Business is getting back to usual at Bay Area cannabis stores.
After initially declaring dispensaries were non-essential when the San Francisco shelter-in-place order went into effect March 17, city health officials and political leaders quickly reversed themselves and determined cannabis is an essential medicine during the coronavirus outbreak, paving the way for shops to reopen.
As the Bay Area Reporter noted, many did just that, although some have reduced hours so it’s best to check their website or, even better, call before you leave the house.
At the Castro Apothecarium, 2029 Market Street, changes make shopping safer for customers and staff, said store manager Cali Manzello.
In a telephone interview with the B.A.R., Manzello said the company has taken precautions to be sure there is minimal contact between customers and staff, including a six foot distance from the counter where customers can use an iPad to scroll the menu, replacing the paper product. The tablet is wiped down between uses, she said.
The Apothecarium is operating with a smaller staff and shorter hours since the stay-at-home order went into effect, although there were no layoffs, officials said. The store is planning to resume delivery service soon but until then it is doing in-store consultations. It recommends people order online for pick up if possible.
The LGBT-owned Sparc has seen a dip in business since the stay-at-home order went into effect. Of its five Bay Area stores, only one, Love Shack, located at 502 14th Street in the Mission, is temporarily closed.
In an email to the B.A.R., SPARC CEO Erich Pearson wrote, “We were lucky to have launched our new delivery and in-store pickup platform online a few months ago. So, we are very busy delivering and doing curbside pickup. Sales are down quite a bit. However, we have managed to not lay off any employees.”
In the meantime, during the shelter-in-place order, the San Francisco Office of Cannabis will continue to process permits and respond to permitting inquiries.
According to the office’s newsletter, it is operating “under reduced capacity” and will only be able to respond to inquiries with a status report. Some office staff are working remotely while others have been summoned as emergency service workers.
Out & About offers CBD products. Photo: Courtesy Out & About
New product launch In late March, entrepreneurs in Southern California launched a new cannabis wellness company, after successfully raising $1.5 million from a dozen angel investors. Based in San Juan Capistrano, the new company, Out & About, was founded by two men with strong ties to the LGBT community: a gay man, Wayne Carkeek, and Ralph Fascitelli, a member of PFLAG.
According to the company’s promotional material, Carkeek grew up in a small town in Montana and came out shortly after a four-year stint in the U.S. Marine Corps. The company plans to give a minimum of 5% of all proceeds back to the LGBT community.
Products from Out & About are THC-free and contain CBD, a non-hallucinogenic chemical compound that is made from marijuana. Products, available on the website include gummies, capsules, oil tincture, sugar-free mints, and dog treats.
SF’s 4/20 event canceled Although Golden Gate Park remains open, the organizers of San Francisco’s annual 4/20 cannabis celebration on Hippie Hill said that the event has been canceled.
According to a statement from the organizers, “We take the health and safety of the public, our staff, vendors, and all of our sponsors very seriously. We feel it’s our responsibility to do our part to minimize social gathering and potential spread of this virus in the community.”
Organizers said that they are working with local city departments, as well as community partners and will announce further details when they know more.
“Thank you for understanding and support. See you next year,” the statement concluded.
When San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order was announced on March 16, many city residents ran to the grocery store to stock up on things like canned goods and toilet paper.
Other residents went straight to their local dispensary. “The day of shelter in place was the busiest day we’ve ever had,” said Eliot Dobris, a spokesperson for the Apothecarium, a dispensary with three S.F. locations. “We’ve never had longer lines than that, including 4/20 and the first days of recreational sales in the state ever. Stores were just absolutely slammed.”
Dobris said people were also buying in larger quantities than normal, though things have finally started to stabilize a bit.
While customers are purchasing with regularity, their buying habits may be changing, at least in the short term. Cannabis delivery company Eaze said that since March 9, the company has seen sales of edibles rise from 15% to 30%, while the sale of the plant itself has decreased from 25% to 17%.
Vape sales have also slid from 33% to 25%.
This could be due to the fact that inhaling smoke into the lungs can increase a person’s risk of severe coronavirus. Though there have been no studies directly linking cannabis smoking to coronavirus, the disease can cause respiratory illness, which smoking or vaping can aggravate.
Dr. Michael Matthay, the associate director of critical care medicine at UCSF, told SFGATE that research has shown that smoke inhaled into the lungs can delay the clearance of the influenza virus. “Based on prior studies with other pulmonary infections, both bacterial and viral, it is highly likely that cigarette smoking and vaping will increase the risk of coronavirus pneumonia and increase its severity, though we don’t know to what extent.”
Weedmaps, often described as the Yelp of the cannabis industry, saw similar data over the past two weeks. “We have seen increases in edible sales, primarily in California,” said Travis Rexroad, Weedmaps’ director of communications. “We hypothesize people are looking for options that place less strain on their respiratory systems and that are more discreet.”
Rexroad also said traffic to the Weedmaps site has been up as much as 46% month-over-month, and they were on pace to see the number of new users who order on Weedmaps triple from the previous month.
Eaze said that since March 12, they’ve seen a 112% increase in sign-ups in S.F., with a 150% jump in first-time deliveries through the platform.
This increase in sales, as well as cannabis dispensaries’ designation as an essential business in many states, has been reflected in marijuana company stock prices. As the financial market continues to flounder, stock prices for cannabis companies have stayed steady or risen.
Some are even suggesting the financial downturn could pave the way for legalizing marijuana in more states. Taxes generated from marijuana sales have been a huge boon for states with legalization, and it could be a new revenue stream for states suffering from lost income after the pandemic is over.
It’s also one of the few industries that’s hiring right now. Eaze spokesperson Elizabeth Ashford said the company is hoping to get more drivers since the demand is very high for delivery.
Marijuana sales might have been even larger for San Francisco dispensaries in the past two weeks, but the businesses were closed for two days before Mayor London Breed added them to the essential businesses list. Dobris said he was concerned about where residents were going to obtain their product when health and safety should be of utmost importance.
“This is a particularly important time to be aware of where cannabis is coming from,” Dobris said. “You don’t know where black-market cannabis is coming from. It’s more important than ever to get it from a reputable source.”
Once the Apothecarium was open again, the company had to decide how they would make changes in favor of social-distancing practices. The store is encouraging customers to make all their orders online and wait for a text that says their order is ready before picking it up.
Dobris said they’ve also shifted some staff members to exclusively watch for six feet of space between patrons as well as to solely be responsible for cleaning surfaces.
Ashford said that while food delivery drivers made simple changes to their job, their business isn’t quite the same. “You can’t just drop a bag of cannabis at someone’s doorstep. You still have to verify ID and get a signature,” she said. “Drivers are wearing gloves and sanitizing between deliveries.”
And just as grocery stores aren’t exactly celebrating high sales volumes, neither are marijuana businesses. “This is a time when our sales are high, our volume is high, and normally that would be a wonderful thing, but a pandemic is not good for anyone,” Ashford said. “This is a very tough time.”
Before the coronavirus outbreak, Thrive Cannabis Marketplace in North Las Vegas was making about three dozen deliveries a day.
But with dispensaries only permitted to offer delivery service after nonessential businesses were ordered closed, Thrive is making several hundred deliveries a day.
“Previously, deliveries were a very small portion of our business,” said Ashley Blackwood, director of compliance for Thrive. “We used to have a very small fleet, but we’ve since doubled, tripled and quadrupled it. We’ll continue to increase the drivers we have on the road as well as increasing the area in which we serve. It’s been challenging to keep up this rapid pace.”
Thrive, which operates two other dispensaries in the valley, is making all its deliveries from its North Las Vegas store.
While Thrive does its own deliveries, a number of dispensaries in Las Vegas contract with a delivery service called BlackbirdGo, which operates in Nevada and California.
Blackbird spokesman Jamal Barghouti said the increased demand has pushed normal delivery time from a couple of hours to up to 36 hours.
“People are understanding and largely appreciative for still having access to cannabis,” Barghouti said. “We are evaluating daily how we can streamline our new process and each day goes a little smoother than the day before.”
Acres Cannabis in Las Vegas, which is owned by a company called Curaleaf, previously used a third-party delivery service but was working to get its own up and running.
“We are figuring it out,” said Nicole Silverman, Curaleaf Nevada’s director of marketing, before Acres’ service kicked off March 27. “If we could even do curbside pickup, which I know has been proposed, that would allow us to open and to be able to get product to patients and customers in need.”
Even after the closure order was issued, some customers were still showing up at dispensaries. “We’ve had to turn away so many people who just didn’t know that the governor ordered us to close our storefronts,” Blackwood said.
Planet 13 dispensary in Las Vegas, which offers around-the-clock delivery, has tripled its fleet of delivery vehicles to keep up with orders, said David Farris, vice president of sales and marketing. “It’s been through the roof. We’re doing our best to handle that demand,” he said.
Tiffany Hoven, director of operations for The Grove, said the dispensary had previously offered contract delivery service in Las Vegas but started in-house delivery virtually “overnight” for customers in the valley and Pahrump.
“In less than a couple days, we created and implemented a full, in-house delivery service for Pahrump and Las Vegas, all while following strict compliance regulations,” Hoven said. “That would normally take multiple weeks to roll out. It’s been crazy.”
While some dispensaries cater mostly to tourists — nearly nonexistent in Las Vegas these days — locals are driving sales now.
“People are confined to their houses; they can’t go the bars and places like that, so I think people are exploring cannabis a little more,” Blackwood said. “I think people are more open to it. We’re seeing a significant uptick. I’m happy we’re able to serve the Southern Nevada community and perhaps alleviate some of the anxieties people are feeling right now in this climate.”
Great news for the legal cannabis industry amid this trying coronavirus outbreak crisis. After a brief closure, San Francisco dispensaries were given the greenlight earlier this week to reopen via an emergency edict by Mayor London Breed, her shelter-in-place order for residents notwithstanding. In a win-win for the local industry, these businesses were deemed to provide “essential needs” during this pandemic.
The mayor’s order came on the heels of a March 17 tweet by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, in which the city agency announced that, “Cannabis is an essential medicine for many San Francisco residents. Dispensaries can continue to operate as essential businesses during this time, while practicing social distancing and other public health recommendations.”
Speaking to SF Weekly before Mayor Breed’s order, Supervisor Matt Haney said he felt “very strongly” that dispensaries should be open for pickup and delivery. ““There’s absolutely no logical reason to shut down delivery. Delivery is still happening for everything else. Why would you shut down local cannabis delivery operations?”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed (C) speaks during a press conference as San Francisco police chief … [+]
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As reported by KTVU.com, a local news outlet, the city’s health department “initially ordered dispensaries and delivery services closed Monday night.” Grocery stores and pharmacies were allowed to stay open, however, as they were listed as essential businesses. But that got changed after the city’s health department reversed their official stance regarding dispensaries, said Supervisor Haney in a tweet.
Cannabis professionals in the Golden State are hailing the decision to reopen the dispensaries as a benchmark in the history of the space. Says Julia Jacobson, CEO of Oakland, California-based Aster Farms, a sustainable cannabis company: “This has set a new precedent of acceptance and importance of cannabis in our society. This is especially an important win for medical patients who in many ways were left behind in the rollout of recreational.”
Jacobson’s sentiments were roundly echoed by Sally Nichols, president of Bloom Farms CBD, a producer of hemp-derived CBD. “For decades, cannabis has fought to evolve from California’s secret lover and take its spot alongside [the state’s] medicine and culture as a rightful partner,” she said. “Cannabis is essential to millions, and this moment has further legitimized the plant and industry.”
But there’s also another significant benefit to the San Francisco decision to name cannabis businesses as “essential.” By reopening the dispensaries, consumers won’t be tempted to buy into the unregulated market. “[This] is the same illicit market that spawned the epidemic of vaping-related lung injuries last fall,” said Tiffany Devitt, chief of government and consumer affairs and president of wellness at CannaCraft, a seed-to-shelf cannabis producer and distributor. “Given how strained our healthcare infrastructure already is, no one wanted to take that sort of risk.”
Liquor and marijuana were apparently essential to some people in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.
In the hours after Gov. Steve Sisolak directed all “nonessential” businesses to close, some people in the Las Vegas Valley headed to bars, liquor stores and cannabis dispensaries ahead of the directed closures of businesses including bars, casinos and gyms.
“We won’t be able to do anything but stay at home,” David Humphries, 73, said outside a Lee’s Discount Liquor on Flamingo Road. “Weed, liquor – without that, it would be crazy to stay in the house.”
By noon Wednesday, the governor said, all “nonessential” businesses have to be closed in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Essential businesses, according to the governor’s office, include grocery stores, banks, gas stations, banks and medical offices, as well as restaurants that can deliver or fill to-go orders.
A line wrapped around the Essence Cannabis Dispensary building on Tropicana Avenue and Jones Boulevard. One customer near the front of the line who declined to be identified said he had been waiting for more than two hours.
At O’Aces Bar & Grill, regulars packed the bar area as the clock ticked toward the governor’s mandated midnight shutdown of gaming devices, including the slot machines that are inside the bar.
“It’s the last hurrah,” general manager John Wiggins said. “This is like a family down here, and it’s kind of like a going-away party, or at least a see you later.”
While some pot shops and liquor stores saw people rushing in to stock up, many stores across town saw business as usual Tuesday night.
With a shopping cart full of Heineken beer, Humphries, who said he is a Vietnam veteran, said he’s never lived through anything like what Sisolak has ordered.
“You would think this would be an essential business,” he quipped about the liquor store.
When San Francisco announced its “shelter in place” order this week, it said only “essential businesses” could remain open to support the public’s needs, such as grocery stores and gas stations. Missing from that list were marijuana dispensaries.
But a day after residents were told to stay home, the city revised its position and deemed cannabis “an essential medicine,” allowing stores to open.
Mayor London Breed announced “adjustments” to the city’s public health order issued the previous day. It originally said essential businesses, including banks and pharmacies, could remain open while residents were required to stay in their homes.
Now dispensaries and marijuana deliveries are deemed critical.
“In terms of the cannabis dispensaries, the Department of Public Health today clarified that since cannabis has medical uses, dispensaries will be allowed to operate as essential businesses, just as pharmacies are allowed to do,” she added.
After the city’s initial announcement ordering residents to remain inside “with the only exception being for essential needs,” officials from both the city’s health department and its Office of Cannabis got in contact with local marijuana industry leaders, according to SFGate.
The news site notes that city leaders acknowledged “the situation is fluid” and city officials were working to “craft a strategy” to allow marijuana businesses to support residents who needed access to their products.
By Tuesday evening, the San Francisco Department of Health tweeted dispensaries can “operate as essential businesses” while also suggesting social distancing recommendations be followed.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday announced an executive order directing the state’s non-essential businesses to put in place telework policies by this Friday. Businesses exempt from the list include grocery stores, media, banks and other financial institutions.
Reached for clarification, a spokesperson for the governor tells NPR, “registered organizations in the State’s Medical Marijuana Program are essential medical providers and will allowed to remain open.”
This comes as the governor and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are at odds at whether a “shelter in place” order should be put into effect. The mayor said on Tuesday, “New Yorkers should be prepared right now for the possibility of a shelter in place order.” But on Wednesday, the governor reiterated his unease about issuing such an order, saying, “you close down businesses when you do shelter in place, so that doesn’t make sense to me.”
Also, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has issued new, temporary guidelines, relaxing where medical marijuana sales can take place in order to to “help reduce contact between individuals.”
The state will now “permit the dispensary to sell medical cannabis on the dispensary’s property or on a public walkway or curb adjacent to the dispensary,” the state announced Tuesday.
Before the “shelter in place in” order in San Francisco was set to go into effect midnight Tuesday, there were reports of long lines outside of dispensaries. Other counties across the state have also announced sweeping restrictions.
Some U.S. dispensaries have decided to close their doors in light of the crisis.Organic Alternatives, in Fort Collins, Colo., said it was attempting to stem gatherings at its shop and has temporarily shut down operations “until further notice,” citing “the lack of availability of testing for COVID-19 to our community.”
“As a long standing business in this community, we feel it is our responsibility to do what we can to help stop the spread of this virus,” the dispensary said on its Facebook page.
Sitting in a conference room at the Planet 13 dispensary, Mike Tyson talked proudly about his marijuana business interests and Las Vegas, the city that helped make him famous.
The former boxer was there Saturday to promote his Tyson Ranch line of cannabis products, which are for sale in Las Vegas at places including Planet 13, The Source, Jenny’s Dispensary, Jardin Cannabis and NuWu Cannabis Marketplace.
“Las Vegas is basically where I got my name,” said Tyson, who has a house here. “This is where it all started. I’m indebted to this town. I love this town.”
Tyson walked down a flight of stairs at Planet 13 and past a long line of fans waiting to greet him. Many cheered as Tyson appeared, invoking memories of the many times he was introduced before taking the ring on a Las Vegas fight night.
Planet 13 had a six-month contract to sell Tyson Ranch products exclusively in Nevada, though the arrangement recently expired.
“We were happy to have the exclusive rights to sell Tyson Ranch products in Nevada, but we’re also excited to see the brand continue to grow,” said David Farris, director of sales and marketing for Planet 13.
In addition to his appearance at Planet 13, Tyson made a public appearance at The Source dispensary in Henderson.
“The Tyson Ranch brand is wellness-minded and puts out high-quality products,” said Matthew Janz, a spokesman for The Source. “Their products are pesticide-free, and it’s a fun line of products. We’re always listening to our customers, and our customers know the Tyson name and what Mike Tyson has meant to Las Vegas, whether it’s boxing or ‘The Hangover’ franchise.”
Tyson had a small part in the first “Hangover” movie, which was set in Las Vegas.
Nowadays, Tyson, long a proponent of the benefits of cannabis, has traded fighting in the ring for fighting in the court of public opinion to help bring marijuana into the mainstream.
“We’re in the early stages, but you can see what’s happening,” Tyson said. “As a society — judges, lawyers, the government — they know this is the right thing to do. It’s always been the right thing to do, but we’ve been misinformed. (Cannabis) has to be legal. It’s medicine.”
Recreational use of cannabis became legal in Nevada in 2017. Under state law, taxes generated from cannabis sales are earmarked for Nevada schools.
Along with his brand of cannabis and CBD products, Tyson and his business partners have plans to open a marijuana resort — Tyson Ranch — on 400-plus acres in the Southern California desert, about 60 miles southwest of Death Valley National Park.
The resort is expected to be complete in 2022, according to a Tyson Ranch spokesman.
“What cannabis was perceived to be 20 years ago, that’s changed,” said Kevin Bell, one of Tyson’s business partners.
“Tyson Ranch is a brand, but it’s also a family. Most of our revenue actually comes from hemp. We really focus on CBD and hemp,” said Bell, noting that the company has a 40,000-square-foot hemp-extraction facility in Henderson.
Tyson said he has big plans for the Tyson Ranch brand.
“I think we’re going to change the way people look at cannabis,” Tyson said. “I believe implicitly in the power of cannabis and I want to be the face of cannabis in this town.”
After trying for years to open a cannabis business in San Francisco, Ray Connolly and his husband, Desmond Morgan, will open the doors of their first dispensary, in the city’s Castro District.
“We’re two married gay men opening up a dispensary in the heart of the gay neighborhood, so the mapping of it is really perfect,” Connolly says.
Eureka Sky, which opens Jan. 25 at 3989 17th Street, received the first equity cannabis business permit issued by San Francisco’s Office of Cannabis. The roughly 2,300-square-foot dispensary storefront is owned by Connolly, Morgan and equity partner Chris Callaway. Equity partners and owners in San Francisco have been negatively impacted by cannabis prohibition or meet other criteria that allows them to receive government support as they enter the cannabis industry.
With plans to be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, Connolly says Eureka Sky will sell flower, edibles, pre-rolls, concentrates and CBD pet products. The company has hired a chief technology officer, Steve Delavan, as well as a buyer, and plans to soon hire a staff of budtenders.
Connolly’s and Morgan’s decision to open a dispensary has roots stretching back decades. Both their fathers and Morgan’s stepfather died of cancer when they were young. These members of the older generation didn’t consume cannabis, and Morgan notes it wasn’t legally made available to them. But more recent medical studies stating the benefits of cannabis, including for cancer patients, helped prompt Connolly’s and Morgan’s decision to join the industry.
“I’m a longtime cannabis supporter and user, but it was one of the compelling events when the results started to come on just around the medicinal use, that we decided to get into the cannabis industry,” says Connolly, who worked as a software executive for 23 years.
Morgan, who was employed in the pharmaceuticals and biotech space for about 20 years, learned about the endocannabinoid system more than a decade ago while employed at a company that worked on a diet pill.
“I think cannabis has got such a bad rap for the longest time, because it was just clumped together as being a drug,” Morgan says. “Yet a lot of people don’t realize the medicinal benefits of cannabis and that our bodies have our own mechanisms [for receiving it] in terms of the endocannabinoid system — it’s all natural.”
Photo courtesy of Ray Connolly
Eureka Sky’s interior
In addition to Eureka Sky, Connolly and Morgan plan to open a second dispensary, called Sea Weed, in Fisherman’s Wharf. They and equity partner John Wood are still building out the space but plan to open in March.
Pending the receipt of a permanent permit, Connolly and Morgan aim to open Sea Weed at 2627 Taylor Street. It’s the same address where they tried to set up a medical dispensary in 2015, prior to the passage of Proposition 64, but, Connolly says, were driven out by surrounding businesspeople who opposed a cannabis shop in the neighborhood.
“At that time, the merchants of Fisherman’s Wharf literally rented a Greyhound bus, and they had their employees and the owners and managers all go down to city hall and fight it,” Connolly says.
In the intervening years, San Francisco examined the economy of Fisherman’s Wharf and learned that having one or multiple dispensaries to serve tourists and residents could be beneficial for the neighborhood, Connolly says. “When I went back to them the second time, they had a different point of view of opening up a cannabis dispensary,” he says.
Equity in San Francisco’s cannabis program
In San Francisco, permits are currently only being issued to equity applicants, equity incubators and operating cannabis businesses.
To apply for a permit, equity applicants must first be verified with the Office of Cannabis. And to be verified, prospective applicants must meet the following criteria:
The verification process for prospective equity applicants opened in March 2018, and the Office of Cannabis began accepting applications in May of that year, according to a spokesman from the office. As of Jan. 23, 325 equity applicants have been verified, the spokesman says.
Once they are verified, applicants will then take steps such as work with San Francisco Planning to find a location, register with the city and state, consent to a background check and disclose ownership materials, according to the Office of Cannabis website. Furthermore, they must follow multiple security steps, and apply for and receive city permits from departments such as Planning and Building Inspection.
In Connolly’s and Morgan’s situation, equity partners Callaway and Wood approached them about working together, Morgan says. Callaway was arrested in 2000 for cultivating cannabis for the terminally ill, according to hoodline.com. Wood also had previous ties to cannabis; he was good friends with renowned cannabis activist Dennis Peron, Connolly says. (Both Callaway and Wood were unavailable for interviews before Cannabis Dispensary’s deadline for this story.)
As more municipalities legalize cannabis, Connolly says San Francisco’s equity program can provide a model for helping the people who played a role in creating the industry when it was still a black market.
“There are individuals who have been impacted by things that had transpired in their lives because of cannabis, that may have found themselves not being able to get jobs or not being able to keep jobs,” Connolly says. “So, this is a program where business owners like Desmond and I can actually help the individuals that helped build the cannabis industry.”
Software for San Francisco’s equity applications
To streamline the review and processing of equity applications, the City and County of San Francisco has teamed up with government technology company CityBase. San Francisco already used CityBase’s management and payment tools, so it asked the company to see if they could be used for cannabis permitting.
The system’s software gives applicants unique identifiers and allows to fill out documents without having to continually repeat steps, says Josh Goldstein, CityBase chief product officer. At the same time, various city departments involved in the application and permitting process, such as Planning, Fire and Police, can log in and access pertinent information.
Having a simple and reliable system for processing applications and issuing licenses and permits helps San Francisco address equity in the cannabis space, Goldstein says.
“Part of it, I think, is just really just making the user interface simpler, I think is a step toward equity in and of itself, because you’re inherently penalizing businesses that have less resources — smaller businesses,” he says. “The more regulatory barriers you have up, the more you’re discriminating against those, in my opinion.”
Replacing outdated or manual systems can allow governments to provide more equity to businesses and residents, says Liz Fischer, CityBase chief customer officer, adding that her company’s work with San Francisco on cannabis applications, permitting and licensing is an explicit example.
“What’s interesting to me, as someone who works with local government clients and tries to solve the access and equity equation from a lot of different perspectives, is these problems are relevant to every person doing business with local government,” Fischer says. “But because cannabis is newly legalized and is therefore a new business industry … the government side has a chance to consider these things from the ground up, like the entire permitting process, licensing process and the steps in that process that either aid or prohibit someone from participating.”
Since recreational pot was legalized in California on Jan 1st of 2018, its citizens have witnessed intriguing developments of the already popular cannabis industry. New verticals, products, and services have been popping up all across the state (and the country).
Pot farmers, pot deliverers, dispensaries, edible producers, startups trying to service the cannabis players, hospitality industry offering cannabis tours, etc. And the list is only expected to get longer.
This year, the International Cannabis Business Conference is happening in San Francisco in February. It is suitable as SF is the technology hub of the world and legalization of cannabis there unsurprisingly would lead to the rise of new, relevant opportunities to expand and transform a fast-evolving industry.
So, what have we seen so far in this space?
All-in-one cannabis shops
What’s unique about California is that the new legalization laws allow the dispensaries to actually serve and allow consumption of weed onsite as long as it meets each city’s fire and safety codes. Out of the 10 states which have legalized recreational weed, only California has these stipulations.
This led to dispensaries, there are 46 in San Francisco today with additional 47 applications in review, creating a new kind of social lounges where you can learn about, buy, consume, and share cannabis all at once.
West Hollywood took the lead initially by issuing 8 licenses early on for smoking lounges and we saw some amazing, never-seen-before lounges opened up such as this cannabis dispensary in West Hollywood with bars and other facilities to integrate cannabis further into the culture and social fabric in California.
We see now San Francisco following suit with 10 lounges and counting. It is quickly reshaping the cultural landscape.
Cannabis tours
The hospitality industry did not miss this opportunity to provide unique tours that most people cannot get anywhere else in the world. Cannabis farm and dispensary tours instantly became popular among the curious visitors want to experience the booming world of cannabis.
City tours with a visit to cannabis lounges and weed (instead of ‘wine’) country tours are on the rise. Sonoma and Napa Valley, the most popular tour spots in the bay area, have also embraced this movement and quickly integrated cannabis into the wine culture, offering weed and wine tours. This trend is expected to grow exponentially as now restaurants and the edible producers try to reach wider customer segments in this new (legalized) industry.
After years of cannabis enthusiasts hunting down the underground cannabis culinary scenes, now restaurants and culinary experimentalists can openly offer the wider public a new cuisine with endless possibilities. Given the various forms in which cannabis can be consumed, we know the cannabis industry is only going to produce more, never-before-imagined products we will be able to enjoy.
Cannabis deliveries
If it exists, it should be deliverable. That’s the motto of our century. While the cannabis lounges and tours are definitely successful at luring us out of our homes, cannabis deliveries also have expanded to make the consumption far more convenient when we’re feeling lazy.
These delivery services range from instant delivery within the local dispensaries to deliveries from available dispensaries across the entire state, expanding the options available to consumers much more quickly. Some offer more specialized services for those who need medicinal marijuana so that they are able to make decisions based on their pain and conditions.
Considering a career change, longtime Henderson resident Connie Kling signed up to take a trio of UNLV continuing education courses on cannabis and the burgeoning industry surrounding it.
“The courses are very extensive,” Kling said. “They go into great detail and are very informative. They were beneficial.”
Designed in conjunction with the Academy of Cannabis Science, UNLV is offering three non-credit courses, which are conducted remotely online and begin later this month.
The courses — called cannabis professional, pets and cannabis, and cannabis and the opioid epidemic — officially begin Jan. 27, but students are generally allowed to go at their own pace.
The core class, cannabis professional, instructs how to “work with cannabis” in various roles within the industry while also discussing the “history and folklore” of the plant and cannabinoid science topics.
Trey Reckling, owner of Academy of Cannabis Science, which is based in Washington, said those who take the class want to gain employment or advance in the cannabis industry. Others desire to learn more about cannabis products.
“We’re trying to set a standard with cannabis education because, currently, it’s hard to find,” Reckling said. “We believe that by working with accredited partners, we can help raise the game and prepare students.”
With recreational marijuana use becoming legal in more states — Nevada voters said yes to recreational cannabis in 2016 — the thinking is that more educational programs may be needed in the future.
Nearly a dozen states have laws allowing adults 21 and over to use marijuana recreationally. More than 30 states allow medical marijuana use.
“We’re a science-based curriculum,” Reckling said. “We also don’t advocate for use. A lot of what we do is about protecting pets and kids and making sure people are storing their product appropriately. We can prepare you for a job, but we also want to have conversations about consuming in a way that’s responsible for your community.”
Also in 2019, the College of Southern Nevada began offering a handful of cannabis courses for entrepreneurs, dispensary employees and others interested in learning about the legal marijuana industry.
The Nevada Dispensary Association also offers courses, though they focus on regulatory compliance and uniformity for the industry, association executive director Riana Durrett said.
“Nevada’s higher education system providing classes relating to cannabis is a step in the right direction because we are missing years of research that should have been done on this complex plant,” Durrett said. “The classes provided by the NDA work well to complement the courses offered by UNLV and CSN.”
David Farris, vice president of sales and marketing at Planet 13, said institutions like UNLV are offering cannabis courses is a sign that attitudes are continuing to evolve.
“Being a Las Vegas-born company, we think that these cannabis courses are a great sign for a more promising and open-minded future,” Farris said. “Teaching these courses at UNLV shows that universities are heading in the right direction. The more educated we are as a community, the more people realize that marijuana is not this dangerous drug we were told about years ago.”
While the UNLV and CSN cannabis courses are not part of a degree-seeking program at either institution, some cannabis-related degree programs have popped up around the country in recent years.
Northern Michigan University, a school with an enrollment of close to 8,000 in Marquette, Mich., rolled out a medicinal plant chemistry program in 2017.
Another Midwest school, Minot State University in North Dakota, introduced a similar degree program in 2018.
Since marijuana use is still illegal according to federal law — though recreational pot is legal now in Michigan — Northern Michigan spokesman Derek Hall said no cannabis plants are grown or housed on the school’s campus.
The school, he said, follows all federal drug laws.
“We’ll have our first graduating class in the program in May,” Hall said. “In the fall of 2017, the program started with 17 students and last fall it had close to 400, which is remarkable growth for any type of program. We get thousands of calls about the program, but many people don’t realize that it’s a chemistry course. It’s a serious program.”
Hall said Northern Michigan is exploring the idea of offering an online certificate in dispensary management.
Reckling said he expects employment opportunities to increase in future years as more states legalize marijuana — there’s also the possibility that the drug becomes legal at the federal level — and navigate how to regulate and support their cannabis industries.
“Opportunities are continuing to develop,” Reckling said. “It’s still a good time for people to be pioneers. What we’re trying to do is just to start at the foundation. As we build this program, we want to lead and follow students. We want to lead them to a strong science-based understanding of the plant.”
As people continue to register for the UNLV courses that start later this month, Reckling said students from as far away as India, South Africa and Hawaii were part of last year’s cohort.
“Right now, one of the things that stands in the way, at least psychologically, is that degree-seeking programs often depend on federal financial aid,” Reckling said. “To jeopardize financial aid would jeopardize everybody. Continuing education is how we’ve chosen to deliver this information, but we actually like that because the bar to entry is very accessible. Students don’t have to apply to the university this way.”
Students do have to be at least 21 to take the courses at UNLV. The cost for each course is $99.
The four cannabis-related courses offered at CSN range in cost from $89 to $159.
