The Broccoli Report
Monday, December 26, 2022
Time to read: 3 minutes, 45 seconds. Contains 750 words.
Good morning!
I’m just popping in for a short news update today—I’m in holiday mode this week. I hope you’re all getting time to catch up with life things and clean house before the new year arrives—that’s how I like to try and start things off. Clean kitchen; clean ashtrays; clean, open space to fill with fresh creative inspiration and goals. That—and cleaning is my #1 procrastination activity, so it’s an investment in January Lauren.
December Lauren is keeping it chill til then—no newsletter this Friday. I wish everyone a happy, happy New Year! I’ll see you next week. ✨
One-Hitters: Cannabis News at a Glance
I’ve got an issue with a point made in last week’s edition of Bloomberg’s cannabis business newsletter. Author Tiffany Kary discussed the continued decline in the average price per gram at the counter ($9.43) and described a situation happening in mature markets as “peak weed”—specifically, that dropping prices are tightening margins for the industry instead of attracting new buyers. Kary cited some grim statistics: “The compound annual growth rate from 2022 to 2026 is only anticipated to be 1% in Colorado and 2% in Oregon, according to BDSA.” (Compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, is a formula for calculating return on investment.) While I don’t doubt the figures, I don’t think this means “peak weed”—it means “peak people-who-were-already-open-to-weed.”
There is an upside to those numbers—they show the limits of using price to lure customers. Rock-bottom prices aren’t the answer to the bigger issue the industry faces. Just 18% of Americans reported smoking cannabis last year. Even if you cushion it a few points, 18% is nothing. Millions of adults over 21 seeking remedies for pain, anxiety, and boredom have yet to set foot in a dispensary. For these folks, price isn’t the primary obstacle—it’s the fact that they still haven’t seen the right evidence or heard a testimonial from the right person in their life to make them feel comfortable trying out cannabis.
There’s trouble in Dutchie’s paradise. The cannabis tech company, once valued at $3.75 billion with a B, laid off 67 employees in June. Then, in November, founders (and brothers) Ross and Zach Lipson hired a new CEO that turned around and ousted them from the company. The Lipson brothers filed a lawsuit against executive chair Tim Barash and a handful of Dutchie’s board directors last week, claiming a “blatant ambush” at a fateful Nov. 28 board meeting.
As I was perusing Google search trends for the latest cannabis queries, I came upon an unexpected CBD search term: erectile dysfunction. Apparently, a lot of folks are Googling, looking for CBD gummies that can help ED. This, even though there's no evidence that CBD can effectively treat it. However, because it was/is a trending search term, it activated the affiliate-link content machine, and now there are a bunch of articles that seemingly validate this theory. It’s a case study of how quickly an irresponsible medical claim can take on a life of its own.
In other unexpected news, there’s a cool secret cannabis moment in a recently released Netflix documentary. In “Take Your Pill: Xanax”—a documentary exclusively about its titular drug— a doctor explains why they always recommend cannabis before they prescribe an anti-anxiety medication, talking through how weed can allow people to live their lives normally without many of Xanax’s negative impacts. This sort of informed content is truly so hard to access, both in legal and prohibition states—love to see it!
An exciting sign of progress in cannabis and hospitality partnerships: Los Angeles’ Hoxton Hotel is partnering with Green Kween dispensary (located across the street) on a special “Turndown Service.” It includes a customized box of specially chosen products to compliment either a chill night in or a fun night out. The products will be rotated monthly, and guests 21+ will be able to get their kits delivered directly to their rooms.
For some additional OOO reading, we unlocked the Delta-8 newsletter—one of my personal favorites that didn’t make the cut for the Year's Best roundup. It features the perspectives of three CBD operators, their feelings about the complexities created by the emergence of the Delta-8 market, and how they are approaching working with it. There’s also one intriguing suggestion for the factor differentiating the needs and wants of Delta-8 vs. CBD customers.
To the one week a year that everyone seems stoned at work,
Lauren Yoshiko