President Obama unveiled some proposed changes on Monday to the U.S. federal government budget — one of which is a very clever addition that should allow the District’s local government to move forward with marijuana legalization and the establishment of a regulated market.
The move was first reported by Tom Angell of the Marijuana Majority for Marijuana.com:
“Tucked inside the 2,000-page, $4 trillion Fiscal Year 2016 Budget, the President is proposing that the District of Columbia should be able to spend its own money regulating marijuana however it wants. And he’s accomplished it with the simple addition of just one word: ‘Federal.’ … [B]y adding the word ‘Federal’ it makes it clear that D.C. can spend its own local funds as it sees fit.”
The original rider, championed by Maryland Representative Andy Harris of the GOP, has already drawn heavy scrutiny from both sides of the aisle. Prohibitionists claim the rider temporarily blocks any hope of legalization in the District, but top D.C. officials and some Congressional allies say that the successful November bill to legalize marijuana — Initiative 71— was enacted by voters on Election Day when they approved it with a 70% majority.
In its current state of cannabis limbo, D.C. faces a unique risk of being the first U.S. jurisdiction to legalize recreational marijuana and not establish a regulatory system to see its safe, controlled distribution — which could result in a hilariously unchecked, unregulated, and fully legal marijuana marketplace. District Mayor Muriel Bowser has already sided with voters, saying “My job is to uphold the will of the voters, and the voters overwhelmingly support legalizing marijuana in the District.”
In the end, however, Obama’s budget plan unsurprisingly presents a mixed bag for marijuana interests. As Mike Adams from the High Times notes, the president has also allotted $27.6 billion to fight the Drug War — that’s $2 billion more than in 2014, despite recent indications from the federal government that it was going to start laying off the drug-related prosecutions.
While it should be of no surprise when the government decides to spend more taxpayer dollars, the continued mixed-messaging of the Obama Administration on marijuana policy reform is indeed hypocritical and confusing.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has allowed officials from the University of Hawaii to import Australian hemp seeds to kick off the state’s Industrial Hemp Research Project.
“This project is just the first step in establishing Hawaii as a leader in the growth and production of industrial hemp and its products,” University Representative Cynthia Thielen explains.
Harry Ako — professor of biochemistry for the University — will be the lead researcher for the hemp project. “I am looking forward to planting and cultivating this important crop which has so much potential for Hawaii’s agricultural future,” he said. “It is exciting knowing that the University of Hawaii, and our state, is at the forefront in bringing industrial hemp back to our farmers as a crop which offers so much for so many.”
In 2014, the DEA confiscated legally-obtained hemp seeds bound for Kentucky, and in one other case stopped a Colorado man on his journey home from Canada and impounded his package of hemp seeds.
For anyone considering going into business in the legal cannabis industry, a new free tool has arrived to the Google Play marketplace that will make it easier to keep informed about industry news and developments. Ganjapreneur, a cannabis industry business news and culture website, has recently launched a mobile app designed to keep aspiring “ganjapreneurs,” or marijuana entrepreneurs, up to date about the latest headlines and happenings that are relevant to the growth of the industry.
The app is broken down into several sections, including a news feed with categories such as “Business” and “Politics,” a job feed which aggregates employment opportunities from several online cannabis industry job boards on a daily basis, and a section that features interviews with prominent business owners and investors who are already operational with their endeavors in the marijuana industry. While cannabis enthusiasts who use Android devices may download the app in its current form, iPhone users will have a similar opportunity in the near future: Ganjapreneur has put up a notification that the app will also soon be available in the Apple App Store.
A representative from the website said, “Our goal with this app was to create a simple news-reader for anyone who is curious about the economic opportunities that this new industry will bring. Whether you’re someone who is already growing a business, or simply a supporter of the cause, Ganjapreneur aims to the best resource for finding all of the news that is relevant to your business. There are a lot of other sites out there that focus on the cultural and recreational aspects of cannabis: our goal is to keep our content strictly business-focused.”
Two weeks ago, Ganjapreneur announced the pilot episode of a web series featuring profiles of cannabis professionals and investors, a 20-minute-long interview with John Evich of Top Shelf Cannabis, the first retail store to serve Washington’s recreational market. The next video episode has not yet been announced, although a few other interviews have been published in written and audio format.
The website has also created an “open source” dictionary of every slang term and phrase related to cannabis, and has alluded to a network with membership-based features that will be added in the future. The ultimate purpose of the website is stated in the About page: “Our mission is to provide unbiased, in-depth coverage with an emphasis on the daily struggles of cannabis industry pioneers who are paving the way for future generations. We want to help aspiring ganjapreneurs learn from those who are already involved by providing interviews and commentary on every aspect of the industry, straight from the experts themselves.”
The Denver airport has banned the sale of marijuana-themed souvenirs because, according to airport spokesman Heath Montgomery, “We don’t want marijuana to be the first thing our visitors experience when they arrive.”
The possession and smoking of marijuana was already banned on airport premises — as well as advertisements for or depicting the use of marijuana — but the latest ban is specifically to block the sale of souvenirs like socks, boxers, and flip flops that contain images of the cannabis plant and celebrate Colorado’s status as the first state to legalize recreational marijuana.
“Why is everybody so riled up about the picture of a plant?” says Ann Jordan, who owns High-ly Legal Colorado and the maker of many different cannabis-themed souvenirs. Jordan is reportedly considering a lawsuit, noting that there are plenty of alcohol-themed souvenirs and an entire exhibit dedicated to Denver’s rich craft brewery scene.
Colorado’s smaller airports have not implemented such a ban. In Washington — the only other state so far to have acted on a legalization law — the Sea-Tac International Airport does not ban marijuana-themed souvenirs or possession of the drug itself.
Bacardi Rum began in a tin roof distillery with bats in the rafters. Burt Shavitz, founder of the ubiquitous Burt’s Bees, had his start selling honey at a roadside stand in Maine. Diamonds were not commonly used as symbols of love until 1947 when a copywriter named Frances Gerety coined the phrase “a diamond is forever” and catapulted DeBeers Diamonds to the forefront of the diamond industry. All three companies fill a consumer need by providing high quality products, but all three also know one of the most important business strategies: they know how to brand themselves.
If you haven’t put some serious thought into how to brand your cannabis business, it’s time to begin. Are you looking for a short-term fix or do you want to establish your company as one of the early innovators in the newly emerging medical and recreational marijuana industry?
Legalities might mean now is not the time for aggressive advertising, but you can still put thought into your brand and develop a campaign, so when all the laws and restrictions in your area of business finally fall away, you’ll be ready to launch.
Leigh Coulter, President of GGS Structures Inc., one of the leading suppliers of integrated systems for growing cannabis believes everything about a business grows from branding. “A brand is an image and a feeling about a specific product, service or group of products and services,” she says. “You need to clearly solidify in your mind that feeling and image that you want your brand to become.”
One of the most important fist steps is choosing a name. “The name is everything,” says Coulter. “It’s how you set yourself apart from other brands or strains. It should define who you are today without limiting your potential growth. And in the interconnected world, the name has to be much more than just a name. It has to be an available url, a Facebook page, a Youtube site, a Twitter handle.”
One example of what Coulter calls a “brilliant name branding strategy” is Privateer’s Marley Naturals. She says, “It’s clean. It’s pure. It’s natural. It’s basically a retroactive celebrity endorsement. A universally recognized name that evokes respect for the pioneers who paved the way for today’s freedoms.”
Branding can make or break a business. While many accomplished professionals are working hard to change the public perception of marijuana, Coulter says “There are also a lot of dreamers with half-baked ideas and branding that leaves a negative impression. In this way our industry is also our worst enemy because the press is sure to pick up on what is sensationally bad even more frequently than what is sensationally good.”
Successful branding is the result of a careful, targeted marketing strategy. Do you want to grow for the recreational or medical community? You’ll want to focus your language and images to what matters to the consumers you plan to cater to.
Who knows? Maybe Fruit Loops or Purple Kush will be to recreational marijuana what Chateau Montelena Chardonnay was to the wine world.
A bill introduced to the State Senate by New Mexico Senator Joseph Cervantes would reduce criminal penalties for low-level marijuana possession in that state, the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) reports.
Cervantes’ proposal would alter the “penalty structure” for marijuana possession — under the new law, possession of up to four ounces of cannabis would be punishable only with a civil penalty of increasing fines, and the possibility of serving actual jail time would also be removed for any possession charges under eight ounces.
Current New Mexico law dictates that marijuana possession is a misdemeanor crime, with possession of one to eight ounces punishable by up to one year in jail.
New Mexico State Director of the DPA Emily Kaltenbach said in a statement:
“I am troubled by the millions of taxpayer dollars that are spent every year on processing thousands of low level marijuana misdemeanor offenders — dollars that might be better spent by hard-pressed law enforcement agencies on more pressing public safety needs. If ever there was a bill that advanced the smart on crime agenda, this it it.”
Officials in Santa Fe appear to agree with Kaltenbach’s observations, for the City Council voted to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in 2014 and a November poll indicated 74% of the city favored state-wide decriminalization. A separate poll established in 2013 that 57% of New Mexicans favored decriminalizing cannabis. Historically, New Mexico was the first state to officially recognize the potential medical value of cannabis with the 1978 Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act. It was not until 2007, however, that the state’s current medical marijuana program was fully established.
“Having to expend scarce police resources pursuing and arresting non-violent adults for possessing small amounts of marijuana threatens our public’s safety,” said Neill Franklin, Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).
The DPA reports: “As of today, over 120 million people, or 1/3 of the U.S. population, live in jurisdictions where marijuana has been essentially decriminalized — meaning there is no jail tme associated with possession.”
Well, it’s been months in the making, but our news reader app is finally in both the Apple App Store and Google Play marketplace!
The Ganjapreneur app is designed as a resource to keep budding entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry informed about important news affecting the market, as well as to provide valuable industry knowledge via our ongoing interview series.
Beyond a simple news reader, however, our app also includes our most recent business directory listings and featured placement for certain business categories. If you haven’t already created a listing for your service business, click here to do so! To download the app, click on your corresponding marketplace below:
While we are excited to announce the launch of our app, it is important to keep in mind that there are other developers who are trying to bring quality apps to market but are facing discrimination from Apple.
Recently, our friends at MassRoots had their popular social app taken down due to a change in policy regarding cannabis content. This hypocritical censorship is not only misguided, it also achieves absolutely nothing. For example, it is just as easy to use Facebook to share information about cannabis, and Apple doesn’t choose to censor that content. Click here to sign MassRoots’ petition to force Apple to reverse this policy and stand in solidarity with all cannabis app developers!
New packing and dosage regulations for marijuana edibles are coming into effect February 1, and popular edibles manufacturer Dixie Elixirs is scrambling to unload some soon-to-be non-compliant merchandise, reports the Cannabist. One Dixie product in particular — the high-dosage, 100-milligram, multi-serving Colorado Bar — will no longer be available after the new rules take effect.
“We are doing 40 percent off all recreational edibles at all of our recreational stores until Feb. 1 so we can offload all the product,” said Brian Keegan. Keegan is the director of retail operations for LivWell, one of two retailers that have partnered with Dixie to see all the products sold.
The other retailer, Euflora, reports that their wholesale price from Dixie was recently reduced by 50 percent with the understanding that these deals on edible products will be mirrored for consumers. The price reductions are temporary, but significant: “I’d rather run out and have shelves empty than have a bunch of product on the shelves that needs to be destroyed,” said Euflora owner Jamie Perino.
Not all Colorado edibles manufacturers are in a rush to offload non-compliant products, however. The Growing Kitchen, for example, was already focusing on low-dose edibles and thus only had to change their policy to provide adequate child-proof packaging. “We’re very excited for the change. We think it’s good for the industry and for safety reasons and corporate responsibility,” said Susan Armitage, an executive assistant at The Growing Kitchen.
A Native American tribe in Northern California is poised to become the first in the U.S. to grow and sell marijuana on tribal land.
The Pinoleville Pomo Nation in Mendocino County has signed a deal to construct a $10 million indoor grow-op on its rancheria north of Ukiah. The tribe has partnered with FoxBarry Development Company, LLC and its subsidiary, FoxBarry Farms, to develop greenhouses, office space, and processing facilities. The firm will also oversee the statewide distribution of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation’s medical marijuana products. According to Barry Brautman, president of the Kansas-based firm, initial development “will include 90,000 feet of greenhouse space, and another 20,000 feet of indoor space.” He says he’s unsure exactly how many plants will be in rotation at the Pinoleville Pomo Nation’s new facilities, estimating the number to be in the “thousands.”
FoxBarry works with tribes on a variety of projects, including farms and casinos, and has committed $30 million towards the development of medical marijuana projects on tribal lands throughout California. The firm has also reached an agreement with another unnamed Indian Nation that is about a month behind that with the Pinoleville Pomo Nation.
The Colorado-based firm United Cannabis will serve as a consultant to the farms managed by FoxBarry with regards to cultivation, processing, and sales. FoxBarry will retain exclusive rights to the distribution of United Cannabis goods throughout California in return for $200,000 in prepaid royalties, as well as 15 percent of the company’s gross sales.
The agreement follows the December 2014 release of a U.S. Justice Department memo stating that federally-recognized Indian Nations have the right to produce and distribute marijuana and related products on tribal lands. They can do so without fear of federal prosecution even in states where marijuana remains illegal, so long as they do not violate any of the eight guidelines that are applied to states that have legalized marijuana. These include selling to minors and transporting the product to states where it’s still illegal.
Mendocino County officials, meanwhile, have expressed some concern over what they see as a lack of accountability in the Pinoleville Pomo Nation-FoxBarry deal. Because only a third of the tribe’s rancheria is held in federal trust, the firms involved are not required to obey local and state regulations, such as county zoning ordinances concerning the number and location of medical plants. Such advantages could put tribes in a position to take the lead in creating large-scale marijuana operations, something that many initially assumed would be the domain of American tobacco companies.
Although Brautman doesn’t believe that the marijuana industry will provide tribes economic benefits on the same scale as casinos have, he retains high hopes for the industry’s future with Indian Nations. Speaking with the Indian Country Today Media Network, he stated that “tribes that participate in the right type of projects will certainly be in a position to provide their membership with benefits including housing, health care and education.”
Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s top nominee for Attorney General Eric Holder’s replacement, announced yesterday that she disagreed with the President in regards to the relative safety of marijuana use.
The revelation came during her first day of confirmation hearings for the esteemed law enforcement position. Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alaska Republican, asked whether she supported the legalization of marijuana — Lynch’s response: “Senator, I do not.”
Sen. Sessions read aloud a quote taken from President Obama’s interview with the New Yorker last January. According to the president, “I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”
Lynch responded, “Well, senator, I certainly don’t hold that view, and don’t agree with that view of marijuana as a substance. I certainly think that the president was speaking from his personal experience and personal opinion — neither of which I am able to share.”
“Not only do I not support legalization of marijuana — it is not the position of the Department of Justice currently, to support the legalization, nor would it be the position should I become confirmed as attorney general,” she added.
In the past, Lynch has made statements regarding the failure of the Drug War that gave marijuana activists hope. “I do think that there were a lot of issues that went on with the war on drugs — its inception and the way it was carried out,” she said a 2001 interview with PBS. In 2013, she explained, “Arresting more people or building more jails is not the ultimate solution to crime in our society. If there’s one thing we’ve learned it is that there is no one solution.”
Meanwhile, Obama recently admitted in a YouTube interview that he expects more states will legalize recreational cannabis, and that his government’s stance on marijuana enforcement will be one of restraint and respect for states’ rights to pass legalization legislation.
Though Lynch’s recent admission is a major letdown for many Americans, it would be hard to expect Obama’s nominee for the top law enforcement position to openly call for cannabis legalization in the face of heavy opposition still from many Republican leaders. What she and the officials involved in her confirmation hearings failed to address is her stance, if any, on the decriminalization or rescheduling of marijuana — which will likely be the first step to nationwide legalization.
Last week, Oregon-based MBank announced an unprecedented commitment to the cannabis industry that would cross state borders and give banking opportunities to ganjapreneurs in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado. Shortly following the announcement, however, bank officials dialed back their enthusiasm for the plan and formally scrapped bank accounts for Colorado cannabusinessesn, the Denver Post reports.
Oregon and Washington marijuana MBank accounts are safe, for now.
“Following national press, the volume of inquiries in Oregon, Washington and Colorado has been so overwhelming that we don’t currently have the infrastructure to adequately support all these customers,” said CEO Jef Baker on Monday. “Colorado is the farthest from our market area and the most difficult to provide… quality customer service to.”
In addition to the sheer quantity of interested businesses, another issue was MBank’s lack of a Colorado branch. The workaround for this would have been to run the potential millions of marijuana dollars from Colorado through a Federal Reserve Bank wire transfer, opening a lot of room for federal scrutiny.
Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder (ADHD) can be a debilitating condition for many people, including children. ADHD can interfere heavily in a patient’s life. It is also one of the most misunderstood conditions in our society. Individuals suffering from ADHD often have problems at school and work. Although there are studies showing cannabis as an effective treatment for this debilitating condition, the science is not completely in.
Adrian Columb is seeking to add to the evidence that cannabis can be used as a treatment for ADHD. From Melbourne, Australia, Columb has started an Indie Go Go campaign to fund a Blue Ribbon clinical trial on cannabis as an effective treatment for ADHD — the same treatment he chose for himself. Columb believes that the trial will cost $1.5 million.
“The problem right now in getting such a study funded is cannabis’s classification as a Schedule 1 narcotic in the United States. This is a big problem, because most of the researchers interested in this type of study live in the States,” Columb said. If funded, Dr. Kirsten Meuller-Vahl, the Medical Director of the Department of Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy at Hannover Medical School in Germany, has agreed to do the study. However, he hopes to find a university interested in his research questions. He is quick to point out, “If we could get a university lab to do the study we could do it for a lower price tag”.
Columb feels strongly that until a Blue Ribbon Clinical Trial is done, science will continue to ignore cannabis as an effective treatment for ADHD. He is also concerned for parents who are getting arrested for treating their children with ADHD using cannabis. At the moment the funding campaign has had little monetary support, but, “At the least, this campaign has sparked a discussion on three continents about using cannabis to treat a condition that affects so many people around the world.”
With new research coming out everyday on conditions cannabis can treat, this would be study could lead to advances in treating a very common ailment, ADHD. Check out more information on the study here.
A new report from The Arcview Group, a premium investment and research firm based in Oakland, California, has found that the legal marijuana industry is currently the fastest growing industry in the U.S. In fact, from 2013 to 2014, the legal weed market grew from $1.5 billion to $2.7 billion — an increase of 74 percent.
Arcview researchers surveyed hundreds of retailers in the medical and recreational industries across the country. The group also looked at ancillary businesses to judge their economic involvement, in addition to data recorded by state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private corporations about the marijuana sector for a more complete picture.
“In the last year, the rise of the cannabis industry went from an interesting cocktail conversation to being taken seriously as the fastest growing industry in America,” said Troy Dayton, CEO of The ArcView Group. “At this point, it’s hard to imagine that any serious businessperson who is paying attention hasn’t spent some time thinking about the possibilities in this market.”
The report predicts that in the next five years, two more states will likely legalize medical marijuana and up to 14 could pass recreational legislation. By 2019, all state-legal cannabis markets combined could surpass a whopping $11 billion.
The Cannabis market is “off to a dull start” in 2015, says Alan Brochstein, founder and CFO of the marijuana investment group 420 Investor.
This time last year there was tremendous excitement and optimism around Colorado unveiling its recreational marijuana market, and as the first quarter of 2014 advanced, “the stocks went crazy,” says Brochstein. “On average they went up six or seven fold, some of them twenty times.”
Yet despite several states reforming their marijuana policy in the recent elections, 2015 is not progressing with nearly the same economic vigor as 2014. “There was a slight pop in the beginning of 2015, but then prices sunk back down to where they started.” Brochstein believes a lot of this had to do with poor management of companies that rose too quickly too fast. Similar to the .com and solar industries, money was being poured into companies that weren’t equipped to operate on that level. Which lead to more scrutiny from the federal government.
“Last year the SEC started to clamp-down on this sector, and singled out around eleven stocks that started small and then got huge, some of them that were really significant and put a big damper on the market.”
Brochstein says that this frightened some investors away from marijuana stocks and triggered a plunge in prices. Many stocks were traded at far more than they were worth, Brochstein argues, and what you were getting was often not a great deal for what you were paying. He believes that while there are competent, honest, legitimately funded businessmen in the marijuana industry, the market is loaded with companies that do not meet the standards of a safe investment.
Though as the industry grows, the market has begun to cleanse itself of some of the more dead-end stocks, which will potentially reinstate investor confidence in marijuana. Brochstein is optimistic about the market impact of Oregon’s recreational industry in 2016, as well as California’s potential legalization in 2016. Yet those are still a ways down the line, and he knows that we’re most likely not going to see another year for marijuana stocks like 2014 for a while.
“You can’t always tell people, ‘you have to invest in this sector, things are gonna be great!’” Brochstein admits. “I think 2015 will be a year of stability.”
Last year New York State became the 23rd state to pass medical marijuana laws and this year even more progress could be made in the marijuana prohibition fight if two bills by Sen. Daniel Squadron (D) are passed in the state.
The bills, S.137 and S.172, are not as revolutionary as the act proposed by Sen. Liz Krueger (D) that would legalize pot in the state for recreational purposes but they would likely keep what are now considered low-level offenders out of jail entirely.
S.137 would decriminalize possession of “personal amounts” of marijuana, defined in the bill as “25 grams or less,” which is roughly one ounce. It would also close the so-called “sharing loophole” that allows police to arrest and charge someone for dealing if they are caught sharing, or “passing a joint,” according to a representative from Squadron’s office. If passed and enacted, a person could only be arrested for dealing if they were compensated for providing the drug.
The bill also gives judges flexibility when hearing marijuana cases. When an individual is arrested and charged with possession they face a host of collateral consequences in addition to fines and possible jail time. If the offender is a college student they could lose their financial aid, an immigrant could be deported and a public housing resident could be evicted from their home. Squadron’s bill allows the judge to allow for an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal in these cases.
A 2008 report from the New York Civil Liberties Union showed that 97 percent of pot arrests in New York are for simple possession. The New York City Police Department is oft criticized for their “stop and frisk” procedures that net pot arrests. Stop and frisk allows an officer to approach an individual and force them to remove the items from their pockets. If marijuana is removed the person can be charged with “in plain view” possession.
Additionally S.137 creates a vacating process that would help people convicted of in plain view charges. Individuals would have the option to have those convictions stricken from their record. The bill would also eliminate the three-year waiting period for the sealing of marijuana related criminal records.
Squadron’s other marijuana-related bill, S.172, would reduce the penalty for in plain (or public) view from a misdemeanor to a violation. If passed and signed into law, the bill would allow that type of possession, often the result of stop and frisk, to result in an appearance ticket rather than an arrest. Under the law, however, public burning of marijuana would remain a Class B misdemeanor offense.
Both bills have been moved to the Senate Codes Committee. Once moved from that committee, which is chaired by Republican Sen. Michael Nozzolio, they could be moved to the floor for a vote. They would need to be supported with a “same-as” proposal by an Assembly member in order to be moved to and voted on in that house.
President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union speech was met with disappointment from the cannabis industry when he failed to address recent state referendums to legalize marijuana and acknowledge the growing majority of Americans who are coming out in favor of such laws. However, Obama broke his silence on the subject the next day in a series of interviews streamed live via YouTube. The interviews were performed by popular YouTubers who collected questions from their viewer base and then posed them to the president live in the White House.
Interviewer Hank Green, an online entrepreneur, described marijuana’s unique legal situation: multiple states have passed regulatory laws that remove criminal penalties and introduce infrastructure for the distribution of recreational cannabis, and even more have passed legislation for medical access to the drug. Green explains that while he doesn’t use cannabis, he supports its legalization nonetheless, and asks the President Obama for his opinion on the legal grey area that’s a result of changes in state laws.
“The position of my administration has been that we still have federal laws that classify marijuana as an illegal substance, but we’re not going to spend a lot of resources trying to turn back decisions that have been made at the state level on this issue,” the president said. “My suspicion is that you’re gonna see other states start looking at this.”
“What we have done is instead of focusing on treatment — the same way we focused, say, with tobacco or drunk driving or other problems where we treat it as public health problem — we’ve treated this exclusively as a criminal problem,” Obama said. “I think that it’s been counterproductive, and it’s been devastating in a lot of minority communities. It presents the possibility at least of unequal application of the law, and that has to be changed.”
According to Obama, he’s instructed the Department of Justice to “examine generally how we are treating nonviolent drug offenders.” He noted that last year was the first time in 40 years where the country’s crime rate and incarceration rate dropped at the same time, attributing these numbers to the slow but steady criminal justice reform that he and Attorney General Eric Holder have so publicly discussed in recent years.
“I hope we can continue with those trends because they’re just a smarter way of dealing with these issues,” the president said.
Medical Marijuana Inc. — a San Diego company that’s been acquiring startups in the hemp and CBD industries — has announced its intention of buying a startup hemp products company called Kannaway.Medical Marijuana Inc. intends to purchase Kannaway from General Hemp LLC, the company that invested seed money into Kannaway last year to help it get off the ground.
Kannaway was recently valued at somewhere between $120 and $242 million by Houlihan Capital, a respected voice in the valuation of such companies, but the final sale’s amount remains unannounced.
In an interview with Marijuana Business Daily, Kannaway’s CEO Jeff Rogers explained that the deal offers “enormous” opportunities for expansion. Kannaway already distributes products in all 50 states and U.S. territories (including Puerto Rico), and could expand next into Mexico, Brazil, Spain, the Philippines, or Korea.
This could soon become the largest M&A in the cannabis industry to date. The deal may take up to 90 days to close.
MBank, an Oregon bank based outside of Portland, has publicly announced that it will be serving businesses in the legal cannabis industries of Colorado and Washington, the Denver Post reports.
There has recently been an uptick in the number of Washington-based credit unions that accept marijuana money, meaning MBank is not the first bank to openly admit to serving marijuana businesses, but it is the first to offer its services across state lines and specifically to ganjapreneurs in Colorado.
“We looked to regulators, both state and federal, to help us come to the conclusion that we can do banking in this sector,” said MBank President and CEO Jef Baker. Already, five marijuana businesses have landed accounts with the bank, and about 30 more applications are pending, Baker said.
MBank was founded in 1995 and its current assets are valued at approximately $165 million.
With two legal recreational markets in the United States and several more on the way, much of the debate has focused on what sort of industry model works best. As anyone involved in the industry knows, the politics of legalization are complicated and cannabis policy activists are passionate, as many peoples’ livelihoods are at stake. Though it has seen a few bumps, Colorado’s experimental cannabis model is generally considered the most successful to date.
In the next segment of our interview with Matt Brown from My 420 Tours, he discusses how he became involved in the debate that shaped the future of Colorado’s industry, well before the passage of Amendment 64. Drawing on his high school debate experience and general knowledge of official processes, he was able to help medical marijuana professionals organize and contribute to the discussion that wound up leading to a blueprint for the state’s recreational industry. Listen to the interview on our website, or read the transcript below!
Matt Brown Interview: Part 4
First time here? Go to Part 1 by clicking here. Part 5 is coming soon: stay tuned!
Transcript:
Matt Brown: So, I had this unique talent and I knew: I’m really good at this. My real event in high school that I focused most of my time on was student senate, which, or student congress–I focused at nationals on the senate. Where, it was just like ours, you’d get up and give three minute speeches for or against bills or authoring a bill, which is like a special kind of foray.
Ganjapreneur: And these were actual bills that will be debated? Or they’re mock bills or…?
Matt Brown: Mock bills. Shortened versions of…
Ganjapreneur: Of real topics.
Matt Brown: Written in the same, you know, I learned Robert’s rules of order from a very early age and I was a parliamentarian from, like, sophomore year on.
Ganjapreneur: So, procedure was, which is very intimidating I think to a lot of activists, was not–never a problem for you?
Matt Brown: And it was a very comfortable part for me. It was like a coming back to what I know. When you…
Ganjapreneur: Oh, it’s almost like you’re on your own turf.
Matt Brown: I was back in high school debate again and I’d…
Ganjapreneur: Yeah.
Matt Brown: It’d been years since I’d gotten to debate like this…
Ganjapreneur: Yeah yeah yeah.
Matt Brown: …and like, it was on such an elevated level of… I don’t just get a judge to give me the most points and say I’m the number one speaker in the round and I win, but I get to affect social policy here, and we had a very clear consciousness that this was the marijuana industry’s shot at being the example the world would follow. And I laid that argument carefully and early before it was certain that that was going to happen to start building that inevitability in the minds of everybody. Whether it was the legislature, the public that doesn’t smoke pot and don’t care, or the, the activist, was… one way or another we were at an inevitable point where you will have for-profit businesses because your hands are tied by the constitution. You can embrace this and years from now… this was an exact quote, I actually am in the Westword quoted on this one, “Years from now you will hear states and countries around the world saying ‘We’re going to follow the Colorado model.’” And, you know, somebody like Tom Massey who is a Western slope real estate agent in ranch country. Republican– wasn’t a Nancy Reagan republican. He wasn’t coming at, and there was very few of that, “What about the children, what about the children?” argument at that, that time. And 2009 was a shitty year. Like, the legislature was coming into the beginning of 2010 after two of the worst years since the great depression.
Ganjapreneur: And that’s, you know, that’s one thing that I think often gets glossed over and is highly relevant for this argument is, you did have this nascent industry that was, especially before additional fees and…
Matt Brown: Mmhmm
Ganjapreneur: …and taxes.
Matt Brown: 2009? This was the American dream success story in a way that has not been played out since our grandparents’ age.
Ganjapreneur: And-
Matt Brown: You know, this is what you hear about post-World War II look like. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and saying, “We’re gonna fucking do this.”
Ganjapreneur: It was the point where every time you went into Home Depot you saw five growers you knew. Every time you went out to eat it was industry people eating because no one else had that. No one was doing home improvement and no one else needed to buy that much shit.
Matt Brown: Yup.
Ganjapreneur: And, no one else was making money.
Matt Brown: And, and we merged it with a period of such incredible growth where all the money immediately got plowed back into the operation. You didn’t have an opportunity for the sort of, visible wealth…
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: …to spill. You know, we didn’t see guys driving around in Ferraris the way you do in California.
Ganjapreneur: Right, right, right.
Matt Brown: And there was probably some of that cash flow being generated but it, everybody was just trying to keep up because we saw this gold mine coming of…
Ganjapreneur: Absolutely.
Matt Brown: I’m gonna stay in the business long enough and this is gonna be worth it.
Ganjapreneur: But you had people sustaining, entrepreneurs sustaining a middle class lifestyle…
Matt Brown: Yes.
Ganjapreneur: …in one year.
Matt Brown: And we had a four or five to one, at least, ratio of people who were not waking up in the morning worried that they were, they could get their door kicked in for a controlled substances violation.
Ganjapreneur: Yeah.
Matt Brown: We had real estate agents and landlords and electricians and….
Ganjapreneur: Contractors.
Matt Brown: HVAC utilities and general contractors and anybody. Trimmers. Like…
Ganjapreneur: Grow stores.
Matt Brown: If you’re gonna work in a shitty job somewhere making minimum wage or basically minimum wage…
Ganjapreneur: Would you rather be sewing or trimming pot?
Matt Brown: Exactly. Would you rather be working at 7-11 or trimming pot and listening to music and, you know…
Ganjapreneur: And that was pre-badge, anyone could do it.
Matt Brown: You got paid a lot more then, too.
Ganjapreneur: And for the people who started early, those people quickly became growers or hash makers or whatever.
Matt Brown: We apprenticed our, our own industry.
Ganjapreneur: Yeah.
Matt Brown: And there was one of my clients early on who, I love the way you said this, was, what we were doing in Colorado, he was from Texas, was unlocking the tribal knowledge that for decades had been locked away under the surfaces of illegality and bringing it above board so quickly that we took… it required people who had real-world non-pot business experience to join the people who had real grow experience and weren’t bullshit artists. To combine with somebody who knew how to run a retail operation, cause that’s what this is. This is a retail store.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: No matter how hot your fire. No matter what your what. And, and that’s what we had all of that come together.
Ganjapreneur: And so fast. Perfect timing.
Matt Brown: And it was, in 2009, the, the other thing I’d like to point to was, during the same time in 2009-2010, uh, Chris Gregor, Gregoire or however you pronounce her name of Washington, the governor.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: Washington had a very similar early-on upswell because they already had a medical marijuana law similar to ours – Patients and caregivers.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: But what they saw was state government push back and authorized tacitly or, you know, off the books or whatever, a lot of the rates, the federal prosecutors became very emboldened and shut down a lot of dispensaries. And so until the November 2012 ballot, you saw a California system existing there where places like Seattle would turn the other cheek and just say, “We’re not going to shut you down. We don’t wanna figure this out yet.”
Ganjapreneur: Yeah.
Matt Brown: And you still had people in Tacoma getting their doors kicked in and hauled away to long jail sentences. And when you compare the numbers, you know, Washington State is about a five percent, plus or minus, more liberal state across the board than Colorado.
Ganjapreneur: In their general politics?
Matt Brown: Just, yeah. In any, you know, like the generic question… kinda business.
Ganjapreneur: And that’s obvious… Highly educated state, techy state, West Coast.
Matt Brown: And, and the population is heavily weighted on the West Coast, which is also significantly more liberal and tech-savvy and wealthy and affluent than the rest. But you have a huge part of the state that plays in politics that’s farm country and is… Idaho, basically.
Ganjapreneur: Right. Yeah.
Matt Brown: They kicked in doors. Their voters voted to tell their government, “Seriously guys. We’re sick of it.” And they legalized pot almost in retaliation to this continued problem. Whereas here, our voters should not have voted as overwhelmingly as they did by any sort of, again, generic analysis of our voter base.
Ganjapreneur: Right. Well I usually just look at the Obama vote. We exceeded the Obama vote in the same election.
Matt Brown: The big key margin was in… assuming every pot smoker voted for Amendment 64, which we know isn’t the case, even factoring out that 18 percent or so of the adult population. There was a majority support for amendment 64 among the non-pot-smokers.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: And that was a function of the fact that in 2010 the legislature was handed, almost on a platter, an industry that had already self-regulated, had coalesced, had come together and at least begged for the first round of regulations.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: There’s all sorts of very valid debate to be had on the details of that. And individual decisions that kind of flowed from it, but… The most important thing was, we came into the middle of 2010 with clarity, to a degree, and in the next year and a half we had a billion dollars of hard currency invested in Color-, in the Denver 50-mile radius range. And a 60% drop in the retail price to the consumer. Both of which in an economics point of view are grand slams to the government’s interests.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: Um, we proved in the same time period… thankfully the media got on board and didn’t exaggerate things, didn’t do a whole lot of investigative digging on crime rates, but there was not the perception that, and the perception was almost that there was no crime in dispensaraies. The reality was statistically we were no more significantly so than most other businesses of a high value inventory. There’s…
Ganjapreneur: Exactly. Compared to like a bank or a pharmacy, yeah.
Matt Brown: …a robbery a day. There’s a lot of grows getting robbed and a lot of it goes unreported to, you know, police and official statistics. Which is also a sign of, you know, Denver P. D. especially working with City Council, working with all the stakeholders to say, “We don’t want to sensationalize anything.” There was a willingness for a long time to turn the other way and not file reports because they knew we all needed to get to a point where the industry was viewed as safe, and…
Ganjapreneur: So they played ball to whatever degree.
Matt Brown: They did. You know, and…
Ganjapreneur: Credit to them for that. I mean that’s, it’s visionary whether they can take the public stance or not if they, if, in, in a policy sense, like, you know I never knew that. I’ll give them more credit now.
Matt Brown: And I would say the other big factor that played into this was, and you’ll see this in all sorts of other issues. The other interesting facet about how Colorado politics work. A. We’re a western state which has home rule cities.
Ganjapreneur: Right, so local rule can supercede state rule? Is that how that works?
Matt Brown: Right. The idea in all the Eastern states…
Ganjapreneur: And that’s super Western, frontiersy, like…
Matt Brown: It’s a function of the fact that Denver existed before Colorado existed.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: And so when Colorado came into being, the cities that were here were all given the option, basically, to retain this home rule status which was common throughout most of the Western territories that were purchased. And it, it gives them limited trump card on the state over things that would traditionally be city’s. So, you know, and the biggest thing that makes all lawyers scratch their head and throw up their hands on marijuana law is the, the day one, week one law school: Federal law trumps state law trumps local law and each one has a division of powers and this is the way it works.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: And clearly now we have this inversion of state and federal law that is, you know, there’s clearly detente from the federal government. There’s an allowance of this to happen, um, you know, condoning directly, and, but, from a, a truly legal point of view that situation cannot last forever. That is a, a legal bubble that needs to be fixed. The supremacy clause is proven. The Angel Raich case made very clear, a very clear test case for California, that there is no state-based ability to supercede the Controlled Substances Act under, uh, the tenth amendment for medical, no matter how desperate the medical need. And it was, you know, a dying cancer patient. Like, a very specific test case. I use that quite a bit, actually, to talk to our politicians. You know like, Federal law, this is figured out. Like, there is zero legal authority for the state to do so, however… So home-rule gives another little check against state power, um, just to those cities. So there’s regular cities here that don’t have home rule.
Ganjapreneur: So not all Colorado cities are home rule.
Matt Brown: Correct.
Ganjapreneur: I see.
Matt Brown: Uh, Wheat Ridge is a regular, statutory city.
Ganjapreneur: And it’s in new, one of the newer cities. You can tell by where it is.
Matt Brown: Yeah. Um, you know, I think Aurora is home-rule, Colorado Springs is home-rule, Denver, you know. And not all the cities that were here chose to be but I think any of them that were smart pretty much did. But what it’s done is create this, this relationship between the state legislature and particularly the Denver city council, which is also viewed as that perfect middle between Boulder and Colorado Springs. That Denver could be the proxy, and then nobody has to talk about either two ends, and… it’s this beautiful tap dance. It’s very well choreographed across all other issues in the state and marijuana took part in it. Denver city council meets year-round.
Ganjapreneur: And I guess I should editorialize as a bit for my own notes that, you know, Boulder being liberal and Colorado Springs being the military stronghold of…
Matt Brown: Right.
Ganjapreneur: …the nation.
Matt Brown: Right. And the evangelical Jerusalem.
Ganjapreneur: Yeah, evangelical Jerusalem, true.
Matt Brown: For a number of people. Uh…
Ganjapreneur: And Fort Collins being a weird mix of the two.
Matt Brown: Yes. It’s, it’s half-Greeley half-Boulder.
Ganjapreneur: Yeah.
Matt Brown: Uh, which is another strange. And we have… we have a really cool state. We’re also one-third democrat, one-third republican, one-third independent. Um…
Ganjapreneur: One-third independent’s a crazy… you know, like, that doesn’t exist.
Matt Brown: And that mix does not, that, that shade of purple is very unique across the United States.
Ganjapreneur: Light purple, it’s pur- it’s a pink, we’re a pink state.
Matt Brown: No, we’re a dark purple.
Ganjapreneur: Dark purple?
Matt Brown: Perfectly between red and blue. Exactly. Uh, so Denver city council could act. The state will also… and like Romer I knew was going back and forth with, uh, uh, Charlie Brown.
Ganjapreneur: Mm.
Matt Brown: Who was our best friend, in retrospect. He says boneheaded things. He gets quoted, but the fact that Charlie Brown was the one who led that through Denver city council had as much to do with everything where we came.”
Six months following the uncertain launch of Washington state’s recreational marijuana market, industry professionals now face an unprecedented problem: licensed growers are sitting on a huge crop of outdoor product harvested in the fall, and there currently aren’t enough retailers to see all of it distributed.
An article from the Associated Press explains that the 85 licensed retailers in Washington are failing to keep pace with the state’s approximately 270 licensed growers. Last week, growers had reportedly harvested upwards of 31,000 pounds of cannabis since the market launched, but stores have only been able to distribute one fifth of that amount.
During the early days of Washington’s legal weed, it was product shortages that dominated industry-related headlines. Initial retail prices doubled and in some cases tripled those of the black market and the lesser-regulated medical industry, and there were reports of price-gouging by some of the first licensed growers as retailers struggled to find supply to satisfy legal consumers.
The tides have turned, however, and now growers are the ones feeling the sting of an unbalanced market. “Every grower I know has got surplus inventory and they’re concerned about it,” said Scott Masengill, a pot farmer in central Washington who’s thus far only managed to sell half of his 280 pound crop. “I don’t know anybody getting rich,” he said. One Seattle-based grower reportedly sold his first 22 pound crop at just under $21 per gram — his second crop, however, is expected to earn about $4 per gram as a result of the growing surplus.
The solution, many people argue, is to license more retailers to move the product. This process, however, is chock-full of bureaucratic requirements, and local moratoriums on the legal marijuana industry can create even more roadblocks for aspiring ganjapreneurs.
And while the market faces steep competition from the black market across the board, one of the biggest threats to the recreational industry is medical marijuana. Currently, dispensaries grossly outnumber recreational retail distributors. There isn’t a known total of medical dispensaries operating in the state, but there are significantly more dispensaries than the 334 reserved spots for licensed retailers (Seattle alone has hundreds of dispensaries on file). Recreational retailers have even started hiring lobbyists in Olympia to fight for a more-regulated medical market, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek report.
Officials with the Washington State Liquor Control Board, like project manager Randy Simmons, say they are unconcerned by the current situation and are expecting up to 100 more retailer locations to open in the coming months. Randy Simmons, project manager for Washington’s legal marijuana market, addressed the industry’s current problems with a simple explanation: “It’s the volatility of a new marketplace.”
Until the federal government changes its marijuana policies, ganjapreneurs face particular challenges when it comes to branding and promoting their business. How does one balance caution with advertising? How do you promote your service or product without running the risk of possible legal actions?
Some entrepreneurs are turning to blogging as a more passive means of advertising their business. A blog is often more passive than direct marketing, but it can still be an effective tool if done right.
A good blog:
— Becomes a wealth of information for your customers about the product or service you offer — Helps build trust and strengthens customer relations — Establishes your business as the “go to” authority on the topic
Blogs are sometimes misunderstood. Since anyone can put one up and start posting content, their quality varies wildly. Some personal blogs may share more information than you really want to know. But blogs serve many purposes. Some of cannabis’ best social commentary comes from blogs like The Weed Blog or the NORML Blog.
A business blog, however, fits into a different category. A good business blog is first and foremost about the client, and that’s one of the main things that differentiate it from personal blogs or blogs that support a cause. Jordan Person, founder of Primal Therapeutics LLC in Denver said she began her Cannabis Education blog about massage and topical therapies because of demand. She said, “I had so many patients asking me if I had a website. It’s a way to bring awareness to my patients.” Since Person’s clients are interested in alternative health, she includes posts with recipes for tonics and health tips as well as updates on cannabis legislation and medical breakthroughs. By tapping into her clients’ needs and providing them with valuable and free resources, she is subtly courting them into becoming long term and loyal customers.
Don’t be deceived: a blog is a lot of work. To build one that draws customers you should:
— Know your audience, their problem and how you will solve it — Make an editorial calendar and commit to following it — Have at least a basic understand of SEO (search engine optimization) and key words — Commit to the long haul. It can take several months before you begin to build traffic and subscribers
Part of the beauty of blogging is it’s easy and relatively inexpensive. If you already have a website, adding a blog is simply a matter of adding a page where all your posts will go. Platforms like WordPress and Blogspot offer free blogs that can be set up in a matter of minutes.
Some entrepreneurs take on the project themselves, while others may hire a professional blogger or marketer. If you do choose to blog, it could become one of the most powerful tools you have to build a following and engage customers.
Michigan voters are following the nationwide trend toward the legalization of recreational marijuana, a survey put on by NORML’s Michigan chapter has discovered.
Poll results indicate that 50 percent of Michigan voters would vote for an initiative to legalize marijuana and regulate the substance for adult consumption in a system similar to either Washington or Colorado’s current programs. 46 percent of respondents indicated they would be against such a move.
A similar poll in 2013 found that only 47 percent of voters agreed with legalization. These changes over the last two years represent in Michigan the nationwide trend that’s steadily growing against cannabis prohibition.
“This latest poll shows an evolution of thought among Michigan voters toward marijuana legalization over the last year. It is not a major shift, but a continuation of the slow but steady shift toward the end of prohibition. Legislators, take note: Michigan is ready for this,” said Matthew Abel, attorney and executive director of NORML’s Michigan branch.
Ganjapreneur.com, a website dedicated to helping cannabis industry professionals grow their business, has published a summary of their accomplishments in 2014 and a wide-cast “thank you” to their readers, supporters, and contributors.
“From our official launch in July through the end of December, we have seen major growth in all of our metrics,” writes Ganjapreneur’s CTO, Noel Abbott.
Ganjapreneur is an online resource dedicated to the business of legalized marijuana, that featuring a live aggregated job feed, a crowd-sourced dictionary of marijuana slang terms, and original content news updates on recent business and political developments in the industry. Ganjapreneur also publishes exclusive interviews with successful “ganjapreneurs” and cannabis investors about their experience in the industry.
The website has an active social media presence, offers a weekly newsletter service, and distributes all of its content — in addition to on Ganjapreneur.com — via a free Android app currently available on the Google Play marketplace. They have announced that the app will also be available in the Apple App Store soon.
Most recently, Ganjapreneur launched a domain name marketplace featuring hundreds of industry-related domains that can range in price from less than $1,000 to $50,000 or more. Domains available for purchase include SourDiesel.com, HinduKush.com, MyCannabis.com, and other premium brands.
“Ganjapreneur has grown rapidly, but we have many more announcements coming in the near future and we will be expanding our services in a major way over the next several months,” Abbott writes. “Here’s to another year of growth for all the ganjapreneurs out there.”
A bill to legalize hemp cultivation and production nationwide has been filed in the U.S. Senate by Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). The bill is co-sponsored by fellow Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley — also a Democrat — Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Oregon and Kentucky are two of twenty states that have officially recognized a difference between hemp and cannabis and passed legislation to ease governmental blocking of hemp production. These state-wide alterations to federal law were validated by Congress when it passed the 2014 Farm Bill, which allowed states who had legalized hemp production to move forward with experimental pilot crops.
Now, the “Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2015″ would remove hemp from its Schedule 1 status under the Controlled Substances Act on a national level. Hemp, so long as it contains less than 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), would no longer be considered an illegal, intoxicating or dangerous substance.
“The U.S. ban on hemp farming is an outrageous restriction on free enterprise and does nothing but hurt economic growth and job creation,” Sen. Wyden said. “Our bipartisan, common-sense bill is pro-environment, pro-business, and pro-farmer. Congress must act to empower farmers and boost economic activity across the country.”
“Allowing farmers throughout our nation to cultivate industrial hemp and benefit from its many uses will boost our economy and bring much-needed jobs to the agriculture industry,” said Sen. Paul.
This year’s bill bears many similarities to one filed by Sen. Wyden in 2013 — also co-sponsored by Sens. Merkley, Paul, and McConnell — which ultimately failed. 2014, however, was a banner year for cannabis and hemp policy reform, and many experts predict that the political climate surrounding the controversial plant species will continue to relax.
Research indicates that industrial hemp has huge potential to affect many consumer and industrial products, from food and clothing to plastics and bio-fuel. Currently, it is legal to purchase products made from hemp in the U.S., but not to grow the plant itself. At least thirty other developed countries do allow hemp cultivation, and the world’s current leader in industrial hemp is China.
