MjLink Cannabis Business News and Press
Lexington, Ky. (May 20, 2020) -PRESS RELEASE- The U.S. Hemp Authority, a hemp industry initiative to promote standards and self-regulation for growers, processors and product manufacturers, announced the addition of Amber Littlejohn to its board of directors.
Littlejohn is a policy attorney and natural products industry veteran with two decades of experience in emerging industries. She has developed and implemented creative strategies and initiatives to expand and stabilize markets by engaging underrepresented business interests and communities.
Littlejohn is the senior policy advisor for the Minority Cannabis Business Association where she creates and drives policy for minority entrepreneurs and their communities. Amber currently serves as a member of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable Minority Economic Empowerment Committee. Prior to her work with MCBA, Amber was an advisor and advocate for the cannabis and natural products industries on issues including natural and herbal products regulation, agriculture and small business and rural economic development. She previously worked in regulatory and legislative policy for the American Herbal Products Association where she served as staff liaison to the sports nutrition and personal care industries.
“We are thrilled to strengthen our board of directors with the capable leadership and diverse experience modeled by Amber Littlejohn,” stated USHA president Marielle Weintraub. “Amber brings us critical expertise on substantive issues we must tackle. But just as important is Amber’s vision to promote justice and equity in the cannabis industry; her perspective will be warmly embraced as we try to develop a truly fair and inclusive program.”
“I am honored at the opportunity to work with the USHA. I look forward to working with the USHA to help build a responsible and equitable hemp industry,” Littlejohn said.
The USHA’s certification program is the hemp industry’s initiative to provide standards, best practices and self-regulation, giving consumers and retailers confidence in hemp and CBD products. Farmers, processors, manufacturers and brand owners who meet the program’s standards, as determined by an independent, third-party audit by Food Chain ID, the program’s new administrator, are awarded a seal of certification, signaling to consumers that their products are worthy of their trust.
Illinois’ cannabis dispensaries set another sales record in July, selling $61 million worth of adult-use cannabis products, according to a CBS Chicago report.
July’s figures are a 28% increase over June, when sales reached $47.6 million.
Illinois’ monthly adult-use cannabis sales have been on a steady incline since February, which experienced a slight decrease in sales from January, when legal adult-use sales first launched, CBS Chicago reported.
Since the adult-use market opened in January, dispensaries have sold nearly 6.7 million cannabis products for sales totaling more than $300 million, according to the news outlet.
More than 600,000 vaping products quarantined in Massachusetts last year can now be retested and sold or reclaimed and repurposed into other products if they meet safety standards, according to a Aug. 3 press release from the Cannabis Control Commission.
After three phases of testing and a public comment period launched in July, the commission concluded that businesses may retest and sell products, which must include enhanced warning labels that state the product was previously quarantined and rested. If products do not meet safety standards after two attempts to remediate, licensees have to toss the product.
Worcester, MA – July 7th – PRESS RELEASE – Glenn Gould, TC Controls' newly appointed Director of Business Development, brings years of experience within construction-based engineering sales and sales management. Gould holds a B.S. in Facilities Planning & Management from Wentworth Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the University of St. Mary, Kansas. A Massachusetts native, Gould will assume the role of Director of Business Development, focusing on providing customers with building automation systems that are specialized for cannabis production and life science research.
In his role prior to joining TC Controls, Gould was a sales manager for one of New England’s largest mechanical contractors, where he led the sales team to the division’s greatest revenue year, 2019.
Christopher Culross, Vice President of TC Controls, said, “Glenn will be integral to our business growth, his extensive experience and contribution to the business is welcomed and I know he will lead our business development and sales teams to new heights."
A proposed settlement that would reshuffle some of Nevada’s adult-use dispensary licenses could end a legal battle between the state and businesses that were not granted licenses in 2018, according to The Nevada Independent.
The settlement was announced in court July 29 and involves 17 cannabis businesses and the Nevada Department of Taxation, which regulated the industry until this summer, when the newly established Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board took over regulatory oversight.
The settlement would reassign the following licenses, according to a Nevada Current report:
Lone Mountain to assign a City of Las Vegas conditional license to QualcanLone Mountain to assign a Washoe County – City of Reno conditional license, a Lincoln County conditional license, an Esmerelda conditional license and a Eureka County conditional license to ETW PlaintiffsHelping Hands to assign a Clark County conditional license to LivFree Nevada Organic Remedies (The Source) to assign a Clark County conditional license to MM Development (Planet 13) Nevada Organic Remedies (The Source) to assign a Carson City conditional license to Qualcan GreenMart to assign a Clark County conditional license to Nevada Wellness Center Thrive to assign a Clark County – City of Henderson conditional license to ETW Management or a related-entity designeeLone Mountain to assign a Douglas County conditional license to ThriveThe state also agreed in the proposed settlement to issue a Henderson license to LivFree, the Nevada Current reported.
Some of the plaintiffs challenged the proposal, alleging collusion, the news outlet reported. They asked Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez to temporarily bar the Nevada Tax Commission from approving the proposed settlement July 31, but Gonzalez rejected the motion.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has submitted statements in opposition to three of the four ballot measures expected to appear on the state’s 2020 ballot, including one that would legalize adult-use cannabis, according to a Tucson.com report.
Ducey called the ballot initiative, which was supported by Smart and Safe Arizona, “a bad idea based on false promises,” the news outlet reported. He said experiences from other states with legalized cannabis point to more highway deaths, increases in teen drug use and more newborns exposed to cannabis.
Ducey said the state’s medical cannabis program, which voters approved in 2010, “is serving the people who need it for health-related reasons,” according to Tucson.com.
The Secretary of State’s office has received additional arguments from opponents of the legalization measure, the news outlet reported, and all of those arguments, in addition to a handful of arguments in favor of the initiative, will be included in publicity pamphlets mailed to the homes of all registered voters.
Northern Mariana Islands’ Cannabis Commission has announced the launch of applications for both commercial cannabis licenses and the noncommercial Homegrown Marijuana Registry, according to a press release.
The commission officially adopted the proposed rules and regulations for the program during its June 23 meeting, and will begin accepting the commercial and noncommercial applications on Aug. 4, which marks the official launch of the Commonwealth’s cannabis industry.
Licensed cannabis businesses will be permitted to commercially cultivate, manufacture, store, distribute and sell cannabis to adults 21 and older, as well as allow for onsite consumption at their licensed establishments.
Adults 21 and older may register for a Homegrown Marijuana Registry Card to produce, possess or store cannabis at a household cultivation site for noncommercial purposes.
Applications for both license types are available here.
Sampling cannabis or hemp for testing is a crucial part of the system that confers confidence to consumers purchasing those products. But, like much in the cannabis and hemp worlds, how cannabis and hemp cultivators select samples relies on an inconsistent patchwork of state laws.
ASTM International’s Committee on Cannabis aims to bring consistency to how cannabis and hemp growers collect, retain and send samples to state testing labs with a new standard.
“State-by-state requirements for batch testing (cannabis/marijuana focused) and sampling protocols vary significantly, if they exist at all,” David Vaillencourt, an ASTM member volunteer, recording officer for ASTM’s Cannabis Laboratory Subcommittee, and CEO and founder of The GMP Collective, told CBT/HG.
“There is ongoing frustration between cultivators and labs alike, which we have all seen [finger-pointing at each other] as to why lab-to-lab variability from the same flower batch continues to be a problem,” he continued. “Spoiler alert: There are multiple factors at play here, but the most fundamental one is the lack of ensuring a 'representative sample' has been collected from a batch.”
READ ALSO: Canadian Cannabis Companies Sued Over Product Mislabeling
The U.S. House of Representatives is planning a floor vote on the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, legislation that would federally decriminalize cannabis by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act, and cannabis industry stakeholders are taking notice.
“It’s a fairly comprehensive piece of legislation, talking about descheduling cannabis federally,” Jonathan Havens, co-chair of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s Cannabis Law Practice, tells Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary. “It would completely change the treatment of the federal regulation of cannabis.”
The upcoming vote, first reported by Marijuana Moment, is planned for September and could lead to monumental progress for the industry, even if the legislation encounters roadblocks in the Senate, where its passage is less likely, according to Patrick Martin, a lobbyist with Cozen O’Connor.
“Passing a legalization bill on the House floor would be tremendous progress, and I think it would set a precedent moving forward that will ultimately help lead to legalization,” he says.
Aside from federal decriminalization, the MORE Act also strives to address the past harms of cannabis prohibition, particularly on communities of color and other marginalized groups.
This week, the U.S. House approved an amendment to protect state-legal cannabis businesses from federal intervention. Elsewhere, in Maine, the Office of Marijuana Policy said it expects adult-use sales to launch by the end of the year.
Here, we’ve rounded up the 10 headlines you need to know before this week is over.
Federal: Cookies, a cannabis and lifestyle brand, announced this week its launch of Run The Jewels products in collaboration with Lemonnade, a sativa-focused sister brand to Cookies, and acclaimed hip-hop group Run The Jewels. The project is also a partnership between Berner, the Bay Area rapper and entrepreneur who started Cookies, RTJ rapper Killer Mike and rapper-producer El-P. Read moreA new federal program developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) aims to help labs achieve accurate THC and CBD measurements. The goal of NIST’s Cannabis Quality Assurance (CannaQAP) program is to help labs produce consistent measurement results, which would both increase accuracy in product labeling and help forensic labs distinguish between hemp and marijuana. Read moreThe U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment July 30 that protects state-legal cannabis businesses from federal intervention. The amendment, included in a Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill, bars the Department of Justice from using taxpayer funds to enforce federal anti-cannabis laws in U.S. states that have legalized medical and/or adult-use cannabis. Read moreMissouri: The Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) has issued five new medical cannabis manufacturing licenses. DHSS initially licensed 86 facilities in January to manufacture cannabis-infused products such as edibles, tinctures and concentrates, but has since determined that certain companies submitted duplicate applications and then received multiple licenses for one facility. Read moreMassachusetts: Boston City Councilors Lydia Edwards and Kim Janey have filed amendments to Boston’s cannabis equity ordinance in an effort to bring transparency to the municipal approval process for marijuana businesses by changing the process for executing host community agreements. The Boston Cannabis Board adopted its final rules and regulations on July 22 and under those rules and regulations, the host community agreements are negotiated after approval by the BCB and there is no set timeline for their execution. Read moreNew Jersey: In the first in a series of polls, Brach Eichler LLC’s cannabis law practice and DKC Analytics questioned 500 registered New Jersey voters from July 7 through July 12 and found that 68% of respondents said they would vote in favor of adult-use cannabis legalization in the November election. Twenty-six percent indicated they would oppose the measure and 6% said they were unsure. Read moreMichigan: Adult-use cannabis sales in Michigan have topped $200 million so far this year. Adult-use sales have generated nearly $35 million in excise and sales tax revenues since the market launched in December 2019. Read moreMaine: With Maine’s first adult-use cannabis cultivators, manufacturers and testing labs expected to open this fall, the Office of Marijuana Policy (OMP) anticipates that adult-use sales will launch by the end of the year. The OMP delayed its planned June launch due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but now the office’s director, Erik Gundersen, says that licensing the supply chain will give the state’s adult-use industry time to grow, manufacture and test products for Maine’s first recreational dispensaries. Read moreCanada: FSD Pharma has announced that it will surrender its Health Canada licenses for its subsidiary, FV Pharma, Inc., and suspend all activities by FV Pharma within 30 days. FSD Pharma has begun the process of liquidating all FV Pharma assets, including the sale of the company’s cannabis production facility in Cobourg, Ontario. Read moreInternational: The Netherlands has received 149 applications from growers hoping to participate in the country’s regulated cannabis cultivation experiment. Prospective cultivators could apply for the program from July 1 through July 28, and now the Ministries for Medical Care and of Justice and Security will evaluate the applications and license 10 growers by early 2021. Read moreThe U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment July 30 that protects state-legal cannabis businesses from federal intervention.
The amendment, included in a Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill, bars the Department of Justice from using taxpayer funds to enforce federal anti-cannabis laws in U.S. states that have legalized medical and/or adult-use cannabis.
“This is the most significant vote on marijuana policy reform that the House of Representatives has taken this year,” NORML Political Director Justin Strekal said in a public statement. “The importance of this bipartisan vote cannot be overstated as today, nearly one in four Americans reside in a jurisdiction where the adult use of cannabis is legal under state statute. It is time for Congress to acknowledge this reality and retain these protections in the final spending bill.”
Since 2014, Congress has passed annual spending bills that included the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, which protected state-licensed medical cannabis businesses from federal law enforcement.
With Maine’s first adult-use cannabis cultivators, manufacturers and testing labs expected to open this fall, the Office of Marijuana Policy (OMP) anticipates that adult-use sales will launch by the end of the year, according to the Portland Press Herald.
The OMP delayed its planned June launch due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but now the office’s director, Erik Gunderson, says that licensing the supply chain will give the state’s adult-use industry time to grow, manufacture and test products for Maine’s first recreational dispensaries, the news outlet reported.
Gunderson expects the first adult-use cannabis sales taxes to roll in sometime in the second quarter, which ends in December, according to the Portland Press Herald, and the delayed market launch means the state will likely fall short of the projected $84 million in retail sales during fiscal year 2021.
However, the volume of license applications indicate that the state will reach the predicted $118 million in adult-use sales in fiscal year 2022, the first full year of operations, the news outlet reported.
As of July 28, the OMP had received 342 adult-use cannabis business applications, with 27 now in the final phase of licensing, according to the Portland Press Herald. Of the remaining applications, 151 have a conditional state license and are awaiting local approval, and 164 are still awaiting conditional approval from the state, the news outlet reported.
Adult-use cannabis sales in Michigan have topped $200 million so far this year, according to a Michigan Radio report.
The Michigan Regulatory Agency has indicated that for the past two months, cannabis businesses have reported between $10 million and $14 million in weekly sales, according to the news outlet.
Adult-use sales have generated nearly $35 million in excise and sales tax revenues since the market launched in December 2019, Michigan Radio reported.
Last month, the market reached another milestone when the state’s weekly adult-use cannabis sales exceeded medical sales for the first time.
The Netherlands has received 149 applications from growers hoping to participate in the country’s regulated cannabis cultivation experiment, according to an NL Times report.
Prospective cultivators could apply for the program from July 1 through July 28, and now the Ministries for Medical Care and of Justice and Security will evaluate the applications and license 10 growers by early 2021, the news outlet reported.
Ten local municipalities are participating in the experiment by hosting the cultivators, including Almere, Arnhem, Breda, Groningen, Heerlen, Hellevoetsluis, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Tilburg and Zaanstad. Government officials will consult with these municipalities to ensure plans are in place for public order and safety, according to the NL Times.
WARMINSTER, PA (July 29, 2020) – PRESS RELEASE – SP Industries (SP) CEO Brian Larkin has announced the signing of a partnership agreement with Ecodyst (NC, USA). In making the announcement Larkin stated, “This new partnership enables our SP Genevac brand to be the comprehensive, one-stop-shop for all evaporation solutions. Ecodyst’s revolutionary single sample evaporator line complements our SP Genevac world-renowned centrifugal evaporators for parallel sample evaporation and together lets us work with customers more effectively to help streamline and accelerate the drug discovery process.”
George Adjabeng, CEO of Ecodyst, commented, “Ecodyst is passionate about the innovative devices that we bring to the laboratory equipment industry and have emerged as an innovative leader and creator of high quality, high capacity single evaporator technology. This new partnership with SP is a significant milestone for Ecodyst and it will enable us to make these products available to more customers worldwide.’’
During sample preparation, evaporation is used if samples need to be dried prior to analysis. If there is just one sample, a single sample evaporation system is used, and Ecodyst offers a full range of single sample evaporators from benchtop to industrial models, all offering their self-cooling condenser technology for maximum efficiency, sample quality and lower environmental impact. When multiple samples need drying, SP Genevac parallel centrifugal evaporators eliminate the solvent drying bottleneck in the drug discovery and synthetic organic chemistry laboratory. These systems, which come equipped with Genevac Dri-Pure patented anti-bumping technology, range from bench-top to high throughput scale and have been proven capable of removing even the most difficult solvent mixtures without compromising sample purity or integrity.
Larkin added: “We are excited to partner with a like-minded organization that approaches product design with a keen understanding of the needs and challenges facing today’s customers. Having a broader offering that includes single sample evaporators is particularly relevant for those engaged in pharmaceutical and cannabis sample preparation workflows. The SP team is looking forward to working with our customers to provide them with the best solution for their requirements in conjunction with the unparalleled service and lifetime applications support that have led to SP Genevac being the recognized market leader.”
For further information on the expanded SP Genevac range of sample evaporation systems for single or multiple sample drying, visit www.spscientific.com/Genevac or contact SP Scientific at +1-800-523-2327 (+44-1473-240000 in Europe).
TORONTO—July 30, 2020--PRESS RELEASE--FSD Pharma Inc. today announced that it has notified Health Canada of the Company’s decision to forfeit the licenses of its wholly-owned subsidiary, FV Pharma Inc., and suspend all activities by FV Pharma within 30 days of the notification date. FSD Pharma has begun the process of liquidating all FV Pharma assets, including the sale of the Company’s cannabis production facility in Cobourg, Ontario.
“It is now clear to us that our shareholder value is best served in closing down our medicinal-grade cannabis operation in Cobourg, Ontario and reinforcing steps to advance pharmaceutical R&D efforts on our lead compound FSD201 (ultra-micronized PEA) and continuing to explore the acquisition of other compelling compounds to expand our drug development pipeline," said Raza Bokhari, MD, Executive Co-Chairman & CEO.
“Our pharmaceutical R&D team led by Dr. Edward Brennan is actively working to submit an Investigational New Drug Application (IND) to the FDA for the use of FSD201 (ultra-micronized PEA) to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients by down-regulating the over-expressed pro-inflammatory cytokine immune response to SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. We are hopeful to initiate the phase 2 clinical trial before the end of this year and remain cautiously optimistic that our study may improve treatment outcome for COVID-19 patients."
The Company is not making any express or implied claims that its product has the ability to eliminate, cure or contain the COVID-19 (or SARS-2 Coronavirus) at this time.
]]>The Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA) will host a webinar titled, “Real Estate 101 for Social Equity Owners and Applicants,” at 2 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Aug. 5, according to a press release.
The free webinar, sponsored by CohnReznick, is exclusive to MCBA members, social equity owners and those applying for social equity licenses.
Those who attend will learn about cannabis real estate; as well as how to submit a competitive application, protect their investment and protect their rights.
The release states the webinar will include the following:
Real estate basics and terminology
Best real estate practices for operators
New Jersey voters will decide whether to legalize adult-use cannabis this fall after lawmakers decided to place the issue on the state’s November ballot, and a new poll has revealed that the majority of voters support the legalization measure, according to an NJBIZ.com report.
In the first in a series of polls, Brach Eichler LLC’s cannabis law practice and DKC Analytics questioned 500 registered New Jersey voters from July 7 through July 12, the news outlet reported.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they would vote in favor of the ballot question in November, while 26% indicated they would oppose the measure and 6% said they were unsure, according to NJBIZ.com.
Seventy-eight percent of Democrats indicated support for legalization, while 19% said they would oppose it, the news outlet reported. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans answered in favor of legalization with 39% opposed, and Independents had 63% in support of the measure and 27% opposed.
A Monmouth University poll, released in April, also found strong support for cannabis legalization with sixty-one percent of roughly 700 registered voters indicating that they would vote in favor this fall.
Multistate cannabis operator Red White & Bloom Brands (RWB) announced July 22 that it had signed a binding letter of intent to acquire Platinum Vape, a producer of vape cartridges, edibles and flower that is spearheaded by father-and-son team George and Cody Sadler.
Previously focused on the Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts and Florida cannabis markets, RWB will enter California’s market through its first acquisition since going public earlier this year.
Platinum sells its products at more than 700 retailers throughout Michigan, California and Oklahoma, and co-founder and President George Sadler said the company has been building a relationship with RWB for the past few years.
“It was maybe three years ago when [RWB] talked to us about doing a purchase and at that time, it just didn’t work out—[it] just didn’t seem feasible,” Sadler told Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary. “This all came along kind of rapidly, but our relationship has been there for quite some time.”
For Sadler and his son, Cody, Platinum Vape has been their baby for the past nine years, since the company’s inception, and both Sadler and RWB CEO Brad Rogers said they view the acquisition as more of a partnership between the two companies.
Once again, the U.S. Congress is taking up a Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations bill that contains a layer of protection for cannabis businesses. Whether the cannabis amendment gets through is a routine matter of debate in Washington, D.C., and this latest iteration is even more of an open question.
Historically, the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment has conferred protection from federal law enforcement on state-licensed medical cannabis businesses. Because of its placement in the CJS bills, the amendment specifically bars the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) from using federal funds to prosecute state-compliant medical marijuana operators in states that have legal cannabis programs. It has been included in every budget deal passed in Congress since its introduction in 2014.
Now, the measure has morphed into the Blumenauer-McClintock-Norton-Lee amendment, and it’s been written to extend that federal protection to state-licensed adult-use cannabis businesses. This latest revival of the amendment was first reported by Marijuana Moment.
“It is time for Congress to expand these important protections to adult-use legalization states,” the team at NORML wrote in a message to its audience. “Today, nearly one in four Americans reside in a jurisdiction where the adult use of cannabis is legal under state statute. This expanded language passed the House last year, but was later removed by the Senate leadership.”
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