The Washington Legislature adjourned it’s short session last week with very little done on the cannabis laws. They did pass a law changing all use of the word “marijuana” in the state code to “cannabis”. And beefed up the cannabis laboratory testing protocols. They could not reach agreement as to how to regulate hemp-derived products, specifically delta-8 THC. Hemp and it’s derivatives were legalized federally in the 2018 Farm Bill....
My opinion was that Oregon was overdoing the cannabis licensing thing, granting far more licenses than was necessary. Despite the large number of growers and stores, the state was about 3,000 applications behind. This week the legislature passed a law to not only stop any new applications, but cancel those in the queue. I'm in Coos Bay as I write this. They've added a shop or two, and the dozen that were already here seem to be doing well. So I...
The legal cannabis industry has finally begun to gell a little bit in Northern California. Ukiah (Mendocino county) has a few more stores, as does Eureka (Humboldt county) that also provides a Cannabis Commercial Zone with a few processing facilities. Del Norte County, where I am now, recently lifted it's ban on anything and has a few stores just getting started. The state has something like 900 retail stores now, with an estimated 3,000...
There is no one in this whole wide world that does not describe California's legal cannabis bureaucracy as a "disaster, a mess". I concur entirely. It didn't have to be that way at all. When they started writing the rules after passage of Prop 64, it looked like they were going to pretty much copy the work other states had done. But that was draft 1, and by the next draft, every CA department had a hand in the rules on licenses and taxes. I'm...
It was shortly after stores were opened in Denver that a Denver Post reporter observed that the stores were tending to cluster in certain neighborhoods. In looking at this in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon that pattern was confirmed, as well that the ownership of the cannabis businesses was nearly 100% white males. Thus was spawned "Social Equity" in the cannabis biz. The reaction to these observations from the majority of the cannabis...
A few bills under consideration in WA this legislative session deal with delta-8-THC, described as THC-Lite in its' intoxicating effects. It is extracted from CBD taken from federally-legal hemp plants, and is not currently regulated by any state, legal or not. Anyone can buy it from the internet to gas stations anywhere. No special taxes, no showing id. It comes in various forms, from vapes to gummies, but since it isn't found in the actual...
My previous post referenced the cultivation tax and my feeling it should be eliminated. Taxes of this nature are adopted to compensate for a crash, a serious crash, in the revenue generated by a sales tax. I don't think CA needs to worry about the extinction of the retail cannabis market. The tax is added to the price of wholesale flower, which is reflected in the retail price which then gets assessed the 15% cannabis tax. Tax on a tax. The...
There's an outcry about the CA laws and rules relating to taxes. Somehow, the tax rates are being blamed for the failures of the CA system. The CA tax rate for cannabis is 15%, down near the bottom of the legal states. Advocates want to reduce the taxes, an aspiration that requires 2/3 majority vote by either the Assembly or the population. That's hard. CA does have a rather unusual tax on cultivators based on weight. Most places charge a sales...
I spent the last week getting to my target destination Santa Rosa. It gets me on US101 which I routinely follow back to Chimacum. It's a great location to get to anything from The City to Napa wineries. The Washington State Legislature convenes this week so I'll be watching the hearings on the cannabis bills, while also looking at the insane California legal marijuana situation. And getting the desert dust out of my rig (good luck) and off my...
Legal retail sales of cannabis can begin on January 1 in Montana. They've written a law that is pretty much best practices garnered from the experiences of other states. The medical licensees will be the first to hold retail licenses which is always a good idea if a state has a working medical program. That means the number of stores will be small, but the state isn't a particularly big market. Tourism won't be a big portion of the market, but...
Here in Yuma, there is one retail shop, which was the one medical store in town. In WA, I'd expect 4-5 stores in a town this size. If in OR, there'd be 10 or so. The parking lot is never full, there are no lines. Apparently the legal cannabis industry in Arizona is a city thing.
Arizona legalized in 2020, but because it had such a vibrant medical program it could switch quickly to full adult use retail sales. There are only 145 or so retail shops which is way too low. Oregon756Washington450Nevada65Arizona145Colorado1000California823Oklahoma2000 I drove by 2 stores in Tucson, both had lines outside, and nearby parking was non-existent. This looks more like a market just weeks old, not the months they've had. More stores...