Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation Sends New Licensing Process Recommendations to City Council
Among the recommendations are for city council to amend the municipal code with revised definitions, and temporary approval and priority processing for certain applicants.
Following an audit of its licensing process and after receiving feedback from stakeholders and the local community, the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR) has put together recommendations to amend the licensing process, according to a report it sent to Los Angeles City Council on April 10.
Some applicants accessed an online system early, according to the audit, but regulators made sure they didn’t have an unfair advantage, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Although the Department agrees that its normalization process was reasonable, it acknowledges that the process and the policy itself can and should be improved in a number of substantive ways,” according to the report.
One of the recommendations involves DCR amending the definition of “‘Equity Share’ based on best practices and input from Social Equity Program stakeholders.”
DCR also recommended that council draft an ordinance to amend the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) to includes the following changes, among others:
- Issuance of temporary approval to Phase 3 Retail Round 1 Applicants, so long as they submit an Equity Plan, show documents to prove they meet the to-be-determined new definition of “Equity Share,” that they and their partners clear “a background check through Live Scan” and more.
- Allowance of social equity applicants who weren’t “eligible for further processing” after submitting an “application during the 14-day Phase 3 Retail Round 1 Application Window” to receive priority processing if they choose to apply to open certain types of cannabis businesses, including those that distribute or deliver cannabis, or conduct “non-volatile manufacturing.”
- Establishment of new eligibility criteria for Phase 3 Retail Round 2 of the Social Equity Program and “all future Social Equity Program application processing.”
A new definition for “low income” would be based on income limits from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that uses Los Angeles County data on Area Median Income (AMI) and “household size and assets.”
A new definition for “Disproportionately Impacted Area” would be based on police reporting districts instead of zip codes.
A new definition for “Social Equity Individual Applicant” would require an applicant to meet two criteria out of three: having “low income,” residing for 10 years in a “Disproportionately Impacted Area” or having been arrested or convicted of certain cannabis crimes in California.
Click here for the full report and here to submit a public comment.
Social media influencer Chrissy Harless
Photo courtesy of Chrissy Harless
Social Media Influencer, Cannabis Gifting Company Celebrate 4/20 Digitally
Higher Celebrations and Chrissy Harless celebrate 4/20 in the era of COVID-19, discuss lessons learned in influencer marketing.
Over the past several years, social media has grown into a—and in some cases, the—marketing medium of choice for businesses. That’s especially true for videos. For some companies that produce toys for children, “unboxing videos” can rack up millions of views and represent the pinnacle of how a company can get its product’s name out there.
Influencer Chrissy Harless, who makes videos about subscription boxes, beauty topics and cannabis, has thousands of followers on her YouTube, Instagram and WeedTube channels. And since the coronavirus pandemic has transformed daily life, her videos are providing those followers with a welcome distraction.
“I couldn't even tell you how many DMs [direct messages], emails, comments on videos and posts on Instagram that I've received of people just saying, ‘Thank you for creating content that distracts me from the pandemic,’ essentially,” Harless said.
For the month of April 2020 and the date of April 20, 2020—the ultimate 4/20 that many cannabis industry members, patients and customers planned to celebrate with friends and family—most state governments have issued stay-at-home and social distancing measures. That leaves a lot of them scrambling for new ways to celebrate. Will they virtually “pass” pre-rolls via Skype video?
Thousands of these enterprising souls have already been celebrating with Harless, who has been counting down through the 4/20 month, to the 4/20 day, with the Dabvent Calendar. From BirthJays (which makes joint birthday candles) and Higher Celebrations (Higher Celebrations International owns BirthJays), it’s a take on the Advent calendar from Christmastime. For each day from April 1 through April 20, 16 influencers participating in the social media campaign pull a different cannabis brand’s products from a date-marked box on the calendar.
Photo courtesy of Higher Celebrations
The Dabvent Calendar
“I do a lot of different things on social media, but my main channel on YouTube is subscription boxes, and there are a lot of different types of Advent calendars for beauty,” Harless said. “I had never seen one for cannabis. So, I was like, ‘Yes! This is going to be awesome.’”
For cannabis companies looking to invest time, money or both into influencer marketing, it could be worth the effort. A new company called Crappy’s Feel Better Hemp Co., specializing in cannabidiol (CBD), cannabigerol (CBG) and cannabinol (CBN) products, boosted their Instagram followers from 90 to around 1,300 in about the course of a week following their part in the Dabvent Calendar campaign, according to a public relations professional representing Higher Celebrations.
Higher Celebrations, which launched BirthJays in May 2019, couldn’t afford to pay the 16 influencers participating in its Dabvent Calendar campaign, said Taylor Starr, marketing director for the company. But the campaign has still been a win-win, she said, as Higher Celebrations brought attention to itself and the other brands, and the influencers had something to unbox and be excited about.
“Creating these relationships with them was part of this, too,” Starr said. “We really wanted to create relationships across the board with all the brands and all the influencers as well.”
For companies that don’t have the option to pay influencers, Starr said, influencers who are lesser known or have fewer followers can still provide a good return on investment as long as they are in the right target market and have a passionate and loyal following.
Photo courtesy of Higher Celebrations
Higher Celebrations Marketing Director Taylor Starr
“This experience has been really great [because it’s] difficult when you're too small to actually offer something other than product to people,” Starr said. “Our company is not very big. We have two full-time employees and two part-time employees.”
Harless said she has received more followers through the Dabvent Calendar because social media users found her through participating brands and hashtags.
If cannabis companies decide to reach out to influencers to collaborate, they should be genuine and have an aligned interest with the influencer they want to work with, Harless said.
“From my perspective as an influencer, I think that a lot of brands come at me—a crazy amount of brands come at me—through DMs, through my business email and such,” she said. “It’s really easy for me to weed out the ones—no pun intended—that don't really want to work with me, that they copy-and-pasted an email or a directive straight over to me and were like, ‘Hey, you, we’ve been really liking the content you have produced.’ Those automatically get deleted.”
In addition to the Dabvent countdown, Harless has some other 4/20 celebrations on the agenda this month.
“I partnered with a few of my most popular subscription boxes and a few brand-new ones, to promote them during the month of 4/20,” Harless said. “We’re doing some giveaways—like I partnered with The Weed Box at the beginning of the month.”
On April 20, the winners of the giveaways will participate in “a Zoom 4/20 to smoke one together,” she said. “And I think that's going to be a lot of fun.”
eurobanks | Adobe Stock
Adult-Use Cannabis Legalization Initiative Will Not Appear on Missouri’s 2020 Ballot
The chairman of the committee supporting a push to get the issue in front of voters this fall has said that the campaign is over due to the COVID-19 crisis.
A campaign to place an adult-use cannabis legalization initiative on Missouri’s 2020 ballot is suspending its efforts due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Dan Viets, chairman of Missourians for a New Approach, told the Springfield News-Leader April 15 that the petition initiative campaign is officially over due to public response to the pandemic, which is prohibiting supporters from gathering signatures.
The campaign had to collect 160,000 valid signatures by early May to get the issue before voters this fall.
Viets told the Springfield News-Leader that the campaign asked the state to allow online signature gathering under the circumstances, but the effort was unsuccessful.
Missourians for a New Approach plans to resume the campaign next year to get the initiative on Missouri’s November 2022 ballot.
Katherine | Adobe Stock
Ohio Updates Rules on Medical Cannabis Purchases
The Board of Pharmacy has established a new process for calculating a patient’s 90-day supply of medical cannabis.
The Ohio Board of Pharmacy has established a new process for calculating a patient’s 90-day supply of medical cannabis.
The new rules take effect April 17.
The process is aimed at simplifying the way that patients, caregivers and dispensaries calculate days’ supply while ensuring that patients do not exceed the maximum 90-day possession limit outlined in Ohio’s medical cannabis law.
Under the new guidance, a patient’s 90-day supply will be divided into two 45-day fill periods. The first fill period consists of days 1-45 and the second consists of days 45-90, with the first fill period beginning when the patient receives a medical cannabis recommendation.
In each fill period, a patient can purchase up to a 45-day supply of medical cannabis, regardless of when purchases are made within the period, but once a patient purchases a 45-day supply within the fill period, he or she cannot purchase additional medical cannabis until the next period.
A patient is not required to purchase a full 45-day supply of medical cannabis within a fill period, but is only allowed to purchase a maximum of a 45-day supply during the next period, regardless of how much was purchased in the previous period.
Prior to the rule change, days when patients did not purchase medical cannabis were subtracted from their 90-day total, which prevented them from purchasing additional medical cannabis before they reached their 90-day supply limit, according to a Cincinnati.com report.
The Board of Pharmacy’s director approved the new guidance last week under a temporary resolution related to the state’s COVID-19 response, the news outlet reported, and the full board is expected to approve the change next month.
The Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program issued additional guidance last month to help patients maintain access to medical cannabis during the COVID-19 crisis, including a temporary expansion of caregiver registration and new photo identification requirements due to the state’s closure of its BMV locations.
The Ohio Board of Pharmacy has also allowed the state’s medical cannabis dispensaries to offer curbside pickup for patients during this time.
Canopy Growth Scales Back Operations
The Canadian licensed producer looks to slow down cash-burn as new CEO reviews costs.
Canopy Growth, the Canadian LP that once touted itself as the largest cannabis company in the world, is taking drastic steps to reduce its operations and cash-burn rate, ceasing operations at several of its locations.
The company announced it is selling all of its African cannabis assets (located in South Africa and Lesotho) to a local business, with the deal expected to close in the coming weeks. Canopy Growth also is ending cultivation operations at its Latin American facility in Colombia and is shuttering its indoor cultivation facility in Yorktown, Saskatchewan, Canada.
In a statement, the company said it is taking these steps to slow down its cash-burn rate. As it stands, the company is expected to take a charge of up to C$800 million.
CEO David Klein, who took over the reins at Canopy Growth in January, said in a statement, “I believe the changes outlined today are an important step in our continuing efforts to focus the Company's priorities, and will result in a healthier, stronger organization that will continue to be an innovator and leader in this industry.”
As part of this restructuring, the company also is cutting 85 jobs. Additionally, Canopy Growth is ceasing its hemp cultivation operations in Springfield, New York, citing “an abundance of hemp produced in the 2019 growing season.”
“When I arrived at Canopy Growth in January, I committed to conducting a strategic review in order to lower our cost structure and reduce our cash burn," Klein said in a statement.
Editor’s note: This is a developing story that will be updated.
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