Business
Cookies brand to start selling marijuana seeds for home grows, CEO Berner says
LAS VEGAS – International marijuana brand Cookies will begin selling seeds for home cultivation, cannabis entrepreneur and rapper Berner said Wednesday on the Main Stage at MJBizCon.
“I really want to start pushing home grow,” he said.
The quotable CEO and co-founder of Cookies shared more insights in his on-stage interview with MJBizDaily‘s Bart Schaneman on Wednesday:
- On medical cannabis: After his own recent diagnoses for cancer and then undergoing treatment, Berner said he feels like it’s a “second shot at life. … I’ve seen the benefits firsthand of cannabis, and I was able to experience it myself.”
- On partnerships: “I love working with people,” he said. “I’ve always been a social butterfly.” Berner said Cookies partners with operators who love cannabis, the plant and what they do. “We’re looking for operators who understand the vibe. If I can vibe with you, I can work with you.”
- On legacy: “I want to make sure when I die, especially after coming close to death, that there’s a plan for Cookies,” Berner said. “I don’t want a bunch of blue buildings sitting around the world with no plan and no vision.”
- On East Coast opportunities: Berner said he’s so excited about prospects on the East Coast that he’s looking to buy a home there. “I f***ing love New York. … New York is a whole ‘nother vibe right now.” He also said, “I think Pennsylvania’s going to be big.”
- On overcoming the illicit market: “Easy – you grow something the streets don’t have,” Berner said. “It’s hard to compete with the black market because weed is way cheaper, but if you got some s*** nobody else got, they’ll come. The way you compete is just come with the fire. That’s how you win. It’s all about the genetics.”
Turning challenges into opportunities
Also on the Main Stage, marijuana heavyweights and advocates shared with MJBiz CEO Chris Walsh their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities in the cannabis industry right now.
Troy Datcher, CEO of California-based The Parent Co., said the company’s home state is proving to be challenging, with a thriving illicit market and high taxes.
To weather the storm, the company has stayed true to its vision – to be a national brand – and has had to reduce its head count by 33%.
“It was necessary to protect our balance sheet,” Datcher said. “We have one of the largest balance sheets in California.
“We’ve got to take capital and it’s going to take resources to attract talent to join us on a journey.”
What keeps Datcher motivated?
“We’re excited about what we’re shaping as an industry, bringing Black and brown people to the table and convincing (U.S. Sen.) Cory Booker and everyone in Washington to get off their ass and help us get this thing done,” he said.
Nancy Whiteman, CEO and co-founder of Colorado-based edibles company Wana Brands, said state regulations, lack of enforcement, price compression and the prevalence and dangers of delta-8 THC are some of her biggest challenges.
“There was a toddler who died from ingesting delta-8 products,” she said.
“What is going to happen when that becomes known? Will all THC get painted with the same brush as being dangerous?”
Whiteman called on the industry to advocate for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate hemp and CBD.
The opportunities that inspire Whiteman to overcome challenges include reaching new, emerging markets, and focusing on innovation.
“We’re redefining what cannabis can be,” she said.
Delta-8 THC is also a challenge for Marijuana Policy Project President and CEO Toi Hutchison, who said the advocacy group’s campaigns are experiencing “donor fatigue.”
“We’re getting the general populace to understand that our work in cannabis is not done,” she said. “We are still arresting 600,000 people every single year.”
Education, she said, is key to battling the proliferation of delta-8 THC.
“Bans never work, prohibition never works,” she said. “It’s really important that we use the words ‘synthetic cannabinoids’.”
Peter Caldini, CEO of New York-headquartered multistate operator Acreage Holdings, said low prices and other current challenges mean it’s crucial to use good business fundamentals.
“The strong are going to survive,” he said. “We’re in the weeding-out process.”
The company reduced its head count and is focused on differentiating itself.
“We’ve been spoiled in a way with these great growth rates,” he said. “The real top performers are going to succeed in the long run.”
For Ruben Lindo, the founder and CEO of New York-based Blak Mar Farms, the challenge is figuring out how to position the business, win licenses and get the company’s products on store shelves when the state launches adult-use marijuana sales.
Lindo said the company has decided to stay craft rather than scale up and produce cannabis en masse.
“Challenges aren’t challenges,” he said. “They’re areas of opportunity.”
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/cookies-brand-to-start-selling-marijuana-seeds-for-home-grows-berner-says/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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