Pennsylvania House Approves Amendment to DUI Law That Would Decriminalize Trace Amounts of Medical Cannabis
The state’s current DUI laws criminalize driving while THC is in a driver’s system, even if it has been weeks since ingestion, and even if the driver is a registered medical cannabis patient.
The Pennsylvania House approved an amendment to the state’s DUI law Oct. 21 that would decriminalize trace amounts of medical cannabis in a driver’s system, according to a Pittsburgh City Paper report.
The state’s current DUI laws criminalize driving while THC is in a driver’s system, even if it has been weeks since ingestion, and even if a driver is a registered medical cannabis patient, the news outlet reported.
The legislation passed the House in a 109-93 vote, and would decriminalize trace amounts of cannabis in a driver’s system if the driver is a legal medical cannabis user, according to the Pittsburgh City Paper.
The bill also clarifies that an individual may not drive under the influence of a controlled substance with the exception of “marijuana used lawfully in accordance with the act of April 17, 2016, known as the Medical Marijuana Act,” the news outlet reported.
The legislation now heads to the Senate for consideration.
Elroi | Adobe Stock
Intrinsic Capital Partners Raises $102M for Cannabis and Hemp-Related Investment
The Pennsylvania-based firm has already committed $65 million to ancillary businesses such as Treez and Hound Labs.
At $102 million, Intrinsic Capital Partners has closed a growth equity fund for investment in cannabis- and hemp-focused life science and technology businesses.
With an overall aim “to build and scale industry-leading companies that address unmet needs across the supply chain,” according to a press release, Intrinsic hopes to do just that here. A team of operating advisors will work to build and scale Intrinsic’s portfolio companies, which so far include ACT Laboratories, Treez, Hound Labs and Elemental Brands. The Pennsylvania-based firm has committed $65 million to these four companies and anticipates directing dollars from the fund to two or three more businesses.
Intrinsic lists four members of its advisory group in the release, all of whom have ties to Johnson & Johnson included in their credentials (as does Cornelius Merlini, one of Intrinsic’s three co-founders and partners). One advisor, Minnie Baylor-Henry, was formerly director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC), the precursor to the federal agency’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP).
Merlini, who before co-founding Intrinsic most recently worked at Endo Pharmaceuticals’ Healthtronics Lab Solutions division, said in the release, “[W]e built a top team of advisors who have scaled valuable businesses and are able to provide our portfolio companies with strategic advice, mentoring, operational support and regulatory know-how.”
Acknowledging that much of the capital invested in the cannabis space has gone to state-legal cultivators, dispensaries and adult-use brands, Intrinsic’s team is focused on investment in ancillary businesses that support the cannabis and hemp markets.
“This is a unique and opportune time for a fund with dry powder to invest in market segments where traditional capital providers and strategic corporations have largely stayed on the sideline, creating price dislocation, attractive private market valuations and ample exit strategies,” said founder and partner Gerald Stahlecker, former president of FS Investment Corporation and executive vice president of FS Investments.
The portfolio companies’ products and services vary, from Hound Labs’ cannabis breathalyzer to Treez’ point-of-sale (POS) system and ACT’s cannabis testing.
Intrinsic’s third partner and founder, Dr. Howard Goodwin, M.D., said the growth of the cannabis and hemp industries represent “a multi-decade secular trend” and “a rare opportunity to invest in a space where there’s tremendous underlying demand, a strong industry-wide growth profile and scarcity of capital."
James Cryer/Jushi Holdings
How Jushi Went 'Digital First' to Meet Customer Demand
At Jushi’s BEYOND/HELLO dispensaries, a shift toward online ordering allowed a new strategy to take off.
When Andreas Neumann joined Jushi Holdings as chief creative director in early 2020, he brought with him a professional background steeped in experiential brand development. He was new to the cannabis industry, but the cannabis industry itself is new to the vast commercial landscape in the U.S. When he arrived, the industry was moving headlong into a conversation about the importance of brand-building for the long haul.
James Cryer/Jushi Holdings
“My vision of the future of branding and communication is really that the experience equals the brand,” Neumann said in recent interview with Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary.
He had been working with Queens of the Stone Age on a possible cannabis brand—something to draw on the band’s long-tenured role as stewards of stoner rock—when he linked up with Jushi. The multi-state operator was planning to overhaul its digital experience, and Neumann’s perspective arrived just in time.
In April, shortly after the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and the series of stay-at-home orders in the U.S., Jushi’s retail brand, BEYOND/HELLO relaunched its website to better accommodate the customer experience and the rise of online shopping. Nuemann said he wanted to blend the digital and physical, using data to understand what Jushi’s customers wanted—and where and when and why they wanted it.
What did he and his team learn right away? “Everybody wants to go to the menu,” he said, so Jushi foregrounded the menu on its relaunch. “And, ideally, they’re already making a decision about what they want to get in the store and where they’re going to get it.” Digital and physical.
Jushi is on the ground in four states, with eight retail storefronts in Pennsylvania, two in Illinois, one in California and one coming soon in Virginia.
Among those customer bases, Neumann said that he noticed 85% of users were approaching the BEYOND/HELLO website from mobile platforms (and only 9% of users coming from a desktop computer).
Blatant statistics like that helped push Jushi’s creative team in the direction of a smartphone-friendly website that allows customers to quickly find what they’re looking for in a way that may match their digitally savvy lifestyle.
“That’s the reality, so you’ve got to build for mobile,” Neumann said. “Overnight, it was an incredible success. I’ve never seen anything like it. People really want the product, and all you can do is support them and make the process as frictionless as possible.”
He suggests cannabis businesses gather as much data as they can about their operations. This can be customer sales trends, vendor purchase order trends and regulatory data already tracked by seed-to-sale software. The key is to put it all together and assemble a meaningful narrative that can then improve on the business-to-customer relationship.
“You’re looking at this digital environment today, and you’re facing all these silos of data,” Neumann said. “If you connect all that, you can create products for the people and focus on what they want.”
Jushi’s vice president of cultivation, Josh Malman, said that this has been an important narrative in the cannabis industry lately.
With more data available to businesses, it ends up being the customer that decides certain moves in product development and innovation. Even genetics selection is something that stems from consumer demand for downstream products like new concentrates or vape cartridges.
“Historically, the grower got to decide what they wanted to grow and they were picking what yielded the most, what was the easiest to grow and what they like to use,” Malman said. “Over the years, that decision-making process has been rolling up the manufacturing department and the retail department, because, at the end of the day, those are the groups that are utilizing this product for end users. Getting to understand what they need for their own processes has been really important.”
It's this merger of front-end consumer data and back-end cultivation decisions that Neumann cited as the real power of harnessing all of this new information. He brought a creative lens through which Jushi could more carefully develop its suite of brands, but he pointed out that creativity is only as valuable as the return that a business sees on the bottom line.
Are all these ideas driving profits? It’s easy to overlook that simple necessity when a business is focused on honing its brand and telling its story to the marketplace. But, of course, sales matter.
“I think adding a team like [Neumann’s] and collecting the data directly from our POS systems and our trending of what the actual patient and customer wants [has been very important],” Malman said. “We continue to drive that progression of crop planning and production planning to a point where the grower is responsible for producing a high-quality output, but maybe has less input in terms of what they get to decide on growing. Some growers may not like that, but for the overall health and growth of the business it is absolutely the right way that we should go.”
Photo courtesy of N'Bliss
A Look at the Two Missouri Dispensaries That Launched the State’s First Medical Cannabis Sales
Executives from N’Bliss and Fresh Green share insight into their journey to serving patients in the state’s nascent market, as well as how the first few days of sales are going.
Oct. 17 marked the first day of medical cannabis sales in Missouri, and the state’s two operational cannabis retailers, N’Bliss and Fresh Green, have had quite the journey to serving patients in the nascent market.
N’Bliss, a subsidiary of Nirvana Investments, opened its first two stores in Manchester and Ellisville on Oct. 17, while Fresh Green opened for business in Lee’s Summit on Oct. 19.
“It was exciting—the energy is real,” N’Bliss Managing Partner and CEO Bradford Goette tells Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary of opening weekend.
Goette says the dispensary could have opened earlier, but the N’Bliss team took their time to ensure a great experience for its first customers.
“Your first sale and transaction should be memorable, but it should be right,” he says. “You should be doing this for the patient, and we want that to go smooth. We know with all the software systems, moving parts [and] compliance, there’s a lot of room for error. We wanted to test things and make sure things were working prior to opening.”
On opening day, the N’Bliss team focused on making the retail experience as seamless as possible for their patients, according to CMO Rebecca Reardon.
“While, yes, we had lines of two hours plus at some points, we were doing our best to get them in and out, [and] we were doing our best to overcommunicate,” she says.
Photos courtesy of N'Bliss
N'Bliss launched the first medical cannabis sales in Missouri at its retail locations in Manchester and Ellisville on Oct. 17.Among N’Bliss’ first customers were a stomach cancer survivor and his wife, who is a registered nurse, as well as an multiple sclerosis patient, Goette says.
“Regardless of the lines, we handled it amazingly well,” he says. “Everything we set out to do from a standard operating procedure to make it work, worked.”
Among Fresh Green’s first customers were cancer patients and one with multiple-personality disorder, and Bianca Sullivan, the company’s co-owner and CEO, says she was surprised at the wide range of patient demographics, as well as customers’ willingness to wait in line, sometimes up to seven hours, to be served.
“It was awful weather, and with COVID, I couldn’t let them in the waiting room,” Sullivan says. “I could only have about 10 people [inside at one time].”
Fresh Green supplemented its THC offerings with CBD products, and the Fresh Green team tried to keep those waiting outside apprised of the dispensary’s product selection as items quickly sold out, so patients weren’t waiting for products that were already gone.
“At the end of the day, when people had waited five, six, seven hours in line, in the cold, they were so happy to be in the dispensary,” Sullivan says. “I was shocked.”
Helping Patients Find Bliss
N’Bliss holds five total retail licenses, as well as a manufacturing and infused products license that it is currently building out under the 5150 N’Fusion brand. The company also holds a transportation license under a separate entity called Bold Lane Logistics.
“Part of our mission is giving back to communities and the places that we serve,” Goette says. “I grew up Ellisville, which is one of the dispensaries that we have open, and then Manchester, which is only about three and a half miles away. [It’s] a very central corridor area, but we have some roots there [and] we also know from a demographic standpoint, there [are] people of varying age groups, varying income [classes], and unfortunately, like a lot of areas, the opioid [epidemic] is prevalent in the state of Missouri.”
N’Bliss’ retail locations, both spanning roughly 3,000 square feet, offer CBD-only products, which customers can access without a medical cannabis card, as well as additional THC-based products for registered patients.
“[The] front end of our locations … are CBD, so any customer can come in without a medical marijuana card and … understand a little bit more about the plant, the hemp plant, the non-THC side of medical marijuana,” Goette says. “And we have a store within a store, if you will. … You have to have a medical marijuana card to go back into our dispensary.”
The CBD-only side of the Manchester store opened in June, Reardon adds, and CBD sales launched at the Ellisville location in August, which allowed N’Bliss’ staff—called “wellness specialists”—to practice using the POS system, loyalty program and other standard operating procedures (SOPs) ahead of the company’s foray into THC sales.
N’Bliss’ main focus is continuing to educate both its wellness specialists and customers on medical cannabis and the dispensary’s specific products, Goette says, and while supply is limited in these early days of the market, the company plans to have a full suite of products available as it moves forward.
The Manchester location is meant to be a welcoming space for patients of all ages, Reardon says. The dispensary’s wellness specialists have been educating guests on how to obtain their medical cannabis cards, and the company has partnered with telehealth platform NugMD to help qualified patients register for the program.
“The fact that we do have CBD and medical marijuana, our goal is just to help everybody in the wellness space and our positioning is to help individuals find their path to bliss,” Reardon says.
N'Bliss' retail locations in Manchester and Ellisville are both roughly 3,000 square feet and offer CBD-only products that customers can purchase without a medical cannabis card.
N’Bliss’ dispensaries feature a private consultation area where customers can receive one-on-one guidance from wellness specialists about what sort of products they are looking for, although the stores only have flower available at this time.
State law requires dispensary staff to work one-on-one with patients all the way through the retail experience, from the time a customer enters the store all the way through the check-out process.
“We really take that to heart, and we want to truly make this an experience for the patient—it is about the patient journey,” Reardon says. “It’s not a transactional approach to business. You’re welcome in the dispensary, and we stay with you as we walk you through. At this point, we take you through … the products are that are coming soon, … when manufacturing is up and running and we have edibles and concentrates and things like that.”
A Family Operation
Fresh Green, owned and operated by Sullivan and her husband, the company’s co-owner and president, applied for and won two dispensary licenses in Missouri, and while the team originally planned to apply for cultivation licenses, as well, they ultimately decided to stick to retail.
“We thought at the beginning we would do cultivation, as well, but the further along down the line we got with it, it was just overwhelming,” Sullivan says. “We want to keep it small, just us, and then hire some people who knew what they were doing, but not turn it over to somebody who would just do the growing for us. … So, we decided to just do the dispensaries, which I think was a good idea.”
Sullivan’s eldest son works at the dispensary, and her younger son plans to join the company after he completes his college education.
Born and raised in Kansas City, Sullivan then attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she majored in biology. As part of her coursework, Sullivan volunteered with an AIDS clinic that was active in the fight to pass California’s medical cannabis initiative, Prop. 215, back in 1996.
“Then, I moved back here to Missouri and never thought I would see legal marijuana again, ever,” Sullivan says. “About eight years ago, there was some talk of it, and … I kept my ears open. When I really thought it was going to happen, I was trying to convince my husband. [I said], ‘I really want to do this.’”
The COVID-19 Curveball
While opening a dispensary in a brand-new market is never easy, N’Bliss and Fresh Green faced a new set of challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In St. Louis County, where N’Bliss’ two operational dispensaries are located, stores can only operate at 25% capacity.
Goette says N’Bliss put patients first when crafting the company’s SOPs and strategies for customer engagement. N’Bliss has a station outside its dispensaries where customers are asked to sanitize their hands and take a complimentary mask—if they don’t already have their own—before entering the store.
All of the company’s wellness specialists also wear masks, and everyone’s temperature is taken before they enter the dispensary.
Sullivan reveals that she was terrified by two things when Fresh Green opened its doors—COVID-19 and navigating Metrc’s seed-to-sale tracking system.
“We had a line of hundreds of people when we opened on Monday, and out of the hundreds of people, there were like 20 without masks,” she says. “We tried to do social distancing, but we had hundreds of people in line—we couldn’t do it. So, somebody called the health department and they showed up 20 minutes after we opened.”
Supply Chain Challenges
As with any new market, Missouri is currently experiencing its fair share of supply chain challenges. Archimedes is the only fully operational cultivator with product available at this time, and a second cultivator, BeLeaf Medical, is currently undergoing testing with product likely available in the coming days, although Sullivan speculates that BeLeaf will supply their own dispensaries before wholesaling product to others.
“I think they’ll be a supplier in January, just not right now,” she says.
Both N’Bliss and Fresh Green have nearly sold out of flower during the first week of sales, although they do still have pre-ground flower available.
“It’s going to take a little while for the industry to catch up for biomass,” Goette says.
N’Bliss has received many questions from patients about why other product categories, such as edibles and concentrates, are unavailable in Missouri, and Reardon says the company is trying its best to communicate the supply chain hiccups to its customers until the state’s medical cannabis manufacturers get up and running.
“Our only ability is to try to purchase from cultivators, and we feel like over time, things will normalize,” Goette says. “Our structure and our focus is to keep the actual plant as affordable as possible, given this current environment.”
Sullivan says her second biggest fear—working within Metrc—has presented inventory management challenges for Fresh Green on top of the supply chain woes. During the dispensary’s first two days of sales, she said “something seemed a little off,” prompting her to shut down sales for an hour or so to ensure seed-to-sale compliance.
Sullivan’s husband was stationed in the dispensary’s vault for the first two days of sales, bringing product out so it could be counted manually.
“Even though we had it in the system, he was telling me what we had left just to make sure what I showed [in Metrc] was what we had, just so we didn’t oversell something,” Sullivan says.
Fresh Green received its flower in pre-packaged eighths and has been limiting patients to one eighth of flower per customer.
“I felt really bad, but I knew I’d feel worse if I only helped like 30 people and they could get as much as they wanted to,” Sullivan says, adding that if customers traveled a long way to the dispensary, she made an exception and let them have two one-eighth packages.
Fresh Green is currently selling four different varieties of flower with varying levels of THC, and Sullivan says the dispensary’s highest THC offering sold out first.
Continued Growth and Expansion
N’Bliss currently employs 25 to 30 staff members at each of its two locations, for a total of roughly 60 employees. As it moves forward, the company will look to hire passionate people who are looking for not just a job, but a longer-term career in cannabis, Goette says.
“You’re not looking for just a lot of just ‘yes’ people, you are looking at people that will challenge [themselves] and will do a really good job with those roles that they’re put into, that are leaders of the company,” he says.
Sullivan is looking ahead to bringing on more employees, as well; while the dispensary employs more than the staff members currently working in the dispensary in these early days of sales, she is keeping some team members home due to COVID-19 restrictions that limit the dispensary to 50% occupancy.
But, she adds, the future in Missouri is bright, with roughly 70,000 patients already enrolled in the medical cannabis program.
“We are definitely here to stay,” Sullivan says. “Our long-term goal is just to help as many people as we can."
Editor Cassie Neiden contributed to this story.
Seattle’s First Black-Owned Dispensary, Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis, to Open this Month
Shawn Kemp will be joined by former Supersonics Teammate, Gary Payton, to celebrate the grand opening on Friday, Oct. 30.
SEATTLE – Oct. 22, 2020 – PRESS RELEASE – Six-time NBA All-Star Shawn “Reign Man” Kemp, the legendary Seattle Supersonics power forward whose athleticism made the team a Western conference powerhouse in the 1990s, is getting into the cannabis game. Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis, located at 3035 1st Ave., in the heart of the city near the Climate Pledge Arena and famed Space Needle, will become Seattle’s first Black-owned dispensary with its opening on Friday, Oct. 30.
Joined by his former teammate, Hall of Famer Gary Payton, Kemp will commence the celebration with a green ribbon cutting ceremony at 12:45 p.m., followed by an official opening to the public at 1 p.m. “I’m looking forward to welcoming Sonics fans on a regular basis, starting with opening day,” said Kemp, who calls Seattle home and has invested in the city through several business ventures.
Kemp, who is entering the fast-growing cannabis industry for the first time, is partnering with industry veterans Matt Schoenlein and Ramsey Hamide, two of the co-founders of Main Street Marijuana. Main Street Marijuana has remained the number one cannabis retailer in the state of Washington since the company’s inception in 2014. The brand’s three shops have surpassed $150 million in sales and have contributed more than $55 million in excise tax.
“My name is on this company and I have worked hard to bring Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis to fruition,” said Kemp. “I want to provide nothing short of the best selection, customer experience and prices in Seattle. I have incredible partners in Matt Schoenlein and Ramsey Hamide to make sure we deliver on that promise to our customers, who are our top priority.”
Kemp, who spent the first eight years of his 14-year NBA career with the Supersonics, looks forward to being a role model for future license recipients through the state’s upcoming social equity program, created earlier this year. “I hope that Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis will be an inspiration for people to get involved with the legal cannabis industry, especially people of color,” said Kemp.
The opening of Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis will unveil a new art piece displayed on the building’s exterior from well-known local muralist, Jeff Jacobson, also known as Weirdo. The 30-by-80-foot mural is rich in color and depicts Kemp playing basketball in his Seattle Supersonics uniform.
Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis will be open from 8 a.m. – 11:45 p.m. daily and will offer express order kiosks, online ordering and curbside pickup. Health and safety measures will include social distancing protocols and mask requirements in accordance with state mandates.
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