Bay State Repeal Calls Off 2016 Ballot Measure, Massachusetts Legalization Issues Are Simplified

Only one of two proposed marijuana measures will make it to the 2016 ballot in Massachusetts.

The Committee To Regulate Alcohol Like Marijuana (CRMLA) has gathered the number of signatures it needs to get its proposal on the ballot, according to a statement made Tuesday. The group has submitted the list of signatures to the secretary of state.

In a statement, CRMLA campaign manager Will Luzier said that “People can see that our current prohibition policy isn’t working, and they’re taking action to replace it with a more sensible system.”

In contrast, Bay State Repeal, a group headed by longtime local activists, stated Wednesday that it had not achieved the required number of signatures.

The two groups’ proposals differed greatly. CRMLA has proposed a heavily-regulated system that would result in a new state commission, as well as an excise tax on cannabis.

Bay State Repeal’s approach would have resulted in a much less restrictive system. The majority of existing retailers would have been allowed to sell cannabis, and the system would have been managed by existing state agencies.

Steve Epstein, who spoke on behalf of the group, said that although “we didn’t make it,” he would “use every skill in [his] power” to oppose the regulations proposed by CRMLA, and said that the proposal supports “crony capitalism.”

CRMLA spokesperson Jim Borghesani said in a statement:

“Though our approach differs from [Bay State Repeal]’s, we hope that all who supported BSR will join with us to end the 100-year-long hypocrisy of punishing adults for choosing a substance that is less harmful than alcohol.”

Even if CRMLA’s measure does make it to the ballot, it will face opposition from elected officials, including Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker, who have publicly opposed any kind of marijuana legalization.

Photo Credit: Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism

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Powerful Pro-Cannabis Ad Airs In Missouri, First of Its Kind

Despite growing pressure from the public — and multiple failed ballot initiatives — Missouri state legislators have declined to even discuss reform around medicinal cannabis.

This year, not one, but two separate proposals are on the ballot for 2016 to legalize medical marijuana, and voters have their pick. Missouri marijuana advocacy group Show-Me Cannabis has created a powerful 30-second TV spot to sway voters.

There’s been some progress in Missouri before, with Governor Jay Nixon ratifying a bill to allow the use of hemp oil to treat epilepsy. But the new ad, titled “Guilty,” suggests a wider group of potential beneficiaries from the legalization of medical cannabis.

In the ad, actors confess to being “guilty” of using medical marijuana to treat various ailments, from chronic pain to muscle spasms. The actors are framed in mug shots as they speak, posing like criminals, but signs held by each one indicate their mainstream careers.

As John Payne, Executive Director of Show-Me Cannabis says, “We feel this video really grabs viewer attention, provokes thought, and encourages education.”

It’s the first marijuana-related advertisement to air in Missouri, and Payne thinks the new proposals have a good shot. If polls showing statewide support for the initiatives materialize into votes, Missouri will join twenty-three other states in legalizing medical marijuana.

Photo Credit: arachnized Ѫ mechanid

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Arizona Supreme Court: Having Cannabis In Your System Is Not Proof of Impairment

A decision made by the Arizona Supreme Court on November 20 has opened a unique opportunity for people caught in a traffic violation with trace amounts of cannabis in their system.

Such individuals can escape a drugged-driving conviction if they can somehow demonstrate “that the concentration of marijuana or its impairing metabolite in their bodies is insufficient to cause impairment,” wrote Chief Justice Scott Bales, who represented a unanimous court agreement on the matter.

Despite protest from certain prosecutors, the court cited a specific section from the medical cannabis law passed by Arizona voters in 2010. Specifically, the law clarifies that a registered MMJ user “shall not be considered to be under the influence of marijuana solely because of the presence of metabolites or components of marijuana that appear in insufficient concentration to cause impairment.”

Prosecutors claim that they worry defenses in such drugged-driving cases are going to come down to solely the personal testimony of the defendant, and that since there is no scientifically proven method of determining one’s impairment in regards to cannabis, such convictions will become much more difficult.

Photo Credit: Chris Yarzab

 

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Oregon Cannabis Cafes Are Banned Starting January 1

Russ Belville of MarijuanaPolitics.com recently unveiled a disheartening announcement issued by the Oregon Health Authority: indoor cannabis cafes, like Portland’s World Famous Cannabis Café and The Other Spot will be forced to shut down come January due to unfortunate changes to the Oregon Clean Air Act.

Lawmakers have introduced the following changes to the law (bolded emphasis courtesy of Mr. Belville):

A person may not smoke, aerosolize or vaporize an inhalant or carry a lighted smoking instrument in a public place or place of employment except as provided in ORS 433.850 [medical marijuana use in a medical facility].

“Public place” means an enclosed area open to the public.

“Inhalant” means nicotine, a cannabinoid or any other substance that is inhaled for the purpose of delivering the nicotine, cannabinoid or other substance into a person’s respiratory system.

To justify this move, the state of Oregon cites concern over exposure to second-hand smoke, which studies have linked to cancer, heart disease, asthma and bronchitis. According to the state, “it is necessary to reduce exposure to such smoke, matter or toxins by prohibiting the smoking, aerosolizing or vaporizing of inhalants in all public places and places of employment.” This is all good and true in regards to tobacco, but regarding cannabis there are no proven studies linking it to the listed conditions.

But perhaps the most infuriating aspect of the OHA’s recent ruling is their allowance for certain “smoke shops” and “cigar bars,” in which patrons will be allowed to smoke — not vaporize — tobacco in an indoor setting, provided there is an adequate ventilation system. There is no such allowance for cannabis, and said “cigar bars” are in fact strictly barred from allowing any smoking or vaporizing of cannabinoids.

Photo Credit: Heath Alseike

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Mounties Raid Vancouver Dispensaries, Confusion Persists Over B.C. Cannabis Laws

As Canada’s newly-elected liberal government prepares to legalize cannabis, municipalities are struggling to deal with a lack of guidelines regarding how to regulate the drug in the meantime, The Globe and Mail reports.

Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C. raided three dispensaries Tuesday after alleged complaints that the stores were selling to minors, advertising on the street and selling marijuana to people who lacked a medical prescription.

Bill McKay, mayor of the Vancouver Island city, said he has no control over the Mounties, but argued that the Canadian government needed to “get off their keister” and create guidelines for the municipalities, many of which are dealing with an increase in illegal cannabis sales.

Alex Robb, who spoke on behalf of the Trees dispensary, a chain whose store that was among those raided in Nanaimo, said in a statement that the raid went against “both scientific and public opinion,” and that “we do not believe that any of our employees will be convicted of any crime.”

McKay said that city staff should report after Christmas regarding whether to introduce local bylaws regulating pot shops, as Vancouver did in June to cover medical dispensaries. Port Alberni and Victoria are considering similar steps.

“The mainstream medical profession are sorely lacking in knowledge [about the federal medical marijuana system],” the mayor said. “The folks running the dispensaries are sorely lacking in credentials and doing the best they can on a trial-and-error basis. In the meantime, municipalities, patients and the RCMP are caught in the middle.”

Photo Credit: Jamie McCaffrey

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Minnesota Adds Intractable Pain to List of Medical Cannabis Qualifying Conditions

In a big win for Minnesotans seeking medicinal cannabis treatments, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health has announced that he will add “intractable pain” to the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana.

Patients suffering from intractable pain will be allowed to obtain medical cannabis from LeafLien Labs or Minnesota Medical Solutions, the state’s sole medical marijuana providers, beginning in August of 2016.

Health commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger stated:

“The relative scarcity of firm evidence made this a difficult decision. However, given the strong medical focus of Minnesota’s medical cannabis program and the compelling testimony of hundreds of Minnesotans, it became clear that the right and compassionate choice was to add intractable pain to the program’s list of qualifying conditions. This gives new options for clinicians and new hope for suffering patients.”

The law defines intractable pain as a condition “in which the cause of the pain cannot be removed or otherwise treated with the consent of the patient and in which, in the generally accepted course of medical practice, no relief or cure of the cause of the pain is possible, or none has been found after reasonable efforts.”

Dr. Kyle Kingsley of Minnesota Medical Solutions stated that “this decision is great news for patients suffering from intractable pain. We already have 10 medicines geared toward pain, so we are well prepared to serve these patients. Now patients can ease their pain with an alternative that poses far fewer dangerous side effects than opioids and other highly addictive and dangerous prescription pain medicines.”

 

Photo Credit: Pete Markham

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Ontario City Officials to Allow Public Consumption of Medical Cannabis

New Ontario regulations allow medical cannabis patients to smoke, vaporize, or otherwise consume their medicine in openly public places, The Star reports.

Even typically sensitive locations — such as movie theaters, restaurants, schools, stadiums, or playgrounds packed with children — will not be exempted from this rule.

However, this change does not necessarily mean that Ontario’s restaurants will soon be flooded with legal marijuana smoke: Dipika Damerla, the Associate Health Minister of Ontario, told reporters that “As an employer or a restaurant owner you can say ‘there’s no vaping, no smoking of medical marijuana here.” In that case, continuing to smoke would be a violation of the law.

“This is about the fact that somebody who’s very ill, maybe in a lot of pain, wants to use,” she said. “There are many ways to take marijuana. This is one way.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has stated that he is not looking to make a big deal over the regulations: “If it’s for medical purposes, it’s for medical purposes. There’s not going to be an overwhelming amount of people in Ontario running out to parks to have their medical marijuana.”

Medical Cannabis advocacy group Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana called the new policy an “important milestone in the recognition of the legitimacy of the use of cannabis as a medicine.”

Photo Credit: Vaping360.com

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Alaska Marijuana Control Board Strengthens Business Residency Requirements

The Alaska Marijuana Control Board is backpedaling on a change announced last month that would have opened cannabis business applications to anyone registered to vote in Alaska — a restriction so simple that it would have blown the doors wide open to outside investors trying to get in on the Alaska cannabis market, Alaska Dispatch News reports.

Instead, regulators are returning to the residency requirements originally drafted, which require individuals to have lived in Alaska for at least a year and currently be either working or attending school there.

State officials have argued that they don’t have the resources to conduct background checks on individuals outside of Alaska, which is one of the reasons outside investments have been largely rejected.

However, a second amendment was introduced this week to the regulatory board, which would allow for up to 12.5 percent outside investment in Alaska marijuana businesses. The rules as written currently require all cannabusinesses to be 100 percent Alaskan-owned.

A final decision on the matter will come when the Board of Marijuana reconvenes in February.

Photo Credit: Paxson Woelber

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Herbal Cannabis Assists Patients in Treatment for Opioid Dependence, Study Confirms

According to a new study published in Drug & Alcohol Dependence, cannabis helped subjects manage withdrawal symptoms while undergoing treatment for opioid dependence—and made them more likely to complete outpatient treatment.

Studies have suggested that cannabinoids are involved in the maintenance of opioid dependence, so researchers at Columbia University tested the effects of dronabinol, an oral THC medication, on subjects undergoing detoxification from opioid dependence.

Subjects were given dronabinol or a placebo during the 8-week trial of detoxification and outpatient treatment. Researchers found that dronabinol lessened subjects’ withdrawal symptoms during the period of detoxification—but it made no difference to those receiving naltrexone during outpatient treatment.

However, the study produced another interesting finding. Patients who smoked marijuana flower during the trial, even intermittently, were more likely to complete outpatient treatment than those who didn’t. “Participants who smoked marijuana had less difficulty with sleep and anxiety and were more likely to remain in treatment … regardless of whether they were taking dronabinol or placebo,” say the study’s authors.

This finding reflects previous clinical data that the use of cannabis helps patients manage pain while weaning from opiates.

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India Legalizes Industrial Hemp Production In Northern State of Uttarakhand

A state in northern India will become the first in the country to legalize the cultivation of hemp.

Harish Rawat, Chief Minister of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, announced that farmers throughout the state will be allowed to cultivate industrial hemp. Only two regions in the state–the Terai and Bhabhar regions–are exempted from legalizaiton.

Officials specified that farmers must sell the crop to the government only, and will require a license before beginning cultivation.

The hemp must contain a THC content of no more than 1.5%. The marijuana plants that grow wild in Uttarakhand contain 4-5% THC and will remain illegal to cultivate.

India began making moves toward legalizing hemp in 2010, when it identified a growing demand for hemp in the use of textiles. Uttarakhand has a tradition of hemp production and the government identified it as a prime state for future production.

A future hemp textile market in India is currently being valued at 240 million rupees, or $3.6 million, according to a report in Scroll. The current hemp market is dominated by China, France and Germany, though the U.S. will likely begin to play a larger role in the market in the future.

Photo Credit: Martin Abegglen

 

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New Australian Company Wants a Piece of the U.S. Medical Cannabis Industry

An Australian company called RxMM Health, based in Perth, is making a play for the fast-growing, American marijuana industry. The company has applied for a license to grow and sell medical marijuana in southern California.

RxMM, who specializes in climate-controlled, hydroponic cultivation, is specifically seeking patents for cannabinoid-based medicines. The company plans to grow and cultivate unique strains of marijuana for health purposes, citing that “cannabinoids have a beneficial impact on numerous debilitating illnesses.” RxMM has already teamed up with two American medical specialists to develop prescription medicines based on cannabis extracts, hoping to target the medical marijuana market.

The company is proposing a business model that starts by cultivating marijuana year-round, in state-of-the-art, climate-controlled greenhouses. They plan to produce 2000 kilograms of product each year. Within two years, RxMM expects sales of its annual cannabis crop to exceed $20 million.

And should medical cannabis become legal in Australia? RxMM plans to jump into the market there, too, using what they’ve learned in America. “Australia is moving rapidly towards a regulated market,” their website claims.

The company intends to be traded on the Australian stock exchange.

Photo Credit: Leslie J. Clary

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Purple Haze Properties Announces Hendrix-Themed License Agreements

Purple Haze Properties LLC, a company founded by Andrew Pitsicalis and Leon Hendrix, Jimi’s brother, has announced a string of Jimi Hendrix-themed business partnerships with Zippo, California Finest and E-Njoint Vaporizers.

Zippo will release four Hendrix lighters in 2016, and E-Njoint Vaporizers will release a line of Hendrix-themed disposable vaporizers. California Finest, a company that produces packs of pre-rolled cannabis cigarettes, will release a Hendrix-themed strain of its product in a partnership with Nevada-based Silver State Trading. Silver State Trading will develop and distribute the “Jimi’s Genetix” line of marijuana strains and concentrates for Nevada, California and Colorado.

Purple Haze Properties also recently released a line of cannabis-infused macaroons, Jimi’s Medicated Macaroons, which will be initially available only in California.

These Jimi Hendrix-themed cannabis products are the next development in a string of cannabis brands that have been either endorsed or created by other celebrities and/or their families, such as Willie Nelson’s Willie’s Reserve, Snoop Dogg’s Leafs by Snoop, and the Marley family’s Marley Natural.

Photo Credit: Aires Almeida

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Eric Brandstad: Using Light Deprivation to Alter Flowering Cycles

Forever Flowering GreenhousesEric Brandstad is the founder of Forever Flowering Greenhouses and a pioneer of light deprivation techniques for cannabis growers. Light deprivation essentially involves tricking a plant into thinking the days are shorter than they actually are, causing the plant to flower sooner than it would if it were exposed to the entire day’s duration of sunlight. This means that growers are able to work around the natural harvest cycle and get more crops out of the summer season.

Eric recently joined our podcast host Shango Los to discuss his light deprivation methods, how the process has evolved over time, and how his company’s greenhouses are designed to make the process simple to manage on a commercial scale.

Listen to the episode using the media player below, or scroll down to read the full transcript!

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


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Read the transcript

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

Today my guest is Eric Brandstad. A fourth generation farmer, Eric is originally from San Joaquin County, California, where his family has been commercially farming since 1862. Eric has pioneered light deprivation with Forever Flowering Greenhouses since 2007 and is a much sought after speaker on the topic having spoken at the Emerald Cup, Santa Cruz Cup, Golden Tarp Awards, the CaliDepFest, Humboldt High Grade Gala, CannaCon, and at the NCIA Cultivation Management Symposium. Welcome Eric, glad you could be on the show.

Eric Brandstad: Thanks for having me.

Shango: Eric, let’s start at the beginning. Light deprivation is not familiar to everybody. What is it that light deprivation is trying to emulate?

Eric: Basically it’s outdoor growing with the ability to have multiple harvests during that time, particularly the summer. The old strategy, originally, formulated was to just black-box a cannabis plant. Back in 1992, when I first started hearing about this and learning about it up in the Humboldt County area, they were actually taking a box, like you’d get from a washing machine or a refrigerator, and individually covering each plant. Now what this did was trick the plant into thinking that it had shorter days, so essentially what you’re doing is cutting off the daylight hours back to 12 hours of light.

In the summertime we have this long summer day, and in order to get the plant to flower, we usually got to wait till the end of the summer basically, that Mother Nature naturally pulls back the hours on the clock and the plants begin to flower. Well, by black-boxing, or light deprivation, this makes the plant think it’s dark early, so it’s pretty simple in that regard, and the plants begin to flower. Now today in 2015, we have more sophisticated versions of light deprivation possibilities with the use of greenhouses, and now basically an industry has been formed.

Shango: I would think that with all the normalization sweeping the country that you’re getting a lot of contact from folks. Because you can do light deprivation on the cheap, but now people are like, “Wow, we can do growing that uses sunshine, so we’re saving electricity and our terpene profiles will be better, but we could also have multiple crops during the same year.” I mean people must go bananas when they first learn about this idea.

Eric: Back when I first started explaining this idea as a company or a business for myself in 2007, it was just like, “Oh, interesting,” and maybe a high five here and there, “Great idea,” but now it’s really sought after as an alternative or a solution to a business plan. Most business plans right now consist of indoor and maybe some outdoor, whereas now it’s really starting out with possibly the greenhouses and the indoor and the outdoor as the secondary measures.

Shango: For our listeners who have big, commercial grows, let’s give them something to envision. Can you describe what a greenhouse that has been tricked out for light dep will actually look like?

Eric: The greenhouses can look like a commercial greenhouse that would be an A-frame. It basically has the shape of an A, so when you’re looking at it from the outside, it’s got the pitched roof, almost like a metal building so to speak, but it’s a greenhouse. You can have these things gutter-connected which means they’re adjoined side-by-side. Sometimes they call them conjoined greenhouses because they’re literally attached by the gutter. When you start to do that, you can’t just have one big greenhouse in the sense that you have just one roof. When we go into gutter-connected structures, we might have one growing space underneath, say, four or five, six peaks. Also within those gutter-connected ranges, in those five, six, seven peaks, or whatever it is, can also be divided into separate light zones. They could be shared in one big space or divided up however the grower wants to do it. There’s a lot of options in the big gutter-connected commercial style greenhouses.

Here in Grass Valley, California, we have a 24×60 demo greenhouse that people fly in from all over the US to come see. They’ll fly into Sacramento, rent a car, drive up and see the smaller 24×60 demo greenhouse and get a pretty good idea of what’s going on. It isn’t the gutter-connected commercial version because we haven’t erected one of those on our site yet and that’s next, but we have a lot of pictures, emails. Like I said, coming to see us is really a great way to understand a lot of this.

Shango: Outside of the structure of the outside, can you describe the automated light dep technology itself? I was watching the great YouTube videos on your site. It’s like this big black cloth that goes across it. Can you break that out for us?

Eric: Basically in some of the YouTube videos, we have a retractable greenhouse that has a roof that opens and the sidewalls are independent. Then we have our Northern Latitude, which is the gothic-shaped frame. It has the breathable blackout fabric that goes throughout the whole greenhouse at every 12 foot section. It is a triple layer, breathable, blackout curtain and so it helps wick the moisture, because humidity can be increased as the curtains are closed. It’s a rack and pinion system in the Northern Latitude, so it’s all functioned by one motor. We can do up to a 30×144 in the Northern Latitude with one motor blacking out the whole greenhouse. Then when we get into the gutter-connected structures, we can have multiple motors in the multiple zones. It’s actually a simple system when it gets up and running. There’s a lot of components and brackets and hardware to hang it, but in the terms of how it operates, it’s a pretty cool, simple system.

Shango: I would think that a lot of challenges that you’d get from the early technique that you described by using an appliance box, that sounds like it’s cutting off air and all sorts of things. It sounds like when you develop the technology specifically for this purpose, and you’re using the right kind of fiber linen coverings, and you can really choose your materials, that you probably get rid of a lot of the downsides that were experienced with early days of light dep.

Eric: That’s an excellent point. I mean it was not a popular thing back in the day. It was like when organic first got popular, and it was looked at with the apple and you had a worm sticking out of it. Organic wasn’t the premier product that it is today. So light dep was the same thing. Light dep was like, oh, this early, not so happy looking material that wasn’t cared for very properly because the methodologies weren’t developed yet. We have a great deal of understanding now compared to what we knew then and what we even knew when we started the company. Now we are able to tell people why the things work, the way they work, and what the best policy is.

We used to have a catalog at one time when I started that was inclusive of a lot of things that were related to the greenhouse and horticultural industry, but they weren’t really related or specifically to cannabis, or we didn’t know that at the time. We actually eliminated a lot of things in order to guide people in the right direction. Instead of people calling and me saying, “What do you want?” I actually tell people what they need. It’s not because I’m trying to force feed them something that’s marginally-based. It’s really based off education and cannabis growing so that people can be successful.

Shango: I would think that your job as a salesperson during the sales cycle is actually more education than anything. Because once people are educated, the sale is pretty much already made. Hey, we need to take a short break. We’ll be right back. You’re listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast.

Shango: Welcome back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast. I am your host Shango Los. Our guest this week is Eric Brandstad of Forever Flowering Greenhouses and Light Deprivation. Before the break we were talking about how the constant evolution of these technologies is making the experience of the grower better and better. Let’s talk about some of those improvements. We were talking about in the old days they would use a cardboard box around a plant, which is obviously going to have ventilation issues, and a greenhouse is essentially another box. Now you’re going to enwrap it in this black fiber. What are you doing to be able to keep the air circulating because I’m thinking that it would get really humid really fast in there?

Eric: Oh, yeah, you’re right. Think about it, greenhouses were invented for the wintertime. Now we have people trying to use them in the middle of the summer and grow where they usually have maybe 300 days of sunshine or something like that. I mean it’s really against the grain, and when you think about it, it sounds like a hostile environment. Years ago it was, don’t get me wrong. It hasn’t been perfect the whole time. To understand all this stuff has taken a great deal of research and development, and it wasn’t all done by us. It was done by growers with feedback towards us so that we could understand what was happening. The evolution was really coming on strong in the last couple of years. That’s why I’ve taken on some of the public speaking, and been able to do things like this podcast and explain things in better detail than I would have a couple years ago even. This is definitely ongoing research, and we’ve come to a great place to be able to educate people so that they can be successful.

Shango: Does using sunshine in the winter demand supplemental lighting to be installed in the greenhouse to add to the short days?

Eric: Yeah, it does. I mean if you don’t have 12 hours of good sunshine, then supplemental lighting can definitely be a help. You can have plants that just need a little bit of encouragement, so supplemental lighting can be not so much on the production side as many people think. You’ve got to have a lot of lights, high intensity as well, for light deprivation. I have a lot of people that I know in areas of Santa Cruz and in other places in California that use simple little florescent fixtures just to keep the plants in check, because they do get enough sunshine that their plants do very well just off the sunshine alone. So the supplemental lighting varies from place to place. We do have people that are moving into other states that have up to 159 days of good sunshine, so the supplemental lighting will definitely be a higher intensity and closer spacing for these type of places.

Shango: What kind of technologies are you developing to help the greenhouse breath? We talked a little bit about the humidity early, so I’m sure that you’ve got some sort of creations to move the air around as well. What can you do to keep the circulation moving and keep the fresh air coming in when it’s wrapped?

Eric: My whole thing is first of all greenhouses that are used in the summertime, since they are against the grain, we need to know how to outfit the greenhouse first of all before we even do the light dep. If we figure out how to support the greenhouse properly, then we’re going to be able to have the plants perform better. Then when we apply the light deprivation technique, the plants won’t go through the hostile takeover that normally you’ve seen in other applications. What I’m getting at is basically a lot of people originally thought that clear glass was the best choice for a greenhouse cover. It let in more light, and the more light, the better growth.

What happens with cannabis plants is they really tend to sweat it out when they get warm, and that’s leaf surface temperature. We’re not talking about air temperatures. If you look back at an outdoor plant in the afternoon, it takes on a lot of sun. In order for it to cool itself, it actually transpires. It’s almost like a person. We perspire. Plants transpire, so when a plant warms up, it’s got to sweat it out basically. We don’t really see this on an outdoor plant other than the times that it gets a little bit droopy because it takes on so much water weight. As the surface temps decrease, the plants become perky again.

Now when we get into a greenhouse and we throw a roof over its head, and we find the humidity and the droplets forming on the greenhouse roof and dripping back down, it’s usually an indication of high plant transpiration. In order to mitigate that, a lot of times we’d look at ventilation. Primarily most people looked at mechanical ventilation, and mechanical ventilation means that we’re using exhaust fans and intake shutters basically. That might help keep relative same temperatures inside and outside because we’re doing one air exchange per minute but that doesn’t alleviate the humidity gain inside the greenhouse, which is also called the vapor pressure deficit.

When we have those things going on, a clear material in a sealed greenhouse with mechanical ventilation, typically what we see is a hot, hostile environment on the leaf surface because the plants typically are taking on too much sun, and they’re having to sweat it out. What we’ve figured out in order to fix this or to help it is not to use shade cloth, because shade cloth has been helpful for cannabis growers in these types of situations because it diffuses light and it scatters infrared. But what we’ve found is that there’s greenhouse covers that are a diffused cover, and a diffused cover transmits 85% light and diffuses it by 100%. What we’re doing is we’re actually scattering infrared, we’re blocking out UV, and we’re taking light particles and breaking them in half. So we get some of the same benefits of a shade cloth, but at the same time we’re creating more light particles within the greenhouse space. That right there, is kind of a game changer in some regards, to say that you’re taking away the sun’s intensity but creating more light optics at the same time.

The other part of that is that the mechanical ventilation doesn’t necessarily help as great as we’d like it to with the diffused cover. What I’ve found the cannabis likes best is to mimic outdoor conditions. The way to do that is through passive ventilation. Passive ventilation means the use of ridge vents and side vents and maybe a combination of a little bit of exhaust but primarily circulation vents on the inside of the greenhouse. What this does is it helps lower the leaf surface temperature of the plant. I’ve seen 100 degree air temperature days where it’s 100 degrees inside the greenhouse, 100 degrees outside, so we’ve avoided the solar gain, the greenhouse effect. We don’t want that in the summertime anyway.

Once we do that, we take my infrared thermometer and check the leaf surface of the plants, we find them to be in the high 80s and low 90s, which is pretty darn okay. Then when you do some other things that are discouraging heat, encouraging materials like the ground cover. Typically people put a black weed block down, and most of the grow bags and containers are black as well. Well, those two combinations with that color encourage a high amount of surface temps which adds to the temperature in the greenhouse, the temperature of the root zones of the plants. When we turn to tan grow bags, and I have a white ground cover that we put down, we actually discourage a lot of the heat-gaining things that are going on normally in a greenhouse, and it becomes a really supportive environment for the plants. We can see all this stuff by using the infrared thermometer and just shooting all the surfaces of everything.

There’s encouraging colors and discouraging colors. In the summer time, I call it summer mode, we do the things that discourage and promote passive ventilation. In the wintertime, we can seal up the greenhouse and even use colors that encourage free heat. That’s the main strategy. What happens when you pull your light dep cover is we don’t see the humidity spike like we normally did because the transpiration rates in the plants are in check. Normally at 5:30 to 7:00 in the afternoon, plants can be sweating it out at their highest point. When we pull our light dep plastics or covers or our black-box from the old days, we see the plants sweating it out, and it really doesn’t do them justice. They take on abolic stress, which means they can take on pests and disease at that point. They’re like an open wound.

By supporting the plants and covering them with a blackout material that’s a breathable material, we have the transfer of some of that humidity going through. Then we also have in our greenhouses the breathable walls, which allow us to actually turn on the exhaust system, which we couldn’t even do two years ago. With all these fail safes in place and these methods, now it’s starting to be proven through the analytical companies that light dep greenhouse material is testing higher and better than some indoor and outdoor material.

Shango: That’s a really great explanation. I can imagine that without all the water weight from the transpiration in the afternoon when it would get really hot in there that the plants really look a lot happier too, which makes us all happier as growers. It looks like it’s time to take another short break. We’ll be right back. You are listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast.

 

Shango: Welcome back. You listening to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast. I’m your host, Shango Los. Our guest this week is Eric Brandstad of Forever Flowering Greenhouses and Light Deprivation. We were talking about how great these greenhouses are especially in locations that get a lot of sunshine year round. I used to live in Boulder, Colorado, and one of the things I loved about it is that they were getting 300 days of sunshine a year. I would think that this would be a really great location, and they also have snow. In my experience, greenhouses get really cold in the winter. What effects does the light deprivation technology have on heat retention inside of these greenhouses during the winter?

Eric: That’s a great question. The most vulnerable time for a greenhouse is at nighttime in the winter. Even in the wintertime when the sun’s out we have a little bit of the ability to have solar gains, so we can get the greenhouses to warm up. But the minute the sun goes down, that’s it. Heat is necessary even in places in California as well as Colorado. When you get into Colorado sometimes the heating systems need to be a little more sophisticated. When I look at heat for greenhouses, the primary source, or I mean the primary objective, let’s say, to heating the greenhouses, first of all heating the plants, and that would be from the root zone.

One way or another, there’s a lot of different ways to do that. Some are more efficient than others and maybe more practical than others, Just like I talked about in the earlier segment of cooling the surfaces and discouraging some of that heat gain to support the plant, now we’re actually trying to support the plant by reheating some of these areas, and primarily that’s the root zone. Take for instance, some places in California I’ve dealt with that have been 30 degrees outside when they have a root zone at 70 degrees, the air temperature in the greenhouse can be down to 55 degrees. So the plant temperature is really important.

There’s different versions of root zone heat whether it’s in the concrete under the gravel, in the beds. There’s different versions of it under benches, so if people are doing stationary or even rolling benches, there can be heat applied underneath the benches so that you can keep the root zone warm. That’s primary heat. Then secondary heat would be a unit heater or also what’s called an aerifier heater, so it’s a typical propane heater up above that blows out hot air. With Colorado and snow accumulations, it’s good to have a heat source for the plants and also a secondary heater for that air temperature to be brought up in order to help melt snow.

Shango: How about heat retention? You’re describing all this heat that’s going to be created, but I’m assuming that a lot of the heat are going through these walls. Are these greenhouses typically double-walled?

Eric: Well, they can be. That’s a good point. Basically there’s places that don’t get very warm in the summertime and stay pretty cold at nighttime and definitely have a colder winter. I do promote the twin wall for areas like that and the diffused twin wall still. When you get into areas that still have 300 days of sunshine that get fairly warm in the daytime especially in the summer, what happens with the twin walls is the air in between is what heats up, and so sometimes it’s harder to passively cool a twin wall greenhouse because the air in between is always warm. You can’t cool the air in between those two little walls.

The transmission on the twin wall is starting to get better, like as good a the single wall for the diffusion properties, but again, we also have the light deprivation curtain system that closes. When you close the curtain system, it’s light tight, so it helps with the air movement. Even though the triple-air, breathable, blackout fabric does help move a little bit of that heat and humidity, it mostly is wicking the moisture when places that are in higher humidity, but mainly it’s an insulation blanket in the wintertime. Again, we don’t need our curtains as much for light deprivation in the wintertime as we do lights. A lot of people are turning on their lights in conjunction with closing the blackout material to protect themselves from light pollution. It kind of goes hand-in-hand.

Now we have places that for compliancy reasons need to have a light pollution plan. What they don’t realize that for those application writers is that we already have that dealt with because most people in the cannabis industry are buying a light deprivation greenhouse. If we’re blocking out the sun, we can definitely block the lights out from the inside going out. This also is a smaller volume of air to heat up, and so we can actually have our primary heat down below in the blackout zone with the lights that can encourage heat as well. Then above that we have the secondary heater for helping to melt snow and avoid having an air drop when the blackout curtain opens.

Shango: Yeah, right on, right on. I follow this. I want to ask you about one other thing before we wrap up here. We’re almost out of time. You are in a unique position as an entrepreneur because you are both educating your customers, and you’re also evolving the technology yourself. I can imagine that you’ve gotten a lot of pushback from folks who didn’t want to hear you out, or they just had their doubts or were skeptical. A lot of our listeners are developing new technologies to bring to market to help evolve the industry as a whole. What advice would you give somebody who is going to bring a technology to market that has to change minds?

Eric: I would just say that I know years ago when we first started this a lot of people didn’t look at this as a real industry, and it was kind of a joke or “Go ahead, good luck,” type of thing. The other thing a lot of people have always said, and I’ve even heard this recently at some trade shows, is that a plant is a plant. In some cases that might be true if you look up the genes or follow the chemistry of plants or whatever, but in my opinion cannabis plants are really specific. That doesn’t mean that they’re difficult. It just means that there’s specific, and they don’t really operate like a lot of other plants that I’ve been around or I’m familiar with.

I would say to take some advice or some understanding from some real growers and some people that have been in the cannabis industry for a good amount of time, that might be five to ten years at least with a little bit of a objective background, maybe with some people that have been around some other areas as well, because Colorado isn’t the breeding ground or ground zero for cannabis and how cannabis plants grow. Neither is the Indoor Grow Guide. I can appreciate the Indoor Grow Guides, but they’re not something that you take under your arm when you go back outside or learn to grow in a greenhouse. A lot of the things that we read in these books and things are specific to certain areas or styles of growing, whether that’s indoor or outdoor, or Washington or Colorado for that matter.

Shango: Yeah, right on. Well, Eric, that’s all the time we have for today. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Eric: Oh, great. Thanks for having me. It’s been great.

Shango: You can find out more about Eric Brandstad of Forever Flowering Greenhouses and Light Deprivation on their website which is foreverflowering.net. You can also watch Eric’s entire presentation at the NCIA Cultivation Management Symposium on YouTube, and it includes all the slides. It’s really worth checking out. You can find more episodes of the Ganjapreneur Podcast in the podcast section of ganjapreneur.com. You can also find us the Cannabis Radio Network website and in the Apple iTunes store. On the ganjapreneur.com website you will find the latest cannabis news, product reviews and cannabis jobs updated daily along with transcriptions of this podcast. You can also download the ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google Play. We are thrilled to announce that you can now find the show on the iHeartRadio Network app bringing Ganjapreneur to 60 million mobile devices. Thanks to Brasco for producing our show. I’m your host, Shango Los.

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Cannabis Arrests Are Still Increasing In New Jersey

Arrests for cannabis possession are on the rise in New Jersey, even while arrest rates for cannabis are declining around the rest of the country, The Associated Press reports. There were 24,765 marijuana possession arrests in New Jersey during 2013, the most the state has seen in 20 years and nearly double the number of marijuana arrests from 1993.

Udi Ofer, executive director of New Jersey’s ACLU chapter, noted that this increase “coincides with a governor who has taken an incredibly harsh tone on marijuana use,” but that he doubts “anyone knows the exact answer.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has vowed to veto any recreational legalization bill that might come across his desk, and during multiple events for his presidential campaign Christie has announced that — if elected president — he would take immediate action to end the legalization experiments currently underway.

According to Ofer, the uptick in arrests is particularly concerning because studies have shown that African-Americans are being charged with possession three times as often as whites, though whites are just as likely to use cannabis.

Chris Goldstein of PhillyNORML noted that, “Christie is the most vocal marijuana prohibitionist in America right now. … His rhetoric obviously hasn’t been lost on the police captains of New Jersey.”

For more on this story, click here.

Photo Credit: Office of Public Affairs

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Competing Legalization Campaigns in Massachusetts Face Petition Signatures Deadline

The two Massachusetts campaigns that seek to end cannabis prohibition are facing a petition deadline tomorrow for their proposals: 64,750 valid signatures are required to put their proposals in front of the state legislature, which may then choose to pass the law outright. If the legislature fails to act, an additional 10,792 signatures will be needed by July to get the proposals in front of voters during the November 2016 election.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, an advocacy group backed by the Washington-D.C. based Marijuana Policy Project, has already raised more than enough signatures. Today, campaign leaders are submitting their 103,000 petition signatures to the Elections Division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, the Bay State Repeal group is a grassroots campaign that has been endorsed in an editorial by the Boston Globe and by the Massachusetts chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. It remains uncertain whether Bay State Repeal has secured enough signatures.

One of many differences between the campaigns is their proposed taxation rates: BSR is calling for a 6.25% state tax with no option for a local tax, while the CRMLA’s proposal includes a 10% state tax and the option for up to 2% in local taxes. The BSR proposal also includes an expunging of old marijuana offense records by the state’s Executive Branch.

For more info, visit the campaign websites above or read more here.

Photo Credit: KOMUnews

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Retail Cannabis Customers Want Well-Stocked Inventories and Knowledgeable Budtenders

A Marijuana Business Daily report published in September reveals what recreational cannabis customers prefer in their retail shopping experience.

According to the report, more than two thirds of cannabis customers believe that a well-stocked inventory is critically important. Additionally, 63% agreed that a knowledgeable budtender is also among the most important factors.

Other common subjects that concern retail cannabis customers are whether or not the cannabis products are lab-tested, whether or not there is a menu or product prices on display, and what the business’ overall atmosphere is like.

Visit the Marijuana Business Daily website for the whole story.

Photo Credit: Dank Depot

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Maryland Receives Over 1,000 Medical Cannabis License Applications

Maryland officials recently announced that they have received more than 1,000 applications for medical cannabis licenses. Of the 1,081 total applications, 811 are for dispensing licenses. The other applicants are more evenly distributed between hopeful cultivation and processing operations.

The first step in approving an application was set to begin in January. However, the licensing process may now be delayed because of the sheer amount of interest, which is much higher than anticipated.

Maryland’s medical marijuana program was signed into law in 2014, but the program is still not operational. The law is more restrictive than others, in that edible products are not allowed, and doctors are not legally able to prescribe medical cannabis alongside more traditional medications, particularly painkillers.

“I can’t have access to a pain manager unless I give up the cannabis,” explained Barry Considine, a self-prescribed MMJ patient who was on the front lines of Maryland’s medical cannabis advocacy efforts.

Photo Credit: Mark

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U.S. Hemp Sales May Reach $500M This Year

U.S. citizens are expected to purchase up to $500 million worth of hemp products during 2015, a preliminary analysis by the Boulder-based Hemp Business Journal recently revealed.

Americans bought $400 million in such products during 2014, indicating a rapid expansion (25% over one year) in the demand for hemp-based products. Items purchased range from simple clothing and cosmetics to construction supplies made from hemp, commonly known as “hempcrete.”

The vast majority of these products have been made using imported hemp — though American hemp crops are becoming increasingly more common, particularly in Colorado, Tennessee, and Kentucky. At least in Colorado, the majority of hemp harvests are being used to fuel the nationa’s growing demand for hemp-based CBD products, which are expected to raise about $85 million worth of sales in 2015.

Check out the full article at The Daily Camera for more information.

Photo Credit: Mike Mozart

 

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what are cannabinoids

What Are Cannabinoids and How Do They Work?

Though the effects of marijuana consumption depend largely on the mode of ingestion, it is the chemicals within cannabis that cause the reaction in the first place. These chemicals, called cannabinoids, bind with special receptors throughout the body to mediate cellular communication and cause the “stoned” sensation that so many of us are familiar with.

What are cannabinoids?

Cannabinoids are chemicals that bind to special cannabinoid receptors in the body. CB receptors make up a larger system called the endogenous cannabinoid system and can be found in many parts of the brain and spinal chord (CB1 receptors) as well as the rest of the body (CB2 receptors). Cannabinoids were named after the plant that aided in their discovery and can be generated within the body (endocannabinoids), derived from plants (phytocannabinoids) or made synthetically.

The cannabis plant contains more than 85 different cannabinoids. The most popular cannabinoid, THC, is known to have a powerful physiological impact on the body including changes in mood, pain perception, focus and appetite.

Gaining in popularity is another cannabinoid called cannabidiol or CBD. Though it contains no psychoactive properties, CBD has shown great promise in the medical community, no less. According to a 2013 study by the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, CBD may be beneficial for its anticonvulsant, antioxidant, anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory and anti-depressant properties (among other things).

Other beneficial cannabinoids to look out for include THC-V which has been shown to reduce blood sugar, convulsions and appetite; CBN which offers pain relief, spasm reduction and soporific qualities; and CBG which is both antibacterial and anti-fungal and can be used as a bone stimulant, as well.

cannabinoids

How do cannabinoids work?

All mammals contain an endocannabinoid system that is designed to regulate cellular processes. When cannabinoids interact with cannabinoid receptors, they can help mediate bodily functions such as blood pressure, appetite, stress and pain perception.

Cannabinoid receptors are primarily located throughout the central nervous system and bind to it as pre-synaptic receptors. This means that cannabinoids can inhibit the release of neurotransmitters by mediating which chemicals are released. This can result in the stimulation of certain brain regions like the hypothalamus where base instincts like hunger and sexual desire are controlled, or the neocortex which is responsible for creativity and complex thinking. Unfortunately, it can also hinder other areas of the brain like the hippocampus (which is responsible for memory storage) by “hijacking” the area and controlling which memories will and will not be retained.

Different cannabinoids exert different effects, as well. For example, while THC may increase anxiety and fear by acting on CB1 receptors in the amygdala, CBD will produce the opposite effect by binding to (and thus blocking) these same receptors.

Cannabis is capable of amazing things all thanks to these special chemicals called cannabinoids. Though individual cannabinoids exert unique characteristics, the combination of multiple cannabinoids can work synergistically to promote optimum health and well-being.

Last Updated: May 25, 2020

Header Image Photo Credit: Leslie J. Clary

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Colorado Introduces New Rules for Cannabis Edible Producers

Colorado State Attorney General Cynthia Coffman has approved new regulations aimed at avoiding accidental ingestion of marijuana edibles by children.

The state had passed a set of emergency rules in August 2014 to this effect that require edible manufacturers to use F-1 grade child-resistant pharmaceutical packaging. The rules also limit dosages; Colorado edibles can contain a maximum of 10 milligrams of THC per piece, and packages can contain no more than 100 mg total.

The new rules address a section of the August emergency rules that was postponed, which would have required manufacturers to “shape, stamp or otherwise mark products—when practicable” so as to be recognizable as containing cannabis once removed from their packaging. The requirement was postponed until a universal symbol could be agreed upon.

The new rules specify that the symbol will be a diamond with the letters THC and an exclamation mark. The symbol must be applied with molds, stencils, airbrushing, or frosting. Products that cannot be branded in this way, such as granola or liquids, will be limited to 10 mg per package, effectively banning certain products currently on the market.

The regulations also limit the amount of product customers can purchase at one time. Colorado residents can buy 80 “servings” (10 mg of THC) at once, while out-of-state consumers are limited to 20 servings—two 100 mg candy bars, for instance.

Cannabis business owners are largely displeased with the new rules, insisting that the previous rules were already effective at limiting accidental ingestion and over-consumption. The rate of calls to Rocky Mountain Poison Control regarding marijuana-infused products is significantly less than that for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, or household cleaning products. Others find the rules overly burdensome, particularly for producers of baked goods, which are often porous and difficult to label, and producers of liquid products.

Bob Eschino is the president of Medically Correct, the parent company of Incredibles, which produces more than 40,000 candy bars a month. Eschino takes issue with the rules that limit the total milligram dosage that consumers can purchase at once.

“Forty-eight 100 mg edibles would be equivalent to one ounce of flower, and they arbitrarily made it eight [100 mg edibles].” he said. “Forty percent of our recreational adult-use market consists of tourists, who are now limited to only buying two edibles. We think that’s ridiculous.”

Of course, the new rules don’t address homemade edibles: consumers can still bake themselves cakes and brownies without any dosage limits.

Source:

http://www.hightimes.com/read/new-regulations-shake-colorado-edibles-industry

Photo Credit: Rob Faulkner

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Denver Wrestles With Question of New Cannabis Business Moratorium

Denver has stepped back from extending a moratorium on new businesses in the city’s cannabis market.

Since the inception of Colorado’s recreational marijuana market two years ago, only medical marijuana businesses that were already in business have been permitted to open recreational stores or grow and processing operations.

That was all set to change on January 1st of next year, but the city proposed extending the moratorium for another two years. Faced with opposition from certain marijuana businesses and, city officials approved a fourth-month extension of the moratorium so as to study industry data on the issue.

“We want more time to study the impact of the industry and allow the city time to adjust to more than 440 marijuana businesses here,” said mayoral adviser Ashley Kilroy.

Some say that even the fourth-month moratorium is problematic for those entrepreneurs who had been planning for the January 1st license application deadline. Loren Davis, an attorney who specializes in marijuana law, said that “it’s downright irresponsible to extend this moratorium at this late date. There are tens of dozens of business owners who have planned on that Jan. 1 deadline.”

Source:

http://www.thecannabist.co/2015/11/24/denver-marijuana-industry-business-moratorium/44390/

Photo Credit: Sheila Sund

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Portland Dispensaries to Offer ‘Green Friday’ Special: $20 for 7 Grams

Heads up, Portlanders: Black Friday is coming to town this year in a whole new way.

At least twenty dispensaries across Portland will be offering the maximum amount of cannabis that recreational buyers can purchase in Oregon (7 grams, or 1/4 oz.) for only $20 — they’re calling it Green Friday.

The event was organized by the Portland Auction House and Oregon’s Cannabis Conceirge, though it was a collection of 50 different growers who contributed the 100 pounds of pot that will be sold by participating dispensaries. The quarters will come “prepackaged in a glass jar, and… with a catalog listing all the participating farms.”

The dispensaries will each be allocated only two pounds of the discounted cannabis — meaning 128 jars per participating retailer — so show up early!  Not too early, though, as the event’s website duly notes: “skip the 4 a.m. Black Friday big box store drama, and mark your calendars for the lowest priced quarters of the season.”

This is the first Black Friday for which cannabis has been made legally available in Oregon.

Photo Credit: Dank Depot

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Florida Approves Five Nurseries to Grow Medical Cannabis

Florida has approved five nurseries to begin growing low-THC strains of marijuana for medical use. In 2014, voters approved a law to allow for the production, sale, and use of low-THC, high-CBD (“non-euphoric”) strains of marijuana for the medical market. The law was written for patients dealing with intractable epilepsy and advanced cancers.

The five nurseries are divided by regions, and are as follows: Costa Nursery Farms in Miami,  Alpha Foliage in Homestead, Knox Nursery in Winter Garden, Hackney Nursery Company in Tallahassee, and Chestnut Hill Tree Farm in Alachua.

Nursery applicants were required to have been in business in Florida for 30 years and to have at least 400,000 plants. The winning applicants were selected from a pool of 28.

The rules committee included five growers, four of which were among the winning applicants (Costa Farms, Hackney Nursery, Chestnut Hill Farms and Knox Nursery). Other applicants were quick to criticize the process.

The growers have ten business days to deliver a $5 million bond in order to obtain the license.

Source:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article46050920.html

Photo Credit: Diana Robinson

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Legal Cannabis Retailers and Growers Prohibited from Keeping Firearms for Protection

Noah Stokes, founder and CEO of CannaGuard Security, recently appeared on the Ganjapreneur.com podcast to discuss security difficulties facing the cannabis industry.

CannaGuard Security is a Portland, OR-based cannabis industry security company that serves marijuana businesses nationwide. From storefronts to grow ops, CannaGuard helps companies meet and understand the standards put in place by state regulators, and offers contingencies and preventative measures as safeguards against theft and robberies.

Noah joined Ganjapreneur podcast host Shango Los to discuss some of the most common requests his company receives, major flaws in the logic used by regulators when defining mandated security protocols, and how cannabis retailers and producers can best prepare for worst case scenarios.

Stokes explains how one of the biggest regulatory flaws facing the cannabis industry is that — according to the Cole Memo, issued in 2013 by the Department of Justice — there are no firearms permitted on the premises of legal marijuana businesses. “Their intent… was to keep the cartels from having a table full of gold AK-47s,” Noah said. “I get that, but having a retired police officer have a concealed-carry to protect himself in an all-cash marijuana business — that probably makes a little bit of sense.”

The full podcast episode is available via iTunes or Ganjapreneur.com, where there are transcripts available of this and previous episodes.

About Ganjapreneur:

Ganjapreneur launched in July 2014 and has since established a significant presence in the cannabis business world. The website regularly publishes interviews and commentary from leading minds in the industry, and has also launched a B2B business directory, a live feed of job listings from marijuana job boards, a domain name marketplace for start-ups and venture capital firms, and a mobile app for Apple and Android devices which aggregates daily cannabis industry news, business profiles, and other information. For more information about Ganjapreneur, visithttp://www.ganjapreneur.com.

Source:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/cannabis/security/prweb13027874.htm

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