February 8 2020,

TOGETHER WITH

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WAKE ME WHEN THE BLOODBATH’S FINISHED
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The metaphoric bathing in blood has begun, if only appearing as a heavy trickle right now. The final installment of this three-part series suggest entrepreneurs and investors get their rubbers on; the forecast market contraction could get Motel Hell horror show. MJ Biz Daily
  • Predictions are for widespread company failures, with some going into receivership. Cannabis companies can't access bankruptcy protection, due to federal restrictions.
  • “By the end of the year, we’re going to see a lot of our members I think fall out of the industry,” said Lindsay Robinson, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association.
  • Have a nice weekend.

Quick Hits

  1. On Tuesday Caliva gave Eaze its walking papers, and that matters to more than just the delivery service. San Jose Inside
  1. The post-Bierman MedMen strategy has boiled down to using debt rather than equity to plug its cash shortfall. Seeking Alpha
  2. Dave Bowman was a leading-edge plant breeder who got cannabis famous using the the name Subcool. It was Subcool who developed the organic growing approach Super Soil. And last Saturday, Dave Bowman died. Cannabis Business Times
IDEAS: CALI’S TOP CANNABIS EXPORT
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It's easy to minimize that, in spite of a regulatory course that's complex and evolving, CA compliant cannabis sales are expected to top $3.1B in 2020 and leap to as much a $7.2B in four years, according to a 2019 report by BDS Analytics. A lot's going right, and that's why Gov. Gavin Newsom’s consolidation plan for government oversight may travel. Forbes
  • The new plan is to invest authority over the industry in one decision-making body. At present, state-level governance has consisted of the Bureau of Cannabis Control trying to oversee retailers, delivery services, microbusinesses, distributors, events, and testing labs. Food and Agriculture regulates growers, inadequately. And, finally, the Department of Public Health gives it the old community college try at governing cannabis manufacturers. Coordination of the fast-moving bud game within this framework has been loose stool.
  • Though no state is like California, Newsom's streamlining process could be applied in other states.

Quick Hit

  1. In the southeastern California town of Perris,  a customer in pursuit of illicit market cannabis happened to catch a glimpse of the location's grow portion and was snatched up for ransom. Riverside P.E.
This week on the podcast
Periodic Effects: When Candies Go Pod
DISAPPOINTMENT ON THE BLACK HAND SIDE
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Factor in social equity, and the face of California under-licensing and overall license delay devastation gets a fairly dark brown. Of the poor souls whose light at end of the legality tunnel is seeming more train-like by the moment, those who were fish in a barrel for Drug War cops deserve special empathy. “How do you get to come and make millions of dollars off of our misery?” asked stalled entrepreneur Lanaisha Edwards. The Guardian
  • Reportedly, just 20 of the 100 businesses set to receive a license through L.A.'s social equity program appear to be black-owned.
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PARNAS PARTNER KUKUSHKIN’S VETERANS RESEARCH PLANS
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Sacramento power player and Lev Parnas partner Andrey Kukushkin was working on a partnership with the Department of Veteran’s Affairs in the run-up to his 2019 indictment. Politico
  • In September, the Ukraine-born cannabis investor was poised to partner on a five-year R&D deal to study medical cancer therapies with San Francisco's Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
  • Set to go into effect last month, with a $650,000 annual budget, the plan was scrapped after the Southern District of New York fingered Kukushkin for alleged campaign finance violations.
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PROFS TO CO-DIRECT UCD CAMPUS RESEARCH CENTER
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On Jan. 30, UC Davis professors Cameron Carter and Li Tian were tapped to co-direct the school’s Cannabis Research Center, formed last year. Carter and Tian’s gig will be providing “strategic academic leadership” for the one-of-a-kind center’s cannabis and hemp related research. This is to happen across UCD’s Davis and Sacramento campuses. University of California, Davis
  • The two are tasked with developing mechanisms to move forward interdisciplinary collaborations, build partnerships outside the university setting and develop compliance initiatives.
  • The research center’s stated mission is to “provide insight, based on cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines, to advance knowledge about production, environmental and health impacts, testing, applications for use, and public policy for cannabis and hemp.”

Quick Hit

  1. Green Market Report reads Harborside owner and upcoming Weedys judge Steve DeAngelo's book The Cannabis Manifesto: A New Paradigm for Wellness.
IS DISPENSARY DESIGN BOUND TO CHANGE?
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LAS VEGAS, NV - JUNE 30: Essence Vegas CEO Armen Yemenidjian (L) high-fives employees at Essence Vegas Cannabis Dispensary as they get ready for the midnight start of recreational marijuana sales on June 30, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. On July 1, Nevada joins seven other states allowing recreational marijuana use and becomes the first of four states that voted to legalize recreational sales in November's election to allow dispensaries to sell cannabis for recreational use to anyone over 21. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Since the Cole memo arrived in 2013, dispensaries have been liberated from the necessarily medicinal vibe. In the aesthetics of retail cannabis, Harborside next took the reins. We may well be at the tail end of “Apple of Cannabis” design fascination and heading into the rise of themed dispensaries. Cannabis Now
‘CENSOR AND CHILL’ DOESN’T RING SO SWEET
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Los Gatos-based Netflix took a hit that's more culturally impactful than financial when its leadership bowed to foreign government's pressure to censor cannabis content, new Netflix report reveals. Marijuana Moment
  • Friday's news, originally reported by Axios, reveals that, for example, in 2018 Singapore asked Netflix to remove a California-based cannabis cooking sitcom because cannabis is illegal in Singapore.

Quick Hit

  1. "Organized Confusion," a show featuring the glass art of Snic Barnes, opens next Saturday at Newport Beach's Piece Of Mind Glass Gallery Facebook
DELIVERY REPORT CALLS GEN Z WEED LEADERS
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A new data report from Eaze reveals that last year Gen Z customers registered on the platform at a rate 144% higher than in 2019. The closest consumer group to Gen Z? Boomers, whose participation on Eaze jumped 91% from 2018. OK, boomers? Merry Jane
  • Overall, order sizes jumped 81% last year.
  • The next largest group of the delivery service’s users is women, whose usage went up 87%
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WE NEED TO SMELL OUR FLOWER
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In a righteous world, we’d be letting our noses lead us into cannabis purchases, Ngaio Bealum points out. Our current regulatory morass is among the factors in our inelegant and unnatural approach. Leafly
  • "[T]he time-honored tradition of opening the baggie and taking a whiff,” which some of us viscerally remember, needs to come, deli-style. That’s Bealum’s premise.
  • Terpenes are the reason we can differentiate, as in olfactory differentiation between Popeye’s, Church’s and Chick-Fil-A.

Quick Hit

  1. Substantial midwestern operator Cresco Labs jumped into the Golden State edibles market this week with a luxury brand by Chicago pastry chef Mindy Seagal, rebooted only for our consumers. NASDAQ
CHONG & KING TOGETHER, PERHAPS FOR THE LAST TIME
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Tommy Chong, one of the smartest humans we have, sat down with Larry King to talk Cheech and Chong's early Calgary days, his new reality show fans, and to promote “Color Out of Space,” a psychedelic horror film with Nick Cage. Also, Tommy addresses his bouts with cancer. Never forget that in 2003 the Bush administration put Tommy Chong in jail, where he was certainly regarded as royalty, for selling bongs. YouTube
  • “What made it so special about Cheech and Chong? What set them apart?” King asked Chong about the act that broke them through. “We told the truth about marijuana. That’s what it was.”
  • The duo's film Up in Smoke undeniably opened cinematic doors.

Quick Hit

  1. Early market contestant Whoopi & Maya hit Skidsville after Whoopi Goldberg announced her resignation last Friday. But the brand for women with menstrual discomfort began to suffer from infighting months before. CelebStoner
  2. Here's a picture of Peter O'Toole getting lifted on the set of Caligula. Enjoy your weekend. Leafly