When white smoke appears high up above St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Catholics around the world rejoice. A new pope has been chosen. Habemus papam! We have a pope! No more black smoke, but white smoke and joy.
But the smoke color seen by Catholics is not a direct sign of God. What they are observing is the result of burning paper and straw. The smoke color, either white or black, was controlled originally by burning dry (white) or damp (black) straw. Today additives are used to control the smoke color: Black smoke is achieved by including coal tar and sulfur; white smoke results from added sugar and pine rosin. (And don’t we all like some good rosin.)
Cannabis cultivators and connoisseurs have come to believe that, like the white smoke seen in St. Peter’s Square, white ash left behind in the bowl from smoking cannabis is a cause to celebrate. Black ash, they believe, signifies that the plant was not flushed to remove minerals, nitrates and pesticides. White ash, in contrast, symbolizes properly flushed, dried and cured material.
Cannabis users rejoice when ash is white, but are they worshiping false idols?
What if the color of the ash is not a divine sign but a serendipitous occurrence linked to secular, mundane factors?
A Chemical Background
Seeing divinity in fire and ash is not new or unique to cannabis consumption. Ash itself is a trinity; it is a complex mixture of charcoal, char and minerals.1 As is often the case, more knowledge and insight mean less mystique. But there are ways in which knowledge gained can open new opportunities. If we used to ask a burning bush for answers about divinity, we now look to a burned bush for answers about forest fires.2 Research into ash from wildfires points to burn temperature as the main factor in determining ash’s properties.3 With increasing combustion temperature, the charred organic material and organic nitrogen concentrations decrease, and the ash color lightens from black to gray to white.4 The lightest color ash is mostly made up of crystalline or amorphous inorganic compounds.5 Further research has yielded additional insight.
At burn temperatures below 450 degrees C, combustion is far from complete, and the ash from low-temperature combustion is rich in organic compounds, with carbon as the main component. The combustion process progresses with increasing temperatures (above 450 degrees C), and carbon becomes volatilized, meaning it turns into a gas. What remains is mineral ash, composed mainly of calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, silicon and phosphorous in the form of inorganic carbonates. When the temperatures increase even further (above 580 degrees C), the most common forms of minerals are oxides.6 Another victim of higher combustion temperature is the ash’s total nitrogen content, as nitrogen has a low temperature volatilization.7
Insights from Tobacco Ash
Cannabis consumers are not the first to be obsessed with the color of their ashes—the tobacco industry has studied ash color for quite a long time. Already 100 years ago, scientific literature explored the plant ingredients that support or inhibit tobacco burn. It was described that chlorides prevent complete combustion, which then inhibits flavor and aroma. Potassium salts of organic acids, on the other hand, aid in combustion and increase the fire-holding capacity.8
Realizing the importance of potassium salts and other alkali and alkali-earth metal salts, U.S. federal and state agricultural departments, along with academic institutions, began to study the effect of fertilizer use on tobacco smoke and ash.9 Researchers found that fertilizer treatment neither altered the alkali composition of the cured leaves, nor increased the sulfur levels in the leaves. What did make a big difference in tobacco smoke quality was the fermentation process, specifically the high concentration of chlorophyll in low-quality tobacco products.
Early on, white ash in tobacco cigars and cigarettes was accomplished by adding magnesium or calcium acids, nitrates or carbonates. Burning any of these acids in your cigarette will cause alkaline earth metal oxide to form, which imparts a white color to the ash that is left behind.10
The main takeaway is that white ash forms at high combustion temperatures and is mostly made up of minerals. This should lead us to question the doctrine that white ash comes from flushed cannabis plants.
A Flushing Theory Debunked
Picture Partners | Adobe Stock
If ash color is not the sign of quality we thought it to be, what are the factors that affect the quality of a plant or plant part after harvest? If we look at relevant industries, such as tobacco or produce, we would think about nutrient content, humidity, temperature, the addition or removal of light, the reduction of the ripening gas, ethylene, and time.
In the general horticulture world, the word “flushing” refers to the act of running a known liquid through a plant’s root ball in order to change pH or media electrical conductivity (EC). To cannabis growers, flushing means something very different: It refers to growers using low-EC water for irrigation during the last few weeks prior to harvest. The thought is this “flushes” out the nutrients from the media which, in turn, flushes them from the plant. The theory is that this ultimately yields a better-smoking flower. We’ve heard explanations supporting this theory that make no sense, such as, “It removes minerals from the plant,” and we’ve heard more plausible theories, such as, “Nutrient deficiency encourages ripening.”
My immediate thoughts go to outdoor cannabis. What about cannabis grown in living soil? Media besides rockwool will never get to an EC low enough to cause true deficiency in a matter of a week or two.
The only scientific paper we’ve seen to date on cannabis and flushing is the thesis “Irrigation Management Strategies for Medical Cannabis in Controlled Environments,” written by Jonathan Stemeroff, while he was pursuing a master’s degree at The University of Guelph. In his thesis, Stemeroff completes a series of experiments testing the nutrient content of dried bud after flushing. He finds that in his numerous flushing experiments, elemental content is not depleted, and yield is not impacted. Basically, unless you are using a rockwool media, you will never lower EC enough to cause true deficiency in a one- to two-week period.
This research does not address the many other things that could be contributing to a better smoke, but it does destroy the theory that flushing removes nutrient elements from a plant. It also encourages the sustainable and cost-effective practice of not applying fertilizer in the last two weeks of growth, as element concentrations were not affected by the low-EC water. Further research should be conducted to complement this study examining the effect of flushing on carbohydrates, chlorophyll, etc.
Other Horticultural Practices for Better Smokability
Another horticultural practice growers perform to improve smokability is turning the growing lights off for a few days before harvest and using no lights during drying. This ritual is supported by numerous studies on various types of live plants and harvested/detached plant parts rapidly decreasing in chlorophyll with the absence of light. It is shown that reducing the amount of light given in the final two days before harvest and during drying slows the degradation of sugars, and decreases starch content.11, 12, 13 Perhaps jump-starting the degradation process before harvest does ultimately increase quality in terms of smokability, which we expect to be represented by a whiter ash color.
Furthermore, another method cultivators perform to increase a product’s smokability is to drop the temperature the last few weeks of the flowering cycle. The temperature drop increases the purple pigmentation to those varieties that have this genetic predisposition. Research has shown that photosystem shutdown causing chlorophyll degradation is increased at low temperatures, even with light. Could dropping the temperature and turning out the lights improve your product’s smokability and smoothness of smoke, and cause a whiter ash? Very possibly, but remember the challenge of removing resulting humidity and the increased risk for botrytis growth at lower temperatures.
What This Means
So, it appears the manipulation of temperature and light with the goal of chlorophyll degradation and sugar transformation are major contributors to a pleasant smoke and “white” ash, not a good pre-harvest “flush.” This is an example of how easy answers based on poorly informed beliefs likely are not correct. That said, rituals and belief systems that every grower brings into how they grow cannabis might still result in their desired outcome. Just keep in mind that putting a golden calf on top of your stash might mask the underlying scientific reasons for your success, therefore causing you to miss the opportunity to further improve upon your practices.
Dr. Allison Justice is the co-founder of SC Botanicals and the founder of The Hemp Mine. Dr. Markus Roggen is the founder of Complex Biotech Discovery Ventures.
How Bloom City Club is Growing Into Michigan's Newly Regulated Medical Cannabis Market
Features - Cover Story
Ann Arbor’s Bloom City Club promotes local community values and upholds the vision of its female founders.
“You won’t see any pot leaf symbols outside of the store, which is why Bloom City Club is often confused with a floral boutique,” co-owner Patrick Kinney says.
Miller Avenue shoots west out of downtown and ducks under the Ann Arbor Railroad tracks before winding into a scenic residential neighborhood that wraps snugly around a baseball field and the lush greens of West Park. Beneath the rail line, a colorful mural greets drivers and pedestrians: WELCOME TO WATER HILL.
The team at Bloom City Club, a medical cannabis dispensary located next to the railroad overpass, helped pay for the supplies to make that mural happen in 2016. Between local arts projects and community events, co-founder Allison Ireton and the dispensary staff stay involved with the cultural efforts of Ann Arbor’s Water Hill neighborhood.
“Anytime somebody in the neighborhood asks us to do something, we basically say, ‘yes,’” she says.
This is the fundamental promise of the business: to play an active role in uplifting the community. The way Bloom City Club sees it, this is how a low-key medical cannabis market is going to become a statewide industry: It all comes back to the importance of establishing local roots.
From left: Patrick Kinney, co-owner, Allison Ireton, co-founder, and Craig Terrell, co-owner.
The shop itself is a neat 960 square feet of retail space, tucked in among tall, leafy trees. The building’s woodsy charm comes from a fresh face-lift on a mid-century auto garage. A blue, two-story house next door serves double-duty as a break room and office space.
“You won’t see any pot leaf symbols outside of the store, which is why Bloom City Club is often confused with a floral boutique,” co-owner Patrick Kinney says. He and Craig Terrell bought the company toward the end of 2017, as the state’s medical cannabis regulatory overhaul was settling into place. (In 2016, lawmakers enacted a sweeping set of retail regulations to bring dispensaries into a more structured licensing regime.) Ireton and the original all-female management team stayed on to shepherd the original, altruistic vision of Bloom City Club into a new era of Michigan medical cannabis.
“It’s really appealing from the outside,” Kinney says. “That kind of sets the stage—you know, that curb appeal—but once you're inside, people are really comfortable [and] at ease with the whole experience.”
Inside the remodeled space, patients are greeted with a warm sitting room draped in ocher tones. Nicely worn metal shelves and elegant wood tables display product samples and an array of non-cannabis wares: rolling papers, glass pipes, bottled water.
“We love brands like Tom’s of Maine and Whole Foods, so we wanted to [reflect those brands’ approach and] offer high-quality, organic, clean medicine,” Kinney says. “We wanted to create a space that felt accessible and safe to first time—or first-time-in-a-long-time—cannabis patients. Our goal was to normalize the cannabis buying experience, so that a customer didn’t feel like they were doing something illegal or controversial. To achieve that effect, we used tried-and-true customer service principles like the ones our manager brought with her from her experience [working] at the Ritz Carlton.”
Those principles include attire and tone: Budtenders at Bloom City Club blend dressy and casual attire, and the conversations in the shop echo the sort of rapport one might build with a concierge at a charming hotel in the city. The dispensary was born in Michigan’s gray market, with no real business model template to follow. The structure of what a dispensary could be was theirs to create. By taking cues from the hospitality industry, the business became just that—a brand that sought out an engaged clientele looking for reputable products and results—patients seeking a discreet vape product to combat insomnia or a topical that might ease the pain of arthritic wrists.
“Prior to it being a licensed provisioning center, it was one of the only women-owned dispensaries in Michigan, and when we acquired the business in late 2017 when the state licensing system was established, we continued to have a women-led management team,” Kinney says.
By attending to the shop with a bespoke, feminine touch, Bloom City Club’s community involvement and attentive customer service could be seen for what it is: a sense of altruism baked into a budding business.
Building the Club
Bloom City Club officially opened in January 2018, when a new slate of medical cannabis regulations went into effect in Michigan. Before that, the business’s history stretches back to 2015.
Ireton co-founded the business with Dori Edwards, who had been learning how to develop a retail enterprise in Michigan’s medical cannabis industry for a few years. Edwards previously owned and operated Ganja Mama’s Treecity Health Collective in Ann Arbor. “When Michigan legalized medical marijuana [in 2008], I took it upon myself to advocate for our civil right to have a choice for our own bodies,” she told a local newspaper in 2017, reflecting on the path that led her to open Bloom City Club in 2015, when she met Ireton.
While Edwards was leaning into the early days of medical cannabis in Michigan, Ireton was coming out of law school, landing work with a Detroit-based firm. She started her own legal practice in Ann Arbor in 2013 and met Edwards while working with Business Networking International. Her legal background complemented Edwards’ interest in progressive advocacy, and the two founded Bloom City Club to further express their own expertise in a new American business landscape.
Bloom City Club trains its staff to develop a rapport with patients.
Now, the company holds a legal provisioning center license.
Kinney and Terrell offered the business acumen, the third leg of the foundation required to build a long-lasting private enterprise in a marketplace that’s got nowhere to go but up.
The company locked down local and state licensing and brought the business model it had developed in the gray market into the burgeoning new landscape of medical cannabis in Michigan.
Listen First, Sell Second
“We cater to patients and customers who place a high value on knowing they are getting the best product for their condition, because someone spent a lot of time listening to them,” Kinney says.
This is important: The Bloom team learned early on that competition is the natural state of things in the cannabis market; patients and customers can go anywhere for products. But the relationship that a business builds with its patient base is the intangible bottom line that drives successful cannabis endeavors.
“One of the things that we absolutely do at Bloom is engage the customer in a conversation,” Ireton says. “You know, ‘What brings you in today? What have you tried before? What are you medicating for?’ We really get to learn a little bit about the patient and develop a rapport with them first.”
The hospitality-type approach to Bloom City Club’s patient engagement set it apart in the gray-market days, and it’s what it hopes will distinguish the business from others in the coming Michigan adult-use marketplace. Patients—and, eventually, customers of all stripes—come to licensed dispensaries with varying degrees of knowledge and experience with the plant. The key, from a retailer’s perspective, is to establish a baseline.
Mass media has left a lasting image of what “weed” is. Smoky, powerfully pungent. And that can be the case, indeed, when you’re enjoying a pre-roll with friends. But Ireton says that the budtender staff often meets with newer patients who’ve got that deer-in-headlights look, men and women overwhelmed by the sheer variety and customization of the cannabis experience in 2019.
“You know, people thought their only option was something that was going to really stink up the house and smell,” Ireton says. “When you tell people they can just take a capsule, they're like, ‘Oh, I had no idea that was something that you could do.’” She references the trial-and-error process that so many patients work through, experimenting with products in vain. In the absence of any clear-cut research for the interested medical cannabis patient, a lot of the education needs to be proactive and come from the dispensary staff.
A priority from the beginning was to make women comfortable at the store.
Targeting potential patients through marketing is also key, and the business tailors much of its promotional efforts to women.
“Everyone knows a lot of buying decisions, specifically around medical issues, are generally made by the woman in the family,” Kinney says.
And Ireton follows up: “Women in their late 40s, early 50s, who shop here—they come in and they're like, ‘Oh my god, I had no idea that this is what the dispensary would be like.’ Everybody expects it to look more like somebody's basement or Cheech & Chong. … If a woman feels comfortable shopping in a location, generally men will as well; whereas, if you kind of target men, specifically, it's probably going to be not as women-friendly.”
That’s the calculation that Bloom has bet on, and so far, it’s been successful.
“A lot of guys shop at Bloom,” Ireton says, “because we have very knowledgeable, engaging sales staff, and they like to talk cannabis. But we don't turn off the Baby Boomer and the middle-aged Gen-X female population that definitely doesn't want to go into a store where there's some [staffer] who doesn't really know what they're talking about, just trying to sell joints.”
Connecting Community and Cannabis
With Ireton and Edwards and a growing team guiding Bloom City Club into a new frontier of medical cannabis, the business placed itself right in the middle of a real network phenomenon.
Ann Arbor, a college town of about 121,800, is a particularly progressive bastion in Michigan. The city, as such, was ripe for a medical cannabis business community in the year leading up to full-scale regulation.
In 2010, Edwards co-founded the Ann Arbor Cannabis Guild, which was created to foster collaboration among the early businesses in the city’s medical cannabis market, like Ganja Mama’s Treecity Health Collective. The early cannabis advocacy work that Edwards helped pioneer was a local foundation for the medical cannabis dispensaries now operating in Ann Arbor.
“That group engaged pretty heavily with the local government and other community leaders to normalize the whole business,” Kinney says, “so we weren’t viewed as outcasts.”
Ireton agrees, adding that a tenet of the guild’s community engagement comes in the form of fundraisers and partnerships—classic methods for integrating a common cause through various organizations. Bloom City Club has gone on to host fundraisers for Safe House, a local domestic violence shelter, which roots the business in that supportive space in the city. The company has also raised cash donations for Make-A-Wish Michigan (through a manager’s participation in the 100-mile Wish-A-Ride bicycle event) and the Magic Heart Foundation.
Even closer to home on Miller Avenue, the dispensary lends its name and financial support to sponsorships of local arts and music festivals and neighborhood art projects—like the Water Hill mural. These sorts of things Ireton calls “deep local sponsorships.”
“If a woman feels comfortable shopping in a location, generally men will as well …” – Allison Ireton (below), co-founder, Bloom City Club.
Having local and state licenses is a legitimizing force, a record that makes official Bloom’s place in Ann Arbor. As such, the opportunities to engage the local community are even greater. At the same time, the need to present a professional approach to cannabis became paramount.
“When the time came to operate in the licensed market, we found that traditional business models needed to be applied to achieve success,” Ireton says. “For example, it is a lot easier to educate an empathetic and skilled salesperson about the benefits of cannabis, than it is to train someone to be an empathetic listener who can connect with a patient.”
There are pros, of course, to working in a licensed and regulated cannabis retail space. The supply chain becomes more regimented, more sharply defined for businesses finding their place in a state like Michigan.
But there are growing pains, too. “The new regulated system gives us the protection we lacked in the past, but it has cut us off from some of the really good growers and processors that can’t afford or have chosen not to enter the licensed market,” Ireton says.
The mood in Michigan in 2019, however, is one of eager anticipation, of forward-thinking aspirations. The state is preparing its rules for the forthcoming adult-use market, even as it continues to issue medical cannabis licenses. Bloom, with its early-adopter status in Ann Arbor, is keeping its eyes fixed on the horizon.
“Being one of the first fully licensed provisioning centers in Michigan, we are very well positioned to grow in this new market,” Kinney says. “Obtaining that license early in the process has allowed us to remain open during this transitional period when many other provisioning centers were forced to close. This has been reassuring to our original customers as well as to a lot of new customers who have had to find a new place to shop as the businesses they used to frequent have been closed or have been open sporadically as they go through the licensing process.”
There were 13 medical cannabis dispensaries operating in Ann Arbor’s gray market, according to Ireton. At least nine licensed provisioning centers are open now, and the city has capped its retail licenses at 28.
The Bloom City Club team meets weekly for mandatory employee “huddles” to review everything from new products to updated rules and regulations from the state.
Controlled Expansion
The next stop for many Michigan cannabis businesses is vertical integration, and the Bloom City Club team is already at work on plans. The company’s cultivation facility is in progress, and its processing center is up and running with six employees.
Kinney says he’s hoping to see Bloom City Club expand to an additional five stores by the end of the year.
To accomplish this and other goals, Bloom’s management team makes sure that all employees are on the same page. If communication with patients is one key to success, then internal communication is another.
“One thing we're very diligent about is holding [mandatory] weekly employee ‘huddles,’” Ireton says. “We use this time as a chance to share information about the industry, any new rules that the state may have issued, new products that we may have acquired since the last meeting, and quick refreshers on everything from salesmanship to merchandising.”
All budtenders at Bloom City Club get their start at the front desk. “This allows them the opportunity to get to know our regular customers, learn our point-of-sale system, familiarize themselves with our products, and integrate into the team without the pressure of having to answer potentially difficult sales questions,” she says.
Products are marketed and merchandised with that in mind.
Kinney compliments the benefits of the sales-team training: “[Patient] trust means everything to us.”
Bloom’s cannabis consultant—Julie Barron, a licensed medical counselor with Blue Sage Health Counseling—consults with medical patients. “Usually, [patients] have very dire diagnoses—terminal or close to being terminal diagnosis for cancer,” Ireton says. “[The cannabis consultant] speaks on a regular basis with medical practitioners at the University of Michigan who are willing to listen and are curious. And, believe me, it has changed so much in the past two years. Before, they wouldn’t talk to you. Now, they’re reaching out and asking for information [about medical cannabis research]. That’s been really nice.”
This is the ongoing game of settling into a regulated space in Michigan and in Ann Arbor. The expectations of medical cannabis businesses are quickly changing, especially in a state that has been familiar with cannabis sales, in a broad, quasi-legal sense for more than 10 years. Now, the script is evolving.
“We are still curious to see what the effects of all the competition are going to be,” Ireton says, pointing to the other provisioning centers that have been identified to open in Ann Arbor, as the state continues its slog through the formal licensing process. There are a lot of unknowns in Michigan these days. “We’re not the cheapest dispensary in town, and you know, for sure, every now and then we get a complaint about that, but we're also not the most expensive by far,” she continues. “We just try to provide as much value as we can.”
For example, based on Bloom’s menu, aggregated via Leafly, one gram of Durban Star is $18; a one-gram Cannalicious cartridge of OG Kush is $50.
“We’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll be able to compete,” she says. “When you look at the outside operators that are coming into the space, certainly it’s better to have local connections. I think people in Ann Arbor do care about doing business with locally owned businesses rather than the larger out-of-state operators. But we still don't know what that's going to look like yet.”
“We’re not resting on our laurels, by any means,” Kinney says.
Essential Guide to the Cannabis Extraction Industry
Supplement - Precision Extraction Solutions Guide
Business, Profits & Opportunity in the Fastest-Growing Marijuana Niche
Plant physiology: A true hybrid in form. S.A.G.E has a medium internode length, which allows for deep light penetration and good airflow. It borrows its terpene and cannabinoid profile from its narrow-leaf ancestors but gets its large resinous bracts and overall flower structure more from its Afghani side. Not as tall as most narrow-leaf varieties, but taller and more Christmas-tree shaped than most Afghani-based hybrids.
Average yield: Highly dependent on the cultivation technique. Under double-ended (DE) fixtures indoors, it typically yields 1 Kg per 1,000-watt fixture.
Flowering time: Indoor: 63-70 days; Outdoor: ready for harvest in mid-October at 35 degrees latitude
Ideal light intensity: If growing indoors, close proximity to heat from lamps may cause foxtails and new growth late in flowering.
Ideal cultivation environment temperature: 72 degrees to 80 degrees Fahrenheit
Ideal cultivation environment relative humidity: 45%-55%, though due to its resistance to mold and mildew, S.A.G.E. may be grown in more humid conditions.
Water needs: Warmer temperatures will require more frequent watering.
Nutrient needs: S.A.G.E. tends to like a light feeding regimen with an electrical conductivity (EC) of 0.8 to 1.8.
Cannabinoid profile: Type 1 with little to no CBD. Typically tests over 20% THC.
Terpene profile: Terpinolene, ß-caryophyllene and pinene give S.A.G.E. its herbaceous, sagey, sandalwood aroma indicative of true old-school California landrace-based varieties.
Susceptibility to any diseases/conditions: Shows little susceptibility to disease and high resistance to mold and mildew.
Mojave Richmond is the developer of many award-winning varieties such as S.A.G.E., which served as a springboard for creating many notable cultivars. Richmond is a founding member of BioAgronomics Group.
Attracting a Global Audience
Features - Features
Cannabis Conference 2019 featured the most robust educational program and exhibit hall to date.
The “Global Cannabis and Your Role” keynote panel featured (left to right): Cannabis Dispensary’s/Cannabis Conference’s Noelle Skodzinski as moderator; Washington’s Finest Cannabis’ Crystal Oliver; The Farm’s John Billings; Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions’ Rino Ferrarese and Thomas Schultz; and RD Industries/Rare Dankness’ Scott Reach.
Cannabis professionals from 48 U.S. states and 29 countries gathered at the Westgate Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nev., April 1-3, for the third-annual Cannabis Conference. World-renowned speakers, cannabis industry leaders, representatives of some of the most successful cultivation and retail businesses, and exhibitors showcasing state-of-the-art technology, services and solutions, made up the record-breaking crowd for Cannabis Conference 2019.
Cannabis Conference is produced by the award-winning publications Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary. It is the only North American conference focused exclusively on cannabis cultivation and dispensary businesses. The conference is steered by an advisory board of cultivation and dispensary experts and featured more than 40 education sessions led by more than 90 industry experts. The 70,000-square-foot sold-out exhibit hall showcased technology and solutions providers serving cannabis cultivation and dispensary businesses and doubled as a networking space.
“The depth and breadth of the conference agenda was outstanding, and it gave both newcomers and industry incumbents the insights they need to make a meaningful impact to their business strategy,” said Guild Enterprises co-founder Claudio Miranda, who is also on the Cannabis Conference Advisory Board and a speaker.
William Morse of Total Health Cultivation said, “... This conference had the feel of cooperation, and of a genuine sense we all have to expand our knowledge about this miraculous plant. … I look forward to attending this event in the future!”
“The information and first-hand knowledge being presented at the Cannabis Conference delivers a unique opportunity to get an education from experienced individuals in the cannabis industry,” said Nick Jack, Diego Pellicer - Colorado’s chief retail officer, who also served on the conference advisory board and spoke at the event. “The connections you can make are invaluable, and the conversations with other industry experts provide unique insight into the industry in other parts of the country.”
John Cochran, COO of Harvest Health & Recreation, delivered the Welcome Keynote, sharing key insights from his decades of experience in the beverage industry and what cannabis companies can learn from businesses that produce alcoholic beverages. Cochran is the former CEO of Pabst Brewing Company, and former president and COO of Fiji Water Company.Lissa Lawatsch, general manager for Las Vegas Releaf, moderated the panel, “Successfully Expand Your Medical Dispensary to the Adult-Use Market,” and was joined by Spencer Knowles (center), vice president of sales and business development for Sira Naturals, and Claudio Miranda (right), co-founder of Guild Enterprises.Conference attendees could visit with representatives from more than 120 companies providing solutions specifically for plant-touching cannabis businesses in the more than 70,000-square-foot exhibit hall.Jeremy Sackett of Cascadia Labs (left), Jeremy Plumb of Pruf Cultivar (center) and Andrea Sparr-Jaswa of Farma led a discussion on “Science That Sells: Debunking the Sativa and Indica Myths.”Cresco Labs co-founder and CEO Charlie Bachtell (left) and Diego Pellicer Worldwide Director and Chief Strategy Officer Nello Gonfiantini III led a session on expanding or franchising your cannabis business.In a pre-show workshop, Rich Kwesell, Strawberry Fields’ co-founder and co-owner, detailed ideas for streamlining supply chain processes and maintaining efficient inventory management.Coming off the heels of a successful event, the highly anticipated Cannabis Conference 2020 will take place at Paris Las Vegas. Attendees and exhibitors appreciated the opportunity to network during Cannabis Conference. One post-survey participant wrote, “What a great event. We made so many new connections.”Skodzinski (left) moderated a panel featuring Anna Shreeve, president, Urban Paragon (middle) and Debby Goldsberry, executive director, Magnolia Wellness, who provided recommendations for launching a profitable dispensary, including how to work with municipalities and regulatory committees, and how to develop a strong team.During a session titled “Foolproof SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and Employee Handbooks,” Laura Day, director of operations at Oregon-based Yerba Buena, discussed how to train employees on SOPs and how managers can use them to monitor and improve staff performance.
Legislative Map
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
Eric Sandy
