MjLink Cannabis Business News and Press
Editor's note: This is an excerpt from "From Seed to Success: How to Launch a Great Cannabis Cultivation Business in Record Time" by Ryan Douglas. Douglas is founder of Ryan Douglas Cultivation, a cannabis cultivation consulting firm. He was Master Grower from 2013-2016 for Tweed, Inc., Canada’s largest licensed producer of medical cannabis and the flagship subsidiary of Canopy Growth Corporation. He also has contributed to Cannabis Business Times.
Domestic expansion is the addition of one or more cultivation sites within the same state, province, or country. A cannabis business can expand by building new cultivation assets from scratch, or acquiring existing operations that are fully functional. However, entrepreneurs should determine whether they are legally permitted to expand their business before they establish high hopes for domestically increasing their cultivation footprint.
Do you have permission to expand?
The biggest deciding factor on whether or not to expand a cultivation business should be determined by regulations. If your existing license allows for more than one cultivation site, and you are now in a position to take advantage of that option, initiating an expansion project should be fairly simple. If your current license only allows for one cultivation site per license, expansion won’t be as easy. In this scenario, a cultivation business must either purchase an existing license or submit a new license application. Regulations governing these activities differ by state and country, and some jurisdictions prohibit the transference of licenses between companies.
Expansion through building more facilities
If you’re considering expansion, then you’ve already been through the start-up process and you recognize the importance of proper land selection and facility design. Review Chapters Four and Five, or consult the site assessment checklist found in the Appendix to help expedite these processes.
PRESS RELEASE
Sustainable growing solutions
ALBANY, New York, Feb. 17, 2020 - PRESS RELEASE - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced 30-day amendments to the Governor's proposal to establish a comprehensive adult-use cannabis program in New York. Specifically, these amendments will detail how the $100 Million in social equity funding will be allocated, enable the use of delivery services, and refine which criminal charges will be enforced as it relates to the improper sale of cannabis to further reduce the impact on communities hit hardest by the war on drugs.
"As we work to reimagine, rebuild and reopen New York, we're taking every opportunity to address and correct decades of institutional wrongs to build back better than ever before," Cuomo said. "We know that you cannot overcome a problem without first admitting there is one. Our comprehensive approach to legalizing and regulating the adult-use cannabis market provides the opportunity to generate much-needed revenue, but it also enables us to directly support the communities most impacted by the war on drugs by creating equity and jobs at every level, in every community in our great state."
Allocation of $100 Million Cannabis Social Equity Fund
Social and economic equity are the bedrock of Cuomo's proposal to legalize cannabis for adult-use and as part of that, his proposal includes a $100 million dollar fund to help revitalize communities that have been most harmed by the war on drugs.
Through this fund, qualified community-based nonprofit organizations and local governments would apply for funding to support a number of different community revitalization efforts, including, but not limited to:
Job placement and skills services,Adult education,Mental health treatment,Substance use disorder treatment,Housing,Financial literacy,Community banking,Nutrition services,Services to address adverse childhood experiences,Afterschool and child care services, system navigation services,Legal services to address barriers to reentry, andLinkages to medical care, women's health services and other community-based supportive servicesThe grants from this program may also be used to further support the social and economic equity program.
Name: Thomas Vaughn
Location: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Title: Grower/Partner
One word to describe your cultivation style: Passion
Indoor, outdoor, greenhouse or a combination: Indoor
Can you share a bit of your background and how you and your company got to the present day?
I got started in Los Angeles, CA medical program in 2003 through 2010. I moved back to Oklahoma with no expectation of Oklahoma having a medical marijuana program. In 2018 S.Q. 788 passed and we built a team of like-minded individuals but with wide ranging skill sets and took off.
State Sen. Nancy Skinner introduced legislation Feb. 11 to loosen some of those constraints by expanding resources to help city and county governments that don’t have the wherewithal to oversee legal cannabis operations, she said in a release about her bill. S.B. 398 would allow local jurisdictions access to a state program that would manage certain bureaucratic functions for them, like enabling businesses to obtain licenses through the state.
“Californians legalized cannabis four years ago, yet the state is still plagued by a multi-billion-dollar illicit cannabis market,” Skinner said in the release. “Why? Too many cities and counties don’t have the bandwidth to set up cannabis licensing and regulations. S.B. 398 will help cities and counties greenlight legal cannabis by allowing cannabis businesses to get their local licenses through the state.”
In November 2016, Californians approved Proposition 64, The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, by a 57.1% majority, legalizing adult-use cannabis statewide. The proposition was intended to reduce the illicit market with an above-ground legal playing field that ensures the production and sale of safe, regulated cannabis, Skinner said.
But the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO)—a nonpartisan fiscal and policy research institute for California’s legislature—estimates that adult-use cannabis businesses operate in less than one-third of jurisdictions statewide, which, in part, is because of the complicated regulatory framework Proposition 64 requires local governments to administer, the congresswoman said.
RELATED: California’s Cannabis Industry Marred by Limited Supply Chain and Heavy Tax Burden
Integrated Room Automation helps cultivators maximize plant biomass and phenotypic expression, strengthen top-line performance and mitigate risk. Combined with InSpire’s plant-centric HVACD systems, cultivators can achieve 24-hour vapor pressure deficit (VPD) control and greater resistance to pathogen introduction and expression.
“Historical wisdom and technology provides a very solid foundation on which to build, but we can’t ignore that the commercial cannabis industry is rapidly evolving,” said Adrian Giovenco, CEO of InSpire Transpiration Solutions. “It is becoming increasingly important for legal cannabis cultivation operations to leverage cutting-edge strategies in order to maximize profitability. When growers can monitor, control and analyze a full range of environmental data, they can drive yields and innovate in ways that will move the entire industry in exciting new directions.”
InSpire’s Integrated Room Automation provides cannabis cultivators with the ability to:
Leverage environmental crop steering techniques with real-time controlOptimize plant performance with transpiration and carbon assimilation insightsMonitor moisture content of harvested flower during the dry/cure process for consistent product weight and qualitySchedule temperature and relative humidity setpoints, plus automate light schedules and carbon dioxide enrichment by room to optimize phenotypic expression run after run Access a fully functional IOT platform with customizable alerts and bank-level security from anywhere in the world“Integration like this is essential for success,” Giovenco said. “Using independent units to heat, cool, dehumidify and clean the air leads to high operating costs, prevents plants from reaching maximum metabolic rates and puts the entire operation at risk of pathogen contamination. Cannabis operations can successfully meet their [key performance indicators] by implementing repeatable, precise environmental control for greater consistency in product quality, optimized phenotype and chemotype expression.”
To learn more about InSpire’s Integrated Room Automation, visit: https://inspire.ag/hvac-products/controls-monitors/
]]>VALLEY VIEW, OH (February 11, 2021) – Cannabis Business Times, Cannabis Dispensary and Hemp Grower magazines, owned by B2B publishing company GIE Media, Inc., announces the hiring of Anthony Lange as Associate Editor and Andriana Ruscitto as Assistant Editor to support the rapidly growing media brands.
Under the direction of Digital Editor Eric Sandy, Lange and Ruscitto will contribute primarily digital content to support the brands’ ongoing rise in web traffic, with additional contributions to the brands’ print magazines.
Anthony (Tony) Lange has been hired as Associate Editor for Cannabis Business Times, Cannabis Dispensary and Hemp Grower, where he will contribute both digital and print content. He spent the past decade working in the weekly newspaper business, contributing primarily to the Chagrin Valley Times as a beat reporter, sports editor, photographer and page designer. Before that, he was a staff assistant for a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., where he drafted responses to constituent letters and aided the communications director. Lange is a graduate of Kent State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism.
Andriana Ruscitto has been hired as Assistant Editor for Cannabis Business Times, Cannabis Dispensary and Hemp Grower magazines. Before joining GIE Media, Ruscitto attended Kent State University, where she worked in the university communications and marketing department, writing stories for the Kent State Today. Ruscitto graduated from Kent State in December 2020 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations and a minor in Marketing.
“We are excited to have Anthony and Andriana join our talented team of editors,” Skodzinski said. “They both bring unique experience and skillsets that are extremely valuable in serving the audiences of the Cannabis Group media brands. We look forward to seeing their careers flourish at GIE Media.”
“Tony and Andriana are coming on board to help accelerate even further the rapid growth in web traffic we have seen across all three media brands they will be working on,” said Sandy. “We are excited to tap their reporting skills to cover an even greater number of stories critical to our audiences at Cannabis Business Times, Cannabis Dispensary and Hemp Grower.”
Editor’s Note: There is no denying that the cannabis industry is rapidly growing and evolving, leaving many in the industry to have to continuously adapt to the ever-changing landscape. I interviewed three professionals with a well-built background in cannabis, who share their experiences, lessons learned, insights and tips on working in the cannabis industry.
Tips from Crystal Oliver, executive director for the Washington Sungrowers Industry Association (WSIA) and co-founder and former owner of Washington's Finest Cannabis. Oliver shares her personal experiences and lessons learned as a small business owner in the cannabis industry with Cannabis Business Times.
RELATED: 6 Cannabis Business Lessons We Learned Too Late
I wish I knew..
1. The value of hiring a professional lobbyist compared to the price you pay for bad policy.
The saying, "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu," comes to mind when I reflect on the evolution of cannabis policy in Washington. Early on, other farmers and I focused on community organizing and advocating for ourselves. What we lacked in experience, we made up for in passion, but this did not always translate to policy wins. We often knew why a policy proposal would hurt our businesses but getting legislators and regulators to listen to us and modify their approach was incredibly challenging.
While everyday challenges are commonplace for businesses in the federally illegal cannabis industry, The Green Lady Dispensary has perhaps had to clear more than its fair share of hurdles in its roughly 18 months of existence, although the vertically integrated company has found a way to thrive in the tourist destination of Nantucket, Mass.
“It was quite a year,” owner Nicole Campbell tells Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary, referencing not only the COVID-19 pandemic that has impacted so many businesses, but also Massachusetts’ vape quarantine.
The Green Lady launched into the state’s adult-use cannabis market August 2019, and could be open by appointment only during those first few months. The company’s retail store celebrated a soft opening at the end of the tourist season, and a month later, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker instituted a four-month ban on vape sales statewide in response to the outbreak of vaping-related lung illness that shook the nation that summer.
Still reeling from that setback, The Green Lady then had to shut down for nearly two months at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, when adult-use cannabis businesses were not declared essential during Massachusetts’ coronavirus-related shutdowns.
“It was a really rough time,” Campbell says. “Even when we got to finally open back up, which I think was May 25, … June was still soft because people didn’t know what to do with themselves with COVID. They didn’t know, ‘Should I go somewhere? Should I stay home? What should I do?’”
Virginia, once a conservative stronghold, positioned itself to make history this month by becoming the first traditionally “Southern” state to legalize cannabis, possibly as soon as this summer. On Feb. 5, both chambers of the state’s General Assembly passed their own legalization bills that would also establish a state-run market and licensing system.
But Virginia is running into some of the same challenges as other states pursuing legalization: disagreements over license types, penalties for minors and the timing of the law’s implementation. Industry advocates are also concerned that more conservative elements of the state legislature will prevent equitable legalization in Virginia.
What’s happened so far?
Part of the state’s decriminalization bill signed by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam in May 2020 directed the legislature to create a work group to study the possibility of legalization. Last month, Northam unveiled a legalization bill co-sponsored by multiple state legislators.
Two separate state legislative bills to legalize cannabis—HB2312 in the House and SB1406 in the Senate—have already passed. But the differences between the two bills must be resolved into a single resolution for Northam to sign. And that’s where things get tricky.
Where are things now?
Washington, DC - This Presidents Day, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), along with a coalition of business groups and criminal justice reform advocates, is calling upon President Joe Biden to follow through on his campaign commitment to expunge the criminal records of those with non-violent cannabis convictions.
“President Biden was crystal clear on the campaign trail that his administration would prioritize criminal justice reform, and he explicitly highlighted his desire to 'zero out' the records of those suffering from the stigma of a federal marijuana conviction,” said NORML Executive Director Erik Altieri. “Following through on this campaign promise would be an important first step in remedying the past wrongs associated with nearly a century of marijuana prohibition and healing the wounds of the many Americans who have needlessly suffered under this failed public policy. In 2021, it is readily apparent that the criminalization of cannabis, and the lifelong lost opportunities that come with a criminal marijuana conviction, causes far greater harm than the responsible use of cannabis itself.”
You can read the full letter here.
U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (OR-03) and Barbara Lee (CA-13), co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, also called on President Biden to grant executive clemency to all non-violent federal cannabis offenders.
“Even before Congress sends President Biden a marijuana reform bill to sign, he has the unique ability to lead on criminal justice reform and provide immediate relief to thousands of Americans,” said Reps. Earl Blumenauer (OR-03) and Barbara Lee (CA-13), Congressional Cannabis Caucus co-chairs leading an effort on Capitol Hill to promote pardons to all non-violent federal cannabis offenders. "We urge President Biden to grant executive clemency for all non-violent cannabis offenders and look forward to working with him and the incoming Attorney General on quickly making this a reality.”
Blumenauer and Lee—who are continuing to build support on Capitol Hill for clemency for non-violent federal cannabis offenders—plan to send a formal letter to the Biden administration in the coming days.
Gathered before a legislative crossroads, the New Mexico House Health and Human Services Committee made its intent clear on cannabis legalization: Social equity is going to be part of the process.
Today, the committee advanced House Bill 12 to the House Tax Committee, while ultimately tabling a similar legalization bill (House Bill 17) that did not include specific equity language. It was a clear signal to advocates and residents that the state is getting serious about developing a robust cannabis program.
The Drug Policy Alliance has regularly cited H.B. 12 this year as a favorable bill that might usher in a more progressive state marketplace.
“Legalization must be responsive to the lives of New Mexicans, not solely business interests, and that means centering social justice, as the H.B. 12 introduced by Rep. Martinez, Rep. Andrea Romero and Rep. Deborah Armstrong does,” Emily Kaltenbach, senior director for Resident States and New Mexico for the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a public statement. “New Mexicans are absolutely ready to see marijuana legalization become a reality in the state, but they have made it clear that repairing the damage done by the drug war is non-negotiable. Any legislation considered this session must reinvest back into communities most harmed by drug prohibition, particularly Hispanic/Latino, Black and Native populations in New Mexico.”
According to the Drug Policy Alliance, “nearly three out of four New Mexicans approve of cannabis legalization with provisions in place to ensure tax revenue is reinvested back into communities, including 94% of Democrats, 93% of Independents and 46% of Republicans.”
BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Feb. 11, 2021 – PRESS RELEASE –– Marc Byers and his team of odor mitigation experts recently announced the launch of Byers Scientific (Byers), which brings two industry-leading companies—Byers Scientific & Manufacturing and Pacific Environmental Analytics—together under one roof. Through this internal restructuring, Byers has expanded its comprehensive and data-driven odor mitigation solutions across multiple industries.
Byers Scientific & Manufacturing, now Byers Mitigation Technologies, has been a leading designer, engineer and manufacturer of equipment for the industrial odor management industry since 2014. Byers’ patented dry vapor-phase odor mitigation systems are an integral part of the odor mitigation plan for numerous industrial-scale facilities. With these vapor-phase systems, in conjunction with its industry-leading MT-6 Molecular Filtration System, Byers is innovating state-of-the-art odor mitigation. This comprehensive approach helps customers and clients achieve regulatory compliance and effectively reduce water and energy consumption to help pave the way for a more sustainable future.
Pacific Environmental Analytics, now Byers Emissions Analysis (BEA), was formed in 2019 to provide a bottom-up approach to assessing and managing commercial agriculture and industrial emissions. Innovated by globally recognized scientists Dr. Alex Guenther and Dr. William Vizuete, BEA employs pioneering gas-phase emissions testing and analysis to determine the impact of cultivation, processing and extraction on air quality using site-specific emissions modeling.
Finally, the newest division, Byers Intelligent Systems, offers other industrial manufacturers the same Bolt-OnTM Cloud-based SCADA (IoT) functionality on-board all Byers’ manufactured equipment. This proprietary technology is made available to other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to increase automation capabilities, improve equipment efficiencies, collect critical data and drive revenue.
By bringing Byers Mitigation Technologies, Emissions Analysis and Intelligent Systems together, Byers equips customers and clients to tackle today’s most complex odor and emissions challenges across various industries. With science and data-driven mitigation and monitoring solutions, Byers helps significantly reduce liability associated with odor and emissions from commercial cannabis, solid waste, industrial-scale composting and more.
]]>Vertically integrated, multistate operator (MSO) Cresco Labs and its co-founder Joe Caltabiano have ended a multifaceted dispute in a Canadian court after Cresco alleged in a lawsuit that Caltabiano engaged in inappropriate behavior and created a “toxic work environment” while working at Cresco and breached his contract with the company, which he left last year.
On Jan. 29, Cresco filed a civil suit in British Columbia’s Supreme Court against Caltabiano, who was Cresco’s president and a member of its board of directors, and against Ken Amann and Choice Consolidation Corp. (Though it operates in the U.S., Cresco has an office in Vancouver, B.C., and is publicly traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange.)
By Feb. 4, the case was discontinued.
“The claims outlined in the lawsuit have been resolved through a mutual settlement agreement and Cresco has successfully mitigated the regulatory issues referred to in the complaint,” Cresco spokesperson Jason Erkes told Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary in a Feb. 11 email. “The lawsuit has been discontinued in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.”
“This lawsuit was quickly dismissed on Feb. 4,” Shawna McGregor, a publicist who represents Caltabiano, told CBT and CD in a Feb. 12 email. “Had it proceeded, Mr. Caltabiano and Choice Consolidation Corp would have denied the allegations as untrue. Like all legitimate organizations, Choice Consolidation Corp. has every right to exist and operate within the U.S. cannabis marketplace.”
In its suit, Cresco claimed that Caltabiano bullied and intimidated female employees at the company and “sought to embarrass his female employees at every turn.”
We are in the midst of state legislation filing season, and this year’s flurry of reform bills are buoyed by some serious political momentum out of Washington, D.C., and the growing number of adult-use states in the U.S.
In Connecticut, for instance, the governor specifically cited Massachusetts’ booming industry as a reason to legalize cannabis this year—with an eye on May 2022 for sales. “Our neighboring states are offering recreational marijuana on a legal and regulated basis,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a budget address to the state. “Massachusetts dispensaries are advertising extensively here in Connecticut. And rather than surrender this market to out-of-staters, or worse, to the unregulated underground market, our budget provides for the legalization of recreational marijuana.”
The Connecticut news tops our Week in Review, but there are plenty of other stories to check out in mid-February. Here’s what you need to know:
If Gov. Ned Lamont gets his way, Connecticut will no longer wave the white flag to out-of-state cannabis markets, like neighboring Massachusetts, that are currently deploying advertisements to funnel away potential revenue streams. Read more According to new data from the Colorado Department of Revenue, 2020 was the highest-selling year for cannabis in Colorado. The state is approaching $10 billion in sales since 2014. Read more Fox Rothschild attorneys share their specialized perspectives on the M&A landscape in the cannabis industry, as well as what factors play a role in accelerating consolidations in the rapidly expanding market in the U.S. Read more After South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem supported a lawsuit that questioned the voter-approved amendment from November, Circuit Judge Christina Klinger rules the measure violated one of the state’s constitutional amendments. Read more A city of 11,000, Ontario, grosses $91.7 million in 2020 to take over ‘Highest County’ title in Oregon after local voters overturn ban on cannabis sales. That’s just the start of it. Read moreAnd elsewhere on the web, here are the stories we’ve been reading this week:
ESPN: Former Lions Calvin Johnson, Rob Sims believe in the science, potential of cannabis industry. Read more CalCoastNews.com: California Fast-Tracking Cannabis Business Licenses for Refugees. Read more Marketwatch: Best-Performing Marijuana ETF Manager Says the Industry Will Be Transformed By Iconic Consumer Brands. Read more Forbes: Billionaire Beau Wrigley Says His Cannabis Company Will Be Bigger Than the Family Candy Business. Read more The Street: Aurora Cannabis CEO Talks Q2 Results, Cannabis Industry Outlook. Read more]]>
South Dakota may have been the first state to pass both medical and adult-use cannabis on the same ballot in November 2020, but Gov. Kristi Noem is not in a hurry to implement either.
Initiated Measure 26, the medical cannabis program ballot measure, passed with 69.9% in favor. Based on South Dakota law, constitutional amendments and initiated measures become effective on July 1 each year following an election.
However, Noem said she and leadership in both chambers of the South Dakota state legislature plan to delay implementing a medical cannabis program an additional year, to July 1, 2022, she announced in a press release Feb. 10.
“We are working diligently to get IM 26 implemented safely and correctly,” Noem said in the release. “The feasibility of getting this program up and running well will take additional time. I am thankful to our legislative leaders for helping make sure that we do this right.”
That announcement came two days after Circuit Judge Christina Klinger struck down the voter-approved adult-use Amendment A, concluding that it violated South Dakota’s requirement that constitutional amendments be limited to one subject, she said in her ruling. That ruling was sparked after Noem instructed state law enforcement personnel to file litigation against Amendment A.
Name: Philip Goldberg
Location: Frederick, Md.
Title: CEO, Green Leaf Medical
One word to describe your cultivation style: Intelligent
Indoor, outdoor, greenhouse or a combination: Indoor
Can you share a bit of your background and how you and your company got to the present day?
Green Leaf Medical was formed in 2014 by myself and my brother, Kevin Goldberg. I had been running an advertising agency I started from the ground up in 1998 and Kevin was working at a law firm he founded shortly after graduating from Catholic University School of Law in 1995. After forming the company in 2014, we spent the next two years positioning Green Leaf to secure one of a limited number of licenses to cultivate medical cannabis in Maryland. In August of 2016, we were notified that our application had been approved and that we had received the highest score out of 146 applicants for cultivation. We then began the arduous task of raising capital to construct our 42,000-square-foot cultivation facility. We raised approximately $9 million through the sale of equity. The construction took 12 months and when it was completed, we had a state of the art, fully automated cultivation facility. We began cultivating in September 2017 and had our first harvest in January of 2018. At this point, we developed the gLeaf brand that is associated with all our products. The facility currently produces approximately 1,000 pounds of dry cannabis per month. From there, we acquired the first extraction and dispensary licenses issued in the state.
Colorado cannabis businesses have sold nearly $10 billion in cannabis products since statewide cannabis sales started in 2014, according to new data released by the Colorado Department of Revenue (CDOR) on Tuesday.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the data indicates that 2020 was a record-breaking year for the Colorado cannabis industry. The state sold $2.19 billion in cannabis products, a 25% increase from 2019, which totaled $1.75 billion.
In December 2020 alone, the state sold nearly $36.7 million in medical cannabis and $149.7 million in adult-use cannabis, totaling over $186.3 million in cannabis products, roughly a 30% increase compared to December 2019 sales.
The data shows that Colorado ended 2020 with nearly $9.98 billion in total cannabis sales to date, which indicates that the state could have already surpassed the $10 billion mark from January and February sales, or it will happen soon.
Additionally, tax revenue is collected from the cannabis dispensaries that collect 2.9% in-state sales tax, 15% in cannabis retail sales tax and a 15% excise tax on wholesale/transfers of retail cannabis. Revenue is also generated from cannabis license and application fees, according to the state’s cannabis tax report.
In 2020, the state collected nearly $387.5 million in total tax revenue and fees for the year, ending 2020 with over $1.5 billion collected in tax revenue and fees to date.
Earlier this month, a blockbuster deal kicked off the 2021 cannabis merger-and-acquisition season, when Ireland-based Jazz Pharmaceuticals inked a $7.2-billion deal to acquire United Kingdom-based GW Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of the Food and Drug Administration-approved Epidiolex. It was the biggest handshake yet for the cannabis industry, and it could be just the beginning of what’s to come in a global market still in its infancy.
At Fox Rothschild, a Philadelphia-based law firm with a national cannabis practice group, Partner Melissa Sanders and Associate Jared Schwass told clients there is much more room for businesses to expand in an alert they released Feb. 1.
Sanders advises corporate clients on a wide range of business matters, with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions, private placements of securities, financing transactions and ownership transition programs. Schwass is an attorney in the corporate department and a member of the firm’s Cannabis Law Practice Group. He advises businesses entering and operating in the legalized cannabis market on regulatory compliance, risk mitigation and business transactions.
“At the end of 2020, we saw an uptick in merger-and-acquisition activity as the industry shook off some pandemic-related instability, and we expect that trend to increase significantly in 2021,” they said in the alert.
“Despite abundant money available to the large multi-state operators (MSOs), most cannabis companies still have relatively limited avenues to raise capital due to the federal illegality of the industry,” they said. “However, that may change soon with the democrats now controlling both houses of Congress and the White House.”
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If Gov. Ned Lamont gets his way, Connecticut will no longer wave the white flag to out-of-state cannabis markets, like neighboring Massachusetts, that are currently deploying advertisements to funnel away potential revenue streams.
During his budget address on Feb. 10, Lamont announced his legislative proposal for adult-use legalization, with cannabis sales to begin in May 2022. The proposal offers a comprehensive framework for the cultivation, manufacture, sale, possession, use and taxation of cannabis that prioritizes public health, public safety and social justice, according to a fact sheet he also released Feb. 10.
Revenue from taxing the adult-use cannabis market in Connecticut would generate roughly $100 million by fiscal 2026, according to Lamont’s proposed budget.
“And now our neighboring states are offering recreational marijuana on a legal and regulated basis,” Lamont said in his address. “Massachusetts dispensaries are advertising extensively here in Connecticut. And rather than surrender this market to out-of-staters, or worse, to the unregulated underground market, our budget provides for the legalization of recreational marijuana.”
Lamont’s 163-page proposed cannabis legislation, An Act Responsibly and Equitably Regulating Adult-Use Cannabis, states that prohibition has failed, and Connecticut needs a new approach to protect public health and safety, especially for communities of color disproportionately harmed by cannabis arrests and convictions. According to Lamont’s summary, the proposal provides expungement for cannabis possession convictions prior to Oct. 1, 2015, as well as expungement by petition after that date.
