Americans can't stand each other, but they love their weed. 

On election night, marijuana was the runaway winner. Here—where Eaze deliveries reportedly rocketed 17% on Tuesday—the political story was a complicated progress narrative. 

If the plant indeed experienced "market-moving implications" on a national level, here the victories are less epic, but no less crucial.
The Hill/L.A. Times/California NORML

• "Their voices were unmistakable and emphatic," according to The Hill, a center-right media outlet. "Majorities of Americans decided in favor of every marijuana-related proposition placed before them—a clean sweep." 
• California voters took on 38 ballot measures in 36 cities. An easy majority of cash-strapped municipalities approved the varied tax ordinances.
• Resistance to establishing local cannabis industries remained stubborn in backwaters like the ironically named Commerce and in Sonoma, where wine folk will make Hatfields and McCoys of us yet. 

Quick Hits

1. Here is the answer to the question Should we expect meaningful movement soon on Oregon's interstate commerce proposal?
   Twitter
2. Metrc dominates the cannabis regulatory software space. COO Lewis Koski says Metrc has adjusted to diminished face-to-face business while evaluating the markets set to come online.
   New Cannabis Ventures
3. In-person voting may become a thing of the past. Let's document what that looked like, from a stoner perspective.
   Leafly

Across two nights since sundown on Tuesday, a "roving caravan of robbers and looters" has targeted cannabis businesses around the Bay Area, resulting in a spate of shootings as well as lost cash and product. One man has died in the chaos.
East Bay Times 

• Many non-cannabis stores were attacked as well. Gunmen struck  cannabis businesses on Tuesday night. On Wednesday looters struck stores in Richmond, Emeryville and San Lorenzo.
• Oakland Police Chief Susan Manheimer called the events a “growing trend that transcends any one group or crew.” She added that the thefts have been occurring when police are stretched thin monitoring protests. 
• Law enforcement estimates 50 people have been involved in the crimes. 

Quick Hit

1. It takes special ignorance to not know the exploding popularity of edibles. But recognizing the impact automation can have on their production is privileged information.
   Baking Business/Candy Industry

Two Novembers ago, San Franciscans approved Measure D, an industry tax, and agreed it would go into effect in 2021. As the local industry is far smaller than 2018 anticipated, the levy's implementation hovers ominously.

With Supervisor Rafael Mandelman's new proposal for a year's reprieve, it appears local industry is likely to be spared Measure D pain for a while.
SF Examiner

• On Tuesday, The City passed three tax ordinances that are expected to generate revenue.
• Mandelman said, "in light of our efforts to support small businesses, this is not a time to be imposing a new tax on small businesses."
• San Francisco would lose an estimated $7.1M in revenue with the break.

Quick Hit

1. The Art of Weed Butter author Mennlay Aggrey is among the chefs set to teach a non-credit cannabis cooking class through City College of San Francisco this spring. 
   SF Weekly 

With just about two months to go and 2020 doing everything possible to exhaust the concept of resting comfortably, it might be foolhardy to predict what will happen next year.

Yet, here we are.
California Industry Journal

• The Senate will probably vote to let the cannabiz use traditional banking and financing. (Welcome to the party, D.C.)
• The newest round of cities and counties opening up to weed will create an outlet for licensed flower. (Ed: Let's be real: Unlicensed, too.) However, a "second wave" of retail competitors will be out there, making bad, over-optimistic decisions other operators will have to contend with. 
• Quarantine will Keep America Smoking, Again, and all manner of cannabis consumption is set to rise.

Quick Hit

1. The election will undoubtedly impact cannabis marketing, but when will the windfall be felt?
   Ad Age

Monterey County sherriff's officers announced last week that Ivan Gomez, 30, intentionally set ablaze an illegal south county cannabis farm, igniting the Dolan Fire, which on August 18 began burning 124,924 acres of Central Coast land.                              KSBW

• Gomez confessed to starting the fire with a Bic lighter, according to law enforcement. When firefighters arrived, the accused reportedly threw rocks at them. Gomez also claimed to have killed several people at the scene.
• Lawyers for Gomez say law enforcement cannot place their client at the fire without the alleged confession. At the time of last week's preliminary hearing, the Dolan Fire was 98% contained, but investigators said they're not yet able to substantiate Gomez's claims. 

Quick Hits

1. In Orange County Superior Court, Hossein Nayeri, 41, was sentenced to consecutive life sentences for  kidnapping a dispensary owner, cutting off his penis, and leaving him in the Mojave Desert last year. 
   CBS LA
2. In September, a former Baldwin Park cop talked to the FBI about cannabis operators, two local officials, and a brown bag allegedly containing a quarter of a million dollars. The officials' offices were busted last week.
   Los Angeles Times

As part of its settlement with the Canadian company Hexo, in October the Vista-based company Assi Project Management agreed to a permanent injunction barring Assi and the business's principals from using names that contains the word “Hexo” or any term like it. 
MJ Biz Daily

• Assi must destroy all materials referencing "HEXOCBD" and any reference to the term "Hexo." The company has already abandoned its . trademark applications for "HEXOCBD" and transferred domain names containing the term "Hexo" to the Canadian entity.
• Last year in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Hexo filed suit against Assi claiming unfair competition and trademark infringement.

Quick Hits

1. As a community we'll one day look back and wonder why we thought the value of extreme dabbing is even a matter of debate?
   Cannabis Now
2. Zack Ruskin is reporting that San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is set to meet next week with the group Decriminalize Nature on decriminalizing entheogenic plants in The City.
   Twitter

One need not believe that alcohol drunkeness amounts to "borrowing happiness from the next day" to regard the concept of California Sobriety as the next American wave.
Herb

• A decent working definition of California Sober is a wellness trend that calls for sustaining from alcohol and hard drugs. Cannabis and (for some) psychedelics are permitted. 
• As millennials age and hangovers feel more consequential, the concept has spread. One practitioner told The Cut that "weed has become a way for them to wean themselves off of other substances."

Joy—neither her real name nor actual picture—began using cannabis in the 1990s, as a means of sparking the appetite her cancer had subdued. Like any reasonable patient, she continued her relationship with the plant after the disease went into remission.

Last month Santa Cruz County's Cannabis Licensing Office fined "Joy" $125 for violating the volume section of its cultivation code. She's the home-growing face in front of the numbers.
Good Times

• From July through September, the county issued four red "stop work" tags, 20 administrative citations—with eight citations appealed—and received $20,600 in fines paid. Ten firearms were seized. Thirty-one sites were inspected and $14,344 was seized. Still owed? $928,721. 
• "There is increased enforcement," County Communications Manager Jason Hoppin said. "You know why? It’s grow season. That’s why."

Quick Hit

1. It's Ladies' Night with Nurse is an hour of Zoom that consumers interested in holistic wellness are bound to appreciate.  
   Facebook

While Western votes on cannabis provide hot new data points, there's a lot to be gathered about where the industry is headed from watching one Central Valley county shift its values in real time.
Cannabis Business Times/Modesto Bee

• On Tuesday the owners of Legacy Nursery had their use permit application for a 38-acre site near Turlock approved without incident. Last year Marc Etchebarne and Jennina Chiavetta pitched a similar project, and the result was more than 90 speakers weighing in during a five-hour Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors hearing.
• "I am very happy that this time it is quiet," Etchebarne said.

Quick Hit

1. Movie theater owners. Restaurateurs. Small Northern California growers. All took a bath this year. Ya know who's emerged smelling like a million bucks? Cannabis accountants.
   Accounting Today

The guy who fronted Cypress Hill dropped an album by his group Serial Killers last month. At October's end he put out a podcast episode TikTok game-changer @Doggface208 and live-streamed a session with Donnell Rawlings. 
B-Real TV 

• In his too-short talk with viral sensation Nathan Apodaca, B-Real steered the talk to banana boards and Apodaca's skater history.
• Rawlings brought his lapdog. The animal attracts cleavage, he implied. The comedian declined to dab.
• B-Real is yet another California artist inexplicably left off the greatest- rappers-with-weed-brands list.