cannabis industry Archives - Page 17 of 22 - The Real Dirt with Chip Baker

Cannabis cultivators again facing severe wildfire season

by The Real Dirt | May 21, 2021 | 420 News, Blog, Business, Growing, Hemp

forest fires threaten cannabis farmers in the west for another year.

Historic drought conditions again will bring the threat of extreme wildfires to U.S. cannabis growers, especially those in Western states.

Wildfires and the ash and smoke created by them are becoming a bigger threat to life and property as average temperatures rise and water resources dwindle amid climate change.

Western states experienced historic destruction in the summer of 2020, when everything seemed to be on fire, including cannabis farms in California and Oregon.

Smoke and ash also blocked out essential sunlight and delayed the growth of outdoor marijuana plants by weeks, leaving growers with less-than-ideal options for when to harvest their plants.

Last season’s 58,950 wildfires burned 10.1 million acres across the United States, double the acreage burned in 2019 and almost 2.3 million more acres than the 10-year-average.

But that is not uncommon.

In four of the past 10 years – 2020, 2017, 2015 and 2012 – wildfires have burned 9 million or more acres in the U.S.

Three of Colorado’s largest recorded wildland fires – Cameron Peak, East Troublesome and Pine Gulch – occurred in 2020, tearing through more than half a million acres combined.

California had its worst wildfire season on record, with an estimated 4.3 million acres burned, 33 fatalities and 10,488 structures damaged or destroyed.

And the conditions that feed large wildfires already are worse this year.

Reservoirs across much of the West are sitting at below average levels, and snowpack runoff is not expected to provide much relief.

Southwestern states, including Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, recorded their driest April-March period in 126 years.

The situation is similar in California and Colorado.

In fact, the amount of water in the snowpack has dropped to below normal for much of the West, excluding parts of Alaska and Washington state.

A map showing the lack of snow water going into this years wildfire season.

Drought conditions, a key indicator for predicting wildfire seasons, escalated this month compared to the same time last year.

The U.S. Drought Monitor’s latest outlook, released last week, shows that much of the area where cannabis is grown in the West and Southwest is experiencing extreme and exceptional drought conditions, which can lead to water emergencies and widespread crop and pasture losses.

Read Full Article on MJ BIZ DAILY

DEA may allow companies to grow cannabis for scientific research

by The Real Dirt | May 19, 2021 | 420 News, Blog, Business, Cannabis Law, Growing, Hemp Law, Legalization, Medical Marijuana, Politics

DEA cannabis may be getting better for scientists

After years of delay under the Trump administration, the federal government is preparing to award the first new licenses for cultivating cannabis for scientific research, giving U.S. marijuana operators a crack at entering a business that has been dominated by the University of Mississippi for more than 50 years.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration late last week signaled it would award the licenses soon by issuing a “Memorandum of Agreement” (MOA) to “a number” of organizations that applied for the opportunity, according to an agency news release. The move will allow greater research into marijuana and its potential medicinal properties. That, in turn, could spur more doctors to recommend medical cannabis, which likely would boost sales.

“We expect to receive our registration number this afternoon,” said Dr. Steven Groff, founder of Groff North America in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, one of three entities that on Friday received an MOA from the DEA.

The recipients are supposed to review the MOAs and return them to the DEA with comments or suggestions. Groff already returned its MOA, and two other recipients told MJBizDaily they’d return their paperwork in the coming days or weeks.

Besides Groff, at least two other organizations confirmed they’d received an MOA:

Scottsdale Research Institute in Arizona.
Biopharmaceutical Research Co. (BRC) in Castroville, California.

A DEA spokesperson declined to answer if any other MOAs were issued. It’s also unclear when, or if, the DEA intends to issue more MOAs.

“This has the potential to create a renaissance of cannabis research for decades,” Dr. Sue Sisley, president of the Scottsdale Research Institute, said in a phone interview. Sisley, a longtime cannabis advocate, has been studying marijuana’s potential therapeutic benefits.

George Hodgin, the CEO of BRC, echoed Sisley, saying in a phone interview: “This is a massive regulatory step.”

Currently, the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss, is the only institution in the United States with DEA permission to cultivate cannabis for federally approved research, having been awarded its license in 1968.

Critics complain that the cannabis grown there doesn’t reflect what’s being sold in the marketplace today.

To expand the number of entities with federal licenses for cultivating marijuana for research, the Obama administration announced an application process in its final year. Nearly 30 businesses, research institutes, universities and other entities applied.

Read Full Story on MJ Biz Daily

Marijuana industry expected to add $92 billion to US economy in 2021

by The Real Dirt | May 12, 2021 | 420 Culture & Travel, 420 News, Blog, Business, Cannabis Law and Compliance, Culture, Legalization, Medical Marijuana

Marijuana revenue is expected to surpass $90 billion in 2021

From jobs to tax revenue to commercial real estate, the marijuana industry has a large – and growing – impact on the broader economy in the United States.

The total U.S. economic impact from marijuana sales in 2021 is expected to reach $92 billion – up more than 30% from last year – and upwards of $160 billion in 2025, according to analysis from the newly published MJBizFactbook.

To measure the industry’s economic impact, MJBizDaily analyzed similar industries and applied a standard multiplier of 3.5 on projected recreational and medical marijuana retail sales.

The numbers are a best guess because the marijuana industry’s structure is somewhat unique because it encompasses agricultural, manufacturing and retail activity.

The economic impact of the marijuana industry is not the same as supply-chain revenues that are often used to estimate the “total size” of an industry.

Rather, the economic multiplier paints a picture of the impact the industry has on the broader economy.

In this case, for every $1 consumers and patients spend at retail locations, an additional $2.50 will be injected into the economy, much of it at the local level.

That impact comes directly from the day-to-day needs of workers in the cannabis industry, including spending on life’s necessities such as housing, transportation, entertainment and more.

Marijuana businesses, consumers and patients also pay hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local taxes that are used to fund state and local government activities, including schools and roads.

In addition, real estate receives a boost from new retail, manufacturing and agricultural businesses moving into an area or established companies expanding, increasing broader demand for commercial properties.

Cultivating and manufacturing marijuana can require large investments in equipment and technology that boost not only the local economy but also areas throughout the U.S.

The list goes on.

Using the same multiplier methodology can also offer insight into the local-dollar impact from sales of recreational and/or medical marijuana.

The economic impact will vary by state based on the size, maturity and type of market.

For example, as the largest market in the U.S., California’s marijuana industry is expected to pump close to $20 billion into the state’s economy in 2021.

No other state comes close to that amount.

But states such as Colorado, Illinois, Oregon and Washington will provide more than $10 billion each for their local economies in the coming years.

Expect the same for markets in densely populated states such as New Jersey and New York as they develop.

If we consider total population, some states benefit more than others.

Read Full Story on MJ Biz Daily

Massachusetts to allot 70K acres for cannabis, hemp production

by The Real Dirt | May 4, 2021 | 420 News, Blog, Business, Growing, Hemp, Hemp Law, Politics

The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources released updated guidance on Wednesday making way for more than 70,000 acres belonging to its Agricultural Preservation Restriction and Farm Viability Enhancement programs to be used to grow cannabis and hemp.

The APR program was established in 1977 and offers to pay farmland owners the difference between fair market value and the agricultural value of their farms in exchange for permanent deed restrictions which preserve farmland for agricultural use in the future, according to the department website.

The Farm Viability Enhancement Program, in turn, provides business and technical assistance to established farmers through grant funding, in exchange for signing an agricultural covenant on the farm property to keep it in agricultural use for a five-, 10- or 15-year term, per the state website.

Under the new guidance released last week, both hemp and cannabis production will now be allowed on APR and Farm Viability Enhancement lands, so long as the land in question isn’t federally funded, because cannabis remains illegal at the federal level.

Although the DAR did not say how many APR lands are beholden to federal restrictions, the guidance noted nearly all recently acquired APRs were purchased with federal financing.

Still, the new guidance effectively opens options for APR farmers interested in adding or transitioning to the cannabis and hemp markets.

“The department looks forward to working with APR and Agricultural Covenant landowners and the farming community on the implementation of this new interpretation and has prepared the following guidance,” the department said in its announcement.

Original Story from Worcester Business Journal

Steve Fox, who helped legalize marijuana in Colorado, has died at 53

by The Real Dirt | Apr 14, 2021 | 420 News, Blog, Cannabis Law and Compliance, Culture, Legalization

Steve Fox, Colorado legalization advocate and Vicente Sederberg LLP member has passed

Fox was lead drafter of 2012’s Amendment 64, giving rise to the massive legal cannabis industry

One of the leaders of Colorado’s first-in-the-nation recreational marijuana legalization movement, Steve Fox, has died at the age of 53.

Fox was the lead drafter of Colorado Amendment 64, which passed in 2012 with a little more than 55% of the vote, and he also lobbied for legal weed in the state capitol.

“We are truly heartbroken to share news of the passing of our partner and dear friend Steve Fox,” wrote the cannabis law group Vicente Sederberg LLP, where Fox was a leader since 2010. Fox also served as a managing partner of VS Strategies since co-founding the group in 2013.

Fox conceptualized and co-founded Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), as well as coauthored the 2009 book “Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People To Drink?,” according to the Vicente Sederberg release.

Mason Tvert, among Amendment 64’s chief proponents and a friend and colleague of Fox, described Fox as inspirational.

“He made me feel like we could do anything,” Tvert told The Post. “This guy, he was truly passionate about helping people, both those around him and those that he knew were being affected by bad policies. And he never got a ton of recognition and he didn’t really seek recognition. He was always proud to be the guy behind the scenes.”

Fox had worked for President Bill Clinton’s second presidential campaign in Little Rock, Ark., as well as in Congress, Tvert said.

Tvert also noted that Fox was not from Colorado, but “was as responsible if not more responsible than any single individual for getting cannabis legalized and advancing this industry so far.” Since Colorado legalized weed, several states have followed, with New Mexico and New York just this year. Colorado itself has sold at least $10 billion in marijuana since legalization.

In 2013, Fox received an award from the Drug Policy Alliance in recognition of his influence on the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, the cannabis law group’s letter said.