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Join NY Cannabis Insider at our next industry networking event on Aug. 15 at Madame Mikette’s in NYC. Tickets will sell out.
Happy weekend everyone. We at NY Cannabis Insider had another busy week, let’s take a look at the stories we covered.
First off, we announced that NY Cannabis Insider will host an industry networking event in New York City Aug. 15. Our meetups have been really fun events where people have made important connections. We hope you join us at Madam Mikette’s in Midtown East – details and tickets are available here.
NY Cannabis Insider Editor/Publisher Brad Racino surveyed licensed growers to find out if they planted a crop last year, and if they’ve done so this year (or if they plan to). Of the 32 responses he received (more than 10% of the 280 AUCC license holders) all respondents said they intended to grow again this year.
However, Brad found, many respondents said they were scaling back this time around.
That dovetails with a profile we ran this week on Marvin Morales, AUCC grower and head of Morales Family Farms. Back in 2005, Morales made this dream a reality when he left an engineering job at Ball Aerospace in Colorado to buy farmland in his native New York State and make a living growing organic crops; he transitioned to hemp, and then weed.
A mixture of regulatory hurdles, limits on grow operations and delayed announcements from government officials has left Morales and partners wondering if independent farmers like him will be able to survive in the Empire State’s supposedly small-business-focused legal weed industry.
Earlier in the week, we ran a story about the state Department of Taxation and Finance-led raid on Empire Cannabis Clubs, a prominent and infamous staple in New York City that describes itself as “a concierge service dedicated to supplying the highest-end cannabis products at prices you can afford.”
Officials seized property, a brief standoff took place between inspectors and club staff, and two of Empire’s owners, Lenore and Jonathan Elfand, were handcuffed.
Frequent NY Cannabis Insider contributor Paula Collins, a tax attorney dedicated to the cannabis industry and a co-founder of the NY Consortium of Cannabis Accountants, wrote a guest column suggesting that in the wake of the Empire Cannabis raid, officials should revisit the idea of transitional licenses.
Collins wrote another guest column, in which she says that despite many challenges presented to New York cannabis industry stakeholders, everyone should take a minute to celebrate the fact that we now have 19 legal dispensaries operating.
Earlier in the week, we checked in with Jenny Argie, founder and CEO of AUCP company Jenny’s Baked at Home. Argie is confident that her company’s edibles and vapes will become a go-to product for health-conscious weed consumers, and plans to have her products on dispensary shelves by next month.
Jason Klimek, the co-leader of Barclay Damon’s cannabis team and chair of the Tax Committee of the New York State Bar Association’s Cannabis Law Section, wrote a guest column about the ambiguous legality of THC variants. There is a lot of confusion around the issue due to the openness of stores’ advertisements, Klimek wrote, but a little science helps clear the air.
Scott Mazza, co-founder and COO of Buffalo’s Vitality CBD, contributed a piece about what science has to say about CBD and sleep.
Continuing our “NY’s women in cannabis” series, we ran a profile on Wendy Francis, the president of Discovering Cannabis, which aims to be a trusted advisor that helps clients navigate the evolving cannabis market.
We also added a new entry to our “People to know in NY cannabis” series: Neville Louison, the founder of Silverback Cannabis CRM Consulting, which serves dispensaries, cultivators, processors and distribution companies.
Have a great weekend everyone, we’ll be back with plenty more next week.