Business
Moxie Launches in Ohio
Moxie, a pioneer in the world of cannabis concentrates, has officially launched its medical products in The Buckeye State.
Moxie, California’s first licensed cannabis brand, has launched its premium medical cannabis products in Ohio. Moxie is one of the original, premium California-based brands known for pioneering extraction techniques, its award-winning concentrates, live resins, Liquid Moxie, and delectable gummy products, and for breeding world-renowned curated cannabis plant genetics. Moxie is now part of High Times, the original and authentic media and cannabis operator, headquartered in California and known for its Cannabis Cup competition.
In Ohio, Moxie has partnered with Green Investment Partners, and its operator Rooted Management Services, run by Gabe Perlow, Matt Borders, Cody Boyer and Ray Boyer, who pioneered the introduction of the Moxie brand with PurePenn in Pennsylvania, Organic Remedies MO in Missouri, and with the affiliate of Moxie during its time in the Michigan medical market.
Green Investment Partners (GIP) and Rooted Management Partners spent the past year transitioning the company’s operations to Rooted’s industry-leading procedures, including capital investments to improve GIP’s cultivation and processing operations, while introducing new genetics, including Moxie genetics into GIP’s operations. GIP has also expanded its processing operations to increase production of concentrates, vaporizer cartridges and gummies for the Moxie brand. Moxie’s premium indoor grown flower will be available in Ohio by the Fall of 2023.
Rooted will be introducing a new product to the Ohio medical market known as Caviar Dots under the Moxie brand. Caviar Dots will be available in Ohio in July. Caviar Dots are a potent blend of ground flower, delta-9 THC oil, and keef meant to enhance the patient experience regardless of the method of consumption to add potency and flavor to even the most bland of other products.
Moxie, GIP and Rooted look to take their approach to scale craft cannabis offerings in Ohio to the next level by providing patients with high quality products at affordable prices.
“It has taken [Rooted] about a year to make the necessary capital improvements, implement its standard operating procedures, and add the necessary scale to the GIP facilities required to operate a world-class cannabis production facility. In parallel with those efforts, we have worked diligently to bring in new Moxie genetics, as well as those of GIP’s value brand, Eden’s Trees, which allows us to offer Ohio’s patients with the most well regarded and sought-after products in cannabis,” said Gabe Perlow, operator of GIP’s facilities and former CEO of PurePenn, which produced Moxie’s products in Pennsylvania.
Perlow also stated that “the key to our success is the emphasis we place on quality and consistency, at an affordable price. We make the kinds of products that we as patients and caregivers would want for ourselves and our family.”
Perlow and his team seemingly perfected the model for multi-state operations, after successful operations in Pennsylvania, and most recently, Missouri as part of Organic Remedies-Missouri.
“We replicate the same model at each location, our facilities are designed or redesigned in Ohio’s case, with the same training, equipment, and culture. The culture is the key to our success, with values of patient welfare, trust, respect, integrity, collaboration, innovation and commitment to excellence to name a few. We hire to these values and maintain these expectations to the entire team, bottoms up and top down. We recreate the same successful workflow using the same standard operating procedures and the same materials and equipment that have yielded excellent results in other markets. We have taken the guesswork out of operations with replicated results in multiple states,” Perlow said.
GIP’s flower and processed products are led by managers trained at and brought in from other markets affiliated with Rooted Management Services, ensuring that the genetics are cultivated in a way that ensures the highest level of consistency and potency possible. By controlling the cultivation of the plant material used in our products, and replicating the same model by bringing in team members and leaders from existing facilities, Moxie and Eden’s Trees brands avoid many of the pitfalls that new or inexperienced manufacturers face.
While the business model creates uniformity, the leadership team at Rooted Management Services ensures only the highest caliber of cannabis products are being produced for the Moxie brand.
Perlow stated that “It’s not about coming in and making a quick buck for us. We have the business experience and want to build successful brands and strong businesses, but we are also very passionate about this plant and the products that we produce. As medical patients and caregivers ourselves, we have seen first-hand the amazing benefits the plant has to offer. As enthusiasts of the products, we appreciate that cannabis-based medicine can offer an enjoyable experience while also experiencing relief from serious medical conditions. We bring a lot of passion to the business and products we make, and are proud to serve the patients of Ohio. Our management team and employees share the same enthusiasm, excitement, passion, pride and dedication to producing high quality, affordable products.”
GIP and Rooted Management Services aim to be what we call “competimates” (competitors working together to build a highly compliant industry while serving the Ohio patients) with other licensed operators and are working with dispensary partners to ensure that retail teams are as informed and educated as possible about what Moxie and Eden’s Trees offers and the benefits to the dispensary partners and the Ohio patients. Perlow says the company is proud of the products they produce, and they want retail partners to be equally excited about what they’re able to offer to Ohio patients.
Source: https://hightimes.com/business/moxie-launches-in-ohio/
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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