Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has expressed his support for legalizing adult-use cannabis to help the state’s $3.2 billion deficit, according to a CBS Pittsburgh report.
“If only there was a widely-consumed unregulated cash crop, wholly confined to the black market, that could generate billions of dollars + 1000’s of jobs + help PA farmers,” Fetterman said on Twitter last week.
He anticipates that the tax revenue from adult-use sales could generate nearly a half a billion dollars annually, CBS Pittsburgh reported.
“There’s already a thriving marijuana market in PA,” Fetterman told the news outlet. “Why not make it legal, why not make it safe and why not make it taxable to help PA get back on its feet?”
Southern University is one of two medical cannabis license-holders in Louisiana. As part of the state’s legislation, the school must partner with a private business to grow and distribute products. The school’s expertise is meant as a research-grounded backbone for the business enterprise.
Baton Rouge-based Ilera Holistic Healthcare contracted with Southern University in late 2018 to begin cultivating cannabis and developing products for Louisiana patients. (The school had previously contracted with Advanced Biomedics, which didn’t get far with its cannabis cultivation plans.)
Now, Ilera is bringing its products to market. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate, Ilera is making its tinctures and topicals available to Louisiana’s nine licensed dispensaries (“pharmacies” in the state’s terminology). As the state law is written, flower is not permitted.
“The more products which come on board, the cheaper the cost becomes and the easier access for patients,” H&W Dispensary owner Henry Ruston told the newspaper. “One of the biggest challenges we had was changing the stigma of marijuana. We had a lot of patients in pain and they were thinking of marijuana as smoking up and stuff, but this is something you just put under your tongue.”The other player in the state’s medical cannabis market is Louisiana State University, which first worked with GB Sciences out of Nevada to cultivate its plants. In late 2019, GB Sciences sold its Louisiana subsidiary to Wellcana Group.
While the state’s medical cannabis law was approved by legislators in 2016, the path to a competitive marketplace has been slow. Along the way, companies have come and gone, while patients have railed against regulators and businesses for delaying access to medicine. Even now, with Ilera formally entering the retail end of the supply chain, prices remain high across the state.
Beginning next month, however, physicians in Louisiana will be allowed to recommend medical cannabis for any condition that is “debilitating to an individual patient and is qualified” to be treated. The thinking is that this will open the marketplace to more patients and galvanize the supply-and-demand curves.
Paul | Adobe Stock
Former Steep Hill Labs CEO Sues Company and Investors to Block Sale of Assets
Former CEO and Chairman Jmichaele Keller alleges in his lawsuit that the sale of assets to competitor EVIO would dismantle Steep Hill’s business and decrease shareholders’ value.
Former Steep Hill Labs CEO and Chairman Jmichaele Keller is suing the company and its investors to block the sale of certain assets to competitor EVIO, Inc., alleging that the transaction would “dismantle Steep Hill and strip shareholders of value,” according to a press release issued by PryorCashman LLP, a Los Angeles-based law firm representing Keller.
The deal “includes a series of internal transactions that would dilute existing shareholders from 100% of Steep Hill’s equity down to just 4%,” Keller’s attorney, PryorCashman’s Thomas Vidal, said in a public statement.
Keller initially filed the suit earlier this year in San Francisco Superior court, accusing Steep Hill and various stakeholders—including Merida Capital Partners, Mitch Bryan Baruchowitz, Jeffrey Monat, Gotham Green, Richard Jacinto II, Stephen Joseph Finfer, Randy Slifka, Jane Wright-Mitchell and Dr. Andrew Rosenstein—of abuse of fiduciary duty, abuse of control, corporate waste, fraud and concealment, misrepresentation of stock ownership and proxy voting, and more.
Keller alleges that Steep Hill’s board and management “ran the company into the ground” and “squandered between $75 million and $200 million of shareholder value” after ousting him from the company in August 2018, according to PryorCashman’s announcement.
Keller’s complaint and the subsequent PryorCashman press release made public the previously confidential details of the transaction between Steep Hill and EVIO, according to a press release issued by Steep Hill this week.
Under the deal, Steep Hill plans to sell its genetics-related intellectual property and genetics team to EVIO, and Keller’s lawsuit alleges that he was terminated because he resisted “efforts by a ‘cabal’ of investors seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of shareholders,” according to PryorCashman’s release.
“It is the company’s position that the claims laid out in the complaint are without merit and appear to be motivated by Keller’s attempts to blame innocent shareholders for enforcing their rights and attempting to seek recovery for his alleged malfeasance, breaches of shareholder trust and other actions as detailed in the company’s arbitration complaint,“ Jeff Monat, Chairman of the Board of Steep Hill, said in a public statement.
Steep Hill has an ongoing lawsuit against Keller and his management company, Delft Blue Horizons, for corporate malfeasance, among other allegations, which was filed in January 2019.
Both parties are awaiting their lawsuits to be heard, and as Steep Hill prepares its arguments, it is considering seeking restitution from PryorCashman, as well as the disqualification of the law firm as Keller’s counsel.
Success Centers Equity for Industry Program Manager Angela White (left) and CEO Liz Jackon (right)
Photo by Jennifer Skog
Success Centers Helps Fill Dispensary Jobs in the Bay Area with a Focus on Social Equity
The California-based organization connects employers with qualified job seekers and has helped cannabis companies find candidates under San Francisco’s Equity Program.
California-based Success Centers launched roughly 40 years ago to assist youth released from detention centers with life skills and employment. Now, the organization has expanded to the cannabis industry, where it helps connect employers with qualified job seekers in the Bay Area with a focus on social equity.
Success Centers assists job seekers in multiple industries, from construction to the arts, and hosts Employer Spotlight hiring events to connect employers with job seekers. To serve the cannabis industry specifically, Equity for Industry Program Manager Angela White has created the Budding Industry Job Shop, where several employers give presentations about their companies and what a day in the job looks like.
“We’ll have the job description pulled up, and what’s different is we’ll have questions from the audience of job seekers,” White says. “We want to have a good retention rate. We don’t only want people hired at these companies, but we want them to feel comfortable and safe and … to be a good fit there.”
Following the events, employers interview potential candidates, and Success Centers is an active participant in the process, ensuring job seekers have all the necessary resources.
Under San Francisco’s Equity Program, cannabis dispensaries must staff 35% of their operations with social equity applicants, and Success Centers works specifically with these companies to connect them with verified candidates.
The organization also assists social equity applicants who are trying to launch their own businesses through its Equity for Industry Workshops, which connect entrepreneurs with cannabis industry professionals who can help them set their plans in motion.
“If you’re affected by the war on drugs, that means you didn’t go to college—a lot of folks didn’t—your family was separated and you don’t know a lot of the business acumen,” White says. “We bring in industry professionals to teach [entrepreneurs] about the different aspects of the business. We have all kinds of workshops [covering topics such as] how to understand contracts, understanding nondisclosure agreements, managing a cash-only business [and] insurance.”
Success Centers recently hosted a workshop on extraction, as well as a presentation on California’s track-and-trace system.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the organization’s events have shifted to the virtual space, and White says she has seen an increase in out-of-state participants.
“I have people from Georgia joining in and Alabama because they want to know about this industry,” she says. “As the industry becomes legal across the country, … the equity community is all over, and we want them to be ready and understand … how they can get their foot in the door.”
Another aspect of Success Centers’ budtender education focuses on the terminology of the legal cannabis industry. Job seekers learn about terpenes, for example, and how to talk with customers and patients about terpene content.
“Some of the dispensaries, they’ll have these three qualifying questions when people go to apply,” White says. “If you don’t know those terms, … you’re denied right away, so I wanted to eliminate that. Learning the lingo is very important for folks from our community.”
Success Centers has partnered with Eminent Consulting in Oregon to provide a budtender training course that teaches the science behind budtending, and the organization offers a scholarship to help with the cost associated with the program.
Photo courtesy of Success Centers
Many of Success Centers' in-person workshops have transitioned to the virtual space since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To help teach job seekers and entrepreneurs the fundamentals of business, Success Centers also collaborates with Oaksterdam University.
“We have a cannabis scholarship for folks that want to learn the business side, and they learn everything from how to purchase the plant to how much moisture should be in it to how to lay out their building,” White says. “They cover all of that in their seminars, and they also have an exam … at the end so they can get their certificate for completing the program.”
Oaksterdam University also offers a 14-week horticulture class that teaches the fundamentals of indoor and outdoor cannabis cultivation, from lighting to pH levels.
“It’s a wonderful program, and we’re happy to be partnered with them,” White says. “They understand what it means to our community to have this opportunity, so I really appreciate the team at Oaksterdam University.”
Although Success Centers’ cannabis programming is still fairly new (White says the program launched roughly two and a half years ago), it has already celebrated its first award-winning budtender. William Brown, one of the first cannabis clients White ever worked with, was named the 2019 Budtender of the Year for his work at Harborside’s Oakland dispensary.
“I’m really excited about that,” White says. “It’s been an awesome journey, having someone actually win something like this. … When he got his trophy, it was so funny—I drove to meet him over in Oakland, and he had his trophy with him, and I was smiling harder than he was. I felt like I won the trophy.”
In order to reach more people, Success Centers recently launched a pilot program called Entrepreneurship in a Nutshell, which supports those looking to launch businesses in the industry.
“It gets people in the entrepreneurship mindset, and it helps them work with business models [and] put their ideas together so that they’re ready to start a business at the end of that,” White says. “They win prizes and have an opportunity to get out and pitch their business in front of investors. We just keep trying to grow the program, growing people who want to participate and work.”
Looking ahead, White would like to create a mentorship program where entrepreneurs have the opportunity to discuss their business plans with industry professionals, who can then offer their experiences and guidance.
“We’re just really excited about the future of this industry,” White says. “It’s a rough journey, and we want to be here to make sure our folks are getting in. We would love to move this across the nation, building a model for how things should be done."
Lightshade Acquires Sacred Seed in Denver
Selecting Lightshade as Sacred Seed’s buyer was an important decision for the local mom-and-pop dispensary owners, who wanted to make sure their values aligned with the ultimate purchaser.
DENVER (July 7, 2020)--PRESS RELEASE--Lightshade, a Colorado cannabis dispensary, has expanded its retail presence in Denver with the acquisition of craft cannabis retailer Sacred Seed. The purchase (5885 E. Evans Ave. in Denver) grows Lightshade’s number of dispensaries to nine. Lightshade has dispensary locations in Aurora, Denver and Federal Heights.
Selecting Lightshade as Sacred Seed’s buyer was an important decision for the local mom-and-pop dispensary owners, who wanted to make sure their values aligned with the ultimate purchaser. Lightshade is one of the last independent dispensary chains. This was a major factor for Sacred Seed co-founders Jennifer Kilbourne, Jeremy Kilbourne and Gabriel Gaston, who built one of Colorado’s original and beloved dispensaries with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
“Our plan is to honor the original store, the hard work and intention that was put into building this great small business, as we bring it into the Lightshade family,” said Lisa Gee, Director of Marketing & CSR, Lightshade. “Lightshade is one of the last independent dispensary chains in Colorado. We want to show the value of these independent dispensaries and the value they bring to their neighborhoods.”
Established in 2009, Sacred Seed has been recognized for outstanding customer service and connoisseur quality cannabis. “Lightshade is as passionate about quality cannabis as we are, and we were impressed with their processes. That’s why we feel good passing the torch on to them,” said Jennifer Kilbourne, co-owner, Sacred Seed. “The fact that it is going to a Colorado company with similar values gives us great peace of mind that our loyal customers will continue to have access to the quality cannabis products we’ve always provided.”
Jennifer will stay on at Lightshade. Co-owner Jeremy Kilbourne will now devote his time to his nonprofit The Mask Project, which makes and donates protective masks to fire departments and assisted-living facilities in Denver and Elizabeth, Colorado.
“We are proud to add the Sacred Seed location to the Lightshade family of dispensaries,” Gee added. “We’re especially proud to carry on its mission of offering connoisseur-quality cannabis and value pricing.”
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