THC May Mitigate Deadly COVID Symptoms, Study Shows

9/01/2020

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Top researchers at the University of South Carolina say THC may be effective at quelling cytokine storms, a potentially fatal symptom of the coronavirus, The State reports.

The cytokine storm symptoms, known as Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), essentially hijack the body’s immune system to use it against itself. Coronavirus patients are most frequently hospitalized due to COVID-19-related ARDS.

“The underlying mechanism is your immune system goes haywire and starts destroying your lungs and all your other organs,” said Prakash Nagarkatti, the study’s co-author.

According to the study, researchers were able to trigger ARDS among lab mice, which they then injected with THC. The researchers conducted dozens of such experiments across three separate studies and reported that 100% of the mice who were given THC survived the frequently fatal symptoms.

There is not currently an FDA-approved treatment for ARDS and Nagarkatti said that, based on the successful results with mice, he has recommended health officials begin human trials with THC. He warned, however, the research does not suggest that smoking cannabis might be beneficial for COVID-19 patients.

“I just want to make sure our research is not interpreted as marijuana is good for COVID 19,” said Nagarkatti. “If you start using THC early on it might worsen the effect because it suppresses the immune system.”

Cannabis advocates have called for more research and warned consumers to watch out for overzealous cannabinoid marketers.

“The data at this point is preliminary at best and the public needs to be vigilant against predatory marketers prematurely hailing certain cannabis or CBD-specific products as supposed COVID treatments or cure-alls.” — NORML spokesperson Paul Armentano, via The State.

Previously, pre-print studies (studies that were published before being peer-reviewed) have suggested that certain cannabinoid extracts and terpene solutions could prove effective at mitigating the COVID-19 cytokine storm symptoms.

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Indonesia Reverses ‘Medicinal Plant’ Designation for Cannabis

9/01/2020

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Indonesia’s Agricultural Ministry is reversing a decree from earlier this year that designated cannabis as a “medicinal plant” under the agency’s supervision the Jakarta Post reports. The February decree had put cannabis production under the supervision of the ministry’s horticulture directorate-general.

The decree reversal comes after the document went viral in an Instagram post by the Nusantara Marijuana Network (LGN), a pro-legalization advocacy group.

Cannabis had been listed as a medicinal plant since 2006 in an effort to help farmers shift to other crops. Vegetable and Medicinal plant Director Tommy Nugraha told the Post that the designation allowed farmers to research the plant but that the agency had no legal cannabis farmers on record. He added that the decree would be rescinded after coordination with the National Narcotics Agency, Health Ministry, and Indonesian Institute of Science.

Cannabis is a type-1 narcotic in Indonesia, listed alongside cocaine and opium, under the nation’s 2009 drug law. Possession of a type-1 drug in Indonesia carries a penalty up to 12 years in prison and an 8 billion rupiah (about $550,000) fine. If convicted of producing, exporting, importing, or distributing cannabis, a person can serve up to 15 years in prison and a Rp 10 billion fine (~$688,000). In 2015, a Bali court sentenced an Indonesian and Australian man to one year in prison for sharing a joint, according to the Post. The men, collectively, possessed less than 1 gram.

In 2017, a West Kalimantan court sentenced a man to eight months in jail and a Rp 1 billion (~69,000) fine for cultivating 39 plants and extracting the oil to treat his wife.

The Agricultural Ministry said the reversal is part of Agricultural Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo’s plan to “eradicate drug abuse.” A 2015 survey by the National Narcotics Agency found 63 percent of the nation’s 3.6 million illegal drug users consumed cannabis.

In 2019, Indonesia police seized 11.2 tons of cannabis in enforcement operations.

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Virginia Senate Passes Bill Preventing Vehicle Searches Based on Cannabis Odor

9/01/2020

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The Virginia Senate on Friday passed a measure that would prevent police from searching drivers and making seizures based on cannabis odor alone, WDVM reports. According to the report, the measure is intended to reduce the number of people of color searched by police during traffic stops.

A 2020 American Civil Liberties Union report found that Black people are three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than a white person in Virginia.

“…No law-enforcement officer may lawfully search or seize any person, place, or thing solely on the basis of the odor of marijuana, and no evidence discovered or obtained as a result of such unlawful search or seizure shall be admissible in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding.” – Virginia Senate Bill 5029 text

Last year, courts in three states – Vermont, Maryland, and Pennsylvania – placed limits on police actions in cases involving cannabis odor. In the Pennsylvania case, it was determined that a search based on odor was illegal because the passenger was a registered medical cannabis patient. In the ruling, Judge Maria Dantos declared that “the smell of marijuana is no longer per se indicative of a crime.”

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that officers cannot make an arrest based on cannabis odor alone, but the court did not go so far as to prohibit searches based on odor.

Vermont’s Supreme Court ruling prevents officers from initiating a search based on burned or burning cannabis odor. The state legalized cannabis possession and use for adults in 2018.

Several law enforcement agencies in Florida also said last year that they would no longer detain people simply for cannabis odor because it smells the same as hemp, which is legal under both federal and state law.

The Virginia legislation also includes provisions downgrading some common infractions that can spark a vehicle search in the state, including a burned-out license plate, loud exhaust, and window tint.

The measure still requires approval from the House of Delegates and Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam before becoming law.

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Vibe Acquires Ventura Cannabis’ Cathedral Operations

9/01/2020

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California-based Vibe Bioscience Ltd. is set to acquire Cathedral Asset Holding Corporation and its cannabis distribution and manufacturing assets. Cathedral is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ventura Cannabis and Wellness Corp.

Both companies are currently traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange, but Ventura Chairman Lloyd Kaplan said the firm would soon delist from the market.

“The Board has continually analyzed the current and future cannabis market, VCAN’s current and prospective financial position, and it has determined selling the Company’s assets to another CSE listed cannabis company and delisting is the best path forward for the Company and most importantly its shareholders. I am pleased to be trading our cannabis assets into a better capitalized company with more revenues and a top flight management team and, more importantly, the deal is poised to be done at a premium to our current stock price,” – Kaplan in a statement

Under the terms of the all-share transaction announced on Sunday, Vibe will acquire all the issued and outstanding shares of Cathedral for $333,360, assume the lease obligation for Cathedral’s Santa Rosa facility, and obtain the company’s existing inventory of vape products. Ventura will also receive 12 months at the money warrants to acquire up to 800,000 shares of Vibe.

The deal still requires approval from California regulators, and other closing conditions, but is expected to be finalized on September 15.

Mark Waldron, CEO of Vibe said the deal positions the company to be a “true, vertically integrated cannabis cultivator, distributor, manufacturer and retailer” in the state.

“Vibe is singularly focused on developing cannabis assets that are cash flow positive, and we anticipate the acquisition will be highly accretive to Vibe shareholders within 6 months, Waldron said in a statement. “We could not be more pleased with the strategic and geographic fit of adding Cathedral’s distribution and manufacturing assets to Vibe’s growing, profitable cannabis portfolio.”

During the second quarter, Vibe saw an 85 percent increase in revenues from the same period last year; a 136 percent adjusted EBITDA increase from the first quarter of this year – a 600 percent increase from Q2 2019; and a 39 percent gross margin increase from Q1 2020 to Q2, representing a 58 percent increase from last year.

All monetary figures in Canadian dollars

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US House to Vote on Cannabis Legalization Next Month

8/31/2020

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The House of Representatives is set to hold a vote on the MORE Act next month, marking the first time either chamber of Congress will have voted on whether to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act.

In an email to House members on Friday, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said the vote would happen “during the September work period” but did not include a date.

In addition to removing cannabis from the CSA, the measure requires federal courts to expunge prior cannabis-related convictions and would authorize a 5 percent tax on sales to create an Opportunity Trust Fund. The fund would be administered by the Department of Justice and Small Business Administration to support those who have been adversely affected by the ‘War on Drugs’ by providing assistance to socially and economically disadvantaged small business owners and minimize barriers to cannabis licensing and employment.

State lawmakers would still have to pass legislation to legalize cannabis – and cannabis sales – in their state.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Or) told Politico that the bill would “finally align our cannabis laws with what the majority of Americans support, while ensuring restorative justice.”

The bill faces an uphill battle in the Republican-led Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell remains strongly opposed and could decide not to bring it up for a vote. Last September, the House approved the SAFE Banking Act – which would normalize banking for the cannabis industry – but the bill has not come up for a vote in the Senate, nearly a year later. Moreover, Senate Republicans are, by and large, opposed to cannabis legalization.

The measure’s lead sponsor in the Senate in Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

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Study Finds 90% of Rolling Papers Contain Heavy Metals

8/31/2020

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An analysis by California’s SC Laboratories Inc. of 101 rolling papers found at least one heavy metal in 90 percent of the papers tested with 8 percent containing at least one heavy metal in “concentrations above the allowable limits” in the state for inhalable cannabis products.

Lead was the most commonly detected heavy metal in the products “by a considerable margin,” the report says.

Pesticides were detected in 16 percent of the samples with 5 percent containing levels over the allowable limits. In all, 11 percent of the 118 total rolling papers included in the study “would fail above the action limits for inhalable products” in the state.

The study included 70 rolling papers, 25 pre-rolled cones, 20 wraps, and three cellulose-based papers. Of the rolling papers and cones, just one each exceeded California action limits for heavy metals, while eight of the wraps – 40 percent of those tested – exceeded state limits. All three of the cellulose papers tested exceeded action limits.

For pesticides, none of the rolling papers or cellulose-based papers tested exceeded action limits, and just one of the 20 cones tested exceeded the limits. However, four of the 19 wraps tested 0 21 percent – exceeded state limits.

“Pesticide contamination was less prevalent in general. Just 5 of the samples tested over California action limits for a pesticide, and 18 samples had detectable levels of pesticides. However, at least 4 of the 5 samples that tested over action limits had pesticide concentrations that were significantly over the action limit.” – “Rolling Papers Tested for Heavy Metals and Pesticides”

The researchers conclude that “it is not surprising to find a prevalence of heavy metals detected in the rolling paper products and should not be considered alarming on its own;” the study, however, demonstrated “there is a wide range of concentrations of metals contamination in these products from a relatively low level to grossly contaminated.”

“While 11 percent of the rolling papers in this study would fail above the action limits for inhalable products in California, it should be noted that the paper constitutes only a fraction of the overall mass of a cannabis pre-roll product,” SC Laboratories President and Co-founder Josh Wurzer said in the report, meaning it is safe to assume that rolling papers combined with ‘clean’ cannabis would not cause a compliance failure under California rules.

The products used for the study were purchased from Amazon and various retailers in Santa Cruz.

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Sheriff’s Lawsuit Challenges Nebraska Medical Cannabis Initiative

8/31/2020

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Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner on Friday filed a challenge against Nebraska’s medical cannabis voter initiative, the Associated Press reports. The lawsuit, which will be heard by the state Supreme Court, argues that the measure poses two separate questions – whether or not to allow individuals to use medical cannabis and whether private companies should be able to grow it – and, therefore, violates state rules.

The lawsuit was filed the day after Secretary of State Bob Evnen approved the signatures collected by Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana to put the issue to voters in November.

In an email to supporters, the legalization campaign – headed by Democratic State Senators Anna Wishart and Adam Morfeld – said they “have no choice but to fight this in court” and have “assembled an experienced team of attorneys” to help fight the challenge.

Evnen, a Republican, had rejected the two-issue argument last week prior to validating the campaign’s signature requirements. In his determination letter, Evnen said that the “production and sale of medical cannabis has a natural and necessary connection to legalization of medical cannabis for individual use” and that private companies “are given the right to manufacture, sell and distribute the medications.”

“It is inherent in the legalization of medical cannabis that someone or some category of persons must be granted the right or authority to produce, sell, and distribute the medical cannabis. It is possible that some voters may not like all of the details provided for the Amendment related to legalizing cannabis in the state. These voters will be able to express their dislike in the polls, however, the possibility of other police choices does not in and of itself create a dual purpose.” – Evnen, Medical Cannabis Initiative Determination, August 27, 2020

In the letter, Evnen noted that the challenge came in the “eleventh hour” as the initiative must be approved – and not in legal limbo – by September 11 in order to qualify for general election ballots.

The legalization campaign said they would overcome the challenge.

“Common sense, compassion, and the law are on our side,” they said.

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Hemp-Based Burger Announced by Fake Meat Startup

8/28/2020

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Sustainable Foods, a New Zealand-based company, is planning to launch a hemp-based burger through its Craft Meat Co. brand next year, Food Navigator-Asia reports. The Craft Meat brand already offers plant-based mince, burgers, sausages, and ready-to-eat meals which company Co-founder Kyran Rei said already include some hemp for nutritional value, but the new product will use hemp for its base.

Rei said the total consumable protein of the hemp-based product is “higher than even that of animal-based protein sources” due to the naturally occurring high levels of protein in hemp.

“Hemp-based meat will also contain very high levels of dietary fiber, up to 19 percent of the recommended dietary intake, a benefit that is not available from traditional animal meat or in many other plant-based meats.” ​– Rei to Food Navigator-Asia

The company is partnering with New Zealand medical cannabis producer Greenfern Industries as their exclusive hemp grower, so the products will be made with “100 percent locally grown hemp,” Rei said.

Hemp seeds were legalized as food in New Zealand in 2018 and in Australia in 2017. Rei said the company has received inquiries about the hemp-based burger from Thailand and Singapore. He said he expected the product to be in a price range “affordable” to the average consumer.

The product was created with researchers from Massey University’s Riddley Institute.

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US Spent $1.49B On Cannabis Research from 2000-2018

8/28/2020

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The United States spent $1.49 billion on cannabis funding from 2000-2018, according to a Science report. The majority of the funds were spent on understanding potential harms from cannabis use.

Over the same 19-year period, Canada spent $32.2 million, while the UK spent $40 million. Canada’s funding was focused primarily on understanding the endocannabinoid system; like the US, the UK’s funding was focused on the plant’s potential for harm.

Just a fraction of US cannabis research funding was used for therapeutics; the country also spent funds researching attitudes, regulations, markets, and the endocannabinoid system.

The database was assembled by Jim Hudson, a consultant for medical research charities and government agencies, and published to his website.

Daniela Vergara, who researches cannabis genomics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said the data confirms the “word on the street” that government grants are used predominately to study potential harms rather than benefits.

Daniel Mallinson, a cannabis policy researcher at Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg told Science that the data “says something” about how governments view cannabis, adding that “the government’s budget is a political statement about what we value as a society.”

The analysis does not include private research funding that is underway throughout the US, UK, and Canada. Hudson indicated he plans on expanding the data throughout the world.

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Cannabis Taxes Help Fund $5.7M In Grants for Colorado School District

8/28/2020

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Colorado’s Thompson School District has received $5.7 million in state grants funded, in part, by cannabis taxes for improvements at schools throughout the district, according to the Loveland Reporter-Herald. The cannabis-derived funds will be added to $12.2 million in grant money from a 2018 voter-approved bond for the projects.

The Build Excellent Schools Today is a statewide competitive grant program funded by cannabis taxes, the Colorado Lottery, and the Colorado State Land Board. The district will use the funds to repair roofs at four schools, secure entryways at four schools, and conduct mechanical work at seven schools, the report says.

In all, 36 projects totaling nearly $235 million will be funded by the BEST program; there were 67 total applications. Thompson was the only district to have three projects approved, Todd Piccone, the district’s chief operations officer, told the Reporter-Herald. He added that without the BEST funding, the district would have been unable to complete the entryway work at the middle schools, which cost $262,680.

In June 2019, Colorado surpassed $1 billion in revenue from cannabis-derived taxes and fees. Under the state’s adult-use law, 90 percent or $40 million – whichever is greater – of the 15 percent excise tax on wholesale retail cannabis is used for the BEST program. According to the state Department of Education, the state has dispersed $40 million each year since 2016. In the 2015-2016 year, voters approved an additional $40 million, bringing that year’s total to $80 million.

Of the 15 percent special tax on retail sales, 12.59 percent is diverted to the Public School Fund which is distributed to all of the state’s districts.

Additionally, cannabis taxes in the state have contributed $14.2 million to the Early Literacy Grant Program since 2016; $28.4 million to the School Health Professional Grant Program since 2016; and $6.9 million each to the School Bullying Prevention and Education Grant, and Drop-Out Prevention programs since 2015.

Since 2015, cannabis-derived taxes have contributed $230.8 million to Colorado Department of Education funding.

 

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Florida Adds Edibles to Medical Cannabis Program

8/27/2020

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The Florida Department of Health quietly approved emergency rules on Wednesday night that establish a regulatory framework for the manufacturing and distribution of medical cannabis-infused edibles, the Miami Herald reports.

The edibles rules are reminiscent of other medical cannabis programs: products cannot be brightly-colored or made into shapes that could be considered appealing to children, they must be properly packaged, and they must not resemble any existing, commercially available candies or other products. The Health Department, which oversees Florida’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use, will require edibles manufacturers to acquire annual food permits costing up to $650 per year.

Allowed edibles products include lozenges, gelatins, baked goods, chocolates, and drink powders.

The edibles rules have been a long time coming — Florida, which voted to legalize medical cannabis four years ago, only just allowed for smoking cannabis products last year.

Cannabis company Trulieve, which operates dozens of dispensaries around the state, said in a Thursday morning press release that the company had prepared a 10,000 square-foot commercial-grade kitchen at its production facility in Quincy for edibles manufacturing. The release also announced new partnerships with specialty edible brands Binske, Bhang, District Edibles, and Love’s Oven.

“Similar to what we saw when flower was introduced in 2019, we expect that edibles will contribute to a sizable share of overall sales.” — Kim Rivers, CEO of Trulieve, in a press release

Ryan Scotson, the co-founder of CannaMD — a network of Florida doctors who can make medical cannabis recommendations — said Thursday morning that the company has already issued Florida’s first medical marijuana edibles certification and that they “couldn’t be more excited to finally make this route of administration available to patients.”

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RNC Chair: Cannabis Policy Should Be States’ Decision

8/27/2020

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Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel said in Gray Washington News Bureau interview yesterday that the organization does not have an official stance on medical cannabis policy and that the issue should be left for states to decide.

The statement was prompted by reporter Alana Austin’s question about whether there was “a place in the GOP for folks who support medical marijuana.”

“I don’t address policy issues like medical marijuana, that’s left up to the states and there’s going to be variances between states. But that’s not something that the RNC puts forward as policy, that’s a legislative issue. We’re actually a body that helps elect Republicans and turn out the vote.” — RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, via Gray Washington News Bureau

Despite the GOP’s reluctance to embrace cannabis reforms, legalization continues to enjoy overwhelming support among American voters. A recent Gallup poll found that 70 percent of Americans think it’s “morally acceptable” to use cannabis; an October 2019 poll, meanwhile, found that two-thirds of Americans support federally legalizing the plant. Those polls included majority support among Republican voters as well as Independents and, of course, Democrats.

President Trump, meanwhile, is reportedly concerned that cannabis initiatives on the November ballot are likely to drive up Democrats’ voting numbers, which is likely to further slim his reelection odds.

The Republican party did not create a new platform this year and intends to use the same official platform as 2016.

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Oklahoma to Revoke Testing Lab’s License Amid Scandal

8/27/2020

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The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) says it intends to revoke the license of Oklahoma City-based F.A.S.T. Laboratories amid multiple investigations into alleged misconduct, Tulsa World reports.

F.A.S.T. Labs and its owner-operator Kyle Felling are being investigated by the OMMA and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control due to allegations of falsified test results, including passing some samples that officials say may have contained unsafe levels of lead, mold, and bacteria. Regulators accuse Felling specifically of manipulating test results on about 40 separate occasions, some of which included products that failed testing due to lead, staphylococcus aureus, mold, or salmonella, according to the report.

“The investigation revealed widespread, flagrant, continuous and willful violations that place the public’s health and safety at risk.” — OMMA memo, obtained by Tulsa World

In a motion requesting an administrative hearing over the scandal, OMMA wrote that all of the lab’s toxicology testing data “went through Mr. Felling … even though Mr. Felling was typically in Arkansas and uninvolved with the actual testing of samples.”

The motion also says Felling admitted during an onsite investigation by officials on June 19, 2020, that he had, “altered microbial and heavy metal results.” Follow-up investigations in July, meanwhile, uncovered at least 26 instances in May where residual solvent testing did not occur but the testing lab reported the samples had passed, anyway.

F.A.S.T. Labs is one of 23 testing labs licensed for the Oklahoma medical cannabis industry.

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Warsaw Zoo Testing If CBD Can Treat Depression In Elephants

8/26/2020

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Zookeepers at Poland’s Warsaw Zoo are launching a project to test whether CBD oil can help reduce anxiety in animals, the BBC reports. Fredzia, a female elephant who is grieving following the loss of the herd elder, will be the first animal to receive the treatment.

Dr. Agnieszka Czujkowska, head of the zoo’s Animal Rehabilitation Department, told the BBC that Fredzia had “reacted strangely” when she saw the dead body of Erna, the herd leader and its largest female. Fredzia displayed signs of stress and depression and struggled to establish a new relationship with her female companion. Czujkowska said elephants are prone to stress but easy to monitor, making them ideal for the study.

The first part of the trial included collecting fecal, saliva, and blood samples to monitor the animals’ cortisol levels. Cortisol is produced by humans and animals when stressed. The oil will next be administered to the elephants via their food or directly into their mouths. The zookeepers will then measure their cortisol levels again to see whether the CBD is working to reduce their stress.

The results of the study are not expected for at least two years. If successful, the zoo plans to expand the project to other stressed animals, including bears and rhinoceroses.

While there are CBD products marketed for animals, there are no comprehensive studies showing efficacy for the cannabis-derived compound related to animals and stress. In February, researchers at Texas’ Tarleton State University’s Equine Center announced a study examining whether CBD can reduce anxiety for horses with plans to publish the results next year.

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Pennsylvania Gov. Calls for Legalization to Solve Budget Woes

8/26/2020

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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) on Tuesday called for the Legislature to legalize cannabis for adult use, saying revenue generated from the sector “might be one way” to bridge the state’s budget gap, WPVI reports. In a tweet, Wolf said cannabis-derived tax revenues should be used for small business grant funding and restorative justice programs.

The governor’s plan would see 50 percent of the small business grant funds used for historically disadvantaged businesses – those majority-owned by Black, Hispanic, Native American, or Pacific Islanders.

Last year, Wolf said it was “time to take a serious and honest look” at legalization following a report by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman which found the majority of Pennsylvanians supported the reforms.

Republicans in the state came out in opposition to the reforms following Wolf’s comments. Jake Smeltz, chief of staff to Speaker of the House Bryan Cutler, told PennLive that Cutler’s 2020-2021 legislative priorities do not include making sure “people can get high legally.”

House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff called the governor’s legislative agenda “disingenuous.”

Outgoing Democratic State Sen. Daylin Leach told WVPI that the state could begin seeing funds from the industry “right away” if legalization were approved from selling licenses.

“If we were to pass this in November I think by New Year’s we could have some product going out to people and we’ve seen during COVID crisis this is one of few industries that’s been doing much better than before COVID.” – Leach to WVPI

Wolf does not face reelection in November as his second term expires in 2022. Wolf approved the state’s medical cannabis law in 2016 and sales commenced in 2018.

In 2018, Wolf also approved an amendment to the state’s medical cannabis law allowing institutions to research the plant.

Republican members of the House said they have “no plans or interest” to support a legalization bill introduced in the chamber last year.

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Vermont Lawmakers Close to Finalizing Expungement Reforms

8/26/2020

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Vermont House and Senate leaders are set to pass a measure to automatically expunge criminal records for possession of two ounces or less of cannabis, VT Digger reports. The plan would also decriminalize possession up to two ounces – currently, only possession of up to one ounce is legal under the state’s legalization law.

The proposals would effectively expand the state’s legalization law and comes as the Legislature is attempting to come to an agreement on a deal to allow taxed-and-regulated sales which were not included in the 2018 reforms.

Rep. Maxine Grad (D), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee noted that people of color are disproportionately harmed by cannabis charges. Following the passage of the adult-use law, Chittenden and Windsor counties held “expungement days” to help people complete petitions to wipe the cannabis-related charges from their criminal records.

“Criminal records are a barrier to employment, serving in the military, student loans, housing, and it’s very important to help folks with these criminal records get justice and clean their records.” – Grad to VT Digger

Sen. Dick Sears (D), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee called the reforms a priority. House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D) – who has so far impeded progress for rolling out a cannabis marketplace in the state – said she is “totally supportive” of the expungement measure.

Critics of the bill to create a cannabis industry in Vermont have said the measure does not go far enough in addressing the racial disparities of the ‘War on Drugs.’ Supporters of the bill contend that the law would require the Cannabis Control Board to prioritize licenses for minority- and women-owned businesses.

Earlier this year, both chambers approved a bill to legalize sales; however, lawmakers were unable to come to a compromise on a final version of the bill, which ultimately stalled its progress.

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CBD Nation: A Documentary for Cannabis Rookies & Experts Alike

8/26/2020

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The newly released documentary CBD Nation takes an objective, scientific look at cannabidiol, the molecule known colloquially as CBD. Much like this film, CBD is challenging how the world sees weed. Film director David Jakubovic of Mad Machine Films explained that when setting out on this project, even he didn’t yet understand the value of cannabis medicine. While filming the documentary, he said his own perspective shifted and he hopes the film can inspire that same change in others.

“If you can watch this as someone stigma-minded and have their mind changed as I did, I will have done something,” said CBD Nation director David Jakubovic.

While traveling to meet with medical specialists and researchers, Jakubovic was introduced to patients whose lives had been forever changed by the properties of the cannabis plant. Their stories aren’t necessarily the research-backed data that doctors need, but each patient’s testimony is integral to the progress of cannabis science. Jakubovic agreed and this shaped the direction for the documentary: ultimately, CBD Nation offers a balanced selection of patient testimony alongside the great minds of cannabis science and research. Though the film is packaged for someone who has not yet realized the medicinal potential of cannabis, it is thought-provoking even for those of us who have been advocates for some time.

Activist and industry pioneer Andrew DeAngelo shared his hopes for the film:

“I hope people will get motivated to create change by seeing the movie. Once enough people are motivated then change can be created, and access follows from that. We are still in the moment of creating enough change to allow legal models that allow for safe access for the people.” — Andrew DeAngelo, in a statement

The crew traveled the United States and to Israel, the hub of cannabis research, collecting information and interviews. Conversations with activists like Andrew and Steven DeAngelo, research icons like Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, PhD., Dr. June Chin, and more than 20 other physicians, specialists, and health practitioners are featured in the film. Each participant is a thread in the film’s goal of providing a real educational view of the Endocannabinoid System. Dense molecular talk is balanced by the stories of real patients whose lives have been changed for the better by cannabis medicine. These heartwarming stories were essential to telling this story, but Jakubovic wanted to center a sincere analytical explanation of CBD in the film.

“There’s so much out there in the culture where cannabis is a punchline. I realized that this should just be fully serious. The fact needs to be what’s fascinating here,” explained Director David Jakubovic.

Each interview or personal account builds an argument for cannabidiol as an essential molecule in the human system. As it says in the documentary, “Our bodies are built to consume cannabis,” but our medical community has not been trained for it. This ineptitude is the result of a government that is unwilling to recognize multiple studies showing the therapeutic benefit of cannabis medicine. CBD Nation displays just the facts in the hopes that a concise, objective delivery of information can shift the societal stigma around cannabis and CBD.

I can recommend this documentary for everyone, from the staunch anti-marijuana club to the loud cannabis activists. Many cannabis books and films have fallen short of providing keen insight into this fascinating field of scientific study — in the case of CBD Nation, however, I found myself learning about concepts that are familiar to me in a digestible way and which allowed me to sharpen my understanding, even after almost a decade in the cannabis industry.

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Kamala Harris Says Biden Admin Will Decriminalize Cannabis

8/25/2020

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The Biden Administration would pursue policies to decriminalize cannabis possession and enact some police reforms, said Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) — Joe Biden’s pick for vice president — in an interview yesterday with ABC News.

During the interview, Sen. Harris was pressed about her prosecutorial and pro-law enforcement background. She said that the Black Lives Matter movement, which was once again spearheaded into the global spotlight following the May 25 police murder of George Floyd, has changed the conversation and is an important “counterforce” to the American status quo. She described plans to investigate police departments with a “history” and “pattern” of discrimination, and said the ticket will pursue a “policy that is going to be about decriminalizing marijuana.”

The Biden campaign said in May that his “Plan for Black America” included cannabis decriminalization policies and the expungement of cannabis convictions.

Meanwhile, a task force comprised of members from the Biden campaign and from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) presidential campaign sought to soothe tension between Biden and the party’s more progressive wings. That coalition ultimately embraced cannabis decriminalization reforms but — like Biden himself, who until last year said he still considered cannabis to be a gateway drug — stopped short of endorsing full legalization.

Since being elected to the Senate, Sen. Harris sponsored the 2018 MORE Act, or Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which would have federally legalized cannabis and reinvested the proceeds into supporting over-policed communities.

“Times have changed — marijuana should not be a crime,” she said then. “We need to start regulating marijuana, and expunge marijuana convictions from the records of millions of Americans so they can get on with their lives.”

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Mitch McConnell Recommends Hemp-Based Face Masks

8/25/2020

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has suggested that Americans wear hemp-based face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Marijuana Moment reports. The statement came during a news conference held at the Kentucky hemp company Ecofibre, which has been producing hemp-based face masks amid the ongoing pandemic.

Sen. McConnell highlighted Ecofibre as an example of how Kentucky businesses had “adapted to the pandemic situation” to produce “helpful” products.

“The coronavirus is not gone. In the meantime, I recommend a hemp mask as one of the best.” — Sen. Mitch McConnell, in a statement

Sen. McConnell has been a vocal supporter of industrial hemp for several years and spearheaded the push to federally legalize hemp via the 2018 farm bill. He symbolically signed his name on that bill with a pen made from hemp.

While bullish on hemp, however, the Senate Majority Leader remains a marijuana skeptic. Earlier this month, he goaded House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over language in the House coronavirus relief plan that seeks to give the cannabis industry access to traditional banking services. Sen. McConnell suggested that the cannabis provisions were “strange new special interest carveouts” that were unrelated to COVID-19, despite the industry’s nearly universal status as an essential service throughout the pandemic.

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Oklahoma Testing Lab Investigated Over Falsified Results

8/25/2020

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Oklahoma officials have confirmed that F.A.S.T. Laboratories, headquartered in Oklahoma City, is under investigation following allegations that the lab falsified cannabis product test results, according to a Tulsa World report.

Terri Watkins, Director of Communications for the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA), said in the report that F.A.S.T. Labs and its owner Kyle Felling were subjects of pending investigations by the OMMA and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (OBNDD) but would not offer more information. Mark Woodward, Communications Director for OBNDD, similarly deflected, saying “OBN isn’t in a position to discuss the actions of our agency regarding FAST Labs.”

F.A.S.T. Labs’ owner Kyle Felling told the Tulsa World that he was “aware of a complaint” and that he was cooperating fully with the state’s medical cannabis regulators but would not offer further comment due to the investigations’ ongoing nature.

F.A.S.T. Labs is one of nearly two-dozen testing labs approved for Oklahoma’s medical cannabis industry. Under Oklahoma’s medical cannabis rules, all products must be tested and approved by a state-licensed laboratory as of July 1.

Medical cannabis was first made available for purchase by patients in 2018.

A petition to legalize adult-use cannabis in Oklahoma was underway earlier this year but that effort halted amid a stay-at-home order and social-distancing guidelines laid out by Gov. Kevin Stitt in response to the pandemic.

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Trump Worried Cannabis Votes May Lose Him the Election

8/24/2020

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According to a Daily Beast report, President Donald Trump (R) is concerned that cannabis legalization voter initiatives could “supercharge turnout” by voters who support Democrats in the upcoming election.

One GOP strategist told the Daily Beast that Trump is “keenly aware of how presidential elections … can be won at the margins.”

“The pot issue is one of many that he thinks could be a danger… He once told me it would be very ‘smart’ for the Democrat Party to get as many of these on the ballot as they could.” – Republican strategist to the Daily Beast

During the 2016 campaign, Trump indicated he would allow states to determine their own cannabis policies; however, as his Cabinet started to take shape following his election – including anti-cannabis zealot Jeff Sessions as his first attorney general – the administration would take a more hardline stance, such as rescinding Obama-era policies protecting legal medical cannabis programs.

Following the 2018 midterm elections – which gave control of the House of Representatives to Democrats – California Sen. Dana Rohrabacher (R) signaled that the administration was planning federal cannabis reforms. Those reforms never materialized.

In June, Attorney General Bill Barr was accused of weaponizing the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division to investigate cannabis mergers due to his negative feelings about the industry.

So far, broad cannabis legalization initiatives have qualified for ballots in Montana, Arizona, and New Jersey, while South Dakota will vote on both medical and adult-use questions. Mississippi has approved a medical cannabis ballot initiative, while Nebraska advocates submitted signatures for its medical cannabis initiative for review last month, but they have not yet been approved.

Arizona will likely serve as a battleground state during this year’s election as Trump only won the state by 3.5 percentage points in 2016; he leads former Vice President Joe Biden by 8.4 percent in current state polling, according to FiveThirtyEight. In New Jersey, Biden is leading Trump 55.2 percent to 34.5 percent, while Trump is besting Biden by 11.7 points in Mississippi according to FiveThirtyEight data. Trump won South Dakota in 2016 by nearly 30 percentage points and 270toWin rates the state as “Safe Trump.”

Nebraska election polling since May shows Biden with a slight lead over Trump but the president won the state handily in 2016.

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Poll: New Jersey Supports Legalization, Social Equity, & Consumption Lounges

8/24/2020

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A poll from the Cannabis Law Practice of law firm Brach Eichler found 66 percent of New Jersians support broad cannabis legalization in the state, with 27 percent opposed and 7 percent unsure.

Last December, New Jersey lawmakers approved legislation that will see voters decide whether to enact the reforms in the Garden State in November, and the poll found 71 percent of respondents were aware of the impending vote while 29 percent were not aware.

A Monmouth University poll in April found similar support – 66 percent – among potential voters for the reforms, with 34 percent opposed.

A slight majority of respondents (55 percent) polled by Brach Eichler said recreational cannabis should be taxed at a higher rate than the current 6.625 percent sales tax, while 30 percent opposed a higher rate.

Charles X. Gormally, Co-Chair of the Cannabis Law Practice, said that while “most people don’t favor higher taxes,” the polling “reflects both an awareness of the fiscal needs of the State, as well as an understanding that other states that have legalized cannabis have imposed taxes and surcharges of up to 25 percent.” He added that voters polled want cannabis-derived tax revenues for drug awareness and education.

A strong majority of those polled indicated New Jersey’s cannabis industry should have a strong social equity component, with 74 percent saying officials should ensure minorities have fair and equal access to licensing; 12 percent were opposed, and 14 percent were unsure.

“This reflects the increasing national awareness and growing concern about how minority groups have been disproportionately impacted by the failed policy of cannabis prohibition. Meaningful minority group participation in the ownership of new cannabis businesses is a direct and credible way to address this longstanding social justice concern.” – Gormally in a press release

The survey found support for social-use lounges split 47 percent in favor to 41 percent opposed. A survey in July by the practice found 50 percent in favor with 39 percent opposed. Both polls found 12 percent were undecided.

New Jersians also narrowly supported municipal control over cannabis sales, 45 percent to 39 percent, with 16 percent unsure.

The majority of respondents from all political leanings supported the reforms, including 77 percent of Democrats (18 percent opposed), 56 percent of Republicans (37 percent opposed), and 58 percent of independents (32 percent opposed).

The poll was conducted by DKC Analytics and surveyed 500 registered New Jersey voters from August 5 to August 13, 2020. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

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Unregulated Cannabis Sales Command 54% of Canadian Market

8/24/2020

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Legal cannabis still comprises less than half – 46 percent – of all product sales in Canada nearly two years after nationwide legalization, according to Statistics Canada figures outlined by Bloomberg News. The sector is now worth $1.7 billion in the Great White North.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Matt Bottomley told Bloomberg that illicit sales still hold the majority of the national market share due to high prices which don’t give consumers “a lot of incentive” to make the transition to taxed and regulated sales.

Bottomley notes that in most legal cannabis markets, edibles make up about half of all sales but in Canada, where they were only made available last year, they are just 15 percent of the market.

A June report from Statistics Canada found that unlicensed producers and sellers in British Columbia made about one-third more in revenues in 2019 than licensed companies, earning $1.24 billion compared to $765 million. In the Northwest Territories, officials reduced the price of all cannabis products by 10 percent in an effort to combat unregulated sales.

According to the agency, cannabis sales rose 19 percent in March as the coronavirus pandemic spread throughout the country but Bottomley suggested there are “still a bunch of potential customers sitting on the sidelines.”

In all, since legal sales began in October 2018, legal cannabis sales have contributed $3.96 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product. Statistics Canada also reported that estimated illicit cannabis sales contributed $4.13 billion to the nation’s economy, down about 21 percent since the rollout of the regulated industry.

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Noel and Graham Abbott: The Origin Story of Ganjapreneur

8/21/2020

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Noel Abbott, CEO of Ganjapreneur, and Graham Abbott, our Chief Editor, are brothers native to the northwestern corner of Washington state who started blogging about cannabis in 2013. In 2014, they partnered with venture capitalist and digital-era entrepreneur Andrew Rosener to found Ganjapreneur.com, which has since grown into a multifaceted resource for cannabis professionals and is relied on for industry news by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Recently, Noel and Graham joined our podcast host TG Branfalt for a retrospective discussion about their backgrounds and Ganjapreneur’s origin story. This conversation reveals many behind-the-scenes details: from the website’s original conception after a long trek through Spain, to finding success as a fully-remote and digital-first publication, to why conducting business in the cannabis industry comes with a mandate of action against the many injustices of prohibition. They also talk about how witnessing repeated instances of “folly” in the industry led them to create Ganjapreneur’s latest project, Oregano.com, a cannabis satire outlet intended to raise funds and awareness for The Last Prisoner Project.

Listen to the interview below or via your favorite podcast app, or scroll down for the full transcript!

Listen to the podcast:

Read the transcript:

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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’s kind of a special show, where I’m joined by the founders of Ganjapreneur, the Abbott brothers, Noel Abbott, who’s the CEO, and Graham Abbott, who’s the chief editor.

Before they introduce themselves and get in their background, I just want to tell a little story. I met these guys about six years ago, never actually met them in person, through a Craigslist ad. I had just covered the passage of medical cannabis in New York for Reuters. Was doing a lot of freelancing. And they were looking for a brief writer. And here we are six years later. We’ve never really discussed in public sort of our relationship and how Ganjapreneur works. So, Noel, Graham, how are you guys doing?

Graham Abbott: Doing great. This is Graham here.

Noel Abbott: Yeah, Noel here. Great. Doing well. Thanks for having us, TG. It’s been a long time coming.

TG Branfalt: Why don’t you guys just sort of tell everyone the stuff that I know a lot of but don’t know everything about your background. How’d you guys end up in the cannabis space and what’s it like doing this as brothers?

Noel Abbott: Totally. Well I guess I’ll jump in first, this is Noel. I guess to provide background on how we wound up here specifically with Ganjapreneur and sticking with it for so long, it would make sense to start with when we first had the idea of starting a project together of any kind. It was about eight years ago I think when Graham and I were on the Camino de Santiago, which is a trek in Spain. And this was right after Graham had graduated from college. And Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage. I think it’s got Catholic background, and it’s about 500 miles total from start to finish. Yeah, it was a lot of walking. I didn’t do the whole thing. I met up with Graham at about the halfway point I think. Graham had just graduated college and I was, I still had a full time job at the time working for a software company.

I remember when I met up with Graham and the group that he was with at the halfway point, I walked into the town and they were sitting at this table having lunch at a terrace restaurant. And there was this woman at the table who was a venture capitalist, an angel investor. And she had already been talking with Graham and his friend who was on the trek with him about the idea of pitching her a company during the course of that journey. And Graham, do you want to, I don’t really have the background of that.

Graham Abbott: Well, yeah. I think she was looking for youngsters to invest in and grow her fortune. And she was really pushing for us to come up with that next big idea that she could invest in. So yeah, we kind of tossed some things around. I believe you were the one who actually talked to her first about the cannabis industry, Noel.

Noel Abbott: Right. That was after the trek had completed. I think it was a couple months later. We had originally mentioned the idea, we didn’t really have a fleshed out proposal for her but we had mentioned the idea of some kind of an app that would connect community gardens and organic farms and locally produced food with people nearby. And she didn’t really see how that was going to be very profitable. So we kind of left it at that. It was sort of a dead chain of emails for a while.

Then when Washington and Colorado first had their votes to create the adult use industries, I reached back out to her with a proposal for some ideas for a cannabis focused media project. And she just flat out rejected me and was almost, in fact, offended, I would have thought of her for that. But that really was what got us thinking about just the possibility of creating a project that we could use to sustain ourselves and sort of determine our own career trajectories. So I’ll credit her with planting that seed in our brains because neither one of us really had thought about that as a potential direction for a project.

TG Branfalt: And what about you, Graham? Noel was doing software stuff. What were you doing prior to graduating college and shortly thereafter, it appears, starting Ganjapreneur.

Graham Abbott: In college, I studied communications. And then after graduating, I left and went on that trip. For me, it started as just that pilgrimage, just kind of an experience. And then I ended up staying in Europe. And then when my visas had run out there, we went over to Southeast Asia. I ended up on a long year tour around the world and then came back and was looking for something to do. That very first summer I came back, I was canvassing for a little bit, that kind of got me into the political sphere. But then I ended up, it was right when I had quit that job was when Noel started talking to me about the idea of writing on a semi-regular basis about this budding industry. We were certainly really excited about the industry, about legalization in general and we’ve been supporters of the movement since, I can’t speak for Noel, but for me, it was in college was where I came around to cannabis. In high school, I wasn’t a narc, but I was pure you can say.

TG Branfalt: Why the media space? You have this background in sort of software and communication. I obviously ended up in the cannabis media space, but didn’t found a media company. So first of all, why did you guys decide the news and then sort of media side of it? And then sort of describe going from this little blog to hiring writers and becoming sort of a mainstream source.

Noel Abbott: Totally. So, at the time that I had first reached out to Graham about starting a project, we had a few different ideas that we were throwing around. There was an idea to offer marketing services and web development services because that was really my career focus at the time to retailers and manufacturers as they started opening up. And we did pursue that a bit, and I still am a partner in a small creative agency that I started with some friends a few years prior to that that never really became our full-time focus. But it’s been something that has continued on.

And so, that was one angle. And the blog concept was really just to establish presence at the beginning, to have a place where we could publish things on a regular basis. It seemed obvious that people were going to be interested in keeping tabs on the industry as it developed. Granted there were already a lot of cannabis oriented publications out there, but not very many of them focused specifically on the business side of the industry or the b2b angle. And so, that was our focus from the beginning was to talk about the entrepreneurs and the businesses that were starting up.

And over time, I think that that became our main focus just because, cannabis is a very volatile industry. There’s stories all the time about companies that came at the industry with a bunch of money and then wound up not hitting their benchmarks that they expected to hit, and then winding up getting acquired or gutted in some fashion. And with a media company, the business model works as long as there’s an audience. So, the volatility in terms of the changing regulations and competition and all of that, it doesn’t really affect us in the same way that it affects operators who are touching the plant.

I knew for our sake, also, both of us had writing backgrounds from our education and just hobbies. I think that’s why it really became our main focus and that’s ultimately why it wound up becoming the more successful idea of the several that we had started out with. And then over time, we never really had any moment of exponential growth. It’s always just been steady, hard work. And luckily, we’ve had the opportunity to partner with really talented people and to get really competent individuals on our team. And I really credit that as the most contributive factor in where we’re at today.

TG Branfalt: And Graham, what was the learning curve like for you? You had gone through a communications program, but you said that you didn’t really get into cannabis until college. You ended up being the chief editor. When I started with you guys, it was on a much smaller scale than it’s become. You were my point person for a long time, and it never really seemed to me that you were that new to this. It’s almost a surprise to me that you got sort of acquainted with cannabis later than a lot of people who would sort of end up in your role. So what was the learning curve like for you?

Graham Abbott: Well, it was steep. Honestly, it was a lot of fun at first. I knew my weaknesses going into it and just kind of devoured the news cycle for, I mean, I don’t know, never really stopped. It’s true, I didn’t study journalism specifically in school, and so I kind of had to embed myself into there and really try and learn as much as I could while participating in the industry kind of. Since the launch, things have gone well, for the most part. There were some hiccups. I’m glad to hear that you were unaware of my relative rookieness from the beginning.

TG Branfalt: Both of you guys, as leaders of this organization, neither of you have ever sort of, there’s never been this sort of thirst for power or sort of arrogance that comes with the role. Noel, when I started, I think you were technically the CFO.

Noel Abbott: I think I was the CTO.

TG Branfalt: CTO. That’s exactly what it was way back then. So tell me guys about sort of the experience building a brand from scratch, which you both sort of have that background in. And then tell me about doing it again with Oregano and the sort of endgame with Oregano. Talk about that a little bit too.

Noel Abbott: Sure. Before we get to Oregano, I’ll answer the question about how did we ultimately get to where we are in terms of going from the relative obscurity to being more of a brand and an established organization. I think that that really, that transition started when we first got connected with Andrew Rosener, who is the other official co-founder and the primary investor behind Ganjapreneur. At the beginning you said you found us through a Craigslist ad. Andrew also found us through the internet. And I had never met him when we first spoke. And we didn’t actually meet in person until well after we had been partnered with him on Ganjapreneur. I think it was like over a year later.

Graham Abbott: Cannabis Cup.

Noel Abbott: That’s right. At the High Times Cannabis Cup on April 20th.

TG Branfalt: Sorry to interrupt, but that’s still the craziest thing I’ve ever done that this job has afforded me was the Michigan Cannabis Cup. It’s a dream come true.

Graham Abbott: They’re wild places.

Noel Abbott: I haven’t been recently, but the one that we attended was definitely, that was the first time I’d ever been to any cannabis event and it was also the very first after the opening of the adult use markets in Colorado. And I was still full time employed as the marketing director for a software company at the time. So I had to tell them a lie and say that I was going camping for the weekend with my brother, but really we were going to meet the investor behind our cannabis industry startup that ultimately I wound up leaving them for. It was definitely an eye-opening experience. And when we did meet Andrew, it was  awesome, we actually didn’t get to hang out with him for very long because he wound up babysitting the cast of Super Troopers who got too high on dabs at the event.

So we only got to hang out with Andrew for like an hour, but I could just tell that he was as excited about the project as we were. It seemed like the focus was just on the incredible opportunity of being a part of history and being a part of this massive change in society that was going to be slow, but is hopefully a sign that there’s going to eventually be a world where cannabis is not demonized and criminalized and people don’t have to be locked up in prison for doing something that doesn’t harm anybody. Now there’s still people locked up in prison for nonviolent cannabis offenses. And that kind of brings us to the project Oregano.com which we had started planning last year.

And to get into that, basically, the context, I guess I didn’t fully explain Andrew and his role. When we first partnered with Andrew, the deal was he owned Ganjapreneur.com and we were currently operating on a different domain name. It was something like theganjapreneur.us. And he had the same idea for a brand and had reserved this domain much earlier. He reached out to us and he liked what we were doing and wanted to partner with us and have us use his domain. He would fund the company and we would all be partners.

So, fast forward five years, five and a half years to 2019 when we’re pretty well established, Graham and I had talked about the idea of doing cannabis industry satire.

Graham Abbott: We tried a few times too.

Noel Abbott: Yeah, we tried through Ganjapreneur on April Fool’s Day and things like that.

TG Branfalt: People get really upset.

Noel Abbott: Yeah. It’s the whole fake news thing, because people don’t read disclaimers or take away the obvious conclusions from a headline that’s clearly false. If they don’t get that right away, then they’re very upset. So, it makes sense to separate satirical content from editorial content. I agree with that 100%.

So, Oregano was an idea that we had. I realized that Andrew also owned oregano.com, the domain name. He is in fact, one of the most prolific domain name brokers and investors worldwide. And there’s this whole industry of aftermarket domain names that Andrew is repeatedly and continuously awarded as one of the top people in that industry. And he’s been around for a long time so he’s been acquiring really valuable domain names for a long time. And I pitched the idea of using Oregano as a satirical outlet for the cannabis industry. He was on board with it immediately.

And the reason why I think we felt the need for satire in the cannabis industry was specifically because after being around for so long, we had witnessed so much of what I guess I would only describe as folly. Just people with a lot of money coming to the industry assuming that everything’s going to work out fine, assuming that they know the audience that they’re trying to reach and just falling flat. And it happened over and over and over over the course of the past five or six years.

So, we definitely had, I would say some apprehension or annoyance about certain things in the industry and we wanted an outlet for that, so that we could hopefully produce something that’s going to entertain the people in the industry who have been around for a long time who’ve seen all the struggles of the industry. We wanted it to be something that wasn’t just going to be purely for entertainment’s sake because you can’t really separate cannabis from its history and the context of prohibition and the massive amount of injustice.

So, we decided to partner with an organization called The Last Prisoner Project. And their mission is to bring restorative justice to people who have been affected by the drug war, specifically people who are in prison for drug related offenses. So the idea was we would launch this satirical outlet, and at the end of every article it would have a disclaimer along the lines of, this article is a joke, but you know what’s not a joke is that there’s still 40,000 people behind bars for non-violent cannabis infractions.

TG Branfalt: So since the death of George Floyd, that that was about a month ago now, 50 something days ago, I think it is, 56, maybe 57 from the time that we’re recording this, we as an organization, it’s sort of the direction of you guys, have sort of brightened the spotlight on social justice aspects of prohibition. We’ve always covered the social equity stuff because we’ve always had sort of a very heavy business focus. There’s an obvious answer to this question, but why have you guys decided to put a bunch more emphasis on this issue collectively? You guys steer the ship. Let’s just be honest. If you read the comments, we post some of the social justice stuff, and we get laugh reacts for it. Seriously. I just want to point that out to listeners.

Noel Abbott: To fully answer that question, the timeline with Oregano was we had planned to launch it on April 1st because of April Fool’s Day and satire. And it was in March that the coronavirus pandemic started to really take off. And the Last Prisoner Project who we were working with reached out to us and said, “Hey, we’re afraid that if we don’t act soon that the people that we’re trying to save and to grant clemency for are going to be trapped in prison as this virus makes its way through the prisons.” And so, they wanted to get the word out as soon as possible because it was also an opportunity to put pressure on the government to actually get something done.

So we launched Oregano early. It wasn’t quite finished but we had launched the platform. And then over the next month or two, the pandemic continued to spread. Some jurisdictions have granted clemency to prisoners but it’s really nowhere near the amount that we would need to actually achieve some semblance of restorative justice. But then after the death of George Floyd, I just sort of had realized that over the past several years while we have focused on social equity in the states that have opened up adult use markets, I’ve always said that we want to reflect diversity in the people who we profile, we really weren’t putting very much of a conscious effort into accurately communicating the true depth of how just absurd the injustice is surrounding cannabis prohibition and how cannabis prohibition and the enforcement of it has tied into institutional racism and has really just decimated communities that are over-policed.

It also wasn’t just up to me and Graham. I would credit a lot of that shift in direction of our reporting to the women that we have hired. Ellie, who we hired just over a year ago, year and a half ago, when she came on to help us with social media, she told me that she wanted to focus on social justice with the accounts that she was choosing to highlight and to repost from. She pointed out that we weren’t doing very much with that. And I said, you know what, you’re right, let’s do it. And then after the death of George Floyd and all of the protests all over the country, I think a lot of, I mean, I hope, and I’ve witnessed it, so, I wouldn’t just say hope, but I hope that all white people are thinking about this at least. But as you mentioned, yeah, there are definitely people who think that it’s all part of some media manipulated narrative, and that it’s all a conspiracy.

TG Branfalt: So let me play devil’s advocate for a second. Graham, do you think that, we call ourselves, we are a b2b publication, do you think that it runs against the mission of being a business-focused publication to put more emphasis on the social justice aspects of prohibition?

Graham Abbott: No. Short answer, no. I’m not a cannabis business operator myself, obviously, but I do owe my livelihood to the industry. And the bottom line is that any person or any entity that’s benefiting from the cannabis space is implicitly benefiting from the painful history that cannabis has undergone, because the only reason why there’s this new exciting industry right now it’s because it’s been tamped down for so long. And so many people have been oppressed in the name of making this glorious new industry. It’s not enough for current business owners to just be sad for the people who have been locked up for decades. You can’t just say like, yeah, that sucked, but things are better now and we’re taking our own opportunities. Everything is tied back to that painful history. And there needs to be action from members of the industry, and to not act is … it’s morally unacceptable.

Noel Abbott: There’s an interesting parallel there with the existence of institutional racism as a whole. It’s like a conveyor belt that moves in one direction. And if you’re not doing anything, then you’re still moving with the conveyor belt. You actually have to make an effort to work against the current in order to have any effect. And there’s no such thing as neutrality, you can’t just remain apathetic to it. By doing so, you’re implicitly choosing the side of the status quo.

TG Branfalt: We’re talking about sort of the changes of the social order in some ways and how it relates to sort of what we do. So, I just want to ask sort of briefly the future of sort of cannabis industry publishing, especially in the era of COVID. I mean, we have worked remotely from the jump. I’ve worked in three or four different states while working for you guys. I think Graham’s done some publishing from Paris, France, or at least somewhere.

Graham Abbott: Yeah. Southern France. Was there for a summer.

TG Branfalt: So in the era of COVID, what do you guys see sort of as the future of the cannabis industry publishing and just sort of briefly talk about High Times and how their IPO has, what that sort of means it because it’s stalled and it hasn’t done the numbers that they thought it would. In the meantime, they’re buying a bunch of brands and touching the plant. Talk to me about sort of what you guys see the future of industry publishing at large, especially again, seeing what’s happened with High Times.

Noel Abbott: So I think the current state of cannabis media is in a kind of a precarious position because so many media companies, especially in the cannabis industry, have focused on the combination of print and events. And both of those are more difficult, events much more so, in the world of the coronavirus. I think High Times, whether or not they were going to have to close down publications just due to the need for revenue prior to the spread of the pandemic, is its own question. But obviously, with the coronavirus, the business model of hosting big events on a regular basis just becomes really, really difficult. There’s no clear end in sight at this point.

So, the companies that have relied on that, I think they’re having a hard time. I think that print specific publications are probably overall going to be fine. Even though we have seen numerous cannabis publications get closed down, there are also people who are doing really awesome things and who are setting a great example for the industry as a whole. Some companies that I would name in that regard are the Northwest Leaf. They have been expanding and they actually hired a bunch of the High Times writers who got laid off for their newest expansion in the north east. There’s a magazine called Broccoli Magazine, which is entirely women led and created. And that’s a really awesome artistic focused cannabis magazine, and I really love what they’re doing. There’s other industry publications like Marijuana Venture. I have a sense that all of these companies are going to be fine just because their audience still wants them around.

For us, I think that the coronavirus, because we’re a digital-first company, we’ve always been a remote company, we’ve only ever created digital offerings, we don’t host events, we don’t print magazines. For us, the impact of the coronavirus has really been pretty minimal. I think for niche publications in other industries, that might not be the same. But in the cannabis industry, we’ve seen cannabis be deemed essential in pretty much all of the states where it’s been legalized. And there’s clearly a high demand for cannabis during this time where people are stuck at home and they’re stressed out. It’s just natural that people are going to spend some of that time consuming cannabis. I think it’s healthier than if they were drinking.

So, in the long run, after, where we’re at, four months, four months later from when we kind of went into lockdown, it doesn’t really seem like the effect on the economy is really having the same effect on us. I think that hopefully cannabis media will be able to sustain, and all of these companies that are producing great content and employing people will be able to tough it out and make a resurgence after there’s some return to normalcy.

TG Branfalt: What’s your take on that, Graham?

Graham Abbott: I feel like that sums things up pretty nicely.

TG Branfalt: When the virus hit, for example, as sort of the chief editor, do you think that overall, the industry did well sort of with how it covered the coronavirus, because at the onset, I’m sure you were too, we were getting bombarded with sort of, what do I want to call them, snake oil salesmen, saying that, “oh, my cannabis product is going to save you from the coronavirus.” Do you think that the publishing side of the industry did well in not sort of biting on those duplicitous claims of fly by night companies?

Graham Abbott: I’d say for the most part, yes. I think publishers have been fairly responsible in that. I know there have been, so, obviously there are so called snake oil pushers who are, this was the case before COVID-19 with certain “bad players.” The CBD industry specifically.

Noel Abbott: We had a whole section planned on Oregano that was just about CBD infused products, like CBD infused shoelaces, CBD infused washing machines. There’s been a lot of those.

Graham Abbott: We’re guilty ourselves, we’ll talk about the latest, I think we ran an article about CBD infused sportswear at one point. And certain things are just so eye-catching. It deserves some mention just for how out-there it can be.

TG Branfalt: Well, I think it depends on how you cover it.

Graham Abbott: Exactly.

TG Branfalt: I think that’s been one of the sort of, the good things about having sort of you both at the helm in that you’re steady. It’s not like we cover it and make a big deal about it. We just want people to know like, hey, here’s the information, but we’ve never editorialized too much.

Graham Abbott: Yeah. On occasion.

TG Branfalt: When I go Gonzo and do too many dabs in Michigan.

Graham Abbott: There have also been these stories popping up about unverified studies investigating cannabinoids and terpenes and their potential effectiveness against certain symptoms of COVID-19. And those, we always have to preface that with this is a non peer reviewed, this is a pre-published article. Because the situation is evolving so rapidly, I think it’s still an important conversation or an important topic of conversation.

Noel Abbott: And it’s clear. I mean, it has been clear for a long time that cannabidiol is a very efficient effective reducer of inflammation. Just from anecdotal evidence, everybody that I talk to who use it says that. My personal experience of that. And there’s medical research that shows that. So I don’t think it’s completely outside the realm of possibility that it’s a viable treatment for alleviating symptoms. If that’s possible and it’s being held up by the current state of regulations, I think that it deserves more attention.

TG Branfalt: And I’m actually sitting here with the half injured shoulder, we’ll call it, and it’s covered in CBD and I feel great. The last couple of minutes here guys, give me some advice. What would you tell an entrepreneur about building a brand, because I think that that’s something that you guys have collectively done really, really successfully. Just from the imagery to sort of the, the colors and the attitude of the brand. So what advice would you have for entrepreneurs specifically when it comes to brand building?

Noel Abbott: Sure.

Graham Abbott: I’ll go first real quick and just say I think consistency and don’t be in a race to do everything and all of it all at once. I think focusing and fine tuning and just staying consistent to your original idea and add some elbow grease and good direction and that’s probably a better recipe than most.

TG Branfalt: And maybe walk 500 miles on a pilgrimage before you launch a company.

Graham Abbott: I don’t know — if that’s something you’re into, I can highly recommend it.

Noel Abbott: I would definitely credit, I think that the success of our brand in a marketing context, I credit a lot of that to my business partner in the creative agency that I had co-founded before Ganjapreneur, Casey Burton, who now is our creative director at Ganjapreneur. And he really conceived of and designed the entire visual identity of Ganjapreneur as it currently exists. Prior to that, it was kind of a, we didn’t look bad, I would say, but we definitely looked a little DIY. It was just stuff that I had put together.

I think that if you have people with different perspectives talking about how things look and how they are experienced by a user, if it’s a website or whether that’s packaging, as long as you have people who have knowledge about design and branding weighing in on that conversation, then you’re headed in the right direction.

I think a lot of startup entrepreneurs wind up thinking of their visual representation and their branding as kind of an afterthought to their idea. And it’s something that they want to save money on. And so, you can go to Fiverr or you can go to like a logo competition website and just pay $100 and get 10 different “logos.” But the visual identity of your organization goes so much further than just the logo. It really all has to tie into one singular philosophy or ideology that carries through everything. And so, your color scheme, your typography, everything that exists in the real world like print and packaging along with everything on the internet, should all be consistent. And that doesn’t just mean putting the same logo on everything.

So having someone, whether that’s an internal employee, who you trust, or an agency that you work with separately to help you with that when you’re at the point where you can afford to do something like that, I would say is very important.

TG Branfalt: Before we go, I just want to sort of thank you guys for the last six years. It was funny the other day, I was going through my Facebook memories and I actually had mentioned, it was February 25th, 2014, was the first time that I ever wrote anything for you guys, which is bizarre to see that, like ahead of this. You guys have given me a lot of flexibility as a professional. You’ve always worked with me as I transitioned to teaching and sort of some of the other, some of the other things that I’ve gone through in the last six years professionally.

I really appreciate what you guys have done in terms of offering a really sort of, it’s a special sort of website I think and product that you offer people. And it’s definitely a representation of what you guys had in mind, at least for my estimation, six years ago when I met you. And one day, we’ll meet in person. A lot of people probably don’t know, we’ve actually never met in person. I’ve always stayed on the east coast and then the Midwest briefly. Maybe one day you guys can come kick into the mountains because I’m not getting on a plane anytime soon.

Graham Abbott: Road trip.

Noel Abbott: That sounds great.

TG Branfalt: So again, thanks for being on the show. That was the founders of Ganjapreneur, Noel Abbott, he is the CEO, and Graham Abbott, the chief editor. Thank you guys again so much.

Graham Abbott: Thanks, Tim.

Noel Abbott: Thanks for having us, TG. We appreciate you, man.

Graham Abbott: And real quick, just also a quick thank you to our audience. We never really get the chance to address them directly but it means a lot that people tune in and keep tuning in. And we’ll keep it up.

TG Branfalt: You can find more episodes of the ganjapreneur.com podcast in the podcast section of ganjapreneur.com, Spotify, and in the Apple iTunes Store. On the ganjapreneur.com website, you’ll find the latest cannabis news and cannabis jobs updated daily along with transcripts of this podcast. You can also download the ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google Play. This episode was engineered by Trim Media House I’ve been your host, TG Branfalt.

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