The Parent Company will place a $50-million investment in southern California’s Glass House Group, which will open discussions to longer-term strategic market agreements. With Glass House Group’s 500,000-plus square feet of greenhouse space and its rapidly expanding retail footprint, future agreements could include greater visibility in the California adult-use cannabis market for The Parent Company’s suite of branded products (including Jay-Z’s MONOGRAM line).

The investment comes at the same time that Glass House Group is executing a business combination with Mercer Park Brand Acquisition Corp., a SPAC that will take Glass House Group public. That transaction is expected to close this summer, upon which The Parent Company’s investment will translate into 6.2% of subordinate voting shares in the combined business.

All told, several major players in the California cannabis landscape are converging. The Parent Company launched in late 2020 as the result of its own SPAC transaction. 

“Our focus over the last 100 days has been to continue to scale up our supply chain,” The Parent Company CEO Steve Allan said in a public statement this month. “Our strategic investment accomplishes two important components, gaining access to Glass House’s greenhouse-grown cannabis at attractive pricing and expanding the distribution of our products to their network of retail stores. Our strategy for vertical integration in California required locking in long-term, low-cost cultivation to meet our demand for branded products in our wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels.”

The Parent Company also announced the acquisition of four acres of outdoor cannabis cultivation land affiliated with Soma Rosa Farms.

The average dispensary in Las Vegas pulls in about $2 million in revenue per month, while larger stores have reported up to $10 million in single-month sales. Even in 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, legal cannabis statewide in Nevada clocked $789 million in sales. And prospective business owners want in: State-issued licenses have traded hands for as much as $20 million each.

Owning a cannabis company in the Silver State can be an incredibly lucrative endeavor. But for all of the Green Rush’s successes—80 operating dispensaries, 158 grow houses and 110 production facilities—still only one company has a Black woman running the show from the top.

On the remote east side of Sin City, just before houses and roads give way to miles of desert sand, a mom-and-pop-style cannabis store serves thousands of mostly local residents. Top Notch The Health Center, styled as Top Notch THC next to a bright green medical cross on its cream-colored building, welcomes a broad customer base.

Kema Ogden is one of three Top Notch owners and still the only Black woman able to make such a claim in Nevada. Unlike most of her counterparts in the industry, who have sold off their marijuana empires for up to $300 million, Ogden has held onto her dispensary. She’s also still regularly involved in the day-to-day operations.

“We’ve always been focused on being a grassroots company and being a part of the local community,” she said. “The community supports us back, and those relationships that we’ve built over the years really help keep us grounded.”

A former fitness trainer and philanthropist, Ogden would have called you crazy a decade ago if you told her that part of her future would be dealing legal weed. The wife of NFL Hall-of-Famer Jonathan Ogden and mother of two has always had a heart for wellness and helping others. But her humanitarian endeavors had always taken more traditional structures, like a family foundation that runs sports and fitness programs as well as a nonprofit hospital that serves uninsured and low-income families.

With marijuana, she gets the best of both worlds: promoting wellness and making a pretty penny doing it.

“Of course, this is a business for us and we’re always considering opportunities to expand and reach more people,” she said. “But cannabis has become a healthy part of a holistic wellness approach for a lot of our customers.”

Small and Friendly, but Not a Boutique

Top Notch is easily one of the state’s smallest dispensaries, with only 1,500 square feet of retail space. Yet the store is anything but a boutique. It carries over 1,600 cannabis products, including hard-to-find medical specialties like Rick Simpson Oil and patient-grade edibles featuring up to eight times more THC than the state’s limit for recreational products.

Its massive selection ranks Top Notch near the top of all dispensaries in the sheer number of items consumers can choose from. Ogden attributed her store’s large supply to remembering why she and partners got into the business in the first place.

“We try to stay patient-orientated because that’s ultimately why we’re here,” she said. “There’s enough money to be made on retail customers where you can still serve the people out there that really need cannabis to make their lives better.”

Unlike just about every other cannabis store in town, Ogden makes her budtenders available for one-on-one consultations from the time a customer steps into the waiting area to when they walk out the exit. Picture a doctor’s office: the nurse opens the door to the waiting room and calls your name, then walks alongside you before sitting down to discuss your needs. Top Notch doesn’t have licensed medical professionals, but the patient process is otherwise identical.

A Family Atmosphere

For many of the 65 employees at Top Notch, working at the dispensary has been a calling fulfilled. Interviewed employees said their jobs are altruistic in the sense that they can advise shoppers seeking physical and mental support on the plant’s benefits for their ailments.

While most cannabis stores across the Vegas Valley have seen their fair share of turnover and turmoil amidst lucrative ownership changes and restructuring, five of Top Notch’s original six employees continue to work at the dispensary to this day.

Lashawn Griego moved down to Vegas from Denver when the store first opened in late 2015. A former kindergarten teacher and occupational health professional, Griego credits Ogden for creating a family-like atmosphere for employees to thrive.

Griego, who like Ogden is a Black woman, started as a greeter at Top Notch’s front door. In six years, she’s worked her way up to being the store’s general manager and now oversees all of the store’s other employees.

Courtesy of Top Notch THC

“I’ve never really stopped to think about my own accomplishments because this is a company I worked hard to grow in,” Griego said. “We’re all laid back and I don’t look at myself as being a caliber above anyone else here. If we’re slammed, I’ll jump in as a budtender. I’ll get behind the desk and I’ll answer the phones. I’ll be security if they need me to.”

Griego, 49, credits Ogden for helping her ascend to a career she otherwise wouldn’t have realized.

“She just encourages and motivates you and gets you to where you want to be,” Griego said. “She saw value in me before I saw it in myself.”

Blazing a Trail for Others

A January 2021 report from the state’s Cannabis Compliance Board showed Nevada’s marijuana industry is pretty diverse as a whole. Over 38% of people involved in the industry are women, a quarter are Hispanic and nearly 11 percent are Black or African American. The percentage breakdowns for race are relatively consistent with the state’s population of 3.2 million people.

A closer look at the report, though, shows most of the women and minority stakeholders skew toward the bottom levels of the totem pole—think receptionists, budtenders and security. At the top, white men account for nearly three-quarters of company owners.

Previous state initiatives designed to level the ownership playing field have essentially been nothing more than lip service from politicians to underrepresented groups, Ogden said. 2017 regulations incentivizing companies to add women and minorities as owners, executives or board members gave way to a host of new “sham boards” in which minorities received new fancy-sounding titles but had no real impact on the companies they worked for.

Still, Ogden insists there’s hope for the future. Recently appointed by Nevada’s governor to a 12-member Cannabis Advisory Commission, she pointed to a bill at this year’s state legislature that would let cannabis lounges open. The bill would also allow for entertainment operators to apply for permits so patrons could smoke at festivals and music concerts.

The new permits won’t be capped by the state. And less barriers to entry means more minority owners will have a shot at owning a cannabis business.

“Equality is something I’m very passionate about, and the ideas we have out there now are steps in the right direction,” Ogden said. “When we start getting more diversity at the ownership table, I think this industry will flourish in ways we’ve never seen before.”

 

The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Friday that the voice of its people, who voted in favor of legalizing medical cannabis by more than a two-thirds majority in the November 2020 election, is not enough to influence policy.

The ballot measure, Initiative 65, would have required the Mississippi State Department of Health to adopt rules and regulations for a medical cannabis program by July 1, 2021, and begin issuing medical patient cards and treatment center licenses by Aug. 15, 2021. The ballot results were certified by Secretary of State Michael Watson.

But the state’s high court overruled those election results by a 6-3 decision. Justice Josiah D. Coleman wrote the majority opinion.

The Supreme Court’s ruling stems from Section 273(3) of the Mississippi Constitution, which states that signatures from each congressional district for a ballot initiative cannot exceed one-fifth of the total number of signatures required to qualified an initiative petition for placement upon the ballot. In short, the section was designed to ensure an even number of signatures was gathered from each congressional district for geographic uniformity.

However, after the 2000 Census, Mississippi dropped from five districts to four districts—making Section 273(3)’s one-fifth requirement mathematically at odds with the political structure of the state’s electorate. Language dealing with the initiative process was never updated to “one-fourth” in that section.

“Whether with intent, by oversight, or for some other reason, the drafters of section 273(3) wrote a ballot-initiative process that cannot work in a world where Mississippi has fewer than five representatives in Congress,” Coleman said in his majority opinion. “To work in today’s reality, it will need amending—something that lies beyond the power of the Supreme Court. We grant the petition, reverse the secretary of state’s certification of Initiative 65, and hold that any subsequent proceedings on it are void.”

The Mississippi Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the voter-approved medical cannabis measure on April 14, after Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler filed a lawsuit that challenged the initiative process. Butler first filed the complaint in late October, just one week before Election Day.

Proponents of Initiative 65 said their petition met the requirements set by the state constitution and by a 2009 opinion from former Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, The Associated Press reported in October. That opinion concluded that the general purpose of the geographic distribution requirement for signatures was to help assure that citizens from one part of the state did not use the initiative process to the detriment of those in another.

Meeting that geographic objective, 74% of Mississippians passed Initiative 65 at the polls, winning in all 82 counties, according to Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association (3MA), a proponent of the reform effort.

“The Mississippi Supreme Court just overturned the will of the people of Mississippi,” 3MA Executive Director Ken Newburger said in a statement. “Patients will now continue the suffering that so many Mississippians voted to end. The Court ignored existing case law and prior decisions. Their reasoning ignores the intent of the constitution and takes away people’s constitutional right. It’s a sad day for Mississippi when the Supreme Court communicates to a vast majority of the voters that their vote doesn’t matter.”

Section 273(3) states the people reserve unto themselves the power to propose and enact constitutional amendments by initiative.

As recent as 2011—roughly a decade after Mississippi dropped from five to four congressional districts—voters passed a pair of ballot initiatives that were never challenged in the court of law based on Section 273(3). That year, Mississippians voted in favor of Initiative 27, which requires residents to show government-issued photo identification before voting, and in favor of Initiative 31, which limits the use of eminent domain—the right of a government to expropriate private property for public use.

Those two ballot measures were not mentioned by the Mississippi Supreme Court on Friday in its ruling to overturn the 2020 election results of Initiative 65.

In the dissenting opinion, Justice James D. Maxwell said he strongly disagreed that the secretary of state acted in an unconstitutional manner by placing Initiative 65 on the ballot.  

“I am also hard pressed to see how a federal court’s almost 20-year-old injunction, aimed solely at federal congressional elections, has now somehow unintentionally destroyed Mississippi’s 28 constitutional citizen-based ballot-initiative process,” he said. “But that is exactly what the majority is saying.”

Furthermore, Maxwell said that while Mississippi’s congressional districts were adjusted federally for representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, Section 23-15-1037 of Mississippi Code of 1972—a state law that defines five congressional districts—was never updated following the 2000 Census. Therefore, according to state law, Mississippi still has five congressional districts.

That said, the federal shift to four congressional districts “does not consider, speak to, or in any way preclude Mississippi’s ability to continue to use the five statutory congressional districts for other purposes—including the secretary of state’s use of these five districts to determine if Section 273(3)’s signature requirement has been met,” Maxwell said.

According to Mississippians for Compassionate Care, an organization that helped push Initiative 65 to passage in November, the voter-approved measure would allow residents affected by any of 22 conditions, such as cancer, chronic pain or epilepsy, to qualify as medical cannabis patients.

A fiscal analysis by Mississippi’s Legislative Budget Office estimated the first year of the medical program would cost the state roughly $11.1 million, according to the organization. In the following years, the program will bring in around $10.7 million in overall annual revenue, which would be required to go back into the program.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, Marijuana Policy Project Deputy Director Matthew Schweich issued the following statement:

“Today is a cruel and tragic day for sick and suffering people in Mississippi. The state’s Supreme Court has issued a deeply flawed ruling to overturn Amendment 65, the medical cannabis law that voters overwhelmingly approved in the November 2020 election. As a result, tens of thousands of Mississippians with debilitating health conditions will be denied safe, legal access to something that can alleviate their pain and improve their quality of life. Instead, they will once again be treated as criminals under the law. To add insult to injury, this decision not only nullifies the will of hundreds of thousands of voters, it also effectively eliminates Mississippians’ right to bring forward ballot initiatives to amend their state’s constitution. The legislature must take action to fix the ballot initiative requirements and honor the will of their constituents by enacting Amendment 65 into law through the legislative process. Our hearts are broken for the patients in Mississippi who need access to medical cannabis, as well as their families who will continue to watch their loved ones needlessly suffer. We stand with them. The fight for a compassionate medical cannabis law in Mississippi will continue.”

At first, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey did not commit to signing a medical cannabis bill when the state legislature passed the legislation by a roughly two-to-one ratio in both chambers May 6.

In a statement from Ivey’s office that night, Press Secretary Gina Maiola said the governor looked forward to thoroughly reviewing Senate Bill 46 and providing the diligence it deserves but did not say whether she would sign it.

The Republican executive provided her ink to the bill Monday, making Alabama unofficially the 36th medical cannabis state, joining the likes of nearby Arkansas, Florida and Louisiana, according to reform organization Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). Mississippi dropped from the ranks of medical cannabis states after its Supreme Court ruled May 14 that Initiative 65 was unconstitutional.

When the Alabama Legislature passed its medical cannabis bill earlier this month, MPP Director of State Policies Karen O’Keefe said the legislation will allow seriously ill patients to finally get the relief they deserve and urged Ivey to sign it into law.

Ivey did just that Monday afternoon.

“I would like to thank Sen. Tim Melson and Rep. Mike Ball for their hard work over the last few years and their commitment to continue to work on this to ensure we have a productive, safe and responsible operation in Alabama,” Ivey said in a statement.

Medical cannabis legislation was first introduced in the Alabama House of Representatives two decades ago. Eight years ago, it was the laughingstock of the lower chamber. Now, a medical cannabis bill claimed supermajority support and the governor’s signature.

After a nearly 10-hour filibuster May 4, House lawmakers reconvened May 6 and considered several floor amendments before passing the Senate-originated bill, 68-34, which will allow registered patients diagnosed with qualifying conditions to access cannabis. The legislation returned to the Senate for final consideration later on May 6, when the upper chamber voted, 20-9, to concur with the House changes.

The Alabama Senate has passed medical cannabis bills three years in a row, but this is the first time the House has passed legislation. Last year, pandemic-related circumstances derailed the lower chamber’s possibility of a vote.

Sponsored by Republican Sen. Tim Melson, S.B. 46 proposes implementing a medical program that would open the application process for potential patients by Sept. 1, 2022. Republican Rep. Mike Ball sponsored the bill in the House.

“When we get in politics, we get down here and we focus our attention on what it is we’re after; we tend to tunnel up and we don’t see the other side very well, and there’s so many aspects of this that has been so difficult,” Ball said on the House floor May 6, after bearing the brunt of the filibuster, from opponents on his own side of the aisle, two days earlier.

“And, quite frankly, this has caused me to lose my appetite for politics in this whole process,” he said. “And the people who don’t see it, they’re not bad. They’re just not looking at it.”

Eight years earlier, a Democratic bill for medical cannabis that was introduced by former Rep. Patricia Todd won the 2013 “Shroud Award,” given to the “deadest” bill in the House that session, according to The Associated Press.

“They laughed at me,” Todd said, according to the AP. “I’m glad to see it passed. It’s long overdue.”

Final passage didn’t come without nearly three more hours of floor debate and amendment votes on May 6. Democratic Rep. Laura Hall, 78, said she first introduced medical cannabis legislation to the House two decades ago.

“Twenty years ago, I brought [legislation to the House] in honor of my son, who had just died the year before I was elected, of AIDS,” Hall said. “And I did that with the idea thinking if I could have had access [to medical cannabis]. The only drug that was available to him was a drug called AZT. He could not take that. When he took that medicine, we would have to get up every four hours—that was the regimen to giving him the medication. And he had finally said, ‘Enough is enough. I may get my T cells back and I can function, but I can’t do it on this medication.’”

Azidothymidine (AZT) is an antiretroviral medication used to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.

Later during the House’s session on May 6, the chamber voted, 87-3, in favor renaming the legislation “Darren Wesley ‘Ato’ Hall Compassion Act,” as a tribute to Rep. Hall’s son.

While HIV/AIDS-related nausea or weight loss is one of more than a dozen qualifying conditions included in Alabama’s medical cannabis bill, two other conditions in the Senate’s original version of the bill were removed during an emending process in the House Health Committee—fibromyalgia and menopause or premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

That specific amendment was grouped with several other committee amendments as one package, which passed as a single vote May 6 on the House floor, 72-26.

“This amendment is so disappointing to me as a woman, that all of the issues that specifically impact women were taken out in the Health Committee, which is why I’m going to vote against this amendment,” Democratic Rep. Merika Coleman said. “I support [Rep. Ball] and support the concept, but this body sometimes is so disappointing.”

When enacted, S.B. 46 will create a 14-member Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission, which will determine the maximum daily dosages of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that caregivers can provide patients with each of the qualifying conditions—also including cancer, terminal illness, depression, epilepsy, anxiety or panic disorder, chronic pain, spasticity, autism, Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder and others.

The new commission will also be responsible for issuing up to five licenses for vertically integrated operators, up to 12 cultivation licenses, no more than four processor licenses and no more than four dispensary licenses. Businesses awarded the dispensary licenses can operate up to three sites in different counties, while vertically integrated operators can have up to five dispensing sites in different counties, according to the bill’s text.

Other housekeeping items the commission will be responsible for include overseeing the patient registry, issuing medical cards and outlining regulations from seed to sale.

Some amendments that were rejected on the House floor were adding a THC dosing cap of 10 milligrams, enacting a zero-tolerance policy for diving under the influence, and revisiting the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission’s authority to provide caregiver’s the right to distribute medical cannabis should the federal government reschedule cannabis, so that patients could instead receive their medical cannabis from pharmacies should federal prohibition end. 

“My concern in this issue, is if we create this large bureaucracy that we’re having, this large board that’s going to be there, that this will never go away,” Republican Rep. Matt Simpson said about the commission’s authoritative arm. “And you could have 49 other states that are going to be able to receive medical marijuana through a licensed pharmacist … but the state of Alabama would be required to go through these dispensaries based on this legislation you have.”

Meanwhile, the bill will prohibit the smoking or vaping of cannabis, as well as processing cannabis into a form that is attractive to or targets children, such as candy or baked goods. Instead, S.B. 46 will limit medical cannabis use to forms such as pills, gelatin cubes, oils, creams and topical patches. Patients can possess up to 70 daily doses of cannabis.

In addition, minors cannot use—or be recommended—more than 3% THC. And employers can still drug test and prohibit employees from using cannabis.

Regarding social equity, depending on the business type, either at least one-fourth or one-fifth of all licenses are to be awarded to businesses with at least 51% ownership by individuals of African American, Native American, Asian or Hispanic descent, according to MPP.