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Happy weekend, everyone!
We hope everyone remembers to set their clocks ahead, and enjoys the extra hour of sunshine – while chugging some coffee to compensate for the lost hour of sleep. We had a busy week at NY Cannabis Insider, let’s dive in and take a look at the articles we ran.
Over the past couple of years we at NY Cannabis Insider have written a lot about the struggles licensed cannabis growers have endured, as many invested hefty sums into growing their first harvest only to find there weren’t enough dispensaries open to buy their products. But as more shops have opened in recent weeks, cultivators are starting to see a glimmer of hope.
As regulators begin to issue general cannabis business licenses, more retailers are opening – and plenty more are on the horizon. And struggling growers are cautiously – extremely cautiously – optimistic that the headwinds they’ve battled for years are beginning to abate.
Reporter Mel Hyman contributed a story about New York cannabis regulators’ effort to establish rules for cannabis events in the state.
The Office of Cannabis Management has told NY Cannabis Insider that rules governing cannabis special event permits are currently being drafted, and that the agency hopes to have them out for public review in the next few weeks – or months. Given OCM’s past tardiness in issuing rules and regulations for the production and sale of recreational cannabis, the news isn’t being particularly well-received by those most affected.
Scott Mazza, co-founder of Buffalo-based Vitality CBD, contributed a guest column about new research that bolsters the scientific veracity of the “entourage effect,” or the idea that cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids interact synergistically for medical benefits.
“The new study all but confirms that the different elements of cannabis work in concert to increase the plant’s therapeutic potential, achieving a holistic effect that none could achieve on their own,” Mazza wrote. “The report is yet another scientific step towards understanding the plant and evolving how it’s administered for different outcomes.”
We checked in with Jonpaul Pezzo, co-founder of Long Island City dispensary NYCBUD, to talk about how business at the shop has been in its early weeks.
The company has a business plan and an idea of its target demographic, but as a store that’s been in business less than a month, NYCBUD is still feeling out the market, and tracking data on what customers are buying.
In another Q&A, we talked to Chris Myers, founder of The Greenery Spot, a Johnson City dispensary, which officially opened for business on July 29.
Business at the Johnson City store has been good so far, Myers said, and his long-term plans for The Greenery Spot revolve around growing and expanding. Myers answered questions about what customers are buying, his business experience before cannabis and his thoughts about different challenges in New York’s legal weed industry.
Lastly, We also added a new entry to our “People to know in NY cannabis” series: Aaron Riley, the founder and CEO of Certified Testing & Data (CTND), a third-party testing company.
Have a great weekend everyone, we’ll be back with plenty more next week.