Browsing: Cannabusiness

A bill that would allow social cannabis consumption in Colorado dispensaries, hotels, cafes and other businesses passed its first test on Wednesday, March 27, when it moved out of a House committee on a 7-4 vote.

Recreational cannabis use has been legal in Colorado since late 2012, but it’s only allowed in private dwellings and establishments, with “open and public” pot consumption banned by the state constitution, despite Amendment 64 being billed as a measure to “treat marijuana like alcohol.” Past legislative efforts to create a licensing system for social consumption businesses have failed, but sponsors of House Bill 1230 are confident of their chances this year.

For the past three years, Mason Hembree has been working on a difficult balancing act. He’s a craft beer brewer who feels more at home in the cannabis industry, a Libertarian iconoclast who is nevertheless trying to work within the system, and the owner of a tiny company who wants to play ball with the big boys.

Now, Hembree, who co-founded Dad & Dudes Breweria in Aurora in 2010, may have finally found the perfect nexus of those things. In late February, Hembree and his father, Thomas, sold their brewery to San Diego-based Cannabiniers, a company with big plans for growth.

Although previous efforts to legalize marijuana delivery in Colorado have been unsuccessful, several state lawmakers believe that the time could be right. House Bill 1234, just introduced by representatives Alex Valdez and Jonathan Singer, proposes rolling out delivery to medical marijuana patients next year, then adding recreational customers in 2021.

“Colorado voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 64 with the intention of regulating cannabis in a similar fashion to alcohol, and our bill brings the law in line with that,” Singer explains in a statement. “Establishing a cannabis delivery system will provide consumers with a legal way to access cannabis in their homes, curtail illegal delivery services, and open new markets for legal businesses.”

Colorado’s marijuana industry could open its doors much wider to corporations and underrepresented demographics in ownership if two legislative measures pass this year.

A bill that would allow publicly traded companies to own Colorado marijuana business licenses and lessen investment restrictions passed its first committee hearing in the state legislature Monday, March 4, while State Representative Leslie Herod is expected to push another bill later this year addressing social equity in the pot industry.

The CBD water is warm, and investors are ready to jump in. Some of those investors are coming from established marijuana dispensary brands and are now diving into the hemp and CBD-only pools, buoyed by their experience with the plant and dealing with much tougher regulations.

Stratos, a marijuana-infused product company known for tablets as well as its medically focused outreach, is one of the latest established pot businesses to try its hand at CBD. We caught up with Kate Heckman, Stratos vice president of branding and marketing, to talk about what CBD can do for its wide target audience.

Denver no longer has the distinction of being the only major city with retail marijuana dispensaries, but that hasn’t stopped weed from flying off the shelves here. This city has seen almost $2.4 billion in marijuana sales since the first retail dispensary opened on January 1, 2014, according to our calculations based on Colorado Department of Revenue data.

The United States House of Representatives held a hearing on the challenges of marijuana business banking on February 13, gaining attention and praise for doing what congressional leaders had not done in the past: actually consider federal marijuana reform.

The House Financial Services Committee hearing on Colorado Congressman Ed Perlmutter’s SAFE Banking Act provided more bark than bite, however, with no vote on the measure taking place.

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