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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With Federal Reforms Looming, White House Reverts to Stigmatizing Cannabis

3/23/2021

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Editor’s note: This editorial was contributed by Sarah Gersten, Executive Director and General Counsel for the Last Prisoner Project.

On March 14th, Marvin D. Scott III was killed in police custody after being arrested for a small amount of marijuana. Days later, the SAFE Banking Act, which would give American cannabis companies federally-protected access to major banks and credit unions, was reintroduced in the US House of Representatives with broad bipartisan support.

As hopes for federal marijuana reform continue to unfold in 2021, these incidents bring into sharp contrast what has been occurring for a quarter-century in this country: at the same time that states are legalizing marijuana for medical and adult-use, and regulating an industry driving billions in tax revenue to state coffers, Americans, particularly BIPOC communities, continue to be arrested, incarcerated, and made victims of state-sanctioned violence all due to cannabis use.

President Biden has often acknowledged, likely in an attempt to mitigate his leading role in the 1994 Crime Bill, the need for a “commonsense” approach to marijuana. One which includes not only decriminalizing cannabis federally but also expunging past marijuana-related offenses. He has also stated that he intends not to interfere with state-regulated markets.

Given this approach, he is likely to sign onto the SAFE Banking Act if passed, giving corporate weed firms unfettered access to financial institutions, and ensuring former high-ranking government officials turned marijuana tycoons like John Boehner and Kathleen Sebelius can continue to profit off of the state-legal industry.

Yet on the day this most recent piece of federal cannabis legislation was reintroduced in the House — with a much clearer trajectory of reaching the President’s desk under a Democrat-controlled Senate — news broke that the Biden administration had suspended or terminated dozens of White House staffers for past cannabis use. Though the administration initially indicated that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, when staffers revealed past marijuana use as part of the standard security screening, even those hailing from one of the 14 states and the District of Columbia where cannabis is now fully legal, they were axed.

In defending the firings, a White House official stated:

“This decision was made following intensive consultation with career security officials and will effectively protect our national security.”

For years, federal government employees including senior White House officials have expressed incredulity with a policy that denies clearance for top candidates based on personal marijuana use. In recent years the proven medicinal benefits of cannabis have become more well known, while polling shows that a majority of the population has used marijuana and that two-thirds of the American populace believe it should be legal. It’s also well known that several past presidents — including JFK, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and many founding fathers — have acknowledged using cannabis in some form.

More troubling than the blatant hypocrisy of terminating staffers for personal marijuana use after serving as vice-president to a commander in chief who openly admitted to the same, is the clear conflict with Biden’s stated policy aims of rooting out racial disparities, reforming our criminal justice system, and promoting second chances for system-impacted individuals.

The President stated time and again on the campaign trail and during his tenure in the White House that he will work to undo the harms of his crime bill — legislation that has become one of the leading drivers of over-policing and mass incarceration, particularly for low-level drug offenses. Biden’s own plan for “Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice” seems to acknowledge this damage by crafting provisions for reducing prison populations by focusing on redemption and rehabilitation over punitive punishment and explicitly stating that no one should be incarcerated for drug use, and even calling for decriminalizing marijuana and expunging past cannabis offenses.

By terminating otherwise qualified candidates for personal marijuana use, Biden is completely undermining these aspirations, all while the likelihood of federal legalization, or at least a formalized policy of non-interference with state-regulated industries, appears increasingly likely.

While the deepest wounds of the War on Drugs are demonstrated through the more obvious and visceral examples of egregious prison sentences and the tragic loss of life due to police interactions under the guise of policing low-level drug use, there are innumerable ways in which the stigma attached to marijuana continues to impact particularly young people of color in facets of life from housing to financial assistance to employment. Even in states that have legalized marijuana entirely, workers are largely left in a grey area where marijuana use can lead to disciplinary actions or even termination.

If the president is going to truly acknowledge the devastation he wrought by his tough-on-crime approach to drug use in the 90s, he has to stand by his stated ideals and proactively work to undo the stigma associated with cannabis, not just for his own staffers, but for the American public.

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Alaska Cannabis Lounges Proceed with Caution During Pandemic

3/23/2021

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Last year, Alaska formally approved licenses for two on-site cannabis consumption lounges, making it one of the first states to allow such businesses. However, the Associated Press reports the COVID-19 crisis has delayed, but not stopped, the social use businesses.

One lounge located in Ketchikan, Alaska opened “briefly” last year but the pandemic quickly forced owners to change directions. Another on-site consumption location in Fairbanks said they plan to open soon, more than a year after receiving the state’s approval.

Brandon Emmett — who served on the Alaska Marijuana Control Board, helped develop the regulations governing consumption lounges, and is an executive with the Fairbanks-based Good Titrations — said they are planning to open their lounge this year on 4/20. He believes the business can operate safely if they encourage patrons to wear masks indoors, something the town of Fairbanks does not do. But despite his enthusiasm for the lounge, he believes caution should prevail going forward.

“There is very much a light shining on us, and it is imperative that we at Good Titrations set the example for how it could be done responsibly.” — Brandon Emmett, via the AP

Others have also applied for onsite consumption lounges, including Joe McAneney, owner of the High Expedition Co. in Talkeetna, Alaska. McAneney said he wants to open a two-story “cigar lounge”-styled space behind his store with views of the Northern Lights and Mt. Denali, North America’s highest peak.

“To start a new business and to spend money and create … a new thing during this time, to me, it’s not very responsible; it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” McAneney said in the report.

Alaska‘s push to open cannabis consumption lounges has largely to do with cannabis tourism, according to the report, as many hotels ban smokable cannabis and public cannabis consumption remains otherwise illegal.

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Study: Medical Cannabis Use by Canadian Seniors Doubled From 2017-2019

3/23/2021

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Medical cannabis use among senior citizens in Canada increased from 17.6% in 2017 – the year prior to broad legalization in the nation – to 31.2% in 2019, according to a study by Toronto-based Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center outlined by Medscape.

The survey found that 22.7% of seniors reported using medical cannabis in 2020; however, the researchers note that there were more than 3,000 fewer respondents in last year’s tally than in previous years.

More than 40% of respondents – 42.5% – indicated they only used CBD oil, while 35% used products containing both CBD and THC.

The survey found 44.5% of respondents were using over-the-counter analgesics, 28.3% used opioids, 24.5% took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, 21.4% used antidepressants, and 12.3% were taking benzodiazepines. More than 40% of opioid users said their use of the drugs was “mildly” or “significantly” reduced after they started using medical cannabis.

Krista L. Lanctôt, PhD, senior scientist, Sunnybrook told Medscape that the use of other medications made it important to gather information on older populations using cannabis medically.

“Cannabis effects may differ in older adults due to altered metabolism, comorbidities, and use of concurrent medications.” – Lanctôt to Medscape

The analysis included 9,766 older cannabis users with a median age of 72.3. Sixty percent of those surveyed were women.

The study was presented at this year’s American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry conference.

A study published last month in JAMA Internal Medicine found the number of U.S. adults over 65 that reported using cannabis increased from 2.4% in 2015 to 4.2 percent in 2018, an increase of 75%.

Another study last year published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that 61% of participants – all 65-and-older – started using cannabis after age 60 with 53% of respondents saying they used cannabis on a daily or weekly basis.

Researchers at Israel’s Haifa University School of Public Health also reported last year, in a study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review, that senior citizens who use medical cannabis to treat chronic pain do not show evidence of cognitive decline.

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Trade Association Offers Cannabis Education Scholarships

3/23/2021

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The New Jersey Cannabis Trade Association (NJCTA) is offering six scholarships to students who demonstrate financial need for Mercer County Community College’s Medical Cannabis Training course. The scholarship includes the added bonus of matching recipients with a corresponding cannabis company for an interview after completing program requirements.

The scholarship is open to those aged 21-and-older who reside in specified New Jersey zip codes in addition to the financial need.

NJCTA President Shaya Brodchandel said offering the scholarships is a “no-brainer” for the organization.

“By participating and creating a scholarship fund for the program we get to give back to the community where our members are located while simultaneously finding trained individuals who could be employed by New Jersey cannabis operators in the near future. Partnering with New Jersey Cannabis Certified and Mercer was the perfect way to achieve both of those goals.” – Brodchandel in a press release

Valley Wellness CEO Sarah Trent, who developed the course, said the class saw high enrollment during last year’s session but that the organizers “also saw that some people need financial assistance.”

“So we started looking for sponsors to help create scholarships,” she said in a statement. “The NJCTA was excited to get involved and help develop a plan to make sure those most in need of jobs, who live near existing cannabis operators in the state, had access to job training.”

The course fee is $500 and in addition to the need-based scholarships, Valley Wellness sponsors up to five veterans for tuition waivers.

Scholarship applications are accepted until April 5.

Last month, Massachusetts cannabis company Elevate Northeast said it would help fund scholarships for, primarily, students from communities negatively impacted by drug laws that preceded cannabis legalization in the state for Holyoke Community College’s Cannabis Education Center.

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Illinois Gives Final Approval for Curaleaf Takeover of Grassroots

3/23/2021

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Illinois regulators last week gave final approval for Curaleaf’s $830 million acquisition of Grassroots, the Chicago Tribune reports. The deal will see the Massachusetts-based firm takeover nine Greenhouse and Windy City Cannabis dispensaries – which will transition to the Curaleaf brand – by April 1.

Currently, Curaleaf operates 101 retail and medical dispensaries, 23 cultivation sites, and more than 30 processing facilities, with more than 3,800 employees, throughout 23 U.S. states. The company trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange and reported $653 million in its 2020 earnings report issued earlier this month.

Last year, following the closing of the Grassroots deal, Curaleaf announced it would expand its Select brand into Illinois. At the time, company President Joe Bayern described Illinois as “one of the largest adult-use cannabis markets in the country and one that has worked incredibly hard to address the need for reparation and normalization of our industry.”

In 2020, legalized cannabis sales in Illinois reached $1.03 billion, including $669 million in recreational sales and more than $366 million in medical sales.

Multi-state operators have an outsized role in the Illinois industry, and in January Cresco Labs, also based in Chgicago, became the first company to open 10 dispensaries in the state.

The Greenhouse dispensaries transitioning to the Curaleaf brand are in Northbrook, Skokie, Mokena, Morris, Deerfield and Melrose Park, while the Windy City locations pivoting to the Curaleaf name are in Justice, Worth, and Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.

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New Mexico Gov. Plans Special Session for Cannabis Legalization

3/22/2021

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New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said that she plans to call a special session “in a week or so” after lawmakers failed to approve a cannabis legalization bill by Saturday’s legislative deadline. The governor’s comments came during an address to the Sandoval County Democrats published on Facebook by the Paper.

“We’re gonna get cannabis! Because I am not going to wait another year. We’re gonna win it and it’s gonna have social justice aspects that we know have to be in a package. Alright, so we are gonna keep doing the right work because we’re Democrats and, you know what, we don’t take ‘no’ very well. I don’t do very well with ‘no.’ We have a lot to accomplish, we’re doing it already.” – Lujan Grisham via the Paper

According to an Albuquerque Journal report, the last remaining legalization bill – of five total – was delivered to Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D) on Saturday at about 7:30 am with the noon deadline looming. He told the Journal that he decided not to bring up the measure for a vote because it would have prompted a lengthy debate and perhaps led to other bills not getting a vote before the legislature’s adjournment. He added that Republican Sen. Cliff Pirtle had readied several proposed amendments to the measure – along with a supply of energy drinks for the debate.

House Minority Whip Rod Montoya (R) told the Journal that his caucus doesn’t want to return for a special session and that lawmakers would only be called back “because the Democrat leadership in the House and the Senate and the Governor’s Office couldn’t get everything they wanted.”

Only the governor can call a special session and it can only last 30 days.

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University Gets Federal Grant to Study Processed Hemp as Cattle Feed

3/22/2021

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Oregon State University has received a $299,950 federal U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to study feeding spent hemp biomass to cattle. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant aims to implement the safe use of hemp byproducts in livestock diets.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the study and the potential to use the hemp biomass as cattle feed “add up to a potential big win for farmers and ranchers.”

“This OSU research will help to continue building the case for federal approval of hemp biomass on cattle farms, making a natural connection between two signature Oregon products – livestock and hemp.” – Wyden in a press release

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) noted that hemp is one of Oregon’s “fastest-growing crops” and generates millions of dollars in revenue and reliable jobs in the state.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the results of OSU’s research into whether we can use spent hemp biomass as cattle feed, and will continue to work to secure the resources Oregonians need to keep leading the way for farmers across America,” Merkley said in a statement.

Last month, the agency awarded nearly $19,000 in hemp-focused agriculture grants to the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and Coexist Build, a private company.

The UPenn School of Veterinary Medicine grant is for the “development of sensitive method for analysis of cannabinoids in bovine serum and hemp seed samples,” it said in a press release. Coexist Build’s award focuses on “developing marketing strategy for agritourism highlighting regenerative, organic farm featuring hemp-based construction.”

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Illinois Considers Significant Social Equity Expansions

3/22/2021

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Illinois lawmakers are working on a legislative compromise designed to salvage the state’s adult-use cannabis rollout, Block Club Chicago reports. The proposal’s fixes are specifically in response to a document leaked last month by Grown In revealing that just two percent of the state’s cannabis business owners were Black or Latino. The leaked report also found that less than 25 percent of the group were women.

Rep. LaShawn Ford (D) said he will formally introduce the bill, which seeks to add an additional 115 licenses to the already 75 mandated licenses, to the Illinois General Assembly when lawmakers have reached “broad agreement.”

Under the proposal, applicants with newly assessed perfect scores would participate in a lottery. Two more lottery rounds would follow for applicants with less than perfect scores but who qualify for social equity status. Furthermore, it would narrow the definition of a social equity applicant by expanding the timeframe someone must have lived in a disproportionately affected area to qualify for the program and removing a provision in the law that lets whole companies qualify, even if the owner does not. Additionally, the bill would add five new medical cannabis licenses for social equity applicants.

Facing pandemic-related delays, 21 of the state’s 75 license winners were announced last September. Lawsuits led to further complications, however, resulting in an announcement by the governor that industry applications would be re-scored.

Despite recent progress, language involving the relocation of current medical and dual-use dispensaries may put the negotiations in jeopardy. Pamela Althoff, industry spokesperson and former Illinois state senator, said the industry will oppose the bill if it requires more than a three-month hold on relocations.

“Relocation is important to the cannabis industry, however, what’s more important is to get a move on and award these licenses.” — Althoff, via Block Club Chicago

However, others want a longer hold after the lottery to give social equity applicants a better chance to choose profitable locations.

“We have to allow the people that were most harmed by the war on drugs to get into this industry, before [the dispensaries] start switching up locations,” Douglas Kelly, President of the Cannabis Equity Coalition Illinois, said in the report. “They chose those locations, so they need to live with that for a little while longer.”

The current draft requires a 90-day delay for relocations but current medical and dual-use licensees would be allowed to move if their local municipality has banned cannabis businesses.

A spokesperson for the governor said Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) is ready to sign Ford’s legislation if it reaches his desk.

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White House Press Secretary: Only Five Staffers Fired Over Cannabis

3/22/2021

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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged via Twitter on Friday that five staffers “are no longer employed” at the White House “as a result” of the Biden Administration’s employment policies related to cannabis. The tweet came a day after the Daily Best reported dozens of White House staffers had been suspended, moved to remote work assignments, or asked to resign over their cannabis use.

“We announced a few weeks ago that the White House had worked with the security service to update the policies to ensure that past marijuana use wouldn’t automatically disqualify staff from serving in the White House,” Psaki tweeted on Friday.

“As a result, more people will serve who would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use. The bottom line is this: of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy.” – Psaki via Twitter

According to a New York Times report, some of the affected staffers also had other disqualifying factors that surfaced when the White House was determining their eligibility for jobs in the administration, an unnamed White House official said.

The updated policies alluded to by Psaki were released amid guidance from the United States Office of Personnel Management. The agency’s Acting Director Kathleen McGettigan wrote in the rules that, “It would be inconsistent with suitability regulations to implement a policy of finding an individual unfit or unsuitable for federal service solely on the basis of recent of marijuana use.”

“Past marijuana use, including recently discontinued marijuana use, should be viewed differently from ongoing marijuana use,” she wrote, according to the Times.

Psaki did not clarify how many other staffers had been punished for cannabis use.

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Oklahoma Bill Would Establish Medical Cannabis License Cap

3/22/2021

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In an effort to slow the growth of Oklahoma’s expanding medical cannabis system, the state legislature has forwarded a bill that would cap dispensary numbers for two years and implement other restrictive regulations, CNHI News Oklahoma reports.

HB 2272, dubbed the Oklahoma Cap on Medical Marijuana Businesses of 2021, would take effect on September 1 and would stay in effect until 2023. Before the bill was passed on the House floor in a 69-21 vote, the proposal’s author state Rep. Josh West (R) said, “We do have a thriving medical marijuana industry in the state of Oklahoma.

“At the same time we’ve got a thriving black market industry in the state of Oklahoma too,” West said. “So this may not stop it completely, but I think this slows it down.”

Other dampening provisions include requiring commercial licenses to be “active,” defined in the bill as businesses having at least $5,000 in sales and producers maintaining at least 50 plants monthly. Further restrictions in the legislation would lower the number of commercial licenses in the state from 10,000 to 8,000: this would inclde 5,000 growers, 2,000 dispensaries, and 1,000 processors, according to the report.

Chip Paul, who helped Oklahoma’s medical cannabis bill pass, said he agrees with West about the black market. However, he said enforcement of already existing regulations like ownership verifications would solve many of the issues HB 2272 claims to fix.

“We’re never going to view the wrecking of our free market economy as a good thing. That was one of the core principles that we set forth in SQ 788. SQ 788 is potentially the most popular law that Oklahoma has ever passed, and it’s popular because of its core principles. This is an opportunity that should be open to every Oklahoman and it shouldn’t be restricted. What other industry do we limit licensing?” — Paul, via CNHI News

The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) said it is monitoring the bill, and that Oklahoma‘s new seed-to-sale tracking system will help differentiate “black market”  cannabis from “licensed, safe” regulated products.

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SAFE Banking Act Reintroduced in House

3/19/2021

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The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act has been reintroduced in the House by Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter – 18 months after it originally passed the chamber. Since its passage, the proposal never received a vote in the Senate which was controlled by Republicans.

Perlmutter said that during the coronavirus pandemic, “the industry was deemed essential yet forced to continue to operate in all cash” which added “a significant public health risk for businesses and their workers.”

“The genie is out of the bottle and has been for many years. Thousands of employees and businesses across this country have been forced to deal in piles of cash for far too long, and it is the responsibility of Congress to step up and take action to align federal and state laws for the safety of our constituents and communities. The public safety need is urgent, and a public health and economic need has also emerged with the pandemic further exacerbating the cash-only problem for the industry.” – Perlmutter in a statement

In 2019, the bill passed the House with bipartisan support – 321-103 – including 91 Republicans and one independent. The renewed version of the bill includes technical changes to the safe harbor, strengthened hemp provisions, and other technical updates, according to a press release from Perlmutter’s office.

Despite the supermajority support in the House, Senate Republicans pushed back against the reforms, including then-Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo. The committee is now led by Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Republican Ranking Member Pat Toomey.

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Report: White House Punishes Staffers Due to Past Cannabis Use

3/19/2021

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Dozens of White House staffers have been suspended, placed on remote work, or asked to resign due to their past cannabis use, according to a Daily Beast report. In some cases, the staffers were told prior cannabis use would be overlooked by the administration and in some cases, the use was exclusive to one of the 14 states with legal products.

“There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers – rather, ex-staffers. I was asked to resign. … The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained.” – A former White House staffer to the Daily Beast

A White House spokesperson for the Biden Administration appeared to dodge the issue in an interview with the Daily Beast, saying that President Joe Biden’s team is “committed to bringing the best people into government – especially the young people whose commitment to public service can deepen in these positions.”

“The White House’s policy will maintain the absolute highest standards for service in government that the president expects from his administration, while acknowledging the reality that state and local marijuana laws have changed significantly across the country in recent years,” the spokesperson said in the interview. “This decision was made following intensive consultation with career security officials and will effectively protect our national security while modernizing policies to ensure that talented and otherwise well-qualified applicants with limited marijuana use will not be barred from serving the American people.”

The report notes that some of the staffers’ punishment could be due to inconsistencies on the security form about their cannabis use, rather than their actual cannabis use, such as simply misstating the last time they had consumed it.

Tommy Vietor, who served on the 2008 Obama team and later as a National Security Council spokesperson, called it “absurd” that cannabis use “is still part of the security clearance background check.”

“To me, marijuana use is completely irrelevant when you’re trying to decide whether an individual should be trusted with national security information,” he said.

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Kevin Ford: Uplifting Cannabis Patients with Education & Industry Training

3/19/2021

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Kevin Ford is a big believer in the power of the cannabis plant. After his home state of Maryland legalized medical cannabis, he pursued work with a plant-touching operator, sure that his experience in the legacy market would open opportunities. Despite his experience and drive, the opportunity didn’t exist; furthermore, he realized that the process of even becoming a patient in Maryland was opaque, at best.

Kevin knew that if he was experiencing these roadblocks, surely others were as well, so he founded Uplift Maryland to assist Maryland patients through these complicated processes. But, while he had founded Uplift with the hopes of helping others navigate through Maryland’s medical cannabis process, it soon developed into an education-focused community prioritizing diversity and inclusion, and the company has since rebranded to Uplift National.

This Q&A interview covers Uplift’s recent rebranding, its extended operations, and how Uplift is working to build bridges in the cannabis space and assist even more entrepreneurs who are interested in the cannabis industry. Kevin also talks about how his prior government experience helps him identify areas where the Black community and other disenfranchised communities have been systematically blocked from opportunities, adjustments to the COVID pandemic, and more!

Ganjapreneur: What was your perception of cannabis while growing up in a family of medical professionals? Has that perception changed?

Kevin Ford: I was first introduced to cannabis by one of my best friends in 8th grade. At that point, I quickly began to realize that the plant was all around me. Somewhere around the beginning of high school, my mom found some weed that I thought I was hiding under the sink. She angrily approached me and taught me a lesson about drugs. In the midst of it all, I saw it as just a plant. This is the perception I grew into and continue to cultivate. At the time, I didn’t realize that my mom’s perception was based on her reality, as a young trauma surgeon, seeing the worst of DC’s drug violence in the 80s and 90s. Throughout the years, we’ve differed on our opinions of cannabis, even after it became medically legal here in Maryland.

Shortly after starting Uplift, I began to win my parents’ approval. Once my father learned that legislation had been passed to protect medical professionals issuing medical cannabis certifications, my dad registered to be a provider. He was amazed by his patients’ new outlook on life after using cannabis, which transformed his perception of cannabis as medicine. My mother was more intrigued by the educational opportunities cannabis provides. In 2018, a day before Thanksgiving, Uplift was awarded a grant from the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission to develop and implement an education and business development training for minorities and women interested in applying for grower and processor licenses in 2019. Excited to tell my family about my accomplishment, it was there at the dinner table where I’d finally won over both of my parents’ support for my ambitions in the cannabis industry.

When did you found Uplift Maryland? What inspired you to start the business?

Based on my past experience with cannabis in the legacy market, I knew this was the industry for me. I’ve always wanted to be a plant touching operator, and still do, but opportunity was absent. I had also just become a medical patient and realized how hard the registration and certification process was to navigate; this is what led me to start Uplift Maryland, which was born in August 2018. We originally started as a one-stop shop for all things medical cannabis in Maryland, but quickly grew into so much more than we intended. Our educational success was not what I initially set out to accomplish, but it has given me a true mission: to increase diversity and inclusion within the cannabis industry. The first step is fighting to End the Stigma through education and training. Uplift has assisted aspiring ganjapreneurs in starting their businesses, and has offered detailed training to patients and budtenders to broaden their overall cannabis knowledge. My previous employment with the Prince George’s County Government ignited my passion for supplier diversity and development. This passion has been the driving force behind developing Uplift as a prominent advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the cannabis industry.

How did your prior work experience working in county government fold into how you’ve founded and grown Uplift?

My prior work experience cultivated a true passion for minority business development. Although my interest in the industry was to be an operator, the lack of Black representation in Maryland’s industry fueled my interest in sharing the resources that I was able to accumulate prior to, and during, my professional career. The only cannabis opportunity available with the commission, at the time, was the Education and Business Development program grant. It was during that process that I came up with the idea for Uplift. I figured while this was not the route I wanted to take, it could still meet my goal of helping minorities into the cannabis industry.

What are some specific ways that the education programs have worked towards your mission to ‘End the Stigma’ and increase diversity in the industry?

The stigma exists, in part, because of decades of misinformation and propaganda pushed upon us, in addition to the post-traumatic stress that stemmed from abusive enforcement of unjust marijuana laws. The changing tide of legality mixed with proper information regarding therapeutic use and economic development will be the starting point for the Black community to change the overarching perception of cannabis. At Uplift, our core goal is to evolve the relationship between Black people and cannabis. We do this in three ways: providing education that reframes the narrative, creating training programs that prepare our community for success in the cannabis Industry, and engaging in social action that is aimed at making the industry more equitable and accessible for the people who have been historically excluded.

Who can benefit from Uplift training? What sources are used to create these trainings?

Our goal is to ensure that people of all knowledge levels can find something to gain from Uplift’s services. As we transition to educating and training nationwide, and with the COVID environment at full force, we’ve switched our education platform from in-person to online. Uplift National is our new membership platform that combines a variety of training and educational content. We will utilize self-paced courses, webinars, news, and resources to ensure that our community is fully equipped for the future of the cannabis industry. For example, if someone is unfamiliar with the process behind becoming a medical marijuana patient in their state, we help to simplify that process. We also support current patients with yearly recertification and navigating through any questions or concerns they may have. We also offer consultations for individuals looking to start a business in the cannabis industry.

What kind of support do you provide to patients, caregivers, and providers as they sign up for the Maryland cannabis patient program?

We provide them all with assistance in registering for the state’s medical program based on their classification. Additionally, we have programming geared to each person depending on where they are in their journey. For example, if someone is interested in becoming a medical patient or caregiver, we can get them registered with the state, provide a list of doctors in their area, and they can also join our community series where we hold conversation on basic topics like the different types of consumption methods. While we haven’t done much provider education in the past, we look forward to teaming up with medical organizations, such as the National Medical Association, to ensure that medical professionals are equipped with the information they need to properly steer their patients in the right direction.

Has Uplift expanded from Maryland since your founding?

We are currently transitioning from Uplift Maryland to Uplift National, which is our national platform. As more states legalize medical and recreational use, we aim to serve as a resource that helps to support Black people with entering the cannabis industry. Uplift National is a champion for equity, inclusion, and diversity in the cannabis market. Education is the cornerstone of our work. Our new membership community will launch after the rebrand is complete. It will allow members from all over the country to interact and learn together, by offering a library of regularly updated educational content.

How could state legislators better serve the communities impacted by prohibition in both the adult-use and medical cannabis markets?

The major issue is opportunity. Limited market states, like Maryland, have license caps. These caps tend to fuel an environment of greed and corruption. It continues to keep Black people, and other oppressed communities, away from the opportunities while the wealthy continue to build. Passing legislation that utilizes cannabis and hemp to close a portion of the wealth gap would be in the best interest of the community. Considering the harm failed legislation and public safety “professionals” have caused, it’s Uplift’s belief that it’s the government’s, as well as corporate cannabis companies’, responsibility to provide opportunities and resources for vulnerable communities that were most harmed by previous failed policies.

What can people learn from the most recent Community Series? Has the series had to adapt during COVID-19?

Our Community Series was originally intended to be a series of in-person educational sessions through Maryland in conjunction with our sponsor Select. However, due to COVID, we were unable to carry out our original plans. We then shifted our focus to creating monthly educational content that showcases presentations and expert-led conversations about each monthly topic. For example, Session 3 of our community series was focused on Advocacy and Lobbying. The goal of this session was to provide viewers with a basic understanding of the various ways to get involved with cannabis policy in Maryland, while differentiating advocating vs lobbying.

Do you think that the recent cannabis laws voted in during the last election will influence federal legalization efforts?

I don’t believe that New Jersey’s legalization of adult use marijuana was the catalyst to federal legalization, but it absolutely created a ripple effect down the East Coast. Every surrounding state, down to Virginia, has legislation pre-filed for legalization. 2021 could prove to be an even more exciting year for cannabis. This is why our focus at Uplift has been focused on training our community for the future and ending the stigma with education.

Thank you, Kevin, for answering our questions! Learn more about Kevin Ford and Uplift National at UpliftNational.org.

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Florida Poll: THC Caps Unpopular, Support for Cannabis Growing

3/19/2021

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A recent poll commissioned by Florida for Care found that support for medical cannabis in the state has increased and there is little support in the state for THC caps, Florida Politics reports.

The survey found that Floridians’ approval for medical cannabis has increased from the 71 percent who originally voted to approve the medical cannabis measure five years ago to now 76 percent of poll respondents. Only 17 percent of the respondents disapproved of medical cannabis.

Meanwhile, the idea of THC caps for legal cannabis — which recently received a hearing in the Florida legislature and have been introduced in multiple states around the country — was supported by just 24 percent of poll respondents. 58 percent were outright opposed to the idea of limiting THC in cannabis products.

“This confirms what anybody paying attention at all knows. Floridians across party lines and in huge numbers support medical marijuana, and by almost a 4-to-1 margin, people want more access to medical marijuana versus new restrictions like the THC caps the Legislature is proposing.” — Ben Pollara, executive director of Florida For Care, via Florida Politics

According to the report, the poll leans slightly conservative with 50 percent of respondents saying they voted for ex-President Donald Trump in the most recent election and 46 percent having voted for President Joe Biden.

In what may be more of a commentary on respondents’ trust in their government, more than 60 percent called the push to regulate THC levels in cannabis an attempt by legislators to ignore the will of Florida voters. Meanwhile, just 40 percent believed that Gov. Ron DeSantis (D) cares about medical cannabis patients, and 53 percent said that lawmakers do not care about cannabis patients.

On the question of medical cannabis access, 58 percent said they would like to see an expansion of the practice, 20 percent feel the “status quo” is adequate, and only 15 percent would like more restrictions. Only 6 percent of the poll respondents were themselves medical cannabis patients.

Finally, the poll found that adult-use cannabis has the support of 59 percent of Floridians and only 31 percent are opposed.

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