High Technology: How IT is Fueling the Budding Cannabis Industry

From APIs to dispensary robots, new innovations are popping up like weeds

By PC World | August 22, 2016
The cannabis industry is growing up, and it would be tough to imagine more convincing proof than Microsoft’s recent announcement that it’s getting involved.

Though the software giant will stay very much in the background — its role will focus primarily on providing Azure cloud services for a compliance-focused software push — the move is still widely viewed as a telling sign.

“Having them come out and say, ‘we’re willing to have our name in the same sentence as the word cannabis,’ adds to the legitimacy of our industry,” said Kyle Sherman, cofounder and CEO of software maker Flowhub.

Stigma is a longstanding problem for those trying to run a legitimate business in the cannabis industry, thanks largely to the fact that marijuana remains illegal in the U.S. federal government’s eyes. Twenty-five states have already passed laws that allow for some degree of medical or legal use, but that can be cold comfort for entrepreneurs unable to get a bank account because of lingering concern.

Yet there’s no doubt of the profit potential. Legal cannabis sales brought in US$5.4 billion in 2015, and $6.7 billion are expected this year, according to a February report. By 2020, the forecast is $21.8 billion.

Startups are now jumping in to help make that happen, and technology is playing a central role. - Full Article

Can Pot Save the Economy? Tommy Chong Sees Green

Marijuana is turning into big business, so it’s no surprise stoner icon Tommy Chong is getting involved. The Cheech and Chong alum talks to CNET about the industry’s growth, the poetry of Twitter and telepathic note-taking apps.
By CNET | August 7, 2016
Tommy Chong’s business has always been weed. Now he’s hoping it’ll grow like one too.

You might remember the 78-year-old counterculture icon as the bearded half of the stoner comedy duo Cheech and Chong. In his decades-long career, he’s become synonymous with cannabis. In the best of times, he was accepting a Best Comedy Album Grammy for the pair’s 1973 album “Los Cochinos.” In the worst of times, he was jailed for sending bongs across state lines.

Today things are different. Tommy Chong is a lifestyle brand. His company Chong’s Choice puts its stamp on pot paraphernalia like THC-infused breath strips, prerolled blunts, oil, and of course, marijuana flowers.

The selling point: All buds are Chong-approved.

“We’re having a really good time — at least I am — testing the different products and seeing the industry grow, no pun intended,” he says with a “get it?” laugh.

Chong says he’s glad to be done with all the “bogus stuff” he used to deal with. Not to mention, being aboveboard is good business these days.

Case in point: SMOKEmojis, Chong’s own set of celebrity-inspired emojis. (Remember how Kim Kardashian’s emojis took the app store by storm?) His ultimate goal, aside from advocating about pot, is to make sure it takes only a tap to get your friends together for a toke.

CNET spoke with Chong about the pot entrepreneurship scene, as well as the technology he has (and wishes he had). Edited excerpts follow.

Q: So, why do we need SMOKEmojis?
Chong: Emojis for the most part are very cheerful signs. That’s how we communicated before we had the written word.

Pot’s gotten a lot more mainstream. In fact, you’ve got a lot of folks in suits investing in it — do you have any concerns about marijuana becoming a big, regulated business?
Chong: Not at all. If the demand gets that great, then of course we need big business, because we’re talking volume. It’s like holding an event for 200-300 people. That’s easy to do. But an event for 100,000 people — then you have to go to big business. You have to have the parking; you have to have the staff to support that type of crowd. It’s the same thing as growing marijuana. It’ll be big business with a different look. - Full Interview

Marijuana Growth Could Push Scotts Miracle Gro’s Stock Higher

By CNN Money | August 4, 2016
Scotts Miracle-Gro is squaring up to cash in on the marijuana business — and JP Morgan is betting its stock will go higher.
Scotts, a lawn and garden supplier, is buying up a few businesses involved in hydroponics, a method used to grow pot without soil.
On Thursday Jeffrey Zekauskas, an analyst with JP Morgan, upgraded his outlook for the company’s stock and raised its target price from $70 to $85.

“The hydroponics market taps into marijuana demand and the company now has a growth option that we think an investor is able to capture for about the price of the traditional business,” Zekauskas said, according to a Barrons blog post.
Soon after the stock was upgraded, Scotts (SMG) hit an all time high of $80.14.

That bested the previous all-time high set Wednesday after Scotts issued its latest earnings update. Despite sub-par earnings that the company blamed on poor weather conditions earlier this year, CEO Jim Hagedorn told investors that the company is finalizing its third “significant acquisition in the hydroponics space.”

“As we had promised, we are now beginning the transition away from acquisitions and will begin a more aggressive return of cash to shareholders,” Hagedorn said in a press release.

Its stock is now up more than 23% year to date. - Full Article

An Edible Marijuana Pioneer Is Ready for Billion-Dollar Cannabis Brands

Dixie Brands CEO Tripp Keber on his biggest challenges.
By Bloomberg | August 4, 2016
Why did you get into the cannabis industry?
I got into the marijuana business, ironically, to make money. Boy, was I wrong in the early days. I realized in a very quick time period that there was far more to this industry than making money. The power of cannabis is just superior to some of the other wellness platforms, so it’s exciting to see us six years later and how the company has grown.

Why edibles?
It is called weed for a reason, because it grows like one. But to grow good quality cannabis, it’s incredibly challenging. It’s as much of a science as it is an art. I’m not one exactly to get my hands dirty in the garden, so I eliminated that as an opportunity.

We started with the concept that we could take cannabis and add water and ultimately create an elixir. With that, Dixie Elixir was created in early 2010. And it’s exciting—from that one product, we’ve grown 15, 16 delivery systems—a total of 170-plus products. - Article

Wonder Women of Weed Throw a Cannabis Bazaar in SoMa

By 7×7 | August 1, 2016
Summer Lemon Haze Stand
Whether it’s Whoopi Goldberg going to market with edibles for PMS, or Melissa Etheridge’s infused wine, America’s women are winning cannabis legalization.

Ladies are shredding the grass ceiling in cannabis to claim roughly double the representation in weed as they hold in Congress. On Sunday, July 31, they got together to trade notes, edibles, and meet their customers in San Francisco. It was the opposite of your bearded, tatted, bro’ed-out Hempcon.

Several hundred female cannabis CEOs and patients dropped by the free Lady Chatterley’s Soiree: Cannabis Curated by Women afternoon event, held in a private cannabis industry space near the Folsom Street Fair grounds in SoMa.
High-grade sensimilla terpenes wafted out the front door. Inside, the furnished warehouse hummed with an intimate by-women for-women product expo of about 20 brands, available for qualified patients.

In the patio, Ganga Yoga from the famous Dee Dussault. The crowd stretched in the afternoon sun, as guests hit CBD vape pens, sipped medicated kombucha, and nibbled pasta and pesto with goat cheese. High-concept LolaLola flowers mingled with super-earthy regional artisan brands like Prema Flora. The event was 80 percent women at its peak.

Female-oriented products are undergoing a Cambrian-era-like evolutionary explosion. Prohibition is fading, and the strict rules of legalization are years away. The free event was designed to stoke interest in products from SF startup Lady Chatterly’s Lover, a delivery service that focuses on high-end women’s products.

“It’s awesome. I love the woman-power in this room,” said Jill Amen, CEO of national edibles brand House of Jane, which offered samples of their medicated iced tea.

House of Jane has 20 employees and is in three states. Next up, a line of energy shots: espresso, energy, and berry CBD. Even hotter: House of Jane’s Infused Powder—a 4:1 CBD:THC powder “that can make anything an edible. I micro-dose with them,” Amen said.
“Women just want to medicate their own way,” she said. The powder is sugar-free and fat-free, with a neutral taste and herbaceous finishes. - Full Article

Private Equity is ‘Seeing More Excitement Than It Can Handle’ in the Marijuana Industry

By Business Insider | July 30, 2016
The cannabis industry is starting to see some serious investment activity.

Over the last few years, a new wave of cannabis-finance companies have formed to capitalize on the green rush.

Companies like Tuatara Capital, Seventh Point, Poseidon Asset Management, and Privateer Holdings have dived headfirst into the industry.

While the first three are brand new, having been founded in the last few years, Privateer started in 2011. The fund bills itself as the first in the US to focus solely on cannabis-related endeavors.

These private-equity firms invest specifically in companies operating in the legal-cannabis industry,as well as providing capital for new startups to generate returns down the road.

“It’s never a dull day,” Al Foreman, the CIO of Tuatara and a 16-year veteran of the private-equity industry, told Business Insider. “It’s fascinating to be part of a new and emerging industry.” - Full Article

Up in Smoke: Marijuana Business Owners and Employees are Being Denied Insurance

By Insurance Business America | July 29 , 2016
The use of marijuana appears to be slowing gaining acceptance in Nevada, with the state set to deliberate on November whether recreational marijuana should be made legal. There remains, however, an obstacle that could hamper the developing marijuana business in the region: insurance companies and other financial services giving marijuana companies the cold shoulder.

Derek Peterson, CEO of Terra Tech Corp., told Nevada Public Radio how he was denied an application for life insurance—not because he uses marijuana, but because of his work with the product.

“I always thought there would be a potential risk to be denied for the insurance on an actuarial stand point for using cannabis but never - for the life of me - would have thought I would have been denied just for my association with the industry,” said Peterson. - Full Article

NFL To Name New Medical Chief, Bringing Hope For Cannabis Concussion Treatment

By Forbes | July 22, 2016
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the league’s chief medical officer Dr. Elliot Pellman will be retiring and that a new chief medical officer will be put in place.

Goodell wrote in a memo that the new medical officer would help ensure that the clubs have access to the most up-to-date information and that research funds are spent in an effective and targeted way.

One area that the league didn’t research is how medical marijuana has been found to be very effective with neurological issues. Dr. Marcel Bonn-Miller recently spoke at the Cannabis World Congress & Business Expo in New York and said, “The NFL spent $100 million on concussion research and none of it was on cannabinoids or CBD’s.”

Many football players say they use medical marijuana in order to address concussion issues, but face the scrutiny of drug testing or worse yet, being ridiculed by ESPN anchors. One anchor, when discussing the subject laughed and said the players just want to get high and use medical marijuana as a cover. - Full Article

Eugene Monroe, Marijuana Advocate, to Retire From N.F.L.

By The New York Times | July 21, 2016
Eugene Monroe, a veteran offensive tackle who became the first active N.F.L. player to publicly ask the league to let players use medical marijuana, will retire after seven seasons.

In recent years, many retired players have urged the league to lift the ban on the use of medical marijuana. In March, Monroe echoed those calls, saying that medical marijuana is safer and healthier than the prescription painkillers that teams routinely give players.

Monroe’s views were not seconded by officials at the Baltimore Ravens, including head coach John Harbaugh. When Monroe was released by the team in June, he said his advocacy for medical marijuana might have played a role.

A team spokesman declined to say whether his stance on medical marijuana was part of the reason Monroe was released.

Several teams have since contacted Monroe, who said he turned down the offers. Instead, he is leaving the game because of mounting injuries and a fear that they will become debilitating if he continues to play.

“It is a very demanding sport on your body, and it’s taken a toll on me time and time again,” Monroe said, adding that he damaged both his knees, has had surgery on one of his shoulders, and has an array of chronic ailments and injuries that did not need surgery. “They have accumulated to the point that I deal with enormous pain on a daily basis. Just getting out of bed, especially during the season, can be difficult.” - Full Article

Ackrell Capital and Vator Announce Cannabis Business Accelerator: CannaVator

By Market Wired | July 20, 2016
Ackrell Capital, LLC (“Ackrell Capital”) and Vator, Inc. (“Vator”) today announced the formation and launch of joint venture CannaVator, a business accelerator program for emerging companies in the cannabis industry. CannaVator is now accepting applications for its first accelerator class, commencing September 13, 2016. Applications can be submitted at www.cannavator.com until August 15, 2016.

The CannaVator joint venture between Ackrell Capital, a leading independent investment bank focused on the cannabis industry, and Vator, a leading platform for start-ups and investors, will provide a unique and comprehensive program aimed at accelerating the growth of emerging cannabis companies.

Mike Ackrell, Founder of Ackrell Capital, stated: “There are tremendous opportunities for launching innovative companies, products and services in both the recreational and medical markets of this rapidly growing industry. We believe that CannaVator will provide a launching pad for ambitious entrepreneurs to develop their businesses and succeed in the cannabis industry.”

“Companies that are accepted into CannaVator will receive invaluable strategic advice from Ackrell Capital, Vator, and a roster of mentors and industry experts, as well as access to a broad range of partners to further develop their businesses,” said Bambi Francisco-Roizen, CEO of Vator. - Full Article

Medlab is Raising $5.4 Million to Test Medical Cannabis on Humans

By Business Insider Australia | July 18, 2016
Biotech Medlab has launched a $5.36 million equity raising to fast-track human trials of medical cannabis.

The 1-for-9 rights issue is at 30 cents a share. The shares last traded at 42 cents, well ahead of the year low of 16 cents.

The cash will mainly be used to accelerate a program of human trials of cannabis-based pain management therapy at a leading Australian oncology research hospital.

The pain management therapy combines two cannabis compounds, CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol).

Managing director Sean Hall says preliminary results from the company’s NanoCelle delivery system and work on depression and obesity have been promising.

“We expect this accelerated program and new equipment will result in licenced products to market at least 12 months ahead of our current forecasts,” he says.

Medlab Clinical, which listed on the ASX a year ago, has been given NSW Government approval for trials of medical cannabis as a pain reliever. - Full Article

Dabado Helps Cannabis Concentrate Users Put Down the Blow Torch

By Forbes | July 16, 2016
When young entrepreneur Steven Helfer put together a Facebook page about “dabbing” (smoking marijuana concentrate) featuring funny pictures, videos of people smoking and other pot-related content, he didn’t expect to get 110,000 “Likes.” And he didn’t expect to use it as a marketing platform to help launch a multi-million dollar business.

While mainstream advertising vehicles are closed to marijuana-related businesses, social media has been a way for people who enjoy pot and those who sell to them, to connect. Steven and his brother Nicholas used those networks to sell more than 10,000 “Bolts,” portable devices to smoke marijuana concentrate, over the last 9 months. The Bolts sell for $79-$129 each.

Smoking highly concentrated cannabis in its waxy form can be seen as complicated, intimidating and hard core. One reason is that the concentrates deliver a vastly higher level of THC than eating a brownie or smoking a joint. Now add the fact that users have traditionally been using a blowtorch to blast fumes onto the heating surface called a “nail” or a knife, and then inhale them from a glass piece. - Full Article

Cannabis Industry Bolstering Retail, Manufacturing Job Growth in Colorado

Mid-year job growth ‘consistent’ with projections, economists say

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By The Denver Post | July 15, 2016
Halfway through 2016, Colorado’s employment growth is meeting expectations and the the economy continues to outperform the nation: Employment is growing faster here, housing is hotter and incomes are higher, according to a report released Thursday by the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business.

And Colorado’s fledgling marijuana industry — which, in the grand scheme of things, is just a tiny sliver of the economic pie chart — is backfilling retail sales losses from the bankruptcy of a certain Englewood-based sporting goods retailer and bolstering otherwise sluggish manufacturing segments, according to the Colorado Business Review report.

“The legalization of marijuana is expected to continue to drive growth in retail sales and employment, but the impacts are in select areas where it has been legalized,” the report’s authors wrote. “Marijuana sales have shown strong year-over-year growth since it was legalized, and will likely outweigh other activities in the (retail sales) sector, such as the bankruptcy of Sports Authority.”

Cannabis revenue totaled $486 million for the first five months of 2016, up from $356.8 million in the first five months of 2015, according to Colorado Department of Revenue data released Wednesday.

The fledgling cannabis industry also was cited as a potential catalyst for a sudden rise in manufacturing jobs.

For more than a decade, employment growth in Colorado’s food manufacturing sector was stale, gaining an average of 0.1 percent a year from 2001 to 2013, said Patty Silverstein, president and chief economist at Development Research Partners in Jefferson County.

Recreational cannabis sales began in 2014. That year, “we had a 3.5 percent increase in employment. In 2015, a 4.9 percent increase in food-manufacturing employment,” she said. “The data doesn’t allow us to slice and dice to say, ‘These are indeed edibles or not,’ but the recognition is this is where they would be classified.” - Full Article

Here’s How You Can Watch the Pot Industry’s ‘Shark Tank’

By Fortune | July 11, 2016
Finally, “The Marijuana Show” is available to streaming on mainstream sites.
There is only one reality TV show where you can see contestants compete over money for pot-tinged business ideas like edibles infused with hemp oil, or a tropical timeshare where medical marijuana is readily available. That program is The Marijuana Show, a Shark Tank-like reality show where so-called “ganjapreneurs” compete for funding and guidance for their marijuana startups.

On a Tuesday afternoon last month, a room full of hopeful contestants, armed with their best pot-biz pitches, waited in the Wall Street offices of a public relations firm to pitch their startup ideas for a shot at an appearance on the show and more than $20 million of investors’ money. In a sunny corner office overlooking the heart of Manhattan’s Financial District, Wendy Robbins and Karen Paull—The Marijuana Show‘s creators, producers, and co-hosts—listened to a string of pitches that day, but the medical cannabis-focused timeshare in Puerto Rico was the only one that had the two women cheering enthusiastically, “We’re going to Puerto Rico!”

Robbins and Paull, a married couple from Taos, New Mexico, created “The Marijuana Show” two years ago and, now, their second season is finally available to stream on mainstream sites, Amazon and Apple’s iTunes store. - Full Article

Award-Winning Cannabis Cooker Switches Gears in State’s New Marijuana World

By The News Tribune July 2, 2016
The Mad Hatter is angry and sad.

No longer will Sheila Scott cook and sell her medical-marijuana cookies, bars and other high-dose treats.

The proposed rule that became law July 1 allows certain high-dose delivery systems (suppositories, tinctures, etc.), but honors existing state rules that prohibit the sale of cannabis-infused edibles containing a total of more than 100 milligrams of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol.

Until the ban, Scott said she manufactured and sold products containing up to 1,500 milligrams.

Until the ban, she said, she served 281 patients — including 165 with a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer. Her products were sold in select Washington dispensaries.

With the ban in place, she said, “I can’t stop crying about it. I don’t think it’s going to help anybody.”

For her, it’s about compassion.

For the state, it’s about safety. - Full Article

Big Business Could Eventually Dominate the Marijuana Industry — Here’s Why

By Fox News | July 2, 2016
The growth of legal marijuana over the past two decades has been nothing short of phenomenal. Following the lawmaker-led legalization of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania and Ohio, half of all U.S. states now have laws on the books supporting a legal medical marijuana industry. Another four states (Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and Alaska) have also legalized the sale of marijuana for recreational purposes.

In the roughly two years since recreational marijuana hit pot shop shelves in Colorado, sales have soared to more than $1 billion on a trailing 12-month basis. In 2015 alone, Colorado wound up raising approximately $135 million via legal marijuana tax revenue and licensing fees. The industry as a whole, according to cannabis market research firm ArcView Market Research, hit an estimated $5.4 billion in sales in 2015 and could grow at an annualized rate of about 30% through 2020. You’d struggle to name other industries with growth potential on par with legal cannabis.

This growth has been viewed as an opportunity for small businesses and sole proprietors to get in on the action. While many states have set limits on the number of licenses issued, Oregon has been the best example of a free market for marijuana. Oregon has chosen to implement some restrictions on who can operate a dispensary — for example, persons with felonies and out-of-state residents can’t get a license for the time being — but otherwise has not set a licensing limit. Presumably, the added competition, in combination with Oregon’s robust medical marijuana infrastructure that existed prior to its 2014 vote to legalize recreational marijuana, could make the state the most price-competitive with the cannabis black market. - Full Article

How Snoop Dogg Is Becoming a Marijuana Media Mogul

By LA Weekly | June 30, 2016
Housed in a nondescript brick building in West Los Angeles, there’s a revolution brewing in marijuana media. And Snoop Dogg is at the helm.

In late 2015, with the help of media entrepreneur Ted Chung, the hip-hop star launched Merry Jane, an entertainment company that creates pot-centric editorial and videos extolling the positive benefits of cannabis. Other big-name partners on board include Seth Rogen, Guy Oseary and Miley Cyrus, who haven’t been shy about their love of pot.

“We’re doing stories about cannabis taking a new role in pop culture,” Merry Jane editor-in-chief Noah Rubin says. “It’s about bringing to light that cannabis has been an integral component of ideas and innovation in our society. It’s a mainstream voice for cannabis.”

Merry Jane shares its Playa Vista office building with Snoop’s music team, Stampede Management, and their sister company, Cashmere Agency, a marketing and creative firm. One of Merry Jane’s flagship streaming shows is Highly Productive, which has drawn coverage from major media outlets as diverse as Vogue, ESPN and Fast Company. The show is shot on location and at Snoop Dogg’s Inglewood production facility, the Compound. When needed, YouTube also provides Merry Jane with access to its nearby production facilities. - Full Article

Why the Marijuana Business Is Appealing to Female Entrepreneurs

So much about selling legal cannabis remains to be worked out—including the industry’s gender norms.

By Atlantic | June 28, 2016
In this mountain town, which began allowing the recreational sale of marijuana in 2014, businesswomen and female entrepreneurs say they are launching marijuana-centric companies with the hope that they can avoid the glass ceiling some say prevented them from reaching board rooms and corner offices in other industries.

In the past several years, women have become a driving force in the growth of the cannabis industry here and across the United States. As one magazine cover proclaimed recently, “Legal marijuana could be the first billion-dollar industry not dominated by men.”

Numbers would seem to bear those sentiments out. According to Marijuana Business Daily, women make up about 36 percent of executives in the legal-marijuana industry, compared to about 22 percent of senior managers in other industries. Women hold just 4.2 percent of the CEO positions at S&P 500 companies. At tech companies like Google and Twitter, disproportionately few executives and engineers are women. - Full Article

The Smartest Way To Invest In Cannabis

By Forbes | June 27, 2016
What are some good ways for investors who are bullish on marijuana to invest? originally appeared on Quora: the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Paul Cohn, Career VC, PE, Secondary and FOF Guy, on Quora:

A great way to learn about the emerging cannabis industry and invest in it would be to join the ArcView Investor Network [1].

ArcView is a national organization focused on research and investment in the cannabis industry. The investor network is an organized Angel group that explores investment opportunities in the industry.

I’m a fan, in general, of individuals investing through organized Angel groups, but I think that it is particularly important when making cannabis-related investments. You need to invest with an experienced group of investors that can help you not only with diligence and deal negotiations but with the legal complexities of the cannabis industry.

I would not recommend investing in public cannabis companies at this point. The cannabis companies that have gone public have done it through a back-door technique called a reverse merger into a public shell. They didn’t go public through an IPO based on the merits of the company. They trade as penny stocks and are very speculative. - Full Article

Floyd Landis Starts Cannabis Product Business in Colorado

Controversial former rider to produce vape and edible cannabis products

By Cycling News | June 24, 2016
Floyd Landis has confirmed to Cyclingnews that he has created a company that will sell cannabis infused products, with his ‘Floyd’s of Leadville’ brand set to officially launch on June 30 with an event open to 300 guests.

Recreational use of cannabis and was made legal in 2014 in Colorado, sparking a multi-million dollar industry. Anyone over the age of 21 can grow, possess and consume a small amount of the drug, with a wide range of products now available.

According to a press release obtained by Cyclingnews, Landis plans to specialize in products containing cannabis oil sourced from high altitude growers using an industry leading, pharmacy grade CO2 extraction process.

The press release says “the uniquely formulated vape and edible products are crafted for an enhanced consumer experience and are carefully prepared by licensed pharmacists to maximize the many health benefits of recreational cannabis.”

Landis won Tour de France in 2006 but then lost his title after testing positive for an irregular testosterone ratio. He denied doping for several years but then confessed in 2011, leading to Armstrong’s fall and eventual confession.

Since quitting professional cycling, Landis has been fighting a whistle blower legal battle with Lance Armstrong but seems set to start a new career as high-­quality cannabis products producer in Colorado. The Floyd’s of Leadville has already created a website and social media accounts. - Full Article

Who’s Funding the US Cannabis Industry?

By BBC | June 23, 2016
Webb Garrison wants to start his own cannabis business. He doesn’t have any industry experience and he’s only just building up his knowledge of the complicated regulations that govern the sector.What he does have is a ready investor - his mum.

To get a better handle on the industry Webb and his mother Betty Garrison travelled for over an hour from their home on Long Island to the Cannabis World Congress in New York City.

They hoped visiting the booths and attending the conference’s talks would highlight the industry’s opportunities and hurdles - even if the products they hoped to sell were noticeably absent because of cannabis restrictions in New York.

Finding funding is one of the biggest challenges for the industry, which still exists in a legal grey area.
Cannabis has been legalised for either medical or recreational purposes in 25 states, but remains illegal on the national level.

For most companies raising enough money to start a business is one of the biggest hurdles.
Despite the $5bn (£3.5bn) in legal sales in 2015 and the millions of investments already made, funding can’t keep up with demand.
Few big players

Part of the reason for this is institutional investors such as pension funds are barred either by law or policy from investing in federally illegal industries. And big corporations have been waiting to see how local and state laws shake out. - Full Article

Mutual of Omaha Says Pot Business Employees Aren’t Welcome

By US News | June 23, 2016
A successful businessman with a growing footprint in several states says he was shocked when he was refused a personal life insurance policy by Mutual of Omaha, one of the nation’s largest insurers.

The company informed Derek Peterson, CEO of Terra Tech Corp., in a letter dated June 13 that “we cannot accept premium[s] from individuals or entities who are associated with the marijuana industry.”

Peterson had, like other state-legal cannabis businessmen, lost bank accounts when compliance officers decided the burden of abiding by federal rules was too much, but denial of a personal insurance policy is not a common industry complaint.

“This was to get some additional coverage for me personally, my family,” he says. “On a personal level, to have something like this happen, where I can’t get protection for my family … it just seems ridiculous and archaic at this point.”

Peterson’s business interests include a large medical marijuana cultivation and retail facility in Oakland, California, ordinary horticulture on the East Coast and a developing network of cannabis cultivation and retail facilities in Nevada.

It’s unclear why exactly Mutual of Omaha denied Peterson’s application and why it would have a policy denying marijuana business employees. - Full Article

HIGH TIMES to Open First Los Angeles Office As Part of Major Expansion in Content & Staffing

David Bienenstock Appointed As First-Ever Head of Content Mike Gianakos Named Managing Editor & Jen Bernstein Named Business Editor Launch of New Daily Newsletter & Redesigned Mobile-Friendly Website

By Business Wire/Yahoo | June 22, 2016
HIGH TIMES, the world’s leading cannabis media, events and information company, announces a major expansion—including:

• Opening of the first HIGH TIMES office in Los Angeles—with editorial, video and sales staff
• Appointment of renowned cannabis author/journalist David Bienenstock as Head of Content
• Promotion of Mike Gianakos to Managing Editor, and Jen Bernstein as Business Editor and lead writer for “Weed to Know,” a new daily digital newsletter
• Launch of a fully redesigned mobile and advertiser-friendly HIGH TIMES website with designated sections for HIGH TIMES’ event series, multimedia content and a full magazine archive
• “As marijuana legalization spreads and evolves, the appetite for in-depth, insightful coverage of the culture and industry around this plant is growing rapidly, and HIGH TIMES is growing along with that demand,” said HIGH TIMES Chief Operating Officer Larry Linietsky. “By fortifying our content leadership team and expanding our presence in Southern California, we’ll be able to create compelling content across all platforms and serve as the authoritative voice of cannabis culture.”

In his newly created role as Head of Content, David Bienenstock will lead the Los Angeles office, oversee content for HIGH TIMES and help spearhead the company’s rapid modernization of its digital platforms—including its newly designed mobile-friendly website, social media platforms, video, online newsletters and other multi-media initiatives. He’ll also lead the brand’s expansion into exciting new television, film and entertainment projects.

Bienenstock rejoins HIGH TIMES after serving as an editor for the magazine from 2002 to 2012. More recently, he’s authored the bestselling book How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High (Penguin/Random House 2016) and has been a columnist, frequent contributor and video host/producer at VICE Media, including producing the edibles-themed VICE Munchies show “Bong Appetit.” He has been profiled in The Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Slate and other major publications, and has appeared as a cannabis expert on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, HBO and Fox News. He will work in tandem with New York-based HIGH TIMES Editor-in-Chief Dan Skye and will report to HIGH TIMES Chief Operating Officer Larry Linietsky and Publisher and Chief Events Officer Mary C. McEvoy. - Full Article

Now Hiring: Willie Nelson (For Colorado Marijuana Business)

By CBS 4 | Denver June 21, 2016
Willie Nelson needs some good help when it comes to getting his marijuana business up and running in Colorado.

He is now accepting applications for Willie’s Reserve, or what he calls his “premium cannabis lifestyle brand” which will feature his own strain of pot.

The website for Willie’s Reserve says there will be a full product launch this summer. It includes flower, preroll, vape and edibles.

The site says it will offer cannabis products of the best quality, consistency and flavor while supporting local small farmers throughout Colorado.

Nelson isn’t on his own when it comes to funding the company. He’s already scored some major investments from companies like New York-based private equity fir, Tuatara Capital.

The country music legend has spent years talking about legalizing marijuana. When asked earlier this year why he would attach his name to a marijuana company, he said simply it was to prove a point.

“Willie’s Reserve” is looking for five employees in Colorado: a compliance officer, bookkeeper-administrator, production manager, sales director and extractor. - Full Article

The Dankest Wares, Tech, and Ganjapreneurs We Found at Cannabis World Congress

By Geek | June 21, 2016
Walking into a cannabis show in New York City is a perfect metaphor for how mainstream America approaches weed culture right now. The Cannabis World Congress expo floor at the Javits Center was overloaded with booths sporting flea market-style displays of edibles, extracts, and oils, plenty of shiny new tech, and piles of giveaway swag in different shades of green. There were also businesses hocking every kind of service imaginable, trying to capitalize on our buzziest new billion dollar industry. Cannabis consultants, lawyers, security companies, weed universities — pick a profession and tint it leaf-green.

What you didn’t see is any actual weed. Not out in the open, anyway. Not in New York, where the newly enacted medical marijuana laws are among the strictest of the 25 legal states. Cannabis packaging startups showed off vacuum-sealed bags of spinach leaves. Decorative shrubs sat under cutting-edge grow lamps. Edibles companies arranged shiny displays of empty wrappers. But all you had to do is ask around, and there was plenty of bud to be found.

We watched a straight-laced guy in a suit hand over a wad of cash for some legit edibles pulled out of a backpack in the corner of a booth. He glanced over at our camera (it wasn’t rolling), gave us a priceless eyes-wide deer-in-the-headlights look, and quickly fled the scene.

Stoner culture today is as mainstream as it’s been since the ‘70s, but in strict medical states and the half of the country that hasn’t legalized any form of cannabis yet, people talk loud and proud about the business of weed while the nugs themselves stay under the table, unspoken, and out of sight. It makes for a hilarious contrast when a you hear a guy like High NY MVP Todd Hinden (pictured above) — a stoner from another age — waxing poetic about the nuances between indica and sativa, the virtues of new hybrid strains like Sour Diesel, and why he thinks we should get rid of the term “strains” altogether and call them weed “flavors.” - Full Article

There’s a Booming Multibillion-Dollar Industry That the Biggest Players on Wall Street Won’t Touch

By Business Insider | June 20, 2016
Wall Street’s big money is not ready to dive into the booming cannabis industry.

Companies in the legal-pot industry will generate nearly $7 billion in sales this year - a 25% growth rate - according to ArcView Market Research, a group that tracks the market.

But the investors with the deepest pockets are likely to sit on the sidelines for some time to come.

MedMen, a company that consults for the medical-marijuana industry, launched the $100 million MedMen Opportunity Fund last week with the goal of breaking into large markets with limited licenses.

MedMen founder and CEO Adam Bierman told Business Insider he expects that the rest of the investors in this first round to be high-net-worth individuals and family offices. The Chicago-based Wicklow Capital, which is the anchor investor in this round, would fit the description. - Full Article

Meet Former Mayor Turned Cannabis Business Tells All – Need Credit

From politics to pot, this cannabis entrepreneur is banking high profits!

By Black Enterprisese | June 19, 2016
Former Mayor of Hawthorne, California, and cannabis enthusiast Chris Brown, recently chatted with Black Enterprise on how he got into the cannabis consulting business. Brown shares his vast knowledge of the cannabis space, plus how he’s banking big bucks as an investor and the cannabis industries people can pursue.

You are the CMO for the FOXX firm, a leading cannabis law firm in California. How does the FOXX firm work with the local government to write and improve policy for cannapreneurs?

We help local municipalities that are interested in medical cannabis write ordinances that will fit their financial needs. Most cities that we help are in some financial difficulty and need millions of additional revenue. Legalization of medical cannabis is a very lucrative business that will fill their budget shortfalls and create hundreds, if not thousands, of new jobs within the city.

Before the FOXX firm helped the city of Adelanto, California, legalize cultivation, the city was allegedly on the “brink of bankruptcy.” How did your counsel on medicinal marijuana help turn the city around? Was there any pushback from the community?

Freddy Sayegh, CEO and managing partner of the Foxx Firm helped the city attorney of Adelanto write the ordinance as well as came up with a tax structure that would fill the city budget deficit within the first year. At $10 a square foot, the city is looking at nearly 1 million-square-feet of cultivation and manufacturing; they will bring in nearly $10 million in revenues for the city budget and infrastructure. - Full Article

Microsoft is Going into the Marijuana Business, but the Cannabis Cloud is Already Crowded

By Quartz | June 17, 2016
Microsoft is breaking into the new field of marijuana compliance. The objective: to provide a tracking service that helps state governments keep tabs on newly legalized medical and recreational marijuana.

The entry of Microsoft into this market, which it is undertaking in partnership with a startup called KIND Financial, is a sign that the traditional stigma against marijuana is falling as fast as states can legalize the substance. This fall, several more, including California, are expected to follow Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Alaska in regulating the drug like alcohol.

It’s also a sign of Microsoft’s search for revenue in its cloud division, and its willingness to risk its reputation to get access to a new market its major competitors in cloud services haven’t gotten to yet.

But one startup already leads this space: BioTrackTHC, a firm that originated with a pitch to track opioid drugs. It quickly found that its software was more lucrative when deployed by marijuana growers and dispensaries, and by states and cities seeking to control the legal marijuana trade. It has won contracts from five states—Washington, New Mexico, Illinois, Hawaii, and New York—as well as several cities. Another firm, Metrc, has government contracts in Alaska and Oregon. - Full Article

Confident Cannabis is the Stock Exchange of Weed

By Tech Crunch | June 15, 2016
Step 1: Build software for pot labs. Step 2: Find out who has the strongest herb. Step 3: Create a marijuana marketplace connecting dispensaries with the best growers.

That’s the plan that scored $3 million in seed funding led by Slow Ventures for Confident Cannabis. Right now it’s on Step 2, having established the largest real-time database of cannabis in the world just nine months after launching.

Built by four Stanford grads, the Y Combinator and StartX company wants to corner a critical data stream in the fast-growing ganja business. For now, it’s the CarFax of weed. If it succeeds, Confident Cannabis could become the sticky-icky stock exchange, where growers and sellers connect.

POTato≠Potato

The reason Confident Cannabis’ data is so important is that the effects of marijuana can vastly differ depending on the species (sativa or indica), strain, and quality.

Great sativa can make you feel euphoric and creative, while strong indica can provide aid with relaxation. Strains with large amounts of the chemical THC provide more of a psychedelic high, versus strains with great deals of CBD are better for pain relief and treating insomnia. But low quality pot can induce paranoia, anxiety, grumpiness, or lethargy.

The problem is you can’t tell much of this from just looking at it.

“You don’t know how you’re going to feel when you smoke it, but all that information is related to the chemical composition of the plant” says Confident Cannabis co-founder and CEO Stephen Albarran. He tells me he’s always been fond of marijuana, but the lack of transparency about its quality needed fixing. - Full Article

The Cannabis Craze Has Come To Cocktails

By Vine Pair | June 15, 2016
It was only a matter of time until the marijuana industry hit booze culture. Recently, cocktails infused with cannabis have been making their way onto menus. So if you like to get a little stony baloney during cocktail hour, this news is right up your alley.

West Hollywood’s Gracias Madre is a great example. The head bartender at the vegan Mexican spot is Jason Eisner, who’s been making cannabis cocktails ever since he started using them to help treat injuries he suffered from playing sports.

Currently Eisner serves three different kinds of cannabis cocktails: the Sour T-iesel, which is a twist on a Tequila Sour, the Rolled Fashioned, which is a play on an Old Fashioned, and the Stoney Negroni—cocktail heritage clear. These are all pretty straightforward cocktails, but theoretically your buzz will be a bit…buzzier?

If you’re thinking drinking a cannabis cocktail will be like smoking the good-ol’ ganj or eating strange homemade pot brownies from your college days, well… you aren’t exactly s”pot”-on (we tried). The cannabis component of these cocktails isn’t THC. It’s CBD, which is completely different. THC is the psychoactive chemical scientifically associated with being stoned. CBD, or “cannabidiol,” “can’t get you high.” - Full Article

A Financial Solution for the Burgeoning $5.4 Billion Cannabis Industry

By CNBC | June 14, 2016
Cash is one of the U.S. marijuana industry’s most nagging problems.

Although a growing industry — to date, marijuana is now legal for medicinal use in 25 states and Washington, D.C., and legal for recreational use in four plus D.C. — traditional banking relationships with these Schedule 1 drug dispensaries are not the norm. So these businesses are cash only, leading to issues with managing the money, reconciling the books at the end of each day and dealing with the IRS.

Considering that industry sales jumped 17 percent to $5.4 billion in 2015 and are expected to increase another 25 percent this year, according to ArcView Group, these dispensaries are flush.

Yet one Denver-based start-up, Jane, is hoping to solve the many challenges these cannabis dispensaries face — by offering a retail kiosk payment solution to allow for financial transparency and more accurate accounting.

The company launched in September 2014 by co-founders Jeff Foster and Yves Yon — Foster with an e-commerce, finance and risk-management background; Yon an entrepreneur. Today Jane is run by CEO David Ellerstein, who is focusing on applying traditional retail kiosk technology, seen in stores like Home Depot and McDonald’s, to the marijuana industry.

Registered customers can pre-order items on the Jane app and pick them up in stores that are using the kiosk, or they can simply order from the kiosk in store for an expedited experience, choosing product, inserting cash and showing the cashier their receipt. Total time: About five minutes. - Full Article

“I’ve Told People What They Need to Hear to Get Their Money In…”

Ebbu and the rise and fall of a modern weed dealer.
By Pando | June 13, 2016
THE MARIJUANA START-UP Ebbu LLC held its 2015 Christmas party at a stylish townhouse in downtown Denver.

As guests arrived, they selected from edibles and vape pens fanned out on cocktail tables. Hired lovelies dressed for Burning Man twirled silently through the crowd. At one point, a man ran into the middle of the room and shouted, “Everybody in here get the fuck out!” — before security showed him the door. The most committed stoners colonized a windowless basement decorated with a pirate flag. It still felt like a work party, with significant others making small talk around a messy taco bar.

For more than two years, Ebbu has promised to unveil a revolutionary line of marijuana products called “Feelings” — Energy, Create, Chill, Giggle and Bliss. Marijuana’s flaw, the company believes, is that it’s unpredictable. Customers want to know how a product will make them feel, and they want it to work every time. Ebbu’s goal is to position consistent marijuana products as the pot equivalent of the Intel microchips that power nearly everything that emerges from Silicon Valley. Imagine: “Ebbu inside” stamped on the packaging of edibles and other manufactured pot products across the country.

The company’s co-founders, Michael “Dooma ” Wendschuh, 39 (above, left) and Jon Cooper, 40 (above, right), met over a decade ago in Los Angeles, where Dooma had co-founded a production company, and Cooper worked in movie finance. Neither of them are heavy pot smokers. They formed Ebbu in 2013, and soon emerged as leaders among a wave of new pot entrepreneurs — technocrats drawn to cannabis more for the potential profits and the excitement of pioneering a new industry than personal devotion to the plant. Before Ebbu had a product to sell, the company was featured in outlets like The Economist, Bloomberg, and the Fox Business Channel. Dooma “saw a problem that nobody seemed to be addressing,” The New Yorker website reported last May. During occasional TV spots and on the conference circuit, Dooma, Ebbu’s public face, personified the image that legal marijuana businesses hope to project: smart, sophisticated and law-abiding.- Full Article

‘Craft Cannabis’ Growers Fight for Legal Role, Say B.C. Jobs, Tourism at Stake

By Financial Post | June 13, 2016
Travis Lane has been growing marijuana since high school, when his first pot plant swiftly withered and died in his bedroom closet. By the time he was 20, he had cultivated a small basement grow-operation.

Now in his mid-thirties, Lane owns an online dispensary and runs two 390-plant operations on Vancouver Island. He employs two growers and raises his plants without pesticides or liquid fertilizer.

“I don’t want to hide what I do. I’m good at what I do. I’m proud of being good at what I do,” he said. “I’ve been proactive my whole life in trying to move towards a time where I can openly be a cannabis professional.”

Lane holds two Health Canada licences for the grow sites, making his pot production legal for medical purposes. But with the federal Liberals committed to legalizing cannabis for recreational use, Lane is among the smaller-scale growers fighting for a seat at the table.

The government is still in the early stages of developing the legislation it plans to introduce next spring. Those behind a budding “craft cannabis” movement warn, however, that if the law favours large-scale commercial producers, then jobs and potential tourism revenues will be lost and the black market will continue to thrive.

“It’s going to be the National Energy Program all over again, but instead of Alberta and oil, it’s going to be B.C. and cannabis,” said Ian Dawkins of the Cannabis Growers of Canada, referring to the 1980 policy that infuriated Albertans when the federal government tried to gain more control over the oil industry.

“You’re talking about economic activity that has sustained communities that have been devastated by the loss of primary industries.” - Full Article

The Cannabis Industry Goes High-Tech

By HiTech.co | June 10, 2016
Cannabis is one of humanity’s oldest crops and historians can trace the use of cannabis back 12,000 years. Today’s legalization of cannabis in many states have brought the pot industry into the forefront, but few considered it high-tech.

Most people think of smoking pot as an electronic-free activity, where all smokers need is a lighter and a bong. Nothing’s more low-tech than that.

But legalized marijuana is an industry like any other. While it may face stricter laws than other industries, it was worth $5.4 billion in 2015 and is expected to grow by 25 percent this year. Tech businesses of all sizes are trying to get in on the ground floor of the newest gold rush.

In What is the Connection between the Budding Cannabis Industry and Technology Start Ups?, Leslie Bocskor, a funds manager handling marijuana business for Electrum Partners, said: “We’re only at the very beginning, essentially like being at the very beginning of Sir Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin as mold in a petri dish. That’s how it started, and now how broad are antibiotics as a category of medicine? In the same sense we’re just looking at the very beginning of cannabis.” - Full Article

Special Report: Cannabis Returns Could Top the Earnings of Three Industries Combined

By Signal Santa Clarita Valley | June 9, 2016
t’s like forecasting early gold reserves in the heady days of California’s Gold Rush era. Revenue estimates that will come from legalizing marijuana are growing almost like weed itself.

In analyzing the ballot initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana, California’s legislative analyst and finance director estimates that legalizing marijuana for casual use could net as much as $1 billion in new tax revenue for the state and local governments.

That estimated revenue, however, dwarfs the amount calculated by the state’s tax board, the Board of Equalization, based on legal medical marijuana-related sales.

The tax board reported $570 million in taxable income in 2014, amounting to $49.5 million in taxes owed to the state from sales generated by the 1,623 medical marijuana dispensaries that registered with the state and filed taxes in 2014.

The problem, according to experts, is that of much of the industry is still underground due to conflict in federal and state laws. Hiding makes it nearly impossible for state and local municipalities to collect revenues. And then there are the illegal drug sales, which supporters say the ballot initiative would help to further eat away at illegally gained earnings.

“The reality is, so much of it is underground it’s hard to find. Dispensaries have operated in a gray zone for so long that reporting is really fragmented,” said George Runner, member of the State Board of Equalization. “On top of it, federal law doesn’t allow businesses to have bank accounts, so it’s a very big problem in terms of auditing and audit trails.” - Full Article

Cannabis Companies Under the Influencers For Advertising

By Forbes | June 9, 2016
Advertising regulations on marijuana can be pretty restrictive and vary from state to state. Just as there are limitations for tobacco ads, there are also limitations how cannabis companies can advertise for their businesses.

For example, California allows medical marijuana to be advertised, but it has to contain a specific notice to consumers. Colorado requires that any television or radio ads can only be aired if they can prove that no more than 30 % of the audience is under 30, which is fairly impossible. Same rule applies to the internet.

Most of today’s big ad spending happens on the search engines on the internet. Google earned roughly $17 billion last quarter from advertising and Facebook makes approximately $1 billion a quarter in ad revenues. However, both of these sources have chosen to not allow marijuana ads.

That means that cannabis businesses must use creative means to reach their clientele. Cannabis specific advertising firms have cropped up in order to help these businesses. Mantis is the largest of these and works with over 250 websites and social media accounts. It serves more than 130 million ad impressions and reaches 12 million unique readers.

Bang Media takes a different approach. It connects cannabis brands to influencers. This new company started in 2014 and is having to turn down advertising checks because they are still building out their platform. - Full Article

Women Are Growing a More Diverse Cannabis Industry

Female entrepreneurs are carving out a space for themselves in the burgeoning sector.

By Elle | June 8, 2016
Marijuana prohibition in the US is quickly losing ground, with 13 states having passed decriminalization laws since 1973 and at least 20 states poised to vote on similar measures in 2016. As cannabis inches towards broader legalization, it has created the country’s fastest-growing industry––and women are investing early. While people have been using and consuming the plant for ages, its ‘official’ market is growing almost from scratch, allowing female entrepreneurs to carve out a space for themselves in it from the beginning.

More women hold executive positions in the cannabis industry than in any other

The cannabis industry, like many others, is stereotypically thought of as largely male-dominated, but today women hold more executive positions in it than in any other field. Melissa Meyer, head of the New York chapter of women cannabis entrepreneurs networking group Women Grow said women’s participation has grown due to women supporting and educating each other through groups like these, and women from other fields being drawn in by the flexibility of the burgeoning industry.

“Many industries that attract really smart women, like tech, media, and finance are largely male-dominated,” she said. “Some very talented women aren’t satisfied there, and are bleeding from those industries and taking the opportunity to start a culture from scratch. In the cannabis industry, we are able to set our own agenda, so even though it is still male dominated in terms of numbers, we are creating a space where the cultural agenda is being set by women.”

Decriminalization of marijuana has resulted in an emerging industry

Meyer is the founder of HealthMJ, a resource that helps patients to learn more about the benefits of medical marijuana. She founded the company after two close friends died of cancer and she saw that drug prohibition had created a dearth of accurate health information about cannabis use. HealthMJ is an example of what is called an ancillary business––one that serves the main cannabis industry in some way, but does not actually distribute cannabis products. Such ventures can include informational services like Meyer’s, as well as software and hardware, like vaporizers for consumption. In places like New York, where medical marijuana is legal but dispensaries are few and far between due to heavy regulation and a costly licensing process, ancillary businesses are more common than in Colorado, where recreational marijuana is legal and dispensaries are plentiful. - Full Article

Aurora Cannabis: An Execution Story

By Moneyshow.com | June 2, 2016
As cannabis continues to become mainstream, more investors will become attracted to the sector and look for investment opportunities within it.

Although the United States cannabis sector offers investors a lot of upside, it offers even more risk. The Canadian cannabis industry on the other hand is less risky because medical cannabis is legal at the federal level. The Canadian medical cannabis industry is also growing at an impressive 10% per month and it now has more than 70,000 patients. These two factors make the Canadian cannabis sector a very hot pocket of opportunity for investors.

Do Your Due Diligence

When investors ask what we look for in a cannabis company before investing, at a minimum we suggest that investors look into: 1) its management team, 2) its financial structure, 3) the exchange it trades on, 4) its track record, and 5) recent insider activity.

Investors need to be cautious and focus on companies that are well capitalized, led by a management team with a proven track record, have a sound financial structure, act in the best interests of shareholders, and continue to execute on business initiatives.

We believe that Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB.CN: Canadian Securities Exchange) (ACBFF: OTC) represents an attractive investment as it possesses the right traits and continues to execute on initiatives while registering new medical cannabis patients at industry leading rates.

About Aurora Cannabis

Aurora Cannabis is one of the 31 federally licensed medical cannabis producers in Canada under Health Canada’s Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR).

Aurora Cannabis trades on both the Canadian and United States stock exchange. The company’s Canadian symbol is ACB.CN and its United States symbol is ACBFF. The company is the only licensed producer of medical cannabis in the province of Alberta, which has a population of 4.1 million people, and has registered patients across Canada, which has a population of 35 million.

Aurora’s business strategy is to continue and accelerate its penetration of the Canadian cannabis market, receive a sales license from Health Canada for derivative products (i.e. cannabis oils), start to sell medical cannabis derivative products, transition to profitability in the short-term, and undergo a major expansion of its production capacity. - Full Article

Marijuana’s $40 Billion Dollar Green Rush

By Forbes | June 2, 2016
Back in 2003 the DEA ran “Operation Pipe Dreams,” effectively shutting down every bong shop selling paraphernalia on the internet. The ill-fated and misguided war on drugs fueled then Attorney General John Ashcroft with nary an eye to the future of marijuana.

The operation was a smashing success, if you consider wasting $12 million dollars and the efforts of 2,000 officers to arrest 55 people (mostly glass blowers) and only charge one — Tommy Chong — a success. It was a sickening misuse of government funds and energy, but nothing new in the ridiculously long standing war on drugs.

“The drug paraphernalia business is now accessible in anyone’s home with a computer and Internet access,” Ashcroft said at the press conference back in 2003. “And in homes across America we know that children and young adults are the fastest growing Internet users. Quite simply, the illegal drug paraphernalia industry has invaded the homes of families across the country without their knowledge. This illegal billion dollar industry will no longer be ignored by law enforcement.”

Wouldn’t it be better as a legal billion dollar industry?

Even though many states have either decriminalized marijuana or at least legalized it for medical use, drug paraphernalia (your bong or pipe for instance) is still illegal to possess in the United States. Based on the abundance of local head shops springing up faster than UPS Stores, I would attest that this statute is not strictly enforced. Don’t hold me to that statement if you are holding a crack pipe in a public park. - Full Article

The Growing Need for the Cannabis Sommelier

By The Hunffington Post | May 31, 2016
The cannabis industry has shown tremendous growth over the past few years and new markets are appearing right in front of our eyes. With all of the publicity and legalization in various states, cannabis is becoming less taboo and turning into big business, and many enthusiasts are looking for ways to work in this budding industry.

Just like the food, wine, and spirits industries have their specialized experts, connoisseurs, and sommeliers, it’s time for the Cannabis industry to employ true quality searchers and finders.

Tasting

The cannabis industry needs specialized connoisseurs who, with the use of human senses, can assess the substances. Similar to how wine tasters pick out distinct flavors of fruits and flowers taking small sips of wine and analyzing, sommeliers of cannabis can provide similar knowledge and expertise reviewing and rating seeds and strains, as all Cannabis seeds hold secrets waiting to be explored.

Many of these experts already exist as you can find them in Amsterdam, Colorado, and various cannabis competitions throughout the world. Some have even started making their reviews more “mainstream” by writing in magazines and testing in Youtube videos.

Smells, Aromas, and Reactions

A cannabis connoisseur can distinguish aromas as well as the type of reaction and high that each strain might provide to the body and brain. Some highs are more relaxing, some are more creative, and some can fill you with energy. As the market is not only changing in terms of growing numbers but also in terms of quality, it seems that for many people, cannabis is not just for getting high anymore. Cannabis consumers are not only the old fashioned smokers (some now use edibles) and as they get more sophisticated they don’t just look for THC but also for the Terpenes and the qualities they bring to the high experience of each strain. - Full Article

Airbnb-Style Rentals, for Those Who Like a Good Toke

From CNET Magazine: Watch out, Airbnb. The sharing economy and weed are bonding over a bowl.

By CNET | May 29, 2016
Deborah Button doesn’t want to be late for the “stoner Bible study” group she founded seven months earlier, where people consume marijuana before immersing themselves in that week’s topic. Still, she takes the time to explain to me the appeal of the bed-and-breakfast she owns 8 miles outside of Denver.

“We have bongs, vape pens, vapes — all the [marijuana] accoutrements that you could dream of,” says Button. “Sometimes, we’ll [put] out 50 rolled joints. It’s like a candy shop in the house.”

A self-described conservative soccer mom, Button voted against two statewide bills to permit marijuana use in Colorado before it became legal for adults in 2014. That’s also about the time Button started meeting tourists with multiple sclerosis, lupus and other chronic conditions who came to Colorado to relieve their symptoms with pot.

Those encounters made Button more compassionate — and entrepreneurial. The former high school teacher is now a full-time B&B hostess welcoming tourists to her five-bedroom, four-bathroom house to smoke from her bongs, roll joints on her deck, eat her cannabis-infused mashed potatoes and ogle her marijuana plants.

“That’s a big draw for visitors. They like to watch the cannabis grow. We have plants at every stage — clones, teenagers, we got ’em all,” she says. “They usually tell me, ‘I want to see the babies!'”

Button is tight-lipped about exactly how many “babies” she’s got. Last year, most of her guests found her suburban retreat di bud through Airbnb, the global website that’s turned people’s home, room and couch rentals into a $25 billion business. These days, though, most of her guests find her through a startup’s smaller site, the aptly dubbed BudandBreakfast.com.

Popularized by startups like Airbnb, Uber and Lyft, the sharing economy has officially gone to pot as Internet entrepreneurs set up B&Bs to tap into the rapidly expanding legal marijuana market. It’s now easy to light up a J in someone’s rustic cabin in Idaho Springs or 7-acre estate in Steamboat Springs (both in Colorado), or a private villa in Jamaica.

Budding Business

- Full Article

Forget Colorado Weed, Marijuana Companies Are Going Global

Legal marijuana is already a global industry and the U.S. is behind the curve

By Inc. Mag | May 27, 2016
When you think of the legal marijuana industry, you think of Colorado and California. But marijuana is not uniquely American, nor is the legalization movement.

Medical and recreational marijuana is a multi-billion dollar global industry, with various programs either ready to be implemented or already up and running in countries like Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic. Despite global drug policy, marijuana is grown, distributed and used all over the world. While Colorado and California are looked at as models of the modern marijuana economy, the U.S. lags behind other countries like Canada, which already has a fully-functional nationwide medical program and will launch its nationwide recreational program in the next year.

Brendan Kennedy, the cofounder of Privateer Holdings, which owns various marijuana companies like Marley Natural and Canadian pharmaceutical-grade cannabis producer Tilray, says his companies are expanding abroad while the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Food and Drug Administration debate whether or not to treat the plant as a medicine or keep it in the same category as heroin.

“People think cannabis legalization is a U.S. phenomenon or even a western U.S. paradigm shift, but this is taking place around the world,” says Kennedy. “It’s a misconception to think this is a Californian thing, or a Colorado thing. It’s much larger than that. We look at marijuana from a global perspective.”

Kennedy has been to Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Italy in the last six months to explore marijuana business opportunities. Currently in the U.K., he will go back to Privateer’s headquarters in Seattle, then visit Tilray’s 60,000-square foot facilities in British Columbia, Canada, then to Australia, where Tilray has an import license to send marijuana for a clinical trial with a chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting study with the University of Sydney, the government of New South Wales and the country’s largest cancer hospital. - Full Article

A Gym Where People Can Get high Onsite is Opening in San Francisco

By Tech Insider | May 25, 2016
This fall, San Franciscans will be able to get high while getting swole.

A new gym called Power Plant Fitness will allow members to consume marijuana on-site while working out. It’s claiming to be the world’s first cannabis-friendly gym.

“It won’t be a place to get high and just screw around,” Jim McAlpine, founder of the cannabis event series 420 Games and cofounder of Power Plant Fitness, wrote in a blog on the company’s website. “We are focused on the athletic side, not the cannabis side.”

McAlpine’s other venture, 420 games, is like the Olympics for stoners. The company hosts athletics events nationwide, where pot enthusiasts and their families compete in triathlons, obstacle courses, mountain bike races, golf tournaments, and the signature 4.20-mile run. It launched in San Francisco in 2014.

The gym (which is in the process of finalizing a lease) doubles down on the 420 Games’ mission: to reverse the lazy stereotypes about pot users.

In an email to Tech Insider, McAlpine explains that the gym looks to cannabis as a tool for focus and recovery. New members will take a “cannabis performance assessment” under the supervision of staff to determine the “most optimal ways to consume.” Some might find a bite out a pot brownie gives them the push they need to complete a circuit training workout, while others find it knocks them on the floor.

“We will be helping our members figure out how is best for them to ingest their cannabis,” McAlpine tells Tech Insider in an email.

McAlpine says the facility will allow edibles and vaping on-site to start, and plans to add an outdoor smoking deck for those who actually want to smoke in the future. San Francisco city and county law currently prohibits smoking weed inside most public venues. - Full Article

Nasdaq Just Dealt a Huge Blow to the Cannabis Industry

By Business Insider | May 24, 2016
Nasdaq has rejected an application by MassRoots, a social network for cannabis users, to list shares on its exchange.

MassRoots said in a press release Tuesday that Nasdaq thought it was helping to sell an illegal substance. Medical marijuana is illegal under federal law but allowed in 23 states.

MassRoots plans to formally appeal, and it has started a public campaign to get more people to protest the electronic exchange.

“If we were a social network for tobacco users or alcohol consumers, the Nasdaq would likely be moving forward on our application even though alcohol and tobacco cause far more deaths and societal damage than cannabis ever will,” MassRoots CEO Isaac Dietrich said in a press release.

MassRoots would have been the first cannabis-focused company to be listed on the exchange.

“Moreover, the Nasdaq has already listed at least four biotechnology companies that extract compounds from the cannabis plant for scientific research — actually touching the plant as part of their business model,” Dietrich said. - Full Article

Oregon Sees Job Growth After Legalizing Marijuana

By Redding.com | May 17, 2016
Legalization of marijuana in Oregon has created at least 2,165 jobs and will add more as the market matures, a new report suggests.

Nearly $46 million in payroll will be paid to retail cannabis employees statewide in 2016, according to the “Oregon Cannabis Jobs Report,” sponsored by cannabis industry consulting firms New Economy Consulting and Whitney Economics.

By comparison, Oregon’s beer, wine and liquor sector employed 1,450 people and paid $28 million in wages in 2015, according to Employment Department data.

The department estimates there are nearly 2,500 dispensary employees statewide.

But the industry report delves beyond employment numbers and into potential effects of the cannabis industry. It concludes the market is “much stronger” than previously thought.

The total economic impact of paying cannabis workers could be in the hundreds of millions, said Beau Whitney, one of four authors of the report. As cannabis workers spend their wages, they cause an economic “ripple effect,” he said.

Other key findings of the report include:

About $46 million in payroll to retail cannabis workers is expected in 2016, with a potential economic effect of $196 million by 2017 year-end.
Up to 27 percent growth is anticipated in retail cannabis jobs by the end of 2017, based on high-growth projections.
The cash-only nature of business makes it difficult to provide benefits to employees. - Full Article

California is Poised to Become the Center of Cannabis Culture

By Los Angeles Times | May 16, 2016
The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition.

Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana (including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker) said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country.

California, with a thriving medical marijuana industry, already produces and sells more pot than any other state, including Colorado, Washington and Oregon, which have all legalized adult recreational use of marijuana. In California, we could see a tenfold increase in what is already a billion-dollar-plus industry, and this despite the continuing federal classification of marijuana as a dangerous substance with no medical value.

Right now, a majority of Californians favor legalization. Latino voters, who strongly opposed a failed legalization measure in 2010, are increasingly leaning toward it as well.

The stars, finally, seem aligned.

“This is California’s time to reemerge as the center of the cannabis economy and the center of cannabis culture, and that’s what’s so exciting,” said Bienenstock, 40, who has just written a modest but charming weed primer, “How to Smoke Pot (Properly): A Highbrow Guide to Getting High.” A former High Times editor, Bienenstock, who lives near Santa Cruz, writes Vice’s “Weed Eater” column and produces Vice’s very funny cooking show, “Bong Appetite.” - Full Article

Stoneham Company Raises $1.6m for Single-Use Marijuana Vaporizer System

By The Boston Globe | April 14, 2016
Stoneham-based CannaKorp Inc. announced this week that it has raised nearly $1.6 million from angel investors to help launch its single-use marijuana vaporizer system, surpassing its goal of $1 million. The company is developing a counter-top device dubbed the “CannaCloud,” which will heat disposable “CannaCups” filled with a single dose of marijuana. Comparisons to the coffee pod system sold by Keurig are not unfounded: two former top Keurig executives are working on the project. CannaKorp is hoping to bring the vaporizer, along with pods containing various marijuana strains, to market late this year or early next year. The company is just one of many local firms hoping to cash in on the nascent but rapidly growing marijuana industry. Massachusetts and a number of other states are poised to vote this fall on initiatives that would legalize recreational use of marijuana by adults, which could dramatically expand the market for the drug and related devices and services. - Article

As Legal US Cannabis Sales Soar, Start-Up Reality Sets In

“There’s this misconception that everyone is rolling in the money.”

By CNBC | May 2, 2016
The forecasts for legal U.S. cannabis sales are in the billions.

But entrepreneurs in the weed trade, despite landing in hot markets like Colorado, face a bit of a reality check. That’s due, in part, to a lack of traditional financing tools like banking, and still growing stream of venture capital into the industry.

“There’s this misconception that everyone is rolling in the money here,” said Jill Lamoureux, a Colorado-based cannabis business expert.

The forecasts for legal U.S. cannabis sales are in the billions.

But entrepreneurs in the weed trade, despite landing in hot markets like Colorado, face a bit of a reality check. That’s due, in part, to a lack of traditional financing tools like banking, and still growing stream of venture capital into the industry.

“There’s this misconception that everyone is rolling in the money here,” said Jill Lamoureux, a Colorado-based cannabis business expert.

“Fundraising, particularly in cannabis, is a black box to new entrepreneurs.”
-Nick Hofmeister, mentor at CanopyBoulder, an accelerator program
Lamoureux’s husband has a degenerative disease, and around eight years ago she obtained a license to be a medicinal marijuana caregiver. She established a dispensary, and eventually helped craft the framework for legalizing recreational marijuana sales in Colorado beginning in 2014.

For now, though, creating a scalable, legal cannabis business is not easy. The transportation of cannabis across states and related multistate transactions remain illegal if not tricky. And without traditional banking options, cannabis is a very capital-intensive business.

“It’s a lot harder of an industry than others to get into,” said Lamoureux, a mentor at CanopyBoulder, an accelerator program in Boulder.

So just as support systems have popped up in biotech, agriculture and other sectors, cannabis incubators have emerged in Colorado and elsewhere — including Gateway in California — to help entrepreneurs navigate the fast-growing legal cannabis market. - Full Article

Meet 5 of the Most Powerful Women in the Pot Business

By Fortune Magazine | April 20, 2016

It’s high time women took on the industry.

The newest industry in the U.S. may also be the most female-friendly.

In corporate America, women hold about a quarter of leadership roles and less than 5% of CEO positions. But in the fledgling cannabis industry, women make up about 36% of leaders, including 63% of high-level positions at testing labs and half of leadership roles at infused products and processing companies, according to a survey conducted by Marijuana Business Daily.

In honor of 4/20—the 20th of April, which has become an unofficial marijuana holiday in the U.S—Fortune took a look at some of the pot industry’s female pioneers, including a “cannabusiness” investor, a dispensary owner, a grower, and a professional connector.

After more than a decade working as a brand consultant and market researcher for clients like Time Warner, Viacom, and American Express, Emily Paxhia joined her wealth manager brother, Morgan Paxhia, in founding Poseidon Asset Management in 2013. Poseidon is one of the first and only investment funds dedicated to investing exclusively in the cannabis industry, and currently has over 25 cannabis-focused portfolio companies across sectors as diverse as agriculture and machine learning. - Find Out Who These Women Are

The Marijuana Business Is Really the Real Estate Business

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Selling weed seems like a cash cow, but the real money these days is in the real estate that represents the most crucial part of the cannabis business.

By Inc. April | April 20, 2016
In the unstable and risky marijuana industry anything can happen-your neighbor could wage a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act suit against you, your bank can tell you to move your money to another institution, or you could lose your license for a small screwup. But in all of this uncertainty and risk, pot entrepreneurs are making one safe bet: buying real estate.

“With so many obstacles and regulations in our way, owning your real estate is the only thing we can control in this industry,” says Sally Vander Veer, co-founder and CFO of Denver-based marijuana cultivator and retailer Medicine Man. “It’s essential to long-term success.”

Aside from being a simple and time-tested investment, Vander Veer says owning your own real estate is also a smart way to safely store your money, as long as property values hold or increase. And surprisingly, property ownership is actually a flack jacket that protects your business from a frequent nightmare scenario in the pot business.

Since 2013, many cannabis entrepreneurs have seen their warehouse rents skyrocket after they’d spend tens of thousands of dollars to convert the space into a marijuana growing operation. Owning your real estate lets you avoid that financially crippling scenario entirely, says Patti Zanin, an independent real estate agent in Denver who serves weed clients.

Zanin says buildings zoned as “light industrial” that have been vacant for years are now the most valuable properties in the area thanks to the marijuana industry. Properties go so quickly, Zanin says, that a secondary market has blossomed-well-heeled companies will buy a property, get a license, and sell the whole package to smaller businesses. - Full Article

Small Cannabis Growers Roll Out ‘California Way’ Ad Campaign

By San Francisco Chronicle | April 20, 2016
The billboards, bus ads and online videos popping up around the Bay Area this week look like they could be hawking beer or coffee or kale. Over a photo of a soil-covered hand caressing a tiny plant are the words: “Craft farmers. Small batch. Sustainable. The California Way.”

But the ads are extolling the California way of growing cannabis. And on this April 20 — a.k.a. 4/20, the off-the-calendar holiday/celebration of all things marijuana — the new ad campaign is a sign of an industry simultaneously excited and a bit nervous about growing up, coming out of the darkness and going legitimate.

These should be heady days for cannabis farmers and fans, perhaps the last 4/20 when marijuana is not fully legal for adults in California. In October, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, a package of measures intended to provide more structure and clarity for the state’s loosely regulated, billion-dollar medicinal cannabis industry.

In November, at least one ballot measure legalizing adult recreational use of cannabis is expected to be before California voters. Unlike past legalization efforts, which were either underfunded or avoided by the political mainstream, one proposal is backed by billionaire tech investor Sean Parker and has the support of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Threatened by Agribusiness

Yet under the high hopes roils a bit of paranoia. Many small cannabis growers — folks who have been growing weed for generations in the Emerald Triangle of Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties, where most of the nation’s weed is grown — are worried. They fear that should the state’s voters green-light recreational marijuana, major corporations would buy up massive amounts of land across the state. And that these huge grow operations would crank out the Two-Buck Chuck of cannabis — a less-expensive but inferior product that could cut deeply into their business. - Full Article

American Cannabis Company Inc (OTCMKTS:AMMJ) Is Today’s Cannabis Focus

By Insider Financial | April 14, 2016
American Cannabis Company Inc (OTCMKTS:AMMJ) has finally caught the attention of pot stock investors. Shares have broken out of their trading range on massive volume as investors start looking for new plays on the coming marijuana Green Rush. What we at Insider Financial find so surprising is that it took investors this long to discover American Cannabis Company.

American Cannabis describes itself as offering “end-to-end solutions to existing and aspiring participants in the cannabis industry. We utilize our industry expertise to provide business planning and market assessment services, assist state licensing procurement, create business infrastructure and operational best practices. Through our two vertically integrated businesses, American Cannabis Consulting and American Cultivator Company, a group purchasing organization, we support our clients from concept to creation to commercialization to on-going operations.”

AMMJ was co-founded by Corey Hollister and Ellis Smith. They are the former owners of The Village Green Society which is a cannabis business located in Boulder, CO. The pair were the first to utilize a niche growing technique known as True Living Organics (TLO) on a commercial scale to cultivate medical cannabis for the Colorado patient market; which was an innovation they received national recognition for. Furthermore, the two partners were able to help the regulated cannabis industry identify a new type of pest/mite; the Hemp Russet Mite.

Last month, AMMJ announced that its Las Vegas client, TGIG, has initiated cultivation and processing operations at its production facility, and opened its first dispensary, The Grove, in Pahrump, Nev. The second dispensary for The Grove, located just minutes from McCarran Airport and the Las Vegas Strip, is slated for an April grand opening. - Full Article

In California, Marijuana Is Smelling More Like Big Business

By New York Times | April 11, 2016
After decades of thriving in legally hazy backyards and basements, California’s most notorious crop, marijuana, is emerging from the underground into a decidedly capitalist era.

Under a new state law, marijuana businesses will be allowed to turn a profit — which has been forbidden since 1996, when California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis — and limits on the number of plants farmers can grow will be eliminated.

The opening of the marijuana industry here to corporate dollars has caused a mad scramble, with out-of-state investors, cannabis retailers and financially struggling municipalities all racing to grab a piece of what is effectively a new industry in California: legalized, large-scale marijuana farming.

And with voters widely expected to approve recreational marijuana use in November, California, already the world’s largest legal market for marijuana, gleams with the promise of profits far beyond what pot shops and growers have seen in Washington or Colorado, the first states to approve recreational use.

“People are definitely salivating over the California market,” said Troy Dayton, chief executive of the ArcView Group, a research firm in the Bay Area that specializes in marijuana. “It’s huge, and Californians love cannabis so much.”

In search of a tax windfall, cities across the Southern California desert, like Adelanto and Desert Hot Springs, have raced to be first to permit commercial marijuana cultivation. The price of land here tripled almost overnight as entrepreneurs bought up every inch of property where pot-growing was permitted — most of it bare desert dotted with only Joshua trees and tumbleweeds.- Full Article

MassRoots Files To Be NASDAQ’s First Cannabis Stock

By Forbes | April 11, 2016
MassRoots, Inc., the ‘Facebook’ FB -0.73% for cannabis consumers, is filing an offering to sell stock with hopes that the NASDAQ will approve them for a listing.

The social network was formed in April of 2013 as an online community for people that smoke pot. It now has 775,000 users and 380,000 followers on Instagram. While there are plenty of social networks like Facebook, Twitter TWTR +0.36% or Instagram, many people are not comfortable sharing their cannabis consumption in a place that family, friends and co-workers go to.

Currently the stock trades on the OTCQB Marketplace under the symbol MSRT; it’s trading at $1.28, well off its all-time high of $7.01. As of March, there were 90 shareholders of record and roughly 47 million shares issued and outstanding.

MassRoots has applied to the NASDAQ Capital Market to list its common stock under the symbol “MSRT.” NASDAQ won’t comment on the company as it is under review. While MassRoots doesn’t “touch the plant,” just the association could cause NASDAQ to turn it down. MassRoots makes it clear in its filing the marijuana is still a schedule 1 drug and as such is illegal under federal law. Since MassRoots works with cannabis companies for advertising, they could be see as “aiding and abetting” an illegal activity. - Full Article

The Art of Marketing Marijuana

How to make pot seem as all-American as an ice-cold beer

By The Atlantic April Issue
n the summer of 2014, The New York Times published its first-ever marijuana ad. The occasion was the enactment of New York’s Compassionate Care Act, which legalized pot for some medical uses. The ad, a congratulatory note from a Seattle start-up, depicted a well-dressed, newspaper-toting man standing on his stoop while a young woman jogged past. Both wore determined expressions; the man, according to the text, consumed marijuana “to relieve his MS symptoms,” and the woman used it “while fighting cancer.” The ad made sense for its time and place. Earlier that year, Colorado and Washington State had begun allowing the sale of recreational pot, and critics were warning that as more states followed suit, profit-motivated corporations could start marketing a lot of pot to a lot of people. Savvy marijuana businesses, worried about confirming this suspicion, stuck to depictions of their most sympathetic users.

Pot’s image problem has since begun to fade, especially in states like Washington and Colorado. Two more states, Oregon and Alaska, have legalized the recreational use of marijuana, and several others may soon have the opportunity to join them. But the people who sell the drug are facing a predicament. In a legal market, cannabis—the plant from which pot is derived—comes to resemble many other farmed products: One grower’s plant looks and tastes a lot like his neighbor’s. (Some pot connoisseurs with sensitive palates can differentiate among strains of cannabis—and even among brands—but they’re as rare as the coffee drinker who can guess his beans’ origins.) John Kagia, the director of industry analytics at New Frontier, which studies the marijuana business, is convinced that pot is becoming commoditized. In Colorado, the supply of marijuana flower is going up, and its cost down, partly because of technological advancements and larger, more efficient operations—just the kind of forces that have turned other products into commodities. - Full Article

California Cannabis Expo in San Francisco

By Santa Barbara Independent April 9, 2016
MJIC is one of the most important companies in the cannabis industry. Founder and CEO David Friedman has put together a group that operates conferences as well as consults and invests in future industry winners. Just a couple of weeks ago they held their California Cannabis Business Expo at the Hilton on Union Square in San Francisco, and it was well worth the visit.

The Show and Its Operator

The San Francisco event has a wide array of company offerings. As you might expect there were many software firms selling their services relating to compliance and inventory tracking. The Foria booth was certainly an eye catcher for many attendees. This company makes two main cannabis-infused products for women. The company states that one helps ease problems related to the menstrual cycle while the other even more provocative item enhances the sexual experience. I was very impressed with company personnel, especially founder Mathew Gerson, and from what I hear, dispensaries are selling out of Foria quickly.

Exhibiting companies ran the gambit from corporately well organized to mom-and-pop operations. On the floor below there was a full day of half-hour industry panels and presentations from knowledgeable guest speakers. Subjects often were geared toward attendees trying to figure out how they could fit into this business. - Full Article

Marijuana Startups Like Tokken Aim To Provide The Cannabis Industry With Banking Services, But Will Legal Shifts Put Them Out Of Business?

By Internation Business | Times April 7, 2016
Growing up, Lamine Zarrad learned the hard way what it’s like to be a disenfranchised outsider. Born in Azerbaijan, Zarrad and his parents fled ethnic conflict in the former Soviet republic in the 1990s and ended up living in a freezing former lithium processing factory in Moscow. Surrounded by contaminated machinery, they survived on condensed milk and corn flakes distributed by Western nongovernmental organizations.

That’s why, after emigrating with his family to the United States as a teenager and embarking on a wide-ranging career that included a stint in the Marines and a job at Merrill Lynch during the 2008 financial crisis, he got a job as Denver-based bank examiner for the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and quickly identified with an entire industry filled with outsiders: The burgeoning marijuana market. Just as he had been, the industry was financially disenfranchised.

While cannabis businesses make up one of the fastest-growing industries in the country, many of them are devoid of the basic financial services most other companies take for granted, such as bank accounts and credit card processing. (A recent Marijuana Business Daily poll found 60 percent of marijuana enterprises don’t have banking services.) The main reason for the lack of banking services is marijuana is still labeled a Schedule I narcotic by the federal government, and so banks and credit card companies fear prosecution if they work with cannabis-related ventures. Zarrad’s Treasury Department bosses weighed in on the matter in 2014, noting in a guidance that financial institutions providing services to marijuana enterprises should carefully track the businesses and their conduct. But it was far from a ringing endorsement of cannabis banking, and possibly made matters more difficult. Now financial institutions that want to work with marijuana-related clients must undertake expensive oversight of those businesses, with little legal protection. - Full Article

Whoopi Goldberg Founds Medical Marijuana Company for Women

By USA Today | March 30, 2016
Whoopi Goldberg is lending her name and financial backing to a new line of medical marijuana products designed specifically for women.

Goldberg, who has been public about her own marijuana use, is one of a handful of Hollywood celebrities jumping into the marijuana marketplace. Bob Marley’s family has partnered with a cannabis company to produce Marley Natural products, and Snoop Dogg backs Leafs by Snoop. Goldberg said her “Whoopi & Maya” company received financial backing from three friends and family members, and she will serve as chairwoman.

“I want to go nice and slow with this. I don’t want this to be a joke to people. It’s not a joke to women,” Goldberg told USA TODAY. The company she’s co-founded offers four products: a balm, a tincture, sipping chocolate, and a bath soak. All are infused with marijuana and aim to reduce the pain and cramps from periods. Pricing has not yet been set.

The products sold under the “Whoopi & Maya brand” will be available only in California to people with their medical marijuana cards. Because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, the products today is unavailable elsewhere.

The new “Whoopi & Maya” line of marijuana products

The marijuana industry is one of the country’s fastest growing industries, increasing annually by 31%, with a national market worth $5.7 billion, say the two research firms.

By launching in California, Goldberg and partner Maya Elisabeth are entering one of the world’s largest marijuana marketplaces, with California producing $2.7 billion in sales last year, according to the cannabis-focused data firms New Frontier and ArcView Market Research.

California voters this fall are widely expected to pass a ballot measure legalizing recreational marijuana. In many cases, medical and recreational products are identical; the only difference is whether a user needs a doctor’s recommendation.

California lawmakers this summer approved series of measures formalizing the state’s medical marijuana system. Those measures lay the groundwork for a legal recreational system, and could potentially give anyone offering medical marijuana products a leg up in selling recreational products if they’re legalized this fall.

“Success at the ballot box would massively increase California’s total legal market share,” Troy Dayton, CEO of The ArcView Group, said in a statement.

Elisabeth said she and Goldberg believe their niche — if you can call 50% of the population a niche, she laughs — is ripe for success. She said women have for generations been herbal healers, and she believes the company’s marijuana products are no different.

There’s very little scientific research available about the benefits of medical marijuana use, largely because the federal government has sharply restricted it. Researchers only now are starting to conduct sophisticated trials about its potential benefits for PTSD and seizure sufferers. England’s Queen Victoria is widely believed to have used a similar tincture to relieve her own cramps, Elisabeth said.

“I’m excited for people to feel comfortable using cannabis,” said Elisabeth, a founder of the all-female Northern California edible marijuana products cooperative Om Edibles. - Full Article

Medical Marijuana (Cannabis) “Business Park” Growing in Tempe

By Phoenix New Times | March 28, 2016
Zoned Properties, a medical-marijuana real-estate company, is developing what it bills as the state’s first “medical-marijuana business park.”

The Scottsdale-based company announced on March 17 that it had signed a deal to lease 25,000 square feet of space in a building near 52nd Street and University Drive in Tempe, with an option to lease 40,000 square feet. As a press release notes, Zoned Properties lobbied Tempe successfully to change its zoning requirements a few months ago, allowing 25,000-square-foot medical-marijuana cultivation and food-processing facilities.

Zoned Properties, as documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and City of Tempe show, agrees to put $2.5 million of development into the site at 410 Madison Drive, then collect a rent that increases over time. The lease deal is with Catalina Partners III LLC, the firm behind the Catalina Hills dispensary in Tucson. Zoned has to file with the SEC because it sells stock to the public.

Back in January, the up-and-coming company touted how it got the city ordinance changed. The city required previously that cultivation centers could have only one door, which restricted their size to 5,000 square feet. Ryan Levesque, deputy director of planning at the city of Tempe, stated in the company’s release at the time that city officials were “pleased” with the changes. - Full Article

‘Marijuana’ Ads Fail Google Policy Test

Promotions from state dispensary rejected by leading search engine

By Times Union | March 18, 2016
Don’t try to Google the terms “medical marijuana” or “medical cannabis” and expect to find ads for dispensaries in New York.

The operator of one of five new medical marijuana providers in the state recently learned that the hard way.

When he tried to advertise with the search engine giant he found that ads with those terms — “medical cannabis” or “medical marijuana” — were rejected.

While Google accepted other ads without those terms, it was akin to, say, Ford running a search engine ad without the term “car” or “truck,” said Ari Hoffnung, CEO of Vireo Health of New York, one of five providers recently licensed under the state’s Compassionate Care Act which allows limited use of medical marijuana.

“We are confident that our advertisements comply with Google’s policy,” Hoffnung wrote in a letter to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin on Tuesday.

“Our products are sold strictly and exclusively for medicinal purposes and in conformance with New York State law.” - Full Article

Tanner Hall and the Athlete’s Case for Cannabis

By New Yorker | March 18, 2016
In February, Tanner Hall, one of the greatest freestyle skiers of all time—he won seven X Games gold medals and four silver in the Big Air, SlopeStyle, and Superpipe events between 2001 and 2009—signed a deal with a Denver-based cannabis-accessories company called Black Rock Originals. Hall, who is now thirty-two and based in northern California, near Lake Tahoe, helped the company create the Skiboss Collection, which consists of rolling papers, a cheese-grater-like card for grinding nuggets on the go, and a lighter, all tucked inside a travel-friendly pouch.

“We were all stoked,” Hall said recently, referring to everyone’s satisfaction with the finished product. He’d just returned to California after a few weeks of “ripping” in British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains. Near a backcountry lodge he co-owns, Hall and twelve pals built what he described as “a twenty-two-foot-tall Hot Wheels-type loop out of wood.” He continued, “We all filled it in and skied around Evel Knievel style. We crushed it hard.” The entire effort was filmed for a ski movie planned for release on iTunes this fall.

Hall is the first skier and, it appears, the second active professional athlete—behind ultra-runner Avery Collins, who is sponsored by Mary’s Medicinals—to formally partner with a cannabis company. For those who know him, this is not a big surprise: Hall has also inspired a line of ski gear (including a backpack and high-performance mittens) with the company DaKine, known, winkingly, as THC—that is, the Tanner Hall Collection. Still, it was an unprecedented move for a skier, even in the latter stages of his career, to accept outright sponsorship from a weed brand. - Full Article

Only 1% of US Marijuana Dispensaries are Owned by Black Americans

By Tech Insider | March 18, 2016
For decades, the “war on drugs” put black Americans in the center of its cross hairs. They are far more likely to be arrested for growing, smoking, or selling marijuana — outnumbering whites on possession charges nearly 4-to-1. Now, those eager to cash in on the budding legal cannabis industry are out of luck if they have any drug felonies on their rap sheet.

The legal pot market soared higher than ever in 2015. Sales increased 15% to $5.4 billion, toppling those of the e-cigarette business and the Girl Scouts combined. Helped along by continued legalization trends, the industry could reach between $21 billion and $44 billion by 2020. Still, it appears black people are being boxed out of so-called “green rush.”

Only 1% of US marijuana dispensaries are owned by black Americans, according to a new investigative report by BuzzFeed’s Amanda Chicago Lewis.

Chicago Lewis says that there are not yet any statistics on race and pot shop ownership, but she interviewed over 150 people involved in the industry and found that black people ran fewer than three dozen of the 3,200 to 3,600 dispensaries in the US. - Full Article

Legal Cannabis Outsold Girl Scout Cookies Last Year

By Forbes Business | March 14, 2016
Sales of recreational marijuana could surpass medical marijuana as early as 2018, according to a new report from Marijuana Business Daily.

MBD estimates that retail sales for recreational and medical marijuana combined will be between $3.5 billion and $4.3 billion in 2016. That would mean growth of 17%-26% over last year’s sales. Recreational marijuana will account for roughly $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion in sales in 2016, and MBD projects sales will climb to $2.6-$3.8 billion by 2018. While medical marijuana sales are expected to grow as well, it is only forecast to be in the range of $2.3-$4.0 billion by 2018.

To put this in perspective, in 2015 legal cannabis outsold Girl Scout cookies. The total cannabis market in the U.S., which includes illegal sales, is estimated to be in the range of $40-$45 billion. This means the marijuana market is bigger than craft beer, wine and organic food.

One of the most surprising success stories of the legal cannabis industry has been the popularity of cannabis infused products. Edibles and concentrate sales are growing monthly and now represent 30% of total sales. Plus, they are very profitable businesses. Of the infused product manufacturers, 27 percent are very profitable, 27% say they are modestly profitable and 37% are breaking even. Only 9% are losing money. 24% of the infused product manufacturers operate in at least 2 states and these early adopters are expected to be the winners when competition forces consolidation. - Full Article

Marijuana US Economic Impact to Reach $44 Billion by 2020

By 24/7 Wall St | March 14, 2016
From an estimated total impact on the U.S. economy in 2016 of $14 billion to $17 billion, the cannabis industry’s impact will grow to an estimated $44 billion by 2020. Sales from dispensaries and stores will account for $11 billion of the 2020 total, while the remainder represents the ripple effects of cannabis legalization either for medicinal or recreational use.

Sales of cannabis products are estimated to total $3.5 billion to $4.3 billion this year, up by 17% to 26% compared with estimated 2015 sales. Marijuana products sold for recreational purposes could outsell medicinal marijuana as soon as 2018

The data were published Monday by Marijuana Business Daily in the 2016 Marijuana Business Factbook. Estimates are based on sales of medical and recreational marijuana at the retail level, including flower, infused products and concentrates. For each dollar spent at retail, the Factbook estimates that the economic benefit realized amounts to an additional three dollars.

Chris Walsh, managing editor of Marijuana Business Daily, said:

The projections reflect marijuana’s march towards the mainstream as it emerges from the shadows to become a respectable, above-board industry that is giving birth to scores of jobs, fostering new business opportunities and creating a broad ripple effect across the country. We’re witnessing the emergence of a business that is about to become a massive economic force. - Full Article

Cannabis-Derived Drug Shows Promise for Kids with Epilepsy; GW Pharma Stock Doubles

By Washington Post | March 14, 2016
In 2014, I interviewed a number of moms from across the country who were fighting to get access to a form of cannabis oil that they believed would help their children’s seizures. They had an uphill battle in lobbying conservative legislatures to allow them to import the oil and in convincing their own doctors to try the experimental treatment. Many ended up going to Colorado, where there is a small community of growers, medical practitioners and researchers willing to work with them.

Their work may have finally paid off.

GW Pharmaceuticals announced Monday that the first of its four major studies of the cannabis-based drug appeared to dramatically reduce seizures in patients with Dravet syndrome, a rare and severe form of epilepsy.

“This shows that cannabinoids can produce compelling and clinical important data and represent a highly promising new class of medications, hopefully in a range of conditions,” Justin Gover, GW Pharmaceuticals’ chief executive, told Reuters.

The trial, which involved 120 patients, showed that the median reduction in convulsive seizures was 39 percent in those taking the drug, called Epidiolex, versus 13 percent in those taking a placebo. The mean age of patients was 10 years old and they had previously tried and failed an average of more than four anti-epileptic treatments.

GW is also conducting other Phase 3 studies on Dravet syndrome with 150 patients and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome and Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.

Orrin Devinsky, a researcher with New York University Langone Medical Center’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center who is the principal investigator, said that the data finally provides the epilepsy community “the prospect of an appropriately standardized and tested pharmaceutical formulation of cannabidiol being made available by prescription in the future.”

The company’s announcement that it will be seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment sent its shares soaring 120 percent by midday. The company has fast-track status for its application to treatment on newborns with epilepsy. Jim Cramer of “The Street” said on CNBC’s Squawk that the positive reaction may also be due to the hope that the drug could replace some addictive painkillers. - Full Article

Why This Marijuana Stock Lost 14.9% in February

Trial failures and mounting expenses are weighing down GW Pharmaceuticals plc shares.

By Motley Fool | March 12, 2016
What: After reporting fourth-quarter financial results and updating investors on the progress it’s making in developing marijuana-based medicine, shares in GW Pharmaceuticals plc (NASDAQ:GWPH) toppled 14.9% last month, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

So what: Perhaps, no other biotechnology company is as committed to creating medicine from marijuana cannabinoids as GW Pharmaceuticals. The company has been researching THC and CBD derived medicine since the 1990s and it already markets a THC-based drug, Sativex, in Europe.

However, GW Pharmaceuticals has been stumbling lately, and that’s taken a toll on its share price.

Last year, three pivotal late-stage studies evaluating its marijuana medicine for cancer pain failed to outperform a sugar pill, and another trial studying a marijuana medicine in schizophrenia patients also fell short of expectations.

Those failures were followed up by an admission by management in January that the company has material weaknesses in its accounting practices for clinical trial activities. And on Feb. 10, it updated investors on its financials, revealing that sales of Sativex were a tepid $5 million and that expenses eclipsed $40 million last quarter. - Full Article

The Marijuana Business Might Have a High-Stakes Pest Problem

By Market Watch | March 7, 2016
Moving the black market in marijuana into the light has been a boon for state tax coffers, entrepreneurs and cannabis users, but an inconvenient fact went unaddressed in the process: Potentially dangerous chemicals are used to grow it.

That changed last fall, when a Colorado newspaper’s investigation found shelves stocked with products grown using pesticides that hadn’t been approved for cannabis farming, spurring a rush of legal, regulatory and business activity.

Since then, states have quickly drawn up regulations, companies have seen their products and methods put under the microscope — sometimes taking big hits to their businesses — and cannabis product and pesticide buyers have filed lawsuits against their manufacturers.

There is even concern that the Federal government could intervene out of concern for public health, stalling the spread of cannabis legalization and the growth it has fostered.

“If the feds wanted to crack down, we’ve given them all the reasons to,” said Nic Easley, Comprehensive Cannabis Consulting founder and chief executive, who has helped more than 60 cultivators develop their growing practices.

Little long-term research on cannabis-related pesticide risks
The use of pesticides in marijuana cultivation attracted widespread attention in September, when the first of 25 recalls of cannabis products over five months in Colorado was announced. The recalls followed a September Denver Post investigation that found pesticides the state hadn’t approved for marijuana farming on products sold at dispensaries. - Full Article

Deerfield Spa Trumpets Benefits of Cannabis Infused Lotions

By Chicago Tribune | March 4, 2016
When the first Illinois medical marijuana dispensary opened last year, Anna Pamula was delighted, and even attended the grand opening to show her support.

The long-time owner of Deerfield’s Renu Day Spa said she has always been a huge proponent of holistic healing and pain-relief treatments, and said the legalization of dispensaries motivated her to start offering something new at her spa that will benefit clients facing cancer and other illnesses: cannabis-infused lotions, sprays, oils and supplements.

“I have been researching these products for a long time,” said the Polish-born Pamula, a licensed esthetician, massage therapist and electrologist, who has owned Renu since the late 1980s. “They are used for localized relief of pain, soreness and inflammation, but they are non-psychoactive, meaning they don’t have the active ingredient in marijuana that produces the high.”

Renu offers spot massage, manicures and pedicures using cannabis lotions, oils, and sprays which Pamula said have several benefits, not only to those going through chemotherapy, but to men and women with compromised immune systems, multiple sclerosis, lupus, arthritis, eczema and severe allergies. - Full Article

Cannabis Entrepreneur Turns Dixie Cups And Duct Tape Into Successful Pot Plant-Shipping Business

By FORBES | February 27, 2016
Larry Fenner loves to tinker, and his new invention demonstrates that you don’t have to have an engineering degree to turn an idea into a successful product. Starting with two Dixie cups, foam padding, a bulb, wires and duct tape two years ago, Fenner created the Clone Shipper, a way to transport young plants. In 2014 he secured $300K in investment capital and is on track to sell 80,000 units this year.

As a marijuana grower, Fenner knew that having “clones,” young plants with the exact genetic specifications desired, shaved six months off a farmer’s growing cycle compared to starting with seeds. “If you start with seeds, first you need them to sprout, then you need to sex the pants and just take the females, and then let them grow a bit to see what traits they have,” he said, likening the process to watching siblings grow up and seeing how they turned out. Once a plant with the required specifications is identified, cuttings can propagate the line, so each new plant is the same as its “mother.”

Growers prefer to start with these young clone plants but shipping/receiving clones has been challenging Fenner said, because they are young and fragile, and can die in transit if they spill, run out of water, or are deprived of light for too long. His two-connecting-Dixie-cup invention included a small light and a way to keep the soil moist without spilling. He started selling the hand-made pieces over the internet. - Full Article

Colorado Debates Organic Labels for Marijuana

By Business Insider | February 18, 2016
Marijuana has attracted many labels in its time. On Friday, Colorado lawmakers debate whether the state should give the drug one more often associated with purple carrots than purple haze — certified organic.

Colorado starts work Friday on becoming the first state to regulate organic labels in its pot industry, with other legal weed states watching to see whether they too should step in to help consumers wondering what’s on their weed. Organic standards are regulated federally, and pot remains illegal at the federal level, meaning there’s nothing stopping commercial pot growers from calling their wares organic.

“Consumers have a right to know what they’re putting in their body,” said Colorado Rep. Jonathan Singer, a Democrat sponsoring the bill to create the state-sanctioned labels. The bill has its first hearing Friday in the state House Public Health Care and Human Services Committee. The measure doesn’t specify what growers would have to do to get the certification, it instead directs the state’s agricultural department to get a third party to draft the regulations. The bill also doesn’t say which pesticides would be off-limits for organic growers.

Consumer confusion over organic marijuana peaked in Colorado earlier this year, when Denver health authorities seized thousands of marijuana plants from growers suspected of using off-limits chemicals on their plants.

Most of the plants were ultimately released, but some were sold with names that suggested the products were natural or organic.

“That misleads people,” said Larisa Bolivar, head of the Cannabis Consumers Coalition. “We don’t want to wait for someone to get sick. You need to know that when something says organic, it’s organic.” - Full Article

Stoner Icon Makes a Comeback in Marijuana Business, Politics

By The Sacramento Bee | February 14, 2016
He became a stoner cultural icon in 1978 with “Up in Smoke,” the first of a lucrative series of Cheech & Chong movies that comically celebrated pleasures of pot during a wholly illicit era for marijuana.

Tommy Chong went on to go to federal prison in 2003 after pleading guilty to distributing drug paraphernalia by selling bongs and water pipes over the Internet. At 65, he announced he’d quit smoking the marijuana herb that made him famous and rich.

Now Chong, who turns 78 in May, is reemerging as a wry sage in the marijuana politics movement. He stars in a viral video endorsement for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, in which he backs the Vermont senator as the next “Commander in Kush.”

He has also become cannabis products pitchman in this unprecedented era of expanding marijuana legalization.

This weekend, Chong has been a speaker, party guest and sought-out presence at the International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco, a teeming industry and activism event underscoring marijuana’s changing place in politics, commerce and culture.

In an open ballroom, he has been talking up his Chong’s Choice Products, a selection of designer marijuana strains touted as the first “multi-territory” celebrity pot brand. The products are grown in Colorado for recreational and medical dispensaries there and are also cultivated and sold for medicinal use in Arizona and California. - Full Article

Tech Start-Ups Hope for Marijuana Sales Growth

CNBC | February 3, 2016
The start-up world can expect to see a different kind of green in the next few years if the marijuana business grows as rapidly as some expect.

Legal marijuana sales grew to $5.4 billion in 2015, up from $4.6 billion in the prior year, and sales are expected to grow by 25 percent to about $6.7 billion this year, according to research firm Arcview’s latest marijuana market report.

“We are going to see the legal cannabis industry create, tailor to and adapt technology for agriculture, plant compound extraction, security and finance,” said Leslie Bocskor, a funds manager who focuses on marijuana businesses for Electrum Partners. “As the industry grows, it will rely on technology to facilitate the development of businesses from an innovation perspective, which will create a more fertile environment for investment.”

“We at Electrum expect the legal cannabis industry to be the leading creator of new jobs, leading provider of new tax revenue, and the overall leading creator of wealth in the U.S. for the next 10 years,” said Bocskor, who wouldn’t disclose how much his firm has invested in marijuana-related businesses. - Full Article

A Primer on Mixing Caffeine and Marijuana

What to know before you wake and make coffee

By Outside | January 29, 2016
The legalization of marijuana has brought a bumper crop of weed-laced foodstuffs, from cookies and candies to sodas—and now, coffee. For those who don’t have the wherewithal to brew their own from scratch, a handful of companies in California and Washington are offering cannabis-infused coffee products. In January, California-based Ganja Grindz became the first company to sell their enhanced K-cups, filters, and beans in multiple states.

The owner of Ganja Grindz, who goes by the name Haze, says cannabis coffee “gives you the fired-up focus you get from that first cup of coffee in the morning,” but with the added calm that helps you organize and attack your day.

We have some questions before we sip, though. Is it really a good idea to combine the stimulant effects of coffee with the psychoactive zing of marijuana? More importantly for anyone who has to function in society, where do the risks fall on the spectrum of Edibles-Gone-Wrong—on a scale of Maureen Dowd’s unfortunate candy bar experiment to exploding infused soda?

There’s not a lot of scientific research on what happens when you cross marijuana with any drug, says Jordan Tishler, a Harvard-trained physician who now specializes in cannabis-based medicine. From an anecdotal standpoint, he says, the caffeine-and-marijuana combination is probably fine. He’s never heard of a scenario where someone had a ghastly reaction after consuming both substances—which makes sense, based on how they work in the body. - Full Article

Former NBA All-Star, Oregon Weed Farmer Cliff Robinson Talks Marijuana’s Potential

By The Portland Business Journal | January 20, 2016
An upcoming marijuana business conference will, to NBA fans, feature a very familiar face.
The 2016 Cannabis Collaborative Conference, which takes place Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 at the Portland Expo Center, will host former Blazers great Cliff Robinson. The former NBA All-Star has become a cannabis advocate and will address the expected crowd of 2,500 attendees.

The conference itself promises to ways to help Oregon’s cannabis purveyors prepare for the advent of wider distribution systems. It will also feature a career readiness event as well as a ” marijuana investor summit boot camp.”

But, to many, it will most of all serve as the emergence of a former high-flying athlete as an industry champion. Robinson, who spent eight years with the Trail Blazers, is likely the highest-profile athlete, active or retired, to endorse the use of cannabis. - Full Article

The Rebranding of Reefer: Savvy Startups Work to Class Up Cannabis and Fight the Stoner Stigma

‘The Project Our People Are Clamoring Over’

By Ad Age | January 19, 2016
In many ways, brand marijuana was established a long time ago. The accoutrements of weed smoking found at head shops in cities and college towns across the U.S. were all adorned with requisite motifs: dancing bears and tie-dyed swirls, skull-faced jesters and Rastafied marijuana leaves. Now that cannabis and its offshoot products are available legally to medical and recreational imbibers from retailers in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, companies producing regulated marijuana, infused cookies, candies and extracts and the dispensaries selling them aim to give marijuana a makeover — laying the groundwork for product branding that has no precedent in the mainstream market.

The players are investing in sharp packaging, refined logos, retail design and the talent to build on their progress. While marketing minds step in to assist this new crop of clientele, however, larger agencies appear to be sitting on the sidelines as the industry struggles to overcome hurdles including a lack of standardization, a cold shoulder from banks, and illegality in the eyes of the federal government.

And despite the effort to elevate cannabis above its lowbrow past, innovators still find themselves fighting the goofy puns and imagery of underground pot. An anthropomorphized marijuana bud in sunglasses smokes an overstuffed spliff on Canadian mail-order marijuana service Bud Buddy’s website. A droopy-eyed cartoon stoner welcomes web users to HerbiesHeadShop.com. Both promise stealth shipping and operate outside the law. - Full Article

Three Biggest Reasons Tobacco Giants Eye Lucrative $50 Billion Marijuana Market

By The Daily Caller | January 4, 2016
Big tobacco conglomerates are positioning themselves to muscle into the growing marijuana business if the drug wins nationwide legal status, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

Cigarette smoking has been declining for years, so the tobacco giants see at least three huge ways they can benefit from legal marijuana:

• New Market: Marijuana represents a vast untapped new market for tobacco firms. There are an estimated 4-6 million regular users now but Marijuana’s Marlboro Man hasn’t yet been introduced – that is, a well-defined brand that attracts loyal, repeat customers.
• Redeem Smoking: Millions of regular marijuana buyers extend their high by smoking the drug. That means legalized marijuana may help reduce the current stigma on regular cigarettes. - Full Article

Merced “Nuns” Fight To Keep Their Marijuana Based Business

By ABC 30 | January 1, 2016
The “Sisters of the Valley” have been producing salves and tonics made with cannabis. While their products won’t make anyone high, they are fighting to keep the city council from putting them out of business.

The new year marks the first anniversary of a marijuana-based business in Merced. The sisters are not members of a religious order but they say they are on a spiritual quest to heal the sick with their cannabis cures.

Sister Kate and Sister Darcey are tending their small crop of marijuana plants in the garage of
the home they share in Merced. They consider themselves nuns, but are not Catholic, or traditionally religious.

They produce a variety of products made from the cannabinoids or CBD’s found in the marijuana

plant. Their plants do not contain THC, the substance that creates the marijuana high. They believe creating these healing substances is a spiritual quest. - Full Article

This Strain of Marijuana Is Extending the Benefits of Chill to a Whole New Group of People

By .Mic on Yahoo | December 31, 2015
In the struggle for legalized marijuana products, one group has often found itself left out of the pot party — Jews.

While plenty of Jews know how to enjoy a hit or two, for those who follow Judaic dietary laws, it’s got to be kosher. And so far, that’s been something of a problem. “Weed use for pleasure is forbidden,” Andrew Zeitler, an Orthodox millennial living in Israel, told Mic.

Buzzkill.

But things may be starting to change. A New York company is gearing up to sell what it’s billing as the first-ever kosher medical marijuana.

Vireo Health of New York, one of five licensed New York state purveyors of medical marijuana, announced on Wednesday that it has been officially certified kosher by the Orthodox Union. This means Vireo products — vaporization cartridges, capsules and oils — will display the OU coveted seal of endorsement: the ? symbol on its packaging.
“Being certified kosher by the OU will not only help us serve the dietary needs of the largest Jewish community in the United States, but also combat unfortunate stigmas associated with medical cannabis,” Vireo CEO Ari Hoffnung said in a press statement. “Patients should never feel guilty or ashamed for using a product recommended by their physicians.” - Full Article

Stars Cash in on Branded Marijuana

By CBS News | December 30, 2015
Snoop Dogg has his own line of marijuana. So does Willie Nelson. Melissa Etheridge has a marijuana-infused wine.As the fast-growing marijuana industry emerges from the black market and starts looking like a mainstream industry, there’s a scramble to brand and trademark pot products.

The celebrity endorsements are just the latest attempt to add cachet to a line of weed. Snoop Dogg calls his eight strains of weed “Dank From the Doggfather Himself.” Nelson’s yet-to-be-released line says the pot is “born of the awed memories of musicians who visited Willie’s bus after a show.”

The pot industry’s makeshift branding efforts, from celebrity names on boxes of weed to the many weed-themed T-shirts and stickers common in towns with a legal marijuana market, show the industry taking halting steps toward the mainstream.

Problem is, those weed brands aren’t much more substantial than the labels they’re printed on. Patents and trademarks are largely regulated by the federal government, which considers marijuana an illegal drug and therefore ineligible for any sort of legal protection.- Full Article

Alaska’s Pot Cafes Will Give Patrons A Taste Of Cannabis

By NPR | December 24, 2015
Alaska is about to become the first state to have pot cafes where people can buy and consume marijuana, similar to Amsterdam.

Right now, that’s not legal in other states that have recreational marijuana.

Brothers James and Giono Barrett, who own a marijuana business, Rainforest Farms, in Juneau, also plan to produce a line of chocolate bars infused with pot. They’ll be an alternative to the sugary, processed edibles Giono says he has eaten recently in Colorado.

“Man, when I was down there there was just a lot of products I didn’t want to put in my body at all — not because of the cannabis,” he says. “I actually got sick off one of them. I got nauseous.”

Unlike Colorado, Rainforest Farms can have a cafe for its customers to eat their pot-infused treats. In November, the Alaska state marijuana control board approved on-site consumption at retail stores. Those businesses could start popping up as early as summer. Each municipality has to give the ultimate OK. - Full Article

Justin Trudeau and the Cannabis Factory

By The Economist | December 19, 2015
AT A former Hershey’s chocolate factory just outside Ottawa a company called Tweed now produces a rather different confection: marijuana for Canada’s tightly regulated medical market. Under the gaze of surveillance cameras, scientists in lab coats concoct new cannabis-based blends in near-sterile conditions. A repurposed candy mixer does the blending. Only in the growing rooms does the spirit of Cheech and Chong, a stoned comedy duo, seem to preside: the plants have names like Black Widow, Deep Purple, Chem Dawg and Bubba Kush.

The market, though growing fast, is still tiny: just 30,000 registered patients buy their supplies from licensed firms like Tweed (short for therapeutic weed). Its parent company had sales of C$4.2m ($3.1m) in the six months that ended on September 30th. But the promise by Justin Trudeau, Canada’s new prime minister, to legalise marijuana could widen the customer base to well beyond the 3m Canadians thought to consume it now. The government’s first “speech from the throne” on December 4th named legalisation as one of its priorities.

The existence of companies like Tweed, which obtained a stockmarket listing in 2014—long before Mr Trudeau, a tattooed former snowboarding instructor, looked likely to become prime minister—suggests that Canada’s transition from remedial to recreational pot will be smooth. It probably won’t be. “It’s going to be a lot harder to implement than you think,” said Lewis Koski, until recently the director of marijuana enforcement in Colorado, to a Canadian news agency. Colorado is one of four American states to have legalised the drug. Canada, likely to be the first large country to take that step, faces bigger obstacles. - Full Article

Will Mindy Segal’s Pot Treats Blaze New Opportunities for Chefs?

By The Chicago Eater | December 8, 2015
Mindy Segal has been at the forefront of many dessert innovations over the years, and now Chicago’s sweets queen is becoming the first prominent award-winning chef in the United States to professionally develop and attach her personal brand to retail products with weed.

Segal, seizing a massive opportunity in an untapped market for noteworthy chefs, is launching a line of edible marijuana sweets, in a partnership with Cresco Labs (Illinois’ largest cannabis cultivator), that will initially feature three flavors of chocolate brittle bars, granola bites, a chocolate drink that’s meant to be warmed, and a do-it-yourself cake and cookie mix, which was first revealed in a press release.

The patients who eat Segal’s edible marijuana foodstuffs will be able to taste items that are just as delicious as the award-winning pot-free items she’s been cooking for decades, as she says that “people can expect a product that’s as good as what’s in my restaurant.” While many of the items are still in development, and Segal says she’s been using marijuana butter and not extraction yet, medical weed patients can look forward to caramelized white chocolate and butterscotch nibs brittle, peanut butter brittle with beer nut toffee and whipped peanut butter, and smoked almond toffee brittle, in addition to the chocolate drink and mix. Other items are coming down the line. - Full Article

Marijuana Industry Sets Its Sights On The Mainstream

By The Huffington Post | November 24, 2015
Marijuana is growing up. As Colorado and Washington’s recreational marijuana industries blossom and new markets in Oregon and Alaska begin to take shape, so-called ganjapreneurs are looking for ways to take cannabis mainstream. Before long, they hope, marijuana products will be as widely available as alcohol — and just as socially acceptable.

“Ideally, I would like to see the 21-to-35 year-old taking a four-pack of these to a barbecue,” Joe Hodas, chief marketing director for the marijuana product manufacturer Dixie, said earlier this year of the company’s new watermelon cream-flavored “elixir,” Dixie One. The drink contains five milligrams of THC — just enough to produce a subtle buzz.

“This is a full experience in a bottle, much like beer,” Hodas said. “Sometimes they’ll want a beer, sometimes they’ll want two or three beers. This sort of affords you that calibration.” - Full Article

‘Godmother’ of Cannabis Meets Her Tech-Happy Children at SF Pot Summit

By CNET | November 22, 2015
Lynette Shaw, the self-proclaimed “godmother of marijuana dispensaries,” is thrilled that tech is helping bring cannabis into the mainstream.

“It’s fabulous. I’m honored to see my godchildren creating all of this,” the 61-year-old said here Friday at the inaugural New West Summit, a two-day conference on the budding billion-dollar convergence of pot with technology, business and media.

Shaw, who in 1997 opened one of the first legal cannabis dispensaries in the US, received a lifetime achievement award at the confab, for her work as an activist in legalizing medical marijuana. And her “godchildren” were well represented at the summit, which wrapped up this weekend.

The conference featured dozens of information booths and 30 panel discussions devoted to pot and tech and other topics. The buzz has been building for some time, said Amy Poinsett, co-founder and CEO of Denver-based MJFreeway.com, a leading maker of business software that tracks legalized weed as it goes from grower to dispensary to user. - Full Article

The Art of Pot Packaging

Leafs by Snoop is using design to make marijuana appeal to upscale consumers.

By The Atlantic | November 18, 2015
Goodbye, plastic baggies: Snoop Dogg’s new line of marijuana products, Leafs by Snoop, looks like it’d be right at home amongst the artisanal chocolate bars at Whole Foods or the all-natural lotions at Kiehl’s. And that’s no surprise, considering that the packaging was created by the powerhouse design firm Pentagram.

The investment in design is about much more than pretty labels or distinctive branding. With four states’ legalization of recreational marijuana use, and medical marijuana now legal in 23 states, there’s an ever-increasing market for legal highs. The key goal for companies like Pentagram is making products seem accessible and appealing to customers who defy the stoner mold. Cheryl Shuman, a consultant who’s known as the “Martha Stewart of Marijuana Branding,” told Fast Company that “women are the secret to this whole thing. I’m a mom in my 50s, and I try to make products that women want to buy.” She calls successful women who smoke “stiletto stoners.” - Full Article

California Marijuana Growers Reel From Cannabis Farms Consumed By Wildfires

By International Business Times | October 26, 2015
Mike Ray got the call one afternoon in mid-September, while he was in San Francisco working at Bloom Farms, the medical marijuana company he founded. The Butte Fire, which has been burning in Calaveras County northeast of the Bay Area for over a week, was moving toward his family’s 300-acre farm. The operation, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, had been Ray’s home as a teenager and had a 99-plant marijuana grow that was the main source of his company’s high-cannabidiol (CBD) cannabis oil. There had been close calls with wildfires in the area, but the blazes had always changed directions before reaching the farm.

This one, however, didn’t look like it was going to shift.

Ray, 36, drove to San Andreas, the Calaveras county seat, where he met his parents and brother, who’d been evacuated from the farm. Trucks and horse trailers clogged the streets and ash fell from the sky like snowflakes. “It was really ominous,” says Ray. “It looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off on the mountain range behind us, which was our area.” - Full Article

On ‘The Marijuana Show’ It’s Cannabis Companies Meet ‘Shark Tank’ With $10 Million At Stake

By FORBES | July 10, 2015
Two hundred applications in just two weeks came flooding in when Wendy Robbins and Karen Paull put the call out for marijuana entrepreneurs interested in entering their internet-TV business competition, “The Marijuana Show.” Most were very small enterprises or just in the idea stage Robbins said. The wide variety of concepts included a cannabis country club, a line of hemp butter products, and a marijuana delivery phone app. “We couldn’t believe the amount of interest,” said Robbins. - Full Article

<h4>Cannabis-Infused Wine Delivers a “Full Body Buzz” Says Melissa Etheridge</h4>

By CBS News | December 3, 2014
Pot brownies, cookies and other potent treats have been around for years, but as more states pass legislation to legalize marijuana, a rock star would like to introduce you to a more sophisticated (SATIVAisticated) form of cannabis cuisine.

In partnership with the owners of Greenway Compassionate Relief, a medical marijuana dispensary in Santa Cruz, California, Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge is cultivating a line of “cannabis-infused fine wines.” Due to legal restrictions, however, she’s only allowed to call her creation a “wine tincture.”

What kind of effect does it have on the body? “You feel a little buzzed from the alcohol and then get a delicious full body buzz,” Etheridge told CBS News.

Unlike most other edibles, Etheridge’s wine tincture doesn’t involve heating the cannabis. The “cold extraction” that takes place during fermentation creates a compound that she says is far less psychoactive than the compounds found in marijuana smoke or cooked edibles. In other words, the wine won’t make you high or paranoid.

Etheridge told CBS News that after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and going through chemotherapy she began using marijuana for medicinal reasons. - Full Article