• Bierman's recent tenure has been marked by a lawsuit against the company by a former CFO and an untenable burn rate. Barron's
• MedMen's board of directors is seeking out a new chief executive. CTO Ryan Lissack is acting in an interim capacity.
• Bierman will also be surrendering his super voting shares.

Quick Hits

1. In the middle installment of of a three-part series on legal weed's crisis point, we get some historical perspecive on how we arrived at it. MJ Biz Daily

1. Their cannabis-forward strides don’t produce major headlines, but mid-size and small municipalities that weren’t participating in the legal cannabis market are now warming to the industry. This week, Colin Kaepernick's hometown Turlock performed a complete 180-degree turn on legal weed — even got a location approved one block away from a private school that real, live children attend! Modesto Bee
2. A Fresno man who has been in the U.S. since he was 1 and a citizen since he was 12 was targeted for deportation after he returned to SFO from Canada. The reason? A 2012 pot conviction. SF-ist

• An essay by Diane Goldstein of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (formerly Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) argues that "arbitrary" caps on business licenses "inherently breed corruption and increased crime."

• Public health officials believe more than Vitamin E acetate is at the heart of last years illness spike. Analysis from the Mayo Clinic, among other research bodies, points to other causes.
• "Scared straight" tactics aren't driving away pen fans. Psychologist and public-policy analyst Robert MacCoun said, “We moralize to kids and exaggerate the harms, and then their own experience doesn’t match up... They were hearing about the most extreme harms, but that’s not what they’re observing among their friends, so they go to the other extreme and dismiss all harms.”
• This week the state announced that 75% of the illicit vapes seized by the state last December tested contained additives such as Vitamin E acetate. (Many also contained just a fraction of the THC advertised.)

• Northeast LA Division Officer Louis Mota was charged with attempting the theft as narcotics officers conducted an operation at a local grow. An employee reported to a police supervisor that she was missing money from her backpack. A surveillance camera reportedly revealed the thief to be Mota.

• Rand's signage and density study surveyed 1,887 participants aged 18–22 online between 2016–17. It found living near more MED "is positively associated with more frequent use of marijuana within the past month and greater expectations of marijuana's positive benefits." Dispensaries "with signage show stronger associations with number of times used each day and positive expectancies."
• The report “Factors Associated With Acquiring a Medical Marijuana Card: A Longitudinal Examination of Young Adults in California” found that young men who reported more frequent marijuana use were at greater odds of acquiring a medical marijuana card over the study period. No findings on the wetness of water were reported.

Quick Hit

1. In one of the week's more compelling podcast half hours, UCSF Professor of Clinical Medicine Donald Abrams said, "Cannabis has been a medicine for 3,000 years and only hasn’t been for 77. So I think we can harken back to some of the prehistoric information that we have that suggests that cannabis was useful in a number of different conditions. And those conditions are still, I think, responsive to cannabis as a medicine.” Cannabis Economy

• The City officially has 212 permitted cannabis businesses — 37 of which are dispensaries — operating within its limits. In the queue are 277 equity permit applications. Of the 212 permitted businesses, according to the report, “the actual number currently operating is likely closer to 118.”
• If 73% of San Francisco equity applicants are approved, according to the report, space and possibly commercial demand could become inadequate.

Quick Hit

• “By putting in the work and partnering with an experienced tax professional, cannabis operators will be able to avoid penalties, limit their audit risk and stay on track with their business goals.” Perhaps Tax season is here. Cannabis Industry Journal

• The City Council has included language saying that psilocybin should be "considered among the lowest law enforcement priorities for the City of Santa Cruz.” 'Shrooms are now like jaywalking in Santa Cruz.
• Santa Cruz is the third city to legalize or decriminalize the drug, whose full legalization is on the state's November ballot.

• The opposition came from those opposed to exposing workers to secondhand smoke. It's not clear how many of these people had actually worked in a Berkeley dispensary.

• Permitting for dispensary, er, retailer consumption could take as long as a year.

• Top-shelf legal Nevada pot is down to $2,400-$3,600 per pound after selling for as much as $4,000 at this time last year. Meanwhile mid-level bud is going for $1,800 to $2,200, which is down from $2,400 to $2,800 a year ago.

• Scarlett Johansson and Charlize Theron are known stoners. Quentin Tarantino once talked to Jimmy Kimmel about getting high with Pitt. And Leonardo DiCaprio gets called "vape lord" here.
• Infused truffles maker Coda Signatures, known for their premium infused truffles, will offer Oscar nominees a certificate for a private edibles experience worth $10,000.