After my time last week, in Oregon, at the Dispensary Next and CCN-con Conferences, I am not surprised to hear more about the efforts for research of marijuana in the state. Oregon’s marijuana industry and its regulators are collaboratively motivated to maintain the integrity and reputation for health benefits of the plant. This is demonstrated through the states strict testing and labeling requirements and the communities push for natural grow procedures. In essence, Oregon strives to be a leader in Research.

Oregon should fund an independent marijuana institute to support and conduct world-class research into the drug’s medical and public health benefits, says a task force that includes state officials, scientists and leading physicians. Tax dollars generated through recreational marijuana sales would supplement private funding to underwrite the quasi-public Oregon Institute for Cannabis Research. The center would hire research scientists, as well as staff to help academic researchers navigate the complexities of federally sanctioned cannabis research.

Source: Oregon should fund marijuana research institute, task force says | OregonLive.com

Today, I learned of place called Unalaska, Alaska, unfortunately it wasn’t for good reason.

By a narrow 4-3 vote and with the mayor breaking the tie, the Unalaska City Council last week took its first step towards banning local sales and commercial growing, testing, and manufacturing of marijuana products.

Opt out is a cop-out on the voters,” said Jerry Swihart, a city worker, who said local residents voted heavily in favor of legalization in 2014.

The new ordinance still requires another vote for passage, which is set for the Feb. 9 council meeting.

Read the full story from the Source: Unalaska set to ban commercial marijuana sales | Alaska Dispatch News

After hearing numerous arguments on both sides of the issue, a panel of Utah lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill that would allow tens of thousands of residents with chronic or debilitating conditions to consume edible marijuana products but the bill bans smoking pot.

Patients, caregivers and doctors spoke to the drug’s track record as a safe and effective treatment, one without the addictive qualities and side effects of certain approved prescription drugs.

On KVNU’s For the People program Thursday, Dr. Michael Holmstrom, president of the Utah Orthopedic Association, said he has testified many times about his support for such a bill.

“In other states that have had medical cannabis, there has been a 25% decrease in annual opioid overdose mortality rate since they adopted those rules,” Dr. Holmstrom said. “It’s proven fact that adopting this type of a bill can actually reduce our opioid epidemic.

“There’s a big question of what happens to our kids. In those states it was not accompanied by increasing use of marijuana, alcohol or cocaine in high school students.”

The senate bill now moves to the full Senate where lawmakers will likely consider a much broader marijuana plan.

Source: President of Utah Orthopedic Association speaks up for medical marijuana – CacheValleyDaily.com : Politics

California has its first weed czar — otherwise known as chief of its Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation — and it’s a Republican, Lori Ajax, who is now chief deputy director of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

If Ajax, 50, is approved, she will get the rare opportunity in Sacramento to create a state agency. The marijuana czar will hire 40 to 50 people, whose salary would be paid for with the stream of new cannabis licensing fees created by California’s recently passed medical marijuana law.

But much of the job will involve the routine of administration, such as creating information technology systems and crafting regulation policy.

Steve DeAngelo, owner of the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, which is California’s largest medical cannabis dispensary, was “cautiously optimistic” Thursday. He was impressed that Ajax led a delegation to visit Harborside in April 2014.

“For me, that’s reassuring because it showed me that she has an interest in learning about the industry,” DeAngelo said. “And she’s a woman, which is great, because the cannabis industry needs some more diversity.”

Others in the business had asked Brown to appoint someone with no ties to the cannabis industry who would be able to navigate state bureaucracy.

“Lori comes to us as a relative unknown, which is a good thing from our perspective,” said Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association.

Ajax has been chief deputy director at the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control since she was appointed 2014. She had previously served in several positions in the department since 1995.

Read the full story from the Source: California’s First Medical Marijuana Chief to Create New State Agency, IT Systems

The state Senate is inching closer to a vote on whether Vermont will join Oregon and Washington State and legalize recreational marijuana.

At least six committees are holding hearings on elements of a proposal approved by the Judiciary Committee to begin allowing possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana, starting in January 2018.

Watch The Story.

Source: Vermont Senate moves closer to vote on legalizing marijuana | Local News – WPTZ Home

Actor and marijuana advocate Woody Harrelson was one of nearly 60 applicants to apply to open one of Hawaii’s first medical marijuana dispensaries.

Source: Woody Harrelson Applies to Open Marijuana Dispensary in Hawaii – NBC News

Juilie Weed, (yes that is her real name and the only name I have encountered I almost like better than my own), writes for Forbes regarding the marijuana industry and its entrepreneurs. This week Julie wrote on a “square one” issue for Cannabusinesses – finding a space in which to do their business.

It’s tough finding a landlord for a Marijuana company. Building owners worry that federal policies or rogue operators could cause their building to be seized. More attention has to be paid to specific regulations. Landlords don’t want to be seen as bad neighbors bringing in an unsavory element. The upside to these risks for landlords however is that they can often charge a higher rent and garner a greater overall return.

I asked George Stone and Potter Polk, partners at  Kalyx Development the factors that marijuana businesses should consider when looking for a landlord. Kalyx Development is a Manhattan-based real estate company that specializes in marijuana production, retail distribution and production facilities, with properties in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and soon California.

Stone and Polk take an active role financing and designing the facilities on their properties. They also help navigate the regulatory landscape for renters, and work with local law enforcement officials. This is a typical arrangement in the industry for two reasons according to the pair. The first is that marijuana businesses typically have a hard time finding loans so it is often the landlord who has the money to acquire the property for cash and assist with the tenant improvements and construction. Also, the landlord is at risk if the operation is run illegally, so has a stake in making sure regulations are followed to the letter.

Here’s what they said businesses should look for:

1.  Experience with Cannabis Tenants:  Like any other logistical and technical businesses, the Cannabis space is highly specialized and without an expert landlord, tenants could find themselves with constraints and business risks that will only be identified when it’s too late.  Experienced owners are also more likely to know all the laws and regulations involving security, zoning, etc.
2. Debt-free Properties:  Federal regulations make financial institutions nervous about lending on facilities used for Cannabis-related purposes.  A bank that finds a cannabusiness on its cusomter’s property might threaten to cancel the mortgage, so an owned building is best.
3. Financial Capacity:  Can the landlord make necessary improvements to the property so that it accommodates the user’s business and complies with local regulations?  If an expansion is required can the landlord facilitate it onsite or secure another property?  Is the landlord willing to finance a portion of the tenant’s improvements?
4. Expertise with Public Utility Issues:  Cannabis businesses — especially indoor grow operations — require substantial water and power capacity.  Can the landlord help work with local utilities or  supply needed resources for improvements?
5. Long-term Lease:  Most importantly, is the landlord offering a long-term lease that will allow tenants to appropriately amortize set-up costs and operate securely?  As the Cannabis industry grows, appealing properties may come in short supply due to regulatory restrictions — tenants need to make sure they won’t find themselves without a place to go and at the mercy of their landlords to continue operating their businesses.

Source: Top Five Characteristics A Marijuana Business Should Look For In A Landlord – Forbes

Adilas420 Cannabusiness Consultants can introduce you to  property scouters for the marijuana industry. Contact us for a referral.

Marijuana markets nationwide are growing. Some say that means legalization has worked, while others disagree. IBTimes.com reports on the numbers and concerns:

In news that will likely be celebrated by cannabis advocates and marijuana industry stakeholders alike, a new report concludes recreational marijuana sales skyrocketed from $351 million in 2014 to $998 million in 2015 — a 184 percent increase. The data come from the fourth edition of “The State of Legal Marijuana Markets,” a joint report from the research wing of the ArcView Group, a marijuana industry investment firm, and New Frontier, a cannabis analytics firm.

Thanks largely to the 2015 explosion in recreational marijuana sales, with 2-year-old adult-use industries in Colorado and Washington continuing to expand and a new recreational market launching in Oregon late last year, the new “State of Legal Marijuana Markets” report — which was the first time ArcView partnered with New Frontier on the endeavor — estimates the entire legal cannabis industry, which also includes medical marijuana programs in 23 states and Washington, D.C., is now worth $5.4 billion. That’s up from $4.6 billion in 2014. (The report’s market estimates are significantly larger than past editions — previously, the 2014 cannabis market was pegged at $2.7 billion, not $4.6 billion — because it now includes caregiver-patient transactions, not just dispensary sales, in its medical marijuana numbers.)

The report estimates the marijuana industry will grow from $6.7 billion in 2015 to $21.8 billion in 2020, with an average compound annual growth rate of 30 percent. By then, according to the report, recreational sales will entail 53 percent of the total market.

John Kagia, New Frontier’s director of industry analytics, is encouraged by such developments. “The explosive growth for the adult-use market in the test cases we have here suggest that consumers, when presented with a legal and well-regulated environment where they can purchase these products, will eschew the illicit market,” he said. Not only will the shift away from illegal cannabis markets curtail the costly and discriminatory impact of the country’s long war on marijuana, it will also provide marijuana consumers far more protections and control than they had in the black market, Kagia said. “The benefit of being able to purchase these products through a regulated market is that not only are there standard procedures that producers, manufacturers and retailers have to meet, there is also a lot more information presented to you with each product,” he added.

There are others who benefit from flourishing sales: investors and business owners. “It shows that the trajectory is strong in terms of profits, in terms of the ability to make a play at an early phase of a fast-growing industry,” said ArcView CEO Troy Dayton. “This is a generational opportunity. When you can catch one of these things at an early enough stage, it’s an incredible economic opportunity for creating jobs, for creating wealth, for shifting culture and being part of history.”

Read More from the Source: Recreational Marijuana Sales Are Up 184%. Is That A Good Thing?

Adilas420, of course, says “Yes” marijuana sales are a good thing. It is good for our economy, for our health and for the independence of the American people.

Despite the Cole Memo issued by the federal government in 2014, banking remains a huge issue for marijuana businesses, including ancillary businesses that do not even handle the product.

A Business not being able to bank forces operations to be cash intensive and provides for community safety issues, a primary concern for the marijuana industry.

Forbes Magazine reports on Chase Bank continuing to fight support for regulation.

Chase closes a marijuana media account claiming ‘reputational risk.’

Chase bank has closed the account of a cannabis news website for….get ready…reputational risk.

The website doesn’t sell or touch cannabis at all. It merely discusses the health benefits of marijuana. It breaks no laws whatsoever.

It all began when Max Simon, an existing customer of Chase decided to open an account for his marijuana website Green Flower Media. It is a Los Angeles based business that writes about marijuana health issues. The state of California has legalized medical marijuana, so there is a great deal of interest in marijuana and its health benefits.

Chase did its due diligence and approved the account. It even processed some transactions. Then within a week, Simon received a notice that the account would be closed. Chase wrote to Mr. Simon saying in an email, “After further review with our credit department, we terminated this merchant due to reputational Risk (section 10.3 I) in the merchant agreement.The entire website is based on media regarding Cannabis (which is not supported by Chase).”

Simon escalated the issue to no avail. He could open an account at another bank, but since he was an existing customer of Chase, it was more convenient for him to do his banking with one entity.

A Chase spokesman said, “As a federally regulated institution, we don’t process payments for businesses participating in federally prohibited activities.” Even though Green Media doesn’t sell marijuana or handle it, the company does offer a Health Summit Bonus Package that gives customers discount codes for cannabis products. It’s very possible that this is what scared them away. The discounts though look to be for accessories and not dispensary coupons. Either way, Chase is taking an extremely conservative approach to cannabis businesses and it can afford to do so since the courts tend to side with the banks in these situations.

Recently, the courts sided with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City when a cannabis credit union filed a lawsuit against it. Since marijuana remains to be federally illegal, banks have every right to just say no.

Source: Chase Closes A Marijuana Media Account – Forbes

Adilas420 continues to advocate for banking support and has a number of resources to help Cannabusiness owners seeking banking solutions. Please contact us for 30 minutes of free guidance and advice.

Facebook and Instagram continue to shut down Marijuana accounts. We have been offering advice and guidance to Adilas420 Members for content management which might help mitigate the likeliness of having your account shut down.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Three of New Jersey’s five medical marijuana dispensaries have had their business pages shutdown by Facebook, cutting off what advocates call an integral place for customers to learn about which plant…

Read more from the Source: Facebook shuts down medical marijuana pages in New Jersey

Contact Us for 30 minutes of free advice on content management.