The New Mexico Senate voted Saturday to pass a bill that would ease penalties for adults found in the possession of small amounts of cannabis and drug paraphernalia. The bill now moves to the House.
Senate Bill 383, which passed with bipartisan support by a vote of 21-20, would make those found in possession of up to an ounce of marijuana or any kind of drug paraphernalia subject to a $50 fine. The conviction would be classified as a penalty assessment, which is not a criminal conviction.
Furthermore, the bill would remove the possibility of jail time for those convicted of possession of up to eight ounces of marijuana. Current law in New Mexico considers possession of up to an ounce as a petty misdemeanor with the possibility of jail time. Possession of between one and eight ounces is considered a misdemeanor with the possibility of large fines or up to a year’s worth of jail time.
The New Mexico House passed similar legislation with bipartisan support in 2013. The bill eventually failed because the Senate did not vote on it before the year’s adjournment.
According to a 2013 Sanderhoff poll, 57% of New Mexico residents were then in favor of decriminalization. Last year, Sante Fe decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
We are excited to announce the first episode of our new podcast with host Shango Los of the Vashon Island Marijuana Entrepreneurs Alliance! In this series, Shango will interview cannabis industry entrepreneurs, activists, investors, and legislators about their experience and their take on the current state of the industry.
In this episode, Shango meets with Kristin Nevedal of ASA’s Patient Focused Certification program to discuss the program and its goals, as well as her personal experience related to community organizing and activism. Kristin is a proponent of cannabis as a whole-plant medicine, and she works to foster safety, consistency, and sustainability in the medical cannabis industry with the Emerald Growers Association in Humboldt County. She is also an instructor at Oaksterdam University, and teaches classes on sustainable horticulture.
Shango Los: Welcome to the Ganjapreneur.com Podcast. My name is Shango Los and I will be your host today. Kristin Nevedal is director of the Patient Focused Certification program from Americans for Safe Access. Before joining ASA she co-founded and is presently vice chair of the Emerald Growers Association in Humboldt County, whose mission is to promote the medicinal, environmental, social, and economic benefits of lawfully cultivated cannabis in California by advocating for public policies that foster a healthy and sustainable cannabis industry.
As chair of the American Herbal Products Association, Cannabis Cultivation Committee’s working group, Kristin assisted in the development of cannabis cultivation model regulations and best practices for agency consideration. Kristin is also an instructor at Oaksterdam University, teaching classes on environmental sustainability and best management practices. Kristin’s broad policy and advocacy experience also includes serving as a board member for the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, Californians to Regulate Medical Marijuana, Americans for Safe Access’ Patient Focused Certification program, and the 420 Archives.
Welcome, Kristin. Thanks for joining us today.
Kristin Nevedal: Thank you for having me.
Shango Los: First let’s talk about Americans for Safe Access, and then after a while we’ll talk a little bit about Humboldt County specifically.
Kristin Nevedal: Sounds great.
Shango Los: What was the motivation for Americans for Safe Access to establish the Patient Focused Certification and how has it developed?
Kristin Nevedal: The motivation had a lot to do with bringing product safety protocols into the medical marketplace and also establishing cannabis as a botanical medicine, as opposed to moving it into more of a pharmaceutical realm. Our executive director at Americans for Safe Access, Steph Sherer, had this great plan and facilitated the partnership with the American Herbal Products Association and the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, which allowed us to work within the botanical industry and with cannabis experts to create guidelines that were modeled after what we see being used and approved by the FDA today for botanical and nutraceutical products in the US.
Shango Los: Do you see this as a precursor for it to move towards pharmaceutical or is the intention to hold it firmly in the herbal realm?
Kristin Nevedal: It’s to hold it firmly in the herbal realm and this is largely part of the motivation here, is to keep this plant as a botanical medicine. We know that there’s going to be spin-offs or side development in the pharmaceutical realm, but cannabis as a whole plant medicine has advantages that we’re never going to see happen in the pharmaceutical realm. So this program acts to anchor the plant itself as a botanical and nutraceutical product for the future. A second huge component to this is that, when we look at the history of botanical medicine in the US, in the late 70s and early 80s as the botanical and nutraceutical market really exploded in the US, there weren’t guidelines in place for this market.
So companies started to get into trouble with product liability, because they didn’t have product safety protocols; they didn’t have proper labeling protocols. It really took down some of the larger companies that were developing. Secondly, it created a pathway, or an incentive, for the FDA to really try to remove our ability to have botanical and nutraceutical products over the counter, and there’s some fear that we could see the same thing happen with cannabis. So, learning from what similar products have experienced is really what launched the merger and the partnerships for ASA, AHPA, and the AHP.
Shango Los: So, specifically with the Patient Focused Certification, explain to me a little bit about the standards and what that means to earn that certification.
Kristin Nevedal: Right. Back in 2010 this partnership developed and these working groups were housed largely within the American Herbal Products Association, and they were a combination of botanical experts and cannabis industry experts from all over the country. About ninety companies joined, a few from Canada. We had some input even from the Netherlands. What we did is we developed these recommendations to regulators that actually created so-called pathways for policy development, but also best operating practices for everything from cultivation and processing to manufacturing, labeling, packaging, and folding, also for distribution and then for laboratory testing facilities. The American Herbal Pharmacopoeia developed the Cannabis Monograph, which really focused on quality, purity, and testing methodologies, also what kind of contaminants or adulterants might not be suitable and at what levels for human consumption.
Coming into the Patient Focused Certification program as a certified company means that you’re compliant with local and state regulations, but you also have these product safety protocols in place; you have written standard operating practices, or SOPs; you have employee manuals, and your employees are well-educated and trained. You’re using appropriate tracking procedures, using lot and batch number tracking; you are properly labeling and identifying the parts of a plant that are being used in the products you’re making and developing; and that you can do a product safety recall, should you have to, at any time in a product’s lifespan.
Shango Los: It’s interesting, because here in Washington to become certified as a lab, for example, you don’t have to prove proficiency, just you have to do enough of the certification. It sounds like this added layer of the Patient Focused Certification adds more of a competence in the proficiency of whoever the certified person might be.
Kristin Nevedal: Yeah, absolutely. We have two labs here in Washington that are Patient Focused Certified. We have both Phytalab and The Werc Shop. That’s great, because they’re testing both adult use cannabis and medical marijuana, or medical cannabis, for patients here in Washington. They’ve gone through a rigorous audit, which verifies both their standard operating procedures, their employee handbooks, but also the methodologies that they’re using on-site with the products and the raw cannabis that they’re testing. It’s more likely that there’s going to be a consistent result coming out of those facilities. Suddenly they’re a standardized lab. It provides a standard for testing, a standard methodology, and the machines are calibrated to a standard, so it really is a game changer for standardizing medicine here.
Shango Los: With the adoption of medical cannabis across the country being ahead of the recreational legalization, are you finding that the certification is being adopted all across the country?
Kristin Nevedal: It’s the guidelines that we’re releasing being adopted. Many states have taken the American Herbal Product Association’s recommendations to regulators in the four categories we just mentioned and they’re adopting them as regulatory policy. We see a good portion of that work be included in Illinois law, or regulations, Maryland’s regulations, Nevada’s regulations. They’re spreading. I think that’s reassuring. These are really very sensible recommendations for regulations.
We’re also seeing the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia Cannabis Monograph be referenced for laboratory testing facilities, even in 502. Portions of the AHP Monograph are referenced in I-502’s law. We also see them referenced in Oregon, again in Maryland, again in Illinois, and in multiple states. I think we’re really moving towards more of a standardized product and a standardized testing regimen for these products.
Shango Los: I can imagine that the legislators who are trying to figure this out in their home states are probably pretty grateful that you have put in the time to make these recommendations first so that they can just grab what you have built and use that as a starting place instead of reinventing the wheel at each state level.
Kristin Nevedal: Right, and reinventing the wheel because of so many decades of prohibition is what regulators tend to do. Yeah. I think these have been very, very helpful, and really what these do is they look at cannabis, again, like a botanical product. Cultivation, say, those recommendations are treating it like a crop that’s produced for human consumption. So we’re taking those considerations into account in the regulatory framework that was developed.
These by no means recreate the wheel. They put cannabis in the botanical realm. They treat it like a crop that’s produced for human consumption. They look at how the Department of Agriculture would work with it at that level. They look at what kind of processing would be required if it was recreational or any other crop, what kind of protocols would be in place for that or [inaudible 00:10:19] might be in place or required for that. We need to do the same for manufacturing all the way up to distribution and then laboratory testing. So, really, it’s not a reinvention of any wheel. It’s just putting cannabis into its place as a botanical and herbal product.
Shango Los: Like finding an appropriate framework for it.
Kristin Nevedal: Yeah, yeah, with minimal adaptions.
Shango Los: With some states beginning to blend medical and recreational, like we’re doing here in Washington, what role do you see for the Patient Centered Focused Certification and the merging of medical and recreational markets?
Kristin Nevedal: I do feel like what we’re seeing happen is … Still states and legislators and regulators are struggling with the product safety components. We’re really hoping, in fact, Patient Focused Certification can act as a tool or a framework to bring better product safety and standardization into these already existing regulatory models. Also in Washington we have the sticky situation where the medical marijuana providers really have no legal protections, as far as licensing or permitting is concerned.
Because of that they’ve been the brunt of a lot of misunderstanding, so we’re really hoping to see these providers move into certification, because then they can show that they actually have right now much better standards of production, processing, manufacturing, distribution than what the I-502 stores have. A lot of them have spent years and years developing very good protocols that they’re using to create very high quality products for patients. So this program offers an opportunity for them to really show that through an audit and certification process.
Shango Los: That’s great. It sounds like one of the first standards that can really truly have medical self-regulate, because in a lot of cases self-regulation is more of an ideal than what’s actually happening. It sounds like this certification can create a standard where we can actually more effectively self-regulate.
Kristin Nevedal: Right, and shows some level of compliance. When you’re in a situation like Washington … California’s in a very similar situation where they have providers that don’t have clear pathways for licensing or permitting … it’s very challenging to show that you’re operating in compliance as well. So patient certification allows these facilities to show a level of compliance with local and state regulation, as well as this higher level of standard of care, standard of production, that I think is very important. Patients rely on it. Patients are getting, for the most part, really excellent care from a majority of their providers, so it would be a shame to really lose that for patients. I’m hoping we can help organize and keep the patient providers that have put so much into being available for these patients’ care at the table as this merger, or legislation, develops here.
Shango Los: There’s a lot of experience that we don’t want to lose by overregulating and pushing these folks out.
Kristin Nevedal: Oh, no, and products … experience and products that patients are relying on. We haven’t seen that same development happen yet in I-502 adult use marketplace. Of course, it’s new. That marketplace is new; it’s developing. It’s had its hiccups as a newly evolved, regulated marketplace. To lose the expertise and years of work and product development that these patients have become reliant on would really be a setback for patients, let alone for the businesses and the folks who have put their life into this. Patients would lose out quite a bit.
Shango Los: That’s why you call it “Patient Focused Certification.”
Kristin Nevedal: Yes, exactly.
Shango Los: Before we move on to talk about Humboldt County, how can our listeners find out more about Americans for Safe Access and the certification?
Kristin Nevedal: It’s really easy. Visiting the Americans for Safe Access website, which is at safeaccessnow.org, you can do both. You can learn all about Americans for Safe Access through that website and you can also link directly to the Patient Focused Certification website, or you can go directly to the Patient Focused Certification website by just going to patientfocusedcertification.org. It’s really long, but very simple. If you can remember the name of the certification program, you can remember the website.
I encourage folks to fill out applications on the website. They’re very easy. They don’t come with a commitment to certify, but it does allow us to open up a conversation with a company or a provider about how to move into a certified framework.
Shango Los: That’s great. You are also well-known as a co-founder and key member of the Emerald Growers Association in Humboldt and you’re presently the co-chair. What advantages do you see for growers across the country to come together similarly and form local cannabis trade organizations?
Kristin Nevedal: I think Humboldt County … It has this unique history of generations and generations of growers. When it originally started as Humboldt Growers Association back in 2010, it was really because we were seeing Prop 18 happen in California and the city of Oakland make a move to only allow for four very large cultivation sites and Alameda County patients would have had to get medicine from only one of those four cultivation sites. There was a sense of panic. This is kind of an economic backbone for Humboldt County. We formed during a time where our community literally was freaking out and wondering what happens after cannabis. Our goal was to make sure that we didn’t lose these small farms that have been providing since … 1997, I think, is when Proposition 215 passed. I guess it was’98, because it was a proposition.
So 1998 Proposition 215 passes, and we were suddenly moving into 2010 and we had … What was that? … ten years, even more, of providers that were suddenly going to be shut out of the market, kind of similar to here right now with what you’re dealing with in lieu of the I-502 and the merging. Our community felt so strong about holding onto that family, sustainable, small farm that we literally formed in a living room. A bunch of friends and community members who were somewhat in a panic, we decided that we were going to get together and we were going use safety in numbers methodology to influence local regulations. We really started to try to influence Humboldt County into creating a permanent system that allowed farmers to have a legal framework to operate in.
We quickly learned in California that we really needed to also focus on what was happening on a state-wide level. We weren’t the only group of farmers organizing. Mendocino was doing the same thing. So, suddenly Mendocino, our neighbor to the south, Humboldt Growers Association was folding into MendoGrown, and the two groups are working together and enjoying the MendoGrown board. After a couple years of playing phone between the two boards, we decided that really what we needed to do was merge and we needed to bring more farmers in from more areas of California and become a state-wide organization that could really, hopefully, have a very strong voice to effect change in the capital, because what we realized we needed was state-wide regulations to help fix the problem and that the local powers-that-be were not really going to be able to fix the problems.
Shango Los: Are you finding that this combined group has got a lot more influence because of all the additional sweat equity brought together as one?
Kristin Nevedal: Oh, absolutely. What it does is it creates a unified voice. Instead of having Humboldt County be in the capital talking about what farmers need, and Mendocino be in the capital talking about what farmers need, and Butte County, or Yuba, or Monterrey, we now have this cohesion. So it’s a lot easier for our legislators to hear the needs of a large group when it’s coming from one organization and one voice. We’ve really expanded our board to allow for regional representation. Our executive director, Hezekiah Allen, is amazing and travels through all of these counties all over the state and meets with our local chapters on a regular basis. We do regular telephone calls, where we’re talking to a legislative committee. We have a membership committee. We have a marketing and development committee. We have an environmental committee.
It’s great for us, because we bring all of this information together from all over the state and then we understand better what kind of programs we need to develop to help move sustainability forward. We’re much more effective in getting those messages out, because we can share them now in … I think we have fifteen counties right now throughout California. We’re sharing these messages about best practices and sustainability at a much broader level than when we started. That really is changing a larger conversation about cultivation.
In California we’ve been pretty rock-hammered with environmental issues because of the trespass grow situation on public lands and large private holdings, timber holdings, especially. It’s been very hard for viewers of the media to understand that that’s not our medical cannabis providers. So, having the broader themes, the larger area of conversation I think has really helped to change and educate also the public about the difference between medical and trespass. Trespass is not even legal. We have these medical providers that are doing everything we can do to be compliant and good stewards of the land. When we share that message outside of Humboldt in a grassroots way, we really get to educate much more on a much more profound level.
Shango Los: Yeah, certainly. Prohibition-era growers have worked in secret for years. Sometimes there are some challenges to growers sharing information and coming together after all the secrecy. What techniques does the Emerald Growers Association use to help lessen competition and suspicion amongst member growers that might be useful to others across the country who are forming their own similar groups?
Kristin Nevedal: I think that when we have leadership in all of these various communities, that leadership is often trusted by their peers, and that has been really a great way for us to expand. As we identify folks, say, in Butte County that really want to engage and have a similar mission to move sensible regulation forward … We’re dealing with a plethora of bans, patchwork bans for cultivation, all over California. One ban over here on the eastern side of the state ripples throughout the entire state and it shows communities next door that, “Oh, we can ban this, as opposed to having to deal with it.” So, really, getting strong leadership in each of these regions has helped tremendously, because the community’s leaders are who the local community is most likely to engage with, and talk to, and rally around, and feel safe with. That’s really been a huge change and advance for us. That’s done a lot of good.
Shango Los: It sounds like you’re addressing the suspicion that sometimes comes with prohibition-era growers by distributing the leadership. Even though you have a central organization, the decision making isn’t necessarily as centralized, so that everyone feels like they are being considered in the whole.
Kristin Nevedal: Yeah. We invite our members to committee calls. We invite them to engage and we love them to engage. I’m here in Seattle today and tomorrow, and then Saturday we’re hosting a brunch to talk about [Ford 00:24:01] updates. That will be in Humboldt County. We’ll be doing a brunch. It’s free to our members. It’s a twenty-five dollar charge to non-members, but all are welcome to come in and hear what it is that we’re working on, what our educational programs look like right now, what our legislative strategy looks like. We’ll talk a little bit about the trends in cultivation policy throughout the US. We’ll do the same thing on Sunday in Mendocino and then we’ll be out doing a very similar program in the eastern part of the state in March, and then again in April, and then we’ll be headed south.
It’s really inviting the community, members and non-members, to have the conversation. We do a lot of radio. Radio’s really great for having the conversation. We try to encourage folks to call in when we have that opportunity, and that’s somewhat anonymous, and they can email us, too, or send us notes. It’s a great way to reach out and communicate. We’re just trying to hold as many events as possible, get people as engaged as possible, and hopefully working with the local legislators, their supervisors, their state council members, to educate them about the fact that this is a crop just like any other crop that’s produced for human consumption. It can easily be regulated like agriculture. We can dispel all of these myths about it being this big, scary, environmentally unfriendly endeavor and just keep pushing, pushing in that same direction.
Shango Los: When you were talking about the different meetings at the different local levels, I got another picture of another agriculture group. It sounds a lot like the old Grange that my grandfather used to be in when I grew up. In a way you’re making a modern Cannabis Grange where people can come together and discuss what’s going on in their agriculture area and also have social and trade best practices.
Kristin Nevedal: Yeah. I think that’s a great analogy. Even in some areas we use a lot of the local Granges, because they’re friendly, and the spaces are there, and they’re great community meeting centers. It is; it’s very similar to that. In California we’re really also pushing hard for our pollution control. These farmers have been working in their region, in some cases for multiple generations, and they develop streams that are very unique to their region, that, even if I take something from the eastern part of the state and then bring it over to the coastal part of the state, that plant is going to look different; it’s going to taste different; it’s going to just …
Kristin Nevedal: Right. Exactly. We’re really hoping to honor this rich tradition of cultivation and see the state recognize the operations, just like we have for [flying 00:27:16], because it’s a very, very similar dynamic happening here with the environmental influences with cannabis. I think that’s another reason for these regions to engage. It offers an opportunity as we work together to blend all of the wisdom and the years of hard work that have gone into developing those areas. In a lot of these rural communities, cannabis inadvertently has kept the communities economically stable. It’s built schools, fire departments, community centers, and kept things moving forward. I think it’s time we honor that.
Shango Los: Let’s talk a little bit about those community centers and such. What is the relationship between the trade group itself and the community at large, and how do the local residents who are not cannabis enthusiasts respond to the group generally?
Kristin Nevedal: It’s changing. I have to say that when we started in 2010, folks really weren’t sure what to make of a medical cannabis trade association that was focused on cultivation, and sustainability, and best management practices. My little joke is that cannabis farmers tend to be like ostriches; they put their head in the sand. In our area a lot of them moved into Humboldt, into these rural regions of California, because they were a “back to the land” movement. They were getting back to the land. They didn’t want to be part of government control and regulations.
Flash forward to 2010 and suddenly there’s a trade association saying, “We need to regulate, and we need to self-regulate and help guide regulations that we develop,” and there definitely was some resistance and there was some pretty hefty resistance. Over the years our trade association, our board, is largely comprised of community members. So, over the years, giving back to the community, putting out free best management practice manuals, hosting events, working with different legislators in their community, we’ve seen some of that fear or uneasiness fall away.
We’ve also done a lot of work to engage other groups in our communities, some environmental groups, create coalitions, so we aren’t standing up there alone; we’re partnered; we’re moving things forward in coalition. I think that has really helped the trade association, Emerald Growers Association, to be more well-received in the community.
Politically, times are changing. The entire political environment from 2010 to today is an entirely different setting. When we started in 2010 there was kind of a rush of organizing. People were still uneasy. Growers were nervous, and rightfully so: “I’m afraid to sign on to a trade association here, because I’m going to lose my rights as a grower.” We got a lot of that … of course, how could we not have? In 2011 the US Attorney from California came out with guns-a-blazing, literally. They’re going to shut down every medical marijuana facility. Suddenly people who wanted to be engaged were terrified and we kind of had this lull. The political climate said, “Wow. I should go back to my homestead and be afraid.” That’s what people did, and I totally understand that.
Now, after Washington and Colorado legalized, and they’re seeing more and more states … More than half of the US has marijuana laws or medical cannabis laws on the books. People are saying, “Oh, goodness. We really need to be focused on this.” So we’re seeing another resurgence, I would say, of organizing and farmers wanting to be engaged. [Inaudible 00:31:32] the future, and the way to do that is to look at becoming part of the solution and engaging, bringing your voice to the table.
Shango Los: Humboldt has had quite a voice. Humboldt is seen as the Holy Land to most cannabis enthusiasts across the country and, I guess, the world. How do you think it influences the growers in Humboldt County to be seen as pioneers in the eyes of growers and patients all over?
Kristin Nevedal: I think it’s a mixed bag. Humboldt County growers really would like to be on the forefront of sensible regulation. They want regulation that’s going to embrace their way of life, that’s going to embrace the farms that they’ve developed, that’s going to let them operate in a manner that doesn’t create a lot of … They’re craft farmers and they’re heritage and craft farming versus, say, a Budweiser type of regulation. The concern is, really, making sure that we don’t have these overly onerous regulations that in every case the expense and the rigidness of onerous regulations tend to crush small businesses, and Humboldt is the land of small business, small farming.
So, they’re inspired to see them happen; they’re working hard on that. At the same time, that pressure that being the Holy Land, or the epicenter, of sun-grown cultivation or cultivation as a whole, it puts a lot of pressure on. Not only do people look at Humboldt and they say, “Oh, look, all this great development has happened.” Every time we have a [Grow-It 00:33:24], the microscope is on us and it’s really hard not to have that be a big message as well. For example, with the trespass growths our forests have been [inaudible 00:33:39]. It’s been really hard on our environment, and it’s been really hard to separate that message that these trespass growers are not your medical cannabis providers. They’re not our Emerald Growers Association members. It’s a completely different conversation that we’re having. That’s been a challenge that I feel like we’re overcoming finally.
Our legislators, they feel the pressure, too, from both sides. They’ve been regulating medical cannabis cultivation on small parcels, parcels that are five acres or under. They’re very precedent and have been over the years to touch larger independent medical and commercial effective cooperative cultivation for many reasons: economically; fear of federal preemption. Also, if they are overly restrictive, the growers in Humboldt County aren’t afraid to flood the chambers of the supervisors or the city council, whatever it might be. It’s a little bit sticky. We can’t live without state guidance …
Shango Los: Sure. Sure. Sure. You mentioned the trespass grows and some of the environmental issues with them, but let’s talk about some of the legal folks. When done without environmental awareness, cannabis growing can cause serious environmental damage and has been a constant issue in California for a while. What steps has the Growers Association taken to help preserve the local environment and educate growers through the legal members, not by just trying to stamp out the trespass grows.
Kristin Nevedal: We’ve done a couple of things. We’ve been really fortunate to be engaged with some groups that have been doing cleanup efforts … myself, and we’ve tried to get some members out into the force to experience what’s going on out there. That’s a huge lesson in itself. Also, back in … I think it was … 2012, we took on a project with the Trees Foundation and some community members, and we created a best management practices guide. That covered everything from earthmoving to sediment reduction to water use and water reduction, nutrient reduction, pesticide use, so all these best management practices for agriculture. We managed as a community group, including the Emerald Growers Association, to raise enough money to distribute at this point almost ten thousand copies of that guide book for free. It has been online. We’ve been dropping it off in every nursery, garden supply store, equipment rental, heavy equipment location.
We’ve also taken that and we’ve also developed a lot of workshops around it. Last year we worked with another group of environmentalists and we developed an expanded workbook based on our guide. We’ve been doing workshops and we often make them free to the community. So we try to get as many people to come have this conversation as possible. The Northern California Farmers Guide … Part of what we did with that that I think was really fairly brilliant and wasn’t necessarily my idea, is that we decided as a group when we were putting it together to not have it be too technical and to have it be more young, youthful, forward-speak.
Shango Los: It makes it more accessible to folks.
Kristin Nevedal: Yeah. We didn’t want to charge for it and we didn’t want it to be too technical or preachy. We wanted it to be kind of fun and playful. So we left it very simple and we used words like “grower.” We put a big box of produce on the cover with a simple branch of flowers; we put a finished flower on it. We put them in really high traffic places, hoping that people would just pick them up, thinking that it was something cool and inadvertently learn about what not to do.
Shango Los: If people want to check out this grower’s guide or find out more about the Growers Association, how can they do that?
Kristin Nevedal: Oh, that’s a great question. The grower’s guide is on the main website for the Trees Foundation. They have done all of the technical work for us on that, which we just thank them tremendously for doing that. You can always go to the treesfoundation.org and check it out right there online. I believe it’s also available through our website, but you can always email us. Check out our website at emeraldgrowers.org. Also on our website is a calendar, and there’s constantly workshops coming up throughout the state, where you can learn more about the guide and ask questions and get expanded education of the topic.
Shango Los: That’s fantastic. Thank you for joining us today on the Ganjapreneur Podcast, Kristin. Kristin Nevedal is Director of the Patient Focused Certification program for Americans for Safe Access and co-founder of the Emerald Growers Association of Humboldt County.
I am your host, Shango Los, of the Vashon Island Marijuana Entrepreneurs Alliance. Thank you for listening to Ganjapreneur.
Texas lawmakers introduced bills in the House and Senate last Friday that would allow access to medical marijuana for people with a variety of debilitating conditions, including cancer, seizures, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Representative Marisa Márquez (D-El Paso) introduced House Bill 3785, and Sen. José Menéndez (D-San Antonio) would sponsor a companion bill in the Senate if the House passes Márquez’s legislation.
Rep. Márquez criticized the current state of the law in Texas: “The law currently does not reflect marijuana’s legitimate medical use and denies access to patients, such as veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, citizens suffering with cancer and severe ailments of the aging… We should create paths, and not obstacles, in allowing doctors to recommend medicine that has been shown to work.”
The bill goes further than legislation previously introduced at the Texas capital, which aimed at allowing access to CBD oils that contain little to no THC. According to a February 2014 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, more than three-quarters of Texans support the right of seriously ill people to access medical marijuana.
Native American tribes that want to get into the cultivation and sale of marijuana have a new resource for business guidance: The National Indian Cannabis Coalition (NICC).
Because interested tribes can now get involved with the marijuana industry, the National Indian Cannabis Coalition was founded to help provide the resources necessary for a new business.
What the Coalition Does
The National Indian Cannabis Coalition’s stated goal is “to inform and educate tribal leaders on the emerging regulated cannabis markets from an entrepreneurial and operations perspective.”
This means that the NICC is committed to providing accurate information about all stages of cannabis cultivation and sale to tribe members who are interested in joining the industry. This information includes covers the following subjects:
– Startup financing for cannabis-related operations.
– The process of acquiring all necessary operational permits and business registry.
– The construction of buildings for these operations.
Currently, it is free for tribes to join the coalition. The coalition’s founders hope to fund the project through support from vendors who have a history of success in the marijuana industry.
Lessons From the Casino Industry
Since the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed in 1988, Native American tribes across the United States have flourished in the gaming industry. As of 2011, America’s reservation casinos brought in a combined $27 billion in profits. In a recent interview with The Cannabist about the NICC’s official launch, NICC co-chair Allyson Doctor said about the Native American casinos, “we learned that working together to develop policy and regulations that work for all the communities is a good thing.” Later in the interview, she went on to compare the casino industry with the burgeoning marijuana industry, “When you compare the two industries, they’re probably equally as regulated and complex.”
And that’s exactly how the NICC will help tribes that are considering becoming part of the marijuana industry. In any industry, trade groups exist to protect merchants and artisans by promoting business-friendly policies and encouraging healthy competitions among members. With an industry as new as legalized marijuana, it can be easy for aspiring business operators to be taken advantage of by predatory policies and bad market information.
A Guiding Force in Indian Country
“Trust is an important factor in Indian country,” Doctor said later in the interview. As a member of a tribe herself, she recognizes the unique challenges and issues that tribal entrepreneurs face. Protecting tribal interests is a top priority for the coalition, which seeks to empower prospective marijuana business owners and operators on reservations across the American West.
President Barack Obama addressed the topic of marijuana legalization in an interview with VICE News yesterday.
VICE founder Shane Smith raised the issue of marijuana legalization in a video interview with the President, noting that legalizing marijuana would leave a lasting legacy among the nation’s youth. President Obama responded first by noting that, despite the clear popularity of the issue, legalization “shouldn’t be young people’s biggest priority.”
The President went on to draw a clear line between the issue of cannabis decriminalization and the broader issue of legalization, criticizing the failed criminal justice policies of the War on Drugs:
“I think there is no doubt that our criminal justice system generally is so heavily skewed towards cracking down on non-violent drug offenders that it has not just had a terrible effect on many communities, particularly communities of color, rendering a lot of folks unemployable because they got felony records [and] disproportionate prison sentences.”
He also noted that more and more states are recognizing the fact that such policies come with a heavy financial burden, and that this has led in part to an encouraging level of bipartisanship on the issue: “You’re starting to see not just liberal democrats, but also some very conservative republicans, recognize [that] this doesn’t make sense…They see the money and how costly it is to incarcerate.”
President Obama stated that decriminalization at the federal level is conceivable if the trend among states continues: “At a certain point, if enough states end up decriminalizing, then Congress may then reschedule marijuana.”
In a disappointing turn, the President makes several unrelated comparisons of cannabis with harder, more dangerous drugs.
He ended the interview with a final comment on the failure of U.S. criminal justice policies: “Substance abuse generally, legal and illegal substances, is a problem. Locking somebody up for twenty years is probably not the best strategy, and that’s something that we have to rethink as a society as a whole.”
The Oregon Senate approved a bill last week that would allow for certain marijuana-related convictions to be expunged. Filed as emergency legislation, the bill will take effect immediately if it is passed.
Senate Bill 364, which passed the Senate by a vote of 26 to 3, aims to help those convicted of cannabis possession before the law was changed in 2013 to clean up their record. Each of the three dissenting votes came from Republican senators — Alan Olson (R-Canby), Chuck Thomsen (R-Hood River) and Doug Whitsett (R-Klamath Falls).
Until the bill goes into effect, getting a conviction reclassified into a lower-level offense is only possible if the conviction took place after July 1st, 2013, when the law was changed. Under the new bill, when a person requests an expungement of something on his or her record, judges will be required to take into consideration the new law’s reclassification of certain marijuana-related
offenses.
In addition, the bill would put into effect a provision that would allow for the reclassification of Class B felony convictions for marijuana possession as misdemeanors.
Ganjapreneur, a website dedicated to cannabis industry business news and culture, recently published an interview with Brian Westphal, founder of Lotus Boards, a start-up looking to produce the world’s first hemp plastic skateboard. In the interview, Westphal discussed his goals to spread awareness about ecological manufacturing using biological composite materials and 3D printing. The piece was published as part of a series of interviews conducted via Ganjapreneur with business owners and investors who specialize in cannabis and hemp.
Westphal discusses how he originally came up with the idea after learning about industrial hemp on the “Joe Rogan Experience” Podcast. “Joe would bring up the illegality of industrial hemp and the real conspiracy perpetrated by the media during the 1920′s,” Westphal states. “He also would discuss Henry Ford’s Hemp Plastic concept car as a great example of the wide uses of hemp. From there I researched to see what happened to this material? Why is nobody developing with it? And how come bio-plastics and industrial hemp aren’t more prevalent in our society?”
Westphal also discussed his belief that the future of manufacturing will likely hinge on ecological, renewable practices and 3D printing. “Hemp offers many benefits to our current methods of manufacturing paper, textiles, houses, and of course, plastics. Saving the amount of energy used, reducing carbon emissions, and the amount of water used during cultivation,” are some of the ways that widespread implementation of hemp will be ecologically beneficial, according to Westphal.
With Lotus Boards, Westphal’s goal is not simply to produce skateboards, but also to spread awareness about the benefits of industrial hemp and encourage manufacturers from all industries to pursue ecological practices as well. “Our vision is to spread the use of Industrial Hemp and Bio-Based alternatives with every ride. What better way to show people the capabilities of these new technologies than to let them cruise around on it?”
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.
Minnesota medical marijuana businesses are preparing to receive their first harvest in the coming weeks. Two MMJ manufacturers, LeafLine Labs and Minnesota Medical Solutions, have received approval from the state’s Department of Health to produce, process, and begin distributing products in pill or oil form in July.
In downtown Minneapolis, one company has already begun construction on the city’s first dispensary, in the century-old former home of the League of Catholic Women. Several other sites are set to open in St. Paul, St. Cloud and Hibbing.
Minnesota became the 22nd state to legalize medical marijuana in May 2014 with the strictest medical law in the country. The bill does not allow the smoking of the leaf itself, effectively barring those with illnesses such as muscular dystrophy and PTSD from relief.
Some cities have gone further to postpone MMJ’s arrival; Duluth and certain Twin Cities suburbs implemented six-month and one-year moratoria on dispensaries in order to conduct further studies regarding zoning requirements.
In an interview with CBS Minnesota, Minnesota Department of Health Assistant Commissioner Manny Munson-Regala drew attention to widespread concern regarding the program: “I think the folks who want to move forward with this program underestimate the amount of trepidation there is out there… The folks who are so passionate and believe this is what we should do forget there is a sizable number of people that are not sure.”
Despite this apprehension, Minnesota expects to begin patient enrollment by June, and manufacturers are required to open at least one dispensary by July 2015.
The Washington State Senate passed a bill this week that would add post-traumatic stress disorder as a qualifying condition for a medical marijuana prescription. Senate Bill 5379 was passed unanimously by the chamber on Tuesday night, and is now being considered in the House of Representatives.
State Senator Steven Hobbs (D-Lake Stevens), who sponsored the bill, noted that it has the support of the Veteran’s Administration, and assured retired veterans who use medical marijuana to manage symptoms related to PTSD that they would not be risking the loss of their benefits.
Washington’s first medical marijuana law was passed in 1998. Voters approved a bill that allowed doctors to recommend, although not prescribe, medical cannabis on behalf of those suffering from cancer and other medical conditions that result in “intractable pain.”
In 2012, Washington became one of the first states in the country to pass a bill legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana. The state’s first recreational dispensaries began opening for business last summer.
Recently, Ganjapreneur had the chance to connect with Brian Westphal, an entrepreneur looking to innovate and spread awareness in the industrial hemp sector. Westphal’s company, Lotus Boards, is working to produce the world’s first hemp-plastic skateboard. The company’s goal, as stated on their website, is “to create awareness for the adoption of Industrial Hemp and Bio-Based alternatives with every ride.”
In this interview, Brian discusses how Lotus Boards came into existence, what his journey has been like so far, and what his predictions are for industrial hemp’s future.
Read the full interview below:
What’s the story behind your involvement in Lotus Boards?
I’m the founder of Lotus Boards. I have been able to get by thus far mainly working by myself though I have used outside help and experts to cover the aspects of starting a business which I am still learning. My background is in Mechanical Engineering. I just received my degree from Cal Poly Pomona this past semester and am pursuing entrepreneurship full time. Lotus Boards is only the beginning of what I have planned. I feel very strongly about the rising hemp movement and saw it as a great opportunity to make a change in society. This project has been about 1 1/2 years now in the making and we hope to have our product on Kickstarter later this summer pending our manufacturing lead times.
Who came up with the original concept?
I first heard about Hemp Plastic listening to the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast. Joe would bring up the illegality of industrial hemp and the real conspiracy perpetrated by the media during the 1920’s. He also would discuss Henry Ford’s Hemp Plastic concept car as a great example of the wide uses of hemp. From there I researched to see what happened to this material? Why is nobody developing with it? And how come bio-plastics and industrial hemp aren’t more prevalent in our society? As stated earlier I learned a lot about the history, the technical details of the material, and found that the US was far behind relative to other industrialized countries in terms of making ecological manufacturing solutions.
What did you do before pursuing a career in hemp-plastic skateboards?
During my final year at Cal Poly Pomona I entered the ‘Bronco Startup Challenge’, basically a business plan and pitch competition which featured a panel similar to ‘Shark Tank’ with experienced Angel Investors. Somehow, among a class of 50 business plans and 10 finalists I was able to come out on top, winning the Grand Prize which further boosted my confidence that Lotus Boards and the Hemp Revolution could be successful.
Something I hear more about from within the Industrial Hemp community is that even just a few years ago when the HIA would go to Washington DC they were joked out of the room you know, Industrial Hemp, Marijuana, getting high. But now there’s no laughing. People are finally starting to come around and get educated on the real benefits cannabis as a whole could bring to society.
Our vision is to spread the use of Industrial Hemp and Bio-Based alternatives with every ride. What better way to show people the capabilities of these new technologies than to let them cruise around on it?
I wanted to pursue a career that could help make a difference and use my engineering background to make game-changing designs. The money or success I feel that could come as a result is only a bonus.
How would you characterize other entrepreneurs and businesses you have interacted with in the hemp industry?
The folks I’ve met in the hemp industry could not be more helpful. It is a very tight knit community at this point of people developing some next-level ways to use industrial hemp. This network consists of both business owners/entrepreneurs and those on the front lines in non-profit organizations fighting to make industrial hemp cultivation legal. In most cases these people wear both hats.
It was surprising to me to find that not all of those in the Industrial Hemp community dabble in marijuana, or care about it’s cause for that matter. To them, Industrial Hemp is an entirely different cause, primarily environmental. Hemp offers many benefits to our current methods of manufacturing paper, textiles, houses, and of course, plastics. Saving the amount of energy used, reducing carbon emissions, and the amount of water used during cultivation. (Not that they don’t care about personal freedom and the ability to expand their consciousness using marijuana, they just view it as entirely separate. Sometimes, though, it can be seen as a hindrance to the industrial hemp cause as it creates a taboo.)
The Lotus Boards website states that the material used for your decks is 30% hemp and 70% plastic. Is this typical of most hemp plastics? How did you settle on this ratio?
The compound we are using is obtained by a third party supplier. This is the ratio they found would offer the best balance between strength and manufacturability. The more hemp fiber, the stronger and more rigid the result will be, though it is detrimental to it’s ability to be molded. The process we use is plastic injection. Other compounds use ‘Compression Molding’ similar to carbon fiber. Plastic injection is a very common technique to create detailed parts, with little waste, quickly and cheaply. A lot of every day items are made using it which makes the innovation of Hemp Plastic so intriguing.
These first steps though not quite perfect yet, are necessary. These beginning materials are only the tip of the iceberg for bio-based compounds. The more we use them and support the companies producing them and their continued research and development the closer we can get to the point where all of our materials can be produced organically with greatly reduced environmental impact. Our supplier is working on an even better compound that we hope to use in the near future.
How does the performance of a Lotus Board compare to traditional skateboard decks? Will it feel any different than riding a traditional board?
Our deck is similar to the Penny Cruiser deck. Is different from a traditional deck in that it’s more used for beach cruising, getting around town or to class, and to carve hills. Relative to the Penny our board will have a greatly reduced carbon footprint, will be stronger, and most of all, made using hemp ‘In The USA’.
At this point we have only tested using prototypes of the design. None from the Hemp Plastic compound yet as we are still in talks with manufacturing.
Our board design is very unique though; engineered to stay light while at the same time putting reinforcement exactly where the rider needs it. There’s a lot more detail about this aspect of design in the blog on our web page: http://lotusboards.com/blog.
If legalized and embraced globally, what do you envision the future of hemp plastics would look like?
I view a society which obtains all of its materials from organic sources. These materials will be free from toxins, be biodegradable, and have a low carbon footprint. It’s only a matter of time until everything we use can be made with 3D printing from fully renewable resources. The possibilities are going to blow people away, it’s only a matter of time. Trust me when I say Lotus Boards is in the forefront of this development with details I can’t even give away and has a lot in store for the upcoming launch.
What advice would you give to someone looking to forge a career in industrial hemp?
Anyone looking to get started in industrial hemp I think should come with an original idea. Break away from the common thread of making paraphernalia related products. I mean who would have thought the best method of making houses was to use industrial hemp to make Hempcrete? I hope that hemp entrepreneurs will continue to push the envelope and create original, groundbreaking ways to use the crop in ways others never even knew were possible.
Secondly, get connected and start doing research. These go hand in hand. It takes a wealth of knowledge to make a product from top to bottom and to learn the manufacturing processes behind its creation. Somewhere out there is an expert in the field that you’re looking for. Anyone looking to learn more about Hemp Plastics can contact me personally at Brian@LotusBoards.com.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, Brian! We are looking forward to seeing Lotus Boards in production in the near future, and are excited to witness the growth of industrial hemp and ecological manufacturing in the U.S.
If you have questions for Brian, post them in the comments below! You can also contact him at his email address listed above or visit the Lotus Boards website.
The Republican-controlled Senate in Utah voted down a bill Monday night that would have allowed people with chronic and debilitating diseases in the state access to medical marijuana products.
SB 259 failed 15-14, with several senators citing concerns with the language in the bill. Senator Todd Weiler (R-Wood Cross) said that he feared the bill would prevent police from arresting those with a medical card for the possession methamphetamine or cocaine paraphernalia. Senator Mark Madsen (R-Saratoga Springs) the sponsor of the bill, has stated that Weiler is misrepresenting the language in the bill.
Under the bill, smoking marijuana would have remained illegal, but businesses would have been permitted to grow the crop and sell MMJ products, including brownies, candies, and lozenges. Senator Madsen had begun research on the issue after years of back pain, and eventually visited Colorado on his doctor’s recommendation to experiment with marijuana-based solutions.
Madsen viewed the bill as a measure to bring compassion and freedom to those in pain, and stated that he was disheartened by what he saw as fear in the legislative opposition.
Lawmakers in a New Hampshire House committee unanimously approved a bill to remove a ban on the industrial cultivation of hemp. The bill, which was sponsored by Representatives Elizabeth Edwards (D-Hillsborough), Laura Jones (R-Strafford), Robert Cushing (D-Rockingham), and Michael Sylvia (R-Belknap), would regulate hemp like any other farmable crop. The bill will now be debated and voted on in the full House.
In particular, the bill notes that “industrial hemp shall not be designated as a controlled substance.” Since the 1970 passage of the federal Controlled Substances Act, hemp production has been prevented by the Drug Enforcement Agency because of its relation to cannabis.
If passed, House Bill 494 would bring New Hampshire into the company of Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and neighboring Vermont, all of which have passed similar laws. Although many producers have hesitated to begin cultivation until federal legislation has passed, farmers in Colorado, Oregon and Vermont have begun harvesting over the past couple of years.
The U.S. hemp market is somewhere around $500 million per year, with the majority of imports coming from China and Canada, the world’s largest hemp exporters. According to the Congressional Resource Service, the U.S. remains the only developed country that does not cultivate hemp on an industrial scale.
A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators — Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) — announced a bill today that would completely overhaul the federal government’s stance on medical marijuana.
The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States (CARERS) Act would “allow patients, doctors and businesses in states that have already passed medical-marijuana laws to participate in those programs without fear of federal prosecution,” the senators explained in a joint statement. It would block the DEA from pursuing prosecutions against individuals or businesses participating in the state’s MMJ program.
“This bipartisan legislation allows states to set their own medical marijuana policies and ends the criminalization of patients, their families, and the caregivers and dispensary owners and employees who provide them their medicine,” remarked Michael Collins, policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance.
The bill would remove cannabis from its Schedule 1 listing under the Controlled Substances Act and allow Veterans Affairs doctors to prescribe medical marijuana, which is often pursued by veterans as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If passed, the bill would mark the first time the federal government acknowledges the medicinal value of cannabis. And, while the proposed legislation would not make cannabis legal under federal law, its rescheduling would open up many new opportunities into marijuana research.
The bill would also relax banking restrictions for legal medical marijuana businesses, a move that addresses a long-standing issue for the cannabis industry.
Currently, 23 states and the District of Columbia have passed medical marijuana laws.
John Sullivan, a Nevada-based top bank executive, will now serve as the president and CEO of Integrated Compliance Solutions (ICS), a financial services firm that will work with legal cannabis companies.
Sullivan leaves behind four years as CEO and president of First Security Bank of Nevada. During his tenure at the bank, Sullivan made headlines as a banker who was not afraid to extend an open hand to those in the budding cannabis industry.
In an interview with Marijuana Business Daily, Leslie Bocskor, investment banker and chairman of the Nevada Cannabis Industry Association, cited Sullivan’s groundbreaking work in the industry: “I think it was June of last year that he got on NPR and publicly stated that First Security Bank of Nevada would be accepting deposits from legal cannabis businesses. That at the time was a watershed moment.”
Based in Las Vegas, ICS is currently releasing its “Seed to Bank” program, which will eventually be made available to firms in all states with legal marijuana markets. The firm is also developing ATM-like machines that will be installed in medical marijuana dispensaries and other places where customers can legally buy cannabis. ICS has already installed eight such kiosks in the Denver area.
In addition to working full-time with ICS, Sullivan will also work as a consultant to banks that are hoping to provide services to marijuana companies without drawing the ire of federal regulators.
New Uruguay President Tabaré Vásquez, who assumed office on Sunday, has chosen to delay the country’s legal marijuana program only days into his presidency.
Vázquez’s predecessor, President José Mujica, made international headlines in 2013 when he legalized the production and sale of marijuana, making Uruguay the first nation to do so. Since then, Vázquez has agreed to honor President Mujica’s change in drug policy, though it has yet to be fully implemented. Vázquez has personall spoken out against marijuana consumption on several occasions, saying that
According to Milton Romani, the nation’s new chief drug regulator, there is “no rush” to start commercial sales of cannabis. In an interview with VICE News, Romani explained that “the [marijuana] companies do not deliver documents on time, and in the manner that hes been requested,” and that there still needs to be a point-of-sale software developed before pharmacies can begin distributing cannabis to consumers.
“I want this project to be successful,” he said. “If we make a mistake by rushing, we fail.”
Under Uruguay’s marijuana law, consumers will be able to obtain cannabis by purchasing it in a pharmacy, visiting a cannabis social club, or by growing it themselves.
At the inaugural meeting of Portland’s newly-formed NORML chapter, New Approach Oregon spokesman Anthony Johnson answered questions about Measure 91, last November’s voter-approved ballot initiative that legalized recreational marijuana.
When asked about residency requirements for Oregon’s legal marijuana businesses, Johnson answered, “Measure 91 was silent on residency requirements.” However, “If I had to predict, I think there will be some type of a residency requirement, at least a manager or a co-owner that’s an Oregon resident, at least for a few years under the [marijuana] licensing system.”
Portland NORML Executive Director Russ Belville commented, “Requiring an Oregon resident to be responsible for an Oregon commercial marijuana license is reasonable, but limiting investment and commercial participation only to Oregon residents runs counter to free market principles that will best serve responsible adult marijuana consumers.”
Washington and Colorado both have residency requirements — three months for WA, two years for CO — to obtain marijuana business licenses.
Do you have an innovative new idea you’d like to get off the ground? Maybe you’ve thought of looking for an investor or partner but don’t know where to turn. Or maybe you’ve become discouraged with the responses of business people who don’t understand what cannabis is all about.
Golan Vaknin, executive director and founder of ESEV R&D, is working with medical marijuana researchers in Israel and the U.S. and understands the vicious cycle of finding investors willing to invest in an industry that has only just begun to prove itself. Vaknin said, “When I tell people I’m doing research for cannabis, part of them knows it’s a really hot issue right now and there’s a lot of money in it, but a lot of people say they won’t associate with that. I think the struggle for entrepreneurs trying to get into this game is to present themselves as a legit business.”
For an industry that has historically existed outside legal boundaries, presenting itself as a legitimate business poses unique problems. A lot of people may have good ideas, but simply don’t know how to present themselves. And while investors might be curious, they are also wary about funding something as controversial as cannabis. As an entrepreneur, it’s your job to convince investors that you’re grounded and responsible enough to handle a business.
Vaknin offers three tips, based on his own experiences with both cannabis and other business ventures:
Have a solid business plan with a clear structure from beginning to end showing what product or service you plan to offer. Vaknin says one mistake he made when first approaching investors was he didn’t have a business plan solidly in place. “Before approaching investors you really need to know what you want,” he says. “Investors want to know they are putting their money in the hands of someone who has a vision and a plan to carry it out.”
Think of your cannabis business just like any other business. This means facing up to marijuana’s stoner image and working to change it. Many Americans still associate marijuana with the flakey loser smoking a bong in front of the TV with a bag of Doritos and chocolate cake. And the truth is, a lot of hopeful entrepreneurs perpetuate that image. “Being in the cannabis business doesn’t mean you can come to a meeting wearing a Jim Morrison T-shirt and smelling like pot. You should respect yourself and the business and the people who might be investing in you.”
Choose your partners carefully. A lot of people think getting into the cannabis industry is cool, so you find a lot of people with half-baked ideas and pipe dreams. You don’t want to waste your time with people who are flakey and possibly dishonest. Golan says the key to finding the right partners is “to know what you want to do and that will attract the relevant people. When you’re lost and all over, that’s the kind of people you attract.”
Clarity is probably the single most important factor in approaching investors. Know your niche in the marijuana market and what sets you apart from the competition. Be able to articulate your objectives and how you will meet them. Believe in what you are doing and trust that you’ll find the right partners to make your dream a reality.
According to a recent poll from Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, Arizonans are ready for an end to prohibition: 45 percent of poll respondents support full legalization and 42 percent support medical marijuana. Only 13 percent want marijuana to remain illegal entirely.
Previous polls have indicated support levels varying from 36 to 60 percent.
This poll, as noted by its authors, does not properly reflect voter support for the likely legalization law: the poll posed the question of legalization for adults aged 18 or older, though any new marijuana laws in the state would likely put the age restriction for recreational cannabis consumption at 21.
Furthermore, “It is important to keep in mind this research polled a sample of all Arizona adults, not just voters or likely voters,” said David Daugherty, the poll’s director. “And, since this issue would be decided by voters, the opinions of those who will not vote are of no consequence to a ballot measure.”
Arizona is expected to vote on marijuana legalization in 2016.
The industrial hemp movement could have a powerful new ally in the state of Texas if Rep. Joe Farias’ (D) bill (HB1332) can gain approval by the state legislature.
The bill, currently in the Agriculture Committee, would allow farmers to get a one-year license to grow the plant, according to the bill text. The license would need to be renewed annually and would be revoked if the licensee is found to be growing marijuana in the hemp fields. The bill indicates there would be a fee associated with the license but it does not specify what that fee would be.
Farias said that when he initially introduced the bill he was “apprehensive” about what kind of support the measure would garner. Since its introduction, however, the bill has picked up joint authors, received support from the agriculture community, and the Agriculture Committee chairman, Rep. Tracy King (D), has promised to hold hearings on the bill this session. Farias says it’s important to have the hearings this session because in Texas the legislature only holds session every other year.
In conjunction with the industrial hemp bill, Farias introduced a “backup plan” (HB557) – an industrial hemp research bill – that would allow for hemp to be researched in the state. If the industrial hemp measure were to falter the research obtained from the studies permitted by HB557 might help swing some votes the next time the industrial hemp bill is introduced. The research would be carried out by state universities. Those same universities would also likely be the source of the hemp seed made available to farmers – as is the case in other states where hemp cultivation is legal – although the bill does not outline exactly where the hemp seed would come from. Hemp seed is still outlawed by federal law making the seeds legally difficult to acquire.
According to Farias, Texas was the largest producer of industrial hemp prior to its ban. Although he, admittedly, has not done a study regarding the potential financial gains for the state and the state’s agricultural community, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service reported in 2013 that Texas has the fifth largest agriculture economy in the United States. Just two of the states with a larger agriculture economy than Texas – California and Iowa – have policies that allow for hemp production or research.
One of the hurdles Farias is facing with his industrial hemp bill is the common misconception that legalizing hemp production is akin to legalizing marijuana production. Farias says he has been helped by members of the agricultural community in educating his colleagues in the differences between the two plants.
“That’s the first thing they say, ‘Well, isn’t that part of the cannabis family?’” Farias said. “I explain to them the THC [the psychoactive chemical] in hemp is so low…you’d have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole in 15 minutes to get any kind of effect and it would probably make you sick.”
Jax Finkel, Deputy Director of the Texas chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says Farias’ bill is “a good one” which she thinks will get some traction in the legislature.
“Agriculture in Texas is a very big business,” Finkel said. “A lot of people have been wanting to grow hemp for a lot of years. We think it’s silly that we import 60 percent of our hemp products.”
Hemp, Finkel explains, doesn’t need a lot of pesticide, can be grown year-round in the state and is drought tolerant, making the plant that much more appealing to farmers in Texas – which is subject to long dry spells.
Finkel says that she hopes Farias’ research bill also passes the legislature because the information derived from those studies could be used to help other states make informed decisions regarding potential industrial hemp measures.
In a February HuffPost Live interview, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield — founders of the popular and quirky Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand — disclosed that they would consider releasing a marijuana-infused ice cream if legalization were to happen on a national level.
“Makes sense to me,” Cohen said. “Combine your pleasures.”
Greenfield, who was less forthcoming in his response, explained, “Ben and I have had previous experiences with substances, and I think legalizing marijuana is a wonderful thing.” But, he continued, “It’s not my decision. If it were my decision, I’d be doing it, but fortunately we have wiser heads at the company that figure those things out.”
Cohen and Greenfield have made a name for themselves in the past as being marijuana-friendly CEOs, a typically uncommon stance among major corporate leadership. In any event, it may take some careful bureaucratic negotiation, but a line of infused ice cream from the munchies masters themselves would be undoubtedly lucrative.
Currently, four states and Washington D.C. have passed recreational marijuana laws and the federal government has granted Native American tribes the right to conduct regulated marijuana business on reservation lands. There are dozens of marijuana reform proposals across the country under consideration, and the trend of legalization is being addressed by all levels of government.
A new study out of the Pew Research Center indicates that a significant majority of young Republican voters support marijuana legalization.
Levels of support vary dramatically on the subject between GOP voters, and there is a clear correlation with the voter’s age on whether or not they approve of legal cannabis: “Six-in-ten (63%) GOP Millennials say the use of marijuana should be made legal, while 35% say it should be illegal…. That level of support is higher than among Republican Generation Xers (47%) and Baby Boomers (38%), and much higher than among GOP members of the Silent generation (17%),” the report reads.
For Democrats as well, legalization is much more popular among Millennials — though Democrats of all age groups tend to support legalization more than their Republican counterparts.
The report also suggests that, though a majority of Americans support legalization, they are not necessarily unconcerned by cannabis and the effects of its legalization. Rather, there is simply a growing consensus that cannabis — having been labeled the safest recreational drug by many facets of the scientific community, and even deemed safer than alcohol by President Obama — shouldn’t result in a criminal prosecution or jail time.
In Washington State, which passed a recreational cannabis law in 2012, there is a vigorous debate on where recreational cannabis stores can be located. Many cities and towns have adopted moratoriums to prevent the new cannabis economy from coming to their town. Those who are opposed to retail cannabis stores cite concerns over public safety, exposure to children, and the wacky weed still being illegal under Federal law. One small town in southern Washington has decided to take matters into their own hands in order to avoid cannabis controversy in their town of about 1,000 by opening their own retail cannabis store.
North Bonneville, Washington located in Skamania County, in southern Washington, has formed a Public Development Authority (PDA) with the express purpose of applying for one of the two retail cannabis licenses allotted to them by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, according to their website. The North Bonneville Public Development Authority (NBPDA) was formed on November 12, 2014, followed by the appointment of the board of directors on November 19th.
On their website, North Bonneville states “The mission of the North Bonneville Public Development Authority is to comply with the new laws of the State of Washington through responsible public administration of the impact and influences these changes will bring to the social and economic landscape of our community.”
Recently, the mayor of North Bonneville, Don Stevens, told hemp.com, “I view [North Bonneville’s approach] as the city being welcoming to the whole idea of recreational marijuana legalization and trying to ensure it’s done as cleanly and professionally and with as much of an eye on the public health and welfare as possible.” He continued. “The financial aspects of it are certainly part of the equation, but they weren’t the primary factor.”
The revised Code of Washington (RCW) gives local jurisdictions the ability to form the municipal corporations for a variety of reasons. By North Bonneville forming their own PDA to manage the impacts of newly legalized cannabis, the town may avoid many of the challenges other cities are facing. If it works, North Bonneville’s innovative approach to regulating the sale of cannabis could become a useable model for other towns to follow in Washington State.
A recent report from the Colorado Department of Revenue indicates that legal marijuana vendors sold upwards of 150,000 pounds of cannabis, and nearly 5 million units of infused edibles, during 2014. The report establishes an in-depth analysis of the industry’s first year of legal retail sales, with both medical and recreational cannabis transactions taken into consideration.
“The Marijuana Enforcement Division feels that it is imperative to remain transparent on such a highly publicized issue in Colorado,” said Lewis Koski, director of Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division, the agency that compiled the report.
The sale of edibles saw perhaps the most significant increase throughout the year, with less than 100,000 units sold in January to more than 350,000 in December.
Meanwhile, the majority of flower sold was registered as medical marijuana transactions, though recreational edibles far outpaced their medical equivalents.
According to the report, about 16,000 people are currently licensed to work in the Colorado cannabis industry.
According to a Goucher poll released this week, 52 percent of Maryland voters approve of recreational marijuana legalization.
Additionally, when asked which substance was the most dangerous, poll respondents indicated that tobacco is widely considered the most dangerous (46 percent) and that alcohol is the next most dangerous (22 percent) — even sugar was deemed more dangerous than marijuana, with 13 percent of voters choosing that option. Only 8 percent chose marijuana as the most dangerous substance.
Maryland is considered a likely candidate for the next state to legalize marijuana. Earlier this year, Del. Curt Anderson (D-Baltimore) proposed the Marijuana Control and Revenue Act of 2015 — the third such proposal from Del. Anderson in recent years — which would legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, allow for home cultivation, and establish a rules and regulations for a recreational industry in Maryland.
There still remains staunch opposition to cannabis law reform, however: Republican Governor Larry Hogan has voiced his opinions against legalization, and Maryland’s own U.S. Rep. Andy Harris made a notorious attempt to block legalization in Washington D.C. earlier this year.
Maryland lawmakers passed a decriminalization bill last year, which changed penalties for possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana to a simple fine.
Recently, Ganjapreneur had the chance to connect with Brian Westphal, an entrepreneur looking to innovate and spread awareness in the industrial hemp sector. Westphal’s company, 
