PHOENIX, October 27, 2020 – PRESS RELEASE – 4Front Ventures Corp. has announced that it has entered into definitive purchase and sale agreements with an affiliate of Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc., (IIPR) providing for the sale and leaseback of 4Front’s cultivation and production facilities in Tumwater, Wash., and Georgetown, Mass.
The all cash sale price of US$30 million will be used by the company to pay down the outstanding senior secured debt obligation to affiliates of Gotham Green Partners, and for other general corporate purposes. The transaction is subject to various closing conditions, including standard property/title inspections and appraisals and is scheduled to close in early December.
"Entering this sale-leaseback transaction marks a significant milestone in our stated strategy to further strengthen our balance sheet, providing us greater flexibility to fund our growth initiatives. The successful closing of this transaction positions us well as we enter 2021, with our laser focus on profitable growth within our core markets of Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Washington and Michigan,” said Leo Gontmakher, CEO of 4Front.
In accordance with the terms of the transaction, 4Front will occupy the Tumwater, Wash., and Georgetown, Mass., facilities pursuant to 20-year lease agreements, with two 5-year extensions exercisable at 4Front’s discretion. 4Front anticipates no disruption to its operations as a result of the transaction.
Cresco Labs Launches 1.0 g Liquid Live Resin Vape Offering in Illinois and California
The company is expanding its liquid live resin portfolio to provide more options for consumers’ changing preferences.
CHICAGO – October 28, 2020 — PRESS RELEASE — Cresco Labs, one of the largest vertically integrated multistate cannabis operators in the United States, has announced the launch of a 1.0 g Liquid Live Resin (LLR) vape cartridge in its Cresco brand portfolio. Illinois and California are the first markets to carry the Company’s newest LLR offering. Cresco Labs’ LLR is unique and differentiated from other live resin products in market today because the company uses an extraction process that flash-freezes whole flower at peak freshness, preserving premium flavor, cannabinoids and quality.
“In Illinois and California, we’re focused on providing more consumer choice within our brand portfolio to drive continued wholesale growth and deliver high quality products our customers want most,” said Greg Butler, chief commercial officer at Cresco Labs. “Our Liquid Live Resin line of products from our Cresco brand provides our customers with both the confidence and assurance that they are consuming trusted and reliable cannabis products with nothing added or taken away from a single, pure cannabis strain. We capture the original full-spectrum effect of fresh flower, and we’re excited to deliver a larger form vape offering to meet the rising popularity of this option among our customers in Illinois and California.”
Cresco Labs’ LLR extraction method starts with a single, premium cannabis strain, harvested and extracted at the peak of freshness. The cannabis oil is never separated or reconstituted, which means there are no cuts, fillers, added terpenes or non-cannabis ingredients. To deliver the best cannabis experience possible, Cresco Labs extracts the naturally occurring, full-spectrum benefits of the fresh flower, because the company believes in preserving the integrity of the original strain.
In Illinois and California, the Cresco brand’s suite of LLR products includes .5 g and 1.0 g vape cartridges. The line also features live resin concentrates, as well as premium flower, popcorn, shake and pre-rolls.
Illinois cannabis sales have increased month-over-month, with nearly $67 million in total cannabis retail sales in September. California total sales in September were $360 million. Cresco’s 1.0 g LLR vape offering is the latest product to enter Cresco Labs’ Illinois and California markets this year, following the initial debut of Mindy’s Edibles gummies; High Supply popcorn and shake, disposable vape pens and pre-rolls; and Good News pre-rolled shorties, gummy edibles and disposable vape pens.
Liberty Health Sciences Announces Resignation of CEO, Names Interim CEO
Victor Mancebo has resigned from the Board of Directors and his role as CEO, effective Dec. 31, 2020.
TORONTO, Oct. 28, 2020 /CNW/ - PRESS RELEASE - Liberty Health Sciences Inc., has announced that Victor Mancebo has resigned from the Board of Directors and his role as chief executive officer, effective Dec. 31, 2020.
"We are grateful for Victor's leadership and contributions to Liberty," said Chairman William R. Pfeiffer. "As a board member and an officer of the company, Victor was instrumental in building Liberty into the company that it is today with a network of dispensaries spanning the state of Florida. We thank Victor for those efforts and wish him the very best on all his future endeavors."
George J. Gremse, a member of the Board of Directors, has been appointed as interim CEO during the process of identifying a permanent CEO. Gremse has held senior management positions in both Fortune 500 companies and start-ups. He holds a degree in agriculture from Cornell University and an MBA from Baruch College of the City University of New York. Mancebo will work with Gremse to ensure a smooth transition.
Clockwise from top right: Pepper Petersen, Axel Owen, Drey Samuelson, Alejandro Chavez and Melissa Mentele
Photos: Screenshots of Oct. 23 NORML conference session; Logo courtesy of NORML
A Look Inside This Year’s Adult-Use Legalization Campaigns
Activists working on measures in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota discussed voter education, COVID, legal challenges and more during the NORML 2020 Conference.
During the two-day NORML 2020 Conference, which celebrated the organization’s 50th year, activists discussed Oct. 23 their adult-use ballot measures being put in front of voters in four states this election year: Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota.
Leaders behind these state campaigns spoke about distinctive campaign challenges and recapped their efforts with volunteer and paid canvassing and voter education.
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Arizona – Proposition 207
In addition to collecting signatures with masks, gloves and melting pens in the desert heat, Smart and Safe Arizona, the group behind the state’s 2020 adult-use legalization ballot measure, was busy in 2020 fending off a challenge in court by a campaign funded by the Center for Arizona Policy, according to the Arizona Republic.
“They challenged a couple different parts of our initiative, like they challenged the definition of marijuana,” said Alejandro Chavez, political director at Smart and Safe Arizona. “They didn't want it to include edibles and other parts. But because we … followed so much of what medical had already laid out for us, that argument had already been made and determined in another case. They [also] tried to challenge something around [DUIs].”
In August, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Smart and Safe Arizona, and when Arizonans for Health and Public Safety appealed the ruling the next week, the Phoenix New Times reported, the Arizona Supreme Court confirmed the Maricopa County judge’s decision.
Though Smart and Safe Arizona won the cases, Chavez said the legal challenges delayed the state’s issuance of a proposition number, something initiatives become known by.
Chavez highlighted that the measure, now known as Proposition 207, includes language for criminal record expungement.
“Anyone who has a conviction of [the possession of] 2 and a half ounces or less will be able to have it expunged from their record,” he said. “Because you have to apply for it through the state, we are actually making funds available through part of the taxes that will help pay for that.”
Smart and Safe Arizona made bilingual calls to reach Arizona’s large Spanish-speaking population, Chavez said. (Hispanics make up 31% of the state’s population, and 66% of Arizonans age 5 and older speak more than one language at home, according to the Pew Research Center). The campaign has also received help in the form of endorsements from elected officials and community leaders, such as civil rights activist Dolores Huerta and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D).
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Montana – Initiative 190 and Constitutional Initiative 118
To put together viable initiative language, New Approach Montana met with a lot of lawyers on its adult-use legalization push, said Pepper Petersen, the group’s political director and founder, adding that those lawyers had to in turn meet with lawyers. The group also worked with New Approach PAC and the Marijuana Policy Project.
“You're going to have factions within the movement who say, 'This isn't good enough,' or 'It doesn't go far enough' or 'Your tax is too high' or 'Your allocations aren't written the way I want.’ … Then you go from there into the qualification process; you've got to get your signatures,” Petersen said. “Every state is different; Montana has a breadth and a depth requirement.” Signatures need to represent multiple legislative districts.
New Approach Montana decided that adult-use cannabis should be restricted to people who are 21 and older, like it is in other recreational states. However, that requires a constitutional amendment, as the state has simply defined an “adult” as a person who is 18 or older, Petersen said, adding that the 21-year-old age limit for alcohol also required a constitutional amendment.
The group, then, began gathering signatures for a legalization initiative, Initiative 190, and a constitutional amendment initiative, Constitutional Initiative 118. New Approach Montana had to acquire twice as many votes for the latter, Petersen said, which they anticipated would be difficult because “Montanans love their constitution.”
Reflecting back, he said, “We've got all of these complicated legislative needs here—and then COVID hit.” New Approach Montana was dealing with a shutdown due to COVID and was not granted the option to gather signatures electronically. Luckily for the group, the state gave them 45 days to obtain the signatures they needed.
Petersen and co. had to “reinvent the wheel.” “We had to create stationery places for people to come sign on the little tables,” he said. “You kind of look like you're a Sandinista out there or something with a mask on, a flag behind you, so it was interesting.
“It was a social experiment at first, to see if people would even talk to you, considering you're wearing a mask. We're used to people wearing masks now, but back when this started, it was still very questionable as to whether people would talk to you or sign something if you're standing around wearing a mask.”
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New Jersey – Public Question 1
Unlike campaigns in other states, NJ CAN2020in New Jersey didn’t have to gather signatures to put adult-use legalization on the ballot, but rather did so through the state legislature, said Axel Owen, the group’s campaign manager.
“We need to be able to communicate with people about kind of the different aspects of the social and racial justice aspect, the economic justice aspect, the government waste aspect and to make sure voters know why it's important,” he said.
They also needed to remind New Jersey voters—who, numerouspollsindicate, support adult-use legalization—that the issue is on the ballot at all. Owen said that on about 99% of the ballots in the state, the adult-use legalization referendum, Public Question 1, is on the back side.
“It's been a lot of making sure that we kind of push this narrative—we actually call it #TurnthePage, where we're actually encouraging people to ‘turn the page’ on cannabis prohibition, but also to turn the page on their ballot, to ensure that they know we're there,” Owen said.
“The nice part about our campaign is we're just a broad coalition of people that are here,” he said. “Our internal steering committee is the ACLU, the NAACP, the Latino Action Network, New Approach PAC is also involved with us, DPA, NORML's here.
“Some of our MSOs [multi-state operators] have started coming on board as well. So, it's really interesting from our perspective because we have advocacy, industry and then the ancillary groups all working together to push this forward because they've all realized the situation that we have—that if we don't get this passed now, the way the laws are created in New Jersey, we cannot push another constitutional amendment or a ballot initiative for at least three years."
Whether due to “malice or incompetence,” Owen said issues have arisen with voting in New Jersey, as evidenced by mail-in ballots being thrown away and not properly sealed.
It’s also incumbent on voters to know how to correctly fill out their ballot. “The reality here for us is we actually have to do a multi-step process for/with a lot of our voters to educate them about the issue, about our placement on the ballot, but then also how to properly vote by mail—because if we don't do all three of those, we can start losing a lot of votes very quickly,” Owen said.
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South Dakota – Amendment A and Initiated Measure 26
South Dakotans have two cannabis measures them this year: Amendment A, which would legalize adult-use cannabis, and Initiated Measure 26, which would set up a medical cannabis program.
Amendment A would tax adult-use customers at a 15% rate and require the South Dakota Legislature to regulate hemp cultivation, processing and sale by 2022, said Drey Samuelson, campaign manager at South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws, one organization that put together these measures. (The amendment language was sent to the state before it legalized hemp cultivation and processing and the USDA approved a state industrial hemp plan, though Harris Bricken’s Griffen Thorne has noted that aside from a smokable hemp ban, South Dakota hasn’t established clear regulations addressing the sale of hemp.)
Samuelson added: “I think the other thing that it would do, which I think is just beneficial to the world of democracy, is it would prove that even in conservative South Dakota, people working together, banding together, around a common goal can overcome the institutional opposition to social change.”
Melissa Mentele, executive director at New Approach South Dakota, the other group behind Amendment A and IM 26, echoed that sentiment.
“We started six years ago with this initiative, and we started in a state that was so red that the word 'marijuana' just made people cringe,” she said. “We really started it from the bottom. We went to the legislative session every year for six years and educated [lawmakers]. We started a Facebook page; I think the foundation of advocacy now in this generation is starting to educate people online. We grew it organically, no paid ads, to over 10,000 people in this little red state of under a million.”
Amendment A and IM 26, which would allow for home grows and a caregiver program, would drastically change the paradigm around cannabis in South Dakota. Mentele pointed out that the state has a unique felony ingestion law.
“The moment you step off a plane from, say, Colorado or California and you have consumed cannabis, even if you don't have any in your system, you are an immediate felon in the state of South Dakota,” she said. “We're the only state in the nation that does have that law, so we're making a huge change here—hopefully some social justice change andgiving access to patients."
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Missouri Voters Could Legalize Adult-Use Cannabis in 2022, Says the State’s Medical Cannabis Program Director
Lyndall Fraker, director of the section of medical marijuana within the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, believes medical cannabis legalization was a step toward adult-use in the state.
The director of Missouri’s medical cannabis program believes voters could legalize adult-use cannabis in the state as early as 2022, according to a local FOX 2 Now report.
Lyndall Fraker, director of the section of medical marijuana within the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS), told the news outlet that he believes medical cannabis legalization was a step toward adult-use in the state.
“Absolutely, I think that was the intent of the drafters,” he said. “We’ve already heard that they are going to try and work and get it on the ballot, but I don’t think the legislature will do it; I think it will have to be a petition. It’s going to be on the ballot in 2022, I’m very confident in that, but I don’t know what that language will look like.”
Missouri voters approved medical cannabis in 2018, and the state’s first dispensaries opened their doors to patients earlier this month.
Four dispensaries will be operating in the state by early next week, FOX 2 Now reported, and Fraker told the news outlet that he hopes to have 96 operational dispensaries by the end of the year.
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