Lift Cannabis Business Conference: Investing and Thriving in the Growing Canadian Market

11/27/2017

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Back for its second year, the Lift Cannabis Business Conference (LCBC) comes to Vancouver on January 12, 2018, featuring professional development panels led by cannabis industry experts.

Coming less than six months ahead of recreational cannabis legalization in Canada, the Vancouver LCBC offers a critical opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors interested in upcoming opportunities north of the border. Attendees will get the inside scoop on regulation, compliance, investment patterns and key trends as the world braces for the new cannabis economy. Canada is predicted to be the make-or-break example of what full federal legalization could look like, making this a can’t-miss business opportunity for cannabis professionals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxOyJ7utcVo&feature=youtu.be

The LCBC on January 12 is the kickoff to the Lift Cannabis Expo, Canada’s largest cannabis trade show, happening January 13-14. While the Lift Expo is primarily a consumer trade show, the LCBC is strictly professional, featuring a full day of guest speakers, panels and networking opportunities. With topics such as, “Investing in Cannabis 101” and “Provincial Legislation and Your Business,” the LCBC provides a unique perspective on the current state of cannabis and where it’s heading.

Lift is a key player in the Canadian cannabis market, offering up-to-the-minute news and media on its website, as well Canada’s largest database of legal cannabis reviews. Because of its active readership, Lift has become a central hub for licensed producers and consumers to connect with each other, fostering a strong sense of community in the nascent cannabis industry.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the LCBC event page. Early bird pricing is available until December 1, with single sessions on special for $40 CDN (regularly $50 CDN) and all-access passes for $300 CDN (regularly $350 CDN). Get your Lift Cannabis Business Conference tickets here.

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Aurora Announces Deals to Acquire Quebec MMJ Producer, Greenhouse Design Firm

11/24/2017

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Aurora Cannabis announced deals to acquire two companies on Thursday – H2 Biopharma Inc., a late-stage Canadian medical cannabis production applicant, and Larssen Ltd., a greenhouse design firm.

In total, Aurora will pay $25 million for H2, with an initial $10 million payment; all of which will be paid through the issuance of Aurora common shares. According to a press release, H2’s cultivation facility in Lachute, Quebec facility is 80 percent complete and will be Aurora’s second in the province.

“Our participation in the final design and construction of H2’s purpose built facility will allow us to leverage our experience, technology, and systems to improve performance and yields beyond the original design,” Aurora CEO Terry Booth said in a statement, adding that the Larssen acquisition “will play an instrumental role” in that process. Larssen is currently involved with more than 15 cannabis industry clients globally, including five Canadian producers. The transaction will see the creation of a subsidiary, Aurora Larssen Projects Ltd., and Thomas Larssen, the principal of the greenhouse firm, will serve as its president.

“Our decision to join forces with Aurora in this evolving industry was not difficult,” he said in a statement. “Joining the Company will allow us to leverage the incredible brand recognition Aurora enjoys, both within and outside of the cannabis sector.”

The terms of the Larssen deal were not disclosed. The H2 deal is contingent with Toronto Stock Exchange approval.

Aurora is also in the midst of a hostile takeover of Canadian licensed producer CanniMed, in which they are offering to buy out CanniMed shareholders at 57 percent more than its Nov. 14 closing price.

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Picture of cannabis fan leaves inside of a commercial cannabis grow operation.

Saskatchewan Govt. Cannabis Survey Finds Support for Home-Grow, Online & Retail Sales

11/24/2017

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A survey by the Saskatchewan government has found strong support for cannabis sales to be conducted both in retail stores and online once legal sales begin in the country, and 45 percent of respondents want those stores run by the government.

The survey received 34,681 responses – the most of any survey previously conducted by the province, the government said in a press release. Just 9.9 percent of respondents supported online-only cannabis sales, while 22 percent preferred only retail shops. Thirty-seven percent of respondents support allowing private businesses to run retail stores, and just 10.2 percent prefer pharmacies to conduct cannabis sales.

The majority of respondents, 57.9 percent, either disagreed or strongly disagreed that municipalities should “be given the option to pass bylaws to more strictly regulate cannabis”; compared to 29.3 percent who supported giving local governments such power and 10 percent who neither agreed nor disagreed.

A majority also supported prohibiting cannabis consumption in public – 53.7 percent to 28.5 percent – with 16.8 percent “neutral.” The majority of respondents, 80.4 percent, supported some form of home grow, compared to just 18 percent who do not want citizens to grow cannabis products.

Prohibiting minors’ access to cannabis ranked first among the respondents’ priorities for regulation. Ranked second were concerns about permitting sales near “schools or anywhere youth and young children frequent, followed by security requirements, accessibility, hours of operation, and market saturation.

According to Justice Minister and Attorney General Don Morgan, the government plans to use the study to promulgate the provincial rules for the legal cannabis industry, which is expected to roll out in Canada in July.      

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James Yagielo: Cannabis Industry Staffing and Recruitment

11/22/2017

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James Yagielo is the CEO of HempStaff, a cannabis industry staffing agency that offers recruitment services to cannabis companies and educational courses to prospective cannabis employees.

In this episode of the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, James joins our host TG Branfalt to discuss the cannabis education and training courses that HempStaff has made available across the country and how recruitment services benefit both employers and potential employees. Their interview covers which jobs in the cannabis industry are the most popular vs. the most difficult to fill, which upcoming cannabis markets are expected to make the biggest splash (and when), which cannabis industry positions tend to earn the highest salaries, and more!

Tune in via the player below, or keep scrolling down to read along with a full transcript of this week’s Ganjapreneur.com podcast episode.

Listen to the podcast:

Read the transcript:

TG Branfalt: Hey there, I’m your host TG Branfalt and you’re 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 James Yagielo, he is the CEO of HempStaff. How you doing today?

James Yagielo: Very good, how about yourself, Tim?

TG Branfalt: I’m doing great. I’m doing great. I’m really excited to have you on the show. The employment issue is really a big topic that we haven’t really discussed. The industry’s expected to create 250,000 jobs by 2020 and you’re on the front lines training some of these prospective employees. But before we get into that, I want to know more about you man. How’d you end up in the cannabis space?

James Yagielo: Sure, we actually are a Florida based company so we started back in 2014 when it looked like Florida was going to pass medical marijuana the first time. I originally, like everyone else, wanted to get in and touch the plank in cultivation or dispensing and realized with Florida’s laws that really wasn’t going to be possible. So I looked at what other aspects I had done in previous jobs and I’d been involved in staffing and recruiting since 1999 so it seemed logical to go out there and see if there was any interest. I started networking with several people that were already in the industry and looking get into Florida and they seemed really very intuitive about recruiting and then later came training. First we started discussing with them what type of people they were looking for and we realized that the budtenders didn’t have the experience that these people from out of state wanted. They wanted someone like they were used to that had known what cannabinoids and terpenes were. Out of that came our training which we started later on in 2014.

TG Branfalt: How long was it until you came up with the idea of HempStaff, until you had your first placement?

James Yagielo: It was about five months in after talking to people then people started to want to get their application ready for Florida if it passed and they wanted us to hook them up with a master grower or master extractor for another state that was willing to relocate. It did take a few months and around that same time we also started the training class to start training Florida people. Once Florida didn’t pass, we already had these connections nationwide so we took both our recruiting services and our training services to a nationwide level in late 2014.

TG Branfalt: Describe to the audience what it is exactly that HempStaff does.

James Yagielo: We have two facets. Our first facet is a typical recruiting staffing company. Clients come to us for either employees they can’t find because they’re very specialized like a master extractor or a master grower with five years experience or if they just don’t have the time to go through 200 resumes to find their entry level people they may come to us for that. We basically prescreen everyone, we have recruiters in every medical marijuana state who have contacts so they discuss with their contacts where this job is, who’s willing to relocate if relocation needs to be done and then we basically send the resumes to the client so that they get a handful of very qualified resumes and don’t have to spend the time going through hundreds of resumes to narrow it down themselves.

On the other side, we train dispensary agents. We take those people looking to get in the industry but don’t really know how and we train them what needs to be known in a dispensary. The cannabinoids, the terpenes, we cover two dozen products of cannabis, not including the common ones like flower and wax and oils. We go into more of the top levels. The patches, suppositories, the inhalers and you tell them which are best for medical ailments. When they go to an interview, hopefully they can speak intelligently and greatly increase their chances of obtaining a job in a cannabis industry.

TG Branfalt: What are some of the common issues or misconceptions that you see among those who actually attend your courses?

James Yagielo: A lot of times they think it’s a lot simpler than it is. They know indica, they know sativa so they think they’re pretty good and they’re quickly blown away about how many products there are especially in these new states where people have never stepped inside a dispensary before. A lot of times that definitely overwhelms them when they come to our class, especially like I said, in the eastern states. Another thing is that they think because they’ve tried stuff that it’s going to work the same for everyone else which isn’t the case, everyone’s body is different. Just because you can eat an edible and go out and work all day doesn’t mean the patient can eat an edible and go out and work all day.

TG Branfalt: How long are your training courses?

James Yagielo: Our training courses are four hours. We do them on a Saturday afternoon. We have an eight AM class and 1:30 PM class so they can choose morning or afternoon. It’s four hours long and at the end of that four hours we give a certification test, just a HempStaff certification to show that you’re actually paying attention in class.

TG Branfalt: What are some of the challenges that you and your company has faced in the training process?

James Yagielo: Lot of challenges, like I said, the people coming in thinking they already know everything so they don’t really pay attention in class. You have the rare cases where people come to class too stoned to learn, unfortunately. That’s getting less and less but it does still happen. Other challenges are we’re starting to get a lot more people that are over the age of 50 and have never really tried cannabis or if they did it was many, many years ago and they don’t know anything so you pretty much gotta teach them from the ground up ’cause they don’t even know indica or sativa.

TG Branfalt: With this older population, these are older people looking to enter the industry as an employee?

James Yagielo: Correct. Lot of people that come to our class are looking to get into a new industry. They’ve worked different industries in the past and now they’re looking for a change and they’ve heard that the cannabis industry is just going to keep growing so they’re very eager to learn more about it and they take our class sometimes to make that decision if they’re going to switch industries or not.

TG Branfalt: That’s really, really interesting. I had no idea that that was something that companies such as yours or really the industry was seeing. What are some of the non-cannabis professional backgrounds that you see most often represented by the people attending your courses?

James Yagielo: A lot of nurses, physical therapists, even masseuses seem to come to class and they all have the same story where they had a patient that was trying medical marijuana and they saw notable differences in this patient’s improvement as a medical professional dealing with them so they had seen first hand the effects of cannabis and now they want to come to our class and learn more and possibly switch into a better industry because as some people know, nursing is not always the best industry depending on where you’re working. On top of that, we also get a lot of security professionals. A lot of ex-vets, ex-security or police officers looking to get into the industry in the same type of field of security.

TG Branfalt: It’s becoming apparent to me that your course could also double as an entry point for basically anybody to come and learn, get a deeper understanding of the cannabis plant.

James Yagielo: Absolutely. We basically start at the very beginning of the history of cannabis and then slowly work the way up in the course. We quickly go through the growing stages and then we get right into the indica, sativa and then the cannabinoids and terpenes. Even though it’s only a four hour class, we cover all the basic points and it’s pretty fast paced ’cause we do go in detail. A lot of people have taken our course and they’ve gone on to work in other industries, not just the dispensary. We’ve had many people take our course and because they listed our course on their resume, the owner at a cultivation center sees that this person has passion and they took the initiative to take our course so they get an interview and then they realize they know what this person’s talking about from the knowledge they gained and they get hired at a cultivation center. This course definitely helps with figuring out if you want to get into the industry and then actually getting an interview to get into the industry and speaking well at that interview.

TG Branfalt: Was that by design? When you were going about developing this course, did you anticipate a byproduct of it being this entry for a lot of people?

James Yagielo: Not originally, no. We started to really experience that when we got heavy into the Illinois market as that was the first market we really entered at the beginning and saw that these people, a lot of owners were actually telling us they take shortcuts when they get resumes now and they look for people that have taken our training and they put those in one pile as the people to call for interviews. After interviewing people that took our training and didn’t took our training, they really noticed a big difference. So word got out that was a quick way to, pardon the pun, but weed out the resumes.

TG Branfalt: We get a lot of puns on this show. I like it very much. You had mentioned Illinois was the first state that you had really got in from the get go. How do you keep up with the seemingly constant regulatory changes in each individual states? And at the same time how do you prepare to enter a nascent market?

James Yagielo: We keep up, we have two people that they’re pretty much their full-time job is to just go over news stories every day and if it’s marijuana related, especially law related, they send it to our director of legal affairs. Our director of legal affairs and president then also scour over these articles and go through the government website the week before our courses, before the manual is printed so that they can make any adjustments to the manual.

TG Branfalt: You update them every single week?

James Yagielo: Every class. We only come back to an area every three to four months. We have classes all across the nation right now on pretty much a every other week basis. But every time we go to a new city we update that book so we are updating a book pretty much biweekly at this point.

TG Branfalt: I want to get at the meat of what else your firm does. This is all really, really eye-opening to me. But before we do that we gotta take a break. This is the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, I’m TG Branfalt.

If you are looking for a job in the rapidly growing and highly competitive cannabis industry, Ganjapreneur.com is the place to look. Visit the Ganjapreneur job board today to browse current openings with cannabis companies throughout the United States, from entry level budtender positions to executive level career opportunities. You can also create a profile and upload your resume to be discovered by cannabis recruiters. Visit our job board at Jobs.Ganjapreneuer.com to create your profile today.

If you are a business owner, you can post your job openings for as little as $25 on our job board to reach the largest and most engaged audience of cannabis professionals on the web. Companies who are listed in the Ganjapreneur Business Directory are eligible for free job listings. If you are already signed up, contact us today via the website or send us an email at Grow@Ganjapreneuer.com to activate your unique coupon.

TG Branfalt: Hey there, welcome back to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, I’m your host TG Branfalt here with James Yagielo, CEO of HempStaff. On your guys’ website, you say you guys specialize in finding management level employees. How do you find them in such a nascent industry? Especially you had mentioned Illinois and you got there on the ground floor, so how do you identify these management level candidates?

James Yagielo: In the cannabis industry, five years experience you’re a management level veteran at this point. There are several markets like Colorado, Maine, Washington even now Arizona, Rhode Island, Oregon that have been working at this for five years so we have recruiters in all these states that have contacts and when we get a client who’s looking for someone to relocate to one of these newer states which happens quite often when a new state comes on board, we then contact the recruiters to reach out to all the people that have these three to five years experience and see who’s interested to relocating to that state. And then we go from there and prescreen them to see if they meet the rest of the qualifications.

TG Branfalt: You had said that the experience but what else do companies typically look for in a management level employee?

James Yagielo: Experience is the big thing. You have to prove it. You have to give them who you’ve been working for, what their license number is with the state and everything. They really want people that are going to be able to speak to the DEA, speak to the regulators, hire employees, train employees and do everything ’cause a lot of these owners have never been in the cannabis industry, they just are money people. They’re looking for a manager who’s going to teach them what needs to be done to properly run a cannabis company.

TG Branfalt: I gotta ask you, how easy is it to get somebody to leave a place like Denver or California for say Massachusetts?

James Yagielo: It’s actually a little easier than you’d think. A lot of people left their home state to go out west for the green rush. You do find these people who originally are from Massachusetts or originally from Maryland and now they can go back home and do this. They’re more than willing to do that. On the other side, the east coast states have realized it’s a little harder so they’ve upped their wages. Every state they seem to up their wage a little more for these management level people. A 20, $30,000 increase starts to get people to consider to moving to another state.

TG Branfalt: So you had said at the start of this interview that you had worked in recruiting before in traditional industry. What are the wages like in the cannabis space compared to more traditional manufacturing jobs?

James Yagielo: The management levels are pretty high paying. We’ve seen master growers from 120 to $150,000 salary currently. That’s pretty high up there. Besides your master grower, your master extractors are in the six figures as well. After that it does drop off pretty dramatically. Your dispensary manager’s probably making about the same as your retail manager, between 40 and 60,000.

TG Branfalt: What do, we talked about what companies look for in management level employees. What are they looking for in say an entry level employee?

James Yagielo: A lot of it is passion and compassion. Passion for the cannabis plant and compassion for people or if you’re in a cultivation center, for learning their specific methods. A lot of cultivation centers will only hire a master grower with experience and then pretty much hire everybody else entry level so they can be trained specifically on how they want to grow. They don’t want someone coming in there thinking they know how to do it better. They really look for the person that’s eager to learn.

TG Branfalt: Are there things similar to internships or some sort of program where a master grower will take on somebody who may be an entry level employee to groom them to become a master grower themselves? Is that something that you connect people with? Does it even exist in this industry that you know of?

James Yagielo: It doesn’t really exist in an internship per se. Most states don’t allow that type of thing they have to be an employee. What generally does happen in cultivation centers is they hire a couple assistant growers and a master grower and pretty much a bunch of site workers and trimmers. After couple months they realize out of the site workers and trimmers who’s good at what and who really can move up quick and then they really promote those people quickly. We’ve seen people go from a trimmer to an assistant master grower in under two years.

TG Branfalt: The promotion process seems to happen pretty quickly.

James Yagielo: Absolutely. Yeah, in this industry it happens real quickly.

TG Branfalt: What are some of the hardest positions for you to find qualified candidates for?

James Yagielo: Right now I’d have to say master extractor. Extraction hasn’t really been around in the large scene for that many years. It’s hard to find someone with more than three years experience especially now a lot of states are realizing butane’s not really the best way to go so they’re only looking for those with experience in CO2 or resin press extracting which really limits the number of people out there.

TG Branfalt: I want to talk to you a bit more about your advice for people who might be looking to get into the industry or maybe are already here but before we do that we gotta take a break. This is the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m TG Branfalt.

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 ganjapreneuer.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 directory. Go to ganjapreneur.com/businesses to create your profile and start connecting with cannabis entrepreneurs today.

TG Branfalt: Welcome back to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m your host TG Branfalt here with James Yagielo, CEO of HempStaff. What’s some advice that you would have for job seekers? For people who aren’t yet in the industry but may be looking to get involved, the people that would essentially attend your training courses?

James Yagielo: The biggest things that we can recommend is one, get some type of training even if it’s not necessarily our training, get some type of training so you can put it on your resume. It helps in a couple different ways. One, if you don’t have any type of training or any type of experience, the odds of you getting called for a job are pretty slim. Even if you worked at McDonald’s or you’ve worked in IT for 20 years, if you don’t have any type of cannabis related item on your resume, it’s not probably going to be looked at very seriously.

On top of that, we would say, make sure to go out there and do some networking. Meet people. A lot of people don’t get jobs by finding the posting online. They find it because they went to a networking event and knows someone who knows someone who’s hiring. Get out there and get your name out there. Another thing, don’t just blindly send out resumes. You see an application for master grower, it says three to five years experience in the industry, don’t send your resume if you’ve never worked in the industry. They’re just never going to look at it and if they remember your name and you do apply for a job that you were qualified for, they might throw it out ’cause they’re like, this guy applies for everything. We do recommend only apply for jobs that you actually are qualified for.

TG Branfalt: You had mentioned networking events. Here in Vermont, we don’t actually have that many of them. The medical community’s very small, there’s only a few operators. Is that something that you’re seeing more and more in Florida and the other states that you operate?

James Yagielo: Yeah, if you look there’s a lot of events just around the country. You may have to travel a little bit for but up there you may have to go to Boston or Maine or Rhode Island to some of these networking events. In Florida around the  state there’s a couple but you also have your local normal events that they just may meet at a local restaurant or something and that’s a good place to network as well.

TG Branfalt: You had just briefly mentioned the emerging markets, in your role, finding employees and operating in so many states, where are you seeing the emerging markets right now?

James Yagielo: Right now Pennsylvania and Maryland are the two that are about to explode. Both Maryland is just basically waiting for product. They have some plants in the ground but they’re still a few months away from product and all their dispensaries are going through final inspection now. They have 109 dispensaries that are approved to open once they get the final inspection. That’s quite a large number. Pennsylvania also has already licensed and they want people up and running shortly too and they’ve approved 52 dispensaries. Both those markets should be online in early 2018 and we expect them to be hiring heavily come late this year.

TG Branfalt: Are you operating in both of those states?

James Yagielo: Yes, we do operate in both those states.

TG Branfalt: What’s your courses thus far? Have you seen a lot of interest in those two states to go along with what you anticipate to be an exploding market?

James Yagielo: Absolutely. We’ve had several classes in the Baltimore area and the Silver Spring area down by DC and Maryland. We’ve actually been conducting classes there for every six months for about two years waiting for the program to get started. They had a few delays along the way. Pennsylvania we’ve probably had three classes there with quite a good turnout already in the past year as well. People are definitely very interested and as we get closer and closer to the opening, obviously, people are getting more and more interested because the news is covering it more and more.

TG Branfalt: What advice do you have for companies trying to find employees?

James Yagielo: What we found is a lot of the owners have never used a staffing and recruiting service so they’re a little bit hesitant in contacting us. My advice is don’t be afraid to use a recruiting company. It doesn’t cost anything to use our company or any recruiting company unless you find that qualified candidate. If we send you five resumes, you find someone else on your own, you don’t owe us a dime. We’re just giving you additional resumes to look at to make sure you’re hiring the right person.

TG Branfalt: You were in the recruiting space for a while, now you’re in this space, you’re probably interacting with a lot of people with an entrepreneurial spirit, what’s your advice for other entrepreneurs looking to get into this space or that might just be starting out?

James Yagielo: A lot of people, just like we did at first, they look straight at cultivation/dispensary right away but there’s so much more to this industry than that. The pick and shovel side of ancillary businesses is really growing faster than the cultivation and dispensary because ancillary businesses aren’t restricted by cannabis state licensing. I would recommend think about, like we did, think about what you have experience in, what you like to do, what you’re good and then figure out how that can be applied to the cannabis industry. Whether it’s starting your own or maybe trying to find someone to partner with or even working for an established company already doing something you love. The industry’s young enough where there’s plenty of room for more companies to start and get into the industry especially with an idea that hasn’t been done yet. That window is closing but at this point in time, just think of what you like to do and try to apply it to the cannabis industry.

TG Branfalt: Where can people find out more about you, your service, HempStaff? Where can people find out more about that?

James Yagielo: Our website is www.hempstaff.com. All the information is there. If you click on the training tab you’ll see all the different cities we have trainings lined up for in the next few months. You can register for free on the site to be emailed if we have a job openings or training in your area or if you’re a business owner we also have a registration form where you can contact us and we can send you more information on our recruiting services. We also have a Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn page so you can also find us there under HempStaff.

TG Branfalt: I really want to congratulate you on your success, operating in a lot of states is a really impressive feat. You reached out early and are really leading this charge in this ancillary side of the cannabis industry. I really want to thank you for your time today. Really insightful conversation and I can’t wait to see what you guys do and how the industry grows.

James Yagielo: Thank you very much. We’re here to help. We want to make sure employees are assets and not liabilities to the owners.

TG Branfalt: You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur.com podcast in the podcast section of Ganjapreneur.com and in the Apple iTunes store. On the Ganjapreneur.com website you will 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. I’ve been your host TG Branfalt.

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A commercial cannabis grow in Washington state.

Canadian Government Releases Cannabis Legalization Details

11/22/2017

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The Canadian government has released proposed federal regulations, clarifying some details of the program as provincial governments begin releasing their own draft rules.

What’s in the proposal? Provisions for small, craft cannabis producers, 10 milligram limits on allowable THC content in edibles, and 30 milligram-per-milliliter of THC in oils. Single-use products, such as pre-rolls, cannot contain more than 1 gram of flower.

Edibles and concentrates would not be immediately available. The government is proposing they be permitted separately, within one year of the law’s passage.

Labelling and packaging requirements must promote “informed consumer choice,” including a health warning and THC content. Packaging cannot be appealing to youth, but the rules do not require it to be plain.

Low-risk criminal offenders could be disqualified from participating in the industry.

The proposal requires individuals employed in the industry to have security clearance issued by the health minister; allowing the minister to refuse clearance to those with past drug trafficking or violent crime convictions. Officials are seeking public comment on whether to allow those with minor drug offenses to work in the industry.

Minister of Health Pepitas Taylor indicated in a CBC report that more than 500,0000 Canadians have minor drug convictions on their criminal record.

“We’re just asking the question: should these people with a small amount of personal possession, should they be excluded from the market or should we consider them.” – Taylor

How far along is the Canadian legalization plan? New Brunswick, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, have each outlined their legal regime and Health Canada is launching a public awareness campaign on legalization. Sales are expected July, 1.

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A shadowy figure walks across a lit-up floor during nighttime.

Aurora Posturing for Hostile CanniMed Takeover After Initial Bid Rejected

11/22/2017

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CanniMed has rejected Aurora Cannabis’ unsolicited takeover offer; however, Aurora is now planning a hostile takeover by offering investors Aurora stock worth C$24 per CanniMed share, according to a Bloomberg report. The deal is valuing CanniMed stock 57 percent higher than its Nov. 14 closing price, and investors holding 38 percent of CanniMed shares have agreed to support the deal.

CanniMed recently announced they have agreed to acquire licensed producer Newstrike Resources for C$248 million, but Aurora contends that the terms of that deal, in particular the C$9.5 million termination fee if CanniMed moves on another deal, is “oppressive” to CanniMed shareholders.

The merger would create a firm with more than 40,000 registered patients and a capacity to produce more than 286,600 pounds of cannabis annually, Aurora said in the report. In a previous interview with Bloomberg, Aurora Executive Vice President Cam Battley said the company is seeking to expand into Europe and called the potential takeover a “game-changer” in Canada and the international markets.

Following the initial bid by Aurora last week, CanniMed advised their shareholders to take “no action until such time as the Board has had the opportunity to fully consider and make a recommendation.”

A CanniMed spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company had no immediate comment on Aurora’s latest takeover attempt.

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Consultant Linked to Tribe’s Cannabis Resort Has Drug Case Dismissed

11/22/2017

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Jonathan Hunt, one of the cannabis consultants prosecuted in South Dakota for their role in the Flandreau Santee Sioux tribe’s cannabis resort plan, will have his drug cases dismissed, the Associated Press reports. Hunt, former vice-president and cultivation expert for Colorado-based Monarch America, was charged with conspiracy to possess between a half-pound and pound of cannabis.

A South Dakota judge agreed to suspend imposition of Hunt’s sentence, dismiss the case, and seal the record after he paid a $500 fine and $100 in court fees. Hunt had pleaded guilty to the charges.

“I feel free,” Hunt said in the report. “I think the whole thing never should have happened.”

The charges stem from Hunt and his former partner Eric Hagen’s roles in providing cultivation consulting services for the tribe, who planned an “adult playground” resort north of Sioux Falls. According to the AP, Hagen fought the charges and was ultimately acquitted by a jury.

The Santee Sioux ultimately abandoned the plan due to fears of federal interference and burned their cannabis crops. The tribe had estimated the resort, which was planned for a 2015 opening, would have earned $2 million per month.

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A licensed, indoor cannabis grow operation in Washington state.

Illinois State Senator to Introduce Bill Allowing Opioid Patients Access to MMJ Program

11/22/2017

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Illinois State Senator Don Harmon is set to introduce a bill to allow people prescribed opioids for a medical condition to apply for a temporary medical cannabis card instead in an effort to help curb the state’s opioid epidemic.

In a press release, Harmon, a Democrat, pointed to research that shows “medical cannabis is a safe alternative treatment for the same conditions for which opioids are prescribed.”

“Clearly what we’re doing now is not working,” Harmon said in a statement. “This is a problem that touches citizens in every corner of our state. Medical cannabis is the most readily available alternative, but we should consider any other option that reduces the carnage inflicted by the opioid epidemic.”

In Illinois, the opioid-related death rate has increased 120 percent from 2014 to 2015, and nationally opioid-related drug overdoses topped 60,000 in 2016 – higher than the total number of U.S. soldier fatalities during the Vietnam War, according to Center for Disease Control and Prevention figures.

Harmon plans to introduce the legislation during the second week of the state’s veto session. Illinois legalized cannabis for medical use in 2013.

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Digital collage of the Detroit city skyline and an indoor cannabis grow.

Michigan Cannabis Legalization Campaign Submits Ballot Initiative Signatures

11/21/2017

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Michigan’s Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol submitted more than 365,000 signatures to state officials on Monday – 100,000 more than the 252,523 valid signatures required to put a ballot initiative to voters, paving the way for the issue to make its way to voters in 2018.

Looking at the initiative

The measure would implement a taxed-and-regulated recreational cannabis industry in the state, allowing adults 21-and-older to possess 2.5 ounces of flower and 15 grams of concentrates in public, 10 ounces of purchased cannabis in a residence; and permitting home cultivation of up to 12 plants for personal use. The initiative language provides for three tiers of commercial cultivation licenses – a class A license capped at 100 plants, a class B license capped at 500 plants, and a class C license capped at 2,000 plants.

Josh Hovey, spokesman for the coalition – which includes MI Legalize, the Marijuana Policy Project, the National Cannabis Industry Association, the National Patients Rights Association, Michigan NORML, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan – explained that the language of the measure is a combination of best practices from legal states and would not affect Michigan’s medical cannabis regime. The proposal does not include social-use provisions for “political reasons,” and does not provide for expungement of previous cannabis-related convictions legal under the new regime because including such reforms could be construed as amending two laws which would rule the entire proposal unconstitutional, Hovey said.

“Rather than risking our entire initiative being ruled unconstitutional, we decided to stick with straight legalization,” he said in an interview with Ganjapreneur. “Hopefully down the road either the legislature itself or maybe through a follow-up ballot initiative in a year or two we can include expungement – that is something we very much hope to do.”

Commercially grown cannabis plants inside of a licensed production facility in Washington. Photo Credit: Sarah Climaco

In a statement, Kary L. Moss, executive director of the ACLU Michigan, called jailing people for simple cannabis possession “unconscionable.”

“When our community members are arrested for possessing even tiny amounts of marijuana, they can be disqualified from public housing and student financial aid, lose or find it more difficult to obtain employment, lose custody of their child, and be deported,” she said. “There is nothing practical or fair about the continued aggressive policing of marijuana.”

More determined than ever

This is the second ballot attempt to legalize cannabis in the state; the 2016 campaign by MI Legalize stalled after the legislature added a stipulation to the process requiring signatures be collected in 180 days. The rules, passed right before advocates were ready to turn in their signatures, were later codified by Michigan courts. In an interview with Ganjapreneur earlier this year, MI Legalize Chairman Jeffrey Hank, who spearheaded the 2016 campaign, recounted that organizers “didn’t get anywhere” in their appeals.

This time around, Hovey said, the campaign operated under strict adherence to the new signature-collecting rules to ensure they wouldn’t hit any snags from state officials.

“[MI Legalize] was sort of outdone by some political maneuvers,” Hovey said. “I’m 98 percent confident we’ll make the ballot.” He indicated that the coalition expects the signature validation process by the Elections Bureau to take “several weeks” due to the holiday season, but he’s hopeful the initiative will be added to the Board of Canvassers’ January meeting agenda where the issue would receive official certification.

A cannabis grower inspects their crop under the purple glow of LED grow lights. Photo Credit: Sarah Climaco

In the meantime, organizers need to raise funds for the public education campaign. Hovey indicated they are setting an $8 million goal for “all the things that [they] need to do to reach voters and educate them on the issue” – including TV, direct mail, and digital advertising to “counter any of the misinformation” of the prohibitionist organizations pushing for a ‘no’ vote.

Early support is strong

According to a February poll by Educational, Political, Industrial, Consumer Market Research Analysis (EPIC-MRA), 57 percent of Michiganders supported legalizing cannabis for adult-use. Hovey said this polling is important because “anytime you are doing a ballot initiative you need to be around that 60 percent level.”

“As misinformation gets out there, public support tends to decrease as you get closer to Election Day. You need to have that 10 percent cushion,” he explained. “But we’re right exactly where we want to be in terms of public support.”

Earlier this month, voters in Detroit approved two ballot measures to relax restrictions on medical cannabis facilities, making it easier for them to operate in the city by eliminating the requirements for public hearings before a dispensary can open and the Board of Zoning Appeals’ ability to review dispensary applications. The measure, which was opposed by Mayor Mike Duggan, also allows dispensaries to open within 500 feet of one another and religious institutions.

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U.S. Hemp Production More than Doubled in 2017

11/21/2017

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Acreage of hemp crops in the U.S. more than doubled from 9,770 acres in 2016 to 23,346 in 2017, according to advocacy group Vote Hemp’s 2017 U.S. Hemp Crop Report. The report indicates that 32 universities conducted hemp research this year, and that 1,456 state hemp licenses were issued to researchers and cultivators.

The largest gains were made in North Dakota, which planted just 70 acres of hemp in 2016 and 3,020 in 2017. Four states – Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington – planted zero hemp crops last year, but this year grew 542 acres, 965 acres, 36 acres, and 175 acres, respectively. Two states cultivated less than 10 acres this year, as Indiana grew just five and Nebraska just one – its same output from 2016. Just one state, Tennessee, saw a decrease in hemp production, from 225 last year to 200 this year.

Colorado led all states in hemp production this year with 9,000 acres; followed by Kentucky with 3,100 acres, Oregon with 3,469 acres, North Dakota, and New York with 2,000 acres.

“The majority of states have implemented hemp farming laws, in clear support of this crop and its role in diversifying and making more sustainable our agricultural economy,” said Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, in a statement. “It’s imperative that we pass the Industrial Hemp Farming Act in Congress, so that we can grant farmers full federally legal rights to commercially cultivate hemp to supply the growing global market for hemp products.”

Thirty-three states have removed barriers to hemp production and defined industrial hemp as a distinct crop. The states cap THC levels in hemp at 0.3 percent – falling in line with federal guidelines defined under Section 7606 of the 2014 Farm Bill.

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Canada's flag with a cannabis leaf shape instead of the usual maple leaf.

Report: 87% of Canadian Cannabis Firms Anticipate Industry Consolidation in 3 Years

11/21/2017

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According to a report by EY consulting released on Monday, 87 percent of Canada’s licensed cannabis producers believe the industry will consolidate over the next three years; yet 75 percent see “craft or niche players” gaining a foothold in the market. Another 75 percent anticipate the entrance of “big players from established industries” such as tobacco, pharmaceuticals, and alcohol; while another 75 percent say a legal industry will not completely wipe out the illicit cannabis market.

The survey found that 50 percent of Canada’s cannabis producers plan to invest “most heavily” in medical cannabis clinical trials. Another 37 percent indicated most of their investments would be aimed at increasing grow capacity or yield, and the same percentage said their investments would be in information technology, including automation and e-commerce. Just 25 percent said most of their investment would be in processing or extracting technology, or human capital.

Among the respondents, 75 percent indicated vertical integration was the focus of their growth strategy, while 37 percent said their focus was on large-scale production. Twenty-five percent each said their growth strategy focuses on customer service, patents, or quality.

Seventy-five percent of respondents said that customers would demand varied derivative products as legalization takes hold, while 62 percent believe customers would be more concerned about increasing accessibility, while half said customers would demand medical and safety education. Another 37 percent each said customers would demand organic or non-pesticide products, while the same number anticipated customers will become attached to brands in the coming years.

Canada’s legalized regime is expected to roll out in July.

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New Brunswick, Canada Government Strikes Deal with 3rd Cannabis Producer

11/21/2017

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The government of New Brunswick, Canada has signed a memorandum of understanding with licensed producer Zenabis to provide 4,000 kilograms (8,818.5 pounds) of cannabis and derivative products with a retail value between C$40 to $50 million.

The announcement comes on the heels of the government unveiling their legal cannabis industry operations proposal that would see a subsidiary of NB Liquor run the industry. The government plans to open 20 retail shops in 16 communities along with online sales.

This is the third deal struck by officials and cannabis cultivators, as they have reached previous agreements with Organigram and Canopy Growth Corp. The agreements make the province the first in the nation to secure supply for consumers as the country migrates from federal medical to adult cannabis use.

“We are committed to ensuring the legalization of cannabis is introduced in a safe and secure way so we can get cannabis out of the hands of our youth and the proceeds from selling cannabis out of the hands of criminals,” said Premier Brian Gallant in a press release.

Zenabis CEO Kevin Coft said the agreement – more than six months before the legal regime is expected to come online – will allow the company to make “the necessary investments in machinery and equipment” to meet the processing demands. According to a Vancouver Sun report, the contract will eventually create 450 new jobs at Zenabis’ Atholville, NB plant.

“Most importantly, this announcement will help provide stable jobs and employment in this region,” he said in a statement. “The Government of New Brunswick should be commended for its forward thinking with regards to the cannabis industry.”

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Two medical cannabis plants inside of a California patient's grow room.

Online Cannabis Platform LeafLink Raises $10M in VC funding

11/21/2017

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Online cannabis commerce platform LeafLink has raised $10 million from venture capital firms to expand its reach into California, according to a Business Insider report. The company already operates in six states – including California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Ryan Smith – the first cannabis entrepreneur to make the Forbes 30 under 30 list – told Business Insider that the company works with 400 brands and 1,700 retailers and has handled $186 million in transactions and $16 million in gross merchandise value since 2016.Smith predicts the company’s order volume will increase to $500 million as the market matures and more states legalize cannabis for both medicinal and recreational use. The company boasts 90 percent market penetration in Colorado and Washington – the nation’s most mature markets.

“This is a unique opportunity to define an industry that is scaling rapidly,” Smith said in the report.

In April, LeafLink raised $3 million in seed round funding and another $4.1 million in an August seed round. Lerer Hippeau, which counts former National Football League quarterback Joe Montana among its investors and has previously invested in Buzzfeed, has invested in all three rounds. The most recent round was led by London, England-based Nosara Capital, and included Snoop Dogg-connected Casa Verde.

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Montana MMJ Draft Rules Released

11/20/2017

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The Montana Department of Health and Human Services has proposed draft rules for the medical cannabis program under the expanded regime approved by voters last year. The rules put the state program in line with others throughout the U.S., requiring product testing, and seed-to-sale tracking.

Under the plan, providers with more than 10 registered patients would need to pay the state $5,000 per year in licensing fees, while smaller providers would pay $1,000. Testing labs would pay $2,000 per year. Currently, there are four testing labs in the state operating under temporary licenses.

The new rules also require cannabis industry employees to obtain a permit prior to working, but individuals convicted of a prior drug offense will not be eligible. The permit runs $50.

The proposed measure also increases the fee paid by patients from $5 to $30.

According to October figures from the health department, there were 21,120 patients registered with the state, along with 610 providers. The patient enrollment represents a 1,305 patient increase over September figures, while the provider counts remained the same.

The Department of Health and Human Services will hold a public hearing on the rules proposal on Nov. 30.

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Australian MMJ and Hemp Firm Expands into China

11/20/2017

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Australia’s Creso Pharma is expanding its reach into China, announcing the company has established a strategic partnership and commercial distribution agreement with hemp-producer Zhejiang Kingdom Create So., Ltd. Kingdom Creative will import hemp and cannabis-derived animal and human health products and invest in the marketing and distribution of the products.

Dr. Miri Halperin Wernli, Creso Pharma CEO, said the partnership not only gives the company a foothold in China, but opens the door to the Asian market.

“Our collaboration with Kingdom Creative offers a great opportunity to work with a well-established and substantial organization in this market,” she said in a press release. “At the same time, the opening up of four offices in major Chinese cities strongly augments this agreement and gives the partnership additional sales and marketing support and our own local distribution network. We will use this presence to expand into other strategic Asian markets.”

The offices will be opened in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.

According to the release, the Chinese health food market – which includes herbal extracts, traditional Chinese medicines, vitamins, dietary supplements, and minerals – is valued at $30 billion and projected to grow 10 percent annually through 2025. The government is slowly, but progressively, allowing cannabis-based medicine for patients.

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Massachusetts Community College Offering Non-Credit Cannabis Industry Training Program

11/20/2017

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Gardner, Massachusetts’ Mount Wachusett Community College is partnering with Online Cannabis Education on a not-for-credit Cannabis Career Training Program, according to a Sentinel & Enterprise report. The course will cover cannabis cultivation, cooking, budtending, and other legal and business aspects of the industry.

Rachel Frick Cardelle, interim vice president of Life Long Learning at the college, indicated that after voters approved the legalization ballot initiative President James Vander Hooven wanted to evaluate offering a course like they would any “program that came to use for workforce development.”

“Is there a need? Does the industry want to see it? (Are) people who come out of the training … going to be better capable at taking the jobs?” she said in the report, adding that she believes the CTU program will provide the right workforce training.

“If people are going to work in any industry I would want them to be educated in any industry they’re working in,” she told the Sentinel & Enterprise. “This is a way for them to do that.”

The program costs $299 for year-long access to online modules, quizzes, and certification exams. The certification programs are not a requirement but according to CTU CEO Jeff Zorn, the certification “sets students apart from other applicants.”

This is the first partnership with CTU and an institute of higher learning, but Zorn said he anticipates other colleges and universities will soon offer the course.

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Celebrating the 4th Annual Croptoberfest with Washington’s Cannabis Business Community

11/20/2017

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Cannabis workers, professionals, enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs came together earlier this month in Zillah, Washington for the 4th Annual Croptoberfest, an educational and engaging B2B networking event for the cannabis space.

This year’s Croptoberfest focused on the leading issues that face the cannabis industry, namely: the proliferation of pesticides and issues related to their use, the standardization of lab testing, continuing cannabis advocacy, and the push for cannabis to be treated as an agricultural crop. On Saturday, Nov. 4, guest speakers and panel discussions were lined up all morning and through the afternoon at Perham Hall in Zillah, Washington.

A special presentation by keynote speaker Dr. Dominic Corva — the founder, co-executive, and political science research director for the Center for Study of Cannabis and Social Policy — steered the theme of Croptoberfest 2017 toward activism, fighting for the mainstream acceptance of cannabis as a culture and not just as a commodity, and a recognition that “legalization does not end the war on drugs.”

Dr. Dominic Corva gives the keynote address for Croptoberfest 2017.

This sentiment was echoed throughout the day as well: guest speaker Michael “Wolf” Segal spoke from his position as a long-time, local cannabis farmer about how to preserve small businesses in the cannabis space as the industry picks up speed and begins shifting toward the world of “big business;” Farmer Tom Lauerman of Farmer Tom Organics spoke about embracing the cultural normalization of cannabis as a staple in his life, home, and garden; panelists encouraged attendees to become more active in their local business and agricultural communities, to meet and greet with their neighbors as proud farmers; and the audience eagerly engaged the various panels with questions about how best to get involved, enact change, and navigate the cannabis space.

Panels covered the formation of a Washington Cannabis Commission, the ins and outs and of pesticide usage in Washington’s cannabis industry, organic growing standards for the cannabis plant, the standardization of testing lab standards, and more. The panels featured impressive lineups of industry leaders, experts, and government representatives, including Lara Kaminsky of The Cannabis Alliance, Dr. Jade Stephano and Jeff Church of Puffin Farm, Erik Johanson and Brenda Book of the Washington State Agriculture Department, Jim McRae of Straightline Analytics, Nick Mosely of Confidence Analytics, and many others.

“The vision of Croptoberfest is to host an agrarian festival similar to the hop and wine events that are such a distinct part of our culture,” said event organizer Jedidiah Haney. “Each year, my goal is to organize a popular educational event so that we can talk about the myriad of beneficial climates that Washington State has to offer cannabis cultivation. We gather together industry thought leaders and influencers to discuss current practice and future theory of cannabis agriculture.”

Croptoberfest organizer Jedidiah Haney addresses attendees and introduces the Organic Growing Practices panel.

“At our inaugural event back in 2014, we compared the crop potential of cannabis to hops and we made the statement that we are primed to be a future export state,” said Haney. “We intend to keep beating that drum every year in an area that already is known for its top-value agricultural commodity production.”

If you couldn’t make it to this year’s Croptoberfest, fear not: the 5th Annual Croptoberfest will return to the region on September 22, 2018.

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Huge cannabis colas listing to the right inside of a commercial-grade cannabis grow site.

California Releases Emergency Regulations; Sales Set for Jan. 1.

11/17/2017

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Retail cannabis sales will begin on-time in California after regulators released an emergency rules package allowing operators a six-month transition period, and providing for grows much larger than the 1 acre proposed by the Department of Food & Agriculture. The rules prohibit combined cannabis and alcohol sales at shops, the word “candy” from being used in branding, and drones and bicycles from being used in customer deliveries.

Adults 21-and-older will be allowed to buy 28.5 grams of flower, eight grams of concentrate, and six immature plants per visit, while medical patients will be allowed eight ounces of flower or as much as recommended by their physician. Edibles can only contain 100 milligrams of THC per 10-serving package; while tinctures and lotions for the recreational market can contain up to 1,000 milligrams and medical tinctures and lotions can contain up to 2,000.

Priority licensing will be available to businesses that can prove they were in good standing with their municipality by Sept. 1, 2016, and the rules require businesses with more than 20 employees enter into labor peace agreements. The enhanced testing rules, which expand the scope of what laboratories are required to consider, take effect on Jan. 1.

Under the rules, canna-businesses must be 600 feet from a K-12 school, youth center, or daycare center, and window displays are not allowed if they contain cannabis imagery.

The rules were developed by the Department of Health, Department of Food & Agriculture and the Bureau of Cannabis Control.

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Advocates Weigh in on Role Cannabis Policy Played in New Jersey & Virginia Governor Races

11/17/2017

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The Midterm elections saw two pro-cannabis politicians elevated to the governor’s seats as New Jersey chose Democrat Phil Murphy over Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, and Virginia voters tabbed Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat physician, over Republican Ed Gillespie in Virginia. While both governors-elect support cannabis law reforms, on the campaign trail, Murphy indicated he wanted to sign a tax-and-regulate measure within his first 100 days on the job.

New Jersey

During his reign, anti-cannabis zealot Gov. Chris Christie – who remains head-of-state until Jan. 16 – dismissed the state’s medical cannabis program, which signed into law by then-outgoing governor Jon Corzine, as a “front for legalization.” He referred to adult-use programs as “beyond stupidity,” despite a majority of his constituents’, 59 percent, indicating in a September Quinnipiac University poll that they support legalization.

By comparison then, Murphy, a U.S. Ambassador to Germany under the Obama Administration and former Goldman Sachs Asia president, is a welcome reprieve for medical cannabis patients and industry operators after eight years of executive obstructionism (although, to his credit, Christie did sign a legislative-approved bill last year adding post-traumatic stress disorder to the state’s qualifying conditions list).

“We’re very happy that we now have a governor who supports marijuana reform,” said Ken Wolski, chief executive officer for the Coalition for Medical Marijuana – New Jersey, in an interview with Ganjapreneur. CMMJ endorsed broad legalization in 2014 after 11 years of having no position on the issue because of “how poorly” the medical cannabis system was functioning and “in recognition of the social harms” that come with prohibition, he said.

Wolski explained that the organization believes that Murphy is supporting legalization for “the right reasons … the social justice reasons,” rather than an avenue to fill state coffers, adding that adult-use legalization will allow cannabis to act more as an “over-the-counter medication” and people who need or want to use it therapeutically will have access without needing state-issued program identification cards or doctor approval.

While the advocacy group plans to support the legalization proposal by state Sen. Nicholas Scutari, Wolski admitted that there are changes he would like to see to the measure, including home-grow and social-use provisions.

“Even if [home-grow] doesn’t make its way into the recreational bill we hope that at least the medical bill will be amended to allow patients to grow their own medicines,” he said. “The other concern, right now, is that it doesn’t allow for [public use] and that would still be apparently against the law. This is a concern because, basically, it penalizes people for being poor – if you’re homeless you don’t have a place to use your marijuana; if you live in subsidized housing, you can be thrown out for using marijuana. If you have your own house, you’re ok, if you’re challenged financially this ‘no-smoking in public’ could really hurt you.”

Photo credit: Sarah Climaco

Justin Strekal, political director for NORML, said the organization is “pretty excited” that Christie is on his way out and, once Murphy takes the helm, legalization in New Jersey is “not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when.’” Strekal also said that advocates in the state are already working on potentially fixing some of the issues in Scutari’s bill, which they identify as not only the home-growing issue but also language that allows law enforcement to enter private residences and “the ability of the state to ramp up sin taxes.”

Legalization in 100 days, however, “depends on the legislature,” Strekal said, noting that the legislation is already written.

“It’s just a matter of them having the political will to actually follow through on their campaign promises,” he said in a phone interview, “and given the strong support of Senate President [Stephen] Sweeney and the very strong support of Governor-Elect Murphy we think it’s very possible.”

Kate Bell, legislative counsel for MPP, opined that the role cannabis played in the race was “the most prominent” the organization has seen.

“I think it’s part of a larger trend of people who have been advocates or are in the industry running for office,” she said in an interview, pointing to Democratic Sen. Jared Polis’ bid for the governor’s seat in Colorado, and Denver Relief Consulting Founding Partner Kayvan Khalatbari’s campaign for mayor of Denver. “It’s exciting to see [cannabis] as a campaign issue at this level.

Virginia

In Virginia, broad legalization is not at stake – but decriminalization and perhaps a broadening of the state’s limited medical cannabis program are – and Governor-Elect Ralph Northam is the state’s best chance at reforms if he can get the legislature on board.

In an August letter to the Virginia State Crime Commission, who was studying decriminalization simple cannabis possession, Northam called prohibition “costly and disproportionately harmful to communities of color,” adding that the state spends $67 million annually on cannabis enforcement, which he pointed out would create 13,000 pre-k openings. In a February interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, he said, “as a doctor,” he was “open-minded” about cannabis therapies, noting that “over 100” of contemporary medicines are derived from plants. Northam, who had worked as a pediatric neurologist at the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters until he began campaigning, said he “often” came across patients who used cannabis.

Photo credit: Sarah Climaco

Jenn Michelle Pedini, executive director for Virginia NORML, said that Northam’s cannabis positions are “legitimate,” and he’s been “serious” about reforms since his time as lieutenant-governor.

“You could see from his campaign that he [made those positions known] straight away,” she pointed out. “He made not only doctor-recommended medical cannabis access a mainstay of his stumping points, but also decriminalization – and that was certainly new, not only for Virginia lawmakers but Virginia Democrats as well.” Pedini explained that, in Virginia, voters typically only heard about cannabis reforms from third-party candidates.

Nevertheless, Pedini warned that it’s ultimately a legislative decision to make these changes and that both chambers are Republican-controlled – at least for now as one power-grabbing seat is still in limbo, which could flip the House of Delegates from red to blue.

Strekal indicated that the most important player in determining broad decriminalization is the Republican Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment who plans on introducing a bill next year to decriminalize possession for first-time offenders. In an interview with WAVY’s “10 On Your Side,” Norment called it “crazy” to jail people for possessing “modest amounts” of cannabis.

“I think the issue can adequately be addressed with civil penalties rather than criminal ones. For example, if you are caught with a modest amount of marijuana, you could be ordered into drug rehabilitation, restricting a driver’s license,” he said. “If you are caught again in a certain period of time, then maybe it could be a criminal matter.”

This license issue is one that has come up before, when in March Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed legislation to end the practice of suspending driver’s licenses of individuals convicted of possession, and reimposing such penalties would be a step back with reforms potentially on the horizon.

As the Great American Cannabis Experiment enters its twenty-second year, cannabis policy is beginning to shape the political landscape – as it rightfully should. A Gallup poll last month found 64 percent support for cannabis legalization, including for the first time ever a majority of Republicans. In an American Legion poll, 83 percent of respondents supported adult-use. And polls throughout the year in Utah, Rhode Island, and Iowa show voters support reforms – be they for medical or recreational cannabis use. The issue is coming of age and could play a role – as it appears to have in New Jersey and Virginia – in the outcome of any given race, even the next presidential race in 2020.

Correction: A previous version of this article indicated Virginia’s licence suspension reform bill had not been codified; the article has been updated to reflect a court ruling which allowed the statute to take effect. 

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Michigan Legalization Campaign Says They Have Enough Signatures for 2018 Initiative

11/17/2017

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Leaders of the Committee to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Michigan say the campaign has collected at least 100,000 more signatures than required to put adult cannabis use on the 2018 ballot, according to a WXYZ report. The group needed 252,523 signatures to get the issue to voters.

“The people have been far ahead of the politicians when it comes to marijuana reform,” said Josh Hovey, spokesperson of CRMLA, in the report.

The group said they will hold a press conference on Nov. 20 before turning in the signatures to the Secretary of State’s office. The advocates are still seeking to raise $30,000 to submit the signatures and pay a signature collection vendor.

National Cannabis Industry Association Executive Director Aaron Smith said that the signature collection phase of the campaign will end on Monday when the group officially submits the signatures.

The effort marks the latest win for cannabis policy reforms in Michigan. During last week’s elections, voters in Detroit approved two measures to relax restrictions on medical cannabis facilities. One measure eliminates the Board of Zoning Appeals’ ability to review dispensary applications and allow them to open within 500 feet on one another and religious institutions. The measures also extend the hours of operations one hour, and eliminate requirements for publish hearings and comments before a dispensary can open.

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Kentucky’s Secretary of State Convenes Medical Cannabis Task Force

11/17/2017

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Kentucky’s Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes has formed a task force to study a legislative proposal to legalize medical cannabis and to look at the implementation and regulatory processes involved.

“Too many Kentuckians are suffering from debilitating physical and mental illnesses. Most have lived with the effects of these illnesses for years. We must do more to relieve their pain and suffering, and there is significant evidence that cannabis is beneficial for these individuals, especially veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress,” Grimes, once a Democratic candidate for Senate, said in a statement. “2018 is and must be the year when Kentucky finally steps up on medical marijuana. We have to get this done to help Kentuckians who are hurting.”

Convening next week in Frankfort, the task force will be a diverse group of representatives from Kentucky’s health care community, law enforcement, state agencies with regulatory oversight, medical cannabis advocates, and veterans.

“Kentucky is getting left behind on this issue. Already 29 states and the District of Columbia have enacted medical marijuana legislation to help their people,” said Grimes’ co-chair, Representative John Sims, who is authoring legislation for the 2018 session.

Hemp has long been a cash crop in Kentucky, but the Blue Grass State has been unable to pass medical cannabis. Bills were introduced in 2015, 2016, and 2017 but, similar to other southern states, Kentucky could only pass a high CBD oil bill in 2014.

Efforts are underway to pass adult-use cannabis in Kentucky, as well. Echoing Grime’s sense of urgency, John Sims said,”The research is done. The studies have been conducted. It works, and it’s time we end our idling and start having conversations to bring medical marijuana to the Commonwealth. Working together, I’m confident we make this happen in a meaningful and bipartisan manner to bring relief to ailing Kentuckians.”  

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Alberta, Canada Proposes Provincial Cannabis Industry Rules

11/17/2017

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Alberta’s provincial government has released proposed regulations for retail cannabis operations as Canada moves forward with their tax-and-regulate plan, which sets the legal age at 18 and permits private retailers to open up retail and online stores. The Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission will oversee distribution, compliance, and enforcement.

Notably, the rules allow citizens to grow up to four cannabis plants and possess up to 30 grams in public. The regulations contain language to eventually allow cannabis “cafes and lounges,” but they will not be permitted when sales are expected to go online July 1. Cannabis sales would not be permitted in “co-location” with alcohol or tobacco.

“Discussions are continuing with the federal government regarding the details of a coordinated approach to the taxation of cannabis,” the framework proposal states. “Taxes must be kept low enough so that prices for legal cannabis are competitive with the illicit market.”

Kathleen Ganley, minister of Justice and solicitor general, called the proposal “the culmination of extensive engagement and research on legalized cannabis.”

“It puts our province in a position to not only meet the federal deadline of July 2018, but does so in a way that is responsible and promotes public health and safety for all Albertans,” she said in a statement.

Quebec and New Brunswick have also unveiled their provincial legalization proposals, while Manitoba lawmakers are preparing legislation focusing on public safety.

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A pile of pharmaceutical medications sprawled onto a flat, white surface.

University of New Mexico Study Finds MMJ Program Enrollees Decrease Opioid Use

11/17/2017

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A University of New Mexico study is the latest to suggest that cannabis could be a tool in the opioid epidemic. The study, which observed 37 habitual, opioid-using, chronic pain patients who chose to enroll in the state’s medical cannabis program, and 29 patients with similar conditions who chose not to enroll in the program, found a 47 percent reduction in daily opioid dosage in the patients who also used cannabis.

The medical cannabis program enrollment was also associated with 17 times higher age-and-gender-adjusted odds of stopping opioid prescriptions and five times higher odds of reducing daily opioid dosages. The patients who were not enrolled in the medical cannabis program actually had a 10 percent increase in self-reported daily opioid dosages over the 21-month observation period.

Jacob Virgil, UNM associate professor of psychology and one of the study authors, said that the study’s results “highlight the necessity of more extensive research into the possible uses of cannabis as a substitute for opioid painkillers, especially in the form of placebo-based, randomized controlled trials and larger sample observational studies.”

“If cannabis can serve as an alternative to prescription opioids for at least some patients, legislators and the medical community may want to consider medical cannabis programs as a potential tool for combating the current opioid epidemic,” he said in a press release.

Survey respondents enrolled in the medical cannabis program reported improvements in pain reduction, quality of life and social life, activity levels, and concentration one year after enrolling in the program.

The study “Associations between Medical Cannabis and Prescription Opioid Use in Chronic Pain Patients: A Preliminary Cohort Study,” was published in PLOS ONE.

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Indoor cannabis plants inside of a cultivation site licensed under Washington state's I-502 adult-use cannabis marketplace.

Quebec Joins Provinces Asking for 1-Year Delay on Adult-Use Legalization

11/16/2017

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Approved by the federal government in April 2017, Canada is set to legalize the adult use and possession of cannabis nationwide on July 1, 2018.

However, earlier this year, premiers from several provinces called for a delay in implementing the historic change due to health and traffic safety concerns — and to avoid inconsistencies in the law across Canada.

Now, some in Quebec — whose premier had previously agreed with the July 2018 rollout — have called for a one year delay in the switch-over to recreational cannabis.

Quebec is set to unveil their long waited cannabis regulations Thursday, November 16th. Here are some details of the province’s regulatory plan: the consumption age will be 19, the Government will handle the sale and distribution of cannabis, and there will be no home grows allowed.

Even before the bill is introduced, Quebec’s main opposition party, Coalition Avenir, with support from the Liberals have introduced a motion to delay the roll-out by one year.

On Tuesday, Quebec’s Minister for Rehabilitation, Youth Protection, Public Health and Healthy Living Lucie Charlebois expressed previous concerns that the central government was forcing the provinces to move too fast and that the essential question of who would be paying for adult-use cannabis implementation still had not been answered.

Earlier this year, speaking of the impending roll-out, Charlebois told the CBC that, “We have to prepare ourselves to better face the issues that we consider to be priorities, notably those concerning health and security for all.”

Charlebois said there is little likelihood the delay will be granted, but that an extra year might be helpful. Quebec citizens share her concerns with Polls showing they are more skeptical of recreational cannabis than others in Canada. Their main concern is more accidents on the road.

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