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Former City Official Pleads Guilty to Bribery, Extortion in Cannabis Licensing Probe

12/16/2020

Genoveva Andrade, the third chief of staff to former Fall River, Massachusetts Mayor Jasiel Correia, on Monday pleaded guilty to charges of extortion, bribery, and making false statements in connection with Correia’s scheme to extort cannabis businesses.

Andrade, 49, admitted to conspiring with Correia to extort a cannabusiness for $150,000 in return for a letter of non-opposition from the then-mayor. Under Massachusetts law, non-opposition letters from the heads of local governments are required to obtain a cannabis industry license. According to the Justice Department, after the vendor agreed to pay Correia for the letter, Andrade said to him, “you’re family now.”

Andrade also admitted to conspiring with Correia to extort a Fall River business owner and obtain a variety of benefits, including cash and a Rolex watch valued between $7,500 to $12,000, in exchange for official action and favorable assistance to the business owner.

Andrade also admitted that as chief of staff she kicked back half of her salary, about $23,000, to Correia on a bi-weekly basis. She also kicked back nearly all of the $10,000 city-funded “snow stipend” that was approved by Correia.

The two extortion charges each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Andrade said she made the false statements to federal agents in December 2018 in connection with the corruption investigation into Correia.

Correia is alleged to have generated some $600,000 in the non-opposition letters scheme and made arrangements for future cuts of the companies’ cannabis sales.

A sentencing hearing for Andrade is set for April 27, 2021. Correia is set to go to trial, facing 24 counts, on February 2, 2021.

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Peter Vogel: The Evolution of Leafwire

12/16/2020

From banking to social media, the cannabis industry has been repeatedly blocked from accessing basic resources available to any other industry. While that has become an unfortunate fact of life for most cannabis operators, it certainly hasn’t stopped the industry — and there are some entrepreneurs who have dedicated their livelihoods to helping the industry succeed despite such obstacles.

For Peter Vogel, CEO of the cannabis business networking site Leafwire, that noble mission is the driving force for his company’s growth. Peter worked in the tech space for over 20 years before he was introduced to the cannabis space by a friend who tapped him to lead LeafWire. When he started, Peter knew that he wanted to establish firm roots in the space. Through the company’s successful and rapid evolution from a simple social media platform to an investment networking site, jobs board, and more, he has cemented Leafwire’s role as a tech-based enabler for the cannabis industry.

The company’s latest development is now a round of crowdfunding. We recently sat down with Peter to ask some questions about these efforts, and the journey so far.

Ganjapreneur: The news just broke that Leafwire has launched a crowdfunding effort on SeedInvest. Can you tell us about that?

Peter Vogel: Yes, that’s right. We recently launched a campaign and I’m excited to say that we’re already raised more than 50% of the minimum required, so for anyone interested, I encourage you to invest early.

Just go to https://www.seedinvest.com/leafwire/seed for all the details.

What made you decide to go the crowdfunding route versus other fundraising avenues?

There were two reasons we were really excited to launch a crowdfunding campaign.

The first of which is that a Reg CF (Crowdfunding) fundraise allows the general public to make investments in startups like Leafwire with substantially lower minimums than other types of fundraise. Reg CF Fundraises are open to everyone, you don’t have to be an Accredited Investor or part of a venture Capital Firm. So everyone is on an even playing field to get in and make an investment.

Secondly, a Reg CF raise typically involves a much larger group of people. So let’s say hypothetically, you have 500 people make an investment in your company during a raise, you immediately have 500 ambassadors and cheerleaders for your company who will go out there and promote your company to their friends and maybe even become some of your best users or customers. So it’s an automatic group of 500 brand ambassadors for your brand.

Let’s jump back to the beginning. What is the origin story behind Leafwire?

We started Leafwire because we looked at the cannabis industry and we believed that the industry needed a platform 100% devoted to the cannabis industry where people could share news, promote industry events, find business partners, find employees, find investors and just simply network. We intended to build a LinkedIn-type platform 100% committed to serving the needs of the cannabis business community.

What’s been the response from the industry?

Well, I think the proof is in the numbers. Two of the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) that we measure at Leafwire are the number of members and engagement.

In regard to the number of members, we’ve had more than 36,000 members join and create profiles, representing 15,000 companies. Since the beginning of 2019, we’ve grown from a little more than 4,000 members to now more than 36,000 members. That’s more than 8X growth.

In regard to engagement, we look at MAUs (or Monthly Active Users) and since the beginning of 2019 to today we’ve seen a 5X growth, from 5,000 MAUs back in the beginning of 2019 to 25,000 MAUs now.

We’ve been really excited to watch the growth in both of those KPIs.

What do members typically do on Leafwire?

We have a newsfeed similar to other social and business networks, so members are commonly posting news articles, promoting events, promoting their own businesses and sometimes just simply posting questions to the network as a whole.

And just like other networks, users can comment on posts, they can ‘Like’ posts or even ‘Like’ other member’s Comments. Members can also send other messages on the platform and members can build their Networks by sending Connection Requests to other Leafwire Members.

This is another KPI that we follow, the # number of Connection Requests sent. Since launch, we’ve seen more than 700,000 Connection Requests sent on the Leafwire Platform from one member to another. And even more important than the sheer quantity, is that more than 40% of those Connection Requests have been accepted, creating more than 300,000 Connections created by the Leafwire Network.

How could our readers learn more about Leafwire?

Well, first, for anyone who’s not a member yet, please come to https://www.leafwire.com/ and create your free profile. We’d love to have you join our community.

Also, for anyone interested in learning more about our crowdfund on SeedInvest, please visit:

https://www.seedinvest.com/leafwire/seed

There’s a discussion board on SeedInvest, as well, where you can post questions about Leafwire or our fundraise and I can answer all of those questions directly.

I look forward to connecting with everyone both on Leafwire and SeedInvest.

Thanks, Peter, for answering these questions. Learn more at Leafwire.com.

Leafwire is offering securities under Regulation CF and Rule 506(c) of Regulation D through SI Securities, LLC (“SI Securities”). The Company has filed a Form C with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection to its offering, a copy of which may be obtained at https://www.seedinvest.com/leafwire.

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Deschutes County, Oregon Suing State for Access to Cannabis Taxes

12/16/2020

Deschutes County, Oregon is suing the state over cannabis tax revenues it believes it should be paid despite an August 2019 moratorium on new cannabis processing and cultivation facilities in the county, the Oregonian reports. The lawsuit names the Oregon Departments of Revenue, Administrative Services, and the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC), which oversees the state’s cannabis industry.

Mark Pettinger, OLCC spokesman, told the Oregonian that when county commissioners voted to approved the ban – which was upheld by county voters during November’s General Election – that “essentially became the point in time which the county was no longer eligible to receive its portion of the 17 percent state tax collected at point of sale.” He specified that even though the county allowed existing producers to continue operations and “retail activity takes place” in the county, the ban on operations prohibits the county from receiving industry-derived tax revenues.

Deschutes is the only county in the state to opt into cannabis operations and then subsequently opt out of permitting operations, the report says.

Richard Hoover, a spokesman for the Department of Revenue, explained that prior to the moratorium, the county was receiving about 4 percent of the revenue from the state’s cannabis revenue fund, which is shared with the counties. Without the moratorium, Deschutes County would have received about $514,000 from December 2019 to this September, he said.

Adam Smith, assistant legal counsel with the county, told the Oregonian that the county believes the state is interpreting the law too narrowly. The court filing argues that the law does not preclude the county from the funds because the moratorium and subsequent opt-out by voters did not impact current operators in the county.

“This statute was not drafted from the perspective of what happened in Deschutes County. … We have marijuana businesses and we have those impacts, but we aren’t getting the money. … Taxes are still being paid in marijuana businesses in Deschutes County, and it’s not clear where it’s going.” – Smith to the Oregonian.

According to the Department of Revenue, Oregon received $133,150,349 in cannabis-derived state sales taxes in fiscal year 2020 which ended in June – an increase of more than $30 million from 2019 and more than $50 million from 2018. In the third quarter of 2020, the state disbursed $8,217,598 to counties that opted into cannabis operations, according to the Revenue Department.

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Utah Considers Allowing Any Doctor to Recommend Medical Cannabis

12/16/2020

Utah is proposing a change to its medical cannabis system that will help patients to more easily obtain medical cannabis recommendations. The proposal allows any doctor in the state to recommend medical cannabis for up to 15 patients, according to the Deseret News. Currently, any doctor can recommend cannabis to their patients but at the end of the year they are required to pay a fee and take online training courses in order to be considered a “qualifying provider.”

Connor Boyack, president of Libertas Institute, a Utah-based medical cannabis organization, said, “There are many physicians who support their patients’ use of medical cannabis, but do not want to jump through the hurdles of becoming a kind of qualified doctor under the law, which requires paying a fee and doing a few hours of education and using a new computer system just for these users. What that means is that those patients then have to go out-of-pocket to a different clinic, and it just adds to the cost.”

Despite 500 doctors around the state having registered as a “qualifying provider,” advocates say the uncertainty around doctor recommendations has created a “bottleneck” in Utah’s medical cannabis system — where they say doctors are hard to find and some charge extra for medical cannabis recommendations.

“The concept there is twofold. One on the patient’s side: It would allow the patient to stay closer to home, maybe with their own physician … and the physician, if they don’t feel they have the expertise to do the dosing guidelines, they can work with the pharmacist and the cannabis pharmacy.” — Senator Evan Vickers (R) of Cedar City, via Deseret News

Utah’s legislature passed medical cannabis in 2018. Since then, the state has struggled to address access issues across the mostly rural state, but lawmakers passed temporary fixes earlier this year. According to UtahBusiness.com, Utah’s medical cannabis program serves roughly 8,890 patients, and over 6,000 patients purchased medical cannabis in Utah between March and July.

“So it’s always a balancing act. We want to have access to patients, we want to try as much as possible to allow them to go through the normal doctor-patient relationship to get medication,” Sen. Vickers told Deseret News. “That way we can assist them in getting involved and having patients be treated with medication.”

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Aurora Announces Major Production Cut & Layoffs at Sky Facility

12/16/2020

Aurora Cannabis announced they are cutting production at their Aurora Sky facility to 25 percent of its previous capacity, after closing their Aurora Sun facility in November.

According to a Global News report, the move cuts 214 positions. In June, Aurora laid off 700 workers and announced plans to halt operations at five facilities in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec. Despite the layoffs and losses exceeding $3 billion for the 2020 fiscal year, company executives received a 58 percent boost to their compensation awards — totaling $9.8 million — and cash bonuses amounting to $700,000, the firm outlined in a circular earlier this year.

CEO Miguel Martin said the “hard decisions” would “improve cashflow and provide agility” for Aurora “in the long-term best interests” of shareholders.

“Our substantial liquidity position has enabled us to revise our credit facility terms by extending maturity and transitioning us from a minimum EBITDA covenant to a minimum liquidity covenant, thereby providing us with the financial flexibility we need to execute our business transformation plan. We are already seeing progress with improving cashflow and product successes such as the recent relaunch of our vapor portfolio. We are also driving our consumer strategy that will serve as a foundation for sustainable revenue growth and profitability over the long-term.” – Martin in a press release

Martin added that the Sky facility would be transformed “into a high-value cultivation center for … premium strains” which will help the company “better align production with current demand for premium flower.”

The firm broke ground on the 800,000-square-foot facility in 2016 and it received an operator’s license two years later.

In February, the company announced a “business transformation plan” which included workforce cuts of 10 percent.

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The History of Ways to Smoke Weed

12/15/2020

With how popular cannabis is today, you’d think it was a brand-new concept the world was just getting introduced to. But oh, how wrong that is. Cannabis is a plant that’s been around for thousands of years, dating back to some of the most ancient civilizations on Earth. While fancy portable vapes may not have been crafted yet, people have always relied on some rudimentary method of smoking to enjoy their herbs.

Today, we’re traveling back in time to discuss the evolution of smoking weed and how the process has evolved. From classic tobacco leaf wraps and clay bongs to advanced pre-rolled palm leaf cones, we’re covering the history of ways to smoke weed.

1000 BCE: Azullu

For decades, modern society was naïve enough to think that smoking weed was a somewhat new practice. However, just because we don’t have photographs of ancient civilizations lighting up doesn’t mean they didn’t do it. In fact, we’re quickly discovering evidence that even thousands of years ago, cannabis was being smoked one way or another.

About 1,000 years before the Common Era, Mesopotamian civilizations were thriving in the Middle East. By some means of travel and trade, Mesopotamians got their hands on the special cannabis plant. Though they didn’t necessarily roll up their flower and smoke it — not that we know of, at least — they utilized it frequently within their food and drink for spiritual and religious practices.

Called azullu, Mesopotamian clay tablets depicted that they used cannabis to help with certain medical conditions; it was also often included within incense. So, while they weren’t directly smoking their cannabis, these ancient civilizations were just starting to understand the potential that this plant brought.

From here, its popularity only spread further across the globe.

900 CE: Hashish

Over time, the idea of adding weed into foods and beverages became more and more popular. Soon, the world was seeing bhang in Asian cultures and cannabis-infused Haoma throughout the Middle East. During 900 CE, hash, or hashish, was also widely being discovered.

In Southwest Asia, people were uncovering the ability to press hash out of cannabis, simply through the use of friction and pressure between the fingers. This resinous substance was often consumed for medicinal and religious purposes. However, it wasn’t for quite a while before hash resurfaced and truly exploded in popularity.

1000 CE: Bongs

You might think that bongs are a fairly new invention within the cannabis scene, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. While people were rolling up and smoking tobacco for years, it appears as though high-ranking officials smoked cannabis out of gold bongs centuries and centuries ago. That’s right: 2,000 years ago, people in areas of Southern Russia crafted rudimentary bongs to enjoy their herbs. We don’t even see gold bongs nowadays!

When this first gold bong was discovered back in 2013, it was carefully cleaned and examined for use. Inside of the piece was black residue that later tested as a mix of both opium and cannabis, a combination frequently used by royals in these ancient civilizations as a way to enjoy themselves. Just how we load our bowls today (or, at least, similarly), Scythian chiefs did the same.

1320 CE: Cannabis Pipes

One of the first (and oldest) traces of cannabis smoking pipes dates back to around 1320 CE. In the 70s, archeologists discovered what appeared to be traditional smoking pipes in an area of Ethiopia. Similar to the bongs found in Russia, these pipes contained small traces of black resin inside the bowl piece. This substance was tested immediately and was found to be cannabis; after all those years, it still contained some THC.

Even though the cannabinoids had degraded quite a bit, it was still obvious what had been smoked and enjoyed through these rudimentary pipes. This finding indicates that smoking weed, historically, has always been a way for people to unwind; just at this time, it appeared to only be for those of the highest status. Knowing this implies that these civilizations understood the incredible benefits (or at least some of them) that cannabis could produce.

From there, the smoking pipe continued to evolve, changing materials, design, and even status. Over the years, pipe-smoking only gained popularity. While most turned to use them for tobacco, the evidence demonstrates that weed, too, had a home within these traditional pipes.

The 1800s: Joints

As the centuries progressed, people stayed smoking out of pipes and adding cannabis to their foods, beverages, and incenses. In the 1800s, however, something new was introduced to the cannabis scene: joints.

While ancient civilizations had used palm leaf and tobacco leaves as wraps for their herb for centuries, there hasn’t been evidence that they specifically stuffed these leaves with cannabis during these times. However, history can concretely say that joints were being smoked in Mexico throughout the 1800s. Old medical documents have been found discussing the use of medicinal cigarettes for chest pain and similar ailments. These “cigarettes” were actually cannabis mixed with tobacco, just like the spliffs we see today.

Knowing that these cannabis-tobacco smokes were advertised for medical purposes might imply that the plant was utilized for recreational purposes during this time, too. In the 19th century, both marijuana and hemp were on the rise, and these paper-rolled smokes became more and more commonplace.

The 1980s & 90s: Blunt and Vaporizers

Throughout the 20th century, cannabis use experienced a tumultuous run. During the beginning of the 1900s in the United States, cannabis and its constituents were still being celebrated and widely enjoyed. However, as time progressed and racist stereotypes began to encase the public’s perception of cannabis, regulation and demonization hit harder than ever. Now, weed was no longer the cultural, spiritual celebration it once was; instead, it was, supposedly, the cause of Reefer Madness.

Nonetheless, during this time, we still saw brave souls continue to work with the plant, crafting new and unique ways to smoke weed. Soon, people were replacing the insides of the cigars with cannabis, smoking some of the first blunts without even knowing. Even more revolutionary, though, was the production of vaporizers in the 1990s.

In 1996, Markus Storz began crafting the world’s first public-use herbal vaporizer. After only a few years of development, the first Volcano vaporizer was put on the market in 1998, despite being in a time where almost all of the country had cannabis criminalized. This incredible invention was not lost in the industry, and, soon, vaporizers became one of the community’s most beloved ways of smoking weed in history.

The 2000s: Non-Tobacco Wraps and Pre Rolled Cones

Slowly but surely, at the turn of the century, cannabis’ stigma was starting to change. Once again, people began understanding the potential benefits of the plant, and people began getting creative with ways to smoke weed. While the market already had a few rolling papers and blunt wrap options, a need for cleaner, tobacco-free smokes was obvious. In the 2000s and 2010s, the cannabis industry saw the introduction of non-tobacco wraps and leaf cones.

Companies like King Palm focus on crafting all-natural pre-rolled cones that give smokers a more organic option if they so choose. Plus, these leaves come already pre-rolled, so you don’t even have to deal with the hassle of rolling your wrap like they did in the good ole’ days. Instead, with pre-rolled cones like these, you just have to pack them. RAW, as well, has branched out to creating hemp rolling papers for those searching for a more vegan, eco-friendly option.

Today, you can find non-tobacco leaf rolls wrapped in gold, dipped in flavors, or ones that are completely free of any chemicals, dyes, and nicotine.

What the Future Holds

In 2020, we’re seeing a wave of cannabis acceptance that hasn’t been experienced in decades. As the country works towards legalizing the plant–whether recreationally or medicinally–one state at a time, it’s likely that we’ll continue to see new ways to smoke weed. From dab rigs with perks to 6-foot bongs and pre-rolls with terpene capsules, the cannabis community has more smoking options than ever before–and that’s only going to grow.

While we can’t tell you exactly what the future of smoking weed holds, we can predict that methodologies will continue to advance. But, until then, at least you can relish in the incredible options you have today, understanding just how far some of these devices have come throughout the course of history.

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Washington Cannabis Lab Suspended for Allegedly Inflating THC Results

12/15/2020

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) has issued a “summary suspension” for a state-licensed cannabis testing laboratory. According to the LCB, Praxis Labs falsified over 1,200 results in order to inflate THC levels. Additionally, the LCB alleges the lab attempted to destroy evidence during its investigation.

The summary suspension is for 180 days, during which time the LCB will seek the permanent revocation of Praxis’s “marijuana laboratory” certification and investigate acts of obstruction.

“The LCB educates licensees to reach compliance and enforces Washington’s liquor, cannabis, vape and tobacco laws and regulations. The WSLCB is mandated to ensure that licensees in Washington State follow state laws and regulations. When licensees fail to comply with state law, the Board, under state authority can take action including the issuance of suspensions to ensure public health and safety.” — LCB statement, in a press release

Praxis Labs denies the charges and, in an emailed counter-statement, said, “This is a clear cut case of agency overreach and libel and we will be pursuing legal action immediately and have already started the appeal process in the interim.”

“It is our opinion that this is a brazen attempt by the agency to assert that they should not have their enforcement arm defunded, and that it’s imperative to the safety of the industry,” a company representative said. “The suspension documentation itself contains numerous inaccuracies and falsehoods, just in the first few pages. We are not here to be bullied by an agency with seemingly unlimited authority. The agency has opted to move forward with this narrative despite being presented with evidence to the alternative.”

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Ireland Approves International Shipments for Medical Cannabis Patients

12/15/2020

Officials in Ireland are making permanent a service enacted during the pandemic allowing medical cannabis delivery to registered patients in the country from companies based in The Netherlands, the Irish Post reports. Prior to the pandemic, Irish patients would have to travel to The Netherlands to pick up their medicine.

Although authorities in The Netherlands prohibit commercial exportation of cannabis oils, it does allow individual prescriptions from European Union states to be filled, the report says.

Irish Health Minister Stephen Donnelly told the Post that, following the implementation of the rule, his office received praise about the program which led to the decision to make it permanent.

“They spoke about the stress of having to travel regularly and the associated health risks with that, as well as their concerns that they would run out of their medication. There will no longer be a need for them to travel abroad in order to collect their prescribed cannabis products. Instead, they can focus on their health and wellbeing. The welfare of patients and their families comes first and I am happy to reassure them that they will no longer have to personally source their prescriptions.” – Donnelly in a statement via the Post

Ireland launched its medical cannabis program as a 5-year pilot just last year. The program allows access for just three qualifying conditions – intractable nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, severe and treatment-resistant epilepsy, and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. According to the Post report, there are 30 physicians in Ireland licensed to make program recommendations.

Health Department officials still have to finalize the details of the delivery service as a permanent part of the medical cannabis regime.

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South Carolina Lawmakers Pre-File Medical Cannabis Reforms for 2021

12/15/2020

Lawmakers in South Carolina have pre-filed several cannabis reform measures ahead of the 2021 session: two to legalize medical cannabis, one to decriminalize possession up to one ounce, one allowing some veterans to possess cannabis, and another to hold an “advisory referendum” on broad legalization.

The bills come from both Democrats and Republicans.

Republican Sen. Tom Davis, who pre-filed the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act (S.150), told WSPA that he has a majority of lawmakers from both legislative chambers who would vote for the bill. The measure, which he described as the most conservative medical cannabis bill in the nation, covers only “medical conditions for which there is empirical evidence that medical cannabis can be a medicinal benefit,” he said.

The bill names 10 specific conditions that are common among those qualifying for medical cannabis access throughout the U.S., while also allowing access to those with a terminal illness with less than one-year life expectancy, as well as chronic conditions “causing severe and persistent muscle spasms,” and conditions for which opioids are, or could be, prescribed for care.

Smoking is not permitted under the proposal.

Another measure introduced by Republican Rep. Bill Herbkersman (H.3361) would allow physicians to make program recommendations for any condition and permit more methods of ingestion.

“It is unacceptable that South Carolinians with serious illnesses have to break the law to alleviate their suffering. My brother deserved better. Our friends, family, and neighbors deserve the same options to medicine that are afforded to Americans in 36 other states. Waiting any longer will only add to the suffering that is experienced by those who are plagued with debilitating illnesses.” – Herbkersman in a statement via South Carolina Compassionate Care

The measure allowing honorably discharged military veterans to possess cannabis (H.3202) was pre-filed by Rep. J. Todd Rutherfordm a Democrat and House Minority Leader. The bill would allow qualifying vets to possess up to 1 ounce of flower or 10 grams of concentrates. According to the bill text, allowing veterans to possess and self-medicate with cannabis might help mitigate post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and reduce veteran suicides.

“When South Carolina’s combat veterans are suffering to the point where they are committing suicide at nearly a 50 percent higher rate than the general population, the State, at a minimum, should not criminalize the one treatment that might alleviate the ravaging effects of PTSD,” the bill states. “South Carolina must reform its criminal penalties for marijuana possession to free up the necessary time and money to go after violent criminals who cause true havoc and loss of life in our communities.”

The referendum bill (S.268) pre-filed in the Senate by Democrat Sen. Margie Bright Matthews would not allow voters to legalize cannabis – the state does not allow voter referendum – but rather ask voters during the 2022 election whether they approve of legalization for adults. The question would appear on ballots as “Should the State of South Carolina legalize the recreational use of marijuana notwithstanding any federal law to the contrary?” The measure would require the State Election Commission to submit a report to the General Assembly within 60 days of the election’s certification.

Cannabis reform efforts in South Carolina are opposed by the State Attorney General’s Office, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and Republican Gov. Henry McMaster.

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LeafLink Raises $40M in Series C Funding Round

12/15/2020

Wholesale cannabis platform LeafLink last week announced the close of a $40 million Series C investment round led by Founders Fund – it is the firm’s largest technology investment in the cannabis space.

LeafLink said the investment round brings its venture funding to more than $90 million. The Series C round will be used to expand in current markets by bringing on new brands and retailers, capitalizing on newly legalized markets, and continuing to expand its offerings around payments, delivery, and data and analytics, the company said.

Ryan G. Smith, co-founder and CEO of LeafLink, described the fundraising round as “monumental” for the firm as it continues “to define a space that shows no signs of slowing down.”

“We’re honored to partner with Founders Fund as we scale our marketplace technology across the growing cannabis industry. Our eyes are set on bringing efficiency and innovation to the supply chain and we’re excited for cannabis to serve as a model for more legacy industries in the future.” – Smith, in a statement

Napoleon Ta, a partner at Founders Fund, said the company made the investment in LeafLink because “the team is merging best practices from e-commerce marketplaces with B2B technology to streamline an entire industry’s supply chain and operations.”

LeafLink estimates that 32 percent of U.S. wholesale cannabis orders flow through its marketplace.

Additional participants in the fundraising round include Thrive Capital, Nosara Capital, and Lerer Hippeau. In 2017, Lerer Hippeau was part of LeafLink’s $3 million seed round, and marked the first time the firm invested in the cannabis industry. Nosara also made seed round investments in LeafLink in 2017.

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Antonio Frazier: How Consumer Safety Helps Destigmatize Cannabis

12/14/2020

In any industry, consumer product testing is a key part of maintaining safe and trustworthy operations. While the cannabis industry is no different, there are often (and unfortunately) big differences between the testing labs that conduct consumer safety tests.

In this podcast interview, Antonio talks to our host TG Branfalt about the importance of laboratory accreditation — which is when a laboratory and its offerings are evaluated by a highly qualified third party — and what it means for the cannabis industry. Antonio also shares the story of how CannaSafe became the first lab in the country to link the vitamin E acetate compound to last year’s vape lung disease crisis, his experience as a Black executive in the predominantly white cannabis industry, and more!

Scroll down or visit your favorite podcast listening platform to hear this week’s episode of the Ganjapreneur podcast, or read along with the transcript posted under the media player below.

Listen to the podcast:

Ganjapreneur · Antonio Frazier: How Consumer Safety Helps Destigmatize Cannabis

Read the transcript:

Commercial: At Ganjapreneur, we have heard from dozens of cannabis business owners who have encountered the issue of cannabias, which is when a mainstream business, whether a landlord, bank, or some other provider of vital business services refuses to do business with them simply because of their association with cannabis. We have even heard stories of businesses being unable to provide health and life insurance for their employees because the insurance providers were too afraid to work with them. We believe that this fear is totally unreasonable, and that cannabis business owners deserve access to the same services and resources that other businesses are afforded, that they should be able to hire consultation to help them follow the letter of the law in their business endeavors, and that they should be able to provide employee benefits without needing to compromise on the quality of coverage they can offer. This is why we created the Ganjapreneur.com Business Service Directory, a resource for cannabis professionals to find and connect with service providers who are cannabis friendly and who are actively seeking cannabis industry clients.

If you are considering hiring a business consultant, lawyer, accountant, web designer, or any other ancillary service for your business, go to Ganjapreneur.com/businesses to browse hundreds of agencies, firms, and organizations who support cannabis legalization and who want to help you grow your business. With so many options to choose from in each service category, you will be able to browse company profiles and do research on multiple companies in advance, so you can find the provider who is the best fit for your particular need. Our business service directory is intended to be a useful and well-maintained resource, which is why we individually vet each listing that is submitted.

If you are a business service provider who wants to work with cannabis clients, you may be a good fit for our service director. Go to Ganjapreneur.com/businesses to create your profile and start connecting with cannabis entrepreneurs today.

TG Branfalt: Hey there. I’m your host, TG Branfalt, and thank you for listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast, where we try to bring you actionable information and normalize cannabis through the stories of Ganjapreneurs, activists and industry stakeholders. Today, I’m joined by Antonio Frazier. He’s the president of CannaSafe, a California-based ISO-accredited cannabis and hemp testing laboratory, the first cannabis-focused lab in the world to earn the ISO certification. Frazier holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Furman University and a Bachelor’s in materials engineering from Clemson. How are you doing this afternoon, Antonio?

Antonio Frazier: I’m doing well, TG. Thanks for having me. Excited to share some of the story and really get you to prod the information out of my head. I’m familiar with your work, so excited to see where we flow today.

TG Branfalt: Yeah, man. I love testing guys, too, because you guys have this wealth of knowledge based on what you do with chemistry that really excites me. Before we get into all that, man, tell me about yourself. How’d you end up in the cannabis space?

Antonio Frazier: Yeah. As you noted earlier, I’m a materials engineer. My focus is metallurgy, so I was working in aerospace engineering prior to this. I was running an internal compliance lab for a manufacturing facility, dealing with the foundry, heat tree department, planning department. Very technical stuff, but more mechanical. And obviously, when you’re going to war, you want your jet engines not to overheat or to be the most combustible. Yeah, really just nerdy stuff that really wasn’t very human. It really wasn’t very pleasing, it wasn’t very satisfying work.

My old college teammate, Aaron Riley, who’s our CEO, actually got arrested for cannabis early on in school. He was about three years, four years younger than me but left the same year I did, although I graduated and he got arrested. We like to do the Martha Stewart/Snoop Dogg thing. When you see us, we’re like, “Who do you think got arrested? Who do you think is the one?” I guess people that are listening can’t tell, but I’m a 6’5″ black guy, he’s a white guy. It just breaks the unfortunate stigmas that our country built.

Anyway, he was trying to get back into the space. He actually finished his degree at JU down in Florida, got an MBA as well. He was an entrepreneur, 23 or so, become a millionaire flipping cars and real estate, doing all these different things. And I was like, “Whoa,” really impressed with him. But he started reaching out to me like, “Hey, I’m interested in what you’re doing. I hear your lab is ISO-accredited. I’m looking at cannabis. I think I’m hearing that that’s going to be a thing. One other lab I’m talking to keeps talking about the ISO accredited and how important it is, and you do that. Can you help me?”

And I was like, “No, not really. I’m not a chemist. I’m an engineer. I blow things up more than I analyze them, so it’s not really my skillset.” He’s like, “No, I need a business partner to help me make sure one, I’m compliant, and two, to make sure that I’m dealing with the right people. You’ve dealt with this type of chemical background before.” I was like, “I guess that sounds cool. Yeah, I am cool.” He’d be talking me up, not really realizing him being an entrepreneur, he’s selling me on myself. He’s saying some things I’d understand.

Anyway, just over two visits, he visited D.C., where I was at the time with my then girlfriend, now wife. He visited us a few times. Made the trip one time driving a Lamborghini. If you just know Aaron, you just know how appropriate that detail is. Some people would probably be laughing right now. He just convinced us to come out, honestly. We eventually made the trip out to SoCal, and man, the weather just really… Me and my wife were like, “Whoa. What is this? This is really dope.” Opportunity to be a partner in a business that was growing. Right before that time, they came out saying cannabis was going to be the next internet. We were like, “Hey, we don’t want to be those guys that missed on Apple at one point in time, so let’s go out there and do it.” Sorry, long story there, but that’s really how I got out here.

TG Branfalt: And you mentioned you met Riley through football. I want to know about your experiences as a college athlete, specifically dealing with your views on cannabis at that time. As an athlete, were you sidestepping drug tests, or did you abstain?

Antonio Frazier: Good question. That’s something I never really talked about before. Certainly being an athlete on college campuses, it’s not allowed. It’s illegal. It wasn’t on the surface. I think the coaches knew. There was one crowd that everyone knew smoked, then there was the crowd that was around the crowd. I think there was some layers to it all. Obviously, Aaron becoming a weed man at some point was heavily involved with it all.

But yeah, you had code words for what you were doing after practice if you wanted to talk about it, seeing if someone had money to put in on it or no, making sure someone left weights quickly enough to go meet the guy that was going. We just had different code words to make sure that everything got done, cause you couldn’t talk about it.

But for the most part, the time, you don’t really realize it, but if you’re a college athlete and as much as we worked out, as long as you weren’t pretty idiotic, you could pretty much… If you had a day you could get away with a test, not a lot of fat on you, you drink enough water. You obviously can dilute your pee. That’s also a trick. You also cannot dilute in just pee water, because they’ll make you stay and pee again. Yeah, for the most part, everyone was pretty good, but there were a few guys that smoked enough to where they obviously could not, no matter what they did. They were in trouble. I actually think I got away with it, because I was the nerdy black kid. So it only happened like twice, maybe.

TG Branfalt: Really?

Antonio Frazier: Yeah. And then once I started going to Clemson, especially, because I actually took classes at Clemson when I played at Furman. I think by me not being enrolled in Furman, maybe I never was on their radar, because my last three years, I got none. I was pretty lucky there. I don’t know if they ever noticed that or not, but I assume it’s because I wasn’t enrolled at Furman at the time, so the academia, so I didn’t get put on their list of students to get tested. And I wasn’t going to ask the question, either, so I never understood why. But my last three years, I was drug test-free, so quite lucky there.

TG Branfalt: Being an athlete, do you still know other people who are maybe not in organized athletics, but are still doing athletic things that are relying on CBD?

Antonio Frazier: Oh, man. Absolutely. I don’t think I know people. It’s becoming a large segment of the people. The question that we get as a business, people are looking for safe products, because a lot of athletes are more concerned with what’s going in their body. Certainly, topicals are definitely a… Even myself, I’m a huge topical user. I wouldn’t call myself an athlete anymore, though certainly, I have embraced that. Three kids in, I certainly don’t take as much pride probably as I used to. I’m not sure.

But anyway, most certainly, I’ve seen that crowd ask more… They’re becoming influencers. Gronkowski has a CBD line. I think there’s a woman president of the NBA Players Union. She’s invested in a CBD company. The NHL is very open about it. I think the UFC even has some kind of CBD or Cannabinoid Center that they’re doing stuff with. Most certainly looking to get involved with all these same more athletic background, but we certainly see it as an opportunity. We deal with athletes already. We definitely have some of that. They’re curious about it. I think a lot of them look for brands, though, so everybody rather go the product consumer side. But a lot of them are starting to see the safety angle of it.

Honestly, if anyone’s listening, you can come on and knock on our door, and we’re looking for partnerships in different ways to promote this athletic, this health and safety-type lifestyle of what we do, because we want to de-stigmatize. You guys said normalizing in the intro, but we’re all about de-stigmatizing, because let’s keep it real. It’s the moms that are using this stuff, too. A lot of these legal sales aren’t the 20 to 25-year-olds, that they don’t give a shit about it to test it, nor can they afford the taxes for it all. A lot of the people supporting the legal market aren’t necessarily your traditional stoner type, because a lot of those people aren’t really participating in the legal market because of the expensiveness.

TG Branfalt: And to your point, the closest dispensaries to me are in Massachusetts. And when I go there, it’s predominantly folks my mother’s age.

Antonio Frazier: Yep. People don’t realize that.

TG Branfalt: Yeah. It’s really interesting. Let’s talk about the importance of testing beyond safety and compliance. One of the things that I really like about the legal market is the testing aspect, because I like knowing about the terpenes and the cannabinoid makeups. And I think that information helps us break that indica-sativa paradigm. Is that something that has become important to your work as well?

Antonio Frazier: Yeah. Obviously, the sativa versus indica is one of those things where eventually it’s going to go away. There’re so many hybrids. People realize it’s not as important as it once was. Obviously, some strains are heavier than others, but you can get the characteristics in both types of plant. But with the terpenes, there’s things that really do have an impact. The entourage effects from terpenes are clearly determined in your experience, so that information is clearly becoming to influence patients and users, and that’s what testing can do for you.

And safety is a big deal, because quite frankly, a lot of these people that are sick, they have vulnerable immune systems. And obviously, not everyone’s intending to do something dirty, but a lot of times, if you cut your plant down too soon, it’s a little too wet. You may dry it, some people may, but not everyone will, and if you package it too soon, it will grow microbials while it’s in the packaging. While you may have packaged it up, it looks good, two months later on somebody’s shelf, it could be growing mold. Colorado went through a bunch of recalls due to that, because they weren’t doing the testing the proper way, but they put better rules in now.

Another thing to your point, if you’re in a state that doesn’t have legal access, you don’t even understand some of this stuff, so you don’t even know what matters. Just because of your background and your mission, you’re obviously of what’s separating the legal versus the illicit market, and obviously, safety and testing is that barrier. And price is the unfortunate difference, too, that makes people lean towards the traditional market, but that testing is so important because of safety, but also to help us understand how to literally dose this, which is beyond important to the medicinal effect, because you can’t just flower… Unfortunately, the botanical drug is not the best format for this medicine, due to the fact that it’s not really dose-able.

As much as I enjoy it, I’m a flower guy, I will forever be a smoker, no matter how much people tell me it’s bad for my lungs, but I’ll keep it real. Some people are sick that shouldn’t be smoking. They shouldn’t be smoking flower. They should be smoking vape devices, which is much cleaner aerosol. It’s just about that education. The R&D part of testing, I think, is even more important to teach people how the mechanisms… And what’s important, I think, is even more. We saw with the vape crisis last year, people think, “Oh my god, these carts are $20 cheaper, and it’s all the same. What are you saying, my man?” And you get you what you pay for, and unfortunately, it cost some people their lives and some people some really down times, some really bad times in the hospital because of such.

TG Branfalt: We’re going to talk about… Your lab played a role in discovering this link between vitamin E acetate and the vape-related pulmonary illness. Before we get into that, I want to just make listeners aware of what ISO accreditation is and what it takes to get that accreditation.

Antonio Frazier: Yeah, let’s definitely back that up there, because we mentioned it earlier but didn’t go into it. It’s ISO 17025, which is the international spec that dictates how laboratories should operate. It’s not an end-all, be-all, but what it does, it says that this lab has gone under an audit, an accreditation process through a third party that has determined that not only do they have SOPs and instructions for how to do the work, but it’s traceable, so someone can come behind and see what happened. And then third, there’s some level of validation done to your method. They come in and make sure your methods can produce data to a certain level of accuracy and precision.

Obviously, the tricky part is, you can get accredited for cannabis, testing the plant, but testing a plant versus testing a… What is something crazy here? Or a drink or an edible is very different, so therefore, the ISO accreditation basically needs to be understood even more in depth to account for all the different matrices and things that we see. It’s just the beginning. Someone can be ISO for potency, and then they claim, “I’m ISO-accredited,” but they can’t test for heavy metals, and they don’t do it very well. You’re seeing it in Florida right now. A lot of these labs have been ISO-accredited for some time, but not for all the trickier tests that we’re used to doing, and then they struggle quite heavily with doing so, and they’re actually not able to do those tests the way that they claim they can.

TG Branfalt: Tell me about that role that your lab played in discovering that link between vitamin E acetate and vape-related pulmonary illness.

Antonio Frazier: With Vape Gate, the big thing for us is that, us being a lab obviously testing cannabis already, it was honestly, being in L.A., the access to the illicit market. We literally had illicit delivery service bring us these dirty carts, so it was pretty simple to have it. And we also test more than, of course, anyone else in the industry. We have all the legal carts in the world, and then we have access to the illicit carts pretty simply, which is where the CDC may not get all the carts. We got 20 carts delivered, where they may get the in use of one cart that a parent submitted after their child got sick, so they don’t really get enough material to test.

Therefore, just being in the industry, because let’s keep it real, it wasn’t that much of a secret. It wasn’t that much of a secret, so the industry knew exactly what was happening, and we just had to figure out how to get the data available for someone to take note of it. That’s why we use the ISO accreditation. We got ISO-accredited to test for vitamin E acetate to prove that we were doing it properly, and that obviously had been on NBC, because not only had we done the analysis, the data was something you could stand on. It wasn’t an opinion. It was something that we had actual physical carts, we compared the difference between all the things in legal versus the illicit, and it was clear vitamin E acetate was in there for more than 10% to 30%, and that stuff is not good for your lungs whatsoever.

Therefore, we were able to make a pretty quick determination, and CDC obviously confirmed it 20 or 30 days later, so it’s pretty cool to put something out and then the CDC agrees with you. It really did change the idea of a cannabis lab to being a forefront of consumer safety. We got billions of impressions from that, from the interview. It really did take us to the next level, from just a lab to a brand. And fighting for consumer safety, not making products. Totally different than most people are used to seeing. That’s what happened.

TG Branfalt: As a self-described nerd, how fascinating was this for you to participate in this?

Antonio Frazier: Oh my god, it was thrilling. It’s why you do it. It was the rush, it was the news, it was getting a new assay online, making sure it was validated. It was all those things. We had data, but then we decided to hold off on it, because we hadn’t validated our instrument yet. We were saying, “Well, let’s not put it out yet.” It was that concern of would someone else figure it out, because the word was getting around what we were doing. But just being able to put it together and having an awesome media department also being able to put a report out.

And honestly, we had 120 legal brands submit samples to us during that time, too. The industry just stepped up, and obviously it was good for us and our pockets as well, for getting to step up and want to be a part of this and prove that their carts did not have this in it. Brands that don’t test with us normally just suddenly started submitting samples, because they wanted to make sure they were on the right end of this. It was really a good movement. It was a feel-good. It was science, it was industry, it was community, it was health, it was patients. It just checked every single box of why you wake up, and then you can look at your bank account and see it grow, and you’re like, “Wow!” One of those euphoric moments of, “Holy shit, we just helped save legal cannabis.”

They were talking about banning vapes, so all these things were going on that we were able to shift the whole conversation nationwide from cannabis to illicit cannabis, and separate ourselves from e-cigarettes and all those things with the kids and the flavorings, because we didn’t have flavorings. That’s another thing people don’t realize, that we also determined that the flavoring was an issue as well.

TG Branfalt: You guys are celebrating National Expungement Week over there, so I want to talk to you about some social equity issues. I’ve had several different conversations where people have their own take on social equity and what that means. I just want you to tell me about the conversations you’ve had about social equity in this space, and whether or not there’s a consensus about whether or not states need to legislate social equity programs, or should that fall to the companies just having to do better?

Antonio Frazier: Oh, man. That’s a great question. To answer the direct last one, I think the answer is both. I think states have to mandate it. Unfortunately, people don’t normally do good work unless they’re made to, unless there’s some kind of tax incentive or something, so you have to make it to people’s advantage. I think that’s just business. I’m not going to declare business should lose money to help someone else. It’s never been a principle, so why make cannabis companies do something no one else ever has?

TG Branfalt: Interesting.

Antonio Frazier: And then two, I think some companies should do better, though. Honestly, we’re here off the backs of a lot of black and brown communities who’ve been pretty effed up generationally by the war on drugs. Cannabis is one of those drugs where the use is just as equal no matter what you look like, though the pleasure community is well ingrained, whether it be through a guy on a corner or whether it be through the mom with a G-Wagon. The cannabis is moving regardless, so I think cannabis companies therefore should be doing more to ensure these cannabis-related crimes, these possession… Even selling. No one should be in jail for weed, and now we got to make sure that the residual effects… That’s what people don’t realize. Just because you’re out of jail doesn’t mean you’re out of the clear, and there’re so many residual barriers that I’ve learned about from my personal family being afflicted, and now through the work the Social Impact Center does in L.A. Just learning how many other “F-yous” there are down the road that makes it so impossible to reenter.

I’m actually working with organizations. With one reentry program, just met their leader. She was formerly incarcerated as well, got her Bachelor’s and Master’s afterwards, kept her daughter, all these different things. But she was like, “I had so much support. You have no idea how many times I wanted to give up and how easy it was just to go back to the old life and just say screw it. If you don’t have that support, you most certainly will rescind,” as they call it or whatever. She’s like, “It’s not really an option. You don’t have a choice.” When you hear it from the actual stories, you just feel obligated to make sure that they have an opportunity. And what I know is if community supports you, you’re really going to be successful.

For us, it’s just about getting cannabis safe in the community, and really changing something as opposed to writing a check to an organization and smiling. How do we actually change lives? I’m not saying don’t write checks. Not insulting anyone who does, but I just don’t think it’s as needle-moving or as powerful as it is when you meet these people and you give them the opportunity to go to work.

Right now, one of the big issues is that the only opportunity for social equity is ownership, and not everyone’s an entrepreneur. Shit, even people that got arrested for drugs, maybe if they were a better entrepreneur, they might never have had to do it. This stupid catch-22 is, why make someone run a business when not everyone needs to run a business? Why not give their community opportunities to create centers, create these different things to allow them to overcome the damages? Invest in schools, use the taxes from this community. If you’re going to tax us so much, at least give it to the people that have been screwed over. Don’t just divert it to some other fund or give it to the police. It’s all screwed up. I think people would even more attracted to purchase legally if they knew the taxes were going somewhere besides just up somebody’s whatever. Yeah.

TG Branfalt: That’s a very interesting proposal. Almost if you market it that way, X amount of purchase from this product goes directly to fight-

Antonio Frazier: Simple. It’s simple. It’s not that crazy of an idea, and it’s not that hard to do. I’ll never forget when the New York City legislature… Actually, the Democrats, I forget the black lady’s name, but she said, “Listen, I’m all about cannabis, but I’m not voting for this if it doesn’t repair the communities. It may stop the ballot measure, because it wasn’t well structured for equity.” I was like, “Kudos to New York City.” And she’s like, “Yeah, I know we need to do this, but not the wrong way.” Kudos. I know you can call it politics or whatever, but it’s real. It was really powerful to hear them say that and say, “No, we’re not going to do this because it’s going to make us money. We’re going to make sure the money goes where it should.” New York’s one of those cities where it’s pretty clear to show what’s been done, how it works, and the gentrification of New York City in certain parts of it now. It’s just not right for people to have missed out on… I don’t know. It’s just not right.

TG Branfalt: Brooklyn’s no fun anymore.

Antonio Frazier: Let’s just keep it real. Now that these people are in this place, in this hole that they built, the Brooklyn that we all adored is now not… It’s just weird, man. And I started seeing some of it, because in D.C., would train to New York all the time for weekends. And man, to just really go into the places like you said, it went from being a secret people were infiltrating, and now they’re just there. You don’t just see those people anymore. It’s just not the same. And to your point, they were tormented in that same block for decades, and now someone else is going to get to put a legal stone. It’s just not right.

TG Branfalt: We could talk for hours about how gentrification has ripped out the soul of basically every great American city. I use “great American” loosely. Anyway, would you mind talking to me about your experience as a black man in a high-level position in the cannabis industry?

Antonio Frazier: Oh, man. Well, that experience is every day. CannaSafe, I guess, it’s interesting, I’ve always been a black man, so I’ve always been dealing with different ways of being seen in my community, whether it be as an athlete where it’s okay, to engineering school where it’s like, “What are you doing here?” To my first management job of, “How are you my boss,” kind of deal. I’ve definitely felt all flavors of it. I recently called myself an exec, simply because one, the title, but two, CannaSafe’s also not recognized as someone, where you start judging and you start having opinions about someone you haven’t met. I’m definitely dealing with a lot of that right now, and it’s certainly new.

But I’ll say one of the most important things is that I think it gives me a very genuine connection to the community, which is why some of the stuff that we’ve done, we’re the only cannabis company that’s hosting one of these six clinics throughout the city of L.A. that Felicia, the organization’s putting on. We’re the only one that few offered. The other people had churches. Their community centers are really pillars of their communities, and to me, that’s something no one’s been able to accomplish before.

I think a lot of that is simply because the execs in the companies of my size don’t want me to look like me, and they may not respect the same way, they may not approach the community the right way, and they don’t get inside the community. The community doesn’t want them there, because it’s not genuine. I think I really appreciate the fact that the community has accepted my company, although we’re not L.A. guys, which is a very real thing. If you’re not from L.A., you don’t normally get to navigate or move around L.A. It’s kind of like New York City.

And then beyond that, though, I’m really curious to see how the business is treated. Luckily, we do things right so people respect our brand, but I think personally, we’re going to start seeing, as I sit in bigger chairs and bigger meetings, and I’m already a part of these board chairs, I’m going to start seeing how it really gets done. I don’t really know quite yet. I know it’s not going to be clean. I know it’s going to be a challenge. I’m not declaring the whole world racist or anything. I’m just here realizing that shit’s different for me when I walk into a room with someone else.

A lot of times, in this industry… I’ll say this for this industry. I’ve felt it less than I ever have in my life, and I’m accepted more than I ever have been. But I would be an idiot to say that it’s not a thing. I would be nothing but an Uncle Tom, to be quite frank. I know it’s a strong word, but I feel like I would be if I didn’t say I feel it, but I don’t think this community is outright trying to make it a thing. I think when you get the traditional MBA cannabis executives that are from other industries, they make it a thing, but the industry itself, when you’re going to meet the OGs, when you’re up in Santa Rosa, when you’re in L.A., South Central. And nothing but love when you see the old people. When you’re in Oakland, nothing but love. Nothing but love in the Bay. It just depends on who you’re talking to.

I don’t know. That was a broad answer, but mainly, what I’m trying to say is that you have cannabis who embraces it, and then you have this new corporate cannabis who is a little more traditional. And clearly, that’s when I start feeling things like, “Oh, I got to start dancing and sliding, and I got to start doing those things to deescalate my presence.”

TG Branfalt: It’s crazy to me, because you have… You went to Clemson. You know what I’m saying? It’s regarded as one of the best schools in the country. For me, as somebody who does teach and who recognizes the value, it makes me personally just pissed off. This guy’s got the education to be where he is.

Antonio Frazier: I think that’s when people talk like… When I talk about privilege, that’s the things I talk about. It’s like, “Hey, I want to check the box that some people check a box and it just takes them everywhere.” “Oh, this guy went to Clemson,” like you said. But if I check that box, they find a new way to discredit. It’s not as simple. I don’t get the same benefit.

When you talk about the pressure and the burden of racism or stigmas, it’s those residuals. It’s like expungement, with the things where you work your ass off. You become a doctor, you do these things, and suddenly, you don’t get in the country club. Suddenly, you don’t get promoted as quickly or you find out someone doing the same job makes 20% more than you. And you’re like, “Well, how did that happen?” That really defeats people. That’s what makes people really give in and just slide back, as society wants to do “Black people, well, they’re more violent.” When you focus on crime in certain communities, that matters socioeconomically. Doesn’t matter what color you are. But the fact that there’s more black people in that situation, clearly, you’re going to get more violent statistics about interracial crime. When the numbers are rigged, as a data scientist, which I am now becoming, data can tell whatever numbers you want it to. Just depends on how you want to spin it. Those are the things that create these stigmas and stereotypes that we’re trying to normalize, like you said, or de-stigmatize and bring truth to it.

And you’re seeing our generation… Especially the younger kids, I don’t know what you even call them, but the TikTok kids are so unapologetic to go like, “F you, Granddad.” It’s kind of inspiring, because it’s who we thought we were. Then suddenly we go, “Oh, shit, they’re disrupting it like, ‘Go ahead.'” They’re just not about the BS, because they have friends that grew up in diverse communities. They’re like, “This is BS, Grandpa. What are you talking about? That’s my boy, and shut the fuck up.” When I was that age, just being mid-30s here, it wasn’t… I had friends like that, but it wasn’t the norm. It was still cool to be racist when I was coming up in the South, where I think now, you get some pockets of it and Trump is definitely exciting some of that, but as far as the younger generation, you got to get isolated to really be proud. You get the online BS, of course, these days. But yeah, I think things are changing. Not sure what the question was, or how we got where we were.

TG Branfalt: What I want to ask is, why, in your opinion, you being a black executive of the only testing lab with this ISO accreditation… From your perspective, why are there so few high-level cannabis industry executives that are minorities, people of color? There was a report that came out a few months ago from Maryland that said that something like 9% of Maryland’s medical cannabis industry was owned by black people, and then just another less than 1% of that was black women. What’s going on here, in your opinion?

Antonio Frazier: Yeah. I guess I think it mimics the rest of this country. Like you said lightly, you used the term great earlier. I think it’s the reality that we’re realizing some of the things that made us great were based on all these things that we don’t really stand for, we don’t really like. I think one, it’s good that we’re talking about those stacks. Now, we’re trying to say, “Hey, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.” Especially when we… I know Maryland is blickity-black. There’s a lot of black people in Maryland. D.C. is chocolate city. This is not one of those places where there’s not a lot of us there, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you really… Especially the affluent. That’s something I realize in Maryland. You got a lot of affluent black people in Maryland, a lot of people living in these nice homes and big jobs.

Anyway, that being said, I think it’s just seeing the reflection of the corporatization. I think those numbers are probably better than other industries, most likely. I’m sure they’re probably a lot better than people-

TG Branfalt: Banking.

Antonio Frazier: … who own water treatment or banking or real estate and such. Now, all these other industry people have made lots of money and won’t necessarily promote. But I think on top of that, I think there’s a big push not to encourage the equity, not to encourage people to enter, because there’s a big gap to close right now. This is the generational wealth opportunity, where in about two or three years, it’s going to be gobbled up. You’re not going to be able to… You maybe can get a business and a shop and be someone owning a convenience store and make some money, but you’re not going to be… There’s not going to be a lot of billionaires made in cannabis after a year or two, if that many come out of this to begin with, because the big companies are already gobbling them up. Not going to get that many new billionaires. You’re going to get a lot of billionaires getting bigger in there or whatever, but you’re not going to get a lot of true cannabis billionaires due to the fact of what you’re seeing.

Even you’re seeing the tech gobbled up already. You’re seeing these big tech companies buying up all the tech software. That will be really valuable once it’s legalized with all the data. They’ve already cashed out. That shows you that the people in cannabis probably won’t be the ones becoming the really rich because of such. And that’s why I think the equity programs suck, because if you get a lot of people right now that are really earning and getting their foot in, they have to get paid, and I think that’s something that this country isn’t a big fan of. It just makes too much sense when you break it down, that the opportunity is now. Some people are doing well, but if you have a whole community stand up and start cycling the money through its own community, that becomes a real problem. You’re talking about real deep-rooted political… You begin it with cannabis, but you’re actually going to fuck a lot of stuff up. It’s hard teaching people that.

I hate to say it, and I hope it becomes what we do, but if you start getting people doing stuff like that, then all of a sudden, you’re going to disrupt a lot of industries, a lot of different things. If people stop being consumers and start being owners, that’s what people don’t realize. The black and brown community is the biggest consumer power in the entire country, because we don’t own a lot of things, so everything that we make, we have to buy, we have to give someone something. That’s why you saw, as crazy as it was, some of the things like Jordans and things went up in the pandemic, some of the luxury retail, because people had money. They were getting checks, and they spent it on the things that they’re used to spending it on.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve noticed a lot of major retailers are going super urban right now. Even fricking Travis Scott Happy Meal, whatever the hell that shit is, at McDonald’s now. It’s nuts, because they realize, “Hey, the community that’s spending money are these hype beast teens and the black people, so we got to make sure we give them something they want.” I’m seeing a lot of major brands really push towards this, and maybe it’s good, because it could be equitable. People are getting opportunities to be brand representation they never were before. Whether it be a reaction to justice or whatever it may be, it’s an opportunity for us that wasn’t there before.

You got to be thankful for even the things that are there, although they may not be based in the right things, but it’s tilting somewhat how we see consumers and marketing and who can quote-unquote vet a product. There was a very clean box of who would you put in front somebody before, where now, it’s getting a little bit more risky, quote-unquote. But that’s just what America looks like, so why not? We should have a gay person, a black person, an Arabic person. That’s who America is. We shouldn’t be scared to put these other people in front of the camera to claim your product. It shouldn’t always have to be a white American to sell America, to be Americana, quote-unquote, what Americana is. Black, brown, purple, red, whatever. That is Americana.

TG Branfalt: Do you think that it’s harder for black people who may want to get into the touching-the-plant side of it, the cultivation, as opposed to testing or other ancillary industries?

Antonio Frazier: Harder? I’m not really sure how to say it, because regardless of it all, it’s expensive, because all the rules, regulations, paper work. It’s really difficult, because if you don’t have the money for a lawyer, compliance, you’re not going to be legal enough. And if you’re in the wrong neighborhood, they’re going to look at you harder. I think regardless, coming into cannabis is more difficult than any other business. No access to banking, you can’t get loans, you can’t run payroll. All these expenses. Think about some of the original assistance from COVID, you had to have a bank account and running payroll in order to get it. Mostly, small business owners don’t run payroll. If you’re in cannabis, you can’t get banking. You’re triple-screwed. Not only are you down because everybody’s down, but then you can’t get relief.

I think it’s more about… That’s why I said the city and the states have to be involved, because you have to provide structure to protect them. You have to give them banking. If you declared someone an equity business owner and knowing the challenges of it, you should create a program that includes banking, resources, education, whatever it may be. You know they’re not going to be able to actually accomplish this stuff. They aren’t going to raise $20 million to be able to afford a whole team. No one’s going to give them money.

“What business experience do you have?” “Oh, I just got out of jail.” “Oh.” Come on. It’s a trap, which is why they call it the trap. That’s why you get rappers. There’s constantly some type of trap door to make it impossible for someone to actually rise above and stand tall, and that’s what we’re talking about, and that’s why we’re really trying to find different ways to ensure that those things don’t become traps.

TG Branfalt: I really appreciate how honest you’ve been throughout this conversation, man. I’m a white guy who lives in the middle of the woods, who has no interest in opening a cannabis business. To get your insight from your experience, who’s living it, I think it’s one of the most important conversations I’ve had on this podcast in a very long time.

Antonio Frazier: Thank you, yeah.

TG Branfalt: What I want to ask, just to close up, is what advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are interested in entering the lab side of the industry specifically?

Antonio Frazier: Oh, man. Don’t do it. Simple as that. I wouldn’t do this crap again right now. Knowing the things I’m dealing with and the unsavory practices that I have to compete with, it’s just too much to overcome. We’re seeing a bunch of labs right now actually go out of business because they can’t compete with some of the other people who are raising money or just doing dirty stuff.

What I’ll say to anybody, I know we’ve focused on black and brown, but I think the problem is really there for all colors. Obviously, black and brown people always have it a little bigger, but all people as well. I know a bunch of white people as well. I’ve sat in these meetings in city council so I could understand that stuff, and there were plenty of white people there as well that were literally just saying, “I can’t get a bank either. I have felonies, and every time I go somewhere, my felonies follow me as well.” Certainly, they become quote-unquote a minority. They feel what it’s like to be held against.

My biggest advice to anybody is just to go to your city council and demand these programs, because there’s opportunities, when they’re first being established, to get this stuff enforced and demanded. And quite frankly, they try to shuffle a lot of this stuff through. They’re quiet about it, simply because they don’t want you to think about it. They want to sing the praises of cannabis, that it’s coming, so you don’t worry about how it’s coming. You really have to be involved with the how, that you have to activate.

I think about the Black Panther Party. No matter how you may view them, I think about all these movements. What do you think of the Klan? Quite frankly, you have to be political. This country is so political, you have to get involved with exactly what is happening on the lawmaking side. And quite frankly, you now have an advantage in 2020 where one, black people can vote. You have access to polls. Obviously, there’s been some motives and things going around to discourage people to be able to vote, whether it be mail-in or whatnot. You have to realize that putting that effort in because of the power associated with voting. I know voting is a bit… I know the Electoral College is screwed up, I totally get it. I know it’s not the end-all, be-all to all of our problems. I’m not claiming voting is going to solve everything. I’m not one of those people either. But it’s a starting point.

Literally, from affecting the rules in L.A. to Sacramento in the DCC, I’ve learned that if you talk to them and you make sense, they have to listen. Hell, you elect them. You’re so powerful. We don’t get told how powerful we are. It’s interesting, going to Furman, the liberal arts school I went to, I remember hearing these kids being like, “Hey, you work for me!” And I was like, “Damn, that sounds like an asshole.” But I get he’s been taught his whole life that, “No, I put you here.” And it’s true. And as dirty as it sounds when it comes from the kid in Sperrys and a fricking Columbia fishing shirt, it’s true. We made fun of those quote-unquote Chads, but it’s true, though. They do work for you, and you need to put them to work and make sure that they’re doing the things that you want them to, and that they have to hear you.

You should write letters, too. We do a lot of that here as well. I have plenty of letter correspondents from the senators and whatnot that I’ve written to like, “Hey, this is a problem in your community. What are you going to do about it?” And sometimes, it’s not the best answer, but you get an idea where they’re at, and you can go see them the next time and follow up on it. Make them have a conversation. A lot of people don’t realize that you can drive a conversation through your local representatives, and local government is how you make change, also. The election, presidential Electoral College, that’s a pretty daunting task there, but your local election, you can make some serious waves.

As a Harvey Milk in San Fran for cannabis in general, the history of Brownie Mary and what’s happened in San Fran doing the Compassion Act. AIDS got us here. What blows my mind is that if it wasn’t for compassion in San Fran and NorCal and some of the AIDS compassion movement, cannabis probably would still not be legal. They’d probably find ways to make it legal, but the people that came together to say, “No, we need this,” made it the way that it was. That’s what people don’t realize, that history, all those things that have happened.

And I do want to make sure I clarify that I was not comparing the Black Panther and the Klan whatsoever. It’s on my mind right now. I know I mentioned them both at the same time, but only in the reflection of the political engagement required to actually get people’s attention. Sitting at home and tweeting about it isn’t going to get it done, so you’re going to have to eventually get up and go to the polls or go to your city council and make yourself heard.

TG Branfalt: You are a fascinating human being. I want to hang out with you. Before we wrap up here, I just want to ask briefly, did you expect to become this activist by coming into this industry?

Antonio Frazier: Absolutely not, man. This is honestly… And I’m also thankful that Aaron allows me to focus on that in the job, because he could easily have me focused on making more money, laboratory work, and whatnot, but no. This role is really what we realize is necessary to make change. I’m the president now, simply because I’m not operating. We had to find a title and things that make sense for what it is. Aaron said, “No, I want you to be an ambassador for the company. I want the president to be an ambassador for what we stand for, I want you to be in the community, and people to understand this is what CannaSafe is and cares about.”

It’s been this super encouraging or exciting benefit to this role, is that I get to suddenly affect people. That’s where I mentioned with the aerospace that was built to kill, but it’s true. I’m building fighter jets. We’re not shuffling aid over our fighter jets. It’s one of those builds where you realize what you’re really contributing, what energy you’re really putting out there. And when you can check it and say, “Oh, shit. Now, I’m giving a kid CBD oil, I’m giving someone’s grandmother access to legal medicine.” I think that is what makes me speak the way I do, understand the nation, the world the way I do, simply because I have to figure out how to move the needle.

Talking about it, running a business isn’t going to get it done, giving a check to a community isn’t going to get it done, so I’ve had to dig into how do you actually make change. Forcing my mother, before she passed, who was this huge activist — she grew up in Birmingham, Alabama in the 60s so clearly understood community activism and always reminded me of different things of how to make change. And I was involved with the community. I was a nerdy kid in a little student government thing, because she wanted me to understand how to make things…

I didn’t really get it. I didn’t use it, I didn’t do anything, unfortunately, with it in college. But now, I’m like, “Oh, duh.” Now, let’s just use the things that, fortunately, I had someone in my father and mother put these things into me. I’ve not used them before in the way they wanted me to, but now I am in a position of being a business owner and president, I’m going to use them now. Maybe better late than never. That’s the idea. Whatever. I was a college athlete, frat boy, so I had my fun. I wasn’t doing all the work my whole life, but now, I’m putting time in now. Trying to put time in.

TG Branfalt: And where can people find out more about you and about CannaSafe? Give us the social media and all that.

Antonio Frazier: Yeah, let’s do it. Www.csalabs.com for all your testing and education, all of our partners. We have a Physician’s Corner as well, so we’re not just about business. We also have real doctors giving you real opinions about how you can dose yourself.

Check us on Instagram. We are officially blue check-verified, one of the few cannabis businesses out there with the blue check. Super proud of that, super proud of being a community beacon on there. You can also find us on LinkedIn and everywhere, the Ganjapreneur, all these other good people doing good work. If people are doing good work, please connect us, and we’ll try to partner there. Everywhere that’s tied in. I would suggest Instagram, website, and all the good people out there.

I’m super excited about this. Hope it turns out well. I know I blab a lot. Hope I didn’t get too preachy. I am a Southern boy. I grew up in church, so excuse me if I ever get a little bit lengthy like that. But that’s just how I was taught to communicate, so I try to use some of that.

TG Branfalt: This has been a pleasure, man. This has been a pleasure. That’s Antonio Frazier. He’s the president of CannaSafe, a California-based ISO-accredited cannabis and hemp testing lab. Antonio, man, thanks so much. We could go on, and I would absolutely love to, but we unfortunately are out of time.

You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast in the podcast section at 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 and on Spotify. I think I already mentioned that. Anyway, this episode was engineered by Trim Media House. I’ve been your host, TG Branfalt.

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Study: CBD Could Be Effective Preservative for Fresh Produce

12/14/2020

CBD could be a useful antimicrobial treatment for fresh produce, according to a study by researchers at the University of South Florida’s Food Quality Laboratory, Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology, published in the journal Postharvest Biology and Technology.

The researchers applied CBD oil to fresh fruit immediately after harvest, followed by storage at 1°C for eight days and 10°C for another 8 days. The strawberries treated with CBD were evaluated for visual quality and microbial load before and during storage and rated based on how they looked.

Results from this study, the researchers said, showed CBD oil “was effective at maintaining the visual appearance of strawberries, above the minimum threshold of a visual rating score of 3, compared to the fruit that was not treated.” The oil inhibited both yeast and mold growth on the fruit and the treated strawberries “had better overall quality compared to non-tread fruit,” the study authors said.

Other studies have suggested that CBD is a powerful anti-microbial. A study by Australian researchers published in June found that the cannabinoid killed all the strains of bacteria, including those that are highly resistant to existing antibiotics, and was effective at treating a skin infection in mice. Moreover, the bacteria did not become resistant to the CBD even after being exposed to it for 20 days – the period when bacteria can become antibiotic-resistant.

A University of Southern Denmark-led study published in March used CBD as a “helper compound” to enhance the effect of the antibiotic bacitracin against a staph infection. When researchers combined CBD with antibiotics, they “saw a more powerful effect than when treating with antibiotics alone” and in order to kill a certain number of bacteria they needed less antibiotics.

A study published in February found another cannabinoid – cannabigerol or CBG – was capable of treating and defeating the family of bacteria known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA.

The University of South Florida study, “Using Cannabidiol as a potential postharvest treatment to maintain quality and extend the shelf life of strawberries,” was published online ahead of print. It will be featured in the March 2021 issue of the journal.

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UK Approves Trials Testing DMT as Depression Treatment

12/14/2020

The United Kingdom has approved trials by London-based Small Pharma for assessing the safety, and later efficacy, of N,N-dimethyltryptamine – or DMT – for depression, according to a Pharm Exec report. It is the world’s first clinical trial for studying DMT as a depression treatment.

Small Pharma CEO Peter Rand explained that DMT “delivers a psychedelic experience in 20 minutes” and the company hopes it can offer shorter therapy sessions than other psychedelics which would benefit patients in terms of cost effectiveness and convenience.

“By adopting responsible evidence-based research and development into psychedelic medicine, we hope to help rebrand these once stigmatized compounds as highly effective medical therapies, which can be integrated into current healthcare systems and made accessible to the millions of people suffering from depression.” – Rand to Pham Exec

Small Pharma is working in collaboration with Imperial College London’s Centre for Psychedelic Research. The company received approval for its Phase I/IIa clinical trial evaluating the effects of DMT-assisted therapy in otherwise healthy volunteers without much experience with the substance suffering with major depressive disorder. The study’s first phase is set for next month with the proof-of-concept phase following shortly thereafter.

Carol Routledge, Small Pharma’s chief medical and scientific officer, told European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer magazine that the approval “is a truly ground-breaking moment in the race to effectively and safely treat depression” especially “as more and more people suffer as a result of the pandemic.”

“Psychedelic assisted therapy will revolutionize the treatment of depression because it gets right to the root cause of the illness,” Routledge said in an interview with the Independent, adding that DMT would allow patients to disrupt unhealthy patterns of thought, “like shaking up a snow globe” in the brain and allowing them to “resettle” in a different way.

Traditional antidepressants, she said, “dampen symptoms rather than getting to the root cause.”

A 2019 study by University of California, Davis researchers found rats microdosed with DMT had a reduced fear and anxiety response.

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Arizona Unveils Draft Regulations for Legal Cannabis Market

12/14/2020

Arizona regulators have released early draft regulations for the state’s future adult-use cannabis market, Marijuana Moment reports.

The rules come just over a month after Arizona passed Proposition 207, the state’s voter-approved ballot initiative legalizing possession of up to an ounce of cannabis and the home cultivation of up to six plants. The initiative also calls for a legal market where cannabis sales will be taxed 16 percent, revenue from which will cover the market’s implementation costs and then be divided among community college, infrastructure, public services, and “justice reinvestment” funds. The legalization initiative will also create pathways for people who were convicted of a cannabis crime to have their record expunged.

Under the voter-approved initiative, the state must begin accepting adult-use license applications on January 19, 2021. The initiative’s possession and home grow provisions took effect on November 30.

The current regulation proposals cover cannabis business licensing fees, the timeline for licensing, product labeling, and public safety requirements. There is a public comment period for the draft regulations — which are likely to change before final implementation — until Thursday, December 17. Samuel Richard, executive director of the Arizona Dispensaries Association, said state regulators are likely to release at least one more rules proposal based on the feedback they receive.

“They just want to give operators a sense of what the program will look like,” Richard told Marijuana Moment.

Arizona was the 13th state to vote to legalize adult-use cannabis.

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Zero Illinois Cannabis Businesses Are Majority-Owned by a Person of Color

12/14/2020

Nearly a year after adult-use cannabis legalization in Illinois, not a single licensed cannabis business in the state is majority-owned by a person of color, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Democratic State Rep. La Shawn Ford said the lack of industry social equity can be traced back to the licensing rollout which allowed entrenched medical cannabis businesses the first crack at recreational licensing.

Attorney Akele Parnell, of the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights who has worked with social equity applicants in the state, said those applicants will “never have a fair share in the industry.” He estimates that minorities would end up with ownership control of about 10 percent to 20 percent of the state’s cannabis industry.

“We’ve just seen the benefits accrued to the same old folks: people that are wealthy to begin with, well-connected. That’s not what we intended to accomplish with legalization. But it does seem like that’s where we’re going to end up, based on how we set up the program.” – Parnell to the Sun-Times

The state’s largest cannabis companies, Cresco, GTI and PharmaCann, account for 34 percent of the rental revenue for Innovative Industrial Properties – a publicly-traded real estate investment trust that is outside the scope of state regulators because it doesn’t touch the plant. According to the report, IIP’s stock value has increased by about 100 percent this year.

Ford calls IIP’s role in the state “very alarming” and akin to a monopoly, which he told the Sun-Times lawmakers and the governor “have a responsibility to regulate and end.”

Parnell said it was up to regulators to “create a marketplace where we don’t end up with a duopoly. He described the current marketplace as “sort of oligopoly or racial monopoly.”

In July, state officials announced they would be using $31 million from cannabis-derived taxes for its Restore, Reinvest and Renew Program, a grant program aimed at small businesses and non-profits in disadvantaged communities. In June, regulators said the state’s social equity licenses would be awarded in July; however, according to the Sun-Times report, those licenses still have not materialized.

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Weedmaps Going Public with Nasdaq Listing

12/11/2020

WM Holding Company – the parent of Weedmaps – is set to go public through a merger with Silver Spike Acquisition Corp. The deal values Weedmaps at $1.5 billion.

WMH Chief Executive Chris Beals, who will lead the combined company, told Reuters that when investors “look at what [the company] is offering, there’s really not too much else like it.”

“With this merger, we will be able to continue scaling the Weedmaps marketplace in the U.S. and internationally in service of our users while expanding the functionality of our WM Business SaaS offerings in service of our clients. Our partnership with Silver Spike will provide us a stronger platform to advance our mission to advocate for legalization, social equity and licensing in many jurisdictions while providing cannabis businesses with the tools needed to succeed in a highly complex world of regulations.” – Beals in a statement

Weedmaps expects to receive gross proceeds of up to $575 million from the deal, it said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, in part from Silver Spike-raised funds and through $325 million in a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, transaction, which includes funds from the Federated Hermes Kaufmann Funds, Senvest Management LLC, and AFV Partners, the company said.

In the SEC filing, Weedmaps indicated it has a CAGR of 40 percent over the last five years and estimates $160 million in revenue and $35 million in EBITDA for this year.

Scott Gordon, CEO and Chairman of Silver Spike, said the publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company believes Weedmaps “is the most compelling investment opportunity in cannabis today.”

Silver Spike raised $250 million in a Nasdaq initial public offering in August 2019 with plans to buy a cannabis-related company.

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Florida Lawmaker Announces Cannabis Misdemeanor Expungement Bill

12/11/2020

A Florida Senator announced he will introduce a bill in the 2021 legislative session to help Floridians expunge their low-level cannabis crime convictions, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Announcing the bill in front of a medical cannabis dispensary, Senator Randolph Bracey (D) believes the bill helps communities disproportionately affected by the war on drugs.

“I think it’s extremely important, especially when you look at the people who have not been able to get a job, not been able to apply for school because of these minor convictions.” — Florida state Sen. Bracy, in an announcement

Under the provision, all court costs are covered but expungement is not automatic. Floridians must apply to have their convictions expunged and the law only applies to misdemeanor possession and distribution of under 20 grams.

“We have created and expanded a billion-dollar marijuana industry and yet we have not repaired people who for decades have been incarcerated for low-level marijuana crimes,” Sen. Bracey said. “It is time as this industry continues to expand, that we repair people and make people whole so they can start to build their lives so these convictions don’t haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

Florida is predicted to be one of the next states to legalize adult-use cannabis. Currently, there are two adult-use initiatives making their way toward the 2022 ballot in Florida.

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Detroit Adult-Use Cannabis Licenses Coming This Summer

12/11/2020

Detroit will issue adult-use cannabis licenses this summer. Somewhat controversially, the licenses are set to go to “legacy” applicants, who are described as “longtime city residents.” The plan and timeline were unveiled by Mayor Mike Duggan and Councilman James Tate.

Applications go online starting January 19, 2021. Legacy applicants will get a six-week head start in the application review process. The mayor urged residents who want to “jump-start their marijuana business” to apply quickly.

According to The Detroit News, legacy applicants must have “lived in Detroit for 15 of the last 30 years; lived in Detroit for 13 of the last 30 years and are low-income; or lived in Detroit for 10 of the last 30 years and have a past marijuana-related conviction.”

Legacy applicants will be eligible for a 25% discount of fair market value on city property and can access technical assistance and reduced fees. All legacy certification applications will be reviewed by the Civil Rights, Inclusion and Opportunity Department.

A November ordinance passed by the city council calls for at least 50 percent of Detroit licenses to go to legacy applicants.

“It’s by far the most controversial provision. The city will not issue a license to any business unless 50 percent of the licenses in that category are Detroiters. Which means if you’re from outside the city, you can’t get a license unless a Detroiter already has one. We’ll never go below fifty percent.” — Mayor Duggan, in a statement

Leaders say the rule is designed to help communities disproportionately affected by the war on drugs access the economic benefits of legal cannabis.

“It was imperative for us to ensure we right that wrong,” said Councilman Tate. “We have individuals who are making a very good living on marijuana today, the same plant that created this situation of mass incarceration around our country in the city of Detroit, so this is an opportunity for us.”

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Canopy Growth Lays Off 220 Workers & Closes All Outdoor Cultivation

12/11/2020

Canopy Growth Corporation on Thursday announced shutdowns at five cultivation sites and layoffs of 220 employees which the company says will help them achieve their target cost savings of $150 million to $200 million and “streamline operations” and “improve profit margins.”

Canopy Growth will cease operations at their sites in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador; Fredericton, New Brunswick; Edmonton, Alberta; Bowmanville, Ontario; and its outdoor operations in Saskatchewan.

The sites impacted represent about 17 percent of the Canopy’s indoor Canadian footprint and 100 percent of its Canadian outdoor footprint.

David Klein, CEO, Canopy Growth said in a press release that while the decision is “difficult” it accelerates the firm’s “path to profitability.”

“As part of the end-to-end review of our operations that we outlined during our second-quarter earnings call, we have made the decision to close a number of our production facilities. … We are confident that our remaining sites will be able to produce the quantity and quality of cannabis required to meet current and future demand.” – Klein in a statement

Canopy said it expects to record estimated total pre-tax charges of approximately $350 million to $400 million in the third and fourth quarters of fiscal year 2021.

It’s the third round of mass layoffs for the company this year after cutting ties with 500 employees in March – which coincided with the closure of two British Columbia greenhouses – and another 200 in April.

In April, the company also announced it would sell off its operations in South Africa and Lesotho, shutter its indoor facility in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, end its hemp farming operations in Springfield, New York, and close its Colombia-based cultivation facility.

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New Mexico Cannabis Regulators Want to Raise Plant Limits for Growers

12/11/2020

New Mexico’s medical cannabis advisory board on Wednesday recommended allowing licensed producers to cultivate more plants amid patient complaints about the lack of variety and the high cost of products, the Associated Press reports.

Under current rules, licensed producers can grow 1,750 plants.

Dr. Dominick Zurlo, director of the state’s medical cannabis program, argued that next year companies can request to cultivate another 500 plants each. He noted that previous plant increases have not brought prices down but could not explain why prices remain high. Zurlo said the state has enough supply for the 101,000-plus enrolled patients and that companies reported growing just over 30,000 plants as of Sept. 30, but they can grow a combined total of 51,000.

“At this current time, production is actually outstripping the sales. What we as a program and department would really like to see is prices reduced and I think the current production really is showing that those prices could have been reduced.” – Zurlo during the meeting via the AP

Ultra Health, one of New Mexico’s largest producers, has argued in public meetings and as part of court challenges that the Health Department plant limits are arbitrary.

Cannabusinesses in the state contend that the state’s fee structure adds to operating costs which keeps prices high.

The board also recommended that officials adopt changes to medical cannabis reciprocity rules – a hot-button issue in New Mexico where earlier this year lawmakers passed a bill to prohibit out-of-state-patients access to medical cannabis ID cards. Additionally, the board wants to close a loophole that allows New Mexicans to see a provider online and get medical cannabis authorization in another state.

During the meeting, the board also denied a petition to allow medical cannabis as a therapy for pets with seizure disorders.

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U.S. House Approves Cannabis Research Bill

12/10/2020

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a bill to make it easier for cannabis research in states where it is legal, Politico reports.

The measure would amend the Controlled Substances Act to create a structure for, and remove limitations on, cannabis research. The bill directs The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice to create a licensing program for additional federal cannabis producers. Currently, the federal government only allows the University of Mississippi to grow cannabis for research purposes. Once licensed, researchers would be allowed to submit their research to the Food and Drug Administration.

Additionally, the bill would speed up the wait times for cannabis research applications and reduce some regulations that researchers face when trying to get federal approval to study cannabis.

Last week, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Dr. Lyle Craker, of the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, against the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, and Acting DEA Administrator Timothy Shea over the federal government’s failure to process cannabis research applications.

Dr. Sue Sisley, a cannabis researcher at Arizona’s Scottsdale Research Institute, is also suing the agency over its cannabis research policies.

The DEA said in March that it would issue new licenses for cannabis research after announcing plans to allow more cultivators in 2016. In 2019, then-Acting DEA Administrator Uttam Dhillon said that the DEA supports “additional research into marijuana and its components [and] believe registering more growers will result in researchers having access to a wider variety for study.” However, the DEA has still not issued any additional licenses.

In July, the House approved a highway infrastructure bill that included an amendment to give researchers a pathway to study cannabis products sourced from state-legal dispensaries; however, that language was removed in the Senate version.

Last week the chamber approved the MORE Act, which would end federal cannabis prohibition. The measure has an uphill battle in the Senate, which is currently controlled by Republicans. However, control of the Senate will be determined in two runoffs in Georgia next month.

The research bill was sponsored by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) and received bi-partisan support in a voice vote.

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Poll: During Pandemic, 45% of Alcohol Consumers Choose Cannabis Instead

12/10/2020

A Harris Poll survey conducted on behalf of cannabis company Curaleaf found 45 percent of respondents have reduced or replaced their alcohol consumption with cannabis since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

One-third of respondents said they prefer cannabis to alcohol.

The poll also found that 42 percent of respondents started consuming cannabis or increased their use since the beginning of the pandemic.

More than half of respondents (54 percent) said they had started using cannabis or increased their use due to stress and anxiety – including 64 percent of women polled and 47 percent of men. Half of those surveyed attributed their increased use or foray into cannabis to wanting to relax, while 48 percent of respondents said they had started using cannabis or increased their use to help them sleep.

More than half (52 percent) of parents surveyed who use cannabis said they started using cannabis or increased their use since the start of the pandemic, compared to 33 percent of those surveyed who are not parents to children under 18-years-old. Parents were also more likely to use cannabis medically than non-parents (58 percent to 44 percent). Another 57 percent of parents said they had used cannabis to reduce or replace their alcohol use.

Joe Bayern, president of Curaleaf, said that since the pandemic’s start, the company has “seen an increase in new consumers at our dispensaries with more people exploring cannabis.”

“The liberalization of the plant – and the increasing diversity among consumers who enjoy it – will continue as the general public becomes more interested in incorporating cannabis in their health and wellness routines.” – Bayern in a statement

The poll was conducted online last month and had 1,895 responses from adults 21-and-older; 772 respondents had never used cannabis.

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Mexican Lawmakers Ask Court to Extend Cannabis Legalization Deadline

12/10/2020

Mexican lawmakers are again asking the nation’s Supreme Court to extend the cannabis legalization deadline to February, according to a Milenio report outlined by Marijuana Moment. Chamber of Deputies President Dulce María Sauri said the body needs more time “to improve the framework” for the legalization bill, which was approved last month by the nation’s Senate.

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban on personal cannabis use and cultivation was unconstitutional, directing lawmakers to formally end criminalization by October 2019; however, lawmakers have repeatedly asked for – and been granted – an exception to that deadline, which is currently December 15.

“I am sure that the Court, which follows these deliberations very closely, will see that the legislative work is well advanced. I am sure that the Supreme Court of Justice will agree to do what is necessary to provide a good regulatory framework in this matter.” – Sauri to reporters via Milenio and Marijuana Moment

The bill approved by the Senate allows personal possession up to 28 grams, home cultivation up to four plants, and taxed-and-regulated sales provided the product meets THC caps. The bill also includes expungement for crimes legal under the new regime and for the first five years after licensing begins, at least 40 percent of licenses must be awarded to applicants from indigenous, low-income, or historically marginalized communities.

If approved, Mexico would be the third nation to legalize cannabis, following Uruguay and Canada. The legal market would be the world’s largest by population.

The measure was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate on an 82 to 18 vote with seven abstentions.

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1000 BCE: Azullu

900 CE: Hashish

1000 CE: Bongs

1320 CE: Cannabis Pipes

The 1800s: Joints

The 1980s & 90s: Blunt and Vaporizers

The 2000s: Non-Tobacco Wraps and Pre Rolled Cones

What the Future Holds

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