Browsing: Cannabusiness

Denver recently conducted random tests of more than two dozen local dispensaries to learn more about potential yeast and mold issues with marijuana, and the results weren’t good.

On August 19, the City of Denver sent a notice to every licensed marijuana dispensary in the city, warning that investigators would be conducting random assessments at about 25 stores in the coming weeks “to evaluate contaminants in products on store shelves.”

“Each sample will be tested for pesticides and total yeast and mold by a state- and ISO-certified marijuana testing facility. Results of their respective testing will be shared with each facility and will also be shared broadly within a write-up of results,” the announcement read.

College students looking for courses next semester may have a new option, as Denver-based Cannabis Training University’s curriculum on the burgeoning pot industry is now offered in two and four-year institutions in the United States, with plans to expand into Canada.

Online Cannabis Education, CTU’s online set of courses for cannabis entrepreneurs, growers, chefs and more is already offered at Mount Wachusett Community College and Worcester State University in Massachusetts, where recreational cannabis was legalized in 2016. But CTU CEO Jeff Zorn says he plans to expand the course to more colleges in other states.

Cannabis use and the cannabis business in general have gone mainstream, but the people responsible for marketing the plant still have to jump through a lot of hoops. After all, there’s a reason that you haven’t seen cannabis commercials on TV or billboards for dispensaries: Pot still isn’t that legal.

To help emerging pot companies navigate the odd, evolving world of promoting cannabis, Lisa Buffo founded the Cannabis Marketing Association. Since launching the group in Colorado, she’s built a network of chapters in nine of America’s largest legal and medical markets. We recently caught up with Buffo to learn more about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into selling us all that legal weed.

Brian Garret almost tripped as he approached his favorite dispensary, Sticky Buds, on September 3 — and it wasn’t because of Denver’s lousy sidewalks. Garret’s pot shop of choice on Colfax Avenue had a banner hanging out front, announcing new ownership.

“I called the other location [on South Broadway], and they said Solace Meds took over that one, too,” he said at the time. “Everything inside was pretty much the same, but things will probably change with time.”

Garret, who just wanted to get home for an after-work dab on a hot summer day, probably didn’t realize how metaphorical his statement was. Natural market evolution and new state laws allowing out-of-state investors, publicly held companies and more large venture funds to own pot companies have set up Colorado’s cannabis field for some big changes late this year.

The recent outbreak of lung illnesses connected to THC vaporization products is pushing the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division to implement new regulations that could include the prohibition of certain vaping additives in the regulated marketplace.

New rules banning the production and sale of cannabis vape products containing polyethylene glycol (PEG), vitamin E acetate and medium chain triglycerides (MCT oil) were proposed by the MED on October 7, according to the agency, with the proposed rules up for public discussion on Tuesday, October 15.

Colorado marijuana sales continued their hot streak in August, according to the state Department of Revenue, reaching the highest monthly total ever.

Medical and recreational dispensaries accounted for over $173.2 million in sales in August, DOR data shows. That number is easily the highest for monthly sales since recreational pot stores opened in January 2014, passing July 2019’s previous high mark (approximately $166.3 million) by about 4 percent. This is the third straight month that dispensary sales have broken Colorado’s monthly record.

Society has a complicated and sometimes conflicted relationship with professional athletes, but if there’s anything about jocks that we all want to emulate, it’s those hot, chiseled bods.

Our opportunities to gain those physiques traditionally have started with buying shoes or training equipment endorsed by current all-stars, but now retired athletes have entered the fray, pushing everything from oddly shaped sneakers to copper-infused bracelets. I grew up knowing Chicago White Sox slugger Frank Thomas as the Big Hurt, a mountain of a man who yawned while jacking dingers across Lake Michigan. Today younger generations know him more for his big dick, jacking wives from their husbands in a Nugenix commercial.

Retired athletes recently found one more honey hole for their spokesperson services, as hemp and marijuana become more mainstream. Ex-NBA or NFL players opening weed dispensaries or starting infused products brands are actually nothing new — Cliff Robertson, Floyd Landis, LenDale White and Al Harrington have all founded cannabis companies or dabbled in partnerships with the industry, and lesser-known retired players have made a career out of advocating cannabis use, hitting the talk-show and conference circuit for speaking gigs — but those opportunities pale in comparison with what the CBD industry is offering right now.

“Sustainability is important in every sector of every type of economy, and we are proud that Colorado set a good bar for the cannabis industry,” said Governor Jared Polis during a visit to the 2019 Cannabis Sustainability Symposium.

But the symposium’s organizer, the Cannabis Certification Council, is always looking for ways to shrink the new industry’s environmental impact. Held Friday, October 4, the annual conference hosted industry executives, sustainability advocates and business owners to learn more about what they can do to create a sustainable future for cannabis, and how to start planning for the future today.

Days before Congressman Ed Perlmutter was scheduled to speak at a cannabis management conference in Denver this week, he had a defining moment in Washington, D.C. His bill that would allow banking institutions to serve legal cannabis companies became not only the first pot-related proposal to be considered by the full House of Representatives in over fifty years, it actually passed.

“Had we not passed that bill last week, I did not want to talk to you people at all,” Perlmutter jokingly told a room full of cannabis regulators and business owners during the City of Denver’s Marijuana Management Symposium on Thursday, October 3. “The banking piece really is the thing that is the icebreaker in all of this.”

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