, but isn’t you, right? What do you look for? What personality traits?

John McLeod: Well, it’s the motor city, so first and foremost, the one word you will always hear before we talk to anyone is, do they hustle? That’s it. You got to hustle. The cannabis industry is not a 9:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday industry. It’s not. It’s an ever-evolving, ever-changing industry that’s not for the faint of heart. We’re looking for someone who has hustle. Then someone who matches our core values.

Someone who’s respectful, someone who is responsible, someone who’s accessible and someone who fosters good relationships, both in their business and their personal life. You got to have good balance too, to be good at your job. That’s really what we look for. There’s no one of us founders that are above getting that phone call at one o’clock in the morning. I didn’t say three o’clock in the morning, or five o’clock in the morning, or 10 o’clock at night on a Sunday.

I mean, those are calls we take actively every single day and I hope that never changes. I really do. I hope that never changes, but we would certainly require that amount of dedication from anyone that was associated with the Cloud.

TG Branfalt: As a small operator, what are some of the challenges for you with regard to Michigan’s industry? At the same time, what have regulators gotten right?

John McLeod: Yeah. I’ll preface this by saying small operator now. We’re open in Ann Arbor, we’re open in Muskegon Township. We’re soon to be open in Traverse City. Then we got a good slate of stores next year for you that are really going to be outstanding.

TG Branfalt: I mean, you’re not a Curaleaf. You know?

John McLeod: No, that’s true. That’s true. I guess for us, the biggest thing has just been working between the regulatory changes. The 2016 voter initiative that legalized adult use cannabis in Michigan is not perfect. It’s better than nothing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very fortunate to be working in a space that has that, but there are some challenges that come along with it. There’re some pitfalls, both at the municipal level, but also at the state level too.

Just managing those, that’s certainly a challenge. I think the regulatory body in Michigan has really done just an amazing job with the whole rollout of cannabis legalization. I think they’ve been supported by their staff and certainly by the population of the state of Michigan. I mean, we’re very pro-cannabis state and the regulations that they’ve rolled out have been progressive and have been open. As we go on I hope that continues to be the case. You know?

TG Branfalt: Yeah. I mean, not for nothing. I mean, a lot of the early operators, they were operating in a gray area for so long that I think that regulators themselves had a bit of challenge just giving them a little bit of credit over there in Michigan. I love asking owners, especially those who work with both patients and rec users, what products are most popular at your dispensaries?

John McLeod: Yeah. It’s a great question. I think we’ve seen, it’s almost regional. What plays in Muskegon Township, which is a little more northern, West Michigan than what plays in Ann Arbor is a little bit different. Certainly we’re a leaf-heavy state. Cloud Cannabis prides ourselves on our selection of leaf. This is where it all started. We have what you need at Cloud, that’s for sure. That is for sure on the leaf end no question about it.

I mean, that’s certainly what our KPIs are telling us, is that we’re a very bulk leaf-heavy state. There’re some new products that are coming to market, particularly in the edible kind of things. Cannaco out of California is coming to Michigan here shortly and they’re bringing a product that is not seen in Michigan thus far. We’re really excited about that launch. Mitten Extracts is putting out some really, really great extracts, some unbelievable concentrates, and those seem to go really well at the store level as well.

It just kind of is individual based. That’s where we try to help because I can’t tell you how many times I’ll have someone come to the store or find me in a grocery store or what have you and we’ll talk about what they’re trying to treat or what they’re looking to accomplish. These are canna-curious people. I mean, in the state of Michigan, we’re just shy of 300,000 registered medical patients in the state of Michigan.

We’ve had a medical law since 2008, so it’s quite robust. Those numbers are going down now a little bit since adult use came into play, but not as quickly as people thought. We have 6.1 qualifying adult use customers. That’s a lot of people that know nothing about cannabis. I know that experience quite intimately well from my evolution with cannabis.

For me, really bridging that gap, explaining these, because I know people that can smoke leaf all day long, but they take a five milligram edible and they’re done. You know what I mean?

TG Branfalt: Oh, yeah.

John McLeod: They’re just done. It really is, it’s very individual because you can’t say, “Oh, you can handle this bong rip or something so you can handle 2.5 milligram peppermints.” Really just explaining, or understanding what someone is trying to accomplish, understanding what their end goal is, and then curtailing the product to that. That’s really the piece that’s important.

TG Branfalt: What question do you get asked most often from canna-curious people and what is your answer to them?

John McLeod: Yeah. What can I do to help me sleep? No one sleeps.

TG Branfalt: Really?

John McLeod: No one sleeps. The doctor I referenced earlier, he always tells people, he says, there’s let’s say 300,000 registered patients, but there are a lot of people in the adult use space that use cannabis medicinally. Otherwise, if it weren’t cannabis, we would call it medicine, right?

TG Branfalt: Yeah.

John McLeod: There’s people that don’t have their medicinal card that use cannabis medicinally, and a large majority of those are people that just don’t sleep well. If somebody comes to me with a complaint of not sleeping well, I would suggest probably a low-dose gummy 45 minutes before bedtime, and then come back and let’s see. It’s a trial and error process. We try to approach from a micro-dosing level where you’re going to start low and move your way up.

That way you can be in control of the experience. The last thing we want anyone to do is to be overdosed, to be too high, not have a good experience and then turn their back on cannabis. Because not only have we lost someone who will never experience the true healing of cannabis, but we’ve probably changed their mind to where they’re going to look at the space differently.

They’re going to talk about the space differently. That’s the bigger loss I think, because then you’re not really representing the industry and the plant in its best light.

TG Branfalt: This whole conversation, people don’t see the video, we use the video, but you’ve been smiling, I mean, this whole conversation. This might be a tough question for you, but what is the best part about the space for John McLeod?

John McLeod: Wow. That is a tough question. It’s a tough question. I think for me, probably the best thing is that I know that cannabis saved my life. Period. I know that I would not be anywhere near the person that I am today, if it weren’t for cannabis. For me being able to speak on that, being able to explain my experience and being able to inform people. I feel very fortunate every single day to be able to do that. Listen, my job, I get to talk about cannabis with people like you, man.

It’s like, what’s not to love about it? We’re doing some really great things as a company. I mean, we’re doing some really good charitable commitments. I mean, we’ve got this really good thing going with women veterans in Muskegon this weekend that we’re really excited about. We’re partnered with the Humane Society of Washtenaw County helping homeless animals in Ann Arbor.

I get to be part of that too, which is just the giving back, the talking about, and just the information piece for me with cannabis, I’m so fortunate, just so fortunate, man.

TG Branfalt: I mean, I really appreciate your candor throughout this whole conversation because a lot of people they’ll come on here and you can tell the underpinning is more trying to, I don’t know, just create a bigger deal about themselves than they are. With you, I mean, I think that you’re keenly aware of the unique position that you’re in and to see the joy and to hear the joy that you put off, it’s heartwarming, man.

I mean, it really is, and I’m not a guy whose heart is warmed easily. We’re getting ready to wrap this up here and I got to ask you, what advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are looking to enter the cannabis space?

John McLeod: I would say … And thank you for those kind words, TG. I appreciate it. I would certainly say, just trust yourself. Trust yourself, bet on yourself. I believe in luck, but I also think you make your own luck. You know what I mean? I think you just work hard. If you’re dedicated to whatever you’re trying to do, I think that’s the key to success, but you just got to start. I wrote down a quote five years ago when we really started trying to look at this as something we could provide value to the industry with, and it’s a Zig Ziglar quote.

He says, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you got to start to be great.” That would be my advice, is you’re never going to get there if you don’t take that first step.

TG Branfalt: I think that’s really, really great advice. Where can people find out more about Cloud Cannabis Company and maybe find out more about you? Social media, websites?

John McLeod: Yeah. Cloudcannabis.com is going to be your one-stop shop for all reference Cloud Cannabis. You’ll be able to get locations, you’ll be able to get online menus. There’s some really cool interactive stuff when it comes to strain-specific or picking a strain for a consumer that’s cannabis curious. We have an option where it gives you pictures where you just click on a picture and it tells you that’s what you … And then it’ll show you, which strand works best for you.

There’re some really great resources on the website. That would be the one-stop shop. Then if you’re in the Muskegon area, come see us in Muskegon Township or Ann Arbor, and soon to be in Traverse City and a town near you.

TG Branfalt: Well, it’ll be 2022 before you can come to a town near me. I do plan, once this pandemic is over, to go back to Detroit again. I love and miss that city. Hopefully, once everything calms down, I can drive out there again. I’d love to link up with you and enjoy your home city with you because I think it’d be an incredible experience, man. I really appreciate you coming on the show. You’re a wealth of knowledge and excitement. I didn’t really know what to expect when I get an email and it’s like, “Hey, here’s a former cop.” You know? You’ve surprised me a little bit and I really appreciate you coming on the show again.

John McLeod: Well, and I appreciate the platform and the ability to talk. As I stated before, it’s a great pleasure of mine to be on your podcast. I’m a regular listener and a huge fan of you so this is really my pleasure. Thank you.

TG Branfalt: That’s John McLeod. He’s the co-founder for Michigan-based Cloud Cannabis Company. He’s a former police officer for the Detroit Police Department, and he’s a hell of a nice guy. You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast in the podcast section of Ganjapreneur.com, on Spotify and in the Apple iTunes store. On the ganjapreneur.com website, you’ll find the latest cannabis news and cannabis jobs updated daily, along with transcripts of this podcast.

You can also download the ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google Play. This episode was engineered by Trim Media House. I’ve been your host, TG Branfalt.

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Feds Issue First-Ever Order Against Credit Union for Cannabis Guideline Noncompliance

3/24/2021

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The federal National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Board last month issued its first-ever administrative order against a financial institution for non-compliance with Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (FinCEN) rules for serving the cannabis industry.

The order against Michigan’s Live Life Federal Credit Union includes a consent to a cease-and-desist in which the credit union – without admitting to any wrongdoing – must “implement an automated system to effectively monitor and identify all transaction for suspicious activity” which must “include functions to support compliance with FinCEN requirements for Marijuana-Related Businesses (“MRB”).”

The system must include “reconciliation of MRB Point of Sale, METRC, or accounting system data relative to member deposits, ongoing monitoring of adverse public information affecting MRBs, timely verification of changes in licensure status, including notification of a lapse in an MRB’s state licensure, systematic monitoring of unusual Automated Clearing House or wire activity for MRB accounts, monitoring of FinCEN ‘Red Flags.’

Live Life must also engage a third-party to validate its automated compliance and suspicious activity monitoring system simultaneously with the implementation of this system, immediately files its Suspicious Activity Reports and develop a plan to ensure they are filed accurately by March 31, and allow a third-party to perform a retrospective analysis of its cannabis accounts.

The order also prohibits the credit union from opening new accounts for cannabusinesses.

After a drop in financial institutions that served the industry that began in November 2019, FinCEN’s most recent report on banks and credit unions serving the industry showed an equalization as of November 2020 and that there were 515 banks and 169 credit unions serving the space.

Due to federal cannabis prohibition, financial institutions still take risks by serving the industry and while the House of Representatives last year approved the SAFE Banking Act – which would allow banks to serve the industry in a more normal fashion – it was never considered by the, then Republican-controlled, Senate.

The measure was reintroduced last week in the House. Just yesterday, Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the legislation in the Senate, which is now narrowly controlled by Democrats as Vice President Kamala Harris (D) serves as the tie-breaking vote.

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South Dakota Gov. Considering Backing Cannabis Decriminalization Bill

3/24/2021

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South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) is considering supporting legislation that would decriminalize cannabis possession by adults, while also limiting the number of plants a medical cannabis patient can grow in their homes, the Argus Leader reports.

The proposal comes more than a month after a judge struck down the voter-approved legalization initiative on the grounds it violated the state’s ballot initiative rules allowing only one subject. Lawyers for pro-cannabis advocates last week made their first arguments in their appeal of that ruling to the state Supreme Court.

While Noem was not a named plaintiff in the case, the law enforcement officers that brought the case were acting on her behalf.

A draft of the legislation that Noem is considering backing includes decriminalizing possession up to an ounce, and up to 8 grams of concentrates, for adults 21-and-older. A first offence would be considered a petty crime and not subject to jail. Subsequent offenses would be a Class 2 misdemeanor – under current state law cannabis possession is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

The measure would also prohibit those under 21-years-old from inhaling or smoking cannabis regardless of their status as a medical cannabis patient. During the November election, South Dakotans also legalized cannabis for medical use.

Noem’s chief of staff, Tony Venhuizen, told the Leader that the proposal “is one of several draft bills being circulated for discussion and Gov. Noem has not endorsed any of them.”

Lawmakers could consider whatever cannabis reform proposal is preferred by the governor when they return to the Capitol next week for Veto Day, or convene for a special session, which would likely be in late spring or early summer.

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Lume Cannabis Co.: Supplying Michigan With Premium LED-Grown Flower

3/23/2021

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Lume Cannabis Company is a vertically integrated, Michigan-based cannabis brand outfitted with a one-of-a-kind cultivation facility and a zealous eye on the retail market. Their company goal is to open 100 retail stores in the state by 2024, and they’re currently on track to succeed. Their LED-powered cultivation facility features patented technology built to scale up alongside their retail footprint to support this growth. The experienced cultivation team studies real data collected from all Lume facilities to adapt and expand successfully.

Lume’s VP of Operations & Director of Cultivation Kevin Kuethe entered the project as a consultant before he came on as one of the first four Lume employees. Lume now employs 500 Michiganders and expects to double that number by the end of 2021. Their focus is on massive growth and crafting the cleanest, most effective flower, concentrates, and edibles. To accomplish this, the Lume team doesn’t cut corners to meet deadlines or save money — they continue to push for the best.

“We are a local Michigan company, and our founders are local Michigan guys,” Kuethe told Ganjapreneur. “The one thing that’s different about Lume is that they’re willing to do whatever it takes, even if it costs more money or takes more time, to do it right.”

In his decade of cannabis cultivation experience throughout the US, Kuethe has built out fourteen different cultivations of all types, from hemp to cannabis and indoor to outdoor. After these myriad experiences, Kuethe swears by the vertical integration approach as the only method for reaching high-profit margins. Lume currently operates a 55,000 square foot indoor cultivation facility featuring ten 3000 sq ft. flowering rooms. They have one remaining room to transition over to Fohse LEDs.

As for their retail presence, the company began with just one store in their initial founding and opened twelve new locations throughout 2020. Over the next year, their aggressive expansion goal is to open 27 more stores in Michigan with no plans to expand outside of state lines.

Lume-branded gummies, pre-rolls, and cartridges feature strain names and effect-based guidance on the labels. This distinction assists the customer as they browse for the perfect product. The company also operates a solvent-free lab that uses whole, fresh frozen flower to produce ice water extracts and live rosin.

To grow their flower, Lume relies on hydroponic systems with rock wool cubes, mixing their nutrients with agricultural-grade salts. Testing goes beyond the final product — during cultivation, every ingredient is sent out for testing, especially if it is going to be used in the nutrient cycle. They also send phenotypes out for petiole leaf analysis to test whether nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and other minerals are “adequate,” “deficient,” or “excessive” and mix nutrients based on the results.

Kuethe said, “During one of my first cultivations, I realized that nutrients were a major expense, so I educated myself, hired a chemist, and reverse engineered a bunch of nutrients out there… I was able to come up with recipes that outperformed anything I could find on the market. To this day, we mix and measure all of our own stock content nutrient solutions in-house.”

The Lume cultivation was designed with a team of process engineers, who hold relevant patents dealing with humidity, temperature, air, and space control. Kuethe and the engineers used their combined experience and said patented systems to create a grow space that doesn’t exist anywhere else. They considered the environmental control strategies by learning about how cannabis grows and about vapor pressure deficits, transpiration rates, water, and critical airflow. As a result, their system dehumidifies and tempers the air, pumping it into rooms. The airflow quantifies at 30k CFMs without using fans, facilitating a full air change every 60 seconds.

In their first year of operation, Kuethe became interested in transitioning to LED lighting systems, testing 13 different options against his HPS systems before finally finding Fohse LEDs. Before working with Fohse, he noticed his lower canopy was a bit larfy, indicating that the LEDs had low light penetration and poor photo density. However, using just one Fohse light, the veteran grower saw an improvement in his plants. With those results he switched over an entire flowering room, unlocking the real power of the Fohse A3is.

“The Fohse A3i does amazing things. Any good commercial grower could put that light over their canopy, and they would see the difference in the first run if they just swapped out one light from HPS and saw them side-by-side, it would speak for itself. That’s what I did, and now I’m slowly swapping out my entire facility, and that’s hundreds of hundreds of lights,” Kuethe said.

Every week, the Lume cultivation team collects data from their flowering rooms, allowing them to compare how much moisture is being removed at which time, the volume of moisture coming out with the wind or airspeed, and transpiration points to growth stages of the plants. This information opens up a new world of analysis for learning how the cannabis plant works.

Once he had an entire room of Fohse lights operating, Kuethe said the numbers spoke for themselves. In some genetics, Kuethe has seen as much as a 10% THC increase and a 40% yield increase after switching over from HPS to LEDs. He added that this isn’t true for absolutely every strain; however, he has never seen plants decrease yield size or quality after switching over. He is proud of the wet: dry weight ratio of 19%, which topples the 12-15% dry weight ratio of other talented large-scale commercial growers. Aside from the LEDs, Kuethe credits these numbers to choices they’ve made based on raw data.

For best results, cultivation teams need to prepare their environmental controls when transitioning to Fohse LEDs to see those exponential results. Luckily the Lume custom-engineered cultivation brings all environmental controls into one brain unit, allowing them to change or add anything. Kuethe noticed that his plants were growing larger and more robust under Fohse lights, which naturally led to more transpiration. After monitoring the changes, he upped the watering schedule and focused on humidity changes. The new transpiration rate was probably due to the exponentially lower heat put off by Fohse LEDs. The output of heat from HPS systems can create terpene degradation, lowering the quality of the dried and cured flower.

“A lot of people don’t realize how heat-volatile terpenes are. It’s such a drastic heat source; the high-pressure sodium (HPS) put off hundreds and hundreds of degrees temperature, and they’re only three or four feet away from your canopy. Whereas the LED Fohse fixture you can touch with your hands, so you know that you’re preserving all of these terpenes, your quality is going up, a lot is going on besides just the energy and cost savings.” Kuethe said.

Going forward, Lume will continue to grow, manufacture, and sell its suite of products in the state of Michigan. They are building out a million-dollar R&D room to continue using data to adapt their brand to the market environment. In the new research area, they will have a tissue culture lab that opens up the worlds of plant sexing, genotyping, tissue cultures, micropropagation, and more. They are also building an 85,000 sq ft expansion to their cultivation, with plans for 30 acres of outdoor and four tunnel greenhouses soon.

Their product development team, meanwhile, continues to innovate their product line, most recently making a hash roll where kief is pressed into paper on a rosin press and used to roll a joint. The hash roll is attached to a glass tip and smoked down slowly. The team is also maximizing efficiency, with recent additions of a 20,000-per-day gummy machine and a rolling machine that can put out 2,400 rolled, weighed, and twisted joints in one run.

“Technology never stops, and when you’re in a new industry like cannabis, the rate at which technology is developed is so rapid that just sticking to one thing that works for you might work for the time being but it’s going to be hard to compete in a commercial setting with that mindset. That has driven the way my facilities are set up,” said Kuethe.

Above all else, Kuethe is hugely proud of their work at Lume. He honors the ten-year path that finally landed him at a facility where he can study the cannabis plant in-depth. With this highly engineered space and the Fohse LED lighting systems, he has proven their concept. Due to automation, every harvest has continued to be their largest yield, highest quality, and most efficient growth rate, yet. Their cost per pound is almost cut in half. These systems, automation, and dedication to adapting enable Lume Cannabis Company to scale up to match their aggressive push to retail growth in their state.

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