Jimmy Buffett has been playing with the Coral Reefer Band for well over four decades now, so it’s less than surprising to see the veteran singer-songwriter finally getting into the marijuana business.

The “Margaritaville” singer will license the “Coral Reefer” brand to Surterra, a big medical marijuana company whose board has since last month been chaired by William “Beau” Wrigley, Jr.—the former CEO of the Wrigley confectionery firm.

Georgia-based Surterra is currently licensed in Florida and Texas, and plans to build out cultivation space in the former state while conducting research trials on cannabinoid treatment for issues such as pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. The company has raised more than $100 million in the last few years, most recently in a $65 million round last month that was led by Wrigley’s Wychwood Asset Management.

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Lansing — Some medical marijuana businesses in Michigan will get a break from a looming state licensing deadline, but which ones qualify and for how long is not yet clear.

The state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs will extend the emergency rules that allow certain existing medical marijuana businesses to continue operating during the licensing process, said Andrew Brisbo, director for the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation.

The emergency rules, which were put in place to ensure patients still had access to medical marijuana through the licensing period, are set to expire Friday. Brisbo said the state should have details Tuesday on an extension of those rules.

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Officials in states that have legalized recreational cannabis think Vermont misstepped by not implementing a taxed-and-regulated market, Health Commissioner Mark Levine told a panel tasked with studying the issue. 

He spoke Monday during a Statehouse meeting of the Governor’s Marijuana Advisory Commission, which Gov. Phil Scott created by executive order in 2017 shortly after he vetoed a cannabis legalization measure. In January, Scott signed into law a bill that allows Vermonters to grow up to six plants at home and possess up to an ounce of marijuana. It did not legalize the sale or distribution of cannabis. 

The commission has continued its work, which one of its co-chairs, Tom Little, said was to determine what a taxed-and-regulated system in the state should look like if the legislature chooses to create one.

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Charlotte’s Web Holdings Inc. is the latest U.S. cannabis firm to launch an IPO on the Canadian Securities Exchange. The CBD company, known formerly as Stanley Brothers Inc., began trading Aug. 30 at C$7. The stock price has nearly doubled in its first two weeks on the market. (Charlotte’s Web Holdings is trading under ticker symbol CWEB.) 

The IPO generated more than C$93 million. 

The move comes at a critical time in the CBD segment of the cannabis industry. As more U.S. states legalize medical cannabis, and as scientific research becomes more widely accepted and more regulated by governments, CBD product sales are expected to eclipse $20 billion by 2022, according to a new Brightfield Group report.

Charlotte’s Web is poised to capitalize on that growth. Data from New Frontier shows that the company’s quarterly revenue has increased from $3.6 million (Q3 2016) to a projected $22 million (Q4 2018).  

Charlotte’s Web and the Stanley brothers gained national acclaim for their role in Sanjay Gupta’s CNN documentary, Weed, largely credited with spurring a more open conversation about the medical benefits of cannabis. 

"Completing this IPO milestone is tremendously rewarding for the company, our family, and for the people that we serve," Charlotte’s Web co-founder Joel Stanley told Forbes. "The founding principle of Charlotte's Web was to do our greatest good in the world by helping people live better lives. Now, with the successful completion of our IPO, we have added valuable financial capital. This gives us the ability to further invest in research and product development, expand our geographical reach, build the valuable infrastructure needed for ever increasing production requirements and ultimately to share our Charlotte's Web products and vision worldwide."

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