Weed news, drops & legal flops.
Weed news, drops & legal flops.
What's new in cannabis this week?
The Broccoli Report
Monday, February 1, 2021
Time to read: 5 minutes, 41 seconds. 1138 words.
Good morning!
It’s February! We’ve made it through the darkest of the months, hopefully in as metaphorical a sense as literal, and spring is on the horizon. As a February baby, I’m partial to this short, peculiar month, and I’ll enjoy every hemp-infused hot chocolate launch [more on this later] and “when love goes wrong” crime podcast this month brings. Speaking of podcasts… Broccoli Talk is back with our first episode of the year! Mennlay and I catch up, talk through some weed news and chat all things Broccoli Report.
It’s also the start of Black History Month, and we urge any brands reading this newsletter that are wondering how they can do more to give back to consider joining a collective like the Floret Coalition or Cannabis for Black Lives. We also want to remind fellow businesses that it’s not now, nor is it ever, a good time to ask our Black peers in the cannabis space to work for free on any initiatives, panels, IG Lives, etc. It’s about valuing each other’s time and perspectives, always. Come through with the paid gigs!
I’ll be back in the inboxes of paid subscribers this Friday with a foray into the relationship between cannabis and bathtime. Who’s doing luxury spa branding right, who’s getting creative with bath-oriented offerings, and the wide-open opportunities to better serve stoners during one of their most cherished cannabis-adjacent rituals. Become a paid subscriber here to receive every Report.
One-Hitters: Cannabis News at a Glance
On January 19, the Commonwealth Dispensary Association of Massachusetts sued the state’s Cannabis Control Commission for its new cannabis delivery regulations, saying the license’s exclusivity to disenfranchised groups violates state law. The delivery rules stipulate that delivery-only licenses will only be available to participants in the CCC’s social equity program and economic empowerment applicants for the first three years of the program. But as soon as the CDA filed the lawsuit, cannabis companies began withdrawing their Association memberships in protest to support the CCC’s efforts toward creating a more equitable playing field. The backlash summoned enough steam that as of January 24, the CDA dropped the lawsuit altogether. In five days, the voices of advocates and business owners were able to enact real change—an empowering reminder of the cannabis community’s capacity to make shit happen when we are united and engaged.
Governor Cuomo released proposed legislation for 2022 adult-use cannabis in New York. It includes an outlined tax structure with a weird “potency tax” layer that would charge an amount per milligram of THC. I have a lot of questions about whether that might lead to only the wealthiest companies being able to afford to offer heavy, high-THC products. A different detail is garnering more immediate public outcry, though. A section of the new rules would make it a Class D felony—punishable by up to 2.5 years in prison—to sell cannabis to anyone under 21. This is harsher than current laws, and advocates who’d been banking on this law putting criminal justice reform first are not happy.
In my latest Thrillist column, I interviewed Etai Rahmil, a renowned glass artist known for intricate saxophone-shaped bongs and whimsical pipes. Rahmil just launched an all-glass coffee filter that may just give Chemex a run for its money.
Damn, another March already? If you need a break from your tie-dye sweatsuit, Sundae School has a new velour tracksuit with a Jeogori robe-style jacket. “It's our version of the smoking robe, without the creepy white man vibes.”
Mere months after voters legalized adult-use in Arizona, you can already buy cannabis products from one of 86 licensed dispensaries. Right now! That’s insane. Yes, part of the quick turnaround was allowing medical shops to switch over fairly easily (and almost immediately). But even then, newly licensed adult-use stores are set to commence sales in April. For context, in California, adult-use cannabis was legalized in 2016, and the first stores didn’t open until 2018. In Oregon, it took nearly three years.
Edie Parker Flower launches a house line of CBD topicals, including a flavorless tincture, a rich salve, and a personal lubricant called “Sleepover Spray.” The impeccably chic-yet-playful packaging is no surprise—the consistency of the spray lube is very much so, though. It feels a little reminiscent of antiseptic spray from my childhood medicine cabinet, but I know the oil formulas stress some people out, laundry-wise. I’m intrigued. Interesting side note: because of the challenges in finding a merchant that will let you sell CBD and smoking accessories on the same account, the brand had to create a whole separate site for these products. Pipe brand Yew Yew faced the same quandary when launching her NBD CBD products. Ah, the joys of remotely weed-adjacent e-comm. 🙃
Progressive beauty brand Dieux launches Awakening, an uber-transparent, moisturizing hand sanitizer with full analytical 90-day stability test results included. Each Awakening box contains two hand sanitizer cans and a single sprayer, with single refills to be launched later this year. After understanding the steps they went through to make legal, medical claims for an antibacterial hand sanitizer, I’m questioning the validity of some of those CBD-infused sanitizers that hit the market so quickly at the start of the pandemic even more than I already did.
I may get the luxury of walking down to my neighborhood Ice Queen for vegan hot chocolate bombs, but now anyone can order a full-spectrum, hemp-infused spin on the trend from trusted Oregon brand Greater Goods.
Employees at Verano NJ, a New Jersey-based medical cultivator and processor, unionized with local United Food and Commercial Workers chapters. UFCW Local 360 has a task force dedicated to organizing employees in the industry, with experience getting Labor Peace Agreements in place and facilitating collective bargaining agreements for cannabis workers.
CPA Practice Advisor published a supportive piece assuaging accountant fears about working with cannabis clients. Thank you! We don’t bite.
As federal law stands, hemp material post-processing that exceeds .03% THC must be documented and disposed of in a super-strict manner. The cheapest and most commonly used form of disposal is dropping it en masse at landfills. Colorado just enacted new rules to mitigate the tons of cannabis landfill waste, granting hemp and cannabis producers the ability to compost, gasify, and anaerobically digest their organic waste instead. For those who don’t have space or resources to compost their own, the new rules also approved specialized third-party waste handlers like Industrial Hemp Recycling to more sustainably dispose of the organic waste elsewhere.
If you need help chilling out this week, I hosted an episode of Allume’s new IGTV series, a Study in Chill, and broke down how I wind down and get myself in a creative space for brainstorming. Watch for a key cameo from my cat, Mojo, and his beloved auto-feeder.
See you next time,
Lauren Yoshiko