WeedLife News Network

Since the passage of the Farm Bill in 2018, hemp-derived CBD has opened doors to countless opportunities for businesses, farmers, and consumers alike. But as states across the country continue to capitalize on the tremendous economic growth that the emerging crop offers, California remains at a competitive disadvantage during a time when economic relief is needed more than ever.

In the U.S. economy, top tier financial analysts including JP Morgan and lesser-known but equally reputable industry analysts, such as Gartner and Forrester, play a powerful role in the creation, definition, and analysis of various markets.

In the U.S. economy, top tier financial analysts including JP Morgan and lesser-known but equally reputable industry analysts, such as Gartner and Forrester, play a powerful role in the creation, definition, and analysis of various markets.

California’s legal cannabis industry, not yet 4 years old, yearns for the same system of tying plants to the soil perfected by the French over centuries and a key to the marketing success of the state’s premium wine grape growers.

Tended for decades in legal darkness before voters ended the prohibition on cannabis in 2016, the intoxicating crop from Northern California in particular earned a global reputation for delivering euphoria as well as relief from various maladies.

Now, the burgeoning multibillion-dollar industry wants to stamp its products with geographic identifiers, just like France’s famed burgundies and Alexander Valley’s cabernet sauvignon.

Cannabis cultivators in Michigan have amassed the licenses necessary to grow more than half a million plants, leading to a surge in legal marijuana sales even as prices drop in the state. 

As of July 13, medical marijuana and adult-use cannabis cultivators were licensed to grow 511,500 plants, according to media reports of data released by the state’s Marijuana Regulatory Agency. That’s an increase of 20% from June 1, when licenses to grow 426,000 cannabis plants were active in the state.

One of the many ongoing dilemmas that young entrepreneurs with a new business face is acquiring the startup capital to make an impact in their respective industries.

Cannabis is no different.

We’ve seen many dominant industry players fall to the mercy of its investors and advisory boards. Bootstrapping your way to success can certainly take longer, but depending on your vision and goals, it may pose to be the most viable option. Slow initial growth is not the truest measure of success, by any means. The creative control that will be fostered may be the right avenue for stability and long term growth of your endeavors.

But prosecutors and police say it won’t change how they handle suspected marijuana cases.

Cannabis was already a challenging marketplace driven by regulatory requirements and gray areas on both the federal and state level. Then the pandemic hit in 2020, upending PR and marketing planning for businesses large and small. All the PR efforts that may have been effective last year or even at the beginning of this year have very likely stopped working due to everything that’s going on. With everything is in constant flux, how can cannabis businesses effectively reach their desired target audiences, let alone determine the right messaging? It’s a delicate balancing act even at the best of times, but it can be done by following a few key guidelines. Here are five tips for maximizing your PR efforts in today’s world.

How Can These Two Pot Stocks Prove Their Stability to Investors?

Since the inception of Cannabis & Tech Today, we’ve spoken with industry-leading female entrepreneurs to discover their secrets for success. In this exclusive panel, they share their concerns, their advice, and their experiences as some of the first women to pioneer the space.

What’s one of the biggest issues you would fix in the cannabis industry?

Accountability is a long-term goal for industries that are intrinsically tied to racial justice. Cannabis is one of those industries.

While it seems the news cycle has possibly shifted its focus from the Black Lives Matter movement to other issues, righting systematic wrongs is still an important ongoing responsibility for entrepreneurs within the cannabis and hemp industries. That's why one group of business owners is inspiring cannabis to stay the course with The Accountability List.

Growth opportunities remain in cannabis, but it requires creativity, enterprise and knowledge, according to top investors.

Take this for an investing conundrum: Where do you put your money in an industry with enormous upside but where many companies don’t yet make profits? An industry where some states consider it “essential business” but the country considers its product illegal? Or an industry where the illicit market is potentially three times bigger than legal sales?

Welcome to cannabis investing, where massive potential and heartbreak live side by side. But opportunity does exist for savvy players, even amid a global pandemic that threatens practically every American business sector.

Part of building a returning customer base is investing in a company brand; however, dispensaries in legal markets across are regulated differently state-by-state, limiting the options for traditional marketing, such as radio or TV ads, billboards, distribution of brochures in public spaces, and more.

In many states, retailers are permitted to sell merchandise donning cannabis company logos and other branding—such as clothing, mugs, rolling papers, vaporizers and other products. Retailers are using those opportunities to their advantage to increase awareness beyond their dispensary doors.   

A Detailed Look at Cannabis Sales in Illinois, Maryland and Massachussetts

We are pleased to share with our readers overviews on three Eastern cannabis markets compiled by BDSA for the month of April. BDSA offers a full understanding of the evolving cannabis market though several offerings, including its GreenEdge Retail Sales Tracking, Consumer Insights, Industry Intelligence and CBD Market Monitor divisions.

As Arkansas’ medical marijuana industry blossoms, with the state issuing more licenses for cultivation centers and dispensaries to serve more than 60,000 authorized Arkansas patients, cultivators are pushing back against a narrative that short wholesale supplies have kept prices too high for some patients to buy.

“The argument for issuing additional grow licenses was based on the idea that cultivators charge too much for cannabis,” one grow operation executive told Arkansas Business. “They said basically that there’s no supply and patients can’t get their medicine. That’s simply not true. We welcome competition and the issuing of new licenses, but not under a false premise.”

Cannabis is legal in a majority of states but remains illegal at the federal level. This legislative divide creates uncertainties that dissuade most federally regulated banks from servicing the cannabis industry. With banking providers in short supply, cannabis businesses are struggling to earn and maintain the same access to financial services as their peers in traditional retail industries.

Cannabis and its derivative products are all the rage right now. State after state legalizes its recreational use and dispensaries all over the country are making loads of money. The medicinal aspects of the plant are also heavily taken advantage of by big pharmaceutical companies, with new, branded drugs being released with cannabis as their primary component. 

The U.S. Hemp Industries Association (HIA) has appointed two new members to its board of directors. HIA named Tim Gordon, Chief Science Officer at CBD maker Functional Remedies, and Todd Runestad, an editor at the New Hope Network & Natural Products Insider website, to board positions, the Association announced in a press release.

“The addition of these two on our already stellar board creates the foundation needed as hemp industries expand globally,” said HIA President Rick Trojan of Colorado-based Hemp Road Trip.

Since the beginning of the year, marijuana companies have seen dramatic declines due to concerns regarding oversupply in Canada and the uncertainty of legalization in the U.S. Year to date as of June 28, the ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (NYSEMKT:MJ), an exchange-traded fund tracking the performance of pot stocks, has declined by more than 25%. During the same period, the S&P 500 index fell by less than 7%.