• Gov. Newsom’s conversations with industry stakeholders have led him to consider broad tax reductions. Less obviously, but also certain to bring considerable impact: California will also be changing the point of collection for some taxes. Under the proposed plan, the first distributor in the chain would remit the cultivation tax, while retailers would be responsible for the excise tax.
• The new office would consolidate the duties of the Bureau of Cannabis Control, California Department of Public Health, and California Department of Food and Agriculture by July of next year.
  
  

1. A recently closed $15M bridge round was supposed to “keep the lights on” at Eaze. Instead, the first cannabis company to draw funding from Big Tech is reportedly facing layoffs as it attempts a pivot.
   Tech Crunch
   
   
2. The Western map spots where prohibition is less this week include Hawaii, where  decriminalization just kicked in, and Placerville, which has allowed three new retail operations.
   Marijuana Moment/Mountain Democrat
   
   
3. San Francisco has implemented a new cannabis application portal. Anyone who has struggled through an unwieldy government site is begging their deities to bring such tech to their neck of the woods.
   GovTech

• City ordinance dispensary distance restrictions have limited the number of dispensaries operating legally in Pasadena to one, Harvest. City regulations would otherwise allow for as many as one dispensary per Council district to open.

• George Boyadjian, founder of unlicensed 420 College says,"The City of Pasadena and most of the jurisdictions in California are kind of continuing the war on drugs and it’s not necessarily color-based like it was before, now it’s more of a economic warfare towards people who can afford it and who can’t. So the rich boys, the millionaires, get to play this game of, of legal cannabis.”

Quick Hit

1. At a Jan. 6 meeting of the San Francisco Cannabis Oversight Committee, a halt on business applications was recommended, until the glut can be managed.
   Bay Area Reporter

• About 117 people have graduated from CORE and are eligible for waivers of thousands of dollars in fees. However, a present cap of 30 municipal dispensaries prevents them from using the reparative measure.

• “We’re at a point not only where the city has to build trust with communities damaged by the War on Drugs, but we really have to be intentional about opening up this market,” Malaki Amen, executive director of the California Urban Partnership, told the City Council.

Quick Hit

1. “Ubiquitous access to plant-based solutions for happiness”? Who wouldn’t be up for that? Caliva brings a new approach to L.A.’s 2.7M… um, plant-based solution aficionados.
   Green Market Report 

• Platinum EO George Sadler hired a couple of employees to check stores and turn them in to law enforcement. Reportedly, Sadler says bootleggers were making "hundreds of thousands of cartridges a month."

• A lawyer for the dispensary March and Ash suggested the city meet with constitutional law scholars as well as host a public forum to discuss future laws.

Quick Hit

1. Does Mendocino County’s Board of Supervisors needs to revisit its "beached whale" of a cannabis ordinance?
   Ukiah Daily Journal

• "Packer would face a furious and disappointed crowd of cannabis applicants and activists in the marble chambers of City Hall and tell them that she was disappointed too. That the city had ended up hurting hundreds of people who took financial risks as they tried to nab a limited number of licenses. That she routinely told other cities not to do what L.A. did."
• The profile revisits the background that built this idealistic young leader, which makes her present-tense struggles all the harder to stomach.

• A compromise came once the proposed plan included new language allowing licenses to change hands annually, during the renewal process. Also at issue was surveillance footage restrictions.

Quick Hits

1. This week Contra Costa County announced that it will instantly wipe out 3,264 cannabis convictions, all identified by Code for America.
   San Jose Mercury News

• "Once brands came into being, many of the big guys who drove the giant pick-ups and lived high on the hog pushed their way in, as if to prove they had it all wrapped up. Others showed up from all corners of the globe, ready to take on huge investments and be winners in the cannabis game. Enormous numbers were tossed around with ease."

• In time for the summer, Santana is expected to launch brands that reflect his heritage as well as "incorporat[e] his divine philosophies."