NEW GUIDELINES WANT POT SCREENINGS BEFORE SURGERY The American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA) and Pain Medicine is calling for cannabis screenings prior to surgery. The new guidelines come as a result of two years of work at ASRA Pain Medicine. The guidelines noted the idea initially came from cannabis and perioperative medicine special interest…
NEW GUIDELINES WANT POT SCREENINGS BEFORE SURGERY
The American Society of Regional Anesthesia (ASRA) and Pain Medicine is calling for cannabis screenings prior to surgery.
The new guidelines come as a result of two years of work at ASRA Pain Medicine. The guidelines noted the idea initially came from cannabis and perioperative medicine special interest groups within the society in November 2020. The group is one of the largest medical societies dedicated to anesthesiology in the world, with 5,000 members in 66 countries.
A smaller working group broke it down into numerous questions to answer, the first of which was if all surgical and procedural patients requiring anesthesia be screened for cannabinoids preoperatively, and if so, what information should be obtained?
The most fundamental part of their answer is a big yes because everything in a patient’s medical and recreational substance history should be taken into account, the guideline authors noted.
“Before surgery, anesthesiologists should ask patients if they use cannabis — whether medicinally or recreationally — and be prepared to possibly change the anesthesia plan or delay the procedure in certain situations,” said Samer Narouze, M.D., Ph.D., senior author and ASRA Pain Medicine president.
Narouze went on to point out that while some people use cannabis therapeutically, studies have shown regular users may have more pain and nausea after surgery, not less, and may need more medications, including opioids, to manage the discomfort. And they’re not fearmongering, they just want the patient and anesthesiologist to be as informed as possible.
“We hope the guidelines will serve as a road map to help better care for patients who use cannabis and need surgery,” Narouze said.
The authors note it wasn’t just the weed they were worried about, but the potential for pesticides, heavy metals, and carcinogens. There are concerns about those adulterants impacting the perioperative effectiveness of the anesthesia.
The authors later broke it down to four main factors to consider on whether someone should stop using cannabis before surgery — it was medical, the dosing and frequency of use, CBD ratios, and how it’s administered.
“A recent consensus-based guideline recommended reducing cannabinoid use 7 days prior to surgery (to less than 1.5 g/day of smoked cannabis, 300 mg/day of CBD oil, 20 mg/day of THC oil) while cautioning not to attempt any tapering strategies within 6 days of elective surgery and not to attempt tapering a day prior to surgery,” the guidelines noted.
The guidelines also noted one of the places the ASRA Pain Medicine will be looking at the relationship between cannabis and anesthesia the most often will be in pregnant women. In 2019, 5.4% of pregnant women reported using marijuana during their pregnancy. The guidelines said a history of occasional or recreational use of marijuana likely does not pose a risk with neuraxial anesthesia for labor analgesia or cesarean delivery.
The authors did note if you were to go into labor within a couple of hours of consuming cannabis there may be increased potential for cardiovascular, anesthetic, and vasopressor interactions.
Alien Labs’ Zkittelz strain secured top honors in the new Best Thing Smoking category last weekend’s Zalympix competition hosted by Greenwolf.
The new category’s winner was selected by Proper Doinks in a tournament format.
With a record-breaking number of participants, this edition of Zalympix attracted more entries than all previous events combined. Alien Labs consistently demonstrated its excellence by placing among the top three or winning various categories in the past. However, this triumph marked their most significant achievement yet, as they added another three trophies to their ever-expanding collection.
Speculations arose last week regarding the challenging nature of the competition for Z due to the abundance of Zkittelz hybrids in the mix. Nevertheless, the judges ultimately disagreed, and Zkittelz claimed the highest podium. Since its meteoric rise in 2014, when it dominated the Mendocino Secret Cup and secured a top-five spot at the High Times NorCal Cup, Zkittelz has continued to captivate enthusiasts. It became the first breakthrough strain since Cookies emerged in the late 2000s and would go on to be in the lineage of basically every hype strain that came after.
Before he departed with the trophies for Sacramento, we caught up with Alien Labs’ founder, Ted Lidie. Our conversation began by highlighting the fact that this particular Zkittlez batch contributed the material that produced the original winning rosin entry at this year’s Emerald Cup.
We then delved into Lidie’s decade-long pursuit of winning strains through diligent seed hunts. Like clockwork, he meticulously assesses hundreds of jars every few months, aiming to discover Alien Labs’ next champion. We inquired whether he was disappointed that the victor did not arise from all that effort.
“Definitely, I would have loved to win with one of our own creations,” Lidie told L.A. Weekly. “We’ve spent a decade searching for exceptional genetics, but the past five years have been dedicated to cultivating our distinctive strains.”
Lidie further noted that Alien Labs aims to reach a broader audience compared to Zalympix. As Lidie put it, their selection includes flavors that may not be as trendy, but cater to those seeking the unconventional. He pointed to weird Super Silver Haze crosses as a great example.
During the qualification round, Alien Labs relied on their Area 41 strain, but when it came to the finals, they had approximately two weeks’ notice to make their choice.
“We had to locate a superb flower batch, and that particular strain generated significant hype,” Lidie said. “My QC team, Justin and Jesse, and I had to sample numerous batches to identify the ultimate standout. The Zkittlez batch from the Merced site, cultivated by an outstanding team, truly excelled.”
Lidie promptly acknowledged the high caliber of competition in the event. He expressed his belief that previous editions paled in comparison and commended all participants for delivering their finest work.
“It’s astonishing. If you observe the evolution from the first event to this one, it’s clear that people now have a much better understanding of quality,” Lidie said. “The entries were all exceptional, with consistent white ash and enticing aromas.”
Lidie sees the event as an indicator of overall improvement in quality within the recreational market.
“At least for those of us who participate and care about this industry, we are refining our craft. We won’t let anyone undermine the recreational market because, in the end, it’s the top-tier cultivators who produce the finest cannabis,” Lidie asserted.
We inquired about Lidie’s thoughts on winning what many consider to be the state’s second most esteemed competition, trailing only The Emerald Cup. Lidie highlighted that these events cater to distinct audiences and asserted that the Zalympix victory would have a greater impact in New York City than an Emerald Cup win.
“I’m not criticizing the cup; I’m a judge myself. It’s just that they attract different audiences, and The Emerald Cup holds diverse meanings for different individuals,” Lidie clarified.
Lidie further elaborated on the nuances of indoor judging at Zalympix, emphasizing that participants invest $700 per box, and the judges are accustomed to regularly sampling this caliber of cannabis. This differs from The Emerald Cup, where some judges only smoke indoor strains because they have to for the cup.
California’s quarterly cannabis tax revenue dipped $95 million from Q4 2021 compared to Q4 2022.
On Wednesday, The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) reported cannabis revenue today for the fourth quarter of 2022 totaling $221.6 million; these numbers are always adjusted when the next quarter comes out. So we’ll have the final number in a few months, but regardless, the $108 million in excise tax collected and $113.6 million in sales tax revenue from cannabis businesses will be a monster dip from 2021.
When the final numbers for the last quarter of 2021 were released in 2022, the number climbed from $308 million to $316.59 million. That figure includes $160.64 million in excise tax, $39.99 million in cultivation tax, and $115.96 million in sales tax.
The $95 million in lost taxes represents a 30% dip in cannabis revenue for Q4 2022 compared to the same quarter a year prior. This revenue loss also is up from the $82 million loss in comparison of Q3 2021 to Q3 2022.
The quarter-to-quarter dip wasn’t as bad, but still pretty brutal. The numbers for Q3 2022 were revised to $251.3 million. This represents a $30 million dip in Q4. The revenue dip from Q4 2021 compared to Q3 2021 was $25 million. The dip in revenue this year was roughly 20% larger than in 2022.
Some would be quick to point to a halt in the cultivation tax for the loss, but lawmakers only expected to lose $150 million on that over three years. Sure they lowballed it, but there have to be other places the tax dip is coming from too.
We asked Kyle Greenhalgh of Heritage Mendocino if he felt like the dip in taxes was from brands going under.
“I think in general, people got broke in California and weren’t spending as much in the stores as they used to,” Greenhalgh told L.A. Weekly, “I know we still see the same amount of door swings, but a quarter of the spending of what it used to be. People were buying their needs, not their wants. So I think a bunch of dispensaries went to a value-driven model, but I see spending and higher quality bouncing back.”
Greenhalgh watched the shop’s average spend go from $100 to $20 really fast. He thinks people had to choose from buying gas at the gas station, or cannabis, and gas to get to work won that battle.
“This in turn made it very hard for most big corporations and brands to make a profit, and the exit started to happen. I’m seeing a lot of success and movement now for more of the smaller and craft brands though,” Greenhalgh noted.
“Overall, the dip in licensed cannabis tax revenues appears to be driven mostly by a small reduction of sales tax compared to the big hits to excise tax and the removal of the cultivation tax last year,” Katz told L.A. Weekly.
He notes the tax dip spread across the supply chain and unfortunately did not provide the level of direct relief for which cultivators had hoped for.
“Big picture I’d say that reduced sales are still primarily due to the high taxes levied on licensed products,” Katz argued. “As inflation has forced people to spend more and more on even the most basic of necessities, it becomes harder and harder for them to justify spending two or three times as much for licensed cannabis products. At the same time, there’s a significant amount of unregulated and untaxed cannabis retail throughout the state, offering product that looks ‘legal’ but costs a fraction of the price.”
Katz closed by noting, as long as the taxes remain high, most consumers who have less money in their pockets will be incentivized by their bottom lines to shop outside of the licensed market.
With annual surpluses coming to an end in 2022, the state will look to figure out how to replace that $95 Million.
The team at Vital Garden Supply continues to prove cultivating organic cannabis is very much possible at scale.
As mega gardens have become more prominent and significant in the wake of Prop 64’s passing seven years ago, people wanted more shortcuts to go with the scale of their operation. Many didn’t care much what was in it if it passed testing and made their lives easier. Much of the time because they weren’t smoking it themselves.
Brian Malin from Vital Garden Supply is the exact opposite of that ethos. Since 2006, Vital Garden Supply has provided California gardeners of all kinds with the means to grow things organically. But, of course, the company holds a special place in the hearts of cannabis farmers, to the extent that when the state said it was time to create a mechanism to certify organic cannabis farming in California, they called Malin in to help write the rules for the OCal program.
Pacific Reserve in Salinas.
This week we got to visit Pacific Reserve’s farm in Salinas. The garden was founded by Andy Demico, Billy Tomlinson, Brook Eagle, Bryce Heart and Malin. Most of the group of founders met in Grass Valley or Santa Cruz by using Malin’s products.
Malin is deeply connected to the farm. Not only does it serve as the largest visible example of what’s possible organically with his products, but his son spent the last few years climbing the ranks through compliance and processing to become cultivation director.
Malin went on to note there are other big farms using his products, but as of right now, the Pacific Reserve facility is going the hardest with them. Lots of people use Vital’s cocoa and other baseline nutrients to build out their own programs that may not end up totally organic.
“But Pacific Reserve is 100% on the program, we have other full sun ones that are maybe a couple of acres that are probably similar,” Malin told L.A. Weekly at the farm.
The group inspects a La Bomba x Oreoz pheno hunt.
We asked Malin when a company like Vital went from serving smaller-scale operations to the mega-farms of the modern era, too.
“Well, it was a slow and steady climb from 2006, that was the first year,” Malin said. “Here we are 17 years later, I’d say the last 10 we’ve been handling some pretty good scale stuff. I think the first really big customers were when these guys first had the place across the street and Crockett’s place. That was like 2,000 yards of soil. It was sweet.”
Malin was never thinking in terms of 10,000-square-foot greenhouses when he started. It was more like he felt he needed to start it to help supplement his own grows and more on a local scale.
“So I definitely didn’t think of it turning into what it did. It’s pretty crazy,” Malin said. “People are using it now, using around not necessarily the whole world, but definitely all over the U.S. and the Caribbean on the islands. And it’s all clean and organic. So it helps me sleep well at night, knowing I’m like teaching good practices and cutting down on the use of other products that aren’t as good for the planet.”
La Bomba x Oreoz
We asked Malin how he balances growing the company and putting in the work in the garden that’s helped get it this far. He pointed to a combination of intuition and urgency, then laughed, noting it was basically whichever seemed the more important of the two on a given day.
Recently Pacific Reserve’s parent company Kolaboration Ventures Corporation (KVC) bought Massive Creations and brought on breeder Shiloh Massive as its new head breeder.
“Shiloh will use the large cultivation and nursery footprint of KVC as the backbone to breed, select these unique cultivars and bring them to market in a wide variety of consumer products,” the company noted when announcing the deal earlier this week.
Massive joined us in Salinas for the day and explained that his original dealings with Malin saw him first visit the farm in 2016. Originally he gave them some cuts to mom out so he would have plants to back his work as Massive Creations continues to expand.
“So it was like kind of a no-brainer to let these guys have some proprietary genetics to run,” Massive told L.A. Weekly. “And then I could tap out and get some like clones from them to entertain other parties.”
A recently harvested room.
It went well. The relationship continued to grow, the farm wanted to run more of his great, and eventually, it got to the point where they acquired Massive Creations and brought Shiloh in-house.
“It was a long way, but a short time,” Massive said. “It just kind of happened almost overnight toward the end.”
Massive went on to note how fitting the whole thing was given his long history with Vital.
“I worked in the Vital warehouse. I drove the forklift. I loaded trucks. All the seeds I’ve ever made have been made with Vital since it was ever a product, so it was just a natural fit,” Massive said. “Brian and I have been friends for a long time.”
Since coming on board, Massive has watched the rooms begin to be transitioned to a fully organic program, room by room. Each of those rooms is the size of a small aircraft hangar, so it’s a delicate process, so as to not screw up any production runs.
That being said, the team swears by the recent results.
“Everyone is amazed because the last salt run didn’t look too good,” Massive said. “And now the first organic runs are looking amazing. So it just kind of proves what we thought all along that organic cannabis was, I don’t want to say superior, but it’s just a great option for any kind of farming.”
Salinas is a much different environment than where Massive did most of his breeding work in the Emerald Triangle. Right now they are working through his library to figure out what works best.
“Not every strain is hitting a home run. So now that we got a plan and we’re going to do more pheno hunting, we can do on-site pheno hunting and have a clone garden that kind of feeds this seasonally and we know which strains do better and which season,” Massive explained. “So we’re just in the infancy of it all. And we’re just tapping into the potential, but it’s really exciting to be along for the ride and to actually get a place to start playing with everything I’ve done.”
And it should be worth noting there is plenty of heat growing twice. Some of Pacific Reserve’s neighbors have won The Emerald Cup before. We’ll have the results from this year’s cup next week.
As cannabis goes international, so will the standards we use to determine its quality like the Sun+Earth certifications that just recently entered the Canadian market.
Sun+Earth is a nonprofit that was created in 2019. The space has seen many for-profit certification programs get pushed in the wake of not being able to actually call your cannabis organic. Why Not? Schedule I narcotics are not eligible for the National Organic Program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. States also have started pushing their own organic programs like OCal here in California.
While many of those other programs have fallen off, Sun+Earth grew to California, Michigan, Oregon and Washington before this new move into British Columbia with Sea Dog Farm. They note the program was founded by those with a shared commitment to regenerative organic agriculture, farmer and farmworker protections, and community engagement. Currently, there are more than 70 Sun+Earth Certified cannabis farms and manufacturers.
“We chose to pursue Sun+Earth certification because we believe it is essential to use both organic and regenerative practices in our stewardship of the land, and while we grow for our community,” said Sea Dog Farm co-owner Katy Connelly. “The Sun+Earth seal will help our customers identify products that were grown using methods that help to sequester carbon and build healthy soil and don’t use fossil fuels or petroleum-based chemical fertilizers,” continued Connelly. “As more consumers become aware of the devastating impact indoor cannabis has on our planet, we hope they will choose ethical and sustainable products.”
The cannabis that has made it through the program is free of any toxic pesticides or chemical fertilizers. They note the standards of the program are more rigorous than what you would find in the USDA program or Canada. But it’s not just about clean weed by any means. The cannabis certified also must be sun-grown and cultivated on farms that strengthen habitats and build living soil. Sun+Earth argues the high bar for their standards encourages positive things like the planting of cannabis alongside food crops, and the strategic use of cover crops, composting, and reduced soil tillage.
While cannabis is legal in Canada for adult use, it is yet to be allowed inclusion in the country’s organic food program. This opened up this move for Sun+Roots.
“Sun+Earth strives to certify farms wherever cannabis can be grown under the sun, in the earth, and without toxic chemical inputs,” said Sun+Earth Certified director Andrew Black. “Sea Dog Farm is the first Sun+Earth Certified cannabis farm in Canada, but hopefully not the last,” continued Black. “Sun+Earth aims to point the cannabis industry—across borders—in a cleaner, healthier, and more ethical direction, and provide needed support for struggling small-scale farmers in our regenerative organic community.”
The certification is expected to give Sea Dog Farms an edge, as it’s finally allowed access to retail storefronts to sell its products. Up until last year, permitted cannabis cultivation operations in British Columbia were banned from selling their products directly to retailers. Last summer, the BC Liquor Distribution Branch which regulates the distribution and sale of cannabis for the province started its new Direct Delivery Program, allowing small growers to sell directly to independently licensed retail outlets.
Over the last two years, L.A. Weekly has had a front-row seat to the rise of Zalympix.
For the uninitiated, the Zalympix is the biggest contest in the world when it comes to recreational boutique pot. The few and far between that can actually hold up with the quality of the streets. It’s hosted by Greenwolf, one of L.A.’s most famous places to buy great pot. L.A. Weekly recently took part in the process to whittle down the 109 entries to 27, for this year’s California edition.
We caught up with Greenwolf’s founders Brian and Adam to get their take on the Zalympix rocket now going national with East Coast and Michigan editions currently taking place. We started our chat by asking the pair what it had been like watching their event grow to three time zones since kicking things off in early 2021.
“It’s awesome. I mean, it’s really cool. I just feel like down to everyone involved, the cup runneth over with benefits for everyone. And it’s just really cool to see,” Brian told L.A. Weekly. He very much appreciates how taken seriously the Zalympix are in different places. Especially in Michigan, there is a lot of fire out there they hope to highlight through the competition.
“It’s just humbling to talk to some of these, you know, top-tier people in the space and have them say this competition is the pinnacle. This is the one that really stands out amongst the others these days,” Adam added.
From the outsider’s perspective, it all seemed pretty rapid for sure. Basically, as soon as the first boxes went out in 2021, people were believers. The quality of entries made it easy, as the top-shelf entries in the box mirrored the quality Greenwolf’s shelves has been famous for.
We asked the pair when they knew they were really on to something with the event as a whole. Adam and Brian debated when they first got the vibes about Zalympix possibly taking off the way it has. While the initial gut feelings are debatable, when 4,000 people showed up last year to celebrate, they knew things were looking up for the future.
This was also the first time they were ever worried. They’re not party guys per se. They wanted to ensure everything checking in that number of people went smoothly. Adam was standing out front himself grabbing VIPs and handing them wristbands.
That evening saw Zalympix go from 700 people at the inaugural awards show to 4,000. The Zalympix between the two events featured a digital awards show due to a COVID spike in L.A. But the jump in attendance raises the obvious speculation of just how big the event can go? The likely answer is pretty huge. It’s not unreasonable to think 20,000 people will be attending in the not-too-distant future. One lesson from last time is, they plan to have more delivery
Right now they are looking to lock down where they will host the Zalympix growing footprint for the upcoming awards show. Some of the possibilities they are tossing around right now could see them hosting up to 6,000 people. One thing they’re sure about is, they want to start the party a lot earlier, so vendors have more time before the 10 p.m. curfew on legal sales.
While expectations are high for the next California edition, many in the cannabis community are excited to see Zalympix branching out from California. The two had initially pondered the idea, but when their Michigan partners at Exotic Matter hit them up, it was on. Everyone believes bringing the Zalympix to Michigan will benefit the state’s best cultivators.
Adam said it’s been great working with their Michigan partners. They’re getting ready to celebrate the winners of Michigan’s second edition on April 14.
“We know they’ve had a long medical time frame there. When we got there last year, we just were shocked at how amazing the quality of the product was out there,” Adam said.
We asked the pair how the flower in places like Michigan and the East Coast stacks up with the competition back home in Los Angeles?
“I’d say, there’s a lot of good stuff in a lot of places. A lot of people are doing things out there. Especially in Michigan, they’ve always been,” Brian said. “I think it’s the second closest in terms of like, Cali quality. There are real breeders out there. They’re really doing their thing out there and they have been, so for me, it shows.”
As for the differences between the trio of Zalympix contests now happening around the country, the main thing is scale. Michigan is the smallest of the three — they have to keep things a bit more low-key and were not able to have vending at the event. Nevertheless, the vibes carried the show. Many called it one of the best events Michigan’s legal market has seen, noting it’s one of the few times all of the state’s hitters have been inside the same room. They’re hoping to push the bar further next year and be the first event in Detroit to do compliant sales.
Detroit has been a trouble spot for Michigan’s cannabis industry, and with things opening up, it looks like the time is ripe to bring things a bit closer to the population center. Back in the day, events occurred well outside of the city.
“It’s similar to being in an Adelanto or a San Bernardino. You know, they weren’t here,” Adam explained. ”They were quite the drive from like the city, and so we knew our whole goal was, as with the L.A. Zalympix to keep it in LA, in Michigan, do it in Detroit, not be an hour and a half away from town. And then same with New York, we looked at doing other spots, but you know, we just think it’s imperative to be in Manhattan.”
New York is looking dope. It’s a little different for the Greenwolf team not being there, but they’re thrilled with the lineup for the festivities on April 19. A big contingent of California’s best cannabis minds is heading east to NYC for the holiday anyway, so the timing worked out perfectly for the Greenwolf team. They’re expecting somewhere between 2,500-3,000 people for the show. Brian noted they’re going pretty hard for the next couple of weeks.
What’s the difference between the contest entries? It varies. Last year there was so much Runtz in the Michigan Zalympix, it was no Runtz allowed this year. Brian found that interesting.
“I’d say there is a lot of Z everywhere but also like more on the East Coast you see more candy, gassy stuff. I definitely know OG over there, and some OG over here (in the entries). But you know a lot surprised me. There were a lot of Exotic Genetix entries and I noticed there were some different breeders with different gear,” Brian said about the entries.
One thing that’s interesting about Zalympix’s expansion is watching its perceived value from place to place. Obviously, it’s huge here in California. But it seems like a lot of the time it’s reaffirmed many people’s takes on names like Blueprint, Deo, Zushi, and Wizard Trees. In New York, there is this different kind of quest for brands trying to catch lightning in a bottle out the gate with a win.
And boy are they. Sixty-seven brands came out in an attempt to qualify for the finals in NYC. They were narrowed down to 20. The qualifying idea in New York inspired the team to bring it back to California. The Greenwolf team selected 25 tastemakers to pick out the finalists.
“I think there’s going to be some very surprised winners in there. Some brands that you know, people may not have ever heard of, including ourselves,” Adam said.
Tickets for the New York Zalympix are still available.
LA’S NEWEST EQUITY POT SHOP OPENS AFTER 5-YEAR BATTLE
Off The Charts x Cadre had a soft opening in late July, with its official Grand Opening a few weeks ago, but getting to those milestones was a long drawn-out fight.
Founder Madison Shockley III started the fight five years ago. At the time, his partners at Off The Charts only had one other shop. With Shockley finally getting his new spot on E. 61st Street open, the company now has 14 dispensaries dotted around the state. And the menus look solid with names like Fig Farms, Alien Labs, and Connected anchoring the top shelf above a bunch of good deals.
But this tale is more about what Shockley had to go through so he could stock that fire after first learning about the equity program in 2018.
“I had a different location back in 2019 when I applied originally, and then the first-come first-served process was mismanaged, so I actually led the lawsuit against the city of L.A., on account of the first round of social equity permitting,” Shockley told L.A. Weekly.
Shockley and the other plaintiffs would end up settling with the city outside of court. The council would add an additional 100 social equity licenses.
“That’s where I got my license,” Shockley explained. “They also changed the rules around that time, so that you could move locations within your community plan area. So about six months after that I found this location.”
Shockley has spent the last two and half years dealing with all the retail headaches cannabis has to offer Los Angeles entrepreneurs. Especially those who had to deal with the compounding factors of COVID — this was already quite the process anyway.
One of the biggest COVID-related bottlenecks came with contractors just trying to get their plans approved by the city to build out the shop.
“Contractors couldn’t go up there, it was all electronic, so there was a huge backlog with that,” Shockley said.
After he finally got the OK and started construction, he eventually would have to start dealing with the inspections. Shockley argues one electrical inspector alone proved to be a year-long hurdle. He claimed he would just not pass him.
“Every time he came out, he found new things to correct, and all my contractors had to be there every single time just for him not to pass us and give us little things to fix. That alone went on for a year,” Shockley said.
Shockley eventually filed an official complaint over the situation. The city sent over a new inspector who approved the facility on his first visit.
We asked Shockley if it had been frustrating that every hurdle he faced took some kind of lawsuit or complaint to fix. He pointed to the sit-in he had at the Department of Cannabis Regulations (DCR) a few years ago.
“When you talk about difficulty in getting answers, a few years back was a complete nightmare. There was a lot of inaccurate information being passed around by the legal community. A lot of cannabis and social equity advocates were spreading misleading information. There was a lot of confusion on social media.”
Shockley circled back to my question noting he would say all of that has improved since the lawsuit that added the 100 extra permits. He noted specifically, the DCR was in a better place now than when things were really bottoming out for social equity locally.
“It hasn’t just been trying to get answers, it’s been like having to fight to reform the entire department, along the way of trying to get a license.”
You can visit Off The Charts x Cadre at 615 E. 61st St., Los Angeles.