MjLink Cannabis Business News and Press
Regardless of where you are on your hemp farming journey, financial planning is as important as your cultivation strategy. Launching a new business comes with a significant degree of risk: About 20% of startups with employees fail within their first year and 50% fail within 5 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics. The biggest risk factor? “Running out of money …,” according to Investopedia.
Proper budgeting, therefore, is key to survival. In that vein, staff at The Pennsylvania State University’s (PSU) College of Agricultural Sciences Extension—including research, horticulture and agricultural economics experts—created sample production budgets to help hemp farmers project expenses and income to estimate the profitability of their farming operations. While the budget models were developed in 2018 and 2019, Jeffrey S. Graybill, agronomy education at Penn State Extension, noted them as helpful resources for hemp growers during his presentation at the recent Cannabis Conference Virtual Conference Series’ Hemp Virtual Conference. Hemp Grower followed up with Graybill to learn more.
Production Output Budgets
Penn State experts developed three models:
Industrial Hemp CBD Production BudgetIndustrial Hemp Grain Production Budget, andIndustrial Hemp Fiber Production Budget.The sample budgets allows farmers to fill in their variable costs, such as soil tests and other testing fees, fertilizer/soil amendments, seed, hand labor, grain or bale hauling, drying CBD biomass, diesel fuel for tractors, and more. Farmers also can fill in the quantity and the price they expect to garner for their CBD biomass, grain or fiber.
“I have worked through the spreadsheets myself to get a feel for them and how real-world they are. I think they can be a big help when both considering growing hemp and when planning and budgeting for the crop you have in the ground,” says Graybill.
WAKEFIELD, Mass., July 13, 2020--PRESS RELEASE-- Curaleaf Holdings, Inc., a vertically integrated cannabis operator in the U.S., today announced that Curaleaf has completed the acquisition from Grassroots of exclusive rights to the Grassroots' All Rebels Rockers Inc. marijuana license in Arizona. The transaction was completed in advance of the closing of Curaleaf's acquisition of Grassroots to enable accelerated development of the All Rebel Rockers license.
Curaleaf's acquisition of Grassroots itself is expected to close early next week, after the Grassroots shareholders meeting scheduled to approve the revised transaction on July 16.
Joseph Lusardi, CEO of Curaleaf, said, "Our acquisition of our ninth license in Arizona further strengthens our presence in the state, which continues to be one of the largest medical cannabis markets in the country. It also marks one of the final milestones before we formally close our acquisition of Grassroots."
Under this license Curaleaf will open its ninth store, as it currently operates eight dispensaries in Arizona and already has one of the largest retail footprints in the Metro Phoenix Area. Arizona is one of the largest medical marijuana markets in the U.S. with one of the highest percentages of registered patients.
The close of the acquisition of Grassroots will make Curaleaf the world's largest cannabis company by revenue and the most diversified, vertically integrated cannabis company in the U.S., the world's largest cannabis market. The transaction expands Curaleaf's presence from 18 to 23 states, with the combined company having over 135 dispensary licenses, 89 operational dispensary locations, over 30 processing facilities and 22 cultivation sites with 1.6 million square feet of current cultivation capacity.
]]>Green Therapeutics LLC and Meridian Companies LLC have filed a lawsuit against Australis Capital Inc. in Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County— against which Australis announced it plans to “vigorously defend” itself. An Australis investor has also publicly criticized the defendant.
The plaintiffs’ complaint, which has been heavily redacted, states that “… Australis stole … from Plaintiffs under false pretenses, has breached the contracts, and has acted in a manner inconsistent with the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.” Alleged damages have exceeded $15,000.
The plaintiffs declined comment to Cannabis Business Times. The defendants could not be reached for comment.
In a press release, Green Therapeutics, a Nevada cultivator, manufacturer and processor, alleges it and Meridian transferred to Australis nearly 9 acres of land in North Las Vegas, in addition to brands, licenses “and other intellectual property, assets, and rights” in exchange for Australis shares “and other promises and rights.” An Australis press release from May 2019 announced the news, citing plans to build a “400,000 square foot cultivation and production facility which will be built to the industry recognized Aurora Cannabis standard.” (Canada-based Aurora has since fallen from grace, with plunging stock, the departure of founder Terry Booth and mass layoffs.)
Green Therapeutics and Meridian state that Australis no longer plans to construct the 400,000-square-foot facility. Instead, it outlined plans to sell the property “and use the proceeds to purchase Passport Technology Inc. (or alternatively transfer the property in connection with such transaction), a company majority owned and controlled by a director of Australis.”
A July 3 Australis press release said: “the Plaintiffs' complaint of breach of contract is without merit and is an opportunistic ploy to reverse two separate and legitimate, closed deals in which Green Therapeutics sold to Australis certain cannabis licenses, brands, and other assets in exchange for common shares of Australis, and Meridian sold to Australis certain real property.
Nebraskans For Medical Marijuana hope to find out by mid-August if enough of the more than 182,000 signatures they submitted July 2 are valid to qualify for a ballot initiative this November.
The campaign submitted well over the roughly 121,000 signatures required to put the constitutional amendment legalizing medical cannabis in front of Nebraska voters, and collected signatures from all of the state’s 93 counties, according to the campaign. Now, state and local officials will review the signatures and must verify a certain percentage of them to move forward, says Jared Moffat, who has worked on the campaign for more than a year through his role as campaigns coordinator for the Marijuana Policy Project, which has supported the Nebraska campaign with staff time.
“There is definitely a possibility there will be some challenges to some of our signatures from the opposition who doesn’t want this to appear in the ballot. It’s still very early in the process,” Moffat says. “We’re all hopeful and we’re feeling good, but we’re not quite at the place of feeling great about being on the ballot just yet.”
RELATED: Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana Resumes Signature Drive While Maintaining Social Distancing
The advocates were required to collect signatures from at least 5% of voters in a minimum of 38 counties in Nebraska, Moffat says. Moffat said they wouldn’t have been able to meet that minimum – especially considering they needed to gather in-person signatures during a pandemic – without the efforts from passionate volunteers, who collected about 33,000 signatures.
“We couldn’t just focus all of our efforts in the densely populated cities like Omaha and Lincoln,” Moffat says. “We wouldn’t have qualified – assuming we do qualify – it wouldn’t have happened without an enormous amount of work done by the volunteers and that grassroots component of the campaign.”
This week, Virginia Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy announced plans to carry an adult-use cannabis legalization bill into a special session of the legislature if the legislation wins approval from the Speaker of the House. Elsewhere, in Pennsylvania, Sen. Sharif Street sent a letter to the governor, urging him to consider adult-use legalization this year.
Here, we’ve rounded up the 10 headlines you need to know before this week is over.
Texas: Austin Chief of Police Brian Manley has issued a memo indicating that the police department will no longer prosecute misdemeanor cannabis possession offenses unless there is an immediate safety threat, or it is part of a separate felony-level investigation. “At some point the state of Texas needs to step up and do their part and legalize it so it can be properly taxed and regulated, but for now, not having the police wasting their time on these personal marijuana cases … is the right policy and we’ve been fighting to achieve this for many years,” Austin Councilmember Greg Casar told KVUE.com. Read moreMissouri: The Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) has determined that a doctor’s credentials were stolen and used to fraudulently certify patients for the state’s medical cannabis program. The DHSS launched an investigation last month after roughly 600 patients submitted physician certification forms with unauthorized signatures. Read moreVirginia: Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy has announced plans to legalize cannabis in a special session of the legislature, if the legislation wins approval from the Speaker of the House. A cannabis decriminalization law took effect in Virginia on July 1, and Carroll Foy told WTOP, “If we can decriminalize, we can legalize.” Read moreOklahoma: The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) has announced that it will begin enforcing more stringent laboratory testing rules in the state’s medical cannabis market. The OMMA indicated in April that it would require medical cannabis products sold by a processor or grower to be tested by a state-licensed laboratory, but the deadline was extended to July to ensure there are enough licensed labs to meet the demand. Read morePennsylvania: In an effort to ameliorate Pennsylvania’s economic contractions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, State Sen. Sharif Street issued a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf this week, urging for the consideration of adult-use cannabis legalization during this year’s budget negotiations. Co-signed by 14 Democratic senators, the letter advocated that new revenue from legalization is a preferable alternative to issuing broad-based taxes and spending cuts; and legalization will bring justice to those affected by cannabis-related offenses, which “disproportionally fall on our black and brown citizens,” the letter stated. Read moreArkansas: Facing a shortage of funding and unforeseen circumstances stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, two groups that hoped to place adult-use cannabis legalization initiatives on Arkansas’ 2020 ballot have refocused their efforts on the 2022 election. Arkansans for Cannabis Reform and Arkansas True Grass had to gather nearly 90,000 signatures by July 3 to get their proposed constitutional amendments before voters this fall, but the feat proved too much once the coronavirus crisis descended on the U.S. this past spring. Read moreIllinois: The state’s cannabis sales reached over $47.6 million in June, which now holds the record for the highest sales figures in the state. Dispensaries sold 994,545 items last month with customers spending $48 on average per sale before tax. Read moreOhio: The Ohio State Medical Board voted this week to add cachexia, or wasting syndrome, to the list of qualifying conditions for the state’s medical cannabis program, although it rejected adding autism and anxiety. The board’s decision follows recommendations from an Ohio State Medical Board committee, which recommended adding cachexia last month, while also rejecting autism and anxiety as new qualifying conditions. Read moreCalifornia: A group of cannabis dispensary applicants plan to drop their lawsuit over Los Angeles’ licensing process after the city agreed to process the next 100 applicants in line for licenses, which could double the number of permits issued during this licensing round. The Social Equity Owners and Workers Association and one of its members filed the lawsuit earlier this year to force Los Angeles cannabis regulators to vet all the dispensary applications it received last fall under its first-come, first-serve process, which has been marred by controversy. Read moreCanada: Aurora Cannabis announced this week that Miguel Martin, president of Aurora USA and head of Reliva LLC, has been appointed chief commercial officer of Aurora. Martin will replace Darren Karasiuk, who held the position at Aurora since February 2019. Read moreAUSTIN, Texas, July 8, 2020 - PRESS RELEASE - Fluence by OSRAM, a global provider of energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial cannabis and agriculture production, has expanded its global photobiology research program, which encompasses studies on multiple vine crops, leafy greens and medical cannabis in the United States, Canada, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Fluence's network of research institutions and partners for its program includes Wageningen University & Research (WUR) for tomatoes, Proefstation voor de Groenteteelt (Proefstation) to study cucumbers, Harrow Research and Development Centre for peppers, The Technical University of Munich's Greenhouse Lab Centre for lettuce, Wageningen Plant Research’s Greenhouse Horticulture business unit and Compassionate Cultivation for medical cannabis.
The latest studies utilized Fluence’s VYPR Series top light and expanded PhysioSpec spectra offering, which features four spectra and market-leading efficacies up to 3.8 µmol/J, in a randomized block design with triple replicates during a winter growing season. A leader in global horticultural research, WUR explored the impact of each spectrum on Merlice and Brioso tomato cultivars.
“Traditionally, tomato plants are grown under high-pressure sodium lights, where only one spectrum is available to growers,” said Ep Heuvelink, associate professor of horticulture and product physiology at WUR. “Given the efficacy of Fluence's LED solutions and the company's spectra options, it’s critical to understand how various tomato cultivars perform under LEDs and diversified spectra.”
Featuring a 1.3-hectare greenhouse with 38 independent compartments, Proefstation’s facility brings more than 50 years of experience in research on the cultivation of greenhouse and field vegetables.
“Light spectra have an important impact on plant and fruit quality, and we’ve found that LEDs provide a more optimal, precise spectrum than HPS,” said Jonas De Win, lead cucumber researcher at Proefstation. “This research is critical for our growers who frequently ask which spectra is best for their greenhouse and crop variety. Our goal is to act as the bridge between cucumber growers and the latest scientific research, enabling cultivators to enhance their environments and ultimately become more profitable.”
In an effort to ameliorate Pennsylvania’s economic contractions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, State Sen. Sharif Street (D) issued a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf on July 9, urging for the consideration of adult-use cannabis legalization during this year’s budget negotiations.
Co-signed by 14 Democratic senators, the letter advocated that new revenue from legalization is a preferable alternative to issuing broad-based taxes and spending cuts; and legalization will bring justice to those affected by cannabis-related offenses, which "disproportionally fall on our black and brown citizens," the letter stated.
“We are amid a historic crisis, and we should be doing everything possible to avoid raising taxes that could have far seen and unintended consequences on so many of our communities who are struggling to get by right now,” according to the letter. CBS Pittsburgh reports the state's deficit is $3.2 billion.
The senators make the case that legalization would have positive impacts on other industries, including the agriculture sector, and create cannabis-related jobs in the state. The letter cited a report from the Auditor General which showed legalization would raise “$581 million per year through taxation and regulation,” and argued that “Pennsylvanians deserve to be involved in this growing industry and the Commonwealth will reap the rewards of our participation.”
“It’s something the majority of Pennsylvanians support and it’s something that legislators have had some time to think about and attitudes have evolved in quite a bit,” Street said in an interview with Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary.
The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) is asking the public to help the agency determine what it should do about the more than 619,000 vaporizer products – representing millions in potential revenue for retailers and manufacturers – that were quarantined between Sept. 25 and Dec. 12, 2019.
Beginning last summer, after the mysterious lung illness now known as EVALI, or e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury, sickened thousands of people who had reported using vaping products and in all 50 states, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker declared a public health emergency Sept. 24. He issued a temporary ban on the sale of vaping products, including those produced by licensed cannabis producers in both the medical and adult-use markets.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Douglas H. Wilkins later stepped in and ruled to exclude medical cannabis vape products from Gov. Baker administration’s ban on all vaping product sales. But then less than a week later, the CCC intervened and implemented a quarantine on "all vaporizer products” Nov. 12, with an exception for products used to vaporize flower for medical-use patients.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that the suspected and now primary cause of EVALI was vitamin E acetate, a cutting agent usually found in illicit market cannabis devices. More than 2,800 people reported cases in all 50 states, and 68 people have died.
On Dec. 12, 2019, the CCC amended the order and permitted licensed producers to resume production and the sale of new vaping products – with a revised testing regimen that includes a test for vitamin E acetate.
But no decision was made on the quarantined 619,362 products at that time. Industry leaders in the state are hoping that changes soon.
July 10, also known as 710 or Oil Day, is the cannabis industry’s second annual “holiday.” Although not as popular or as well celebrated as 4/20, July 10 has picked up steam in recent years thanks to the rising popularity of concentrated cannabis products.
Sales data from various markets show that as sales continue to grow across markets and flower continues to dominate the product category lists, concentrates are one of, if not the fastest-growing, product segment.
The Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division’s (MED) 2019 annual report noted 40,229 pounds of concentrate products were sold across both the medical and adult-use markets that year, up nearly 128% from 2016 when 17,647 pounds of concentrate products were sold. In comparison, in 2019, 350,429 pounds of flower products were sold across both the adult-use and medical markets, compared to 335,640 pounds of flower in 2016, an increase of only 4.4%.
In Massachusetts, a newer adult-use market, flower remains the top-selling and fastest-growing segment, although concentrates continue to show steady growth. In June 2019, nearly $19.3 million worth of dried cannabis flower and $12.9 million of concentrates were sold. In June 2020, more than $26.6 million worth of flower and just under $14.1 million worth of concentrates were sold, an increase of 38% and 17%, respectively. (Massachusetts’ market also was affected by a temporary mandatory shutdown of all adult-use sites in a statewide COVID-19 related stay-at-home order.)
Cannabis extract sales also have been booming in Canada since extracts were legally allowed to be sold starting in October 2019. That month, 320,201 units of concentrate products were sold on the non-medical market according to Health Canada data. In April 2020, the most recently reported month, 813,972 units were sold in the adult-use market, an increase of 154%. In that same time, flower sales have decreased slightly from 5,204,955 packaged units to 5,199,858.
Building a National Concentrate Brand
Front Range Biosciences, a Colorado-based agricultural biotech company, has partnered with Rylie’s Sunshine, a Virginia-based CBD tincture company operated by 14-year-old activist Rylie Maedler and her mother, Janie, for the latest in a series of hemp field trials to determine which hemp varieties perform best in certain regions of the country.
“At the highest level, it’s really a way for us to support what we think is a really exciting and worthwhile cause for the industry,” Front Range Biosciences CEO Dr. Jon Vaught told Cannabis Business Times and Hemp Grower. “It’s about advancing the science and developing a better understanding of … cannabinoids and how they can hopefully have a positive impact on … people who are struggling with some really challenging health issues.”
When Rylie was seven years old, she was diagnosed with aggressive bone tumors and epilepsy, which were both eventually controlled through the use of cannabis. Upon being released from the hospital, Rylie worried about the other children suffering from similar illnesses, who did not have the same access to cannabis-based medicine.
“I decided to start the Rylie’s Smile Foundation to educate families about cannabis and to pass laws to make cannabis more accessible,” Rylie told Cannabis Business Times and Hemp Grower.
Then, Rylie started receiving messages from families saying that their children were suffering negative side effects from cannabis. Lab testing determined that many of the products were contaminated with harmful ingredients, which inspired Rylie to launch Rylie’s Sunshine to produce safe medication for families like hers.
Schwazze, formerly operating as Medicine Man Technologies, Inc., a vertically-integrated Colorado cannabis company, today provided a business update. Specifically, the company shared the pro forma financial results that reflect the acquisition of Mesa Organics, which closed on April 20, 2020, and announced the termination of previously named term sheets including “the Dabble Term Sheet” with Cold Baked, LLC and Golden Works, LLC, the “Los Sueños Term Sheet” with Los Suenos, LLC and Emerald Fields Grow, LLC, and the “Farm Boy Term Sheet” (as part of the Los Sueños Farm acquisition) with Farm Boy, LLC and Baseball 18, LLC.
Pro Forma Financial Results Including Acquisition of Mesa Organics
The company provided unaudited condensed combined pro forma financial results for the first three months of 2020, the full year 2019, and balance sheet as of March 31, 2020. These financial results reflect the acquisition of Mesa Organics, which closed on April 20, 2020. The company believes that providing the pro forma results will enable shareholders to evaluate its ongoing performance more accurately.
Nancy Huber, Chief Financial Officer of Schwazze said, "We are excited to have Mesa Organics and the extraction and manufacturing business, Purplebee’s, as a cornerstone in the vertically integrated platform we are building in Colorado. In the pro forma 2019 Income Statement, Mesa Organics was accretive to Schwazze by $0.09 cents per share, and we believe this business will continue to be accretive to our overall platform. Additionally, since the closing of the acquisition, we have made significant progress in integrating the Mesa Organics and Purplebee’s operations. We are excited about the opportunity ahead and look forward to sharing our results going forward.”
The unaudited condensed combined pro forma results including standalone Schwazze and Mesa Organics historical results, and explanatory notes were included in a Form 8-K/A filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on July 2, 2020.
Acquisition Strategy Update
A group of cannabis dispensary applicants plan to drop their lawsuit over Los Angeles’ licensing process after the city agreed to process the next 100 applicants in line for licenses, which could double the number of permits issued during this licensing round, according to a Los Angeles Times report.
The Social Equity Owners and Workers Association and one of its members filed the lawsuit earlier this year to force Los Angeles cannabis regulators to vet all the dispensary applications it received last fall under its first-come, first-serve process, which has been marred by controversy.
When the Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR) launched its latest licensing round in September to issue 100 additional cannabis retail licenses to social equity applicants, some stakeholders alleged that some applicants gained early access to the online application system while others were locked out due to slow internet speeds.
The licensing process has since underwent an audit, which determined that the DCR took “reasonable and appropriate” steps to ensure fairness.
Regulators have amended the rules for its cannabis licensing process per a settlement agreement with the Social Equity Owners and Workers Association, and City Council approved the changed last week.
The Ohio State Medical Board voted July 8 to add cachexia, or wasting syndrome, to the list of qualifying conditions for the state’s medical cannabis program, although it rejected adding autism and anxiety, according to a Cincinnati.com report.
The board’s decision follows recommendations from an Ohio State Medical Board committee, which recommended adding cachexia last month, while also rejecting autism and anxiety as new qualifying conditions.
This is the second year in a row that the board has rejected autism and anxiety, arguing that cannabis may do more harm than good for those patients, Cincinnati.com reported.
The board’s decision takes effect immediately and marks the first time a new condition has been added to the program since it launched in 2016, according to the news outlet.
Illinois’ cannabis sales reached over $47.6 million in June, which now holds the record for the highest sales figures in the state, according to a Daily Herald report.
Dispensaries sold 994,545 items last month with customers spending $48 on average per sale before tax, the news outlet reported.
The Illinois Department of Revenue is expected to release tax figures later this month, but reported that May’s cannabis taxes and associated sales taxes generated $12.5 million in revenue, according to the Daily Herald.
Illinois has collected $52.7 million in cannabis tax revenue to date, the news outlet reported, which has surpassed budget estimates of $28 million.
Cannabis sales have topped $239 million since adult-use sales launched Jan. 1, according to the Daily Herald.
While April 20 is known internationally as a day to celebrate everything cannabis with parties, sales and other events, a lesser-known cannabis holiday is emerging as an opportunity to educate consumers about products beyond flower.
This Friday, July 10, is known as 7/10 Day or OIL Day, and has become an industry holiday to honor cannabis concentrates like shatter and rosin. (710, when flipped 180 degrees, spells OIL.) 7/10 or OIL Day does not have the awareness or huge number of sales of 4/20, but concentrate producers and sellers still prepare weeks in advance.
A class-action lawsuit over packaging mislabeling filed in a Calgary court is taking aim at some of the Canadian cannabis market’s biggest names. Tilray, Aurora Cannabis, Aleafia Health, Hexo Corp., Cronos Group, Organigram Holdings, MediPharm Labs Corp. and their various subsidiaries and brands are all named as defendants in the documents filed in the Court of the Queen’s Bench of Alberta.
In the statement of claim dated June 16, 2020, the plaintiff, Lisa Marie Langevin from Calgary, Alberta, claims that the named companies sold cannabis products to consumers and patients “with THC or CBD content levels that were drastically different from the amount advertised on the label.”
Health Canada regulations allow for a 15% variance in cannabinoid content from what producers list on product labels. In other words, a product’s actual potency is required to be within 85%-115% of what is listed on the label. In the claim, Langevin’s attorney states that independent lab verification of the defendants’ products should potency ranging from 52% to 119% of what was advertised.
(As of press time, Organigram declined to comment, citing a policy of not speaking on current legal proceedings, and the other named defendants did not reply to a request for comment.)
In the filing, Langevin claims to have bought a 30ml bottle of cannabis tincture produced by a Tilray subsidiary on Feb. 13, 2020. The product was labeled as containing 10.4 milligrams of THC per milliliter (10.4mg/ml) and included its packaging date (Feb. 3, 2019), but did not include an expiration date. After following the recommended dosage from the budtender to avoid “greening out,” Langevin claimed to have felt no psychotropic effects. After increasing the dosage slightly on five more occasions to no avail, Langevin allegedly asked a friend, Dr. Darren Clark, a PhD in neuroscience who was familiar with cannabis, about the issue. After sampling the product and also feeling no effect, Clark tapped Dr. Shaun Mesher, a biochemist. Further lab analysis by Mesher showed the product only had 46% of the labeled amount of THC.
A second bottle with the same lot number (although with a March 2, 2019, packaging date) was tested, revealing the product only had 79% of the labeled THC, which spurred Langevin and the doctors to test a wider array of products. The results are found in the filing:
Facing a shortage of funding and unforeseen circumstances stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, two groups that hoped to place adult-use cannabis legalization initiatives on Arkansas’ 2020 ballot have refocused their efforts on the 2022 election.
Arkansans for Cannabis Reform and Arkansas True Grass had to gather nearly 90,000 signatures by July 3 to get their proposed constitutional amendments before voters this fall, but the feat proved too much once the coronavirus crisis descended on the U.S. this past spring.
“Without enough funding and with the COVID, it just went south real quick,” Arkansans for Cannabis Reform Executive Director Melissa Fults told Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary, adding that the group managed to collect roughly 35,000 signatures before the deadline.
Arkansans for Cannabis Reform had been relying on mail-in petitions after a judge ruled in May that ballot initiative campaigns could gather signatures remotely, but the state’s attorney general filed an appeal, and an appeals court placed a stay on the original ruling until the case is heard.
“Once they put out that stay, we were done,” Fults said. “There was no option for us.”
Facing a shortage of funding and unforeseen circumstances stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, two groups that hoped to place adult-use cannabis legalization initiatives on Arkansas’ 2020 ballot have refocused their efforts on the 2022 election.
Arkansans for Cannabis Reform and Arkansas True Grass had to gather nearly 90,000 signatures by July 3 to get their proposed constitutional amendments before voters this fall, but the feat proved too much once the coronavirus crisis descended on the U.S. this past spring.
“Without enough funding and with the COVID, it just went south real quick,” Arkansans for Cannabis Reform Executive Director Melissa Fults told Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary, adding that the group managed to collect roughly 35,000 signatures before the deadline.
Arkansans for Cannabis Reform had been relying on mail-in petitions after a judge ruled in May that ballot initiative campaigns could gather signatures remotely, but the state’s attorney general filed an appeal, and an appeals court placed a stay on the original ruling until the case is heard.
“Once they put out that stay, we were done,” Fults said. “There was no option for us.”
LOS ANGELES, July 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -PRESS RELEASE- Cookies, aninternational lifestyle and cannabis brand, is pleased to announce the launchof a new cannabis brand, "COLLINS AVE," in partnership with raplegend Rick Ross. The COLLINS AVE brand includes three specially curatedstrains featuring flavor profiles inspired by Ross' identity.
Ross, along with fellow rap artist and Cookies founder Berner, have taken ahands-on approach to this new brand, with strains named, "CollinsAve," "Pink Rozay" and "Lemon Pepper." These choicesof genetics are representative of Ross' connection to Miami and will featureunique illustrations inspired by each flavor profile. The Cookies assortmentincludes Indica (Collins Ave) and Hybrid (Pink Rozay) varieties, while Lemonadewill exclusively feature "Lemon Pepper" on its award-winning Sativamenu.
"When it comes to branding and building something long term, Ross getsit," Berner said. "We have a very similar work ethic and both havespread our wings outside of the music business and what I like most about thispartnership is it all happened 100% naturally. Ross and I met back in theearly 2000's at my dispensary in San Francisco. I never tried to force amusic collaboration or anything. When we linked back up recently, everythingfell right into place and we are both looking to kill it. Expect a crazymenu on Collins Ave side with a group project to smoke and ride to."
"I want to be a force within the cannabis industry and bring a superiorquality product to the masses, particularly my people in the South," saidRoss. "I'm honored to be in partnership with Berner and Cookies,who, in my opinion, are the best in the business. I love the product andtruly stand behind it. Watch what we do!"
]]>AKRON, Ohio, July 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -PRESS RELEASE- AT-CPC of Ohio, LLC, one of Ohio's leading Level 1 Medical Marijuana Cultivators and Processors, formally announced today its separation from Calyx Peak Companies. AT-CPC of Ohio is now wholly owned and operated within Ohio and has rebranded under the name Klutch Cannabis.
Klutch Cannabis also introduced its list of brands and new product lineup. Ohio patients will soon be able to purchase products under the following:
Klutch Cannabis, which will feature a wide range of flower and processed products, with a focus on variety and accessibility for Ohio patients. Klutch Select, which will feature a premier line of flower and processed products showcasing some of the most limited, sought after and award-winning genetics in the world. Klutch Mind and Body, which will function as a wellness line and will feature products formulated to resemble more traditional medical and wellness products, such as tinctures, capsules, lotions and other new creative forms of medicine currently being developed in house. Josh D, which will continue to showcase original, award-winning OG Kush varietals and other rare genetics made famous by legendary California breeder Josh Del Rosso.Overall, Klutch will continue to differentiate itself by offering rare, coveted, and premium strains of cannabis, along with a premier line of inventive processed products showcasing some of the best medicine Ohio has to offer.
"At a time when the cannabis industry is reeling from economic hardship and the remnants of prohibition, the Klutch family of brands has been born out of our commitment to double down on the promise we've made to Ohio patients," said Klutch's founder and CEO, Adam Thomarios. "Our entire team works tirelessly to bring patients some of the best medicine available on the market. We take pride in that commitment every day, always."
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