Category: Marijuana

Voters Approve Marijuana Measures in 5 U.S. States

Some 16 million Americans were added to the list of places that allow adults to use marijuana legally, after voters in New Jersey, Arizona, South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved ballot measures on weed.
They will join about 93 million Americans who live in states that already have legalized weed, meaning about 1 in 3 Americans now live in states where marijuana is legal for anyone at least 21 years old, according to Politco.com.
South Dakota and Mississippi voters also approved measures to legalize medical marijuana on Election Day.
The momentum in states, including deep red parts of the country, should be a call to action for the federal government, said Steve Hawkins, the executive director of legalization advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
“Regardless of who controls the White House, the House and the Senate, we should demand landmark federal marijuana reform in 2021,” Hawkins said.
The New Jersey measure does not immediately legalize marijuana, however. The state Legislature still needs to pass legislation to implement legalization.
November 4, 2020
Montana Supreme Court Rejects Pot-Initiative Lawsuit

A lawsuit brought by an anti-marijuana group seeking to block statewide legalization of recreational cannabis was quickly rejected by the Montana Supreme Court.
An attorney for Wrong for Montana and its treasurer, Steve Zabawa, filed a petition Tuesday seeking to invalidate Initiative 190, a ballot measure that would legalize marijuana in the state, according to the Daily Inter Lake. The group argues I-190 would illegally earmark tax revenue from pot sales to be used for specific purposes, which is a responsibility reserved for the Legislature.
Zabawa and his attorney, Brian Thompson, pointed to Article III, Section 4 of the Montana Constitution, which says, “The people may enact laws by initiative on all matters except appropriations of money and local or special laws.” Their lawsuit hinged on the meaning of the term “appropriation.”
The court dismissed the suit on Wednesday, saying Zabawa’s group did not demonstrate the case is urgent enough to skip over the usual trial and appeal phases, according to the story.
New Approach Montana, the committee backing I-190, celebrated the court’s decision.
New Approach Montana also backs a companion amendment to the state Constitution that would raise the legal age for recreational marijuana use to 21. The group says legal marijuana would generate more than $236 million in taxes over the next six years, citing a study from the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research.
October 24, 2020
Legal Marijuana Sales Growing After EVALI Declines

photo: Jeremynathan | Dreamstime
It was a year ago that lung disease caused by vitamin E acetate in illegal THC pens that caused legal marijuana sales to plummet. Today, marijuana vapor companies report that sales are returning to normal as consumers begin to understand the danger of consuming black market marijuana vape pens.
Arnaud Dumas de Rauly, co-founder and CEO of New York-based vape manufacturer The Blinc Group, sees this as the biggest impact of the vaping health scare. “It made consumers realize that you can’t just buy any cannabis vaping product,” he said. “You can’t go to the black market.”
The outbreak of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dubbed e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) in the summer of 2019 slowed the growth of some companies and stifled sales toward the end of the year, according to a story posted on mjbizdaily.com.
But vape products, like other cannabis goods, seem to also be weathering not only the health crisis but the current economic downturn. “We’ve seen tremendous bounce back from the vape crisis,” said Sammy Dorf, chief growth officer and co-founder of Verano Holdings, a vertically integrated cannabis company in Chicago. “Business is extremely strong.”
The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t slowed business much, either, according to the vape companies, despite fresh warnings that vaping and smoking can make a person more vulnerable to the virus. “We haven’t seen a change in the purchasing pattern of our patients or customers due to the pandemic,” Dorf added.
How it played out
The vape health crisis unfolded rapidly, beginning in the summer of 2019 with mainstream media reports seizing on the news that people were dying from allegedly vaping mainly THC products. Some states with regulated cannabis markets such as Washington temporarily banned additives in vapes, while others, including Massachusetts, banned the sale of vape products altogether.
It took a few months for more information about the illness to surface. Scientists identified one substance, vitamin E acetate, which is added as a cutting agent to some vape oil, as a possible culprit in the lung illness.
Many industry officials claimed that vitamin E was more commonly found in illicit market products and pointed out that legal cannabis is regulated, tested and safer than unregulated street products.
Most recently, an academic study published in August confirmed that states lacking licensed, regulated cannabis saw the highest rates of EVALI, particularly those in the northern Midwest. (See chart above.) The report, from the Society for the Study of Addiction, noted “these results suggest that EVALI cases did not arise from e-cigarette or cannabis use per se, but rather from locally distributed e-liquids or additives most prevalent in the affected areas.”
“We believe the bigger lesson here is that the data clearly indicate that there were fewer cases of lung illnesses and injury in states where legal, regulated cannabis products were available,” said Steve Fox, strategic adviser to the Cannabis Trade Federation. “In fact, the lowest rates of incidence were in Colorado, Washington and Alaska – three of the first four legal states – with Oregon and Nevada close behind.”
‘Very scary’
According to Seattle data-analytics company Headset, sales of adult-use vape products in three of four states with recreational markets generally have recovered, though Nevada retailers saw sales still lower than pre-health scare levels after the state enacted stricter lockdown measures for marijuana retailers during the pandemic.However, market share for vape pens is lower year-over-year, according to the Marijuana Business Factbook, as flower tends to represent a more economical choice amid COVID-19 and greater economic concerns.
Several cannabis vape business executives interviewed for this story said sales have completely rebounded. George Sadler, president of San Diego-based Platinum Vape, which sells products into several markets, said sales plateaued right after the initial scare but started trending upward in the early winter. “We never really saw much of anything on the level of decline that we thought,” Sadler said.
Dumas de Rauly said his sales started to recover in December as consumer confidence in the legal market returned. “We have doubled our revenue in terms of vaping hardware since the vaping crisis,” Dumas de Rauly said.
But he added that his business likely lost a year of growth because of the earlier drop in sales. In Denver, Dan Gardenswartz, chief operating officer at Spherex, said his company’s sales never took a “meaningful hit,” but the end of 2019 was “a little bit of a roller coaster.”
“It was a very strange time,” he said. “The vape crisis was a very scary thing for people in the industry.”
Seth Wiggins, chief revenue officer for Clear Cannabis, also in Denver, saw a decline in sales for about 60-90 days before the trend began to reverse. The health crisis “was very painful initially,” he added. However, Wiggins said his company has posted record sales in recent months.
Illicit to licit
Wiggins attributes that lift in sales to customers who are shifting from illicit suppliers to legal providers. “The compliant market allows for more regulations and safety,” he added. “It’s breaching the tipping point where the cost basis is not worth the risk” to buy off the street.
Morgan Fox, spokesman for the National Cannabis Industry Association, also identified that trend. “Across the board, we’ve seen a lot of people moving away from the unregulated market largely because of public-health concerns,” he said.
Gardenswartz said he saw more people transition from the illicit to the legal market in California than in Colorado, which has imposed tighter controls on illegal dispensaries peddling products. Sadler agreed. He believes there has been some decline in vape sales on the unlicensed market, and he noted that some of his consumers have made the shift from the illicit market to licensed businesses.
He cited Weedmaps’ decision to curtail advertising for unlicensed dispensaries as helping consumers find legal, tested vape products. Consumers are more aware that they’re going to a licensed dispensary, and stores in California have even displayed QR codes on storefronts so customers know they’re buying from a legal shop.
“People are more diligent about asking the questions,” he said.
September 24, 2020
Illinois Marijuana Sales on Record Pace This Year

Credit: Frederick Warren
Illinois has already hit the $300 million mark for marijuana sales this year. July had the most sales of any month, according to state figures.
July cannabis sales hit $61 million, which is up from $47.6 million in June and $44.3 million in May, according to the Illinois Department of Finance and Professional Regulation and New Frontier Data, according to the Associated Press..
One reason for the increase in sales could be the customers’ ability to order online, which many dispensaries started to keep lines down, the Chicago Tribune reported.
“We got a lot better at being able to get people in and out because of the online order reservations,” said Jonah Rapino, spokesman for NuEra, which has dispensaries in Chicago, East Peoria and Urbana and recently changed its name from NuMed.
The amount of money that customers spend at dispensaries has also increased. The average transaction was $126 in the first three months of the year but increased to $150 in April, May and June, according to Washington, D.C.-based New Frontier.
Greg Butler, chief commercial officer at Chicago-based marijuana company Cresco Labs, said the pandemic could be credited to the increase in demand, too.
More product availability could also be a contributing factor to the high demand. During the beginning of the year, there were some supply issues. The Tribune previously reported that dispensaries said they needed more marijuana and employees.
Butler noted that many facilities that grow marijuana expanded operation, and those products started hitting the shelves over the summer. Cresco expanded at some of its facilities and increased production at its Joliet location.
“With supply picking up, it has allowed customers to purchase that extra product or two that might not have been available,” said Michael Mandera, general manager of the Herbal Care Center dispensary.
August 17, 2020
Massachusetts Releases Quarantined Cannabis Vapes

Credit: Add Weed
Last September, Massachusetts became the first state to ban sales of all vaping products, for both tobacco and cannabis, in response to a mysterious vaping-related lung illness known as e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI). In November, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission ordered a quarantine on all cannabis vaping products, except for products for flower used by medical cannabis patients.
That quarantine is being lifted, releasing more than 600,000 vaping products manufactured before December 12, 2019, which is when the Commission allowed for new cannabis vaping products to be sold, according to ap press release. The Commission announced Monday that “licensees may retest and release—or destroy—certain products with enhanced warning labels,” under certain conditions.
“Since the Commonwealth declared a vaping public health emergency last fall, the Commission has dedicated significant energy and resources to investigating the additives, hardware, and storage practices that licensees use to produce and sell cannabis vaporizer products,” Shawn Collins, the executive director of the Commission, said in the announcement. “Fortunately, repeat tests of licensed product samples did not return any detectable levels of [vitamin E acetate]; unfortunately, they did establish that heavy metal contamination may increase in vaping products over time.”
Vitamin E acetate became the primary culprit in the investigations into the vaping-related illnesses by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cannabis licensees have three options when it comes to their vaping products: dispose; retest and release; or reclaim, meaning, “repurposed into other products,” which would also require retesting. Re-released products must have a label indicating that they “passed retesting for heavy metals and Vitamin E Acetate,” and that they, or their contents, were “previously quarantined.”
August 4, 2020
U.S. House Votes to Protect States With Legal Marijuana

Credit: Louis Velazquez
An amendment to protect all U.S. state-run marijuana programs from federal interference passed the U.S. he House of Representatives on Thursday. The bill passed in a 254-163 vote on the floor. Earlier in the day, it had been approved in an initial voice vote.
If enacted, the measure would prevent the Department of Justice (DOJ) from using its funds to impede states from implementing cannabis legalization laws. The bipartisan effort was led by Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Tom McClintock, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Barbara Lee.
The amendment builds on an existing provision that only protects state medical cannabis laws from DOJ intervention that has been enacted through appropriations legislation each year since 2014.
As a growing number of states have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes, “we’ve watched across the country shifting attitudes,” Blumenauer said in the floor debate prior to the vote, according to marijuanamoment.net, a cannabis advocacy group. “The federal government, sadly, is still trapped by the dead hand of Richard Nixon’s war on drugs, declaring cannabis a schedule I controlled substance.”
The congressman also talked about separate House-passed legislation to protect banks that service the marijuana industry and another standalone bill to federally deschedule cannabis.
July 31, 2020
Global Marijuana Market to Reach $73.6 billion by 2027

Credit: Sharon McCutcheon
The global market is seeing rapid growth. That growth is continue for the next several years according to industry market reports. The legal marijuana market size is expected to reach $73.6 billion by 2027, according to a new report published by Grand View Research.
It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 18.1 percent during the forecast period, the report states. Increasing legalization of cannabis for medical as well as adult-use is expected to promote the positive growth.
“On the basis of type, the medical segment held the leading revenue share of 71.0 percent in 2019, owing to the growing adoption of cannabis as a pharmaceutical product for treating severe medical conditions, such as cancer, arthritis, and Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease among other neurological conditions,” the report states. “Moreover, increasing need for pain management therapies along with growing disease burden of chronic pain among elders is expected to boost the product demand.”
The report states that the legal marijuana flower (buds) segment accounted for the largest market share in terms of revenue and was valued at $9.1 billion in 2019, because of the products growing availability.
“Buds are primary plant products and are readily available without any processing, which makes them relatively affordable for low-income patients. Moreover, the rapid onset of action of smoking buds compared to other types is anticipated to further fuel the segment growth,” the report states. “Based on medical applications, the chronic pain segment dominated the legal marijuana market in 2019 owing to presence of a large patient pool. On the other hand, mental disorder application is expected to witness the fastest growth over the forecast period owing to the growing number of patients suffering from mental disorders, such as anxiety disorder, depressions, and Alzheimer’s disease.”
July 27, 2020
Boston: $25 Million of THC Vape Products Await Testing

Credit: Martijn Baudoin
Worth a collective $25 million, roughly 620,000 vaping products are gathering dust. The products have been awaiting testing since September.
The devices have been quarantined under Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s ban on the sale of vaping products, according to an article in the Boston Globe. Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commision (CCC) is under pressure to do something.
″(Businesses) have reached out to us … and we’ve talked to them,” CCC Chairman Steven Hoffman explained. “We’re trying to find a position that works for everybody, but at the end of the day, we won’t compromise on public health and public safety.”
Baker instituted a ban on the sale of vaping products in September amid an outbreak of severe lung ailments associated with e-cigarettes and vaping products containing marijuana.
The ban was lifted in December for shops that met certain requirements — including posting signs warning of the dangers of severe lung disease and other health risks; keeping all vaping products behind the counter; and prohibiting the sale of unpackaged tobacco or vaping cartridge refills — and the CCC began allowing marijuana retailers to sell newly manufactured marijuana vaping products that were tested for contaminants such as vitamin E acetate, which was suspected to have caused the illnesses, according the article.
It also further regulated the requirements for testing of vaping products.
But that meant that a large amount of inventory — nearly 620,000 units, according to CCC Executive Director Shawn Collins — had been removed from circulation, according to the article.
Moreover, the testing of that product has been “a mixed bag of results,” Collins said.
July 12, 2020
L.A. Moving to Make Changes to Its Legal Marijuana Market

Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to make numerous changes to its once-flourishing marijuana market. The legislative body gave its initial approval to expand licensing and get more assistance to operators who endured the consequences of the nation’s war on drugs.
Broad legal sales kicked off in California in 2018, and at that time Los Angeles was expected to quickly establish itself as a world-leading cannabis economy, according to an article from the Associated Press. “But that never happened. Instead, robust illegal sales continue to outpace the up-and-down legal market, while businesses complain that hefty taxes and a cumbersome bureaucracy have slowed, rather than encouraged, growth,” the article states.
The new revisions are designed to provide a jump in licenses for so-called “social-equity” applicants. These include individuals, many of color, who were arrested or convicted of a marijuana-related offense, and lower-income residents who live, or have lived, in neighborhoods marked by high marijuana arrest rates.
Only applicants meeting those criteria would be eligible for new retail and delivery licenses through 2025.
The council also seeks to help businesses wanting licenses to quickly get temporary approval to begin operating once certain benchmarks are met. The rules would permit businesses to relocate while being licensed and streamline the application process, according to the article.
Credit: Manish Panghal
If the plan gets final approval by the council, Mayor Eric Garcetti is expected to sign it.
“This is a great opportunity for the city to focus on the expansion of the cannabis industry,” said dispensary owner Jerred Kiloh, who heads the United Cannabis Business Association, a Los Angeles-based industry group, according to the AP article.
Kiloh said the city is on target to eventually double the number of retail businesses, up from 187 now operating. In time, rules allow for as many as 537 dispensaries, he added, though there are also restrictions that limit the number of businesses that can operate in neighborhoods, according to the article.
More legal shops, linked with tougher enforcement, would help in the long-running fight to shut down illicit operators and delivery services that run in plain sight in the city, he added.
But the plan has also been criticized within the industry, with some saying the legal market remains flawed and could get worse.
June 26, 2020
Experts: Possible Post-Covid Boom for Vapor Market

Credit: Timothy S. Donahue
The marijuana market took a big hit last year after consumers of black market THC vaping products started to become ill, often with fatal consequences. As a result, companies have been on high alert, making safety a priority when crafting both nicotine and cannabis vape products, according to an article on Forbes.com.
With Covid-19 still a reality, experts are foreseeing a boom in the vaping market this summer. So, what else do they see in their crystal ball post COVID-19? Find out below. Among those weighing in are Tom Brooksher, CEO of Clear Cannabis Inc; Cortney Smith, CEO and founder of DaVinci; Dan Gardenswartz, chief financial officer of Spherex; and Elizabeth Hogan, vice president of brands at GCH Inc (parent company of Willie’s Remedy and Willie’s Reserve).
The Forbes article expresses that the following Q&A has been edited for conciseness and clarity.
Iris Dorbian: Why do you think the vape market will see a boom in the summer?
Tom Brooksher: Traditionally, summer is a strong season for cannabis sales as people purchase our products to enhance their vacations and time spent outdoors. As restrictions are lifted, we expect a pent-up demand for cannabis products that can be conveniently used in conjunction with outdoor activities. We also expect the phased reopening of tourism in key tourist/cannabis markets, such as Nevada, California, Colorado and Florida, to positively impact vape product sales.
Cortney Smith: Even as we enter an uncertain economy amid a recession, I still believe the vaporizer market has been growing steadily over the past few months and will continue to flourish. If anything, the pandemic has opened more people up to the possibilities of cannabis during a stressful time, and we’ve seen an uptick in new consumers
Elizabeth Hogan: We’re seeing people return to their favorites and stock up on proven winners—vape products included. With the fear of spreading germs, vapes sales will continue to grow as consumers move away from shared joints or bowls. Vapes are less harsh on your throat and lungs than smoking and take effect more immediately than edibles. This summer, it’s going to be a good idea to be prepared and bring your own. We’re sharing in spirit only these days.
Brooksher: We’ve done very well, all things considered. Our sales would have been even stronger in Colorado and Nevada had the pandemic not hit. In general, we’re seeing strong brands – high quality products with name recognition – holding their own or even growing during the pandemic, and weaker brands struggling or potentially failing.
Gardenswartz: We definitely felt some pressure during April and May. We also engaged in aggressive social media messaging to maintain communication with our consumers, as well as daily contact with our dispensary partners in all jurisdictions to mitigate any downward pressure. For vaping specifically, our customers reported a notable shift from typical joints to vape pens, which was largely driven by health and sanitary concerns. They are also cleaner and longer lasting. We don’t see this trend changing anytime soon.
Dorbian: How is your company positioning its vape line in response to the anticipated boom in the vape market?
Brooksher: Perception of value on the part of consumers is always important for cannabis brands and we don’t see that changing. That doesn’t mean cannabis consumers are focused on the cheapest product. They’re willing to pay for a quality product, but only if they perceive that it’s a good value – specifically that it’s safe, will provide a good experience, and matches their needs and preferences.
Smith: We recognize the need for personal vaporizers, especially in a time when cannabis consumers are shifting from a culture of sharing devices to more individual consumption. My team and I also continue to dream up new innovations, because I never want us to rest on our laurels. We’ve spent the past three years developing a new limited-edition iteration of the IQ2, that allows for cooler temperatures, and we’re finally launching it this summer. There’s no time like the present to be innovative and bring new solutions to the public.
Gardenswartz: During the lockdown, we worked aggressively to fine-tune quality control and production efficiency across the company, and those initiatives will benefit us not only this summer, but over the long-term. We view our products as “accessible luxury” – premium products priced at accessible levels. With Spherex, consumers can have the best of both world: the best products out there at very accessible prices.
Hogan: Willie’s Reserve vape line product offering has been expanding over the last year, adding CBD:THC ratio products, collaborations with musicians (Nathaniel Rateliff and Margo Price) and introducing 1-gram cartridges for consumers looking for more value. We have also seen a growing consumer demand for different forms of concentrate in vape cartridges. The combination of distillate and cannabis-derived terpenes is becoming very popular. In response, we launched our new line of live resin craft cartridges in Colorado. The live resin cartridges offer an even more flavorful draw than distillate.
Dorbian: What precautionary measures is your company enacting to ensure the safety of its vape lines?
Brooksher: We were fortunate in that our products were very safe to begin with. We’ve never used vitamin E acetate or any other toxic fillers, and we eliminated the use of MCT oil prior to it becoming an issue. In addition, we only use CCELL ceramic heating cartridges and hardware that are made with food and medical-grade material of the highest quality. As a result, we’ve had zero problems with product safety.
Smith: We’ve always built safety into the very DNA of our devices from the start. Beyond the specific safety measures we’ve taken to protect our employees and maintain best practices throughout the pandemic, we haven’t changed a thing about the device itself. DaVinci devices are created responsibly with clean hardware, with medical-grade components like a zirconia air path and feature an array of safety certifications such as Rohs, FCC and CE.
Gardenswartz: Fortunately, Spherex didn’t experience a notable negative impact from last year’s crisis. Spherex has and will continue to use only the best material, run through the cleanest process, put into the best hardware and packaging, resulting in clean, potent and superior end products. We plan to keep most, if not all, of the precautionary measures we enacted around COVID, even beyond the point that the virus is under control, which could be never.
Hogan: Transparency and cooperation in every direction are the two most important ingredients in safe cannabis. At Willie’s Reserve, we have alway been cognizant of how some negatively view the cannabis industry and our goal is to combat their doubt with clean products and safe procedures. Since this has always been a focus of ours, we have not had to change in wake of last summer’s illicit market issues. Our motive and the motive of some of these illicit market manufacturers are very different and our product quality is a testament to that.
June 16, 2020