Rescheduling Hearings Begin
Plus: My Weed-y Wishlist
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Time to read: About 5 minutes. Contains 949 words.
Good morning!
Cheers to making it through the melee of Green Wednesday and Black Friday. All you small business owners reading this—and the marketers, creative workers, and budtenders who support them—have been in my thoughts. I’ve been working on a big freelance story for a Portland magazine, fueled by ample gummy samples for a separate project I’m working with a brand on. Excited to share both with you when they come to fruition.
Today, I offer you a quick round-up of cannabis news of note and some High Finds that are getting me in a merrier mood.
But before we get into it, I have a couple of questions for you:
What was a high point for you this year?
What was your biggest challenge?
Although I celebrate each of you and your personal growth, in this case, I’m interested in your business-related highs and obstacles. Reply to this email to chime in, or message stickybitsyo@gmail.com. You can keep it short or lean in, this is a safe space for cannabis and cannabis-adjacent entrepreneurs to let off steam. We can keep it anonymous if that’s more liberating, but please include which part of the industry you operate in. I’ll gather all the answers for an end-of-year recap and temperature check on issues you’re invested in as we kick off 2025.
One-Hitters: Cannabis News at a Glance
The first DEA hearing on rescheduling cannabis went down. And you can watch the whole thing with great audio quality. Even though this first hearing was mostly for administrative review of future hearing dates—witness testimonies kick off mid-January—the lively Judge Mulroony and passionate lawyers in attendance couldn’t help but lean into the gravity of the momentous proceedings with some early back-and-forth. A more detailed schedule of testimonies can be found here—I will be tuning into as many of these hearings as I can.
A New Mexico cultivator aims to grow cannabis and opium poppies for Big Pharma. Bright Green and its CEO, Gurvinder Singh, are banking on the value of developing a domestic supply chain for federally illegal crops for use in research and the manufacture of federally approved medicines. The company supposedly has an agreement to supply cannabis extracts to a Texas company that makes tinctures used by cancer patients. Unsurprisingly, fundraising is the company’s biggest challenge at the moment, but it hasn’t stopped them from building out a 10-acre greenhouse. It’s a surreal read.
Cannabis ruled exempt from a residential smoking ban in Oakland, CA. There is technically another vote required before the ordinance banning tobacco and vaping in multi-unit dwellings officially passes. I’m not positive this will set a precedent elsewhere, but I think this is a win for more nuanced approaches to regulating cannabis consumption in rentals.
Hawaii could be set for its strongest attempt yet at legalizing adult use in 2025. With a lot of new legislators in the mix, no elections on the calendar, and a new majority leader in charge, the stars are aligning for a serious debate around the ongoing question of adult use during the legislative session kicking off mid-January.
Troubled delivery giant Eaze is back? After laying off nearly 500 employees and ostensibly going out of business earlier this year, the new owners of Eaze have somehow secured $10 million in Series B funding. In a press release, they announced the funds will go towards reopening 70 Eaze and Green Dragon locations across California, Colorado, Florida, and Michigan.
New York’s Dazed dispensary hosts a sidewalk apple pipe workshop on Green Wed. I love this endearing, wholesome activation concept—and I think there’s also something to reminding passersby of the innocent, homemade roots of this increasingly modernized pastime. The pop-up, made in collaboration with Old Pal, marked the launch of a sustainability program that rewards customers with discounts when returning and reusing packaging.
The empire of Snoop Dogg launches an online hemp marketplace. The weirdly clinical and boring SWED.com (“Smoke Weed Every Day,” like his Los Angeles dispensary) site offers hemp flower by the jar, smoking accessories, and concentrate products like the Tha Everyday Pen—a vape pen that’s also a writing pen.
More people are casually growing cannabis at home, and most of them are women. In a national survey of nearly a thousand self-identified home growers conducted by Stripe Theory on behalf of online seed bank I Love Growing Marijuana (ILGM), 61% of respondents were women.
High Finds: Holiday Edition
I can’t imagine a cuter stocking stuffer than hemp seeds. Whether or not they end up smokable, it’s a beautiful, conversation-sparking houseplant! Grow It From Home sells easy, trustworthy starter packs of 5 feminized seeds in a variety of THC and CBD dominant varieties.
My favorite fake plant brand Pot Plant dropped an adorable mistletoe-shaped leaf cluster for red-eyes romantics.
The creative recyclers at Bong Candles made a limited-edition “Canna Cane” candle scented with notes of peppermint, sugar, vanilla, and musk.
At last: fine, weed-themed playing cards! Gotham collaborated with Maison Games on a beautiful set of two decks featuring a leafy design and deep green instead of red suits, contained in a very giftable alligator-styled vegan leather box.
The gift I’ll most likely get myself: CBD / THC faux pearl earrings by JIWINAIA.
The ultimate gift for the weed-inclined: an amazing, first-of-its-kind guide to the most interesting, thoughtfully-operated dispensaries, farms, and destinations in the country called Green Scenes. 😌Filled with beautiful photography, helpful breakdowns of legal states and their unique vibes city-to-city, and interviews with the advocates, chefs, and curators of elevated experiences that define these respective scenes.
Available on Amazon and small bookstores across the country. (Lmk if you’d like to stock the book in your business!)
Good tidings and great terpenes,
Lauren Yoshiko
I stopped smoking cold turkey back in March bc I noticed the dispensary strains were giving me heart palpitations and making me anxious. Someone gave me some of their homegrown and the difference in my body was like night and day. It confirmed my suspicion that it’s not the weed itself, but whatever they’re doing to mass produce it. Learning about the astrology of the plant gave me a deeper respect for using it, too, and I approach it differently than I did before I quit.