Oregon Recalls Two Plant Cleaner Products Popular Among Cannabis Growers

According to an advisory issued June 16 by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, two popular plant cleaner products — Green Planet Nutrients Mega Wash and NPK Industries Mighty Wash — are being recalled following the discovery of an active pesticide ingredient that is not disclosed on their labels.

The state issued the following warning on Thursday:

The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) has reason to believe the products Mighty Wash and Ultimate Wash, manufactured by NPK Industries, contain a pesticide active ingredient not listed on the label. ODA has tested both products and found it to contain the active ingredient pyrethrins. Use of Mighty Wash and Ultimate Wash could cause cannabis to fail Oregon Health Authority (OHA) pesticide testing requirements. Growers of all crops and retailers are advised to discontinue using or selling Mighty Wash and Ultimate Wash until further notice.

The Oregon Health Authority informed growers that although pyrethins pose low risk to humans unless exposed to very high concentrations, high levels of inhalation of the substance have caused respiratory irritation symptoms similar to asthma.

The Mega Wash formula is manufactured by Freq Water, Inc. of Central Point, OR for a Canadian company called H.I.T. Manufacturing, based out of Surrey, British Columbia. The Mighty Wash formula is manufactured by NPK Industries, located in Medford, OR.

End


The Marijuana Policy Project Endorses Libertarian Gary Johnson for President

The Marijuana Policy Project has formally endorsed the Libertarian Party candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson in his bid for the White House. Johnson served two terms as governor from 1995 to 2003 as a member of the Republican Party.

In a statement announcing their endorsement, MPP Executive Director Rob Kampia said Johnson “clearly has the best position on marijuana policy” out of the three candidates that will appear on the ballots in all 50 states, noting that the organization fights for “a single-issue” – regulating marijuana like alcohol.

“Legalization has been Johnson’s number-one issue for 17 years,” Kampia said in the statement. “MPP’s endorsement of Johnson was an easy call; the more difficult question is whether MPP should support a candidate who’s good on medical marijuana but bad on legalization, when the candidate is facing an opponent who’s bad on everything.”

Johnson received an “A-plus” grade in the group’s presidential candidate report card. Democrat Hillary Clinton, the party’s presumptive nominee received a “B,” while the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, was given a “C-plus.”

In January, Johnson stepped down from his role as CEO of Cannabis Sativa, a legal cannabis company, in order to focus on his campaign. In a recent interview with USA Today, Johnson indicated that he hasn’t used marijuana for “about seven weeks” and said he would abstain if he were elected.

The Libertarian Party elected former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld as Johnson’s running mate.

End


Microsoft Partners With Cannabis Tracking Software Company KIND Financial

Microsoft is the first major company to dabble in the flourishing cannabis industry following a partnership deal announced today with the Los Angeles-based seed-to-sale tracking software company KIND Financial, the New York Times reports.

Microsoft will be working with KIND’s “government solutions” division, which focuses on software for state and local governments in their pursuit of regulatory compliance. KIND’s Agrisoft Seed to Sale for Government software will be offered through Microsoft’s Azure Government, “the only cloud platform designed to meet government standards for the closely regulated cannabis compliance programs,” said Kimberly Nelson, Microsoft’s Executive Director of State and Local Government Solutions.

The tech giant’s willingness to cooperate with a company focused solely on legal cannabis could indicate that legitimate infrastructure is on its way for the nascent industry. “We do think there will be significant growth,” Nelson said. “As the industry is regulated, there will be more transactions, and we believe there will be more sophisticated requirements and tools down the road.”

David Dinenberg, Founder and CEO of KIND Financial, said in a company press release:

“No one can predict the future of cannabis legalization, however, it is clear that legalized cannabis will always be subject to strict oversight and regulations similar to alcohol and tobacco; and, KIND is proud to offer governments and regulatory agencies the tools and technology to monitor cannabis compliance. I am delighted that Microsoft supports KIND’s mission to build the backbone for cannabis compliance.”

The announcement follows another major development this week for Microsoft: the tech giant announced Monday that it was purchasing the social networking site LinkedIn in an historic $26.2 billion deal.

End


NFL Medical Marijuana Advocate Released by Baltimore Ravens

Eugene Monroe, an offensive tackle with the Baltimore Ravens, has been released by the organization, just months after advocating for medical marijuana therapy for NFL players, the New York Times reports.

Last month, Monroe donated $80,000 to Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania for medical cannabis research.

“I can’t say for sure whether or not my stance on medical cannabis was the reason the Ravens released me,” Monroe said in the report. “However, as I’ve said in the past, they have distanced themselves from me and made it clear that they do not support my advocacy.”

Monroe was the first active player to call on the league to remove marijuana from its banned substances list and to fund medical marijuana research, especially as its potential use as a chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) treatment.

“The NFL relies heavily on opioids to get players back on the field as soon as possible, but studies have shown medical marijuana to be a much better solution; it is safer, less addictive and can even reduce opioid dependence,” he wrote in an essay for the Players’ Tribune. “Some studies have also shown that cannabidiol (CBD) — one of the more than 100 cannabinoids found in marijuana — may function as a neuroprotectant, which means it can shield the cells in the brain from injury or degeneration. We need to learn more about this.”

In a statement released this morning, Monroe said, “Despite the current uncertainties, one thing is for sure: whatever happens in terms of my professional football career, I will never stop pushing for the League to accept medical cannabis as a viable option for pain management.”

According to the Times report, Monroe acknowledged he has had injury issues during his NFL tenure and ESPN indicated that the Ravens were in talks with the New York Giants to acquire the 29-year-old, but the deal never materialized.

Monroe was the eighth overall pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2009 following a college career for Virginia during which he was a Unanimous All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection. He is now a free agent.

End


Major Medical Cannabis Brands Raided by California Police

Several prominent medical cannabis companies in California, including concentrate manufacturer Absolute Xtracts and CBD-rich products producer Care By Design, were raided by local law enforcement officers Wednesday morning — DEA agents were in attendance and supervising.

The raid targeted five company properties, all of which had been sharing a location under a cooperative agreement called the CBD Guild, formed together in 2014. According to Nick Caston, spokesman for Care By Design, the CBD Guild produces medicine “as determined by the voters in the 1990s, and we do it with the best practices of any company in the state.”

Law enforcement arrested Dennis Franklin Hunter, one of the organization’s founding members, under suspicion of using illegal and hazardous production methods in the chemical manufacturing of a controlled substance. Hunter — who spent four years evading police before he was caught in 2002 and handed a five year federal prison sentence for an illegal cannabis grow — had bail set at $5 million.

The CBD Guild laboratory is a 34,000-square-foot space in a Santa Rosa business park, on Circadian Way. The companies involved use highly pressurized carbon dioxide extraction devices to create artisan-quality cannabis concentrates. The guild’s focus is on CBD-rich products. According to Caston, together the companies serve dispensary locations in every major California city.

“This law enforcement action is unprecedented, unfortunate, and has the potential to deprive thousands of profoundly sick patients of much needed medicine,” Caston said. “We will cooperate fully with law enforcement in an effort to resolve this as quickly as possible, and hope to have our several dozen employees in Sonoma County back to work this week.”

Joe Rogoway, a Santa Rosa attorney representing the guild, said police had mischaracterized the cannabis companies. “They weren’t using butane, they use a process that includes CO2 which is a flame retardant; CO2 is what’s in fire extinguishers,” Rogoway said. “It’s not criminalized in California law.”

It’s possible, according to Rogoway, that the raids were a result of false claims made to law enforcement by a disgruntled former employee.

Care By Design is hosting a press conference and support rally today at 11:00 a.m. at the Sonoma County Superiour Courthouse in Santa Rosa to raise awareness about the overzealous enforcement act.

 

End


Grandma Cat Jeter: The Rise and Demise of Medical Cannabis in Washington

Cat Jeter is the founder of Deep Green, an award-winning full plant extracts manufacturer in Washington State. She recently joined our host Shango Los for a conversation about the history of the Washington State medical marijuana market, which will soon be absorbed by the recreational market due to pending regulations. In the interview, she discusses the movement that led to the creation of the medical cannabis market in Washington, how it grew and changed over time, and how the passage of I-502–Washington’s recreational cannabis ballot measure–affected the market and those who had dedicated their lives to serving patients. Listen to the interview using the media player below, or scroll down for the full transcript!

Subscribe to the Ganjapreneur podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play.


Listen to the podcast:


Read the transcript:

Shango Los: Hi there, and welcome to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m your host, Shango Los. The Ganjapreneur.com podcast gives us an opportunity to speak directly to entrepreneurs, cannabis growers, product developers, and cannabis medicine researchers, all focused on making the most of cannabis normalization. As your host, I do my best to bring original cannabis industry ideas that will ignite your own entrepreneurial spark, and give you actionable information. To improve your business strategy, and improve your health, and the health of cannabis patients everywhere.

Today my guest is Cat Jeter. Grandma Cat Jeter is the founder of Deep Green, a full plant cannabis extracts producer located in Washington state. Founded with pediatric outreach as a core principle, award winning Deep Green has been a market leader in product testing, direct patient outreach, and branding from its very inception. I’ve asked Cat to be a guest on the show today because of her 43 years of medical cannabis experience. You know, every tribe has a keeper of the stories. Cat is a prominent protector of that flame in Washington. She has participated in nearly every aspect of the cannabis industry, and advocacy, and because of that, she has an understanding of the arc of cannabis history that very few people can offer.

During today’s show, we’re going to discuss the early days of medical cannabis in Washington, how the industry matured, and its very controversial demise coming on July 1st of this year. Welcome to the show, Cat.

Cat Jeter: Thank you so much, Shango, for having me. It’s a pleasure to talk to you and your listeners.

Shango Los: Cat, let’s start off at the beginning. Let’s go all the way back to 1998. You know, Initiative 692 was passed, which allowed medical marijuana in the state, and also gave permission to doctors to talk to their patients about marijuana. What was it like then? Were people caught off guard, and was there instantly an industry? What was it like in those very early days?

Cat Jeter: Well, I think it’s important to recognize that Washington has historically had a very tolerant attitude towards cannabis. We were busy culturally creating what you might refer to as a dankster class of citizen long before we ever got to any discussion of medical cannabis.

It goes back to our historical advocates in the mid-’90s. Joanne McKee, Ron Parker, Ralph Seeley, all of who were involved in legal action and led to a failed populous to action, I-685 in 1997. Then in 1998, a more streamlined 692 was ratified.

These are the very, very early years. This was still somewhat of a very frightening place. I think it’s important to recognize that Washington was still very, very decentralized in the way we approached medical cannabis. You needed to know someone. Or you needed to be working with the black market, essentially, to take care of your own personal medical needs, or needs for a friend. There was, to the best of my knowledge, only one operating co-op, and that was Joanne McKee’s and Ron Parker’s. The Green Cross over on Bainbridge Island.

Nonetheless, the desire was there. Yet it took a couple of more steps in the process to make that access readily available. Among them were, in 2007, Senate Bill 632, stipulated possession limits. Up until then, you could have cannabis, but how much? What was that trooper on the side of the road going to judge was how much. We didn’t have arrest protection. We had only affirmative defenses. You can see how that was a very uneasy intersection.

Then what really turned everything on it’s head was in 2010, when Senate Bill 5798 enabled more medical professionals to recommend cannabis. Now you had limits, suddenly you had the availability of getting that recommendation, so access had to follow. This is when we really see that the collectives, the dispensary model, really starts growing in Washington state.

Shango Los: Wow, that’s really interesting. The idea of early medical marijuana existing, but there not yet being a dispensary system to get it. That seems so messy. Where you know as a patient you are allowed to possess, but you’re still going to the black market for it. There must have been a lot of scrambling by patients who saw the promise of what medical marijuana might be able to do for them. Yet, how on earth do they get it?

Cat Jeter: Well, and this is, I think, true of almost any cultural movement. That the early adopters are out there and they’re scrambling, it can be risky. From my own family experience, my own father died during this period. We wanted to help him with his death process. I sent my son up to Northgate Mall to meet a fellow named Muadeeb, is all we knew him as. You know, we smoked joints, and we made butter for my terminally ill father. We weren’t even terribly well-versed in cannascience, nor in the process or production of particular products.

This is the same era that Rick Simpson was very busy reacquainting us with an ancient herbal extraction technique making concentrates using some type of a solvent. Yes, dark days, indeed, and confusing for people.

Shango Los: You know, those of us who are associated with cannabis mostly just in the last, say, five to ten years, RSO has always been there for us. Different solvents have always been there for us. What you’re talking about, it was very much the days of early pot brownies. Even though those have become iconic, for a lot of people, getting the cannabis out of the flower and into an edible was itself an advanced extraction technique.

Cat Jeter: Well, you know, I like to say this proliferation of medical cannabis over these last six years has brought about a radical shift in the way that we think of the plant. Not only of its various pieces, but the plant as a whole. You know, we’ve just had a renaissance of new products and reimaginings of cannabis and how we use it. Not only to heal, but to recreate.

Shango Los: You know, somebody who was in your position in those early days, I imagine there’s a lot of similarities to nowadays, where people are asking basic healthcare questions. How cannabis could help them. Nowadays, we’ve got the internet, and we’ve got conventions, and we’re able to exchange information. We’ve got the beginnings of new studies that are coming out of Europe. It must have been really challenging for you to have patients approaching you and asking for information and guidance, when the access to information was really hard.

Cat Jeter: Well, and it was even hard for me. You know, we knew that smoking a joint certainly made anyone who was going through chemotherapy feel a whole lot better, and help them to keep their next meal down. We didn’t have any real sense, I don’t think, even as a culture in exactly how, what we refer to now as cannabinoid therapy, at various dosing levels from low to high, how that type of approach might help us. The shift has just been radical in the last ten years.

Shango Los: It must have been really strange, too, to be legitimized with the passing of the Initiative to allow medical cannabis, and yet still having to go the black market. That shifty vibe that you can, you know, sometimes feel when you’re involved in a prohibited activity. Yet, you’re doing it for the most right and allowable reasons. The mixture of the prohibition culture and medical marijuana culture must have felt very awkward.

Cat Jeter: Well you know, I think this is really one of the inhibiting factors on growth of medical cannabis right now. We refer to it as legal, yet there is a tremendous amount of oppression still associated with medical cannabis. Your job can be held hostage to this. Your family might be held hostage to this. Although we see much less of it in Washington nowadays. You know, there’s still a tremendous amount of judgement associated with outing yourself as someone who chooses a safe herb over a pharma solution.

We’re making progress, but we certainly haven’t pulled the veil back yet. The discomfort is not yet alleviated.

Shango Los: You know, you mentioned the explosion in medical marijuana once the dispensaries existed. Certainly after the dispensaries existed, there was a lot more access. There were more people being able to make money by providing medicine as well. Was anybody really making money ahead of the dispensaries coming into existence? It sounds to me like there were, it probably just infused a bunch of new customers into the black market that had affirmative defense. There probably wasn’t enough economic viability of that model to really have anybody making much money before the dispensaries.

Cat Jeter: I think that’s right. This is one of the ways in which our early medical states are really rather unique, when comparing them against the more commercial models that have come along recently. That is, we do come from a place of compassion. You know, you got to be compassionate when you’re risking yourself in a very, very limitedly defined legal world to help your brother, or your sister, or your mother, or your child.

Now, we are approaching it in a much more broad based approach, and a much more commercial approach. Which, of course, is going to lead to a more normalization of the commercial model. I really didn’t see a lot of money flowing through the system until we got to a point where there were a lot of collectives beginning to appear. Then there would be a few that were just killing it on the commercial level. Naturally they were doing very well financially. This is simple economics. With risk comes reward. It has been very risky throughout all of our medical phase here in Washington.

Shango Los: Well, we’re gonna talk a little bit more about the risks involved, and what enforcement looked like during medical marijuana in Washington after our break. We are going to take that first break right now. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

Because you listen to the Ganjapreneur podcast, it is very likely that you are a business owner now, or that you plan on getting into cannabis soon. If you’re starting a business, at some point you’re gonna want some swag with your name on it to give away, or maybe even to sell. Promotional items are a way to stay in your customers’ life long after come into contact with them. It reminds them to double back and buy more of your stuff, but it also reminds them to tell their friends about you.

Well, at Ganjapreneur, we’ve been asked by so many new cannabis business owners for referrals on promotional items because they’re getting ready for a convention or a party, or that they just want to give it away.  So we went ahead and brought together some preferred vendors, and put them on our website for you.

The web address is ganjapreneur.com/promoitems. Everybody loves doing lighters and t-shirts, and those are still huge winners, of course. Some folks are even now doing logo-ed silicone dab jars and rig-rags, too. There so much to choose from. The website is ganjapreneur.com/promoitems. Go get some cool stuff to promote your company.

As a cannabis entrepreneur, you know how challenging recruiting quality talent can be. Your day’s already busy enough, and yet there’s an ever growing pile of resumes on your desk, and your team is begging you to hire more help. Hiring the right person can make a profound impact on your company. There’s no reason that you have to suddenly have to be an expert hiring manager. Not when there’s Viridian Staffing.

Viridian Staffing recruits solely for adult use cannabis, medical marijuana, and hemp companies, and those that service them. Viridian Staffing’s recruiters each have over ten years of experience, and they will use that experience to recruit the kind of employees that will make you look good. Whether you’re looking for a master grower, extractor, grow room support, or trimming, Viridian can find an appropriate person in your area. They can even recruit administrative or graphic design professionals who may not need cannabis experience.

Because you are a start-up, you may also need human resources help for a while. Viridian Staffing can make sure that your HR files are complete, and keep you out of trouble with state and federal employment requirements.

Because the cannabis industry is booming, cannabis recruiting companies are popping up all over the country. Good marketing does not mean good recruiting. Some of the recruiting shops that have opened are run by novices who do not yet have a thorough understanding of employment law, and the complexities of hiring for cannabis. Don’t hire an amateur to find you a professional. Consider Viridian Staffing to make that stack of resumes disappear, and complete your team with exactly the hire you were hoping for.

You can find out more at viridianstaffing.com. That’s V-I-R-I-D-I-A-N-staffing.com. Now, back to the show.

Welcome back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m your host, Shango Los. Our guest this week is cannabis patient advocate and entrepreneur, Cat Jeter.

Cat, before the break we were talking about how in the early days, patients had to go to the black market because this was ahead of the dispensary system. That kind of makes me think that it may have been common for patients to get busted by the police, because they’re going about what could seem like a black market transaction … But as a patient, they’re actually allowed to have the cannabis. How many people were getting busted back in the day?

Cat Jeter: Well, I think there were, you know, especially when that intersection between black market and what was medical was being defined, I think it was business as usual the way we had seen it. Now, we’ve mentioned that Washington was a tolerant state, but certainly if you were pulled over on the side of the road, and any reason given to crack your trunk and had a half a pound back there. Whether you were getting ready to bag it out, or you were getting ready to make full plant extract, I don’t think law enforcement particularly cared.

That transferred into a very focused effort as collectives began organizing and serving with the demand for access and product in Washington. It seemed to be, you know, there were a lot of variables. One was geographical. You certainly wanted to be in a friendly county, or a friendly city. A lot of it was the profile with which you carried yourself. You know, were you driving a new Ferrari, or you know, showing it off?

Again, we talked about with risk comes reward, but in an age of judgment, that might not have been your best stance for safety. What we saw were clusters of busts. Where Westnet Drug Task Force would sweep down on two or three organizations at once, and create a real climate of fear. You never saw a whole industry who could drop its umbrellas and be on the road any faster than the medical cannabis industry when there were busts happening.

It made it really very tenuous. Slowly, we figured out where the safe jurisdictions were. I think the best players in the industry figured out they needed to get a business license, communicate with their communities, and take a best practices approach. It still didn’t stop the fact that this is still federally illegal, and you operated by the forbearance of your local authorities.

Shango Los: You know, before the break we were talking about how in the early days, it was mostly all folks could do to extract cannabis out into a fat, like butter, and make it into an edible for patients who were prepared to be smoking, and yet still needed the cannabinoids inside them. It was interesting to me to consider that over your 43 years of experience, you’re probably answering a lot of the same questions that patients were asking then, now. I wonder to what degree your answers have changed. Obviously, we’ve learned so much more as a cannabis scene than we knew 43 years ago.

Cat Jeter: A lot of the questions are the same. Simply because there are so many people who are uneducated, under educated, or misunderstand. A lot of the questions are evolving, too. Certainly the questions where someone is terminally ill, and fighting for that last bit of quality of life that they may have, those questions have stayed the same. Our understanding of cannabis as a helpful healing agent at that point has not radically changed over the last 20 years. These were the examples that we used to legitimize medical cannabis, and get it legalized to begin with.

More recently, we’re seeing questions about how cannabis can help with addiction issues, or persistent pain, or depression. How you can access cannabis that doesn’t make you high, for instance. We hear more questions about accessing cannabis for on-going health, rather than end of life issues. I think all in all, it demonstrates a cultural competence and evolving awareness of the power of the plant.

Shango Los: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I would think that people’s questions are getting more sophisticated themselves. In the early days, they were just hearing a whisper over a dinner table, or something. Or you know, a recommendation from a friend. Whereas now, people will have heard that, they will have Googled a little bit, and then they’re coming for more of an expert opinion, built on top of that. I would think that the people who approach you are approaching with much more sophisticated questions, generally.

Cat Jeter: Without a doubt. Thank heavens for the information age. We have better access now to that growing body of science. We’re able to network better with each other. We understand conditions that are helped with cannabis. We understand how various components of the plant, from cannabinoids, to terpenes, to to flavanoids, to even the waxes and lipids. How they help the healing process, and help the plant to work in whole.

Certainly one of the biggest discussions lately has been the entourage effect, instead of just focusing on THC or CBD. We’re beginning to look at how the various constituents of the plant interact to make it an even more powerful healing agent. We’ve also seen that the discussion has shifted from cure exclusively to focusing on quality of life instead.

Shango Los: You know, as far as the quality of life goes, at the top of the show you were talking about how in 2010 the scene kind of got more protections, and a little bit more of a green light as more healthcare providers were allowed to write prescriptions. Also there were more protections because they started to give the carry amounts, and how much you can have on your person, and have at home.

From what I saw, this was turned up even more in February of 2014 when the Cole 2.0 Memo came out. They gave the necessary aspects for individual states to do medical marijuana. At the time, Washington seemed to be in a good position on all of those. It really caused the market in Washington to explode. The number of dispensaries went up. People really felt like they had protections at that point, that before that were simply not as significant. Were people looking for the Cole 2.0 Memo to happen? Or were they just really pleasantly surprised when it came out?

Cat Jeter: You know, I think the Cole 2.0 Memo is one of those situations where I ask myself was it really medical driving it along, or do we need to also acknowledge the fact the two states had just said we’re over your prohibition. We’re going to legalize for all 21 plus adults. I found that it had less to do with medical from my own point of view. A fair amount of it, for medical, felt like I see your lips moving, but what have you done for me lately.

Shango Los: Yeah.

Cat Jeter: You know, in Washington we were right in the middle of a very aggressive persecution of the Kettle Falls Five, out in the eastern side of the state. This at a time when the DOJ, Department of Justice, had been told quit spending funds on this. We were, I think, looking for more positivity, as opposed to another list of prohibitions. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that it did cause the absolute explosion, it in addition to the 502 passage, in anticipation of what was going to be a legal market. It’s been a wildly successful little petri dish of … For 30 years I’d been siting back and wondering what if cannabis was legal? Well you know what, coming at a time when our own economics had been a downturn, it was Washington’s own economic stimulus plan. There were new firms. There were people with new jobs.

However, I have to comment, too. Our wild embrace of the cannabis lifestyle, including High Times events, and local cannabis competitions, absolutely may have been our downfall at a time when the rest of the community was not moving as fast in their understanding of safe recreation with cannabis, and safe healing.

Shango Los: Yeah, I think that you nailed that on the head, Cat. The scene as a whole exploded, and that meant you had more people doing compassionate care, and also more people seeing a financial opportunity, and also more people seeing an opportunity to party in the open a little bit more. All the different aspects of medical cannabis all got bigger at the same time. There were plenty of opportunities for people to point at minor parts of the community and say see, that’s what we think is bad, and that’s what medical is. Actually, whatever part of that was either being misinterpreted by the general public who don’t understand the medical cannabis scene as a whole, or simply it was a very insignificant part of the scene that they really wanted to shine their light on.

You know, similarly, you were talking about the economic development that came with it. Where I live out here on Vashon Island, after the Cole 2.0 Memo, businesses really got serious about supplying the dispensaries all through Washington state. We’ve been growing high quality indicas here on Vashon Island since the ’70s. You know, the fact that people grow was not a big deal here. The idea that suddenly those folks were able to come out of the closet, get business licenses, develop relationship with dispensaries, start delivering their product, getting it off the island. Actually, starting to help develop, you know, have real economic development. Families that were once fringe, being able to start to participate in true economics state-wide. That was a really beautiful thing. That created a wonderful opportunity.

At the same time, though, people were really aware that 502 had made the ballot, and had passed. We all felt a transition starting to happen. That transition was starting to scare many people. Oh, looks like it’s time for us to take another break. Let’s take a quick break, and we’ll come back and talk about medical marijuana after I-502 passed. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

The Ganjapreneur podcast is listened to by tens of thousands of cannabis entrepreneurs and enthusiasts every single week. These folks are most likely your target customers, and we’d like to introduce you to each other. Our down to earth and information rich commercial breaks can deliver your message to the cannabis business community, and others who just find relief in getting high.

If you want to reach out and connect with our audience in the most personal way that we can offer, go ahead and drop us an email at grow@ganjapreneur.com, and we can talk about you becoming a commercial sponsor of the podcast. Thank you for listening and being part of the Ganjapreneur family. Now back to the show.

Welcome back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I am your host, Shango Los. Our guest this week is cannabis patient advocate and entrepreneur, Cat Jeter.

Before the break, we were talking about the transition that everybody felt coming when I-502 recreational marijuana made the ballot, and passed with a real significant support in the state of Washington.

It created this split in the medical marijuana scene, as more people started moving their intentions toward getting commercial licenses, moving over to the recreational side with the eyes of expanding their businesses and hopefully making some money. Then other folks who maybe didn’t have as much access to capital, and maybe were more patient-centric. For whatever anybody’s personal reasons were, the scene absolutely started to split. Did you see that, too, from where you were sitting, Cat?

Cat Jeter: Oh, without a doubt. It was an extremely, and still is, contentious age. I’ve seen former allies break apart and become each other’s worst enemy over this issue. You know, really at issue is how resistant are you going to be to change?

You know, at the end of the day, if everyone who’s negotiating for change goes away a little bit unhappy, you know you’ve probably got a workable deal. Unfortunately, in creating rights for adult users, we had to step … Or didn’t maybe have to … But the rights of medical cannabis patients were disregarded. A number of other aspects were rather negative about the bill, too, in just indicating an understanding of cannabis. The per se DUI basically made every medical patient a de facto altered driver. Yet there’s no scientific evidence that supports that five nanograms of cannabinoids in your blood stream somehow impair your driving.

You know, the whole idea was sold after an initiative was run in the previous year, which we always felt like plowed the ground for legalization. It was run by and large by the Heritage Medical and Heritage providers. We felt like we’d reaped a corrupt harvest based on our plowing efforts in the year before.

Nonetheless, don’t we have to accept and celebrate the fact that my grandkids, who are quickly approaching 21, will no longer be looking at jail time for simple possession. Society moves back and forth. You’re always swinging to one side or the other of the middle. Truth lies in that negotiation of culture and activity, right.

Shango Los: Yeah.

Cat Jeter: You know, it has been difficult. Along the way, we should have known that it would never last. We’d been working from the compassionate model, and very few people taxing their products, or declaring taxes on their products. We find ourselves now in a model, even with the compressed tax column, that patients are going to be … Unless they give away their HIPAA medical rights with the registry … Paying sales tax on the only medicine in the state of Washington. They have a right to feel oppressed.

I think the folks who worked from the compassionate point of view have every right to feel that in an age of disinformation, leading up to the licensing, and what we now think, suspect, maybe even have some evidence, could have been some favoritism in the granting of licenses for what goes forth next.

I think we also have a right to feel that as pioneers, our intellectual and our financial capital has been squandered in this state. We’ve put the leaders on the outside looking in, and the newcomers on the inside laughing.

Shango Los: Yeah, that’s a really good point. You know, that’s not how the other states did it. You know, in Colorado, they took their existing medical marijuana structure, and blessed it, and then helped it transition to become what was then a combined recreational and medical. Whereas in Washington, they did their best to sideline and exclude everybody who was involved in medical, and then bring in all new people from other industries, and gave them the licenses to produce cannabis.

You know, I knew that this was going to get ugly back at that very first WSLCB meeting downtown, with that packed room. You know, sitting down in the chairs were patients, and a lot of new business faces that I had never seen before. Then in the back of the room were a bunch of really angry activists with signs. They were interrupting the folks who were speaking. For them, this was the end of patient access. They saw the mess that was coming down the line. So many of us were really hoping that they were overreacting.

Now, you know, two years later, we see that they nailed it. Their anger was justified. They were just prescient in understanding what was going to happen two years earlier than everybody else. That was such a clear manifestation of the schism that was coming with the passing of I-502, and then 5052 last year, which got rid of all the dispensaries.

Here we are today, right. It’s June 7th, and we’ve got 23 days until the July 1st deadline when all the dispensaries have to be closed and the, whatever, 19 years of medical marijuana as we know it comes to an end. What do you see as the landscape for medical marijuana going forward, Cat? I mean, is it even worth calling medical marijuana anymore? What do you see as the future?

Cat Jeter: Well, you know, I think there’s a case that can be made that all cannabis is medical, right. You know, if it’s true that it’s good for your he5alth, then even casually toking up a joint can be somewhat medical for you. You know, those people weren’t wrong. While I think maybe we could have espoused a little softer shoe approach, and in fighting for our rights, the worst has in fact come to happen.

Patients are in a panic. No doubt about it. At our office, we get many calls a day. Where am I going to be able to find Deep Green in the future? We tell them we’re scrambling like all the other historical medicals as fast as we can to get there for you. A current survey of the 502 shops shows no medical products in them right now. Or a very, very, very limited selection.

Now, is that … You know, it’s a chicken or egg situation currently. You can’t talk about medical in a 502 retail environment. Is it they can’t talk about it, so why would they have it. Or is it they simply don’t want it. What I hear from the 502 rec store owners, it’s all about the THC and the recreational aspect of it.

You know, many access points have closed already, further constricting access in these final months for our patients. A few are committed to serving the public right up until the end, including at least one that I know of. That’s going to have their doors open right up until midnight on June 30th. I understand at least two farmer’s markets are going to fight for their ground, and try to create a new private model. In which, as a member, you can still access the Heritage and Legacy farmers that have served the market so well up until now.

Many medical brands, my own included, we are busy scrambling in negotiations with companies that already have processing capacity. Looking either for space to process our own product, or branding situations. You know, a majority of the historical cottage brands are simply going to go by the wayside, or going to slide back to what could be called the black market again.

I reject that term, and I prefer to call it now that people’s market. The people have ratified their desire for cannabis. Not one, not two, but three different times now in the state of Washington. How many times do we have to ask, how times do we have to demonstrate to our legislators that this is what we want. You need to find a viable framework for it.

Shango Los: You know, the examples that you give of the people who are presently in the medical market transitioning, those were all more or less legal venues. I like what you say about the people’s market. Which some will call the casual market, or the informal market. It seems to me that we should expect to see a blossoming of the informal market because we’re in a different situation than we were ten years ago.

It’s not that there is a black market of loosely associated people. These are people who have been working together the last five to ten years. We’ve got solid networks. People know who each other are. People are giving each other their business cards. I find it very difficult to believe that the sate is going to be as successful as they hope in eradicating the unlicensed and untaxed medical artisan craftspeople from making the medicine that they not only use to pay their bills, but has become people’s passion and moral drive to help patients.

Cat Jeter: I could not agree any less with that. First off, let’s start with just the definition. We talk about these as black market, or the state casts us black market … But how black is it? When it’s your neighbor three doors down, you’ve known him for 15 years. You know, he just put his daughter through college with the few pounds of artisan cannabis that he creates in her old bedroom.

You know, these are new economic days, in which we are all feeling more and more economically disenfranchised at a country, or even state-wide level, and feeling more empowered to look within our closer communities to serve our own needs. We see this with local food. We see this with local artisan crafts. We’re seeing it with local artisan cannabis.

You know, the power has tried to eradicate us for 80 years now. I like to ask our legislators how are you doing so far? You know, I sense that we are winning this battle for health and for minds. You know, there are difficult times coming ahead. I don’t doubt that there are going to be a few significant enforcement actions designed to scare us again.

Again, I think we’re winning this debate. I think it is a debate. We’ve swung the pendulum over to the right again. Skills are not going to simply to be allowed to lie fallow. The market will demand them. It’s a shame that many of these business owners will be transformed into high level talent for extraction companies, perhaps, or as master growers. We’re better off when we have small business, but there’s little appetite on the part of the state right now for that decentralized small cottage industry.

Shango Los: Yeah, that’s very true. Cat, one more thing I want to ask you before we wrap up, since we’re coming to the end of the show. You know, we’ve got people who listen to our show, tens of thousands of people all across the country, and even internationally. Most of those locales are either just now adopting medical marijuana, or they have and they are moving towards recreational. Most everybody’s got some kind of medical marijuana in play, even if it’s being presented in front of the legislature and getting beaten right now.

With the scope of your 43 years of experience, what message can you send out to medical marijuana activists in their individual locales that can help buoy them that they’re on the right path?

Cat Jeter: I think I could say be calm. First off, not everything happens in a day. Not everyone will learn what you have learned in a day. You will take a beating one day, and come back victorious the next. Stay calm in what you ask for. Don’t expect everything, and don’t take everything as a defeat, when in fact you have a win on your hands. In terms of progressing the conversation forward.

Most of all, continue to love your community. Not everyone will stand in the exact same space that you do with respect to cannabis. If we start assassinating each other in a circular firing squad, who’s going to be there at the end? Our desire to free the plant will fail, and it will be a turnover to big pharma and corporate farming interest. That’s not what we want. We see this as a populous issue. If we can all just ratchet the level of anxiety, and remember that we come from different places, and that we agree on 97% of everything, just differ on 3%. Let’s not kill each other over that 3%. Let’s keep marching this forward.

Shango Los: Very well said. Cat, thank you so much. Not only just for being on this show, but for your decades of service to the scene, cannabis education, and sharing your passion and mentorship with the rest of us.

Cat Jeter: It is my pleasure. Thank you for having me on, Shango. Good luck to everyone who’s listening, and who is still fighting this fight right along with Washington.

Shango Los: Grandma Cat Jeter is founder of Deep Green. You can follow Cat Jeter and Deep Green extracts on their Facebook pages. You can also go to the DeepGreenExtracts.com website for more information on that specific company.

You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur podcast in the podcast section at Ganjapreneur.com, and in the Apple iTunes store. On the Ganjapreneur.com website, you will find the latest cannabis news, product reviews, and cannabis jobs updated daily, along with transcriptions of this podcast. You can also download the Ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google Play. For info on me and where I will be speaking, you can go to ShangoLos.com.

Do you have a company that wants to reach our national audience of cannabis enthusiasts? Email grow@ganjapreneur.com to find out how.

Today’s show was produced by Michael Rowe. I am your host, Shango Los.

End


Inaugural Imperious Expo Coming to Tacoma on July 20-21

The inaugural Imperious Expo, a marijuana business conference dedicated to spotlighting the medical and industrial cannabis industries, is coming to the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall in Tacoma, Washington this July 20-21.

Boasting dozens of highly qualified speakers, the event’s topics will range from cannabis cultivation, diversity, insurance, legal issues, business licensing, to sustainability and more. Speakers at the conference have been drawn from industry experts everywhere, and will include a presentation by legendary cannabis activist Ed Rosenthal — Eric Brandstad of Forever Flowering Greenhouses will make the event’s keynote address.

Other speakers include David Muret of Viridian Staffing, Chris Beals of Weedmaps, Aaron Pelley of Pelley Law, Aaron Pitsicalis of Purple Haze Properties, and dozens more. Ganjapreneur‘s own podcast host and brand strategist Shango Los will also be speaking.

The Imperious Expo is a primarily business oriented conference, with an emphasis on business to business (B2B) strategies and networking opportunities for medical and industrial marijuana enterprises. According to event co-founder and managing partner Eric Norton, the Imperious Expo was designed from its start to be “a medical and industrial hemp model [trade show] that will fit into any state as it goes green.”

“It’s obvious that many other trade shows got into the industry for quick money,” Norton said in a phone interview. “That’s not the case with us: having a medical model in Washington — because it’s full-blown rec — has cost us money. We would be able to throw a bigger [recreational] show… but that’s not our focus. And that’s enabled us to draw in speakers from all over the country.”

The Imperious Expo will be an annual event, held in the Tacoma Dome itself in future years. Norton said there are plans to bring the show to Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon — though dates for future shows have not been announced.

Tickets are available online. General admission tickets for the entire event cost $149, one day passes are available for $99. Both passes grant full access to the exhibition hall and that day’s speaker lineup.

End


Survey of New York Patients and Caregivers Finds Serious Flaws in Medical Marijuana Program

A recent survey by the Drug Policy Alliance found New York’s medical cannabis program is plagued by unaffordable medicine and “overall inaccessibility,” based on feedback from 255 patients and caregivers.

According to the report, more than half of those surveyed have, so far, been unsuccessful finding a doctor to certify them for the program and three out of five have been waiting three to four months to find a physician registered with the program. Of the respondents who have obtained medical cannabis through the program, 77 percent reported being unable to afford the necessary medicine, with 70 percent saying it would cost them $300 or more per month.

“New Yorkers deserve more transparency and information about how the state’s medical marijuana program is performing,” Julie Netherland, PhD, director of the Drug Policy Alliance’s Office of Academic Engagement said in a press release. “Our data confirms what we have heard from patients and caregivers for months – New York’s program is not easily accessible, and even for patients who manage access the program, most cannot afford the medication. We urge the legislature to act quickly and pass these bills to improve the program so patients in need can get relief.”

Following their report, the group is urging lawmakers to pass three bills that would help overhaul the system. The bills, sponsored in the state Assembly by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D), would authorize nurse practitioners and physician assistants to certify patients for the program (A.9510), add chronic pain as a qualifying condition (A.9514A), and add more producers and dispensaries in the state (A.9747A). Both carry same-as bills in the Republican-dominated state Senate. A.9510 (S.6998) passed the Assembly last month and now sits in the Senate Health Committee, where it is sponsored by Sen. Diane Savino (D). A.9514A and A.9747A have both stalled in the Assembly following their move out of their Health Committee.

The lack of dispensaries allowed under the law was a concern for advocates from the beginning – allowing for just 20 total dispensaries for a state of almost 20 million people and 54,000-square-miles. The Drug Policy Alliance survey found that 27 percent of registered patients and caregivers travelled one to five hours to access a dispensary.

During a press conference last week, Gottfried and advocates lobbied for lawmakers to pass the proposals. During his remarks, Gottfried was hopeful the bills would be voted on by lawmakers this session – which ends on June 16.

End


Competing Medical Marijuana Proposals in Arkansas Could Split Votes

Two plans to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas could appear on November ballots, causing some advocates to fear the competition would split votes, leading to the failure of both initiatives, according to an Associated Press report.

The measure proposed by Arkansans for Compassionate Care has already garnered more than 70,000 valid signatures, surpassing the 67,887 required to get the proposal on the ballot.

Another proposal headed by Little Rock lawyer David Couch seeks to add a constitutional amendment that legalizes medical cannabis. An amendment proposal requires 84,859 valid signatures; Couch says his proposal has more than 40,000 so far. The deadline to submit petitions is July 8.

“It will be enough to split the vote and both will fail,” Melissa Fults, campaign director for Arkansans for Compassionate Care said.

A third proposal, by Summit resident Mary Berry, would legalize recreational marijuana in the state. Broader legalization efforts were defeated by Arkansas voters in 2012 thanks in part to a campaign by prohibitionist group The Family Council. Another group, The Coalition for Safer Arkansas, has also formed to block cannabis reform efforts in the state.

Couch believes conservative groups are less likely to campaign against proposals that are strictly for medicinal purposes.

“I think that if the debate is about whether or not someone is sick and dying or has some sort of illness that marijuana can actually help with that and the doctor prescribes it, nobody has a problem with it,” he said in the report.

The marijuana initiatives are three of just six proposals vying for consideration by voters in November.

End


Colorado Enacts Ban on THC-Infused Gummy Bears

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a bill last Friday that bans THC-infused gummy candies that may be appealing to children — specifically, gummies that are shaped like humans, animals, or fruit.

Prohibitionists have raised endless concerns over the accidental dosage of children with medicated edibles. The ban, meant to alleviate some of these concerns, does not address cannabis gummies in the shape of stars, hearts, pot leaves, or anything other shape.

The ban takes effect July 1. Later this year, further edibles regulations are coming into effect that will require all edible marijuana products to be stamped with an official symbol belying its THC contents.

Since Colorado voted to legalize cannabis in 2012, reports have increased of children being brought into the emergency room after being accidentally exposed to a THC-infused edible. Cannabis advocates, however, continue to argue that it’s the duty of parents and guardians to prevent their children from getting into their infused edibles stash.

Some advocates have begun wondering if the infused gummies fad is even worth defending as an industry, as lawmakers seem hellbent on their path of over-regulation and pandering to prohibitionist ideals.

End


Vermont MMJ Program Expecting Dramatic Patient Increase

Vermont medical marijuana dispensaries are preparing for a dramatic rise in customers after recent additions to the state’s list of qualifying conditions for medical cannabis, Marijuana Business Daily reports.

Under a law signed by Gov. Peter Shumlin on June 6, glaucoma and chronic pain patients can now qualify for the state’s MMJ program, as well as hospice care patients.

Dispensaries are expecting their patient numbers to spike, but it remains unclear how dramatic of a change this will be. In other states where chronic pain is a qualifying condition for medical cannabis, medical marijuana programs can eventually grow to serve 1.5%-2% of the state’s population. For the Vermont system — where there are currently just over 2,700 patients registered — that could triple or even quadruple the current size of the market.

However, according to Jeffrey Wallin, director of the Vermont Crime Information Center, it’s impossible to predict precisely the increase in patient numbers. “It’s ultimately up to the doctors, because they’re the ones registering patients,” he said.

The new law also makes changes to other aspects of the program, such as lowering the required length of a doctor-patient relationship before medical marijuana can be recommended from six months to three. For hospice care patients, however, there is no length of time required for a doctor’s recommendation.

Furthermore, the changes include new rules for the detailed labeling of cannabis products, requires child-safe packaging, and allows the legal transfer of marijuana products to research labs.

End


Canadian Feds Reject Proposed Decriminalization Plan

The Canadian government, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to implement nationwide legalization sometime next year, has rejected a notion to decriminalize cannabis in the meantime, according to a CablePulse 24 report.

Decriminalization would maintain marijuana as an illegal substance, but would at least protect citizens from the life-long criminal record that currently accompanies a simple possession charge — distribution would remain a criminal offense.

Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould confirmed on Monday that the feds have zero plans for decriminalization prior to legalization.

“It would mean that marijuana would remain an illegal substance and that it would continue to be grown and distributed by organized crime networks,” said Wilson-Raybould. “Canadians, both adults and youth, would continue to purchase a product of unknown potency and quality while fueling the profits of organized crime.

Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith was turned onto the subject recently when a constituent came to him asking for help with a 7-gram possession charge. “I told him that we weren’t going to be able to do anything at the federal level in the interim based upon my government’s position,” said Erskine-Smith. “… Decriminalization is a half-measure, but a half-measure is better than no measure.”

According to Statistics Canada, more than 57,000 Canadians were charged with marijuana possession in 2014.

End


Colorado State University-Pueblo Awarded $270,000 to Study Marijuana Industry

Pueblo County Colorado officials have agreed to provide $270,000 in funding to Colorado State University-Pueblo to conduct research on marijuana, ABC 7 reports. The studies will be the first of their kind by a four-year, regional comprehensive university.

The research aims to determine the impact of marijuana on the community and viability of using medical cannabis therapies for treating various issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers could also take a look at the impact on energy and water consumption used when growing marijuana and the costs to the community in regulating the industry versus the money communities see from the legal cannabis industry.

“These studies not only have local interest but statewide and federal interest,” CSU-Pueblo Provost Rick Kreminski said in the report. “It’s an area that has been understudied, and I am appreciative of the taxpayers’ decision to use marijuana tax revenue for this purpose.”

In addition to the funds from the county, the university will also be awarded $900,000 from the state’s Marijuana Tax Cash Fund after Governor John Hickenlooper (D) signed Senate Bill 191 last week. The measure appropriates funds from the marijuana tax coffers for the university to use for marijuana research.

“In the cannabis industry, I think the lowest rung of economic opportunity lies in the store fronts and retail sales. On the next rung is cultivation because it’s a job creator and it’s generating money for the community through exports and taxes. The third rung is the intellectual property that could come out of these studies. I see this type of bio-medical research as the top rung of economic opportunities that have ever been a reality for Pueblo,” Pueblo County Commissioner Sal Pace said in a statement. “A patent could make this community and the state a lot of money.”  

End


Cannabis Legalization is Elevating Home Real Estate Prices

Speakers at the 67th annual National Association of Real Estate Editors conference, held June 8-11 in New Orleans, noted during their talks that states with cannabis legalization in their books have enjoyed a marked appreciation of home real estate values over recent years.

Industrial real estate and legal cannabis have become well acquainted since Colorado and Washington first voted to end pot prohibition in 2012, evidenced by how common of a business strategy commercial warehouse grow operations have become. What many in the real estate sphere did not expect, however, is that home appreciation rates have also increased in states that decided to end cannabis prohibition.

According to conference speakers Ralph McLaughlin and Tom O’Grady, Denver and Portland are two of the highest appreciating cities in the nation right now as they enjoy higher prices on existing real estate inventory and most properties are spending less time on the market.

“Seattle, Phoenix, and Washington DC are [also] bracing themselves for record appreciation over the next 20 years,” writes Bud Monterey in a report for Marijuana.com.

Washington state, Colorado, Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C. have passed voter initiatives to legalize cannabis. Several more states will vote on the legalization issue this November, including California and Maine.

End


Medical Cannabis Sales Skyrocket in New Mexico

New Mexico’s medical marijuana industry has expanded rapidly over the last year and signs indicate more growth ahead.

According to an Associated Press report, the number of registered patients has nearly tripled in comparison to the first quarter of last year — there are now just over 55,000 patients registered. Medical marijuana sales from the first quarter have also increased, from $5.7 million last year to $10 million this year.

David C. Romero White, president of cannabis producer Organtica, said he expects the market will continue its rapid expansion this year.

Organtica is one of several not-for-profit groups that were licensed last year for new grow facilities and dispensaries, many of which have been opening new facilities around the state, generating jobs and boosting the economy.

“We’re all trying to get our production facilities up and running,” said Romero White. “It’s very tough – especially for the producers who are outside the Albuquerque market – and a little slow.”

There are currently 23 licensed cannabis producers and 37 marijuana dispensaries operating in the state.

New Mexico legalized medical marijuana in 2007 with the passage of the Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act.

End


Colorado Legal Marijuana Sales Set New Record in April

Dispensaries in Colorado sold almost $76.6 million worth of recreational marijuana in April, setting a new record for monthly sales, according to a report from The Cannabist. The previous record of $62.2 million was set in December 2015.

Paired with the near $41 million in medicinal cannabis sales, the April benchmark represents a new all-time high for total monthly cannabis sales in the state, totaling $117.4 million.

According to data from the state Department of Revenue, recreational sales are up more than 80 percent from April 2015, during which $42.4 million in recreational marijuana, oil, and edibles were sold in Colorado.

Through the first four months of 2016, Colorado’s recreational market has netted $246,778,661 while medicinal sales total $140,758,977. So far, the state has raised nearly $57 million in taxes and fees via the legal cannabis industry, which is taxed the standard 2.9 percent sales tax, another 10 percent special sales tax, and a 15 percent excise tax on wholesale transfers – the excise tax is reserved for school construction projects.

At this rate, the recreational market could easily top $700 million in 2016, eclipsing the near $588 million sales totals from 2015. Medicinal sales are also on pace to surpass 2015 totals – which were about $408 million – with an estimated $422 million.

In 2015, Colorado’s legal cannabis market raked $996,184,788 in total sales.

End


Thirteen Nevada Lawmakers Publicly Back Legalization Initiative

Thirteen Nevada lawmakers have publicly endorsed the state’s voter initiative to legalize recreational cannabis, according to a press release published by the campaign on Thursday.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is a Marijuana Policy Project-sponsored effort that would legalize the adult possession and use of cannabis, and would establish a regulatory system for the commercial distribution of cannabis products to adults. Nevada voters will decide whether or not to end prohibition by voting on Question 2 during this November’s election season.

The endorsements by elected officials closely follow a conflicting story this week, in which the Las Vegas Review-Journal backpedaled their pro-cannabis stance after being acquired by anti-marijuana casino mogul Sheldon Adelson late last year.

Ten of the endorsing lawmakers are current members of the Nevada Legislature, accompanied by one former member of the Legislature, a Clark County Commissioner, and a member of the North Las Vegas City Council.

“This is an exciting day for our campaign,” said Joe Brezny, campaign spokesman. “With so many current and former elected officials coming out in support of Question 2, we are confident the people of Nevada will take the opportunity to regulate marijuana like alcohol this November. The truth is that marijuana should never have been illegal in the first place. As a substance, marijuana is far less harmful than alcohol. It simply makes no sense to punish adults who choose to use the safer substance.”

The following public officials announced their support for legalization:

State Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford, State Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, State Sen. David Parks, State Sen. Tick Segerblom, State Sen. Patricia Spearman, State Assemblyman Nelson Araujo State Assemblywoman Maggie Carlton, State Assemblyman Edgar Flores, State Assemblywoman Heidi Swank, State Assemblyman Tyrone Thompson, Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, North Las Vegas City Councilman Isaac Barron, and Former State Assemblyman Jason Frierson.

End


Tilray Strikes Deal to Export Medical Cannabis Products to Croatia

Tilray, a Canadian medical cannabis research and production company, has announced a deal with Croatia that will see their products dispensed at pharmacies to individuals with medical marijuana prescriptions. It will be the first legal export of medical cannabis products from a North American country to a European country.

The partnership with the Croatian Institute of Immunology will initially see two varieties of Tilray Liquid capsules available to patients – one containing an equal 5 milligrams of THC and CBD per capsule, and another containing 2.5 milligrams of THC and 2 milligrams of CBD per capsule.

Professor Ognjen Brborović PhD MD, Chairman of Croatia’s Committee for Medical Cannabis, said the deal marks the end of a 16-month process to get patients access to quality medicine.

“I am glad that Croatia is the first EU country that will be able to assure patients first-class cannabis extract oil is available in pharmacies.” Dr. Brborović said in a press release. “I hope that patients in other EU countries will soon have the same opportunity.”

Under the Croatian program, individuals with multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, chronic pain, nausea, and Dravet syndrome are eligible for cannabis therapy.

Brendan Kennedy, Tilray president, estimates that the global medical cannabis industry has “the potential” to be worth $100 billion and his company is anticipating other clinical research partnerships in other European Union countries and Australia.

“We are excited about the rapid development of the medical cannabis sector in Europe, and we are pleased to be the first company to legally import medical cannabis products into the European Union after meeting all regulatory requirements in Canada and Croatia,” Kennedy said in the release. “With demand at an all-time high, we look forward to working with the Institute of Immunology to help eligible patients in need access medical cannabis products in Croatia.”

End


Alaska Poised to Award First Recreational Cannabis Licenses

Marijuana regulators in Alaska are poised to award the state’s first recreational cannabis business licenses, according to an Associated Press report.

Today’s meeting agenda for the Marijuana Control Board includes hearings in which 30 applications will be considered. 28 applicants are for recreational cultivation licenses, while the other two are for testing facilities.

The Marijuana Control Board is using a staggered approach in its recreational marijuana licensing process, focusing first on producers and testing labs so that a sufficient stockpile of consumer-safe products is established before the licensing and opening of cannabis retailers.

Regulators expect to start licensing retailers in September, according to Cynthia Franklin, director of the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office.

License applications from five hopeful cannabis producers will be also considered today by the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly: the Tanana Herb Co., Purple Quail, Alaska Cannabis Cultivators, Pakalolo Supply Co. and Rosie Creek Farm. “The only real criteria are that the operation must be consistent with our zoning, and we must have non-arbitrary reasons for rejecting it,” John Davies, presiding officer of the assembly, told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

End


Nevada Publication Reverses Pro-Cannabis Stance Following Pressure From New Owner

In unfortunate news, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, a formerly pro-pot publication out of Nevada, has turned an about face and recently published an editorial piece that demonizes cannabis legalization — presumably a result of mounting pressure from the paper’s new billionaire owner, Sheldon Adelson.

The Review-Journal has published pro-cannabis editorials as recently as last December (such as when the paper criticized the U.S. Postal Service for threatening newspapers that published cannabis advertisements), Tom Angell notes in a report for Marijuana.com.

Also in December, however, the paper was purchased by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who — as one of the world’s richest individuals — does not shrink away from massive political contributions and their ability to influence elections. A stalwart supporter of continued prohibition, Adelson contributed roughly $5 million to narrowly defeat Florida’s medical marijuana initiative in 2014.

When Adelson took over the Review-Journal, the editorial staff was summarily pressured to attend a drug treatment center and reexamine their pro-legalization stance. The recent editorial, published on Tuesday, seems to indicate that Adelson’s strategy succeeded.

“It’s pretty obvious that this is the position of an overzealous newspaper owner and not that of an objective editorial board,” commented Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project. “Most Nevadans are already wary of Adelson, and now they are probably even more so given how glaring the hypocrisy is in this case. This is a guy who has made a fortune pushing booze on casino-goers, but wants to keep a much less harmful product illegal. Hopefully the Review-Journal will keep Adelson’s opinion confined to the opinion section and not let it leak into its new coverage.”

End


Ohio Gov. Kasich Signs Medical Marijuana Law

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) has signed legislation legalizing medical marijuana in the state but patients shouldn’t expect access to the drug for at least two years, NBC41.com reports.

Under the law, patients with certain chronic ailments will be able to access medical cannabis, but they will not be able to smoke it or grow it for personal use. The measure creates a Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee to develop regulations and make recommendations to the Department of Commerce, State Medical Board, and Board of Pharmacy, who will work together to oversee the program. The Department of Commerce will supervise cultivator, processing, and testing lab licensing; the Board of Pharmacy will certify dispensaries, register patients and caregivers and set up a hotline to answer questions, and the Medical Board will license physicians to participate in the program.

The 14-member advisory committee will be comprised of representatives from local law enforcement, agriculture, labor and employers, along with mental health and drug and alcohol treatment professionals.       

“This is a joyous day for the thousands of Ohioans who will finally be able to safely access much-needed medicine,” Aaron Marshall, spokesman for Ohioans for Medical Marijuana said in a report from The Hill. “We still have much work ahead of us to improve this imperfect law.”

The bill is far more restrictive than the one pushed by advocates as a ballot initiative. That measure would have allowed for marijuana to be smoked as a delivery method and for patients to grow their own. The passed version of the law will take effect in 90 days, and despite the two-year timeframe for the program’s launch the bill’s sponsor is optimistic that selected growers could begin cultivating next year.

“As soon as 16 months, you would have products tested and available,” said Sen. David Burke (R).  

Ohio is the 25th state to legalize marijuana for medicinal use.

End


Max Montrose: Budtender Best Practices

If cannabis normalization is a battle, budtenders are on the front lines. From seasoned tokers who are looking for nuanced recommendations to first-timers who have no idea what being high even feels like, a budtender should be able to offer helpful suggestions to match any customer with the right product to ensure they have an enjoyable cannabis experience.

Our podcast host Shango Los recently met with Max Montrose, President of the Trichome Institute, a cannabis education and training company based in Colorado, to discuss the important role that budtenders play in the cannabis industry. In this episode, Max reveals how shockingly common it is for budtenders to spread misinformation they learned online, how dabbing incorrectly can be dangerous, why he believes there is a real risk of temporary psychosis from consuming too many edibles, and how budtenders could be held personally liable if they offer medical advice.

This is an episode you don’t want to miss! Listen to the interview using the media player below, or scroll down for the full transcript.

Subscribe to the Ganjapreneur podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play.


Listen to the podcast:


Shango: Hi there and welcome to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast. I am your host Shango Los. The Ganjapreneur.com Podcast gives us an opportunity to speak directly to entrepreneurs, cannabis growers, product developers and cannabis medicine researchers, all focused on making the most of cannabis normalization.

As your host, I do my best to bring you original cannabis industry ideas that will ignite your own entrepreneurial spark and give you actionable information to improve your business strategy, and improve your health and the health of cannabis patients everywhere.

Today my guest is Max Montrose. Max is founder and current president of The Trichome Institute, a cannabis educational content provider. He is the author of The National Cannabis Industry textbook and is an educational adviser to government and business specializing in cannabis safety, education and awareness.

Through The Trichome Institute, he provides standardized cannabis trainings for cannabis employees and produces educational materials for all types of cannabis enthusiasts. Max has established the Budtender Certification Course and has developed the sommelier approach to cannabis variety types called Interpening. Today, we’re going to talk about best practices for Budtenders. Welcome to the show Max.

Max: Hey, thanks so much Shango. Pleasure to be here.

Shango: Max, I think one of the important places for us to start are to talk about the attributes that make people good Budtenders because some people just seem to have the package of attributes that makes them warm and perfect in that environment and I know you travel the country talking to all sorts of Budtenders and you educate them. Let’s start with that. What makes a good Budtender?

Max: There’s really two things that makes a good Budtender and the first is someone who has good customer service skills because what you’re doing is you’re serving … servicing customers and the patients. Being able to have good communication skills, good listening skills and understanding what good customer service is is the first attribute but you could have the best customer service in the world. You could be the nicest, friendliest person ever and not know a thing about cannabis products and how many different kinds they are and how they work.

The second best attribute would be knowledge and understanding exactly what it is that you’re doing and how to do it in the best way.

Shango: Since Budtender courses are just starting to come about as people like you put together this information to make them available, where in your experience do Budtenders usually find their information?

Max: Well, that’s actually something that tends to scare me because in my experience, I have taken a ton of Budtender Certification Courses online and in person, and I’m usually bothered by what I find because the information is generally recycled old information from online and there’s so much information about cannabis today that it’s just so wrong that people are certifying people in misinformation.

One of the best and easiest ways you can tell that is by asking any of these education providers who has reviewed and approved your curriculum because often times the answer is nobody. Generally, people are finding a lot of information through dozens of cannabis education companies that are popping up left and right because it is becoming profitable to educate people in this business but the question is how real and legitimate is that education?

Shango: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Up to this point, the majority of Budtenders that I’ve come across have been simply the friends and family of the shop owners. They want to hire somebody that they trust. They want to give their nephew or niece a job and do you think that a higher standard for Budtenders is finally catching on? Are we to that point yet? Or do you think that standardization or practices for Budtenders is still an infancy and really hasn’t made any … it hasn’t made much progress yet?

Max: It is in its super infancy still. That’s a fact. Budtenders are not looked at as serious currently but that’s actually about to change. Colorado is … Everybody knows Colorado is the pioneer state when it comes to this industry, except Colorado doesn’t require any training whatsoever to be in this job.

We have over 10,000 Budtenders in the state and many of them don’t know the difference between the indica and sativa the way and they believe that they do but if you ask them, it’s very obvious that they don’t or I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who have no idea that edibles are a different drug than smoke flower or understand why CBD is different from THC.

I don’t really see businesses in Colorado hiring friends and family. They hire people for $9 an hour, $10 an hour and there is just an enormous line of applicants out the door. That doesn’t really require much care or training whatsoever.

Shango: Gosh, sorry. I got to tell you, I’m really surprised to hear or nine or ten bucks an hour. Out here on the West Coast, a 15, 14 seems to be a more what is typical but that really goes to show how many people in Colorado really want to use the budtending job as a entry path into the industry where they’re willing to work for near minimum wage just to get their foot into the door.

That makes sense right because that can be a very effective way to get in the industry but with so many people being willing to work for less than they may make somewhere else, it brings down the rate of pay for everybody.

Max: It does. This is such a big topic and it’s so important and there so many different angles to it. First of all, let me say this. You’re harvesting correct when you’re talking about using it as an entry point into the business. It’s a little bit of a sacrifice if you’re serious because this industry is not easy to get into.

That being said, I started out as a Budtender for $9 an hour and I now own multiple businesses in the industry and I know a lot of people who started out as Budtenders who are really doing great with fantastic businesses. It’s definitely possible. Unfortunately, it depends on the business owner and there are so many old school owners, OG’s who treats this business very different than corporate business owners do.

They really look at their Budtenders like tissue paper. You just pull one out and get a new one. They’re just ten bucks an hour kind of a thing. It doesn’t really matter like why invest in their education, why invest in their training which is really backwards thinking because the dispensaries that do care, that do invest in their Budtenders training, they make better sales and are more profitable and it’s because people walk in and people aren’t stupid.

You can walk in a one dispensary and see, “Okay, this is a shop where nobody has a clue what’s going on and therefore they don’t feel safe purchasing products there, where you walk into the other store next door and all of the Budtenders are trained. They’re certified. They understand the products.” It’s an entire different shopping experience and those stores are making more money.

Shango: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that it’s a common errant belief that just being able to replace employees is a good thing versus being willing to put investments in your employees not only so that they can sell more effectively but because they’ll stay around longer because they feel like you’re investing in them. That makes a lot of sense. We’re going to take our first short break. When we come back, we’re going to start talking about your Budtender Certification Course specifically. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast.

As a cannabis entrepreneur, you know how challenging recruiting quality talent can be. Your day is already busy enough and yet there is an ever growing pile of resumes on your desk and your team is begging you to hire more help. Hiring the right person can make a profound impact on your company. There’s no reason that you have to suddenly be an expert hiring manager.

Not when there is Viridian Staffing, Viridian Staffing recruits solely for adult use cannabis, Medical Marijuana and Hemp companies and those that service them. Viridian Staffings recruiters, each have over ten years of experience and they will use that experience to recruit the kind of employees that will make you look good.

Whether you’re looking for a master grower, extractor, grow room support or trimming, Viridian can find an appropriate person in your area. They can even recruit administrative or graphic design professionals who may not need cannabis experience, because you are a startup, you may also need human resources help for a while.

Viridian Staffing can make sure that your HR files are complete and keep you out of trouble with state and federal employment requirements, because the cannabis industry is booming, cannabis recruiting companies are popping up all over the country but good marketing does not mean good recruiting.

Some of the recruiting shops that have opened are run by novices who do not yet have a thorough understanding of employment law and the complexities of hiring for cannabis. Don’t hire an amateur to find you a professional. Consider Viridian Staffing to make that stack of resumes disappear and complete your team with exactly the hire you are hoping for. You can find out more at viridianstaffing.com, that’s V-I-R-I-D-I-A-N staffing.com and now back to the show.

Welcome back, you are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast. I am your host Shango Los and our guest this week is Max Montrose, founder of Trichome Institute. Before the break, we were talking about the importance of properly educating Budtenders both so that they’re giving good advice and recommendations to the customers but also because that ability causes them to sell more product which is also good for the store.

Max, I know that one of the key things that you have developed education wise for the public is your Budtender certification. Since on the first part of the show we were talking about the kinds of things that Budtenders don’t know. Let’s talk about the kinds of things that you’re teaching them that they should know. Just give us an overview of the Budtender course.

Max: Sure. To me what a Budtender course is, it’s about budtending and what that means is selling cannabis products. If you don’t understand the differences between the cannabis products then how can you do your job? So often when I take other people’s budtending courses, they just don’t even mention the products. They don’t teach people what the biological and chemical differences of indica and sativa are. I just don’t understand how you’re supposed to effectively educate the consumer on what the experiences they’re about to have because this is not selling ice cream or clothing.

You’re selling someone a psychoactive experience and the differences between the products are from zero to a hundred, from a five milligram edible sucker to a 95% THC Dab. What our course really focuses on is the products. Obviously as I said earlier in the show you can’t be a good Budtender without having good customer service. That actually is the first chapter. What is customer service and how does that work?

We also cover things like slang how okay is it to utilize slang in the job and sometimes it is okay and it depends on the customer and it depends on the situation in the scenario. Our course is very down to earth because we’ve been Budtenders before. We’ve run dispensaries, we know how it goes but the main focus of our course is the products.

Essentially, our Budtender Training and Certification textbook which we licensed to other cannabis education providers worldwide is essentially the bible of any and all cannabis products that could ever be. It literally breaks down every single hash and concentrate and how they are different from each other and how they should be vended responsibly by understanding each customer and patient tolerant level and experienced usage so that you can make a responsible choice when helping people select these psychotropic experiences.

Shango: That makes a lot of sense. Not only to have a standardized tome that everybody’s working from so that as new information comes out of the science you can just simply upgrade the one book and it gets everybody on the same page but also for tourists they’ll be getting the same information when they come to visit Colorado as they will get when they go to Washington or as they’ll get when they go home to California or wherever so that people are starting to get a uniformity in education.

That sounds like a really useful thing considering all the snafus we’ve had so far here in early legalization. Let me ask you this. Often when I walk into a cannabis shop, the Budtenders are sometimes staring off or chatting amongst themselves or even worst I asked a question and I’m told either that they don’t know the answer or that they tell me something that I know is not accurate.

For that first moment, when the Budtender is interacting with a new customer, how do you recommend that Budtenders handle that moment to help the customer get the experience they’re looking for?

Max: That really just comes down to good customer service. It’s not really product knowledge at that point. It’s how do you put your cellphone away because you’re on the job working and the thing is if people took … people need to take Budtenders more seriously so that they hire more serious people, the problem is this because Budtenders don’t receive any benefits or enough pay or education.

Generally, they hire some kind of shtunky people. It’s not uncommon to lock into a dispensary and be a little frustrated that you have an uneducated person trying to help you who really doesn’t care. That’s something that needs to change in this industry and it is changing because the dispensaries that are moving towards becoming more professional are going to prevail especially just due to customer selection.

When a new customer walks in the door, the first thing you need to do is analyze who your customer is by understanding what their tolerance is and their experience level but also what their goals are and what are their goals aren’t, what to avoid. One of my biggest frustrations with Budtender customer service is they love to suggest the product that they love which is problematic because the things that they really love and appreciate with their extremely high tolerances might not be the perfect product for someone who is coming in who’s brand new.

Shango: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Give an example. What are the couple questions that you would ask your customer to help tease out for them because like a lot of these people who are coming in the stores, they either haven’t tried cannabis or they haven’t tried cannabis since the 70’s or the 80’s when they were younger and before they had kids. What are kind of the some questions that you can suggest to help bring that information out of the customer?

Max: My number one question that I ask that I start out with is kind of the ice breaker that also gives me the most amount of information which is the least offensive to ask is, where are you from? The geography question is really incredible how much information you can get knowing where someone is from and yeah, that might be profiling a little bit but that’s what were trying to do here.

We’re trying to profile. Does this person come from a society that is knowledgeable in cannabis products? Because if they tell you that they’re from Bend, Oregon or Seattle, Washington or Anchorage, Alaska or Denver, Colorado or Oakland, California, you probably don’t have to hold their hand and describe them the differences between indica and sativa.

In fact, you probably annoy them because they probably already know or believe that they know. If you find someone who’s from a cannabis friendly geography, you just automatically know that they probably know more than most even if they are new to it but you don’t know that for sure because everyone’s different. That’s when you would go further in asking, “Well, are you someone whose really experienced in cannabis?”

If they tell you yes then you know that the kind of shopping experience they want is one where they know what they’re doing and they don’t really need help unless they ask for it or for the guidance versus when someone says, “I’m from Oklahoma or Tennessee.” then you can say, “Okay, how familiar are with you cannabis?” Based on what they say, you might be able to understand that they either need more help or not. I think that’s a really good starting point.

Shango: Yeah, I think that’s true and another thing that I liked while doing my research about the Budtender course that you put out is the understanding of where you draw the line on how much education a Budtender should have to be able to offer this concierge level services because for example, part of the ability to direct a customer to the right product would realistically involve understanding the different forms of THC and their effects that the other cannabinoids like CBD, CBV, CBN, CBG and of course like THC to CBD ratios and how they work with different ailments in case the person is truly a patient.

How much of that information do you think is necessary for the Budtender? The examples I gave, do you think they should know all of that? Or do you that so long as they can gently directly you to the products, that’s enough for what they’re being paid today.

Max: It has to be a gentle amount of the very technical information for a few different reasons. When we’re teaching Budtenders who specifically work in medical dispensaries, the number one thing we train them is you can’t give medical advice, not just because we think it’d be a good idea not to because it’s against the law and you yourself could get in trouble, not even just your shop, you can get in trouble.

I have to remind Budtenders from time to time that there are certain things that they do in this business that could have handcuffs thrown on them and it’s kind of like a little bit of a reality check because sometimes they get a little jaded after three months being on the job and they think it’s easy.

The most important thing is is you’re not a doctor and when you’re selecting medicine for someone, the way that you go about that needs to be careful and gentle. That’s just a reality. You can suggest to people things that you know based on quality trainings and personal experience but a lot of the times, understanding cannabinoid ratios doesn’t really even matter unless you understand the endocannabinoid system and then we’re getting into medical science and I’ve never met a Budtender in my life who has had any amount of medical training.

The Trichome Institute is not a medical training facility. We understand cannabis and what it does and how it works and that’s what a Budtender needs to know too. They need to know what cannabis is and how it works and recommend what is going to happen to a patient when they take these specific products and the best thing that you can do is have the product reps train the Budtenders themselves on how their products work specifically because some of these products are more detailed than what a general education can give you. That’s what I’d say.

Shango: Yeah, right on. I must admit your answer went counter to what I was expecting which … it’s always a pleasant surprise for me during interviews because I was thinking, I was expecting your answer to be, “Oh, they should know all of this stuff so they can pass on proper care.” But realistically, you’re right. It is more of a risk for both the Budtender and for the store to be giving this information.

In some cases, I can imagine store owners having to be in a position where they’re discouraging a really educated Budtender from going as far as the Budtender can, simply because they’re dispensing information while … they maybe accurate about the functioning of the endocannabinoid system and a CBD to THC ratio for a daily supplement or something like that.

That’s not really their role at this part at this point and it could actually get them in trouble. Maybe actually just providing … knowing where to stop is an important thing.

Max: It is and here’s the reality at the same time. Budtenders aren’t paid good enough to be educated well enough to understand those complicated things to a point where they actually could give good advice. It is dangerous how many Budtenders think they know what they’re talking about and are advising patients this is how products work and they couldn’t be further from the truth and that can get dangerous because people are using these products for serious medical reasons.

One of the things that drives me the most insane in this industry is the strain name dilemma. I can’t tell you how many patients walk in and say, “I’m looking very specifically for this type” and you just say, “Why?” “Well, because I heard on the internet, I read from a website or an app that this strain works this way.”

It’s like, “Okay, you do know that all the strain names made up right? Like I’m the guy who relabeled them because the pound came in and it didn’t have a name associated to it so I had to come up with a name that I knew people associate as brand trust ability so I’m going to counterfeit Blue Dream and I’m going to call this pound Blue Dream. Okay?”

In Colorado, we have 250 types of Blue Dream because 249 of them aren’t Blue Dream. If you use a website to understand how a strain is and how it will affect you and there are some websites out there, multi-million dollar huge ones that I know everyone knows what I’m talking about who are like, “Listen, this is a strain and this is how it works” and it’s like, “Where did your information come from?” “Oh, it’s aggregated from thousands of unregistered stoners who have no idea what they’re talking about.” That’s whose telling you how these genetics work.

The thing is if you have a patient whose got PTSD, they’re coming in and they’re asking you to help them prevent a paranoia experience and there are more types … there’s lots of types of cannabis that induce paranoia and the thing is you can detect which strains are paranoia inducers based on science, based on the smell of the bud and the structure of the bud and the features of it more than the name that was most likely counterfeited down the line in the black market before that genetic reach the hands of the legal market which is our situation today. The strain name thing is a big one for me.

Shango: Yeah, I can believe that. It can even be influenced by the particular grower and how they handle the crop and what terpenes were brought up by the particular nutrients that they put into it. You’re right. It’s really messy. I got a laugh about. I had not really considered the fact that most of the online databases for strains are crowd sourced which that’s the same reason why I hate using stuff like a lot of these medical websites like WebMD and these places that … maybe not WebMd but the other places where you Google your ailment and they all tell you you have Ebola and/or cancer and you’re probably going to die.

It’s just all these people posting their fears and concerns. Similarly with the cannabis sites, you’ve got the response from one cannabis enthusiast in one part of the country from one experience and they’re probably writing it high then and that’s a bad way to crowd source information. We need to take another short break, we’ll be right back and we will be talking about the complexity of suggesting edibles to tourists. We’ll be right back.

The Ganjapreneur Podcast is listened to by tens of thousands of cannabis entrepreneurs and enthusiasts every single week. These folks are most likely your target customers and we’d like to introduce you to each other. Our down to earth and information rich commercial breaks can deliver your message to the cannabis business community and others who just find relief in getting high.

If you want to reach out and connect with our audience in the most personal way that we can offer, go ahead and drop us an email at grow@ganjapreneur.com and we can talk about you becoming a commercial sponsor of the Podcast. Thanks for listening and being part of the Ganjapreneur family. Now, back to the show.

Welcome back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast. I am your host Shango Los and our guest this week is Max Montrose, founder of The Trichome Institute. Before the break, we were talking about the importance of giving accurate information to customers when they come in to the cannabis shop and one of the most difficult things to give feedback to a customer on is edibles because they affect people so differently right from how their body handles it to also the milligram requirement from somebody whose a newbie to somebody who has got a high tolerance. What do you teach Budtenders Max so that they can give safe and reliable information to somebody who may be new to edibles?

Max: Everything that we teach from The Trichome Institute, our rule is we do not teach misinformation. How you can guarantee that you’re not going to teach misinformation is by collecting your data from the most reliable resource from the very top from the beginning and that’s what we do.

In Colorado, the state advertises constantly public service announcements, little cards and dispensaries everywhere and now the cannabis trainers out here do this exact same thing. The state of Colorado has this set idea about edibles that says start low and go slow which is true but what they mean by that specifically is start with ten milligrams and wait two hours and it’s like, “Okay, well, is that scientifically true or do you just think that that would be the best way to begin?” And the answer is, “It’s not scientifically true at all.”

What we do is we look at the science of cannabis, how does cannabis work scientifically? If you want to go to the top, the world’s authority on cannabinoid pharmacokinetic pharmacology is Dr. Franjo Grotenhermen of Nova University. That’s where we get our medical cannabis science from and if you research that science, that science suggests from Franjo that some people don’t feel the effects of edibles until six hours.

If you were to use the Colorado recommendation ten milligrams every two hours, if you’re someone who is going to get obliterated from five milligrams but you don’t feel it in a six hour period, you’re going to have 30 milligrams of THC in the time period that you would wait to feel it and then you’re going to get the train wreck effect which is the cars will stack up and hit you as the effect continuous to hit you as the hours keep stacking if that makes sense.

Shango: Yeah, it creates a cascading effect.

Max: It does, it does. We don’t say ten milligrams in two hours. We say less than five milligrams and wait all day long because what would it hurt if you didn’t have a terrifying experience? It would be a good thing if you didn’t versus the opposite way. You can always eat more later. You can’t take away what your stomach is digesting once you’ve eaten too much.

We tell people to really take it easy and the reason why is because edibles are a completely different drug than every single product that could be sold in the dispensary period and most people don’t know this. It baffles me that companies who own edible manufacturing facilities who literally make millions of dollars producing these products have no idea that they make a chemically different drug substance than all other dispensary products.

The difference is THC being digested through the liver instead of getting in the blood system. Smoking cannabis, vaping cannabis, tincture cannabis, sublinguals and transdermals will all enter your blood system and get into your cannabinoid, your endocannabinoid system, your CB1 and your CB2 through your blood system and that doesn’t change the molecular property of delta-9 THC but delta-9 THC is not water soluble and you are water yourself and you excrete extra chemicals through water bases.

Your liver has to make delta-9 water soluble and it does just that. It literally takes elements of the molecular chain and it rearranges the molecule so that it’s a water soluble format. The water soluble format in first metabolite of delta-9 is a different kind of psychoactive. It’s 11-hydroxy-THC, not delta-9 THC.

That molecule just so happens to work differently because it’s a different molecule. It’s unbelievably similar, unbelievably close like the difference between OxyContin and Oxycodone. You know they mean? It’s just a little tweak but that tweak makes a huge difference and the difference is 11-hydroxy can become expediential and what that means is your five milligrams could turn into an effect that’s really more like 25 milligrams.

If you eat a 100 milligram chocolate bar because you’re from Oklahoma and your Budtender wasn’t educated and didn’t tell you you’re not supposed to eat the whole damn thing. You’re only supposed to eat a 10th of the bar. This is why the state of Colorado has a 400% increase in ER visits from edible hospitalization specifically and most specifically from out of town people, people who aren’t from cannabis geographies who don’t know and Budtenders who aren’t explaining to them how this stuff works.

Shango: Even though taking that much cannabis it certainly not going to kill them. They are going to have a bad experience that may scare them off cannabis and might cause them to cause to call the paramedics but even though we know scientifically they’re going to be fine, they’re going to have a traumatic emotional experience and we want them to avoid that.

Max: Yeah, I’m going to touch on something that is really serious and is another thing a lot of people don’t really know and it’s something that the cannabis industry just needs to come to grips with because it’s a reality. Unfortunately, 11-Hydroxy more than delta-9 is … It is a for-sure thing that it’s specific 11-Hydroxy that has caused more than just a few times in the state of Colorado where we call that non-permanent edible induced psychosis.

You can actually read the reports of how old these people were, the fact that they are cannabis users for years and years and years with highly developed tolerances for whatever reason bought a chocolate bar and yes we actually make medical cannabis chocolate bars in the state that are 500 milligrams, 500 and because edibles can chemically become two to six times stronger, we’re talking about an experience that is thousands of milligrams of 11-Hydroxy and it is literally causing people to loose their minds for up to 24 to 48 hours and they’re put in to the psychiatric ward.

We did have one guy who pulled out the gun and shot his wife, blew her brains out and another who jump off the balcony in the same week and this is the kind of stuff where people who are advocates against cannabis are using stories like this to try to shut down our entire industry. It doesn’t have to be that way. The key here is education. Okay? If you don’t know what 500 milligrams means in a chocolate bar, that’s dangerous. If I asked you Shango, If I said a pint of beer equals a glass of wine equals how much spirit? You would say?

Shango: A shot.

Max: Yeah. Okay but if I asked someone from Oklahoma or from anywhere else, even people from Denver Colorado, even budtenders, people who know weed.

Shango: Should know better.

Max: Should know better. Do you understand the ratio or difference of edible milligrams? No. Nobody does. Okay? This is where education is really, really critical. Edibles are a serious thing and that’s why we take them seriously and that’s why we utilize science from the very, very top and which is why all of our education is reviewed and approved by the highest authorities of cannabis law, science and medicine.

Shango: Max, nobody wants to hear the story that you just said. I’m only thinking about the ramifications and I can imagine the audience shaking their head and some people getting pissed at you for saying this but that’s the problem with the story that you’re bringing out because those of us who are cannabis enthusiasts A, we don’t want to believe what you’re saying and B, we don’t want the prohibitionist folks to be able to use that kind of a story against the industry but we are in a brand new day of people using cannabis.

Obviously we’re going to learn more about cannabis use as suddenly all these new people are using it. A story like you’re saying if it gets played from the prohibitionists all these enthusiasts are going to go, “Oh, that’s BS studies and you can’t believe them because they were brought up on DARE.” Then on people on our side we just want you to shut the hell up because we don’t want you to ruin the industry by suddenly creating a situation where cannabis can be called dangerous but really the heart of the matter is that as a society and as a culture, we are becoming re introduced to this powerful herbal supplement in our lives and really talking about this so that we all can have the proper education while hard is something that we have to do.

Max: Yeah, let me just put it to this way. I didn’t believe this edible induced psychosis thing and when I was actually working with the health department, I kept telling them that they’re all crazy and out of their minds and this is just propaganda rhetoric, this is Reefer Madness shit but the reality is I did the research myself and I looked into it and I read the hospitals reviews and I read the bios on who these people were and how experienced with cannabis they were and I read the things that they were saying during their non-permanent psychosis and I think that’s another important part.

You’re not going to go crazy forever. You could either have the worst experience ever. You could either pass out and wake up the next day fine but it is people who are kind of their brains are more setup for psychosis where edibles just snap the point that kind of keeps them in line but it isn’t forever but the thing is it is real and true and guess what else is real and true?

Dabbing is really, really dangerous and people, some people they watch interviews of me explaining this and the dab heads get really upset and frustrated with me but for all of the people who had no idea what happens to your CB1 receptor when you dab and specifically what you dab and how you dab it. People thank me all day long for saving them from doing something that they were doing on a daily basis that they didn’t understand could have really potential negative consequences in the future.

The thing is if you’re an adult and you understand what the dangers are, what the risks and the rewards, you’re totally allowed to go do whatever you want. I don’t care what you do. You can jump off a cliff. You can shoot heroine. People are allowed to be people. Adults are allowed to be adults but it is not fair to anyone to allow someone to engage in something that’s potentially dangerous without the knowing. That’s not okay.

As long as people understand what the dangers are, they can actually navigate how to do dabbing the right way because there are types of dabbing that aren’t bad for you, that aren’t dangerous but the question is what’s the difference between proper and non proper dabbing and it takes a little bit of time to explain that. It’s not rocket science but if you don’t know, you probably should know.

Shango: Max, it was almost … it is time for us to wrap up the show but there’s no way that I can let you go without getting … you are an intentional and you have a slow cadence to your speech but we need to hear this right so can you give me the 90-second version of safe dabbing versus unsafe dabbing because if I don’t ask the question I’m going to get all this hate mail about. “He was right there and you had him, let’s hear it.” Break it down for me but do so swiftly because we’re almost out of time.

Max: Nope. I’m not going to do it. Just kidding man. One thing I’ll say is there is so much to know like it’s more than edibles, it’s more than dabbing. I have literally published four textbooks worth of information that people should probably know and how we update people on how this stuff is coming out and when it’s coming out is by signing up on our email listing on our web page because we’re constantly updating education and our education is constantly getting better.

When a lot of this online stuff is coming out, I’d love to inform people when that is so if people want to stay up to date with these kind of stuff, I highly recommend our newsletter especially because every newsletter we send out, we give free articles and free videos of me explaining things like this from time to time to make it interesting but so that we don’t piss off any viewers. The difference between safe and unsafe dabbing is what you’re dabbing and how you dab it.

There actually is no science that heating up a titanium nail doesn’t produce off gasses of titanium when inhaling the soft metal and a lot of people will say, “Well, the titanium is medical grade titanium.” And it’s like, “Great. When they put medical grade titanium into your body, do they heat it up as a soft metal thousands of times over and over again and do you inhale the vapor off of it?” “No. Okay? We don’t know that heating little pieces of metal and smoking off them aren’t dangerous.” But I’ve actually seen people dab with paper clips when they couldn’t find another tool to use.

Well, paper clips are really soft aluminum and aluminum is a neurological retardant. If you’re pressing aluminum to a hot plate and sucking off of that, you are damaging your brain in a really heavy way. The other thing are the parts per million and in Colorado, we have an accepted legal limit of 800 parts per million of flammable BHL, Butane.

It is okay to have 800 parts per million of a flammable gas that you literally suck through your cerebral cortex via dabbing and a lot of dab heads actually got some grief from when I considered it freebasing but if you understand the definition of freebasing, dabbing is free basing.

You’re not just freebasing cannabinoids, you’re freebasing a lot of toxic crap and a lot of people don’t know that CO2 favors pesticides and fungicides more than it does cannabinoids and because pesticides and fungicides are unregulated and people are dumping gallons of toxic chemicals on flowers which really maintain them through the sticky trichomes, when you concentrate that, just know that we’re already sometimes the growers already spray more than four times the legal EPA limit for what we consider for food on cannabis which you smoke and then when you concentrate that, it sometimes can become ten times higher.

Four times times ten times, were talking about a hundred times more bigger than the EPA limit of poisons that you’re now freebasing to your brain. Okay? It’s more than just the residual part per millions of the solvents. It’s poisons that the extraction method is condensing and then at the end of it, what happens is, isn’t it amazing that a dab is 95 % THC but the experience only last 15 minutes, why is that?

The reason why is because your cannabinoid receptors in your brain, your CB1s are so heavily overloaded. Every single receptor is loaded at once that you’re actually … the vast majority of what you’re dabbing gets wasted and the cannabinoids are just flying through your brain and your brain really doesn’t really know what to do with it so it shuts down your receptors by killing them and turning them off to protect yourself because your body doesn’t understand what’s happening with this violent ingestion of cannabinoids.

What that means is you are literally mowing down your cannabinoid receptors which is your ability to perceive cannabis. Euphoria is out the window and your tolerance is going sky rocketing up which is why dab heads gets frustrated smoking flower. They can’t get high smoking a joint with their friends anymore and it gets really scary when dab heads bring their dab kit to concerts with them or to the bar.

I’m not kidding. I’ve had buddies pull out a dab rig on the bar because that’s their only method of getting off at this point because they’ve mowed down their ability to perceive cannabis in a more gentle way. That’s heavy. I think that’s heavy.

Shango: That is really heavy. I can imagine that you’re splitting the audience into one group who are feeling liberated by the information that you’re providing and then the other part that you’re really pissing off because you sound like a DARE ad, but I know you to be a very dedicated cannabis lover who who understands the medicinal benefits and actually you just want people to use it right and this is information that is not getting spread around and this is why we had you on the show.

Max: I appreciate that. Before I piss everyone off, I’ll just say that there is an okay and a proper way to dab and that’s more of your Rosin things that cannabis that wasn’t sprayed with chemicals, organic cannabis that was extracted with a non-solvent so you’ve got 0.00 part per million and you dab glass on glass. If you’ve got a glass dab rod and you got a glass nail and you’re using a really clean extract that has no residual solvents or poisons, what’s the problem?

There isn’t one. Okay? If you’re going to be a dabber in that boutique and love that experience, you should do that and also some really critical medical patients benefit from dabbing. People who have MS whose bodies become so constricted with their brain lesions firing off that they don’t have enough time to sit there and smoke a bowl or smoke a joint because they can’t move. They’re physically stuck. I’ve actually given my own MS patients, I’ve put the rig up to their lips.

If they can at least inhale that amount of medicine that it works that fast, their bodies relaxed instantly and they’re almost … whatever their problem is is solved with a snap of the finger because it’s a dab. This is America. People should have a free choice. It would suck if all beer was only 3.2%. Some people like whisky and the harder stuff so take a dab. I just want you to know the difference between positive dabbing and potentially really dangerous dabbing and that’s all.

Shango: Right on Max. I’m really glad that there’s somebody like you willing to say the hard stuff who’s putting together the curriculum for Budtenders around the country. Thank you so much for being on the show Max.

Max: Thank you Shango. I really appreciate it.

Shango: Max Montrose is the founder and president of The Trichome Institute. You can find out more at trichomeinstitute.com and I really do recommend that you go to check out the website, not only can you sign up for the newsletter that Max was talking about where you can get updated information like the surprising things he’s been saying during this third part of the show but also we never got a chance to talk about the interprener sommelier certification program that he offers where you study terpenes intensely and you approach it as a wine connoisseur. It’s really interesting stuff and it’s there on the website at trichomeinstitute.com.

You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur Podcast in the podcast section at Ganjapreneur.com and in the Apple iTunes store. On the Ganjapreneur.com website, you will find the latest cannabis news, product reviews and cannabis jobs updated daily along with transcriptions of this podcast.

You can also download the Ganjapreneur.com app in both iTunes and Google Play. For info on me and where I’ll be speaking, you can go to shangolos.com. Do you have a company that wants to reach our national audience of cannabis enthusiasts? Email grow@gajapreneur.com to find out how. Today’s show is produced by Michael Rowe. I am your host Shango Los.

End


Vermont Gov. Signs MMJ Program Expansions Into Law

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin has signed a law expanding the state’s medical marijuana system, a press release issued Monday reports.

The new law expands the list of qualifying conditions for cannabis treatment to include patients with glaucoma, chronic pain, and patients under hospice care. Previously, Vermont‘s medical marijuana program serviced only patients with cachexia or wasting syndrome, cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, seizures, severe pain and severe nausea. The new qualifying conditions take effect immediately.

The new law also mandates the childproof packaging of medical marijuana products and adds labeling requirements for infused edible products.

“At a time when opiate addiction is ravaging our state and drug companies continue to urge our doctors to pass out painkillers like candy, we need to find a more practical solution to pain management,” said Gov. Shumlin. “This bill ensures that Vermonters who are suffering will have access to medicine that is high quality, laboratory tested, and most importantly non-addictive.”

Earlier this year, the Vermont House killed a Senate-approved legalization bill, which would have made Vermont the first eastern U.S. state to legalize recreational cannabis, and the first state to do so via the legislature.

The Vermont legislature legalized medical marijuana in 2003.

End


New York Cannabis Advocates Pushing for Expanded Access as Session Winds Down

New York lawmakers and medical cannabis advocates are continuing their fight to expand the state’s Compassionate Care Act, calling the current state of the program “overly restrictive” and touting cannabis as a safe and effective alternative to opioid pain relievers, during a press conference at the capitol.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D) has proposed three bills to grow the program; A.9510 would give physician assistants and nurse practitioners the power to prescribe medical marijuana; A.9562 removes the 10 milligram dosing limits and adds Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, dystonia, muscular dystrophy, wasting syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus to the list of conditions treatable by marijuana under the law; and A.9514A seeks to allow chronic pain not associated with another condition to be treated with cannabis.

gottfried2
Assemblyman Richard Gottfried spoke at length Wednesday morning about three proposals to expand and improve New York’s Compassionate Care Act.

Under the law, the Department of Health is authorized to add conditions to the list of eligible conditions, but has declined to make any changes thus far. Gottfried says the Health Department has failed to add to the list because they are “responding to instructions” from Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).

“The governor very clearly has a very restrictive attitude toward this program,” Gottfried said. “You’d have to ask him where that comes from.”

Kate Hintz, a parent of a 5-year-old child with intractable epilepsy and patient advocate, says due to the restrictive nature of the program her daughter is not able to acquire the medicine she needs in New York.

“We were told that New York’s program would be an example of how to get medical marijuana right. Instead we have fallen short of that goal with a program having too many restrictions and too few patients,” she said. “Allowing nurse practitioners and physician assistants to participate in the programs, and adding conditions like PTSD and chronic pain, will make a significant difference to thousands of New Yorkers.”

hintz
Patient advocate Kate Hintz, mother of a 5-year-old child who suffers from epilepsy, addresses the crowd.

Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal (D), chair of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Committee said that chronic pain needs to be added to the list of treatable conditions because of the prevalence of opioid-based treatments for chronic pain, noting that number of deaths attributed to opioid overdoses have overtaken those due to car accidents in the state.

“Allowing chronic pain sufferers to use medical marijuana would have a transformative impact on the scale of our addiction crisis,” she said. “In 2012 there was a mind-boggling 259 million opioid prescriptions – that’s more than enough for one for each person.”

In a memo by advocacy group Compassionate Care New York, the group cites a Montefiore Medical Center study that concluded between 1999 to 2010 states with effective medical marijuana programs had a 25 percent reduction in opioid pain reliever overdose deaths. According to the Center for Disease Control, there were 165,000 opioid pain-killer deaths from 1999 to 2014 – compared to zero from marijuana. Of the 23 states with medical marijuana programs, 17 include chronic pain as an eligible condition.

“Severe chronic pain is often treated with opioids that are much more dangerous and addictive than medical marijuana,” Gottfried, chair of the Assembly Health Committee, said. “…It’s an important step in harm reduction and good public policy.”

Gottfried indicated that he expects all three bills to be voted on by the Assembly before the legislative session concludes. They would then head to the Senate, where they are sponsored by Senator Diane Savino (D) (S.6998, S.6999) and Senator Gustavo Rivera (D) (S.7249A).

Savino is also pushing for a home-delivery program to be enacted by the Department of Health, who have dragged their feet on the proposal, first considered in January.

“These are common sense improvements to the program, and we will be bringing help and relief to countless more patients in New York State,” she said.

End