Category: Marijuana News

Dear Stoner: Are older strains making a comeback? I saw Sour Diesel and Grapefruit in a Denver dispensary yesterday, and it felt like 2014 again.
Garden Groover

Dear Garden Groover: Don’t call it a comeback; they’ve been here for years. Well, actually, maybe you can call it a comeback in evolved legal markets. Commercial demands and growing schedules pushed out Colorado’s weed genetics from the 2010s, like Cough and a very long list of Hazes, which didn’t bloom fast enough or had subpar THC potency for today’s inflated expectations. Not only that, but the legal pot industry quickly faced trend issues similar to that of craft beer, which spiraled out of control with elaborate pastry stouts and milkshake IPAs. Today’s dispensary shoppers want weed that smells like candy or Fruity Pebbles instead of anything gassy.

Sour Diesel is making a comeback in Denver, much thanks to growers like Meraki and Single Source.   Flickr/Furvert 101” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”> click to enlarge

Sour Diesel is making a comeback in Denver, much thanks to growers like Meraki and Single Source.

Flickr/Furvert 101

“No one is bragging about breeding with Sour Diesel,” Veritas

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(Little Rock, KATV) — Medical marijuana sales have reached record numbers here in the state of Arkansas and the profits are extending beyond the growers and dispensaries.

Medical marijuana sales were legalized in 2016, almost 3 years later the first dispensary opened making over 30 million dollars in the first year and over 1 billion to date. That sales tax is now benefiting Arkansas food insecurity efforts.

“A billion dollars has been spent to purchase medical marijuana but what that means for the state is that we’ve collected 115 million dollars in state tax revenue. From that $115… $87 went to UAMS specifically as they tried to obtain that National Cancer Institute designation. Now there’s a change. Now that funding is going to go specifically to food insecurity,” Medical Marijuana Commission, Spokesperson, Scott Hardin said.

Those funds are being distributed to schools across the state.

“What that’ll mean is, if someone is on a reduced school lunch, if they are now paying 50 cents to a dollar, that medical marijuana revenue steps in and pays that to ensure that a student gets that for free. So really students in the state will be not having to pay whatever that burden is. 50 cents, a

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – Sponsoring their second Adopt A Day of Nourishment for the year, Tahoe Green Dispensary hosted the Monday Meal on November 27. Even though two of the planned Adopt A Day sponsor crew members were unable to attend due to not feeling well, the sponsor crew arrived with two ‘substitute’ team members to replace the ailing Tahoe Green Dispensary employees.

Tahoe Green Dispensary, owned by David and Melanie Turner, was represented at the Monday Meal by Melanie, their daughter Haleigh Turner, and her friend Kasandra “Kasi” Rangel. According to Haleigh, volunteering as an Adopt A Day crew member was “a wonderful learning experience.”

The trio was very helpful throughout the meal service as they wrapped utensils, bagged fresh fruits and vegetables, dished out the main meal on the serving line and then stayed to help with the meal’s cleanup.

Being on the meal’s main serving line is the best way to meet and greet all the dinner guests. As she took a break from manning the serving line, Rangel expressed her thoughts about her interactions with the dinner guests. “I’m having a lot of fun seeing all of the smiles” as the dinner guests

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Whether it was proximity to Wisconsin, the ability to purchase cannabis with a credit card or ordering from more than 750 products with the ease of an online purchase, more than 400 customers entered Planet 13 in the first three hours of opening day Monday.

Frank Cowan, the company’s director of Illinois operations and an equity holder in the Las Vegas-based parent company, said he was happy with the early results as he thinks about the future of the city’s second cannabis dispensary.

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“We want to be the number one dispensary in the state,” Cowan said. “This is amazing. We’re off to a great start. We have amazing products, and this is a great location.”

A Planet 13 employee, left, talks to a pair of potential customers. (Steve Sadin/Lake County News-Sun)

Along with people from Waukegan and northeast Lake County, some customers said they came from Chicago and the Western suburbs. Some learned about the opening on social media, and some were familiar with the company’s other out-of-state locations.

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Owned by Planet 13 Holdings, Inc., the Waukegan outlet is the company’s first dispensary in Illinois. Two are located in Las Vegas, and another in Santa Ana, Calif. Expansion into Florida is planned early next year.

Bob

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A New York judge on Friday signed off on a settlement between the state Cannabis Control Board (CCB) and four military veterans who had sued the state over its social equity licensing plan, ending the months-long injunction on cannabis industry licensing in the state, Spectrum News reports. Under the terms of the settlement, the veterans will receive dispensary licenses and the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) will not approve other dispensaries near their planned locations. 

The CCB approved the settlement last Monday, but it required final approval from the state Supreme Court. State officials did not admit to wrongdoing under the terms of the deal.  

In a statement, OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander said he was “deeply relieved for the many entrepreneurs, who have spent the last three months trapped in limbo, who are now able to open their cannabis businesses, and for our communities, which will soon begin to see more stores open faster.”   

“Today is a good day for New York, for the dream of equity in cannabis, and for every New Yorker hoping to have a legal, licensed cannabis dispensary in their community.” — Alexander, in a statement, via

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A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report published in November found a nearly 50% reduction in the amount of hemp planted in the U.S. from 2021 to 2022. The CRS reports that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2021 and 2022 National Hemp Report, the value of hemp crops in the U.S. fell 48% from 54,152 acres in 2021 to 28,314 acres in 2022. 

According to the CRS report, USDA found that the farm-level value of total utilized hemp production was $238.4 million in 2022, down from $824 million in 2021 – a 71% reduction in value. 

According to the data, the value of hemp grown outdoors for flower fell 71% from $623 million in 2021 to $179 million the following year, while the value of hemp grown indoors for flower dropped from $64.4 million in 2021 to $24.7 million – a 62% decrease. 

The value of hemp grown outdoors for grain fell 40% from 2021 to 2022, from $6 million to $3.6 million, hemp fiber value fell from $41.4 million to $28.3 million, a 32% decrease, while hemp grown outdoors for seed plummeted 96% from 2021 to 2022, from $41.5 million to just $1.5

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The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) last week awarded 20 medical cannabis industry licenses, Alabama Daily News reports. It is the third time this year the commission has awarded licenses – the previous two attempts were negated by claims of incorrect application scoring and lawsuits that alleged the AMCC violated the state’s Open Meetings Law and had no right to revoke the originally awarded licenses in the first place.   

During this round of licensing, license hopefuls gave presentations to the AMCC directly. Commission member William Saliski noted that the presentations were influential in helping the AMCC rank the applicants.   

“I have to say that some of the top people that are on this list had some of the most sensational presentations, and I’m so encouraged by their readiness. I think they could probably start growing plants tomorrow if we asked them.” — Saliski via Alabama Daily News 

Of the 20 licenses issued last Friday, seven were not among the companies awarded a license during the AMCC’s previous licensing attempt.  

The 20 companies awarded licenses are:  

Cultivator License 

CRC of Alabama, LLC  Greenway

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Cannabis companies that need more money than they can generate through sales generally have two options: borrow money (debt) or solicit investments (equity). Over the years as the industry has constricted, equity finance became less of an option. I recently predicted that equity investment will reignite when cannabis is rescheduled. But that hasn’t happened yet, which means that cash-hungry cannabis companies need to borrow money. And because of high taxation, overregulation, the illegal market, and so on, many if not most cannabis companies need cash.

Not surprisingly, over the years I’ve seen massive increase in debt transactions as investments decreased – both original financings and refinancing. Today, I want to look at some of the things that cannabis companies should expect when looking for cannabis loans.

Traditional lenders won’t work with cannabis companies

Cannabis companies can’t just walk into a big bank and draw a commercial cannabis loan. Many banks (especially the big ones) and institutional lenders are still too skittish to do business with cannabis companies. You can read about that here. This may change if cannabis is rescheduled, but probably not too much. Unless federal law changes to unequivocally treat cannabis as a federally legal commodity, the bigger banks

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David Wilcox

New York state has won what it called an important victory against a shuttered chain of unlicensed cannabis dispensaries in central New York that included two locations in the Auburn area.

In a news release Monday, the state Office of Cannabis Management said Wayne County Supreme Court has issued a permanent injunction and one-year permanent closing order against I’m Stuck. The chain, operated by David Tulley, included a location at 9 E. Genesee St. in Auburn, the Weed Warehouse at 2020 Crane Brook Drive in Aurelius and six others in Wayne, Monroe and Oswego counties. 

The court order, issued Nov. 21, marks the first petition for emergency relief the state has won under the new Section 16-a of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, which strengthens enforcement powers against “gray market” businesses like I’m Stuck. In issuing the order, the state said, the court rejected Tulley’s argument that his business model of gifting cannabis as part of a paid consultation did not require a license. The order therefore establishes “an important precedent allowing the state to seek longer-term closures for businesses found to be illegally selling cannabis,” the state said.

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Drivers who renewed their licenses under a special program during the pandemic owed New York’s D.M.V. just one thing. As of Friday, some 44,000 still did.

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at why 44,000 New Yorkers have just had their drivers’ licenses suspended. We’ll also look at a court settlement that cleared the way for more recreational cannabis dispensaries to open soon.