May 9 2020,

TOGETHER WITH

ISOLATION & EDIBLES ARE HOOKING UP
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In the week of March 9 to March 15, cannabis edibles in California, Nevada, Washington and Colorado saw a 10.6 percentage increase in market share. 

Food-oriented weed's move toward dominance is no fluke. In these solitary times, edibles are blowin up.
Quartz

  • Far less social than doing a dab, gummies make up about half of the edibles market.
  • Concentrates were leading-edge in 2019, driving a lot of legal weed's growth.
  • Even before COVID-19, vape-related illness had caused vaporizer and dab use to slow.
  • Some see breaking from concentrates as reasonable during a respiratory pandemic.

Quick Hits

  1. We know edibles are breaking big and delivery is emergent, but will a kinder legal cannabis business model be a byproduct of what we're going through now?
    Inside Hook
  2. Here is the story of two different Tahoe cannabis dispensaries in two different states and how they are trying to navigate business.
    Tahoe Daily Tribune
This week on the podcast
The Book on Jack Herer

Dan Herer’s father crashed the hemp movement into existence with his self-published 1985 book The Emperor Wears No Clothes. A new ebook edition is out, and the pioneer’s son explains why hemp’s sacred text is more relevant than ever.

  • A post-divorce convert to cannabis, Jack Herer clashed with the established legalization movement
  • In 1980, the senior Herer was cited for “violation of the sedition” act for protesting pot prohibition and served 15 days in federal prison. It was there that he wrote the book, which was published on news print.
  • When a fan developed the “Jack Herer” strain, the man himself was present.
MEDMEN SHUTTERS FIVE FLORIDA DISPENSARIES
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On its web site last Sunday, MedMen announced it's temporarily closing five of its eight Florida dispensaries
Florida Politics

  • The company's stores in the sunshine state had their best month yet in April, selling 123,817 ounces of MED, a 52% increase over January sales.
  • It's not clear whether the closures are related to COVID-19. 
  • Med Men had contributed more than $6.1M to the Make It Legal Florida REC initiative, which failed to get onto the November ballot.
COVID KILLS POT LEGISLATION
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The sun lights up glass on the downtown Sacramento Skyline

Last year when state assembly member Rob Bonta (D-Oak.) introduced Assembly Bill 1948, operators invested disproportional hope in the tax-reduction measure.

Now, 
that bill and the rest of California weed's legislative agenda has been KO’d
MJ Biz Daily

  • “It really is a time of curtailing and managing expectations,” said K Street Consulting's Max Mikalonis, understating brilliantly.
  • A life preserver in the minds of some, the Bonta bill could come back as soon as August, as part of a trailer bill in a revised budget. 
COVID-19 & THE CRISIS IN YOUR BOOKS
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The COVID-19 depression's and the financial future for cannabis is here summarized, in terms of its impact on financial record-keeping and tax reporting.
Green Market Report

  • To catch everyone up: Questionably conceived and poorly executed, Prop. 64 legalized REC. Then, regulation of adult-use cannabis, too, was not implemented well. The industry has since expanded dramatically and "made a precipitous downturn inevitable." All pre-quarantine.
  • In comparison, every California market is a lot closer to normalcy than Nevada.
  • The series' remaining three sections address adjusting to the COVID-19 new normal, approaches to maximizing profitability, and the impact of the coronavirus on social-equity programs.

Quick Hits

  1. For a macro-view of what Golden State chaos looks like, have a gander at our Los Angeles flavor. Legal weed in L.A. somehow manages to be out of control and glacial, at once.
    MJ Biz Daily
  2. Meanwhile, in San Diego sales were down even before Comic-Con, a legal weed economy pick-me-up, was canceled for July
    KPBS
OCAL PROGRAM TO CERTIFY ORGANIC BUD
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The California Department of Food and Agriculture will manage the OCal Program, which will let cannabis producers meeting specified standards slap an OCal certification on their weed.
Cannabis Business Times

  • OCal's standards will be comparable to the USDA's National Organic Program.
  • The statewide organic certification program for cannabis must be in place by the first day of next year. Public comment on the CDFA proposed regulations will be taken through July 7.
THE EXPUNGEMENT MOVEMENT WON’T WAIT
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Grassroots organizing has been challenged under quarantine. However, as last month's computerized expungement of more than 11,500 Santa Clara County cannabis convictions shows, the movement to clear Golden State records of the wronged continues to move forward.  

The expungement movement has essentially run on a face-to-face basis, culminating with National Expungement Week, in September. 
Filter

  • Zoom calls and virtual clinics now dominate the work. That many of those impacted by cannabis arrests are poor, lack internet access and have language barriers are challenges.
  • Criminal-justice advocates are attempting to innovate. One says she's in talks with churches, in the possibility of using their buildings as expungement clinics.

Quick Hit

  1. On Tuesday in Milpitas, one council agenda item was a tax measure that would allow the Marin city to reverse its 2018 prohibition of cannabis business. Weed opponents had hundreds of public comments and most of the council votes.
    San Jose Mercury News
SF DELIVERING A FEW HOMELESS WEED TO CUT HARM
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A few dozen San Fransico homeless people isolating in city-rented hotels are being given cigarettes, methadone and cannabis to keep them from leaving to pursue the stuff.
SF Chronicle

  • Five of the people have been delivered cannabis. Private donations are funding the deliveries. No city funds have been used.
  • “They’re doing San Francisco a great service by staying inside,” said Jenna Lane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health. “We’re saying, ‘We’re doing what we can to support you staying inside and not have to go out and get these things.’”
HVAC CONTRACTORS: WEED’S JUST DIFFERENT
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Young flower row in the greenhouse for the commercial cultivation.

Most heating and air-conditioning contractors know the primary ventilation rate for California cultivation areas is the same as the requirement for indoor spaces in any state, 15 cfm. After that, contractors would do well to call up the real estate slogan: Location! Location! Location! 

It's not just local codes; in 2020, everything about working with weed is different.
ACHR NEWS

  • In devising their facility codes and permit requirements for cultivations, localities may use some of the same templates and language for cannabis facility codes, but cities and counties also add their own requests, some stricter or more flexible than others.
  • Understanding the cannabis-specific design requirements can impact a contractor's bid for a project and help avoid "inadvertent violations and their consequences."
NETFLIX’S ‘HAVE A GOOD TRIP’ TAKES LSD
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ASAP Rocky performs during Yams Day 2020
(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

On Monday, plucky little Los Gatos start-up Netflix will release Have a Good Trip, a  sort of "bon voyage" to psychedelic travel. Oddly, the celebrity-studded documentary tends to treat the good trips and bad as one and the same. 

"A rainbow shot out of my dick," said hip hop star ASAP Rocky
YouTube

  • Joining Rocky in sharing anecdotes and insight are Natasha Lyonne, Sting, Sarah Silverman, Adam Horovitz, Rosie Perez, Ben Stiller, Marc Maron, Paul Scheer, David Cross, Rob Corddry, and Jim James of My Morning Jacket.
  • Writer/Director Donick Cary's interviews are supported by LSD No-No-style animated recreations, now a tried-and-true way of conveying the psychedelic.

Quick Hit

  • Sticky Fingers was  a legendary brownie shop that supplied SF with sweet weed treats through most of the '70s through '90s.  With Chem Tales, author Alia Volz packs a volatile local history into a memoir of this underground business.
    SF Weekly
WHO EXACTLY ARE THE BEARD BROS?
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Two years ago, not many had heard of Bill and Jeff. But the pot producers at Beard Bros Pharms — always interested in cannabis news — have since morphed into nonfiction storytellers on the leading edge of cannabusiness. 

Woodward and Bernstein did not get down like this, but those dudes were total squares. The Beard Bros offer "deep dives into cannabis from an insider, not an armchair weed journalist."
Forbes

  • Los Angeles based, the team comes from Florida, by way of Colorado. Bill has the deeper horticulture background, while Jeff earned a business degree from the University of Florida and for years worked for the LPGA.
  • Beard Bros Media plans to present a longer line-up of contributors and ramp up their video, reviews and events offerings.