WILL GRINER’S CONFINEMENT INSPIRE REFLECTIONS AT HOME?

DECEMBER IS A GREAT MONTH FOR CANNABIS

Many argue that November is one of the best months to buy pot given the deals and steals of Black Friday and Green Wednesday, but don’t sleep on the quality available and prices when purchasing your weed in December. 

One of the main feathers in the hype for December is the fact it’s just a little bit further out from the Croptober harvest. In the first half of November, you might still be waiting for the girls that finished late to cure up to perfection. That’s not a problem in December, in fact, the whole month much of the year’s harvest will be in the golden zone for quality. 

And we’ll be the first to note there are a lot of variables on how long that golden zone lasts. The best hope is the pot never leaves an awesome environment before it ends up in the hands of a consumer, but that’s few and far between. That’s why the date is so important. 

The accountability of shelf time says a lot in the current market. Dispensaries don’t want flowers that don’t move. They want you to get the heat, apart from a charlatan or three trying to make a quick buck. But even then, that harvest date can transcend shady retail practices that make you think you’re getting a deal when, in reality, the consumer is doing them a favor by taking it off their hands for anything.  

This has led to the best cultivators in the world living by their packaging dates — that’s the moment the clock really starts ticking. Especially given in how many cases the weed was already finished for a bit before it made it to bags or jars. 

One brand that’s based a lot of its business model around the heat and keeping to a short shelf life is California Artisanal Medicine. 

“We put our harvest date and our package date, because after 90 days from the package date, your product is aging and will not hold all the attributes we look for in top-shelf cannabis,” CAM founder Anna Willey told L.A. Weekly. 

Willey went on to note the biggest things impacted are the smell, how the buds break up and moisture content. 

As for the biggest factors Willey sees outside not hitting the gold standards in temperature and humidity?

“The way it was dried and the evenness of your environment in the dry room,” Willey answered. “Also the health of the plant at the end of the cycle and the trim time.”

While Willey is an indoor cultivator, this all rings true for the outdoor that dropped a couple of months ago.

Another point proving the quality of cannabis in December is the Emerald Cup’s old format before the move to Los Angeles for the award show. Back in the day, we knew who the world champs were a couple of weeks into December. It was all wild and fresh heat. The new extended format creates a bit more hype over many months but adds the additional factor of which weed actually holds up through that time until it gets into the hands of the judges.  

MEDICAL CANNABIS PRISONER LUKE SCARMAZZO FREE

Luke Scarmazzo was California’s most prominent medical cannabis operator serving federal time and he did so for nearly 15 years until his release on Feb. 3. 

For those many years, Scarmazzo served as the face of the worst-case scenario for state’s medical cannabis operators. He was walking proof that even if you were operating in full compliance with state law, the feds could come to rip you away from your family at any moment. 

There is a fair argument to be made that of the cannabis offenders released in recent years to much-deserved excitement, Scarmazzo was the most connected to the modern industry. Modesto, the home of the nonprofit California Healthcare Collective (CHC) for its year in operation, is now riding its own cannabis wave that hit the shore a bit later than coastal California. We even covered cannabis sales at the Modesto Reservoir during Dirtybird Campout.  

After giving him some room to catch up with family and friends, we caught up with Scarmazzo last weekend. 

The conversation would start with the fact he’d been the main face of California medical cannabis prisoners since the release of Eddy Lepp in 2016. But the two were on very different boats. Scarmazzo operated a nonprofit collective while Eddy grew some legendary “smell it from the highway” big crops. Eddy pushed the limits and many of his peers up north weren’t as surprised when he caught a case even though he was compliant with state law. Scarmazzo on the other hand represented a lot more people doing exactly what he was doing that didn’t want to end up in similar circumstances. As such, he’s had a lot of different people and organizations advocating for his release throughout his whole incarceration. With Eddy it was more of a cult hero support, but I can’t imagine most of those supporting Lepp thought they’d ever go as big as he did. 

So with all that, when did Scarmazzo know this time it was real? The day he was released. 

“I woke up, kind of just did the normal prison routine,” Scarmazzo told L.A. Weekly. “I gotta make coffee, getting ready to work out. And I just kind of go jump on the email to check the day’s emails.”

When he logged in there were significantly more emails in there than usual.

“So I knew something was up,” Scarmazzo said. “So I was like, OK, so I open it up. And the first email I see is from my attorney, and the subject line says, ‘you’re a free man.’ So I just stared at the computer for a few minutes.”

Things got a bit more obvious in 2017 that Scarmazzo was getting targeted for more time over his music career where he’d taken some shots at the feds in his lyrics. In January of that year, Scarmazzo’s co-defendant, Ricardo Montes, had his sentence commuted by President Obama on his way out the door. Scarmazzo, who also applied, wasn’t as lucky. And given the nature of how clemency works he never found out why, but to onlookers, it seemed pretty obvious. 

The pair had worked on their clemency petitions in an informal clemency clinic in the prison library where Scarmazzo and Mission Green founder Weldon Angelos would help guys file their petitions and legal documents for free. Scarmazzo had wrapped his head around legal forms and paperwork over the first five years of his sentence on the hunt to find a way out. He was essentially offering up the skill set he’d built in that time to other prisoners free of charge. 

“So we did this kind of clemency clinic, and then we, when it came to our turn to file, Weldon and I worked on both mine and Ricardo’s clemency petition,” Scarmazzo said. “They’re basically identical petitions. I mean, we were sitting together, and we were charged the same. We were both co-founders of CHC. So it was like, our conduct and all the circumstances of our case were pretty much the same.”

Scarmazzo noted the petitions were identical to the point all he had to do was swap out his name and personal information. 

Scarmazzo would see Montes’ name among those granted clemency, but not his own. That was seemingly the point it felt the most personal. 

“I knew something like this has to be something personal, I mean, this has to be an issue that’s directed directly at me, rather than us because the president obviously granted his and then called his sentence outdated and unjust. And I’m like, well, hello, my sentence is the same. So if you think this is outdated, adjust my findings, too.”

Scarmazzo reiterated he was happy to see Montes walk. The pair had been friends for many years before their ordeal. But he remembers one of the low points of the moment is having to explain the situation to his daughter. 

“I was really happy to see him get out though,” Scarmazzo said. “He’s my brother. I’ve known Ricardo since we were kids. So, but you know, it was bittersweet. Like it was hard to kind of, I guess the hardest part was calling my family and my daughter and just telling them, hey it didn’t come through for us, but it came through for Ricardo. I want everybody to be happy for him.”

He knew regardless of his own circumstances, the moment had to be treated like it was a big win, because it was.

Most of the federal actions that followed what happened to Scarmazzo felt targeted. The last major federal action on a cannabis retailer operating in compliance with state law was 11 years ago during the Oaksterdam raids. Its founder, Richard Lee, bankrolled Proposition 19 in 2010 with legalization, only losing by a few points. The feds got their revenge on him a couple of years later. 

One of the things Scarmazzo is most thankful for is the 29-page opinion the judge wrote when granting a five-year supervised release for the rest of his sentence. The long document articulates the changing of the times and other people will be able to use it as case law in their own quests for freedom. 

The team at the nation’s oldest cannabis law reform group, The National Organization for The Reform of Marijuana Laws, was happy for what Scarmazzo’s freedom meant in the continued wave of cannabis prisoners getting out in recent years.

“I think it definitely sets a fantastic precedent that we’re starting to see federal judges reexamine the sentences that have been handed out by other judges, or sometimes even by themselves,” NORML Political Director Morgan Fox told L.A. Weekly. “When they start to look at changes of both state and federal policy and as well as the length of sentences that had been handed down for violations of federal infractions over the years since national attitudes have been changing.”

Fox noted there’s a lot of people out there that don’t have the connections and resources that might get lost in the shuffle here. 

“And at the same time, there’s also just the opinion of one judge in one particular case,” Fox said. “It’s really going to take a change in federal law in order to start providing relief on a massive scale for not only people at the federal level, but people at the state level.”

California NORML called Scarmazzo the last known federal medical marijuana prisoner, following his release. 

2023 WAVE OF CANNABIS BILLS FILED IN SACRAMENTO

Numerous cannabis-related bills were filed in Sacramento this week. 

There is still a lot of work to do to fix California’s cannabis industry as many hold on by a thread. That work is reflected in the annual wave of cannabis bills we see this time of year. 2023 will be no exception, as lawmakers look to cover everything from the expansion of the regulatory task force to where to put the tags on your plants. 

Here are many of the bills we saw filed this week. There are a few more we’ll dive deeper into next week.

AB 993

The main purpose of this bill is to expand the state’s cannabis task force. Currently, there is not a seat at the table for either the Civil Rights Department within the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency or the Department of Industrial Relations within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. These are essentially worker protection agencies that enforce civil rights laws when it comes to employment and housing access or push for a better quality of life and working conditions for the state’s labor force. The task force already includes The Department of Cannabis Control, CDTFA, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the water board, CHP, The Labor and Workforce Development Agency, and the Department of Justice. It would also include representatives from municipalities that opt into the task force. 

SB 622

This bill would change the technical wording on how the mandated unique identifier can be attached to plants. The current language requires the tags to be attached at the base of the plant. This would make it easier for any going big. Some of the largest outdoor plants have literal tree trunks you have to saw; it’s better for the plant to attach it to one of those stems shooting off the side. So again, they’re just changing a few words around, but it makes sense. 

AB 766

This bill is dedicated to anyone who has ever had to call someone five times over an invoice. It’s meant to empower the legislator to set maximum terms by which someone can sell cannabis on credit, create penalties and a course of action for the failure to pay invoices on time, and empower the DCC with the powers needed to ensure timely payments throughout the supply chain. 

AB 1126

This bill would crack down on people attempting to falsely represent cannabis products as licensed. Specifically, it emphasizes, the use of the cannabis universal symbol to push unlicensed products could cost you up to $30,000. While using the symbol was noted given how prolific it’s been on unlicensed cannabis packaging, any claim or representation of a product as licensed cannabis that’s not could land you in hot water. The good news? If you have a permit, you’ll only be charged $5,000 for pretending something was legit, meaning there is an argument to go legal just for the sake of discounted fines. 

AB 1111

This bill on the surface seems pretty straightforward in blocking appointees from the governor from taking part in the industry but, in fact, could possibly hinder the efforts to save California cannabis. Prop 64 prevents the DCC director and members of the Cannabis Control Appeals Panel from engaging in certain cannabis activities. The effort to add appointees to the list could prevent actual experts that have been successful in California’s industry from coming in and helping to fix things. Would you want someone that knows how to run a thousand lights trying to help save the day or a random political appointee in compliance with AB-1111?

SB 540

This bill would have the DCC reevaluate packaging regulations based on evolving science. The DCC would have to determine by July of 2025 if the current standards are still up to the task. As of January 2030, they’d have to reevaluate any changes to determine if any new concerns based on science need to also be added to packaging. The bill would also require the DCC to form an advisory committee dedicated to this subject of evolving label accuracy in the years to come. 

AB 741

Filed earlier this week, AB 741 would prohibit the California FAIR Plan Association from refusing to issue, canceling, or refusing to renew coverage over an applicant or policyholder possessing or previously possessed a legal amount of cannabis. Regardless of whether it was flowers, hash, or living cannabis plants, or because the applicant or policyholder had ever had a commercial cannabis licensee.

Keep an eye out for more coverage of cannabis bills coming out of Sacramento this year.

GCANRX PREPS PHASE II TRIALS ON AUTISM CANNABINOID TREATMENT

With the number of parents self-prescribing CBD for their children’s Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) rising, GCANRx has been granted permission to start Phase II Clinical Trials for a cannabinoid treatment from the Israel Ministry of Health.

Dr. Adi Aran will be leading the effort. Aran is a pioneer in Israel when it comes to cannabinoid treatments for autism. The study Aran led into pediatric autism and cannabinoid therapy in 2017 proved a success for the 120 children that took part. 

GCANRx noted this time Aran will focus on studying the safety and efficacy of GCANRx’s neuroprotective cannabinoid therapeutic to treat autism-related spectrum disorders and other conditions like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. The focus however will be that data coming from 4 to 13 years of age using daily oral treatments.

“The primary efficacy objective of the study will be to assess the effect of the neuroprotective therapeutic compared to placebo on behavioral problems, using the Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Irritability Subscale (ABC-I) score – change from baseline to week 12,” GCANRx noted when announcing the new study. 

GCANRx went on to explain that 75 million people around the world have Autism Spectrum Disorder. The lifelong condition impacts 7 million people domestically, 5.4 million of which are adults. Americans spent $268 billion caring for people with ASD in 2015, that number is expected to jump to $461 million by 2025. 

“We are excited to announce that GCANRx has received a final official approval to embark on its Phase II Clinical Trial for our therapeutic aimed at treating ASD and other neuropsychiatric disorders. This significant milestone marks another pivotal moment in our path to develop innovative therapeutic solutions for patients suffering from complex neurological disorders,” said Aitan Zacharin, chief executive officer of GCANRx. “Positive results in this study carry promise for a novel treatment for ASD as well as for other neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease, which share similar pathophysiological processes, and can have an enormous impact on the lives of countless families as well as on public health.” 

GCANRx started selling cannabinoid products in Europe in 2018. They had trouble getting wind in their sales. The company believes the move to a more medical approach will be very viable. Especially as more and more parents are choosing to head in this direction to help their kids. 

Zacharin told L.A. Weekly they believe the success they have seen is backboned by the entourage effect. He noted some of the big dogs in international cannabis medicine have been experimenting with THC and CBD isolates in recent years. The reason we haven’t heard about it? The results fail to match the success of more full-spectrum products like what GCANRx is bringing into phase two. 

“Essentially, it’s a combination of therapeutic,” Zacharin said. “It uses cannabinoids, CBD and THC. But it also has some other compounds in it. That alone has also been shown in clinical studies to be effective in treating autism and treating some of the behavioral elements of autism,” Zacharin said before noting the evidence they’ve seen in pretrials. “We actually found that synergistic effect.”

When it finally jumps through all the regulatory hoops, we asked Zacharin if they planned on using natural or synthetic cannabinoids to go to market.

“Natural materials are our focus, which is probably the way to go with you right there. We’ll have to ultimately see how that plays out in the regulatory pathway. That’s something we’re exploring now with advisors,” Zacharin said with the conversation leading back to the lackluster results of synthetic isolates. “With this plant. It’s so complex, so multifaceted. You know that you just can’t eliminate other cannabinoids.”

Is GCANRx at the point where it is fair to say they understand there’s an entourage effect happening but don’t completely understand it? But know that it’s safe enough to bring to market?

“Yeah, undoubtedly,” Zacharin replied. 

61% OF AMERICANS WANT CANNABIS ON VALENTINE’S DAY

A new survey from Wired Research suggests most American adults will be including cannabis in their Valentine’s Day plans. 

According to the survey, 61% of American adults plan on using cannabis or gifting it to someone this Valentine’s Day. The survey was commissioned by Verano Holdings to see how consumers would treat cannabis around the holiday as it continues to get further normalized nationally. 

Another fascinating takeaway is the number of Americans that will skip booze this holiday season and opt for cannabis. Wired Research put the number at about 19 million. If just half those people bought a top-shelf eighth for the holiday, you’re talking about $60 million dollars in revenue before you even add the taxes. 

While it was close, men were a little bit more likely to include cannabis in their Valentine’s Day plans (66%) than women (57%). This gap is actually closer than the gap between men and women admitting to use in wider society.  In 2016, Columbia University Professor Deborah Hasin noted the rates at which men and women used cannabis had held steady for a long time at 13% of men and 7% of women through the mid 2000s. But in 2007, experts started to see a shift that would see the rate at which men were using rise another 4% while women’s use rates would rise 3%. 

Younger folks were a lot more down with adding cannabis to their holiday plans than seniors were, with 70% of Gen Z and Millennials surveyed saying cannabis very well could end up a part of their holiday plans. But even then, the seniors weren’t that far behind. While the survey was just under 1,000 people, the idea that more than half of the two oldest categories said they’d be including it in their plans was pretty wild. That is probably the number it would be fascinating to see scaled up into a bigger survey the most. 

Another big factor that will separate use rates this holiday? Kids. Parents were found to be more likely to partake in cannabis on the holiday than their childless peers. The survey found 69% of people with kids planned on making cannabis part of the fun, while only 57% of those without offspring said they’d be partaking.

As opposed to just another part of the evening’s fun, many argued they were using it as a tool to inspire romance. 

“The data from the survey show that Americans use cannabis to relax or improve their mood, which can help people be present and more connected, which is crucial to a better love life,” said Dr. Shannon Chavez, a Beverly Hills psychologist and sex therapist. “Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity for couples to try something new together and try a more dynamic and less formulaic approach to intimacy, which cannabis can help inspire.”

Americans are starting to come around on the idea. One in four surveyed believed cannabis would help get them in the mood. While separately, one in four surveyed said they expected to perform better sexually with the help of cannabis. 

THE CANNABIS TRENDS WE’RE BUYING IN 2024

This week we’re excited about what’s to come for the cannabis industry in 2024. 

Last week we covered the fact that life is less than perfect in cannabis while highlighting some of the things we believed caused a lot of our headaches in 2023. This week, the opposite. We’re highlighting the things we think are going to help everyone turn it around. 

Finally Fixing LA’s Equity Program 

Here in Los Angeles, one of the biggest calls to action from the cannabis industry for the new mayor’s office continues to be the repair of the L.A. Social Equity Program. It was awesome to see 100 Social Equity Individual Applicants were randomly selected to apply for retail cannabis licenses last month, but the couple hundred people who invested their lives into putting their ducks in a row for the program are going to demand more. And while the new mayor’s office is separate from the scandals of the fall, they may have to pay the bill if a class action lawsuit ends up developing from the then-racist city council having original control over the program that drained so many coffers. 

Standardized Testing?

It originally looked like we would have standardized lab testing this year. It seems a little hazy at the moment, but we wanted to put it on here to push the idea. Currently, cannabis labs have no fixed standard operating procedures. A lot of the time they’re just following the instructions for whatever hardware they bought. Then adjust the standard operating procedure to their liking. That’s where you see the variations in testing numbers from lab to lab. The idea of people shopping around their cannabis at labs to get the best numbers possible is a real thing. This is more so an issue with potency and terpene testing as opposed to heavy metals and pesticides.

Wider Access in America

It’s critical that California cultivators get access to more shelf space soon. While the state continues to drag a bit, the idea of stocking shelves all over the world with cannabis grown in California is appealing to people. The first shelves will probably be domestic, and step one is having as many states with legal access to cannabis as possible for when that day comes. And it’s not that far out. Some regulators figure it will be a few more years. Whenever it is, it’ll certainly make people’s lives a lot easier. We don’t think it will happen this year, but we’ll be talking about the mechanics of it by December a lot. 

The Pace of Change is Fast

I know it’s going to take some time for the other stuff I mentioned, but it’s easy to see how fast things are moving for cannabis all over the world. It’s like a snowball with a rocket sled behind it pushing it even faster as it grows and grows rolling down the mountain. Now is everyone hoping to get sucked up by the snowball a saint? Doubtful. But the bigger the snowball gets, the more opportunities there will be for nice people to take part. Plenty of people entering the cannabis space now aren’t haters, they were just scared to go to jail back in the day.