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.

The start-up world can expect to see a different kind of green in the next few years if the marijuana business grows as rapidly as some expect. Legal marijuana sales grew to $5.4 billion in 2015, up from $4.6 billion in the prior year, and sales are expected to grow by 25 percent to about $6.7 billion this year, according to research firm Arcview’s latest marijuana market report. “We are going to see the legal cannabis industry create, tailor to and adapt technology for agriculture, plant compound extraction, security and finance,” said Leslie Bocskor, a funds manager who focuses on marijuana businesses for Electrum Partners. Will marijuana sales growth be enough for these start-ups to continue business?

“As the industry grows, it will rely on technology to facilitate the development of businesses from an innovation perspective, which will create a more fertile environment for investment. “We at Electrum expect the legal cannabis industry to be the leading creator of new jobs, leading provider of new tax revenue, and the overall leading creator of wealth in the U.S. for the next 10 years,” said Bocskor, who wouldn’t disclose how much his firm has invested in marijuana-related businesses.

But Bocskor likens the marijuana industry now to the advent of antibiotics in the 1920s.

Different varieties and strains of marijuana are available for patients at Harborside Health Center, a large medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland. “We’re only at the very beginning, essentially like being at the very beginning of Sir Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin as mold in a petri dish. That’s how it started, and now how broad are antibiotics as a category of medicine? In the same sense we’re just looking at the very beginning of cannabis,” Bocskor said.

But with opportunity comes risk. The growth of marijuana businesses, including marijuana tech businesses are limited by legal hurdles. Medical marijuana consumption is allowed in 23 states, the District of Columbia and Guam. The federal government considers marijuana a dangerous drug and its distribution is still a federal offense. But marijuana tech start-ups held back from further growth expect that dam to break, and soon, releasing pent-up demand for legal medical and eventually recreational marijuana use.

Isaac Dietrich, founder of cannabis-focused social media site Massroots, said he expects to see his company’s revenue and site user growth to accelerate this year. Last year, Massroots firm applied to be the first marijuana-related tech firm listed on the Nasdaq. It still hasn’t achieved that listing, but shares of the company are currently traded over the counter on the OTCQB, Dietrich said.

And the budding marijuana tech sector is more than social. It includes companies focused on hard science as well. Weed tech firm Potbotics, for example, uses patient brain scans to help determine the best strains of marijuana to treat specific diseases.

“Technology is at the core of the transformation of cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, retail and delivery. Industrial agriculture best practices and technology are in the process of migrating over to the cannabis space, allowing for optimized yields, water and energy efficiencies,” said Paul Warshaw, founder and CEO of Greenrush, a marijuana delivery service. Eventually, the consumer experience could be so streamlined that it will be a far cry from a shady, street-corner transaction.

“Payments for marijuana will be processed online, with the same security and ease of an Amazon checkout. Drivers and patients will be protected from the dangers presented by cash sales,” Warshaw said.

“Once the order is placed, algorithms will determine the fastest transportation staff, modalities and routes for delivery. Driver tracking tools will provide unparalleled efficiency, comfort and security throughout the delivery process. And completion of the order will be as simple as tipping and rating your Lyft driver at the end of a ride,” Warshaw said.

But for now, the fact that marijuana is still illegal under federal law makes it impossible major banks to get into the business. Why online meal kit sales are poised for growth

JPMorgan Chase, for example, recently closed an account owned by Green Flower Media, a company that provides information on marijuana and its use.

“As a federally regulated institution, we don’t process payments for businesses participating in federally prohibited activities,” Mary Jane Rogers, a Chase spokeswoman, told CNBC. In an email to CNBC, Green Flower Media founder Max Simon said: “I understand the long-standing stigma about cannabis, but it’s unfair, unjust and ignorant to make an emotional decision to shut down our account when we have already been approved, followed their guidelines and changed nothing. This is not protecting their risk. This is discrimination.

The bank also closed the business and personal accounts of marijuana entrepreneur Martin Tobias, CNBC reported last year. “We need to solve the banking problem, and I think the solution is going to have to be legislative or come from the government,” Bocskor said. Also: billions of dollars in cash per year are changing hands, raising concerns about personal safety among those involved in transactions.

“It’s a risk. And we need to get that cash out of the system and we need to give them electronic banking to be able to keep the cash out of the system,” Bocskor said.

Correction: The quotation that began “Technology is at the core …” should have been attributed to Paul Warshaw of Greenrush.

Source: Tech start-ups hope for marijuana sales growth

A new pro-marijuana billboard that plays off the slogan promoting the Waste Management Phoenix Open was unveiled in Phoenix on Monday by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

“If beer and golf make for the ‘greatest party on grass’…Why can’t adults enjoy a safer party on grass?” reads the billboard on the southwest corner of Seventh and Lincoln streets.

It tweaks the Phoenix Open’s slogan, “Greatest show on grass,” just days before the main events of the PGA tournament that draws an estimated 500,000 attendees each year.

The campaign believes the Phoenix Open is the perfect opportunity to highlight social acceptance of alcohol versus the stigmatization marijuana users face.

“There’s certainly going to be a lot of alcohol consumption there,” said J.P. Holyoak, campaign chairman. “That’s not something that I’m opposed to, but why should we continue to criminalize and arrest people for choosing something that is objectively safer than alcohol?”

Their message highlights the importance of personal responsibility when adults use any substance.

“Our message is simple,” Holyoak said. “Enjoy alcohol responsibly, but adults should be able to choose the safer alternative and enjoy cannabis responsibly

Source: Marijuana Supporters Unveil Waste Management Phoenix Open Themed Billboard | Phoenix New Times

Campaigners on Monday handed in nearly double the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. Some will be bad, but that’s a pretty big cushion.

“Over the past eight months, we’ve talked to more than 100,000 voters across the state, from Kittery to Caribou,” said campaign manager David Boyer. “Most Mainers agree it is time to end the failed policy of marijuana prohibition, and they will have the opportunity to do it this November.”

According to a poll last spring from the Portland marketing firm Critical Insights, a whopping two-thirds (65%) of Mainers support legalizing the weed, with nearly four out five (79%) saying it should be sold in licensed establishments.

The initiative would let people 21 or over possess up to 2.5 ounces of pot and grow a limited number of plants in their homes. It would also set up the framework for a tightly regulated system of licensed marijuana retail stores, cultivation facilities, product-manufacturing facilities, and testing facilities, and it would create rules governing the cultivation, testing, transportation, and sale of marijuana. The initiative would enact a 10% tax on marijuana sales.

“This initiative will replace the underground marijuana market with a tightly controlled system of legitimate, taxpaying businesses that create good jobs for Maine residents,” Boyer said. “It will also make Maine safer by allowing enforcement officials to spend more time addressing serious crimes instead of enforcing failed marijuana prohibition laws.”

So far, only four states—Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington—all in the West, have voted to legalize it at the ballot box. Washington, DC, legalized possession and cultivation, but not sales and distribution. If the measure actually makes the ballot and passes, Maine could become the first state east of the Mississippi to legalize it.

But Vermont is moving toward legalization through the legislative process. That bill has won a first committee vote, but its prospects for passage this year are uncertain. And Massachusetts could well end voting for a legalization initiative this year, too. Whether it’s Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, or some combination of the above, New England is becoming a real hotbed for reefer reform this year.

Read the full article from the source: Maine Joins the Growing List of States to Vote on Marijuana Legalization This Year | Alternet