DENVER, Sept. 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- PRESS RELEASE -- Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc., a marijuana brand and development company, has announced that it has executed a letter of intent to purchase a cannabis retail store in Denver. The 3,300-square-foot retail location is projected to have gross sales exceeding $8.5 million in 2019 and $9.5 million in gross sales in 2020.
"This is a critical milestone for Diego Pellicer Worldwide. The execution of the LOI in Colorado is the first step in the evolution of our business model. We are delivering on our commitment to become a vertically integrated premium cannabis company. We look forward to working with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division to garner approval for Diego Pellicer Worldwide to become a fully licensed cannabis company, that includes direct ownership in cannabis operations," said Ron Throgmartin, chief executive officer of Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc. "For Diego Pellicer Worldwide to continue to grow, we need to pursue these new avenues of ownership as well as branded cannabis products that will be available at company stores and beyond its branded retail locations."
The non-binding letter of intent is subject to compliance with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division and House Bill 19-1090. The letter of intent will be followed by a contract once rulemaking for Colorado House Bill 19-1090 has concluded and the Marijuana Enforcement Division has issued regulations guiding the process for public companies and out-of-state investors to apply for cannabis licensing ownership. The completed regulations and application process are expected in November 2019 after the final public comment hearing is held on Oct. 8.
Illinois to Lead by Example With New Cannabis Cultivation Energy Standards
The Midwest marketplace will pave the way for more industry conversations about cannabis energy and water use.
Illinois will begin adult-use cannabis sales Jan. 1, 2020—a major Midwest story in its own right—but industry observers are pointing to the state’s suite of new energy standards as narrative to watch, a bellwether for what’s to come in the business.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the energy bill (H.B. 1438) into law earlier this summer. The goal is to place and enforce limits on electricity and water use in this rapidly growing industry; Illinois currently allows only indoor cannabis cultivation for its 20 license-holders. The growers in Illinois’ medical cannabis market are the ones who will kickstart the state’s adult-use market in 2020, and they’re the companies that will be expected to meet the state’s energy standards and usher in the new era of cannabis in Illinois.
Anthony Tahlier
Cresco Labs' cultivation facility in Illinois.
Here are the main elements of the state’s cannabis energy law:
- Growers may use no more than 36 watts per square foot of cultivation canopy
- Growers must limit water runoff to no more than 20 percent of usage during specific “watering events”
- Growers must commit to using high-efficiency HVAC equipment, with certain specifications depending on the size of a facility.
The discussion around cannabis cultivation energy standards has followed legalization bills around the U.S. for years, and Illinois is joining Massachusetts in getting out in front of the issue as its medical cannabis market turns over to a broader adult-use market and the attendant increase in demand. On top of the state’s 20 licensed indoor cannabis growers, Illinois regulators expect to license 100 “craft” cannabis growers, who will each be permitted to grow up to 5,000 square feet of plants.
As the Illinois Environmental Council points out, “A typical 5,000-square-foot indoor cannabis cultivation facility uses 66 times more energy than the average U.S. household. This energy usage adds up.”
With H.B. 1438 on the books now, cannabis growers will be required to follow standards and explicitly describe how they will meet those goals. Reporting and measuring cannabis cultivation data will be doubly important now, and those measurements must be used to demonstrate that energy standards compliance is happening at licensed businesses.
“This is a high-resource-use industry, and it doesn’t have to be,” State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, told St. Louis Public Radio in a story out of Belleville. “Illinois can show the way to do it in a better way.”
January 2020 will signal a new era for cannabis businesses and consumers in Illinois, and the success of the behind-the-scenes work on energy use will be clear in how the market develops over the next few years.
“For all stakeholders to achieve their objectives in this scenario, we need to recognize the situation for what it is,” Resource Innovation Institute Executive Director Derek Smith said in a public statement. “It is hyper-accelerated market transformation. This industry is essentially going from a shadow high-margin economy to a highly regulated market suffering shockwaves of cost compression while it scales globally overnight without any handbook. Installation of efficient technologies is on the rise, yet our research indicates that few facility operators know how to optimize their efficiency. Every supply chain company I speak to is telling me that they need more data. Over time we can set additional standards and targets based on what the data are telling us. For now, states should focus on getting the right mix of guidance and support, like Massachusetts and Illinois have done.”
Photo courtesy of MedPharm
Colorado-Based MedPharm Has Big Plans for Cannabis Research
The DEA has notified the company that it has been chosen to advance in the licensing process to grow federally legal cannabis for research purposes.
MedPharm, a Colorado-based cannabis research and formulation development company, announced Aug. 27 that it received word from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and has been selected to move forward in the application process to grow cannabis for research.
This comes after the DEA’s Aug. 26 announcement that it will take steps to expand the scientific and medical research of cannabis with a promise to approve additional federal cultivation licenses from a pool of 33 applications, most of which have been pending since 2016.
MedPharm submitted its application in September 2016, following the DEA’s announcement that it would begin accepting applications for additional cultivators to grow cannabis for research. (The University of Mississippi is the only cultivator currently licensed by the DEA to grow cannabis in the U.S. for research purposes.) MedPharm sought the license to meet the need for better quality cannabis and dosage forms for research purposes, as some researchers have complained about the quality of the cannabis provided by the University of Mississippi.
“As you know, the University of Mississippi has been the only [DEA licensee] that’s been allowed to provide cannabis or cannabis dosage forms for research purposes, and the quality of that product has been very poor and sub-par,” MedPharm CEO Albert Gutierrez tells Cannabis Business Times, reiterating claims made in a related lawsuit against the DEA. “In fact, there are things that we in Colorado would be shut down for. In order to do good research and give patients quality medicine, you want to make sure you’re giving them the right dosage forms or a high-quality product that doesn’t have the contaminants and the mold and the mildew in it. So, MedPharm saw that opportunity and saw the need to help patients get the right kind of treatment and for research to be done, and we took advantage of that.”
The DEA, however, has largely been radio silent in the nearly three years since MedPharm and others have submitted their applications.
“We had a few back-and-forth conversations with DEA and DOJ a couple years ago, scattered out, but it’s nice to finally see some movement,” Gutierrez says.
In a letter to Gutierrez, the DEA stated that MedPharm has been selected to move forward in the licensing process, and that it will eventually be issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, where the company will be asked to comment on the DEA’s proposed regulations for cultivating cannabis for medical research. The DEA has not provided a timetable for when those regulations will be completed, however.
Photo courtesy of MedPharm
If and when regulations materialize and a license is granted to MedPharm, Gutierrez says the company is eager to start on a few different research projects, which will be led by MedPharm’s parent company, Medicine Man Technologies. One, orchestrated through the state of Colorado, will kick off later this year to research cannabis’s impact on dementia and Alzheimer’s. Subsequent projects will focus on using cannabis as an alternative to opiates and studying how cannabis might impact cancer cells, Gutierrez says.
Overall, Gutierrez is optimistic that the DEA will indeed finally take steps to expand cannabis research.
“This is a big deal for a number of reasons,” he says. “One, as I mentioned, [is] it’s important that we get high-quality dosage forms and flower to patients. … No. 2, I think the research we’ve all been calling for for so long at the federal level and at the state level is absolutely necessary to figure out the what, why and how behind cannabis, cannabinoids [and] terpenes and how they come together to provide relief to patients, whether it’s a symptom or even solving an actual condition. We want to be a part of that.”
Gutierrez predicts that significant research into cannabis will be completed over the next 10-20 years, and that advancements will lead to doctors and patients being able to pinpoint exactly how cannabis can help specific conditions.
“It’s important now that we think about the future and producing consistent, high-quality dosage forms related to cannabis, and that’s exactly what MedPharm’s ready to do,” Gutierrez says. “And we’re happy to work alongside the DEA and Department of Justice to bring this to fruition and make this finally not just a monopoly from the University of Mississippi, but also bring high-quality cannabis and dosage forms to the patients."
Atlas Biotechnologies Announces European Expansion
“We have been seeking to expand our production base outside of Canada for some time and are pleased to have secured this high-impact opportunity," said President and CEO Sheldon Croome.
September 3, 2019 – PRESS RELEASE – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – Atlas Biotechnologies Inc. has announced Atlas Growers Denmark A/S, a major European medical cannabis project structured using a finance lease of the assets of Egehøj Champignon:
Assets consist of a 170,000-square-foot facility located on Funen Denmark, which will serve as Atlas’ European base of operations for the development and production of medical cannabis-based products. Atlas retains the right to purchase the assets at a fixed price at any time for 20 years.
The property features 36 individual climate-controlled rooms, allowing for in-house cultivation of pharmaceutical grade cannabis flowers, as well as production of pure, extracted medical inputs, and GMP manufacturing of down-stream finished goods.
Individual microclimates can be tailored to the unique environmental demands of each specific medical cannabis cultivar, or plant variety.
Concurrent with the lease, Atlas has submitted a cultivation license with the Danish Medicine Authority. First harvest is scheduled for early 2020.
With the vision of “creating the world’s most trusted cannabis products” and specialized approach to production, Atlas is taking a pharmaceutical path to ensure products are of consistent quality and efficacy.
Working with Novo Nordisk Engineering, Atlas has engineered a new 20,000-square-foot processing laboratory, which will meet European Union Good Manufacturing Practices (EU GMP) standards, the certification necessary for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Kent Stenvang, CEO and owner of Egehøj Champignon will help strengthen the Atlas leadership team as Denmark Head of Operations. Kent brings over 30 years of experience in running a business with products in a competitive industry.
Atlas intends to create over 100 new jobs within the region.
Sheldon Croome, Atlas president and CEO, notes: “We have been seeking to expand our production base outside of Canada for some time and are pleased to have secured this high-impact opportunity. The rapidly emerging European medical cannabis market is primed for tremendous growth, and our Denmark expansion will provide Atlas a solid foundation to further serve our ever-growing client base of European buyers. We are excited to be planning one of the largest, most sophisticated indoor cultivation and GMP processing facilities in Europe, the next major frontier for medical cannabis legalization.”
Stenvang added: “I am thrilled to become an integral member of the Atlas team and am consistently impressed by their biotech and pharmaceutical research focus in medical cannabis. This cultivation and processing expansion is projected to provide at least 50 local jobs, with over 100 hires expected by late 2020."
A2LA Accredits Legend Technical Services, Inc. to ISO/IEC 17025 for Industrial Hemp
Legend Technical Services is based in St. Paul, Minn., and is currently the only cannabis testing laboratory accredited in the state.
August 30, 2019, Frederick, MD – PRESS RELEASE – A2LA has announced the accreditation of Legend Technical Services, Inc. to ISO/IEC 17025:2005 for industrial hemp testing. Legend Technical Services is based in St. Paul, Minn., and is currently the only cannabis testing laboratory accredited in the state. Legend Technical Services is not only accredited for medical cannabis testing, but they are currently performing all industrial hemp testing for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.
Gregg Schiltz, Laboratory Director of Global Organic Distro, stated, “As a company, we want to be as transparent as possible. Having an accredited lab like Legend Technical Services, gives us the ability to be completely forthcoming with consumers. It’s good to know that we can rely on them for precise and accurate data that defends the quality and integrity of our products.”
“Legend Technical Services has been an A2LA customer since 2009 and is very well respected in Minnesota,” said Trace McInturff, Vice President of Accreditation Services. “As the only hemp testing laboratory recognized by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, we are proud they have chosen to expand their A2LA accreditation to include hemp testing. We are also very proud to add yet another state to the ever-growing list of states that are relying upon A2LA as their accreditation body.”
Achieving ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation by A2LA is the pinnacle in third-party laboratory accreditation, as it confirms that laboratories have management, quality and technical systems in place to ensure accurate and reliable analyses, as well as proper administrative processes to ensure that all aspects related to the sample, the analysis, and the reporting are standardized, measured, and monitored."
Legislative Map
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Eric Sandy
Melissa Schiller
