MjLink Cannabis Business News and Press

CBD is renowned for its neuroprotective qualities, and clinical researchers in Australia are testing whether this natural cannabinoid can help protect athletes from the devastating effects of traumatic brain injuries.

An Australian healthcare firm is asking mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters to help them test the neuroprotective properties of cannabis.

Starting next quarter, Impression Healthcare (IHL) plans to launch a clinical trial to investigate whether their proprietary cannabinoid formula can help protect MMA fighters from traumatic brain injury (TBI). 

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Chris Moore ~ MerryJane.com ~ 

Veterans Affairs employees can still be fired for using marijuana even in states where the drug is legal, department officials said in a new message sent out to employees this week.

The memo, described as a “self-explanatory, simple reminder” by VA leadership, applies to all department staffers and was signed by VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.

It specifies that employment with the department requires that workers “refrain from using illegal drugs on and off duty,” including marijuana.

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Leo Shane III ~ MilitaryTimes.com ~ 

Even as access to cannabis rapidly increases across the nation, in perusing local dispensary menus, product packaging and consumer coverage online one might forget that Cannabis sativa L. is more than a sum of two ingredients: THC and CBD. But a study published this week in Molecules, helps to shed a little light on one of the many lesser known cannabinoids contained in cannabis: CBM, or cannabimovone.

Previously discovered in a landrace hemp varietal known as Carmagnola, named after the region in which it was found, little was known about the potential effects of CBM until a team of Italian researchers took up the challenge. 

Looking specifically at whether this non-intoxicating minor cannabinoid could effectively engage at PPARs (peroxisome proliferation-activated receptors) that play a fundamental role in cell generation, energy and metabolic regulation, the team used 3-D computational models and cell culture assessments to determine activation probability at two of the threes types of PPARs: PPARα (alpha) and PPARγ (gamma).

While previous studies have found dual-action potential at both receptor types for other cannabinoids—including THC, CBD and CBG (cannabigerol), as well as their raw, unheated versions—CBM was found to be most potent at PPARγ.

Due to its role in fat storage and metabolism, sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity, this receptor “represents an attractive pharmacological target to address metabolic disorders” like diabetes and dyslipidemia, which can increase risk for clogged arteries, heart attacks, strokes and other circulatory concerns, according to the study.

The authors also pointed out recent research on the role of this receptor in inflammatory and immune responses. Additionally, several studies have stressed the importance of PPARγ activation in its potential to treat neuroinflammatory conditions like Huntington’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease.

Greenhouse Wellness, a dispensary located in Ellicott City, Md., already has a 10- to 18-week delay on vape cartridge shipments due to the coronavirus, says Gina Dubbe, company co-founder and president.

The cannabis industry could face a long-term supply shortage because battery life on many disposable vapes is typically six months, Dubbe says, citing a notable timeline.

“We’re fortunate because we stocked six months of supply, so we’re hoping by that time the factories will be back open again,” she says.

It’s an issue that industries across a wide range of sectors are grappling with. The world’s largest 1,000 companies or their suppliers own about 12,000 manufacturing or distribution facilities in quarantined areas, according to a Harvard Business Review report.

About 90% of the world's e-cigarettes and vaping devices come from China, according to a Feb. 26 news release from online vape retailer ProVape. The retailer warned that if factories in affected regions remain closed, “there could be a significant delay in the shipment of vaping supplies, if not a total outage.”

“In the cannabis industry, the biggest components that make any sale possible—beyond the cannabis itself—are hardware (like vape pens and cartridges) and packaging,” says Simon Dufour, who provides consulting services for the cannabis industry as a CPA for Hall & Company, based in Irvine, Calif.

Canopy Growth has unveiled what it calls a “production optimization plan” for its operations in Canada, which includes the closure of two greenhouse facilities and the elimination of roughly 500 employees.

“Although difficult, [the] decision was made in order to align Canopy Growth’s supply with consumer demand and improve production efficiencies over time,” CEO David Klein told Cannabis Business Times in an emailed statement.

Canopy plans to shutter its greenhouses in Aldergrove and Delta, British Columbia, which make up roughly 3 million square feet of licensed production space, and the company no longer plans to open a third greenhouse in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, according to a March 4 press release.

“Nearly 17 months after the creation of the legal adult-use market, the Canadian recreational market has developed slower than anticipated, creating working capital and profitability challenges across the industry,” Klein said. “Additionally, federal regulations permitting outdoor cultivation were introduced after the company made significant investments in greenhouse production. The company now operates an outdoor production site to allow for more cost-effective cultivation, which will play an increasingly important role in meeting demand on certain products that rely on cannabis extracts. Following a strategic review of production capacity and forecasted demand, the company announced … that these facilities are no longer essential to its cultivation footprint.”

The capital markets have “bombarded” the industry in Canada, said Deepak Anand, director of Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana and vice president of NORML Canada.

It took a while for investors to realize that they should ask the same detailed questions as they do in other industries about what they should do with their money before proceeding with capital raises, said Anand, who is also co-founder and CEO of Materia Ventures and serves on the board of Valens GroWorks. Now they’re closely watching the industry.

The duo both joined TILT in 2019 through acquisitions made by the holding company—Scatterday is the founder of Jupiter Research, a vape technology manufacturer, and Conder is the founder of Blackbird Logistics, a cannabis technology company developing distribution, delivery and customer service software. With their new titles confirmed, Scatterday and Conder hope to make TILT profitable by refocusing on the company’s strengths.

In this Q&A, the executives share the dynamics of co-running a company, what the future holds for its cultivation and retail assets, tips for cultivators and more.

(Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length, style and clarity.)

CBT: How will the executive responsibilities be divvied up between both of you?

Mark Scatterday: We're really not operating a whole lot differently since I nominated Tim as my chief operating officer. I believe that was back in July of 2019. I've been interim CEO since May 10 for TILT Holdings. I was a former founder and CEO of Jupiter Research. We were acquired in January of 2019 then I stepped into the interim CEO role in May of 2019. In July of 2019, Tim stepped into the role as my chief operating officer and Tim and I have been working hand in hand with the refocus of TILT Holdings: cutting costs, driving revenue and just restructuring the company, so to speak. Just really focusing on some foundational and business principles: driving revenues, focusing on bottom line profits, cutting cost and the unnecessary spending and making sure there is proper allocation of capital.

With the board’s confidence I stepped into the role as permanent CEO. Tim and I have demonstrated that we've worked extremely well together, and I wanted him to give Tim a little bit more responsibility on the day to day and authority and therefore he is now president of a TILT Holdings. But as far as how we've been operating, anything different today than we've been operating in the last seven months, not a whole lot of difference.

Tim Conder: One of the best things about our acquisition and now working at TILT from my perspective has been working alongside Mark and his team. The two of us have been in lockstep for the past seven months. This is just a continuation and maybe crystallization of how we've been operating up to this point.

Like Mark said, we’re excited about the work that we've been able to do together and continue and we’re really, really happy that the board has confidence in both of us to continue moving forward. And from my perspective, I’m just excited to continue to learn from Mark and how he's built his business and really leverage those fundamentals throughout TILT.

For Bijan Sakaki, founding partner of Beehives Own, a medical cannabis dispensary licensee in Utah, the state’s nascent market seems like an afterthought to many in the industry, but he’s determined to launch a successful business to help the state’s patients base and combat Utah’s opioid epidemic.

Sakaki has been treating his ulcerative colitis with medical cannabis for the last six years, and once owned a dispensary in California that has since been sold. He and his Beehives Own team first applied for a cultivation license in Utah, and while their application ranked in ninth place, the state ultimately decided to issue eight cultivation licenses instead of the 10 that were permitted under state law.

“It was bittersweet when they said they were going to release eight instead of 10,” Sakaki tells Cannabis Business Times. “After that, we focused on the retail side. We’re fortunate enough to be able to get two of the 14 licenses—one in Salt Lake City, … which is in Salt Lake County, … the main population center of Utah and Salt Lake City. Then our second location is Brigham City, which is in Box Elder County, and that’s probably an hour north of the city.”

The company’s Salt Lake City location will be its flagship store, he adds, and that is where the team is currently focusing most of its time and resources in an effort to open the dispensary in late April or early May.

“Right now, we’re in the middle of the buildout for our Salt Lake location,” Sakaki says. “We’re hoping to be open for 4/20, but it looks like it’ll be the beginning of May. For our Brigham City location, it’s going to be August [or] September.”

The cannabis industry has experienced explosive growth, so much so that it might be assumed that the company valuations, along with their stocks, had nowhere to go but up.

All industries that see a massive expansion over a short period of time have, at some point, to experience a hiccup. Understanding what causes those hiccups will go a long way to helping industry players find their way to controlled growth and a wealth of new opportunities.

Nearly 40 months since Massachusetts voted to legalize marijuana, Boston is getting its first recreational pot shop.

Pure Oasis, an adult-use marijuana dispensary located in the Grove Hall neighborhood of Dorchester, announced that it plans to open Monday at 11 a.m., after the state’s Cannabis Control Commission issued the store a commence operations notice Thursday morning.

The dispensary is also the first application to come through the CCC’s economic empowerment program, which offered a faster review process to entrepreneurs from communities hit hardest by the war on drugs.

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Nik DeCosta-Klipa ~ Boston.com ~

Some speculate boom times are ahead for Thailand tourism with medical cannabis now legal. But don’t expect ailing patients to flock there for cannabis treatments anytime soon.

When Thailand’s first official full-time clinic specializing in traditional and alternative cannabis-based medicine opened in January, hopes were high that the greater access to legal medical cannabis could open doors for the country’s tourism sector to reap the economic benefits of marijuana-inspired travel into Southeast Asia.

In a region where cannabis use continues to be a controversial subject approached with caution, liberalization can be said to be happening with some ferocity in Thailand.

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Yixin Ng ~ Skift.com ~

Out-of-state buyers made up about a third of the total sales in February.

Recreational marijuana sales for February weren’t as high as they were in January, according to new numbers released by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

Not including taxes collected, statewide cannabis sales in February totaled $34,805,072.01 over the 29-day period.

That’s down about $5 million from January, which was the first month of sales in the state.

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Florida Rep. Ray Rodrigues has filed legislation that would impose a 10% THC cap on medical cannabis products for patients under the age of 21, according to a CBS Miami report.

Rodrigues introduced his bill the day after similar legislation stalled in the Senate, the news outlet reported. Rodrigues’ measure is an amendment to H.B. 713, a Department of Health legislative package.

The proposal would limit doses of smokable medical cannabis, as well as edibles, but doctors could order cannabis with a THC level above 10% for patients under 21 if they get permission from the Department of Health, and the cap would not apply to terminally ill patients, CBS Miami reported.

H.B. 713 is expected to be heard on the House floor March 5, according to the news outlet.

This will be the first time the House takes up a THC cap, after House Speaker Jose Oliva announced last month that he would like to pass legislation this year to limit the THC content in medical cannabis products.

Adult-use cannabis sales in Illinois totaled nearly $35 million in February, a decline from January’s sales, which reached almost $40 million.

Statewide sales in February totaled $34,805,072.01, according to a CBS Chicago report.

The state’s dispensaries sold 831,600 items, the news outlet reported.

The sales figures do not include taxes collected, but tax revenue from adult-use sales surpassed $10 million in January.

As the cannabis industry matures and improves, we have its women to thank for numerous contributions—everything from improving processes in getting clones or seed to sale, to consulting startups on how to launch their businesses.

Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, we are reflecting on women’s achievements and contributions in the industry.

At Cannabis Conference 2020, taking place April 21-23 in Las Vegas, these women will speak on subjects as far-ranging as pest and disease challenges in growing hemp, tips for hiring and retaining dispensary staff, and cannabinoid and terpene science—all to help the industry continue to progress.

We'd like to thank them for speaking at Cannabis Conference 2020 and for continuing to make impactful and far-reaching contributions to the market.

Dr. Leslie Apgar, Greenhouse Wellness

An illicit-market vape cartridge buy-back program set in motion by Platinum and Miramar, Calif.’s Mankind Dispensary has revealed that the majority of unregulated vapes collected are unfit for consumption.

During the month of September, Mankind’s customers were invited to turn in vape cartridges that had been purchased from sources other than a legal cannabis dispensary in exchange for a Platinum vape cartridge.

“Our partner, Platinum Vape, came to us and said, ‘We want to do something about this vape crisis and we want to learn a little bit more,’” John Butters, VP of Strategy for Mankind, tells Cannabis Business Times. “We had similar goals. We heard about some of the scary things that are out there in some of the illicit-market vapes and some of the problems they were causing, and we wanted to get an idea of how it was affecting our local community. So, we said yes, and we allowed customers to come down with any illicit market vape they had and [they] could trade it in with a small cost for a Platinum vape cart. There has to be a small cost for it to be legal.”

Two dozen cartridges collected during the program were viable for testing and were released to Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs to undergo testing for potency, pesticides, heavy metals and vitamin E acetate. Samples passed or failed these tests based on the California Bureau of Cannabis Control’s testing regulations for the legal cannabis market.

“We saw that 79% of them were deemed as unfit for consumption overall,” Josh Swider, co-founder and CFO of Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs, tells Cannabis Business Times. “About 80% wouldn’t have passed the California compliance regulations.”

Michigan’s Marijuana Regulatory Agency announced a plan to phase out caregiver-sourced cannabis in its medical cannabis dispensaries. Effective immediately, licensed cannabis businesses may no longer purchase cannabis concentrates, cartridges or other infused products from caregivers in the state.

Cannabis flower is a different story—for now. The final day for caregiver-sourced cannabis flower transfers will be Sept. 30. Between now and then, the state will impose certain regulatory rules on how to track cannabis flower inventory purchased from caregivers. Along the way, growers and processors will be mandated to decrease the amount of cannabis flower they purchase from those sources.

“The flower is what there was a huge shortage of, and the caregivers kind of filled that gap so to speak,” Jordan Ezell, owner of Interlochen Alternative Health, told Michigan’s 9 & 10 News. 

Read the full advisory bulletin below.

“We have always put patients first when we make decisions regarding medical marijuana,” MRA Executive Director Andrew Brisbo said in a public statement. “This phase out process is an important next step in implementing the will of Michigan voters and making sure that patients continue to have access to their medicine.”

Last spring, the question of supply and demand in the Michigan medical cannabis market spurred a debate over whether to allow longtime “caregivers” to sell products into the newly regulated marketplace. For years, Michigan had something closer to a gray-market cannabis setup, where caregivers would provide home-grown cannabis to registered patients. That changed in 2016, when state lawmakers developed a plan to license and regulated medical cannabis dispensaries. In 2018, voters approved a regulated adult-use market. But caregivers were left out in the cold, and licensed cannabis products were on short supply.

Advances in farming technology in general is leading to an industry that will be more sustainable and viable as a business moving forward, helping cannabis cast off its energy-hog reputation of the past.

The cannabis business is changing, and not just because of the laws allowing its sale, both nationally in the form of hemp and state-by-state in the form of marijuana.

The farming of these crops is being modernized with tech like hydroponics, robotics, and artificial intelligence, and this modernization is leading to a whole new market for the products produced from the harvest. 

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Brian Wallace ~ Grit Daily ~

Maine is planning to have its first recreational marijuana shops open in June, three months later than expected.

State budget forecasters are banking on a robust kickoff, however, estimating $5 million in sales by the end of the month.

Maine is “very close” to issuing the first round of conditional recreational business licenses, said Erik Gundersen, the director of the Office of Marijuana Policy.

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Penelope Overton ~ Portland Press Herald ~ 

Feb. 25, 2020 – Cleveland, OH – Due to the continued expansion of its Cannabis Group, GIE Media is pleased to announce the addition of two new editors and the promotion of one of the brands’ digital editors to support the rapid growth of Cannabis Business Times, Cannabis Dispensary, Cannabis Conference and Hemp Grower, the Cannabis Group’s newest publication.

Patrick Williams joined GIE Media’s Cannabis Group earlier this month as senior editor for Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary. He joined GIE Media in 2017 and worked as the associate editor and senior editor for sister publications Greenhouse Management and Produce Grower. Previously, Williams was a freelance writer for B2B and consumer media and an editorial intern on GIE Media’s Golf Course Industry magazine. Williams graduated from Kent State University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

Melissa Schiller was promoted from assistant digital editor to senior digital

editor for Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary magazines in January 2020. She joined the Cannabis Group in June 2017, and previously worked as an audience development associate for GIE Media’s Ornamental Group of publications, where she managed the circulation for Cannabis Business Times, Garden Center, Nursery Management and Greenhouse Management magazines. Schiller has also worked as a contributing writer and editorial assistant for a community newspaper and as a freelance writer for Northeast Ohio Media Group and Modern Tire Dealer. Schiller graduated from Hiram College in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing.

Theresa Bennett joined the Cannabis Group as an associate editor for Hemp Grower and Cannabis Business Times magazines in November 2019 after working for GIE Media’s Recycling Group of magazines. Prior to joining GIE Media in 2018, Bennett was the K-12 education reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal. Outside of GIE Media, Bennett is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Modern Farmer, The Devil Strip and newspapers across the country. Bennett graduated from Kent State University in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

With spring training now in full swing, Major League Baseball is further clarifying its stance on marijuana.

Players can now consume cannabis without risk of discipline, the league explained in a new memo, but they can’t show up to work under the influence and -- at least for now -- are barred from entering into commercial arrangements with companies in the marijuana industry.

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Ben Aldin ~ MarijuanaMoment.net ~