The Medical Cannabis Study Commission is tasked with recommending legislation to be considered in the 2020 legislative session.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama’s commission considering laws about medical marijuana is holding its first meeting.
The Medical Cannabis Study Commission is tasked with recommending legislation to be considered in the 2020 legislative session. The panel will hold its first meeting at the Alabama Statehouse on Tuesday morning.
The Cannabis Control Commission has not licensed a single craft cooperative; as of July 18, only two cooperatives had submitted their complete applications.
As Massachusetts was creating its legal marijuana industry, farmers lobbied for the creation of craft cooperatives—a business model that lets local farmers band together to each grow marijuana and split the costs for things like production, packaging and marketing.
In response, the Cannabis Control Commission established regulations allowing growers who have lived in Massachusetts for at least a year to join together, grow up to 100,000 square feet of marijuana plants among them, pay lower licensing fees and sell wholesale to marijuana retailers.
By partnering with Incredibles, TGS is finding new ways to attract customers throughout August.
The Green Solution is hosting a limited collaboration with Steve Pollack (The Dude of Life) throughout August, with a raffle that leads up to a special prize during Labor Day weekend.
Here’s how it works—and how TGS is banking on bringing in new customers to five of its locations: Incredibles vegan mango gummies “will be packaged in a group of 10, with a total of 100 milligrams of THC, priced at $20. For each product unit purchased, customers will receive a gift with purchase as well as one raffle entry for a chance to win a variety of prizes, which will be announced on Incredibles social media channels on Friday, Aug. 30.”
Pollack is a musician with long-running ties to Phish, who will be playing in Denver Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 for the band’s traditional Labor Day run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City. Five first-place winners will receive a Sunday brunch with Pollack and a guest (on Sept. 1). Prizes, including T-shirts and other memorabilia, will be given to a second-place winner and a third-place winner.
The actual raffle will be open through Aug. 28 at five TGS locations:
“As an industry leader, TGS is always looking for unique collaborations that tie the cannabis community with industries that our patrons engage with—including music, art and sporting events,” Jordan Bryant, The Green Solution’s creative director, tells Cannabis Dispensary “Concepts are vetted by our corporate teams to ensure that partnerships align with TGS brand standards.”
Promotional events like this are an important pillar of any cannabis retail business’s marketing efforts. TGS is pushing this August campaign to both its loyal customer base and to new customers through its social channels and various partnerships with Pollack’s own marketing platforms. The key, though, is the limited opportunity that customers have to pick up these Incredibles products.
“Name recognition definitely helps drive interest, but ultimately it comes down to the product quality and scarceness,” Bryant says. “Limited-time offers are a part of TGS culture and builds excitement around products that are unique. This approach allows us to reach new customer demographics who may not have previously shopped with TGS.”
And along the way, TGS budtenders will compound the strength of this campaign by offering complimentary memberships to the dispensary’s loyalty program. For each purchase, customers will get five-percent reward points; with 100 points, customers can cash in for certain products—like pre-rolls and concentrates. (On customers’ birthdays, they receive 420 points.)
“Our rewards program allows us to remain in engaged with our patrons and tailor our messaging to align with their unique cannabis interests. Additional value to the customer is provided through weekly special promotions as well as future initiatives that are on the docket.”
The August deal is under way now, and customers can learn more about TGS while tossing their names into the raffle for a prize that will make for a unique Labor Day weekend celebration.
The parent company of Bluegrass Hemp Oil partners with local cultivators to produce small-batch extracts with unique terpene profiles.
Kentucky Cannabis Company, the parent company of Bluegrass Hemp Oil, a producer of full-spectrum extracts, has unveiled Batch, a CBD extract made from the blooms of Kentucky-grown hemp.
“We wanted to … help the smaller Kentucky farmers find use for their products,” Adriane Polyniak, owner of Kentucky Cannabis Company and Bluegrass Hemp Oil, told Cannabis Business Times. “We have a lot of farmers who are producing high-quality hemp varieties here in the state and doing a great job, so we purchase hemp on the open market in the hopes of helping build them up and support the local market.”
Kentucky Cannabis Company partners with farmers who cultivate hemp varieties with a high concentration of CBD. The company vets potential partners by learning about their cultivation processes and testing their plant materials, Polyniak said.
“From there, we do a bloom-only extraction,” she said. “We feel strongly about only extracting from the bloom of the plant, where the majority of the cannabinoids and terpenes are found, and we use a hydrocarbon distillation process. It’s really gentle on the plant, … so, it produces a product that truly resembles the plant from which it came. You get the terpenes, you get the flavor, you get everything that’s going to be in that plant material in the product, essentially.”
Named after its small-batch production, Batch joins Bluegrass Hemp Oil’s Genesis Blend line of extracts. In addition to third-party lab testing, Kentucky Cannabis Company performs in-house testing on all products throughout the production process to verify potency and purity.
“It’s literally just cannabinoids, terpenes and an MCT oil,” Polyniak said. “We feel like the most natural way is the best way to go, and offering it in the way it was intended, which is in its full-spectrum form.”
While Genesis Blend products are sold only at pharmacies, Batch will be available through grocery stores, health food stores, holistic nutrition coaches and yoga studios that want to offer CBD products, Polyniak said. There is a space on the company’s website where those interested in selling Batch can reach out and receive information about partnering with Kentucky Cannabis Company.
The first round of Batch products released consisted of 2,000 bottles, which is a very small run, Polyniak said.
“In this style product, we want to focus on the farm, … highlighting the differences in the terpene profiles and so forth,” she said. “It’s going to be really focused on trying to differentiate ourselves [by] providing the flavor [and] highlighting the farm, and each batch is going to change a little bit in its flavor profile. You’re guaranteed to get the cannabinoid content per milliliter that’s labeled on the bottle and so forth, but that terpene profile is going to vary from batch to batch because … not every farmer here in Kentucky is growing the same cultivars.”
Kentucky Cannabis Company is one of the original six hemp growers that were granted permission to cultivate within the state, and it has been cultivating for cannabinoid production since 2014, Polyniak said.
“We’re focused on growth,” she said. “We’re focused on creating the highest-quality product out there, looking at the science of the plant, advocating and educating consumers on not only product differentiation, but also … the science of the plant.”
With new companies and products entering the hemp and CBD space every day, differentiation is key, Polyniak added.
“There are a lot of companies here in this state but also across the U.S. that are mass-producing the same product for several different labels, white labeling for them, so a lot of the products that are on the shelf may be produced by that same manufacturer,” she said. “You have to be able to produce something that’s different, something that’s going to get the consumer’s attention, something that’s going to be beneficial for them so that they’ll continue investing their money. Because there are so many products on the market, if they don’t feel like they’re getting the quality that they deserve, they’re going to move on to somebody else pretty quickly."
The health minister has confirmed plans and is calling on neighboring countries to relax their laws.
Luxembourg has called on its EU neighbors to relax their drug laws as its health minister confirmed plans to become the first European country to legalize cannabis production and consumption.
“This drug policy we had over the last 50 years did not work,” Etienne Schneider told Politico. “Forbidding everything made it just more interesting to young people. … I’m hoping all of us will get a more open-minded attitude toward drugs.”
Cannabis Business Times’ interactive legislative map is another tool to help cultivators quickly navigate state cannabis laws and find news relevant to their markets. View More
Eric Sandy
Melissa Schiller