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In 2019, California cannabis testing lab Cannalysis was raking in investor capital, making headlines and rapidly expanding. While this may be a usable playbook in many other markets, it has proven to be a gamble when it comes to this particular industry and now the lawyers are involved. Cannabis lab testing is commonly considered to be pretty clean work, but these are some dirty allegations.
The entire point of third-party lab testing is quality control. Any lab that can point to a full ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation for all services that they offer demonstrates that their own level of quality control is on point. It demonstrates that even though the state doesn’t require them to employ sensible standard operating procedures, they take it upon themselves to do so anyway. That attention to detail will absolutely carry over to the accuracy of the test results of your product and if you do things right, that’s all you should ever ask a lab to provide.
Location, they say, is everything, and The Atrium is not only easy to find but its large parking lot and their current curbside pickup option makes it easy once you arrive. The whole point of the ‘cannabis dispensary’ is to make access and choice convenient for the customer and The Atrium is always a fun and easy trip into the valley for some fire.
While it is true that Prop 64 dictated that burdensome taxes still be applied even to cannabis produced specifically for compassionate donations, grassroots activists refused to take that as a final answer. Even though the state’s former governor, Jerry Brown, vetoed a bill on his way out the door in 2018 that would have eliminated these taxes on such products, tireless advocates persisted, and nearly identical legislation was signed by Gov. Newsom in 2019.
Too many people who may be able to find real benefits from legit CBD products are instead walking blindly into the market with no advice, no education, and no clue on how to separate the snake oil from the CBD. We have friends and family asking us all the time for recommendations specifically for hemp-derived CBD but we’ve never had any place to confidently point them… until now.
Regenerative farming.
Research-driven, quality-controlled manufacturing.
High-grade products that work.
Compassion based community outreach.
Jeez… is this a hemp CBD company or an old school cannabis company?
That’s the beautiful part, Circle Labs is both.
Clearly, we here at Beard Bros. respect those that are willing to ride the edge to get a message across. Hell, that’s our SOP. The top meme makers in the game certainly don’t do it to make friends, and any one of them worth following is sure to make any one of us cringe from time to time, but that’s comedy. That’s the edge.
This shit is simple - as long as the state has even one weed dollar in their wallet and has yet to expunge EVERY SINGLE low-level cannabis crime from every resident’s record, they are the damn criminals. The way we see it, they are taxing the plant just enough to keep the vast majority of the industry short of financial freedom and to keep prices just high enough that the prohibitionists still in power can hang their hat on the false pretense of “deterrence”. The truth is, they can do without our billion dollars a year as long as no potheads make a million dollars a year.
The regulation and taxation of recreational adult-use cannabis in California has, by nearly all metrics, failed to live up to its potential so far. Instead, it almost instantly devolved into a breeding ground for political and police corruption, as well as a pit of quicksand for those hoping to cash in quick, and a frustrating clusterfuck for those of us who know damn well how to produce and sell high-quality cannabis if only the state would get out of the way.
Among the many systemic flaws of Prop 64 has been, from the jump, its vague language on crucial aspects of the new law, leaving room for wildly conflicting interpretations between the state, local municipalities, and applicants or licensees.
Clearly, the unregulated market in California is draining the potential of the regulated one, but it is the very taxes and regulations that differentiate them that provide that unregulated market with such a distinct advantage. We have no doubt that if we could get accurate totals on the unregulated cannabis sales in each state, Cali would shine as it should, but instead those stats stay in the shadows.
The state has done little or nothing to instill confidence in either the folks who have taken the enormous risk to enter the regulated market or the folks on the outside looking in. In a recent interview, California Bureau of Cannabis Control Chief Lori Ajax admitted that there are no “short-term fixes” for the hamstrung industry. How do you fix something that becomes more broken by the day?
There are many reasons why we think that wholesale prices for cannabis will continue trending upward well into 2020. Is this a good thing? Well, that probably depends on who you ask. Growers making more money is a good thing. But what if it comes with higher risk as well? Consumers are already shunning dispensaries due to high retail prices, so those can’t really go higher to make up for the higher wholesale prices, which is cool but it could cut into the margins of the dispensaries. $100 wholesale pounds sound like a surefire way to keep any discerning cannabis consumer far, far away from any regulated outlet. Lower the taxes at all links along the supply chain and lower the costly barriers of entry that currently keep so many legacy operators from entering the industry and maybe, just maybe, Cali can begin to live up to its potential as the largest legal cannabis marketplace on the planet.
Governor Newsom took office riding a wave of support from cannabis consumers convinced that he would make right what Prop 64 got so terribly wrong. His track record on the issue has not been perfect so far, but this week’s flurry of signatures on successful cannabis legislation should show that the fight is not over yet and although he may not be the most reliable ally, he is certainly not the enemy. The battle begins anew the second week of January with the state’s next legislative session.
We were somewhere around Brawley on the edge of the Anza-Borrego desert when we hit the GPS coordinates we had been given by our contacts. After a brief greeting, they motioned toward what appeared to be a real life oasis in the distance, a glimmering emerald gem throbbing in the rising heat of the extended summer we enjoyed in Southern California. We followed them down a winding dirt track, our tires digging into the desert sand, happy to be riding in a 4x4 pickup truck. Our escorts wove us through security checkpoints and thousands of acres of varying forms of perfectly partitioned agriculture on route to our ultimate destination. A seemingly endless forest of 10-15ft tall flowering hemp plants awaited our arrival…
There is really not much to say in opposition to SB 627 if you are an advocate of cannabis and its many healing capabilities. . . BUT, the amount of support that a bill like this can generate among our lawmakers to protect and empower the veterinarians in our society while those same politicians continue to neglect and discourage that same safe access to cannabis for the military veterans in our society is unacceptable. The fact that a 21 year old will be able to walk into a pet store and purchase THC-infused treats for a pet but a 21-year old military vet is not afforded those same rights for their own well-being is embarrassing.
As Canada’s cannabis industry comes down off an eight month high, it will be interesting to see if they continue to import California’s culture-killing business model as their national market expands and our regional one waits for Washington D.C. to wake up.
There are so very few bright spots when it comes to Prop 64 and “legal weed” these days, but AB 1793 is a ray of positivity and we encourage anyone with a past cannabis conviction to stay engaged in the expungement process until they - and everyone else - are free from the rapidly fading stigma of reefer madness.
We are all about safe access for all, especially when it comes to the medicinal use of cannabis or hemp. Lower priced hemp products are not inherently bad, and those that are farmed and produced ethically need to have a place in the market but this feels like a deadly blow to the already niche market of CBD-rich cannabis production in California and that is scary.
Nobody on our crew voted for Prop 64 but unless it is somehow repealed and replaced it is the flawed law of the land. Our windows of opportunity to effect real change are so narrow and when we miss them, months go by before they reopen. It is imperative that we keep the pressure on our elected officials at all levels of government so that we can take advantage of our next opportunity to correct this law. We have the overwhelming will of the people on our side - will you add your voice to the cause?
This bill, like all cannabis legislation it seems, has its flaws, but we love the provision that the same lawmakers who approved X number of liquor stores within spitting distance of schools, parks, churches, and DMVs would now have to count them all up and divide by four and start writing cannabis license approvals right away.
The hopes, dreams, and life savings of many of the people who helped to put California cannabis on the map are being taxed to death. The cynical side of us thinks that maybe that is by design. After all, one way or another supply will meet demand and it’s easier for the state to oversee several hundred licensees rather than several thousand. But when you see the drastically lower-than-predicted sales revenues after one year of legal weed in the 5th largest economy in the world, you have to figure that money-loving politicians would do the math we have and make some changes – and some are trying. Occam’s razor tells us that the actual answer is usually the simplest one and that is they likely just got too greedy at all of our expense.
From Area 51, to Black Jack, to Combat Cookies, to their delicious OG crosses, you are sure to find an SCVA strain that works for you. Whether you are blazing new trails or looking to get a good night’s sleep, Kosher Kush from Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance ought to be high on your list of strains to try.
Kaizen – a Japanese term that refers to ‘continuous improvement’ through a lean methodology. Dig into this compelling history behind the Kaizen Medicinals brand and how it came to merge with the Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance in this uplifting story from the grassroots of the cannabis culture.
With the well-being of our nation’s veterans in mind, one of the groups that has helped to take point on the task of providing safe access to free meds for vets in California is the Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance (SCVA), a self-funded, vertically-integrated, and highly compassionate yet down-to-earth cannabis company and advocacy group in Northern California. With roots that run deep into the culture of Prop215, SCVA has weathered the storms of regulation better than many and now they vow to continue the mission for compassion.
California cannabis growers, extractors, processors, and retailers have been lab testing their products for potency and purity for at least the past decade, dating back well before Prop 64 and the implementation of recreational marijuana legalization in the state. For those with established relationships with professionally run testing facilities, these early years of practical analysis helped them to hone their craft and refine the quality of their products, giving them a very useful headstart once the industry did evolve.
It can be incredibly frustrating to fight for legalization, then be handed this. . . to fight for expungement and justice reform only to see war-trained troops assigned to kick down doors. . . but we must fight. This plant, once truly embraced, will drop that embarrassing incarceration rate and will kick in tax revenues to our starving schools and that is an investment worth fighting for.
In December of 2018, just before the completely avoidable federal government shutdown began, Republican Senator (and undercover Sleestak, probably) Mitch McConnell famously signed the 2018 Farm Bill with a pen made out of hemp, sending it to President Trump for his final signature that would mark one of the few victories for his Adderall-addled administration.
Washington state is already on its second stab at a track and trace program and in Oregon, the seed to sale system says that they have a million unsold pounds of pot, roughly enough for 4 free ounces for each of the state’s 4 million residents. Four million residents, eh? 3 mill or so in Nevada. 5.6 mill in Colorado. 7.4 mill in Washington. Well, we’ve got 40 million in California so any problems that these smaller markets have experienced could be scaled up greatly once the experiment is fully underway here. Hell, harking back to our dude Mickey one more time, there are more people in Los Angeles County alone (10.16 million) than there are in 42 states in this country…Cali is a different beast.
Until their technology advances enough to close these gaps in accuracy, or the state loosens the law enough to account for those gaps, testing labs may need to meet their customers in the middle in order to protect the small to midsize producers at the essential grassroots of this potentially lucrative and efficient market.
Growers and manufacturers spend even more time and money doing preliminary R&D product testing hoping to identify and eliminate any issues before the crucial final compliance testing. But what good does that do if every lab is using different equipment, following different operating procedures, and in some cases, just outright faking the results?
The BCC is receiving commentary through November 5th on this issue, and all issues raised by this final set of proposed regulations. Many beneficial changes to these proposed regs have come about thanks to the tireless work of cannabis advocates like you reaching out to the BCC and offering your perspectives. By the end of this year, your voice on this issue may be silenced so if you want to speak up do it now.
The regulatory authorities that oversee California’s struggling rollout of “legal weed” have until December 3rd to release their final draft that will define state law for years to come.
Fueled by the tireless work over at CANORML, here is our quick recap of all marijuana related legislation that made it to the governor and how it all fared against his weed-hating veto pen.
Asked about climate change, and what we can do about it, Gov. Brown reached deep into his odd hatred for pot and blurted out, “We either do nothing and smoke marijuana because it’s legalized, or we put our shoulder to the plow and do everything we can.” Ok, listen up Moonbeam. We have actual people with their actual shoulders to actual plows trying to form a lucrative, fair, and eternally sustainable industry out of an actually miraculous plant that grows like a weed.
An in-depth survey of California’s kids has once again reaffirmed that youth cannabis use goes down when adult cannabis use is legalized. For today’s teens, it seems that weed going mainstream is like seeing their dad try to Whip & Nae Nae.
Earlier this month the California Department of Public Health Food & Drug Branch (CDPH-FDB) set a dangerous new precedent by strongly stating that absolutely no hemp-derived CBD is allowed to be added to any sort of food or beverage to be sold in the state. We break it down.
(cover photo @MileHighMagic on IG)
Cannabis legalization has come a long way since California blazed a brand new trail with Prop215 back in 1996 but the question has always remained – what about the weed warriors either sitting in prison or strapped with a tarnished record due to the same cannabis that is now being sold legally by suits and ties?
