The California Cannabis Business Expo wound down on March 8, closing with two panels at the Marijuana Investor Summit: one featuring the CEOs of three U.S. based firms active in the cannabis space; the other featuring four business and financial executives from Canada, who could speak to the state of the same industry in a very different legal and cultural context.
Author Archives: Christopher Faille
After January 2018: Learn to Jump Through California’s Hoops
in January 2018 two distinct California state laws will come into effect, the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act and the Adult Use Marijuana Act, the mandating act for a new adult-recreational industry. So the question is: what hoops is an entrepreneur going to have to jump through to avail himself of this double opportunity?
Horwitz and a Hopeful View of the Trump Effect
The second day at the California Cannabis Business Expo, Monday, March 6, kicked off with a discussion of the “Trump effect,” by Lawrence W. Horwitz, of Horwitz + Armstrong, a law firm and professional corporation headquartered in Lake Forest, California.
Two Special Guests Kicked Off CannaPitch at the CCBExpo
CannaPitch, a cannabis industry live pitch session featuring five industry experts as pitch appraisers on the one hand and a unique set of entrepreneurs on the other, proved the highlight of the first day of the California Cannabis Business Expo, in San Diego, on March 5, 2017.
Cannabis in Australia: The Case Against Enthusiasm
Gaelan Bloomfield and Ram Venkay, partners in a new investment fund that will be managed from Australia and will focus on Calif.-based cannabis investment opportunities, are notably wary about the prospects at home, Down Under.
Florida Supreme Court Clears PUMM’s Initiative
Progress toward legal medical marijuana use in Florida took another step on Dec. 17, 2015, when the state’s supreme court issued an advisory opinion on the initiative petition on the subject.
The Colorado Connection: Housing and Marijuana
Housing prices have surged in Colorado of late. Two years ago The Denver Post reported on what it already called a “new mini-bubble” in which the sellers of many homes had “three or more bids to choose from.”
Canada, Cannabis and Trudeau: Working from Tea Leaves
Justin Trudeau is the new Prime Minister of Canada. He earned that office after an election campaign in which the legalization of marijuana was, explicitly, a contested issue.
Judge Charles Breyer Gives Teeth to Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment
On Oct. 19, 2015, Charles R. Breyer, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, narrowed the scope of an injunction against the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, effectively allowing the MAMM to get back into the business of dispensing pot.
Cannabusiness Experts Expect SEC Rules Will Matter … Given Time
Randy Shipley, the founder and CEO of CannaFundr.com, is among those who believe that the new SEC rules will “potentially” have a positive influence on the marijuana industry.
Zynerba: The Need for Speculative Fortitude
Zynerba presented the status of its research program at BIO Investor Forum. This is a 14-year-old annual biotech gathering, with roughly 600 attendees from 21 countries, and the presentation, in San Francisco, looked likely to be a big event in this company’s development.
Botany & Marijuana: Shedding Some White Light
Nick Brumm is the founder of NextLight, a company created to reflect his conviction that, as his website puts it, the quest for a “perfect spectrum” by the makers of purple light emitting diodes is a “gimmick rather than a scientific dispute.”
Knowing the Dark Side: Hoffman-La Roche and DATIA
Advocates of freedom for adult marijuana use, sales, production, and investment should know their foes, and should know for example that DATIA was the motivating force behind passage of the Drug Testing Integrity Act of 2008.
The Politics and the Unknowns of Marijuana’s Water Needs
As if they weren’t sufficiently complicated already, the political and policy issues that surround the legal marijuana industry may be reshaped in the not-distant future by the politics of water.
Crime & Punishment: The Story of Marijuana and Militarized Police
The combat between sovereign authorities on the one hand and the people who pursue the drug trade on the other—inclusive of the marijuana trade—where it remains criminal, has become frighteningly militarized in recent decades.
Hemp-Lime as a Promising Building Material
History is full of examples of rational ends reached by irrational means, of expectations dashed only to be in a bigger picture fulfilled. James Savage, an entrepreneur and activist trying to carve out a niche for hemp-based construction, has noticed one recent example.
HerbFront Grows: Business Model Evolves
The marijuana industry has arisen through evolution, that is, it has taken shape through a series of ad hoc adaptations allowing for survival in often difficult circumstances—as, presumably, has the underlying botany.
A Case Study in the Risks of Marijuana Biotech
There is no profit without risk, and it is well for those who would invest in this field, either capital or entrepreneurial energy or both, that they recognize the risk.
Mizanskey Commutation: One Straw in Missouri Wind
A recent decision by the governor of Missouri has received a good deal of national attention because it is one of many signs that things are headed the other way: authorities are calling a truce in the war on drugs or, at the least, they are muzzling the biggest guns.
Coffee, Competition and Separation Anxiety
In Seattle, the home of grunge fashion, Frasier Crane, the Starbucks Corporation headquarters, Initiative 502 and a pot surplus that has undermined the profitability of the stuff, some have spotted a new trend: THC-infused coffee.
Solving the Cash-Only Issue at the Root
Ed Perlmutter, a Democratic congressman who represents a district just to the north and west of Denver, has introduced HR 2076, addressing the federal barriers to banking for state-legal marijuana businesses.
GWPH Business Plan: Alan Brochstein’s Thoughts
Alan Brochstein has followed quite closely recent developments in the medical and financial world insofar as they have affected GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH), the developer of two promising cannabis-based medications.
Cannabis Meets Religious Freedom Restoration Act
In 1986 the Oregon Supreme Court decided that Oregon’s controlled-substance statutes violated the “free exercise” clause of the U.S. Constitution in that they outlawed the use of certain drugs, including peyote, while allowing no safe harbor for their religious/sacramental use.
Medical Pot Will Survive the Recreational Onslaught
As a state embraces recreational marijuana, is the prescription-driven medical marijuana industry destined to wither and die? Or does the medical marijuana industry have its own distinct role to play, in a way that may give the host state two parallel but distinct markets for years to come?
Jury Nullification: A Safety Valve for Cannabis
Nullification is getting new attention due to the continuing conflict between states and the federal government over these laws.
HerbFront, Inc.
HerbFront is a real estate platform devoted exclusively to the legal cannabis market and zoning research. Through its HerbFront Real Estate Advisors Network, it provides predictive mapping for potential legal cannabis properties.
HerbFront Creates a Cannabis-Realty Niche
Sometimes it isn’t easy to occupy a “niche” in the business world. The niche doesn’t present itself for occupation, it has to be found, or created, by the ingenious.
Demanding Silence: The Continuing Temptation
One of those levels of resistance that continues even after legalization is the idea that publishing, writing, or reading about the newly-legal substance is disreputable, and the temptation to demand silence.
Bringing Cyberspace to Marijuana Dispensaries
Thus far the legal marijuana industry doesn’t have the look of a 21st century business. Aside from the product itself, the business model of most dispensaries fits that of a retail store in the fictional town of Mayberry.
CrowdFund Connect
CrowdFund Connect has launched several sites, on a one-industry-per-platform system, aimed at connecting investors and their “champions” with entrepreneurs.
Marijuana, Radioactive Waste and Federal Sovereignty
Colorado’s attorneys, who promise to resist the lawsuit, will surely argue that their neighbors are demanding that the CSA be construed as a commandeering statute.
The Direction of Change in the Empire State
In 2013 New York State Senator Liz Krueger introduced a bill that would have legalized recreational use of marijuana. Krueger, a Democrat representing Manhattan in Albany, plans to re-introduce that act, apparently with some minor changes, in January 2015.
Cannabis Accounting: Everybody’s a Newbie
The present boom in marijuana may well have created a boom for those accountants willing to provide professional services. What is fascinating about this emerging subfield in accountancy is that no one entrant can play the “experience” card.
CannaFundr Merges Crowdfunding and Cannabis
The spirit of the JOBS Act is strong, though its flesh (that is, its actual implementation) is weak. The spirit of that 2012 enactment may have just created an important new conduit for the movement of cash into the growing legal cannabis industry in the United States.
California’s Employment and Urine Privacy
The growing acceptance of medical (and, to a lesser extent, of recreational) marijuana use state by state has added a few extra degrees to the temperature of the stove beneath a long-simmering issue in U.S. employer-employee relations.
Zoning as Trench Warfare: Towns in Massachusetts
Ever since the Supreme Court’s decision in Euclid v. Ambler (1926), zoning power has proved a potent means by which public officials at the municipal level can make street-by-street decisions with enormous impact on the lives of the town’s residents.
Marijuana in the Governor’s Races
As election day 2014 nears, the politics of marijuana use, either medical or recreational or both, impinges upon several gubernatorial races: Oregon, Florida, California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Colorado.
Prairie Wellness Fund: Risks and Opportunities
The Prairie Wellness Fund, brainchild of Michael Griffin, veteran of the hedge fund service provider HedgeACT, seeks to offer credit financing for medical-marijuana entrepreneurs.
