Vermont Lawmakers Consider Legislation to Expand Cannabis Expungements
House and Senate leadership support a measure that would automatically expunge criminal records involving the possession of two ounces or less of cannabis.
Vermont lawmakers are considering legislation that would expand cannabis expungements in the state by automatically expunging criminal records involving the possession of two ounces or less of cannabis, according to a VTDigger report.
The move comes as lawmakers in the House and Senate work on a final bill to tax and regulate cannabis sales.
House and Senate leadership say they support the expungement provisions, which would also decriminalize the possession of up to two ounces of cannabis, VTDigger reported. Under current law, possession of up to one ounce is decriminalized, according to the news outlet.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Sears (D-Bennington) told VTDigger that passing the expungement measure in the coming weeks, while the legislature reconvenes for a special budget session, is a priority. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Maxine Grad (D-Moretown) has also indicated support for the proposal, according to the news outlet.
“Criminal records are a barrier to employment, serving in the military, student loans, housing, and it’s very important to help folks with these criminal records get justice and clean their records,” she told VTDigger.
The expungement provisions come as lawmakers faced criticism from advocates for crafting a bill to legalize cannabis sales without adequately addressing racial justice issues, the news outlet reported.
While lawmakers backing the expungement measure have indicated that they don’t know how many records would be cleared under the proposal, the new law would likely impact thousands of past convictions, VTDigger reported.
Even if S.54, the larger piece of legislation aimed at creating taxed and regulated cannabis sales, fails to pass this year, Sears told VTDigger that he wants the expungement policy to be part of a separate bill, and he wants it to cross the finish line during lawmakers’ special session.
Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary Launch ‘Best Cannabis Companies To Work For—2021’
The awards program will identify and recognize the best employers in cannabis cultivation and dispensary markets.
Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary have launched the Best Cannabis Companies To Work For—2021. The awards program will identify and recognize the best employers in cannabis cultivation and dispensary markets, continuing the recognition the media brands debuted this past year.
A ranking of the “Best Cannabis Companies To Work For – 2021” in cultivation and retail will be revealed in Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary in early 2021.
The survey is organized and managed by the Best Companies Group (BCG), an independent research firm specializing in identifying and recognizing great places to work.
“We were thrilled to work on this project last year and to not only recognize great cannabis companies, but also learn more about what makes certain cannabis companies so successful in creating positive work environments,” Editorial Director Noelle Skodzinski said. “Competition for talented employees is now even more intense, due in part to the economic pressures of 2020, and this program also can help ranking companies attract great talent.”
Here’s what you need to know to get involved:
Enter as either a Cultivation Operation or a Dispensary Operation (or both):
• Have 50% or more of the business coming from either - Cannabis Cultivation Operation; or - Cannabis Dispensary.
• Be a publicly or privately held business
• Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business
• Be based in the U.S. or Canada
• Be legally licensed to cultivate or sell cannabis for medical and/or adult-use under a state regulatory framework (or federal program if in Canada)
• Have a minimum of 15 full-time or part-time employees working in the U.S. or Canada
• Be in business a minimum of one year
• Be willing to be featured in Cannabis Business Times and/or Cannabis Dispensary, if your company ranks on the Best Cannabis Companies to Work For lists.
Assessment Description
The process includes two surveys to gather detailed data about each participating company. BCG conducts the surveys, analyzes the data and determines the winners and rankings.
Part I – Employer Benefits & Policies Questionnaire: The employer completes an online survey, detailing company policies, practices, benefits and demographics.
Part II – Employee Engagement & Satisfaction Survey: Employees complete a survey of in-depth statements using a scale of five points ranging from “Agree Strongly” to “Disagree Strongly.” (Employee responses are provided only in aggregate; no individual employee responses are shared with employers.) The survey also includes seven demographic and two open-ended questions. It can be given online or by paper, if a full company employee email list is not available.
Participation in the “Best Cannabis Companies To Work For" survey and ranking is free, but management teams may request the full employee feedback report generated by the Best Companies Group process. The cost of that report is based on the number of employees working at the company.
Now more than ever, a cannabis business’s web presence ranks among the most visible entry points for both new and longtime loyal customers. Your website is where important news, menu offerings and contact information are gleaned. It’s a place that calls for strategic investment.
KindTyme is a boutique creative agency that specializes in the hemp and cannabis businesses. Co-founders Bridget Renee (brand strategist) and Ryan Michael (director of operations) said that business owners would do well to keep the consumer in mind when planning out a web presence—much like most other operations in cannabis. The end user will guide your intent.
“I think at the end of the day, from a consumer perspective, people have incredibly short attention spans these days,” Michael said. “And that’s something that a lot of our dispensary clients don’t seem to realize.”
Here are four tips from the KindTyme team for optimizing your hemp or cannabis business’s web presence.
The key is to remember how your customers are already using the internet for commercial shopping opportunities—and then find your niche in that space. That brings us to Tip No. 1, Manage load times.
“Make sure that you have an ultra-fast load time that is going to bring them right into your site so they don’t think that it’s not working,” Michael said, referencing a problem that any internet user has surely run into before. This goes double for mobile optimization: Make sure your site is responsive on mobile platforms, and cut out the videos for that smartphone-friendly version.
Michael cited Wordpress as a common content management system (CMS) that’s both easy to use and relatively speedy. And he pointed out that hiring a developer to look over your shoulder and address the more granular aspects of a website is a helpful starting point. A web developer will help guide you through nuanced components of the overall design—like image compression and image file type, two potential obstacles that could slow down a website’s loading time.
Of course, part of this comes down to trust. The highly technical side of web development is not necessarily a skill set that we all possess, and oftentimes this stuff can go over a business owner’s head. It’s vital for the business owner and his or her team to trust any web developer who’s brought in.
Michael provided an example of a cannabis client that used website hosting service that simply couldn’t handle the volume of traffic that eventually showed up. The website crashed, and the client couldn’t make heads or tails of what went wrong at first.
So, here’s the next tip: Know your partners.
Web design and hosting can be intimidating topics for the uninitiated, so it’s important to know who you’re working with on these types of projects. Michael pointed out that there’s a lot of technical jargon associated with web work. Try to learn as much as you can, but make sure you’re placing your trust in a team that can execute and guide you to your goals.
And web design isn’t something that exists in a vacuum. It’s a vehicle for sales, and you’re looking for customers to convert. To do this, don’t forget this underlying principle: Understand your customers’ expectations.
“If you are a dispensary that offers a very boutique, up-scale experience, your website should really match that, and the experience that they have within the website should really match that,” Michael said. “If you are more of a counter-culture, maybe you’re by a skate park and you feed toward that end of the industry, then you want to make sure that the website experience mimics that as well.”
Much like the interior design of your store, the look and feel of your website should clue your customers into the experience of your business. There should not be any questions left unanswered—questions like, “What is this store?” “Who are they trying to engage?” “Where am I?” The atmosphere and messaging should take care of that.
And, in some cases, people are simply buzzing through the website to pick up some quick information. They may be planning a visit later, but their pass-through on the website is a key touchpoint for that eventual sales opportunity. This is where clean design can really help.
“A lot of the time, people are just looking for delivery or they’re looking for prices or they’re looking for hours, so we usually for most stores recommend finding a way to have those things in the front [of the website],” Michael said, “but then finding clever ways to walk them through what the experience would be from there.”
A helpful way to keep in contact between website visits is a regular newsletter service. This is where dispensary owners can really load up on their own marketing language and home in on particular deals in the store. It’s something that will involve a bit of constant oversight and editorial guidance, so it’s best to understand the creative bandwidth of your team before embarking on a subscription-based newsletter for your customers.
“For anything digital marketing, newsletter or otherwise, these are all great tools to have and it’s certainly a good idea to be gathering emails on your website, but I wouldn’t put it front and center unless you plan on making it a pivotal part of your marketing strategy,” Renee said.
Lastly, remember: This is an ongoing process.
So much of your digital marketing efforts will revolve around your website—newsletters, social media, SEO strategies, contests, sales. By knowing your customers’ expectations and designing from there, you’ll find yourself on the vanguard of the market you’re serving.
“I think the most important fundamental piece to a good SEO strategy is the website itself,” Renee said. “There are a million ways you can build websites to be not very search engine-friendly, and knowing how to design and develop a website for good SEO is kind of an art in and of itself.”
It can be easy to fall down the wormhole and get trapped in the minutia of web metrics, constantly second-guessing how your website is performing. But Renee and Michael pointed out that it’s a slippery slope.
SEO is a complex paradigm for understanding the web. It’s a learning curve that can complement your understanding of your own business.
And much like your store, engagement is the bottom line.
“Most people get super caught up in how many visitors they’re getting,” Michael said. “And that is not the most important metric. The most important metric would be how long those visitors are actually staying on your site and how many pages they are exploring.”
Good, clean website design is the path that will turn an unknown IP address on the vast plains of the internet into a loyal customer who comes to enjoy the experience you’re providing.
“[Your website] is the central hub of everything marketing if you’re using this correctly,” Michael said. “It is so much more than a digital business card.”
Sweet Dirt Highlights Commitment to Maine in Transition to State’s Adult-Use Cannabis Market: The Starting Line
Executives from the Maine-based company discuss their plans to transition from a medical cannabis operator to a vertically integrated adult-use business.
Maine announced last week that adult-use cannabis sales will launch Oct. 9, nearly four full years after voters approved legalization in November 2016.
Despite the years-long rollout of the adult-use market, Jim Henry, CEO of Sweet Dirt, a medical cannabis operator that holds multiple conditional licenses in the adult-use program, says Maine’s cannabis industry will be worth the wait.
“They’ve done their diligence and … they’ve been incredibly thoughtful about this,” Jim says. “The length of time that the rollout has taken has certainly been challenging and sometimes, to some individuals, frustrating. But I think the state has done a really nice job and they’ll actually have a really nice program.”
Sweet Dirt was founded in 2015 by a married couple, Hughes and Kristin Pope, who were registered caregivers under Maine’s medical cannabis program. Operations ramped up near the end of 2018, when they opened their first storefront for medical sales.
Then, at the beginning of 2019, Sweet Dirt began raising capital to acquire and build out additional cultivation, extraction, manufacturing and retail facilities in preparation for the adult-use market. The company then began applying for adult-use licenses at the end of that year, when the licensing applications became available, and filed its applications in early 2020.
“This sounds like a long time out, but we were under the impression that adult-use would probably be happening right around the first quarter of 2020,” Jim says. “There were some hiccups along the way, and then we experienced a global pandemic, which slowed things down, as well.”
Overall, though, Jim says Maine’s Office of Marijuana Policy has done “a very nice job” with the rollout of the adult-use market.
“Both the state and the municipalities have really studied what happened out west in places like Oregon, California and Colorado, and tried their hardest to make sure that they did not see the same kind of hiccups that some of those places saw,” he says.
From Disaster Comes Opportunity
Sweet Dirt was on track to be a vertically integrated medical cannabis operator in Maine when a fire damaged the company’s indoor cultivation and extraction facilities, as well as its commercial kitchen, in June 2019. No one was injured, the facilities were fully insured, and from the disaster came opportunity, as Sweet Dirt pivoted its business plan toward the next chapter.
“It allowed us to rethink how we were going to attack the adult-use market,” Jim says. “We saw it as an opportunity. Again, lots of challenges came out of it [and] it was not a perfect situation, but we certainly saw the opportunity in that.”
Sweet Dirt is headquartered in Eliot, Maine, right along the New Hampshire border. The town has been very accepting of the cannabis industry, Jim says, and voted in 2019 to allow adult-use businesses within its borders.
“One of the things that the state of Maine has done well, is they’re allowing municipalities to decide their own fate in this program, and municipalities get to decide whether they opt in,” he says. “Some opt in through elections, some opt in through city council, but they’re allowed to opt in.”
Eliot was one of the first municipalities to opt in to the program, Jim adds, and Sweet Dirt plans to be vertically integrated there with cultivation, extraction and manufacturing facilities, as well as a medical and adult-use dispensary.
Photos courtesy of Sweet Dirt
Sweet Dirt plans to be vertically integrated in Eliot with cultivation, extraction and manufacturing facilities, as well as a medical and adult-use dispensary.
The company holds five conditional adult-use licenses from the state—two for cultivation and three for retail—and it is awaiting conditional approval on a manufacturing license. In addition to Eliot, Sweet Dirt has applied for municipal licenses in Portland and Waterville.
Sweet Dirt reworked the facilities on its existing plot of land in Eliot after the fire and ended up constructing a 32,800-square-foot greenhouse that the team calls “Shangri-La.”
“In a manner of speaking, it’s a religious experience being inside it,” Jim says. “It’s quite the facility.”
The company expects the project to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year, just in time for the launch of adult-use sales.
A Commitment to Maine
As Sweet Dirt transitions to the state’s adult-use cannabis market, the team is committed to celebrating its Maine roots through its brand aesthetic.
VP of Marketing Rebecca Henry says there is an appreciation for craft businesses in Maine, from food to the craft beer industry, and Sweet Dirt is looking to offer that same craft experience in the cannabis market.
“What we’re trying to achieve is elevating the brand, the conversation and the buying experience, making it something where you’re going into your friend’s upscale home and purchasing and feeling it’s a friendly, safe place to buy clean, quality product and to explore and learn,” Rebecca says. “We’ve created that really inviting environment in our stores and packaging. We’re very focused on the communities we serve. We’re careful in the products we’re curating, the products we’re producing and even our packaging so that what’s getting dumped into our local transfer stations and dumps is as friendly as it can be to the environment.”
Sweet Dirt is building out a 32,800-square-foot greenhouse in Eliot that the team calls "Shangri-La."
Sweet Dirt is certified through the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), which recognizes organic farmers and food producers in the state.
“I think fewer than 15 of the thousands of caregivers in the state voluntarily sought out that status, where we would have inspections and certain quality control that we’d have in place and measures to ensure we’re growing truly organic and organically grown product, certified clean,” Rebecca says.
Maine welcomes about 36 million tourists per year, and in addition to local traffic, Sweet Dirt anticipates a boost from tourism when the adult-use market finally launches.
“That from our standpoint is a huge advantage,” Jim says. “We have really looked at the way that we position our location in Waterville in central Maine by the ski resorts, by the Belgrade Lakes, [and] in Portland, … in the largest municipality in the state, where all the cruise ships come into town and where the airport is. … And then Eliot is right on the border of Maine, where 10,000 cars travel over the bridge every Saturday morning from the eastern seaboard and … their first [stop] in the state of Maine is Eliot. We’ve really looked at the tourism market in the state and adjusted our strategy from that standpoint.”
When hiring new employees for its expansion to the adult-use market, Sweet Dirt focuses on customer service and product training to ensure the staff is prepared to serve an expanded customer base.
“If we hire the right people and we are diligent from day one about making sure that they understand what this company is about and the ethos that this company is trying to portray to the general public, then I think we’ve done a really nice job from a hiring standpoint,” Jim says.
Sweet Dirt plans to hire an additional 125 to 150 employees within the next year, and the foundation is what Jim calls “one of the best executive teams in the entire state,” which is 70% female.
“We have been very diligent about the people that we’ve brought on board from all walks of life, some from in cannabis, some from out of cannabis,” he says. “But everybody on the executive team brings something to bear that has made this a special organization.”
Leaning on Lessons Learned
Jessica Oliver, Sweet Dirt’s VP of Cannabis Operations, has worked in Maine’s medical market for nearly a decade, and she says adult-use businesses can learn from the medical industry’s early growing pains.
“I remember when this program launched in 2011 with everybody scrambling for supply and limiting what folks could purchase,” Oliver says. “To see the medical market evolve into such a mature market is something we’re really looking forward to for adult-use, but we also know we’ll have the challenge of the product supply chain meeting demand. I think our experience in dealing with that in the medical market gives us a confidence and a path forward to get through that in adult-use.”
Oliver also expects regulations to become less stringent as the market matures.
“As we’ve seen in other states, the legislative statutes can perhaps be a little bit tight at the beginning, and then as the governing bodies get a little bit more comfortable, things change and loosen up, so we’re preparing for and anticipating the changes to come and also pivoting where we need to [in order] to meet the standards right out of the gate,” she says. “I would say we all in all feel well-prepared for the challenges that we’re going to face.”
Sweet Dirt VP of Cannabis Operations Jessica Oliver says the company can take lessons learned from balancing supply and demand in Maine's medical cannabis market to overcome the challenge of the supply chain meeting demand in the forthcoming adult-use market.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also taught Sweet Dirt some valuable lessons, while changing the way the company does business.
Maine has experienced a 30% increase in medical cannabis enrollments since the pandemic began, Oliver says, which has increased medical cannabis sales across the state. Maine’s medical cannabis businesses were deemed essential during the state’s coronavirus-related shutdown, and Sweet Dirt was able to retain all its staff—and even expand—while many businesses in other industries were furloughing and laying off employees.
“I think we’re extremely fortunate to be in an industry that is clearly recession-proof,” Oliver says.
“From day one, from the moment that this pandemic started, we have, as an organization, taken our employees’, our customers’, and our vendors’ health and safety as paramount,” Jim adds. “It’s more important than any business plan we have. We were able to incorporate that attitude with continuing to build out. Certainly, things might have taken a little bit longer than they would have previously, but the process of getting to adult-use is taking a little bit longer because the state, the OMP and the legislature all felt the same challenges that we did. So, we feel like we’re in this together.”
Sweet Dirt has implemented curbside pickup and social distancing into its policies and procedures, and over the next several months, the company plans to ensure all of its new stores are built out and opened, new employees are hired and trained, and that it has the right supply and the right partners to meet market demand.
More Opportunities Ahead
In the longer-term, Sweet Dirt would like to not only grow its existing supply chain, but also expand to additional municipalities in the state.
“One of the things [Jessica] taught me very early on is, in this industry, you can never have enough space,” Jim says. “We have acres of land that we are using, and we always find that we can always use more space.”
Sweet Dirt will also strive to maximize efficiency as it settles into the adult-use market, he adds. “We want this to be an organic, well-thought-out product that comes from our cultivation, but we also want to make sure that we’re maximizing the efficiency so that we can have the most amount of product and the best product out there for our customers.”
“You can’t get a better state than the state of Maine for an industry like this,” Jim adds. “It really is the dream state for this, from a geographic standpoint [and] a topical standpoint, from the rocky shores to the mountains to the beaches. … This is about a company that is really committed to that state and making sure that we not only brand ourselves as it relates to being a Maine-based company, but [that we also try] to give back to a state that has really given our employees so much."
stokkete/Adobe Stock
New York State Pushes Back on Interim Final Rule, Sets Up Farmers for USDA Permits in 2021
New York officials have requested an extension of 2014 Farm Bill policies.
New York agriculture regulators are preparing hemp farmers for the USDA permit process ahead of the 2021 season, citing “unrealistic” policies in the interim final rule, according to a recent WSHU report.
As this current season has gone on, states have lined up their own regulatory regimes for the burgeoning hemp industry. These new laws must be aligned with and approved by the USDA. But some states—like New York, North Carolina and others—have soldiered on under the 2014 pilot program guidelines. For any state continuing under the 2014 regulations, the expiration date is coming up fast in October of this year.
New York officials have requested an extension—through the 2021 season. And furthermore, they’ve announced that they will not be submitting a plan to the USDA this year.
The news came in a letter addressed to hemp growers. Read the full letter below.
“In October 2019, the USDA issued its Interim Final Rule governing the licensing and cultivation of hemp,” the letter states. “The Department found substantial elements of the USDA’s requirements to be very challenging and contrary to Congress’ objective of stimulating the hemp industry. The Department shared its concerns with the USDA in hopes of timely revisions for the 2021 planting season. Unfortunately, as of today, the Interim Rule remains unchanged. It is the Department’s view that many of the requirements concerning the scope and timing of sampling and testing, the disposal of non-compliant plants, and reporting are unrealistic and impose unreasonable burdens on growers and any state interested in administering a compliant program.”
As of now, the only other states pursuing the USDA license plan are Mississippi and New Hampshire.
Cannabis Business Times’ interactive legislative map is another tool to help cultivators quickly navigate state cannabis laws and find news relevant to their markets. View More
Melissa Schiller
Eric Sandy
