TORONTO, April 8, 2021 – PRESS RELEASE – Merrco, a payment processing leader for the cannabis industry, announced that it has launched in the United States for CBD and cannabis ancillary business payment processing, ahead of legislative changes that would enable Merrco to provide payment processing for U.S. cannabis dispensaries and delivery services.

As a leading payment processor for the cannabis sector in Canada, Merrco recognizes the complexity that financial services and banking, and specifically payment acceptance, hold for CBD operators and all businesses supporting the cannabis sector despite the legal nature of ancillary cannabis business in the U.S. Merrco’s focus and experience providing cannabis retailers, producers, operators and those that support them with transparent, compliant and sustainable payment processing solutions in Canada gives it a unique position in the cannabis market.

“We’re very excited about our U.S. launch,” Merrco President and CEO Fern Glowinsky said. “We’re known across the industry as the experts in payments for the cannabis sector, and we have an early mover advantage based on the depth of our experience across Canada. Our U.S. platform is ready to go, and we’re looking forward to bringing the combination of our extensive payments expertise and our broad cannabis sector experience to the U.S. market. We see this as a tremendous opportunity.”

Through its extensive experience managing the complexities of the North American cannabis industry and regulated industry compliance requirements, Merrco has developed dynamic compliance tools and a robust infrastructure that enables the company to process for qualified CBD merchants in the U.S. Based on its ability to support payment processing for CBD products with transparent merchant onboarding, Merrco is uniquely positioned to provide sustainable payment solutions for the market.

Following buzz surrounding delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a hemp product certifying agency has declared its opposition to intoxicating products in the industry.

The U.S. Hemp Authority, an organization that creates regulatory standards and certifies hemp and CBD businesses through third-party auditing, has announced that it won’t certify hemp products that are marketed for their intoxicating effects. This includes any product, including delta-8-THC, that contains “a total tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of more than 0.3% on a dry-weight basis,” the organization said in a news release, which is published on the U.S. Hemp Roundtable website. 

“Recent press reports about the proliferation of potentially unsafe, intoxicating products calling themselves hemp have concerned consumers, retailers, law enforcement and policymakers,” stated Marielle Weintraub, Ph.D., president of the U.S. Hemp Authority. “We felt it was necessary to take a strong stand against these products so that people will know that the U.S. Hemp Authority seal designates products that are truly hemp and that meet our rigorous standards.”

The agency’s announcement follows a warning put out by U.S. Hemp Roundtable not to market hemp products for “any intoxicating value or euphoric effect,” calling it “irresponsible.”

READ MORE: U.S. Hemp Roundtable Warns Against Marketing Psychoactive Properties of Delta-8

Delta-8-THC offers an opportunity to hemp growers at a time when the competition in the cannabidiol (CBD) market is fierce. (Though it is naturally occurring in cannabis, delta-8-THC can be converted in a lab from CBD and delta-9-THC.)

Still, the controversial cannabinoid is debated among the industry over both its legality and the way it's being marketed.

Read more Hemp Grower delta-8 coverage here.

This is a developing story. It has been updated to reflect the governor’s signing of the bill.

The New Mexico Legislature worked overtime, and now adult-use cannabis legalization is official with Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signing legislation into law April 12, following two days of a special session in the House and Senate at the end of March.

The lower chamber cleared the three-time amended adult-use bill, 38-32, March 31, while the upper chamber added one more amendment before passing the bill, 22-15, later that night on the Senate floor, where the bill previously stalled during the legislature’s 60-day regular session that concluded March 20—a halt that sparked Lujan Grisham’s call for the special session.

The House reconvened shortly after the Senate’s March 31 passage to concur the upper chamber’s amendment to the bill, before officially sending it to Lujan Grisham for signing—with her ink this week, New Mexico became the 18th state to legalize adult-use cannabis.

“This is a good bill,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement following the legislature’s passage.

“This special session was a success,” she said. “And the work of making sure that this industry is a success, that New Mexicans are able to reap the full economic and social benefit of legalized adult-use cannabis, that workplace and roadway safety are assured to the greatest degree possible—that work will go on. Change never comes easily and rarely does it occur as quickly as we might like. But with this major step forward, we are signaling more clearly than ever before that we are ready, as a state, to truly break new ground, to think differently about ourselves and our economic future, to fearlessly invest in ourselves and in the limitless potential of New Mexicans.”

One key amendment adopted in special session House Bill 2, which was a continuation of H.B. 12, the Cannabis Regulation Act that the body passed Feb. 26, includes raising the excise tax on cannabis products from 12% to 18% over the course of six years, beginning in 2024, according to chief sponsor Rep. Javier Martinez (D). Under the bill, roughly 4% of the excise tax would be distributed back to the local communities where the cannabis is sold, whether it’s a city or county municipality, Martinez said on the floor March 31.

The House Tax Committee approved the amended excise tax portion of the bill during the first day of the special session on March 30.

“As we embark on building a brand-new industry and we get to set the rules of the game for how this industry will play out … this is a good opportunity to actually raise revenue,” Martinez said. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well get the most we can get without overdoing it to the point where we are maybe undercutting our efforts to get rid of the illicit markets. So, that’s the number we settled on—18% excise tax.”

According to Martinez, economic projections indicate that adult-use legalization would create more than 11,000 jobs and generate $28.6 million in tax revenue in the first year of implementing a program, which H.B. 2 aims to activate no later than April 1, 2022.

Another amendment to H.B. 2 directs 100% of revenue distributions to the state’s general fund, Martinez said on floor.  

“We heard from members of both parties; we heard from members of both chambers that earmarking dollars at this stage of the game, when the framework isn’t even legalized, when revenue isn’t even coming in yet, was not a good idea,” he said. “And, so, we’ve conceded that point. We removed all specialty funds that we had created under the legislation. That’s not to say those funds will not come back.”

Martinez said he’s committed to ensuring those funds are established through legislation in the next regular session, particularly a rural equity fund that provides rural communities that would want to join the industry access to capital and business development support mechanisms. 

Meanwhile, several main proposals of the adult-use bill remained intact, such as allowing adults 21 and older to possess no more than 2 ounces of cannabis, 16 grams of cannabis extract or 800 milligrams of edible cannabis. Adults will be allowed to grow up to six immature plants and six matures plants per household for personal use. The bill also creates 10 license types, ranging from the needs of large-scale vertically integrated companies to small-scale microbusinesses.

Additional foundational principles of the bill include protecting and enhancing New Mexico’s medical cannabis program as well as ensuring social justice when it comes to providing reinvestments toward communities disproportionately affected by prohibition, Martinez said.

During the first day of the special session in the upper chamber, the Senate Judiciary Committee added 11 amendments to an accompanying Senate Bill 2, an expungement measure for certain low-level cannabis arrests and convictions. The next day, on March 31, S.B. 2 passed a full roll call in the Senate, 23-13, and the House, 41-28. Lujan Grisham also signed S.B. 2 into law April 12. 

According to S.B. 2, those serving jail time for cannabis-related offenses would have their cases reviewed by corrections officials within 30 days following the effective date of the Democrat-sponsored bill. In addition, the bill states by April 1, 2022 the New Mexico Department of Public Safety shall review the public records in the state’s criminal history databases and identify all past convictions that are potentially eligible for recall, dismissal and expungement.

The legislature’s passage of the adult-use cannabis and cannabis expungement bills won’t be the end of cannabis regulation in New Mexico; it will only be the beginning, said Sen. Katy Duhigg (D), who sponsored S.B. 2.

“I know that there are going to be a lot of additional improvements in the future going forward,” she said March 31 night on the Senate floor. “But what we have now in House Bill 2 is a solid framework to be able to make a change in our state that is a long time coming.”

Martinez, who has introduced legalization bills four times to House endorsements without final approval, said the adult-use bill that was passed by both chambers on March 31 has been “written, rewritten and amended.”

Nearly 75% of New Mexicans approve of cannabis legalization with provisions in place to ensure tax revenue is reinvested back into communities, including 94% of Democrats, 93% of Independents and 46% of Republicans, according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

When companies raise capital and grow, the No. 1 thing they do is hire.

Vangst, a Denver-based recruiting platform that connects cannabis job seekers with employers, is now better positioned to service that demand after launching its Executive Talent service March 29, with Jennifer Bedford as the vice president.

According to CEO Karson Humiston, who founded Vangst in 2015, more than 210,000 people are directly employed by the U.S. cannabis industry—a Leafly report estimated that number to be even higher, at 321,000—with a 75% growth in employment over the last two years. The new Executive Talent service will help companies secure administrative-level talent as they continue to build out and grow their leadership teams, she said.

“Before hiring [Bedford] at Vangst, we engaged her for our VP of revenue search. It was hands down the best experience I’ve ever had with an executive recruiter,” said Humiston, who turned around and reverse-recruited Bedford to join her team.

Before taking on the vice president of Executive Talent position at Vangst, Bedford was a veteran recruiter at Signal Partners, an executive search firm headquartered in Los Angeles, where she executed executive searches in the legal and compliant cannabis market. And before that, she serviced the consumer-facing tech sector. Overall, she is a 20-year veteran headhunter.

Vangst’s recruiting services include staffing cannabis companies with positions like marketing managers, budtenders and social media coordinators. But, until now, it did not have an executive talent offering—Bedford’s specialty.

“What CEO Karson Humiston has built is pretty much a top-tier staffing marketplace within cannabis, you know, a ZipRecruiter or an Indeed of the cannabis space,” Bedford said. “That’s exactly what we are building is a staffing recruiting talent marketplace within the most explosive growth consumer product sector in North America. It’s going to be super fun.

“We can elevate our game now for Vangst to be able to service the cannabis investors and to be able to service cannabis CEOs who want to build out their leadership teams that populate across the U.S.”

Here, Bedford shares more about how she became an executive recruiter in the cannabis space, tricks of the trade, how she connected with Humiston, where cannabis executives come from, how companies make their hires, how cannabis-sector recruitment stands out, what new states coming on board means for leadership teams and more.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for style, length and clarity.

 

Tony Lange: How did you first get into your line of work?

Photo by Sarah Waters

Jennifer Bedford: I cut my teeth at Korn/Ferry International—an executive search firm headquartered in Los Angeles—which is a really great place to learn the business. Executive search is not for the meek. There’s an art and a science to it. And I got to start with the best people in the business.

My Korn/Ferry days were all about technology. And what I learned the most from cutting my teeth was just knowing how to do this work. Getting top-level executives to get on the phone with you, there’s an art to that. So, I learned early on how to find whom I’m looking for and how to get them to talk to me.

TL: What are some of the tricks of the trade you learned early on in terms of executing leadership-level searches?

JB: The business that I’m in is a hybrid between sales and buying. I always say to people first I’m in sales because I’m trying to get “Tony” to talk to me. I like Tony’s background a lot. Tony looks like he’s a really good fit for that VP of marketing role that I have. I’m looking at Tony and I’m like, “Oh, I like him a lot.” So now I’ve got to get you to talk to me. I’m going to use my emails. If I can find any way to get you to talk to me, I’m going to do that. That’s what I learned at Korn/Ferry, is the relentlessness.

Then when I get to you, I’m going to give you the shortest amount of sell that I can so that you’ll talk to me. “My client is Apple.” Now Tony’s excited about listening to me because, boy, would he love to work for Apple. Once the sell part is accomplished, then I flip to being a buyer, which is now, “How good is Tony?” That is how executive search works. And what did I learn at Korn/Ferry? I learned how to do that.

TL: What else shaped your career path toward the cannabis sector?

JB: After Korn/Ferry, I pivoted into consumer technology, sort of grew up growing Silicon Valley technology companies, building out those leadership benches. And then I showed up at Signal Partners, my recent executive search firm that’s built to service investor-backed and owned operations here in Los Angeles—they’re a national leader as far as associating themselves with the investor side of the house. So, I was introduced to clients through the venture capital firm, or through the private equity firm, and that was Signal Partners’ sweet spot.

When cannabis clients started tapping on my shoulder and I started doing cannabis-related tech searches out of the gate, and started building cannabis technology companies and marketplaces, I went to my partners and said, “You guys, I should just call it our cannabis practice. Can I just put that stick in the sand and call it what it is?” And the answer was absolutely. We created a tech stack that was like a Porsche. To be really good in this business, you’ve got to have a killer tech stack, because if you hire me to do your chief marketing officer search, I want to know within 48 hours who are the best marketing leaders in that lane, and how can I go after them, and how can I find them. That’s what the back of the house looks like when I get an assignment like that.

TL: What year was that when you launched the cannabis practice at Signal Partners?

JB: I would say my phone started heating up with cannabis calls in late 2017, early 2018. And because my network is investors, I’ve spent years building my network of chief executives, executive-level operators, executives in supply chain and executives in technology. So, when those calls started, it was very easy for me to pivot. It was like just another consumer product lane. “Oh, I just did a kombucha search last year. Now I can do this hemp CBD beverage company, no problem.” [CBD is] the fastest growing consumer product category in the world. The same kind of executives want to get into it.

TL: Where are executives who want to join the cannabis space coming from?

JB: Well, the answers are pharma, supply chain, distribution—it’s consumer product boxed categories, technology, etc. So, my job is to sort through all of that talent and find the premier-level talent that is a trusted, vetted-out executive.

TL: Do leadership-level hires often have to relocate?

JB: That’s not a big thing right now with some states still shut down and a lot of people working remote. I don’t think you need to focus too much on that. Companies are making hires based on talent, which is, “Has she done this? Is she a rock star? How do we back-channel her?” I’ll use the edibles category, for example, “Oh, she took that jelly bean company from $650 million in revenue to $1.2 billion in revenue? Let’s talk to her.”

So, it’s much more than location. The concentration from our side of the desk is, what’s the talent? Then, as far as relocating, if you live in Brooklyn but I’m headquartered in Chicago, we don’t care right now. If it’s a job in which face-to-face is critical, then we’ll adapt.

TL: How did your previous experiences align you with your role as the vice president of the new Executive Talent service at Vangst?

JB: If I’ve spent the last 20 years building a prestigious network of killer executives, Vangst likewise has spent the last five years building the best staffing and recruiting brand name in the business. So, it was a really nice fit for me to go, “Oh, these are my people.” I can bring what I do to them.

TL: How did you connect with Vangst CEO Karson Humiston to conduct her vice president of revenue search (before she hired you as a full-time team member)?

JB: I had just finished LeafLink’s chief revenue officer search and recruited a guy out of a software-as-a-service marketplace company, and I had also found LeafLink’s head of insights, so I think LeafLink CEO Ryan Smith had suggested Humiston talk to me. That’s how the introduction was made.

TL: How does being a headhunter in the cannabis space differ from other arenas, and who are your competitors?

JB: Remember, I’m a talent scout at the executive level. Cannabis multistate operators right now want to grow and establish their executive teams. And that’s the sole focus right now is how do we have a big 2021? How do we do that? We do that by having killer executives—smart, social-equity focused, you know, cares about their organization, revenue-driven, all of that.

And so, my focus is on those multistate operators and on existing Vangst clients. We get to elevate Vangst’s clients’ game right now by giving them an executive search offering that they previously had to go out and use a search firm. You could say there’s competitors at the executive-search level with a few boutiques out there—like what I did at Signal Partners—that are doing our work. Those were my competitors then. And you’re starting to hear more search firms starting to put up their little cannabis flags and saying we can do that.

But I’m super proud to walk in the door at Vangst with a deep network of not only existing cannabis executives, but also a thousand executives with their hands in the air waiting to be called on. People want to get into this fast-growth sector.

TL: Companies are obviously counting on you to recommend the right person for the job so that they’re not coming back three months later starting from scratch—how do your executive talent searches ensure matches are a win-win for both employer and employee.

JB: You’re asking the age-old question about the part of the business that’s called human capital, and human capital is not for the meek. If you haven’t done your job right as a recruiter and you didn’t vet out what his or her weaknesses are, or vet out that his or her spouse didn’t want to be in that sector, or that his or her kid needed a special school and that relocating was a bad idea—in the human-capital space, you’ve got to know all that. You’ve got to do that homework and prepare as best as possible for this candidate to be successful at the company.

If somebody falls out at three months, what do we do? Well, there are different contractual promises that I say to a client. But my job is to give you a candidate who is so psyched to grow the business, and I’ve done all the homework to make sure that they’re not going to fall out.

TL: Virginia, New York and New Mexico are some of the recent states making moves to legalize adult-use cannabis. Do you feel more pressure to understand those additional state-legal markets, or are you more excited for additional opportunities?

JB: Great question; it’s both. The excitement level not only is elevating on a state-by-state basis, but also at the federal level. What cannabis has always been from the beginning has been a state-by-state chess game. And we’re all moving our chess pieces one piece at a time. And I think what we’re seeing in the state-by-state legalization conversation is that if you look at New York as an example, we’re getting better at this. As legalization efforts are hitting the East, the cannabis sector is so much more mature now. And if you fold the politics and the social equity components and the expungement components and all of that, really what I call good-news aspects of cannabis legalization, you’re going to see us getting better. You’re going to see this sector getting better. It really is analogous to other growth industries that we’ve seen over time.

And I pay attention to history. I pay attention to industries that have had their growing pains. And, boy, last year with the pandemic was certainly one of them for cannabis because cannabis, yes, we were deemed an essential medicine right at the beginning of COVID-19, but there was also a lot of recalibrating that went on last year. So, I think we’re hitting our stride. I think MSOs, Vangst clients, cannabis companies, cannabis ancillary companies, the technology companies associated with the sector, everybody is really flexing this year. It’s going to be a year in which you’re going to see a ton of growth. And, from my perspective, as somebody who cares about the sector, I want to see that growth from the executive level and from the C-suite. I want to see it done thoughtfully and carefully.