Mass. Legalization Efforts Supported by Voters; Officials Launch Prohibition Campaign

4/15/2016

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A majority of voters in Massachusetts support ballot questions to legalize recreational marijuana use in the state for individuals 21 and older, but the Republican governor is teaming up with two powerful Democrats to oppose a likely ballot question.

Of the 497 registered voters polled for the April 1-10 Western New England University survey, 57 percent supported legalizing cannabis for adult use, with 35 percent opposed and 7 percent were undecided. Democrats overwhelmingly favored legalization – 64 percent to 29 percent – while independent voters supported the issue by a 63 percent to 37 percent margin. Republicans opposed the measure 58 percent to 35 percent.

Voters ages 18 to 39 supported legalization by a 74 percent margin, those ages 40 to 54 by 54 percent, and voters ages 55 to 64 by 53 percent. Just 43 percent of individuals ages 65 and older supported legalization.

Despite the measure’s popularity in the poll, Gov. Charlie Baker, House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D) and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh (D) have joined forces to discourage legalization efforts, according to the Sentinel and Enterprise.

The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts will directly oppose the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, who are pushing for the measure.

In a statement announcing the campaign, the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy Massachusetts declared the ballot question “is written by and for the corporate interests that have profited from legalization across the country.”

DeLeo said he opposed any measures making it “easier to introduce young people to drug use.”

In 2008 voters in the state approved a proposal to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce or less, and in 2012 they approved the use of medical marijuana. Both initiatives passed with approval rates of 65 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

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Paul Pedreira: Fighting Back Against Over-Regulation

4/15/2016

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Paul Pedreira is owner of Portland Best Buds, a premium cannabis dispensary located in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon.

Portland Best Buds originally launched in the summer of 2015. The dispensary, however, has faced a lion’s share of the regulatory harassment that has become all-too-familiar among cannabis startups and entrepreneurs. Portland Best Buds was forced to uproot from its first location and spent a series of time facing a government shutdown as Paul scrambled frantically to maintain his little cannabis foothold in North Portland.

Ganjapreneur recently caught up with Paul to discuss the many issues and obstacles he’s faced since leaving the film and television industry and launching his new career offering compassionate cannabis care as a medical cannabis entrepreneur. Read the full interview below:

Ganjapreneur: What were the reasons behind your transition from television and film into the cannabis industry?

Paul Pedreira: Portland Best Buds is a new venture for me after working in television and film for 25 years. The decision was pretty easy on two levels: first, I have seen cannabis help people with a range of medical problems from cancer to epilepsy. I have witnessed numerous people get off opiates because of cannabis. Second, it seemed like a good business decision because as a first time business owner I knew the playing field was relatively even, as opposed to going into another business where the players were much more experienced than me.

How long was it before you started running into problems?

That’s the downside of dealing with such a cutting edge industry: the government. There are so many problems on the local and federal level I don’t know where to start, except to tell my own story about how the Oregon Health Authority and the city of Portland almost took everything away from me after I put my life savings into this business.

Back in July 2015 I was awarded a license from the state to sell medicinal cannabis. I purchased a property in St. John’s after the state confirmed the location was approved.

Well after the approval the city demanded I prove that my building was commercially zoned by providing 50 years of proof every 3 years that there was a grocery store there. I had a full-time job working on the Grimm TV Series at the time, so I had someone go to the library and research the entire history of the grocery store and make copies of the materials — after completing that task, we found out the city had the records the whole time. Very strange. Although it wasn’t exactly a hardship to do research for the city, I found it strange and somewhat abusive that they demanded I track down information they already had in their system, by their own admission.

What I later found out is I had a neighbor vehemently against a cannabis shop, even though they were okay with a bodega selling crack pipes and alcohol. All of a sudden there were permit issues, fines, and the city began corresponding with OHA, trying to revoke my license.

Why the sudden change of attitude by regulators?

My building was grandfathered in as a commercial building because it was a grocery store since the 1950s, and the state had approved the location, so I thought I was safe.

But the state sent a letter stating my application was denied — two months after I was in business! It was as if the approval never happened. Zoning issues were a bit vague in the early rules of OHA, but my building had been clearly zoned for retail (and still is). But one call from a neighbor changed all that because they suddenly had a stance of “we don’t want dispensaries in neighborhoods.”

So the state turned 180 degrees on your business two months after it opened — what do you do about that?

It was either lose everything or fight, so I hired a law firm and they pointed out to the state that you cannot just revoke a license without an appeal process, and, long story short, I was able to find a new location in the same neighborhood. On Thanksgiving Day of 2015 I moved my company to 6313 N Lombard, and the rest is history. Since then, a New Seasons has opened up directly across the street, our sales quadrupled and we found a home right around the corner from the old shop. I never thought I would have to say this but my lawyers saved Best Buds.

Ultimately, a happy ending for you! But at a high price nonetheless — why do you think you faced so much over-regulation?

I think many small businesses have been ruined by government, especially cannabis related. We get emails from the state everyday that contain new rules and laws. Each time that happens a small business is affected financially: you have to hire more people, and services, just to stay compliant.

Then we have the feds: without a federal rescheduling, we can’t do normal banking and we can’t take normal business deductions on the federal level. Our current AG is against legalizing, and with senators like Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) leading the charge against legalization, who knows what is next.

Despite these problems, I am so grateful and excited to be on the cutting edge of progress and although government is hurting the cause, cannabis will prevail as both medicine and recreation… my shop is now a St. John’s institution, with a First Thursday event every month, and my staff is a huge part of our success.

How much of your business would you estimate comes from recreational vs. medicinal sales, and do you have plans to pursue a recreational license?

Our success will depend on a rec license however if the state abandons the medical program, Best Buds will continue to serve the medical community with premium products at a steep discount. They are the reason I’m in this business.

How many staff members are there at the Best Buds store?

We currently have 4 full time, Lisa Miller, Michael Kinney, Nick Kinney, and Jared Conley. Without them I couldn’t function! If you read our reviews on Leafly, they’re all about great service, support, and product. This is why a corporate big box cannot compete with us: this is a very customer interaction-based business so the typical corrupt corporate greed model won’t work. What you need is small, nimble mom and pop like boutique stores that address each customer’s unique needs.

Where do you see Portland Best Buds in 5 years?

That’s a great question. Profits are not our only goal. St Johns is my home and it is transforming everyday. I want Best Buds to be a vibrant part of the community because if you don’t give back, then why go through the trouble? I’m planning to start a charitable trust with an emphasis on education. Perhaps there will be a Best Buds 2, but that’s a ways off. Our First Thursday events are extremely important to us in that we can spend quality time with our customers and connect with emerging artists.

Given your long dedication to the film industry, and the amount of regulatory resistance you’ve faced since entering legal cannabis, do you ever sometimes regret taking that leap and becoming a ganjapreneur?

Never. No regrets. I was protected from government in my former career; now I am on the front lines, but I feel this work is more important and vital to society, and I love being at the tip of the spear. Government can make things very difficult, but the genie is out of the bottle and there is no stopping us now.

If you could offer one piece of advice to someone considering their own cannabis company, what would you say?

First I would highly advise retaining a good cannabis attorney. The government is running the show and they change the rules quite frequently, not to mention the ongoing problem with the Feds.

Thanks Paul for answering our questions and sharing your story of perseverance with our community. To learn more about Portland Best Buds, visit their website at PortlandBestBuds.com or stop by for a visit at 6313 N Lombard, Portland OR.

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Tad Hussey: Building Your Own Soil

4/14/2016

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Tad Hussey of Keep It Simple Organics was recently a guest on the Ganjapreneur.com podcast, and he and our host Shango Los had a discussion about wild-crafted probiotic nutrients. The response we got from our listeners was so enthusiastic that we invited him back for another two episodes! In our second interview with Tad, he gives us an overview of what his process is for creating custom soils, what some of his favorite ingredients to use are, how to get your soil tested to know exactly what nutrients it has and what it needs, and even what his own preferred recipe is for creating a a soil from scratch.

Listen to the episode below, or scroll down for the full transcript!

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*Note: You may have noticed that our podcast format has recently changed. We have been experimenting with our format recently, and have decided to take our show in a new direction. Based on the feedback we have received, we are changing up the structure and stripping away much of the added production and sound effects in order to deliver something a bit more down-to-earth and easy on the ears. This also means that we are now booking our own commercials. If you are interested in connecting with our audience in the most personal way that we can offer, send us an email at grow@ganjapreneur.com and we can talk about you becoming a commercial sponsor of the podcast. It is our hope that these changes will make the podcast an even more pleasant listening experience moving forward. Thank you for being a part of the Ganjapreneur family!

Read the full transcript

Shango Los: Hi there, welcome to the Ganjapreneur podcast. I am your host Shango Los. The Ganjapreneur.com podcast gives us an opportunity to speak directly to entrepreneur’s, 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 is part 2 of our 3 part series with Tad Hussey of Keep It Simple Organics founded my Tad’s father, Leon Hussey, Keep It Simple is an edible nursery production green house, outdoor preschool, organic hydro-shop and feed store in Washington state. Tad is an educator and sought after speaker on probiotic growing. During the first part of the series, we talked about wild crafting probiotic nutrients for nutrient teas. This week we are going to talk about building your soil from wild crafted and alternatively sourced inputs to save you money on store bought inputs. Our third visit with Tad in a couple weeks, we’ll be talking about compost tea. Welcome back to the show Tad.

Tad Hussey: Thanks for having me back, I’m excited to be here.

Shango Los: The response from your first visit was so strong, I knew I had to have you back to talk more about ways to wild craft to save money on store bought nutrients. Before we get into the specifics of what inputs to use for building soil, let’s set up a framework of what building soil means. Many new growers just grab a bag of potting soil and go for it. Why is knowing how to build a soil from scratch important?

Tad Hussey: That’s a great question, Shango. One thing I noticed is the traditional method for growing is you start with a base media that’s relatively inert, then you go out and buy these expensive bottled nutrients to water into the soil and grow your plant then you throw out the soil at the end of your growing cycle. With building your soil and knowing what’s in your potting soil, you can add the minerals and nutrients that your plant needs right into the Rhizosphere so the plants really in control of it’s growing habits. You’re not spending money on these expensive bottled nutrients, when you start looking at what’s on the label in a lot of these organic nutrients, these are things you can put directly into your soil prior to ever planting your plant.

Shango Los: I would think that if you build your soil right, the nutrients are always there so it becomes a buffet situation for your plant that instead of there being a lot of nutrients then less nutrients, then a lot of nutrients when you water again that if you’re putting it in the soil, the nutrients are just kind of always there. It’s like on demand nutrients for your plant. Am I picturing that right?

Tad Hussey: Yes, exactly. It takes time for these nutrients to become plant available because when you add organic bottled nutrients or you add amendments into your soil, they’re not immediately available to the plant. You’re not feeding the plant, you’re actually feeding all these microbes in the soil that then help make these nutrients plant available. By getting them into the soil early, letting the soil nutrients cycle and prep and then planting your plant, you’re just going to have a healthier happier plant. It’s going to be more disease resistant and you’re going to get a better overall yield.

Shango Los: Right on, that makes a lot of sense. The last time we talked to you we talked a lot about nutrient teas and how to wild craft, meaning grabbing plants from your yard or other places in the natural environment that we could make into teas to feed the soil. Now we’re talking about similarly, how to wild craft more alternative sources for building that soils environment for all the microbes. Why don’t you just start from the beginning and tell us how you recommend that people build their soil?

Tad Hussey: Sure. Now in addition to your yard, I’m going to send you to your local feed store. That’s the next best place to look for a lot of these amendments. In addition to a feed store, your local garden center, nurseries, these are all great places to look for things. A variety of amendments that we would want to use would be things like organic alfalfa meal or fish meal or fish bone meal. There’s a bunch of minerals like glacier rock dust, there’s so many things that we can incorporate into our soil that it’s pretty damn amazing what our options are.

Shango Los: Let’s start at the top. Let’s say you’re working with a client and let’s say they’re a commercial client, they are asking you how they are going to save money from buying all these bottled nutrients. Where would you start with them? What would you tell them the first things to go collect? I know there may be more nutrients than we’ve got time for today, but kind of give us a rough guide walkthrough for folks. They can add or remove amendments as they want.

Tad Hussey: Sure. If you were for example, growing outdoors, the first thing I would have you do is get your soil tested to see if that’s something we can use and amend appropriately. By getting a soil test with Logan Labs, they’re probably my favorite soil testing lab, it costs $25 for a standard soil test and that will give us all the trace minerals that your plant needs as well. This is my initial starting point, if we’re talking about building soil from scratch, say a potting soil or indoor soil environment in that case what I like to do personally is do a mix of about 50% peat, 33% aeration in the form of per-lite or pumice, and 17% to 20% is earthworm castings or compost. You can also use cocoa if you prefer instead of peat, personally I prefer peat for a variety of reasons. If you do use cocoa, you’d want to incorporate a little bit more sulfur and calcium in the form of gypsum.

Shango Los: When you were talking about potentially using the soil from your own yard versus bagged soil for growing outdoors, is there a good reason why you wouldn’t use soil from your yard indoors?

Tad Hussey: No, it’s just that with an outdoor environment, it makes sense to me to just utilize the existing soil. For an indoor growing environment, a lot of times we want to really tailor the media for optimization. That being said, if you have wonderful soil in your garden then there’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t bring it inside to grow your plants, just keep in mind you are potentially bringing in diseases or pests or pathogens. In my experience, I’ve found outdoors there’s enough things in nature that will just take care of a lot of these problems and sometimes when you bring that soil inside you can potentially be exposing yourself to some of those issues.

Shango Los: I understand. It’s like you’re potentially bringing in contaminants because you’re bringing in wild soil essentially.

Tad Hussey: Sure, I don’t want to say that it’s not possible or even discourage people from doing it because I think that’s a great and really affordable starting point for people in building soils but just aware in the back of your mind that that is a potential.

Shango Los: We’ve got listeners in all parts of the country, and they all have got different soils but are there certain things that are common when people get back their soil test? For example, Logan Labs or somewhere else, or is there as much variety in tests as there are in regions in the country?

Tad Hussey: Yes, soil can very so much just based on your region. If your soil is very high in calcium, you’ll actually have to do a slightly different test with Logan Labs but that’s something you would probably want to contact them directly on. Here in Washington state, we can just go with the standard soil test to get those results.

Shango Los: After you get the soil test, do you do a little consultation with Logan to have them help you read it? Then you’re going to figure out what you would want to amend into your soil to bring it to where you want it to grow, am I following you?

Tad Hussey: Sure. In my experience, they’ll make recommendations a lot of times or you can pay for that recommendation. I’d say about 75% to 80% of those recommendations are pretty good. I like to make slightly different amendments for cannabis than I would for a traditional farm crop which is what they’re recommending towards, or a garden. It would at least tell you if you have any major excesses or deficiency’s.

Shango Los: Right on. I know a lot people are really excited to hear your specific recipe and I know you’ve got it from a really profound source. We do need to take a short break first, when we get back we will go through your recipe. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur podcast.

The Ganjapreneur.com podcast is going to sound a bit different going forward. If you heard the show last month on CDB derived from hemp, then you probably noticed we’ve been experimenting with the format. We got really good feedback on that episode so we’ve adopted those changes permanently starting with this episode. That means the show is going to be a bit less produced in Wizbang and a bit more down to earth and pleasant on the ears. We also didn’t use to control the commercial content and we, and many of you, thought it sounded a bit out of sync with the rest of the vibe of the show.

Going forward during the commercial breaks, we’re going to bring you companies that we believe in. We’re going to tell you about them, tell you how to get in contact with them and then we’ll get back to the show. Pretty simple really. We got to thinking about why we do this and that how on the internet, we can be whatever we want to be. We decided to strip of all the monster truck rally production and are just planning on hanging out with you.

This change also means that we are booking our own commercials now. If you want to reach out and connect with our audience in the most personal way that we can offer, drop us an email grow@ganjapreneur.com and we can talk about you becoming a commercial sponsor of the podcast. It’s our hope and intention that these changes will make the podcast an even more pleasant listening experience. 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 Tad Hussey of Keep It Simple Organics. Before the break we were talking about how important it is to get your soil tested so that you know what you’re beginning with if you’re going to amend your soil. Tad was going back and forth about the differences between using your outdoor soil for outdoor and maybe starting with more of a sterile soil for the indoors. Tad, now we want to hear your specific recipe because I’ve heard from a lot of people that this is a really solid recipe and it’s the one that you give to your clients. Let me just hand you the mic and let you go through your recipe.

Tad Hussey: Thanks Shango. Probably my favorite online free recipe for building soil right now comes from a gentleman that goes online by the name Clackamas Coot. He’s a good friend of ours and was instrumental in helping me when I first was building our soil recipe prior to doing any of the lab testing and subsequent work that we’ve done over the last 10 years.

The recipe that Clackamas Coot gives out is approximately 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 high quality compost or earthworm castings and 1/3 aeration in the form of pumice or per-lite with 10% of that being able to be made up from rhizaels as well. To that, he adds a half a cup per cubic foot of neem cake or karanja cake, kelp meal, and crab and crustacean meal. In addition to that, you’re adding 4 cups per cubic foot of the following mineral mix, which is one cup glacial rock dust, one cup gypsum, one cup oyster shell or egg lime and one cup of basalt.

Don’t get caught up that you have these exact ingredients, it’s really best to source what you can locally not just from an environmental perspective but also as a cost savings with the freight of moving these minerals around the country. If you aren’t able to source a particular mineral locally, there’s a very good chance we could substitute it for something in this recipe.

Shango Los: Where do people pick up these inputs? I’m sure that some of the long time growers go, “Ah, I know exactly where to get that,” but a lot of our folks may not. Is this all going to be at the feed store?

Tad Hussey: Some of it’s going to be at the feed store, some of it may be at your local garden center and some things you may unfortunately have to find online. Neem cake and karanja cake is one that’s a little bit tougher to find locally depending on where you live in the country. The kelp meal should be something that your local feed store would carry, and crab and crustacean meal is another thing you might be able to find at a local garden center. You’ll definitely be able to find gypsum locally and some sort of rock dusk and the agricultural lime. Many of these things are source-able locally.

Shango Los: I guess one of the things to point out too, is if the goal is to use the product that’s as close to nature as possible and if the goal is also the save some money that the closer you are to buying it in bulk by the scoop, the better for you. Because every time somebody packages this stuff up to sell it to you they are adding more to the cost.

Tad Hussey: Exactly. It’s much better to find these raw amendments. Even if you say for example pay a little bit more to buy these ingredients online, you’ll probably still be saving money on what you would pay for a bottled nutrient at the local hydro shop.

Just to get you back to this recipe, one thing I wanted to add is a lot of the recommendations by Clackamas Coot are in half a cup per cubic foot. This is a pretty safe recommendation for people in terms of wanting to add different amendments of other types to their mix. Assuming you wanted to add a little bit of organic fish meal or fish bone meal or alfalfa, these things at a half of cup per cubic foot are probably okay. Just keep in mind of your NPK values as you add these things to make sure you’re not getting and over abundance of any particular macro or micro nutrient.

Shango Los: I was just thinking about that. We’ve probably got a lot of listeners that are going to be very specific about measuring this stuff out. Then you’ve got other people like me who are a little more iron chef-ing it in the kitchen. These are general numbers, I’m getting the idea that as long as you don’t stray too far, this is kind of a hard thing to screw up.

Tad Hussey: Exactly, we’ve definitely tested and pushed the upper limit of this with our soil mix. I’m putting in almost 100 pounds of nutrients per yard of soil into our soil mix. We have to let it heat and cool as it nutrient cycles for at least 2 weeks prior to planting in it. Then we’re able to make it through an entire growing cycle without having to add any other inputs besides water.

Shango Los: Let’s say that we’ve gotten all these important inputs and they look beautiful all set up together. How does one go about actually mixing them? I’d actually ask for 2 answers, one for the home grower who is doing a couple yards of it then something scalable solution for somebody who is doing this at a commercial option. I know that friends and growers, they just throw it all in a tarp and then scoop it around and mix it up by hand. Do you have a more elegant way to do that?

Tad Hussey: Well, this is probably the toughest part of building your own soil to be honest. It is some labor and I highly recommend wearing a dust mask or respirator when you do mix these ingredients. A tarp is probably one of the simplest and easiest ways to do this. I’ve personally don’t like using a concrete mixer because I find it is really messy. In general, the other option is if you have a small tractor, you can scoop the ingredients and move it around that way on asphalt or concrete. Mixing soil is tough work which is why we typically recommend reusing the soil. Once you use the soil once, you’re not doing this over and over again.

Shango Los: Reusing the soil is a good point. I know a lot of growers, they use all brand new soil every time that they do a grow and from hearing you speak, I’ve heard you talk about reusing the soil. Why don’t you talk a little bit about the benefits to amending your own soil and it’s re-usability and what amendments you may need to add a second time.

Tad Hussey: There are so many benefits to reusing your soil. One, if you are in a garage or a large scale facility, your biggest time and cost and expense is moving soil in and out of the facility and deposing of that soil. Not only that but if you’re using chemical nutrients and you’re disposing of this soil, you’re potentially leaking nitrates and phosphates into our ground water and contaminating our environment and ground water systems. There’s a ton of benefits there. In addition to that, our goal as we make this soil is to work towards having living soil. We’re building and mimicking nature here as we go over time.

Many of these minerals that we’re adding in this recipe are not even plant available that first cycle. The idea is that these nutrients will be released over time. What we’ve done with our soil mix is we’ve actually tested it up to 4 years out at 4 cycles a year. The production actually improves after that first cycle as the microbes establish more and more soil structure. The goal is building toward this soil structure in your garden indoors.

Shango Los: That’s the antithesis of what I hear more often for folks. They want to make sure they’re giving their plants the most to thrive on so they’ll either buy pre-done soil or they’ll build a soil new each time. What you’re saying is some of the stuff isn’t even available the first time around so it might actually be better your third cycle or your fourth cycle. How long do you need to let the soil rest between growing cycles?

Tad Hussey: That’s going to be entirely dependent on how many nutrients you’re adding per growing cycle. For example with our soil what we do in an indoor raised bed is our idea of an optimum environment because we’re giving each plant more access to soil and media. What we would do is literally harvest the plant at the end of the cycle and shake off the soil that comes out with the roots and take that plant away and harvest it. Then what we do is mix in what we call a nutrient pack but it’s just a combination of organic minerals and nutrients similar to what we talked about in the Clackamas Coot recipe. You would mix that back into the soil, add a little bit of compost and maybe a little bit of aeration if this soil needs more drainage.

If you think about it, every time you harvest a plant you’re pulling out organic matter and you’re pulling out nutrients because this isn’t a closed loop, these are things that need to be replaced every cycle. The cost to replace that and the amount that you’re adding is so minimal compared to what you’re putting in initially that you end up saving a ton of money. You’re really only disturbing the top 2 or 3 inches of the soil which are designed to be deserved by nature in a natural system. Overall, you end up with a happier, healthier plant. In your time down if you’re amending at these lower rates is really only 24 to 36 hours before you’re bringing back in your next crop of vegetative plants into that flower room.

Shango Los: How do you know? I know you said that you use the Keep It Simple nutrient pack but for folks who are going to do this themselves, how do they know what percentage of the original recipe they should add during the resting part of the cycle? Is it easy to say across the board, “Just add 10% of each of the inputs and that should be good,” or how should folks think about that?

Tad Hussey: If it were me, I would probably start adding back in half a cup per cubic foot of all those main ingredients and maybe 2 cups per cubic foot of the mineral mix as an initial starting point. It really depends on how large of a pot you’re growing in and how large your plant grows to determine how much nutrients are being taken out of the soil. Here’s where another soil test would give you a base line for what you need to re-amend. You really just have to pay attention to how your crop finished and how that amendment you made at the beginning of the next cycle effected that crop. Over time, you kind of get a feel for the soil and learn how to work it to where you can manage your inputs appropriately.

Shango Los: Right on. We’re going to take another short break and be right back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

Entrepreneur’s across the country are establishing businesses in response to cannabis normalization. Once a state becomes legal for cannabis, they all go through similar growing pains. New business owners must develop a business plan, a brand, learn growing and processing techniques and develop products from those new skills and get them to market. Most challenging, they must learn how to work creatively within the narrow bands of legality set by their state regulators. Each step in this process is filled with hidden delays that burn resources.

The most common challenging belief that I have seen from my own clients and other players in Washington, Colorado, and Oregon is that they think they can do it all themselves. Or worse, that they have to do it all by themselves. This is simply untrue and in most cases will cost you a great deal of time, money, and frustration. We have reached the point now that there are exceptionally good cannabis consultants who have learned from their mistakes, risen to the top of their own markets and now offer this advice to new cannabis entrepreneurs in states that are just moving into production now.

One of these is Green Lion. Green Lion was an early player in the Washington medical market, they grew up during times of confusing gray market regulations balancing between honoring the Cole 2 memo in state cannabis laws while continually striving to push the market forward with ground breaking growing, processing, and products. Green Lion was in the first round of licences awarded by Washington State, and they began the difficult challenge of running tandem medical and state licensed recreational operations while being a shining example of creating revenue and staying within the fine details of state law. Their extraction lab uses a variety of methods and has a reputation for producing exceptional oils and an employee training program taught by folks who are now industry leaders. Green Lion can help you attain your own cannabis sales goals. They’re multifaceted team has the expertise you need whether it be growing, extraction, product development, branding or support working through your state licensing process.

Green Lion is also now acquiring established medical and recreational marijuana product lines to bring into the Green Lion family. If you have an established product and want to participate in the licensed cannabis market, Green Lion could be the place for you. They will fold your manufacturing team into their production and get your proven products into the hands of cannabis enthusiasts everywhere.  Finally, do you enjoy fine cannabis oil? Green Lion presently provides recreational and medical products made with their premium oils throughout Washington state. Ask for Green Lion dab oil, Co2 oil and kief infused pre-rolls, vape cartridges and full plant extract topical’s at your favorite retail location.

Get your pen ready because here comes the contact information. If you want to achieve a positive cash flow in a shorter time, reach out to Green Lion. If you have a marijuana business that needs to find a licensed home to manufacture, reach out to Green Lion. Drop a line to contact@greenlionindustries.com and let them know how you want to work together. Tell them Ganjapreneur sent you too. That email address is contact@greenlionindustries.com. Now, back to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

Welcome back, you are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I am your host Shango Los and our guest this week is Tad Hussey of Keep It Simple Organics. Tad, right before the break you said something that totally raised an exciting flag for me. You said “indoor raised beds” was one of your preferred ways of growing. Is that exactly what it sounds like? Are you talking about for those who are growing indoors versus outdoors, indoors you’re actually constructing a raised bed that is shared by multiple plants so instead of them being in individual containers, you’ve got a couple different plants that are sharing the same raised bed. They’re roots can intermingle, they can access nutrients at different parts of this larger raised bed, then they grow side by side. Is that what you’re describing?

Tad Hussey: Exactly. It makes growing so much easier. We aim for about a foot to 18 inches in depth for soil on these beds and typically stay about 4 feet in width, then you can build them at any length that allows us to reach into the beds. By putting structures up above the beds, we can then scrog the plant and train it appropriately. The raised beds allow for better and more consistent watering. They allow for those plants to share a mycorrhizael relationship with each other. They make it really, really easy to set up a watering system. For example, the blue mats or drip irrigation.

Shango Los: As soon as you said that, my mind just started running with the implications of it. I think this is going to be my next thing to look into. Why don’t we take a quick little side bar? How would you recommend people go about building an indoor raised bed? What are your preferred materials?

Tad Hussey: Most of this stuff you can just get at Home Depot. If you build them 8 by 4, it’s really easy in terms of the lengths of the lumber. For example, you can make them out of something as simple as plywood and 2 by 4’s, from that you just insulate it with pod liner, put in a couple degree angle on the drain so you have a drain in one corner in case for some reason you happen to over water. That’s really all there is to it.

Shango Los: That’s really cool, right on. Let’s get back to the soil recipe we were talking about in the second segment. The goal of building our own soil is to make sure that the soil itself is alive. It is a good home for microbes, it will make the nutrients be more bio-available to allow for more thriving plants. Will I be feeding the soil over the course of the cycle or is the idea that I’ve built a soil, so I don’t have to do anything to it? Or will I feed it with something in particular?

Tad Hussey: I think the goal here is to really get all the minerals and nutrients into the soil so the plant can select what it wants when it wants it. That being said, sometimes you will find that you may not have amended the soil with enough nutrients in the beginning of your cycle. You will have to add something to make up any deficiencies. Sometimes it’s as simple as top dressing with some earth worm castings if it seems like there is a minor deficiency or you can have on hand an organic bottled nutrient like a grow or a bloom formula, just in case, to help the plant finish it’s life cycle. In addition to that, there are a lot of things people like to add. Silica is a great one because it helps with any micro-toxicities in the leaf surface as well as heat stress. It builds thicker cellular walls so you have a stronger stalk. That’s a really popular addition in the form of potassium silicate, seaweed extract powder will provide plant growth hormones and regulators as well as chelation and some potassium and up to 70 trace elements. There’s a ton of different things you can add. The only limit is your imagination in regards to the different nutrient sources out there.

Shango Los: I see, it’s a lot like so many aspects of cannabis growing where if you build your soil, you’re going to be 80% of the game already locked down. If you want to continue on from that, you can do even better. It’s kind of this sliding scale about how much you want to get into it, how much you want to research and how much you want to spend and spend time finding these materials.

Tad Hussey: Exactly, and here’s where a lot of that wild crafting stuff from the last talk would come in to play. You could definitely top dress your bed with comfrey for example, or apply nettle tea for the silica. One thing to keep in mind that I like to warn people is always start at a quarter strength of what the recommended applications are when you’re applying to a heavily amended soil like what we’ve been talking about. In addition to that, make sure that when you do apply these nutrients, not only are you going light but you’re not applying them homogeneously across your entire growing space. You really can’t tell if a product or an amendment is having an effect on your crop unless you have a control there. I always like to tell people to experiment. Try 2 or 3 slightly different soil recipes and be sure to keep track to how your plants respond to that. You may be growing a particular strain or cultivar that may want slightly more phosphorus or a little bit more potassium. By experimenting with this, you can really dial in your own scene right there in your home.

Shango Los: Right on. I’ve got one more question for you before we wrap up today. You brought this idea of reusing the soil into the discussion, I really like that idea both for the improved nutrient value of the soil over the 2, 3, 4th cycle — but also it just wastes less resources. When you’re keeping the soil outside and you’re giving it a cycle off to breathe, do you need to do this in a covered environment so that it’s not getting wet or is it easy enough to make a big pile out in the elements and let it fend for itself? How do you keep the soil while you’re cycling it or while you’re letting it rest during an off cycle?

Tad Hussey: In a raised bed situation, you’re never even moving the soil out of the facility or out of your room. It’s going to stay right there where it is. If you’re growing in smaller containers and you need to re-pile the soil, re-amend it then move it back in, ideally I don’t think you’re really letting the soil rest. If you had to move it outside, keep in mind that you are potentially exposing it to pathogens and diseases when you bring it back indoors. I would definitely put a tarp over the top because you don’t want to leach out any nutrients that are still preexisting in the soil. Getting back to this reused concept, the one question I get asked the most is how do you deal with pests. For example, if you all of sudden have to deal with spider mites or fungus gnats or root aphids, how do you reuse the soil in situations like this? That would be an entirely new talk but basically I just want to say that I really firmly believe that there are organic solutions for all of these pests and that you can still reuse the soil. We have people locally here doing that, using a combination of predatory insects in various organic IPM strategies. Just because you get a pest doesn’t necessarily mean you still have to check out your soil and start over.

Shango Los: Right on. That’s a really good thing to point out. If you’re a listener and you think that idea of predatory insects is a good idea, feel free to go back to our podcast from about 6 weeks ago with Shane Young of Natural Enemies Bio-control out of Portland and he talks all about how to use beneficial insects. It’s a pretty good show. Tad, thank you so much for joining us on the show again. I’m looking forward to having you back in a couple weeks to talk about compost teas. For anybody who wants to hear more about Tad, you can go back to last months episode where we talk about wild crafting nutrient teas and you can also view Tad’s entire presentation at Canna-Con Seattle from 2 months ago on the video section on Ganjapreneur.com. Tad, thanks for being on the show and we’ll talk to you again in a couple weeks.

Tad Hussey: Sounds great. Thanks Shango.

Shango Los: You can find out more about Tad Hussey and Keep It Simple Organics on their website at KISorganics.com. You can also find some of the materials that Tad talks about sourcing on their website as well. 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 new, product reviews and cannabis jobs updated daily along with transcriptions of this podcast. You can also download the Ganjapreneur.com app in the iTunes store and Google Play. 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 Noel Abbott. I am your host Shango Los.

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Feds Back Down on Medical Cannabis Prosecution

4/14/2016

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In a dramatic and hard-fought win for the cannabis normalization movement, the federal government has formally acknowledged cannabis pioneer Lynnette Shaw’s right to grow and distribute medical cannabis.

Shaw is widely considered the mother of medical cannabis. She helped author California’s original medical cannabis bill, Prop. 215, and in 1997 founded the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the nation’s first state-licensed medical marijuana dispensary, in Fairfax, California.

In 1998, the feds singled out Shaw as part of a broader attack on California’s marijuana industry, hoping to make an example out of an industry pioneer. Shaw avoided being shut down until 2011, when the Obama administration threatened the Marin Alliance with asset forfeiture and lengthy prison sentences. Shaw was forced to abandon her operation, and the feds banned her from participating in any future cannabis endeavors.

In a phone interview with Ganjapreneur, Shaw described the aftermath of the Marin Alliance shutdown as filled with paranoia and espionage. “They terrorized me,” she said. “They ruined me financially; they ruined basically any opportunity of me working anywhere.”

She went off the grid, leaving behind her phone and online networks for the safety of her friends and colleagues. She knew she was being watched, and wanted to avoid bringing trouble to other cannabis professionals. “They wanted me to give up names and supply routes,” she said. Shaw bought a pit-bull, both for protection and companionship — she was “on the run” for more than four years.

“Change your rental car every three days,” she laughed. “That’s how you lose a tail.”

In 2015, Shaw found a way to break back into the industry. A clause tacked onto the 2015 national spending bill called the Rohrbacher-Farr Ammendment blocked the Department of Justice from spending federal funds to prosecute state-legal medical marijuana enterprises. Citing unlawful interference with medical marijuana laws, Shaw filed a lawsuit against the agencies that had been hunting her for years. In October 2015, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled in her favor.

This week, the 9th District Circuit Court finally threw out the subsequent appeal by federal agencies, making Lynnette Shaw the first person to be federally-sanctioned to grow and dispense medical cannabis. And it won’t stop there.

But what’s next for the mother of medical cannabis?

Shaw recently co-founded the Veterans Cannabis Group to help out the struggling veteran population in her area. The organization will host an official kickoff barbecue event on April 30. Though she hopes eventually to revive the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, Shaw has a few things to take care of first.

“We’re going to have to go and get our people out [of federal prison] now. I am not giving up the fight. I’m like a general back on the battlefield — what I want to do is rescue my people. Get them out of these cases, get them out of jail, get them off probation, get them off of marijuana testing. The war against medical marijuana is over, we just have to clean up the mess. We can make this all go away in just a few years.”

Attached below is the original press release issued by Shaw and her attorney:

18 years of civil litigation comes to an end against Lynnette Shaw over her permit to sell medical marijuana

The close of 18 years of Federal civil litigation came with a mere 2 sentences on April 12, 2016. The signal is loud and clear: the war against medical marijuana is coming to an end…medical marijuana won!

In June, 2015, Lynnette Shaw and her attorney Greg Anton filed for relief from a permanent injunction against distributing medical marijuana. In October, 2015, a Federal judge issued a scathing decision, affirming Shaw’s right to act in accordance with California law. Then the Federal government appealed. Today, the 9th Circuit Court dismissed the appeal. This is the first time a federal court has specifically allowed a person to distribute medical marijuana without federal interference.

“I’m relieved that the vindictive persecution has ended,” said Ms. Shaw. “I’m thrilled to return to the industry I helped create.”

Ms. Shaw has received honors and awards for her achievements in pioneering medical marijuana and licensed dispensaries.

In June, 1997, Fairfax, Ca, Ms. Shaw and The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana created the first-in-the-nation regulated dispensary to sell medical marijuana.

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New Rules Aim at Eliminating Odor from Washington Marijuana Facilities

4/14/2016

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Washington State’s Puget Sound Clean Air Agency has deployed new rules aimed at curtailing odors associated with producing and processing marijuana, the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board announced in an email this week.

“Marijuana odors and compounds can degrade air quality and create a nuisance to others,” the release said. “Producers and processors of marijuana are sources of both odors and volatile organic compounds which are defined as air contaminants under the Washington Clean Air Act.”

Under the new rules, facilities in King, Kitsap, Snohomish and Pierce counties emitting such types of contaminants must obtain an Order of Approval from the PSCAA.

Prospective producers must file a Notice of Construction permit which requires a steep $1,150 filing fee. Applicants must include the facility type, expected square-footage of canopy size, expected yield, and odor control equipment details; such as schematics and specifications.

In February, Alan Rathbun, member of the state’s Liquor and Cannabis Board, indicated that the board had received comments from the public regarding potential odor issues but decided it would be up to environmental agencies, such as the PSCAA, to determine if steps were needed to address the issue.

“We have consistently communicated with our potential applicants that there may be many other regulations that they may face outside the requirements for obtaining a producer, processor or retail marijuana license,” he said in an interview with the Seattle-based Municipal Research and Services Center.

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Details Revealed Behind Ohio’s New Medical Cannabis Bill

4/13/2016

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There’s a Marijuana Policy Project-backed campaign going on in Ohio to legalize medical cannabis, but lawmakers in The Buckeye State might just beat activists to the punch.

A bill unveiled in the Ohio House of Representatives today would legalize medical cannabis, bringing safe MMJ access to needy patients within two years’ time.

The law would grant the purchase of medicated edible products, patches, plant material and concentrated cannabis oils by approved patients who are 18 or older — for younger patients, parental permission would of course be required.

Home-grown cannabis is not an option as per the new proposal, and it currently remains unclear whether or not patients would be allowed to smoke their medicine.

If passed, the bill would establish a nine-member commission under the Ohio Department of Health that would oversee the rules for a medical marijuana industry. The commission would be granted one year to write the rules determining who would be allowed to grow, sell and prescribe cannabis.

The law places many restrictions on physicians that prescribe medical cannabis — doctors who choose to do so would have to update the state on the number of patients for whom they have recommended marijuana every 90 days, including a description of each patient’s condition and the doctor’s reasoning for recommending MMJ. One unique difference between most other states’ marijuana laws, however, is that lawmakers in Ohio are not deciding a list of conditions that qualify for medical cannabis. They are leaving that decision up to the doctors themselves.

The proposal also determines that MMJ will be offered via highly regulated dispensaries, and that individual localities could vote to ban such storefronts.

Banks dealing with medical marijuana retailers would be protected from prosecution — but as a state law, this allowance would not prevent federal authorities from cracking down. Instead, Ohio lawmakers would issue an official recommendation to the feds that marijuana be reduced from a Schedule 1 drug

Finally, lawmakers would also encourage MMJ research with state-sanctioned funding, but employers will still be allowed to ban employees from using medical marijuana — even if employees have the recommendation of a doctor.

For a more detailed analysis of the medical marijuana landscape in Ohio, see this Cincinnati.com report.

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Arizona Cannabis Legalization Campaign Gets Needed Signatures

4/13/2016

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The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol published a press release Tuesday announcing that it has gathered more than 200,000 signatures backing a ballot initiative to legalize cannabis in Arizona.

The campaign needed to collect at least 150,642 signatures in order to get the proposal on the November 2016 ballot.

Campaign Chairman J.P. Holyoak said that “voters want to have their say on whether Arizona should end marijuana prohibition. It’s appearing more and more likely that they are going to have that opportunity. We’re finding that most Arizonans agree marijuana should be regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol.”

If passed, the initiative would make it legal for adults 21 and older to possess certain amounts of cannabis. The proposal would, as its name implies, create a regulatory system for cannabis similar to the one currently in place for alcohol. Under such a system, retail cannabis sales would be taxed at a rate of 15%, and resultant revenue would go primarily toward schools and public education programs.

“The level of interest in signing our petition seems to grow as people learn more about marijuana and the specifics of the initiative,” said Campaign Chairman Holyoak. “The simple truth is that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, and marijuana prohibition has been just as big of a failure as alcohol prohibition. Arizonans think it’s time for a more sensible approach, and that’s exactly what we’re proposing.”

Certain marijuana proponents recently have come out against the initiative, however, claiming that it would give Arizona’s existing medical marijuana industry an unfair monopoly on cannabis business.

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Pennsylvania Senate Approves Revised MMJ Law

4/13/2016

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The Pennsylvania Senate voted 42-7 in favor of a revised medical cannabis law this week, according to a press release issued by the Marijuana Policy Project.

SB 3 was originally passed by the Senate in May, 2015. Afterwards, the bill was stalled in the House for 10 months before representatives passed an amended version. Now, the bill has been revised again by the Senate, and it is returning to the Pennsylvania House for a concurrence vote. If approved, SB 3 will go to Gov. Tom Wolf (D) for his signature — the final step toward becoming law. If the House decides to make any changes to the revised bill, however, the bill will return to the Senate for the third time.

Wednesday marks the last opportunity the House can approve the bill this month, otherwise activists will have to wait until May — a full year since the proposal’s first drafting — to learn if the government will provide state-sanctioned access to medical cannabis.

“We hope the House does the right thing tomorrow and votes for concurrence,” said Latrisha Bentch, founding member of the Campaign for Compassion, an organization of Pennsylvania patients and patients’ families that advocates for the normalization of cannabis treatment. “No more amendments, no more delays. It’s time to concur.”

SB 3 would allow qualifying patients to use and access medical cannabis when issued a recommendation from their doctor. Qualifying conditions include cancer, HIV/AIDS, seizures, autism, multiple sclerosis, PTSD, sickle cell anemia and intractable pain, specifically when more conventional therapies prove ineffective.

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Rhode Island Committee to Discuss Legalization Bill Today

4/12/2016

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The Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee is scheduled for a hearing today on a proposal to legalize cannabis statewide and establish a system for the commercial production and distribution of the plant.

House Bill 7752 — sponsored by Rep. Scott A. Slater (D-Providence) — seeks to legalize and regulate cannabis similarly to alcohol.

“This bill would provide a tremendous economic boost for our state, which is one of several reasons why our state legislators should not delay voting on it,” said Jared Moffat, director of Regulate Rhode Island, which is a pro-cannabis organization that supports Slater’s bill.

“This proposal would create dozens of new businesses and thousands of new jobs across Rhode Island. Our state’s unemployment rate is still significantly higher than our neighbors’, and this legislation will put many Rhode Islanders back to work,” Moffat said.

Slater also has two other cannabis-related proposals for consideration — one which adds PTSD to the list of Rhode Island’s qualifying conditions for MMJ, and another would potentially increase the number of compassion center permits available in Rhode Island from three to six.

According to regulatory analyst Eric Casey of 4Front Ventures, a researching firm dedicated to the cannabis market, “Instead of continuing to have an out of control underground market, Rhode Island has the opportunity to create a responsibly regulated, legal market. Workers will be better protected, provided salaries and benefits, and paying into the tax system.”

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin said in a statement that while he supports medical cannabis, he hopes that Rhode Island does not go down the path of recreational legalization. “There are too many unknowns,” he said, “and… unintended consequences associated with legalizing recreational marijuana.”

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Three Bills in NY Seek Fixes to Medical Marijuana Law

4/12/2016

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New York’s Assembly Health Committee favorably reported three medical marijuana bills that would improve upon the Compassionate Care Act, the committee announced today.

The three bills, sponsored by Health Committee Chairman Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D), would allow physician assistants and nurse practitioners to prescribe medical marijuana, expand the list of eligible conditions, remove the limit of 10 milligrams of THC per dose, create a medical marijuana advisory committee that would assist the health commissioner in navigating the program, and allow non-New Yorkers access to medical cannabis in the state.

Bills A.9510 and A.9562 reintroduce measures proposed in the original version of the law that were deleted prior to its passage.

A.9510 seeks to give PAs and NPs marijuana prescribing power, and to certify patients for the program. In New York, these types of health professionals currently have the power to prescribe “the strongest and most dangerous controlled substances,” Gottfried said in a press release, referring to opioid-based pharmaceuticals.     

A.9562, which carries a same-as version in the State Senate championed by Diane Savino (D), seeks to remove the dosing limit and add Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, dystonia, muscular dystrophy, wasting syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus to the list of the program’s treatable conditions. The conditions were removed before the bill’s passage.

Under A.9553 an advisory committee would be created to help advise the health commissioner in matters of patient and caregiver appeals and program recommendations. According to the bill text, the committee would consist of healthcare practitioners, patients or patient representatives, controlled substance regulation experts, medical marijuana industry professionals, and members from the law enforcement community. The bill would also allow for medical marijuana patients in other states to have their needs met in New York.

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WA County Sells More Retail Cannabis than Bread, Wine or Milk

4/12/2016

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New sales numbers from the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) indicate that citizens in Spokane County have spent more on retail cannabis in the last year than on bread, wine or milk products, according to an Associated Press report.

LCB data indicates that just over $43 million worth of cannabis was purchased in Spokane County during 2015 — or approximately $225.64 per household. In contrast, the average household spent $154.85 on wine, $155.37 on milk and $109.71 on bread during the same stretch of time.

Beer sales did surpass retail marijuana sales — but just barely, with a $232.70 average.

It’s an important consideration that not all cannabis was purchased by residents of the county: consumers from neighboring Idaho and nearby Montana are certainly padding the county’s numbers, as retailers can sell to anyone over 21 regardless of their origins. There are 17 licensed marijuana retailers in Spokane County.

Monthly cannabis sales by legal retailers in Spokane County broke $5 million this March.

Statewide, the LCB is currently tracking up to $2.8 million per day in state-registered marijuana sales.

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Judge Allows Maine Marijuana Initiative to Move Forward

4/11/2016

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Cannabis legalization efforts are back on in Maine after a state judge ruled that Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D) had “committed an error of law by applying a vague, subjective and/or unduly burdensome interpretation” of the law regarding petition signatures, the Bangor Daily News reported.

Last month Dunlap blocked the initiative to allow adults to use cannabis recreationally, saying proponents had submitted 51,543 valid signatures – 9,580 short of the 61,123 required to force the measure to appear on ballots in November.

“We are extremely pleased with the court’s decision to send our initiative back to the secretary of state for re-review,” David Boyer, manager of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said in a Reason.com report. “As was the case when we submitted our signatures to the secretary of state originally, we know that a sufficient number of registered voters signed the petition to qualify for the ballot. So this re-review should now be a mere formality.”

Dunlap’s office claimed that some signatures were initially rejected due to disparities between the Notary Public Stavros Mendros’ signature and the example they had on file. Mendros told the Portland Press Herald that he had, in fact, notarized the signatures in question.   

“While the State of Maine has a compelling interest to ensure that all petitions submitted for consideration in a direct initiative are valid,” Kennebec County Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy wrote in her decision, “requiring a Notary’s signature to appear identically on every petition signed is unreasonable and abridges the Constitutional right to initiative.”

Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine are expected to have legalization initiatives on the fall ballot.

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Ted Cruz Would Support States’ Right to Legalize if Elected President

4/11/2016

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Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has reiterated his position that states should be allowed to alter their own marijuana policies, if that’s what voters decide.

The Texan senator, who was interviewed before addressing his supporters at a rally on Saturday, said that while he himself was opposed to the legalization of cannabis, he believes that states should be allowed to make that decision for themselves. Sen. Cruz said that, if elected president this November, he would respect the legalization laws in Colorado, Washington, and other states.

“I think on the question of marijuana legalization, we should leave it to the states,” Sen. Cruz told John Frank of The Denver Post. “If it were me personally, voting on it in the state of Texas, I would vote against it.”

He continued:

“The people of Colorado have made a different decision. I respect that decision. And actually, it is an opportunity for the rest of the country to see what happens here in Colorado, what happens in Washington state, see the states implement the policies, and if it works well, other states may choose to follow. If it doesn’t work well other states may choose not to follow.”

Sen. Cruz would not comment on whether or not he thought Colorado’s legalization has been a success, and admitted to knowing very little about the banking woes that currently plague the legal cannabis industry — so he would not share an official stance on the subject.

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Hawaii Dispensary Applicant Strikes Deal with Union

4/08/2016

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Green Aloha Ltd. has reached an agreement with United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 480, according to a Bizjournals.com report. The union represents more than 1.3 million retail and grocery workers across the state, including members of its Cannabis Workers Rising program.

“This is a new industry here for Hawaii but it’s not a brand new industry nationally, and it’s something that the UFCW Cannabis Workers Rising union has been working on since 2008,” Casey Rothstein, operations manager at Green Aloha, said in the report. “They had a lot of experience and already established training programs in safety protocol and procedure. We thought through a partnership with the union we’d be able to take advantage of their industry experience and background, and it would allow us to hit the ground running should we be privileged and honored to be awarded a license.”

Green Aloha is one of the consortiums competing for Hawaii’s first medical marijuana license. It is headed by Justin Britt, co-owner of real estate brokerage firm Hawaii Life, and includes individuals from the business, healthcare and agricultural sector.

“Whoever is awarded this license is given a great responsibility to produce the best medicine,” Britt said. “We feel it is a smart business decision to partner with UFCW because we’re providing ourselves with the expertise to set ourselves apart from other applicants and hit the ground running.”

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New Jersey MMJ: Menstrual Cramps May Soon Qualify

4/08/2016

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Menstrual cramps may soon be added to New Jersey’s list of qualifying conditions for access to medical cannabis.

Assemblyman Tim Eustace (D) proposed legislation this Friday to add conditions specific to women to the state’s medical marijuana program. “We will expand the the list to serve the population that needs it,” explained Eustace.

According to Debra Borchardt — who first broke the story for Forbes — the assemblyman was inspired by Whoopi & Maya, a recently-unveiled enterprise based in California that aims to ease the discomfort of women’s menstrual cramps with cannabis-based products.

New Jersey’s medical marijuana program is currently very restrictive, with only ten approved qualifying conditions and a conservative governor who has spoken out passionately and at length against marijuana reform of any kind.

Assembleyman Eustace is concerned that failing to adopt more progressive policies could be bad news for New Jersey. “We have a lot of people leaving the state for treatment and hopefully this will change that,” he said.

Pamela Johnston, Director for the cannabis consulting firm Electrum Partners, encourages New Jersey lawmakers to pass Eustace’s legislation.

“It’s a vote for productivity,” she said. “For all the women that miss work because of this pain.”

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Vermont House Rejects Senate-Approved Legalization Bill, Drafts New Proposal

4/07/2016

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The Vermont House has scrapped a cannabis legalization proposal passed by the Senate in February, deciding instead to write a new bill that would decriminalize the possession of up to two marijuana plants and establish a committee to study and make recommendations about issues related to legalization.

Rep. Maxine Grad (D-Moretown) drafted the new proposal and presented it on Wednesday.

The Senate bill, which passed with a 17 – 12 vote, would have legalized the commercial production, distribution, and consumption of cannabis for adults 21 and older. Though the move has been publicly supported by Gov. Peter Shumlin, the House decided it was too early to bring an abrupt end to cannabis prohibition and that more consideration was necessary.

The new House proposal also attempts to address the issue of drugged driving by creating a penalty for drivers with a 0.05 percent blood alcohol level and any trace of the psychoactive chemicals in cannabis.

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Cannabis branches hanging out to cure after harvest season.

MPP-backed Legalization Effort in Arizona Criticized from Both Sides   

4/07/2016

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Proponents and opponents of recreational marijuana in Arizona appear to have the same negative opinion on a Marijuana Policy Project-backed legalization plan.

Opponents, such as Yavapai County Attorney Shelia Polk and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, are against any legalization effort at all – Initiative I-08 or otherwise. Meanwhile members of Arizonans for Mindful Regulation and Safer Arizona allege that the plan is a “bait and switch” which would create a monopoly.

“I believe MPP’s initiative is worse than our current prohibition,” Dave Wisniewski of Safer Arizona said in a Phoenix New Times report. “So if you want to flip it and say prohibition is better than MPPs initiative, it’s basically saying the same thing. I call it Jail Bait.”

Wisniewski alleges the proposition, supported by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, doesn’t change the language of the current law – ARS-13-3405 — and marijuana possession would remain a crime.

The initiative text indicates that individuals would be able to possess up to one ounce of dried flower and up to five grams of “concentrated marijuana.”

Polk, Montgomery and Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety Frank Milstead, co-authored an op-ed earlier this week claiming that more drug arrests would be made if cannabis were legalized and it would force “a slew of new costs and problems” for the state.

“The proposed law was written by the medical-marijuana dispensary industry, which cynically gives itself a monopoly on retail licenses,” Polk, Montgomery, and Milstead wrote.

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Juice Delivery Service in D.C. Offering Cannabis Gifts with Purchase

4/07/2016

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Washington D.C.’s Initiative 71 allows individuals to use, buy and grow marijuana – but does not allow cannabis sales in the District. However, a juice delivery service is offering a “gift of cannabis” in order to meet consumer demand.

Under the initiative passed last February, the free exchange of one ounce of marijuana or less in D.C. is legal but sales are still criminal. High Speed Delivery CEO David Umeh says his company is operating within the confines of that law.

“My goal is to figure out how to do it creatively within the law to make an impact,” Umeh said in a Fox5 report.

High Speed Delivery offers 10 different types of juice and promises delivery in 20 minutes, according to their website. Customers can choose from three packages. The “Just Juice” package includes juice and a gram of cannabis for $11.00, the “Love” package includes an eighth of an ounce for $55, and the “Lots of Love” package comes with “slightly larger than an eighth” for $150.00, a company representative told Washington City Paper.

Umeh started the company in Oakland, California and moved to the District in late January. He says he now has over 300 customers and that he consulted attorneys to ensure he was operating legally.

Last month Nicholas Cunningham, the owner of D.C.-based Kush Gods, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of marijuana distribution and was sentenced to two years of probation in lieu of jail time. Kush Gods offered edible marijuana using a donation-based system.

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Mitzi Vaughn: Interstate Cannabis Brand Development

4/06/2016

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Mitzi Vaughn is the managing attorney for Greenbridge Corporate Counsel, a business law firm that works exclusively with cannabis industry clients. She is a founding board member of the National Cannabis Bar Association and is active in both domestic and global drug policy movements. Mitzi recently joined our podcast host Shango Los for a discussion of what it takes to build an interstate brand in the cannabis industry, how cannabis brands should prepare to expand to new territories with different regulatory structures, what some of the inherent risks and complications are, and more.

Listen to the podcast below, or scroll down for the full transcript!

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Listen to the podcast

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Shango Los: 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 grows, 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 actual information to improve your business strategy and to improve your health and the health of cannabis patients everywhere.

Today my guest is Mitzi Vaughn. Mitzi Vaughn is the managing attorney for Greenbridge Corporate Counsel, a transactional law firm entirely dedicated to cannabis industry clients. She is a founding board member of the National Cannabis Bar Association and is active in both domestic and global drug policy movements. She advises the cannabis industry regarding corporate and transactional matters including brand expansion and multi-jurisdictional cannabis regulation.

Before entering the cannabis industry she was a law school and undergraduate professor. Thanks for being on the show Mitzi.

Mitzi Vaughn: I’m glad to be here Shango, thanks.

Shango Los: Today we’re going to talk about interstate brand development but to give us a better idea of the area of law that we will be delving into today would you give us a brief overview of transactional law and the kinds of services your firm provides?

Mitzi Vaughn: Sure. We provide counsel to the cannabis industry regarding complex transactions and what that means generally are financing, purchasing equity, intellectual property protection. Those types of services because in general you need to know both cannabis regulations and sophisticated legal concepts to be able to integrate them to really serve the industry well.

Shango Los: I can imagine that at the beginning you had so many new clients coming to you and you’ve just been able to say, “Well no we can’t do that. We can’t do any of that,” because in the early days as Colorado and Washington began cannabis licensing business leaders were trying to figure out the fastest way to go national but the laws were intentionally designed to keep individual cannabis companies in their own states so that the Feds wouldn’t come and visit the state. They just want to be left alone to do their own experiment.

What was going on in the early days that you saw that was keeping individual businesses within the boundaries of their founding state?

Mitzi Vaughn: Initially everyone was so heads down and frantic to try to get up and running that really expansion wasn’t an issue. Really it was a lot of interfacing with regulators and a lot of finance deals. How do we get the money to build our business as quickly as possible? That lead to a lot of flawed agreements unfortunately and a lot of relationships that have since fallen apart but once the relationships that were successful move forward and they could take a breath and realize they had their license to produce and process cannabis. They had the money now to grow their business even though they were constricted by regulations. That’s when they come and they say, “Okay what’s next? We’ve gotten past the biggest barrier we thought we had, which was just getting licensed. What do we do now?”

Shango Los: I would think that being the managing attorney at your firm and you are kind of the filter for clients- I can imagine that in the early days you had a lot of people coming to you that are pretty much what we lovingly call Yahoos you know? People who don’t really have the acumen, the investment, or the know-how to get this done. You were spending a lot of time filtering through who the best clients for your firm was going to be.

Mitzi Vaughn: The best clients were the ones who want to learn. It’s a very complex area. I certainly never, and neither has anybody at my firm, hold it against somebody for not understanding how these regulations interact with typical business transactions. It’s a very complex area. The kind of clients we look for are the ones who appreciate that and who are willing to be educated and who are willing to then integrate that knowledge into making their business more successful.

We have a lot of clients who come from very sophisticated business backgrounds who have no idea when they come into the industry how incredibly restrictive the regulations are.

Shango Los: Early on, especially in Oregon and Washington, the goal was to keep the companies within the states but now we still have got a bunch more states that are moving towards normalization. What are some of the strategies used at the state level to keep the players within the state and to keep outside influences out?

Mitzi Vaughn: Initially there was so much fear of the federal government, especially in Washington and Colorado because we were really at the forefront of figuring out whether or not this experiment was going to succeed, whether or not the Feds were going to lose patience and come in and somehow shut us all down. In an abundance of caution, regulators in those states really were timid and anti anything that was from out of state whether it be finance or brand or really anything else because they didn’t want to have any appearance of violating that interstate commerce restriction.

Regulators had a few choices. Regulators could, A, simply draft a regulation that would restrict it in the same way that they do for out of state financing in many jurisdictions or, B, because they’re regulators and they have a huge amount of discretion, they can just say no and they did for a long time. For example in Washington I really had to go to the LCB and explain what a licensing agreement was and what it wasn’t and why it didn’t run afoul of Washington regulations.

That was a very slow and tedious process as you can imagine because they don’t have to change if they really don’t want to so you have to convince the regulators that it’s first not a violation of the regulations and second actually in the best interest of the industry to adopt these models.

Shango Los: I can almost imagine regulators with their finger on the button to allow interstate commerce, shaking it and listening to you going, “Are you sure we’re not going to get in trouble with the Feds by doing this?” Because nobody wants to destroy their in-state experiment but at the same time they don’t want to be left behind either.

Mitzi Vaughn: Exactly.

Shango Los: Over time, creative attorneys and business people began to what I think of as cracks in the state policy but now after listening to you it sounds like it’s more like people are getting more educated. Even Oregon decided to just go ahead and start allowing out of state investment. What do you see as the tidal change moment when the general vibe changed from “Oh my God we’ve got to keep everything in the state” to “Well let’s start considering how we might be able to play together”?

Mitzi Vaughn: It would be everybody watching Washington and Colorado frankly. Two very different regulatory regimes struggling through a patchwork of guidance from the federal government and trying to make cannabis regulation work. Everybody else got to sit back and watch Washington and Colorado take the risk. Once it appeared that the federal government was going to let it go the real sea change was further legalization. Oregon. Alaska. It’s going to keep coming.

The more that states legalize the more comfortable the regulators within states will be in, for example, allowing out of state financing.

Shango Los: That makes sense. For most of us interaction between the state and the federal level seems to be kind of a black box where we’re trying to do things at the state level and we’re just hoping that it doesn’t trigger big daddy federal government. At the same time we’re not getting a lot of feedback other than the Cole 2 memo which while we understand it is also vague on a whole lot. In the last minute or so, can you give us an idea of what’s it like for an attorney like you to be giving advice to your clients but also trying to read the tea leaves of the federal government about what they would tolerate?

Mitzi Vaughn: It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of research. It’s a lot of keeping our fingers on the pulse of what’s going on in DC and it’s also making sure that clients are educated. Even though cannabis is federally illegal there are still a whole host of regulatory laws that you need to follow even though you’re a cannabis business.

Shango Los: Right on. We’re going to take a short break and when we come back we’re going to talk about how to do interstate branding correctly. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

Welcome back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I am your host Shango Los and our guest this week is attorney Mitzi Vaughn of GreenBridge Corporate Counsel. Before the break we were talking about the early days of interstate commerce for cannabis and essentially how there wasn’t any even though people really wanted to try it.

You talked a lot about how the regulators had to warm up the idea over time and with education. In this segment we’re going to talk more about how things are working correctly now and more importantly how entrepreneurs can set up their agreements to do it the right way so that they don’t injure their businesses.

With the doors to national brands starting to open and I guess I should be specific. We’re talking about cannabis producers and retailers. We’re not talking about non-cannabis-cannabis companies like selling grinders or vape pens or things like that. Those kinds of companies that don’t handle the actual plant have got to deal with a whole lot less regulation. If you’re handling the plant and you’re trying to set up a licensing agreement in another state where you can extend your brand and bring back profits. There’ a whole host of issues.

Mitzi I know that you have dedicated a great deal of time both educating the regulators and figuring out how to do this right. Would you break down what actually makes up a successful intellectual property agreement today and kind of give the path forward for entrepreneurs who are listening who are excited about taking their brand nationally?

Mitzi Vaughn: Of course. Intellectual property licensing agreements are the vehicle that entrepreneurs are using as you said to expand across state lines but also to expand their businesses in state. You are faced with state regulations that may restrict the amount of product that you can create. Licensing can help you expand under those types of regulations.

An intellectual property licensing agreement consists of- First of all, let’s parse it. Intellectual property in this case means your product. Let’s use edibles as an example because it’s the easiest to explain. Your intellectual property if you’re an edible producer is not only that brownie, the recipe that created that brownie, but it’s also your brand. Usually we’re thinking about brands when we talk about intellectual property licensing agreements but that’s only half of it.

It’s what’s inside the package and it’s what’s outside of the package. When you are licensing, you are licensing someone’s ability, if it’s an edible for example, to use your recipe and to use your brand, your mark, your trademark in commerce and you are not the one actually producing it or selling it. These agreements lay out how that relationship will work because as somebody licensing your product, licensing your brand, your number one concern is not just profit. It’s maintaining what you have built.

When you build this wonderful brand and then you hand over the rights to it to somebody else, you have to make sure that that somebody else is doing it right or they’re going to destroy everything that you have built. You have to make sure that you have quality standards that those people are going to adhere to. For example they use the right kind of packaging. If you walk into a retail outlet and see your edible in substandard packaging it’s going to affect your brand out there being viewed by the consumer.

In the same way that you want to make sure that the brownie is the same quality, consistent, and of the same quality every time you want to make sure the packaging is as well because as we know the brand, a lot of it, is the look. It’s not only what’s inside. It’s what’s outside. That’s the first part of this whole equation.

The second part is policing it. In order to maintain your brand you need to not only make sure that your trademark isn’t being used by others improperly because then you will lose the protections that you have gained with a trademark. You need to make sure like I said the quality and consistency are there. This is where people are falling into a trap because when you are too controlling of a licensee- In other words, if you go into their kitchens and tell them what ovens to use, if you go in there and tell them what supplies they need to buy, if you go in there and tell them how to hire people and how to train them, you have crossed the line into franchise law.

That is happening all over the industry right now.

Shango Los: I think that a lot of the entrepreneurs, after they set up their first business, see their new location whether it be on the other side of the state or in the state next over that it’s like “Oh, we’re setting up a new office.” What you were being very clear about is that it is not your new office. You’re actually giving rights to produce to someone else. Now I’m hearing that I might actually be getting in trouble by trying to over-police the folks that I’ve licensed my intellectual property to.

I bet you that’s kind of a sneaky fine line. Where is the line between licensing and being specific about how I want them to represent the brand versus going too far and sinking into franchise?

Mitzi Vaughn: The real key here is the FTC’s definition of a franchise. There’s three prongs but for this discussion, the most important one is significant control or assistance. This is what is tripping people up right and left. It’s scary when I read about these agreements because you see repeatedly we go in there and we install all of the equipment and it’s just add weed and go, for example, is one that I just recently read. You know it’s plug and play.

That’s a franchise. There’s no question that that is a franchise. Even though you call that agreement an intellectual property agreement it’s not because you have wandered into franchise land and that’s important because the federal requirements and state requirements for franchise law compliance are burdensome. There’s a ton of disclosures. If you accidentally franchise you’ve got fines you need to deal with. There’s a lot of compliance that comes along with the franchise that makes it very inadvisable to enter into not to mention you want to do everything you can to keep federal oversight away from you because we are dealing with a federally-illegal product.

Shango Los: I see. As soon as you break into franchise you’ve got two issues. Number one, it’s overly burdensome in the reporting but also suddenly you are being regulated by the Feds because you’re a franchise and you start running into legal issues that way. You really want to stay lower on the radar by having an intellectual property licensing deal which can be handled locally versus becoming a franchise where suddenly you have to bring the Feds in and you’re going to have them up in your business.

Mitzi Vaughn: Right. You can license your intellectual property anywhere. There’s no restriction- There are restrictions in the cannabis regulations but aside from that it’s not that you crossed state lines and you trigger federal oversight in your intellectual property licensing agreement. What it is is that you stay altogether away from franchise law. That makes sure that there is no federal jurisdiction over that agreement.

When it comes to franchise there is no intellectual property licensing, regulatory regime, at the Federal Trade Commission. That’s for starters. Earlier you asked where’s the line and I didn’t really address your question and I’d like to do that because the line is not only should you not be providing this significant control and assistance by going into their operation but the way that you police the quality of your product and the packaging is by doing point-of-sale testing.

You don’t go in and find out how they’re making it. You make sure that the end product is what it needs to be. As long as the end product is what it needs to be you can’t tell them how they do it.

Shango Los: Mitzi that’s not how anybody’s doing it.

Mitzi Vaughn: I know.

Shango Los: I talk to these people all the time and they’re going to the licensees. They’re going all through. They’re teaching their staff.

Mitzi Vaughn: I know. It’s happening everywhere. Unfortunately like I said the information just isn’t out there. You need a franchise attorney or somebody who’s familiar with franchise laws to even be able to identify this issue. In the same way you wouldn’t have a plastic surgeon take out your gall bladder you wouldn’t have one of these agreements drafted by an attorney who wasn’t familiar with franchise and intellectual property laws. They are not the same. Or that attorney needs to educate themselves if an attorney is even involved.

I know some people have just kind of written it up themselves. You see the whole spectrum. The definition of a franchise is very clear and significant control or assistance is a sliding scale but there are some things that are for certain significant control or assistance.

Shango Los: I can almost feel so many audience members faces just going white with “Oh my God” after hearing that. Right now we need to take another short break. We’ll be right back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast.

Welcome back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com podcast. I’m your host Shango Los and our guest this week is attorney Mitzi Vaughn of GreenBridge Corporate Counsel. Before the break, Mitzi was breaking it down for everybody that you cannot have an exceptional amount of control over the folks that you license your intellectual property to or else you’re going to get in trouble. I know from talking to these entrepreneurs and being involved with these deals as a consultant myself that almost nobody is doing it correctly by Mitzi’s definition.

Mitzi the impact of course is what happens? What’s the fallout when people set up these agreements incorrectly? Who is it that finds out who is going to enforce it and what does the enforcement look like?

Mitzi Vaughn: That is an excellent question. Best case scenario is that nobody finds out and that everybody trucks along who’s already done this and they don’t have any real ramifications associated with their accidental franchise. Worst case scenario is that the Federal Trade Commission comes in and slaps a bunch of fines retroactive and prospective. You can be banned from every having a franchise which might be okay because you shouldn’t be having one in the first place probably.

There are laws that apply to- You have to register your franchise. There are extensive disclosures so you would have to go back and all of those things or simply fold. It could just end your business because it’s too burdensome for you to go back and undo all that you’ve done. Those are some of the ramifications.

Shango Los: Is the FTC on a hunt for these folks right now or is it just like if you’re a bad actor they’ll use this as an excuse to close you down?

Mitzi Vaughn: Yeah that’s an excellent question because the question then becomes how do I even get on their radar? You may not. If you upset one of your licensees however that licensee could go to the FTC and rat you out because if the FTC comes in everything will be construed in favor of the licensee or in this case the franchisee and against you as the franchiser.

If your licensee gets disgruntled and wants to get at you for some reason the FTC would be the route to go. Not to mention I’m not sure because we don’t have any precedent of what the FTC would do in connection with a cannabis business that violated- How the FTC and cannabis interact is a real unknown right now.

Shango Los: It’s interesting because most of the time on the program we talk about the entrepreneurs being at the forefront of these new technologies and these new extraction techniques and cannabis medicine all the time, but it’s interesting to hear from your perspective how law is right on the fringe as well. You’re delving into this outer space without precedent and you’re kind of making up the law as you go. You must have to really explain risk assessment over and over again to your clients because there is no black and white in a lot of these cases.

Mitzi Vaughn: That’s exactly right. In general when we’re talking about risk versus reward you have to look at things in these agreements and perhaps it’s that some of these entrepreneurs out there have decided that their risk is worth the reward in crossing this franchise line. Maybe it isn’t necessarily ignorance. It is definitely part of our counsel as attorneys at our firm that anything that might put you on the federal radar that is unnecessary is a bad thing.

You need to comply with all of those federal laws. You have security laws. That’s something that we discuss on a regular basis with people. But if you can exempt yourself from a federal law you should do it.

Shango Los: Let’s talk about getting my money. I licensed my intellectual property to a third party and I explained to them how I want things to go and I like their product that they’re putting out so everything is going well so far. I’m not a franchise but I do want to get paid. Let’s say that I set up my agreement for a percentage of sales revenue. Since banks are not handling cannabis money how does the money find its way back to me in another state?

Mitzi Vaughn: First of all you generally wouldn’t set it up as a percentage because that would make you an owner and trigger a lot of in state residency requirements. I just have to throw that in there. In terms of payment generally the parties that are involved in these transactions or the licencors, the people who own the intellectual property, have bank accounts.

They are larger entities. They been able to- They needed that banking to expand to where they are. They’ve been able to access that banking through either organizations that have offered their service publicly or otherwise. It’s just like any other transaction. Because the money come across state lines does not necessarily make it any more complex than paying your vendors down the street.

Shango Los: I see. It’s more about for the licencor to already have an established relationship with a bank that they like and then after that the transferring is much easier at that point. The point is just to make sure you get a good bank to work with at square one.

Mitzi Vaughn: Well one can argue that- Let me back that up. Generally we advise that companies form a separate entity to license their intellectual property and so that company is not actually touching the product although it is obviously cannabis related. That can also facilitate these kinds of transactions.

Shango Los: Interesting. It sounds like that little part there just on the legal technicalities of that could be it’s own show. Again, we are out of time. Mitzi thank you so much for being on this show. This is an interesting topic area where I hear 100 different opinions from 100 different people and after talking to you I find out that almost none of them are correct. I really appreciate you being on this show to share your experience.

Mitzi Vaughn: Thank you so much for having me Shango. I appreciate it.

Shango Los: You can find out more about Mitzi Vaughn and Greenbridge Corporate Counsel at their website GreenbridgeLaw.com. You and 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 GooglePlay.
You can also find this show on the “I Heart Radio Network” app. Bringing the Ganjapreneur podcast to sixty million mobile devices. Do you have a company that wants to reach our national audience of cannabis enthusiasts? Email grow@ganjapreneur.com to find out how. Thanks to Brasco for producing our show. I’m your host Shango Los.

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A police truck with the DEA insignia.

DEA to Consider Rescheduling Cannabis Soon

4/06/2016

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The Drug Enforcement Administration announced in a letter to senators that it will consider changing cannabis from its Schedule I classification under the Controlled Substances Act sometime over the next few months, The Huffington Post reports.

The letter, however, does not indicate whether or not the agency is leaning one direction or another.

“DEA understands the widespread interest in the prompt resolution to these petitions and hopes to release its determination in the first half of 2016,” the DEA said in the 25-page letter.

The DEA has considered rescheduling cannabis before — once in 2001 and again in 2006 — but each time chose to keep cannabis Schedule I, which is reserved for the most dangerous and addictive substances “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

There are five different scheduling levels in the Controlled Substances Act. Marijuana is legally considered on par with heroin and LSD, and is currently scheduled higher than crack cocaine and oxycodone.

The letter was addressed to Sen. Warren (D-MA), who in 2015 sent the agency a letter calling for increased research into the medical benefits of marijuana. The letter was also sent to Democratic Sens. Jeffrey Merkley (OR), Ron Wyden (OR), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Edward Markey (MA), Barbara Boxer (CA), Cory Booker (NJ) and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY).

While the DEA is considering potentially moving cannabis from its Schedule I status, there’s a common belief among cannabis supporters that the plant shouldn’t be restricted by the Controlled Substances Act at all.

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‘Good People Don’t Smoke Marijuana’ Argues Lawmaker During Prohibitionist Hearing

4/06/2016

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U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) convened a hearing yesterday to investigate whether or not the Justice Department has dropped the ball on the enforcement of cannabis prohibition.

Grassley quickly made known his opinion on the matter — “The Department of Justice decided to all but abandon the enforcement of federal law relating to the possession, cultivation, and distribution of marijuana,” he said.

Furthermore, speakers at the hearing consisted largely of well-known prohibitionists, and the hearing focused almost exclusively on the potential drawbacks of loosening state or federal marijuana laws. After seeing the agenda for the day, the Drug Policy Alliance issued statements describing the event as a “sham hearing” and a “one-sided prohibitionist party.”

In a climax of the day’s many shortsighted prohibitionist comments, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said that the government needs to educate people “that this drug is dangerous, you cannot play with it, it is not funny, it’s not something to laugh about,” and also should “send that message with clarity that good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

For more information about the hearing, see Christopher Ingraham’s report for The Washington Post.

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A collection of clones on display in a California cannabis dispensary.

D.C. Council Votes to Permanently Ban Cannabis Clubs

4/06/2016

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In a 7-6 vote, the Washington D.C. Council moved Tuesday to ban cannabis clubs, despite fervent opposition to the move from some members of the council, as well as cannabis activists.

Tuesday’s vote represents the council’s second reversal regarding pot clubs in the past four months amid the vicissitudes of public opinion on the issue.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said that the council members were “doing the right thing” as she watched them vote Tuesday. Bowser has insisted that cannabis clubs are the wrong choice for the city.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, another Democrat, pushed for the ban. Mendelson has been concerned about the public consumption of cannabis since D.C. voters legalized its possession and use in 2014. He got the ban on Tuesday’s agenda with the help of Democratic council member Kenyan R. McDuffie. Mayor Bowser’s supporters on the council backed the vote.

In response, the Marijuana Policy Project released a statement decrying the vote, stating that it runs in opposition to “the freedoms that the vast majority of the voters support.”

The Drug Policy Alliance, meanwhile, made a civil rights case in favor of pot clubs, arguing that they would have created protected spaces for both whites and people of color to consume marijuana safely. Currently, people of color in D.C. are charged with public consumption of the drug at a higher rate than are white residents.

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Bernie Sanders Touting Federal Legalization on Presidential Campaign Trail

4/05/2016

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Sen. Bernie Sanders has been considered the cannabis industry’s favored presidential candidate since he introduced legislation last November to completely remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act. He remains the most pro-cannabis of all the presidential candidates, and is the only one to have public supported its legalization at the federal level.

Campaigning this weekend in Wisconsin, Sen. Sanders continued to spread the benefits of federal legalization to the cheers of his audience.

“We can argue about the science and the pluses and minuses about marijuana, but everybody knows marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin,” he said at a Madison campaign rally. “And that is why I have introduced legislation to take marijuana out of the federal Controlled Substances Act. It should not be a federal crime.”

Former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders announced in February that she supports Sen. Sanders’ plan to de-schedule cannabis.

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Harborside Cancels Expansion Plans, Withdrawing Back to California

4/05/2016

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Steve and Andrew DeAngelo of the world-renowned Harborside Health Center have announced that their plans for national expansion have been called off and the cannabis retailer will be solely focusing on furthering its operations in California.

The DeAngelo brothers said they have sold the company’s Portland franchise — which opened last October — ultimately breaking more or less even on their brief Oregon enterprise.

“For us, we’d never been able to get that shop up to break even,” Steve DeAngelo, CEO at Harborside, told Marijuana Business Daily‘s John Schroyer. “And there are a lot of shops in the Portland area in the same situation, that are just barely making money or not making money at all.”

Instead, the famed cannabis franchise is hoping to maximize its presence in the California marijuana marketplace. With California voters likely to consider legalizing cannabis for recreational purposes this November, the opportunities are growing rapidly more attractive.

“The range of opportunity and the competitive intensity in the California market is going to ramp up incredibly,” DeAngelo said. “It’s going to be like something nobody has ever seen. And we see that happening now.”

Read the full interview at Marijuana Business Daily.

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