Lady Business: Taylor West, Deputy Director at National Cannabis Industry Association | Ladybud
Bethany Moore: You’ve been working as Deputy Director of National Cannabis Industry Association since last winter. What are your responsibilities and how do you like working in the cannabis industry?
Taylor West: Working in the cannabis industry has been one of the most exciting, interesting, and educational jobs I’ve ever had. As one of our members told me, cannabis industry years are kind of like dog years – one is equivalent to seven in any other business. That certainly feels like it’s been true for my first year!
My job at NCIA covers a lot of different areas, but one of the most important is strategic communications and media relations. Our industry is in a very bright spotlight these days, with an intense amount of media interest. I try to make sure we’re telling the real story of our members, highlighting the businesses that make up our responsible, legitimate, and community-engaged industry. It’s really important that policymakers understand that we are an industry of hard-working, innovative small-business people, and that we deserve to be treated fairly.
NCIA Member Profile: Green Chiefs Baked Botanicals
This month, NCIA spoke with Stesha Reis, director of operations for Green Chief and Baked Botanicals in Washington state. They were the first edibles on the recreational market in Washington and will soon be launching a line of topicals. She is also the president of the Washington Marijuana Association as well as being involved in many other groups.
Cannabis Industry Sector:
Infused Cannabis Products
NCIA Member Since:
2014
A selection of infused chocolates by Green Chiefs Baked Botanicals
How do you uniquely serve the cannabis industry?
Baked Botanicals uniquely serves the cannabis industry through the largest selection of tested cannabis edibles in the state of Washington. We strive to provide a safe, enjoyable, and consistent experience to everyone. Many of our employees have been in the cannabis industry in one way or another for more than 10 years. We honestly care about our products and are continuously striving to have the best – the best experience, the best tasting, the best ingredients. We have people who love what they do and it shows in our products.
Why should those seeking infused cannabis products look for Green Chiefs Baked Botanicals?
Those seeking cannabis-infused products should look for Baked Botanicals because we make everything by hand, from scratch, with quality ingredients. We offer edibles that you would find in a good bakery, or in your mom’s kitchen…only infused with high-grade cold-pressed CO2 Oil. We want the consumer to be able to look to us as the “Gold Standard” in cannabis edibles.
You’ve been working closely with various groups in Washington state on cannabis regulations. Tell us more about what you’ve been doing to “raise the bar” for the cannabis industry.
CO2 extraction machine
We as a company have striven to be an answer and sounding board for other new producers, processors, and retailers as they go through the processes to become cannabis entities. We want everyone to feel like we can get our questions answered, and we want to help get other people’s questions answered. The more knowledgeable that we are as a state and as a group of entrepreneurs, the more successful we will be and the better we will be able to educate the general public.
Why did you get involved in NCIA?
We got involved in NCIA to be a part of something bigger – something that would have a positive impact on the cannabis market in Washington. We are here to learn from the best and exchange ideas and information relevant to our market.
If you are a member of NCIA and would like to contribute to the NCIA blog, please contact development officer Bethany Moore by emailing bethany@thecannabisindustry.org.
Guest Post: Say It Right – Colorado’s Retail Cannabis Advertising Regulations
By Jeff Cohn, COHN, Inc.
With the Colorado market looking to reach $1 billion in sales this year, as well as Oregon and Alaska joining Washington and Colorado in making recreational marijuana legal, the cannabis industry is exploding at unbelievable rate with no end in sight. With so many land mines to navigate in this nascent industry, we wanted to simplify the legal jargon for the Colorado advertising regulations in a quick reference guide. We hope you find this resource useful in building your brand while abiding by the regulation nuances.
Guest Post: A Thriving Solution – Cannabusinesses and Harm Reduction
by Matthew S. Kuehlhorn, Thrive
I am one of just over 200 certified prevention specialists in the state of Colorado. I may be the only one, though more will come, who feels there are benefits to legalizing marijuana. Legal marijuana can absolutely benefit the prevention of marijuana abuse by youth.
Matthew S. Kuehlhorn presents to a group of parents
First off, drug prevention is not really about any particular drug or group of drugs. There are no drug problems, there are life problems. And as the drug prevention field continues to evolve into this perspective, more life problems will be addressed and smart regulations will allow businesses to thrive.
What I have seen, and marijuana businesspeople can attest to, is that the regulatory framework for cannabusinesses sets the bar among any industry in existence. A simple example of this is the fact that I can take my children into a liquor store and there is no way this would happen in a dispensary. We know that does not even scratch the tip of the iceberg’s surface with regards to what minutiae you track daily.
Keep running your compliances tight and marijuana access to youth will be reduced. I have seen it happen already in Gunnison County. As a former director of this county’s substance abuse prevention project, we ask students annually how accessible they find marijuana to be. In 2013, they reported that it was more difficult to access than they did one year prior. The students completed a survey before January of 2014. In 2014, four recreational and medicinal marijuana dispensaries were opened in Crested Butte. I think for many youth, access is only getting harder.
We all know that once cannabis leaves a dispensary’s property, we don’t know how it will be handled. We also know from asking our students in Gunnison County that many teenagers who do access marijuana (and alcohol for that matter) access it primarily through social networks – friends, older students, and parents.
Matthew’s staff presents to high school youth
How do we regulate that? We can’t.
However, we can help to influence what happens. Let me explain.
Research shows that “vice” businesses cannot “prevent” the use of their substance. It simply is a blaring contradiction and it proves to not work. Studies completed on tobacco industries who tried to play a “good” line to save money showed the ads did nothing to prevent use. They did show that public perception of the company itself softened. People thought more favorably of a company that showed interest in bettering society.
I think the tobacco industry’s marketing was wrong. Their perspective of “prevention” was missing a critical aspect. They had to sit down with communities in order to find strategies that worked and they chose not to.
Matthew & fellow colleagues meet with Congressman Scott Tipton (R – CO)
The cannabis industry being so new and so unbureaucratic, you can still choose to sit down with your communities. And I suggest it is crucial to do so for you to thrive.
I sit at multiple tables. I can sit at a Cannabis Business Alliance meeting and with SMART Colorado moms and see the common interest between them. Everyone wants to thrive. We want thriving kids who are engaged with life and expressing their values, and we want an economy that supports great lifestyles while fixing some of the wrongs in the world. Nothing is wrong with that.
And we all have different values that guide our thinking on how we should get there. We can pick up sensational information, propaganda (on both sides), and more to back up our positions. Yet we share many of the same interests, and we know propaganda does little good in the long run.
I am pushing on the prevention field to address life problems and to not even look at “drug” problems. I am pushing on all of us to sit together and share our differences. This way we will see our common interests. And when we see people’s interests and understand where they come from, we can find solutions that ensure all of us thrive.
Matthew S. Kuehlhorn, CPSII, is based in Colorado and recently launched Thrive, which helps to protect the marijuana industry from an uninformed public. Thrive works closely with the cannabis industry in developing a high standard of social responsibility and customer education, and with communities in reducing risk factors and building protective factors in support of positive youth development.
Guest Post: Marijuana Victory in Oregon! Now What?
Oregon passes Measure 91, legalizing cannabis for adults on November 4th, 2014
By Ford T. Pearson, Flip-Side Magazine
[Editor’s note: Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on the Measure 91 campaign to pass legal cannabis laws for adults in Oregon. The initiative passed with 52% of the vote. Well done! – Bethany Moore, NCIA]
Measure 91, Oregon’s adult-use marijuana legalization initiative, is likely the most elegant articulation of US regulated marijuana enterprise to date.
To be fair, Flip-Side Magazine’s paradigm of what is a good piece of marijuana legislation is heavily skewed by the economic opportunity it presents for stakeholders. While it’s clear the authors of Measure 91 remedied many of the flaws within Colorado and Washington state’s still new marijuana programs, where the measure really excels is the astounding potential for commercial endeavor.
Wholesaler category
“’Marijuana wholesaler’ means a person who purchases marijuana items in this state for resale to a person other than a consumer in this state.” —Measure 91
Measure 91 includes four stakeholder categories for which you can apply for a license. Like Washington’s I-502 categories, Measure 91 categories include producer (grower), processor, and retailer licenses. But Measure 91 also includes an exciting new category: wholesaler. The wholesaler license category, missing from Washington’s marijuana program, will make life easier for Measure 91 producers/processors and expand employment within Oregon’s marijuana program. As Washington’s I-502 producer/processors are now learning, selling marijuana can be an extremely daunting task. Even with just 66 of the planned 334 retail stores open, many I-502 processors are surprised at how time-consuming it is to manage and reconcile the preferences of 66 different buyers. Under Washington’s I-502 rules, processors have to sell directly to retailers or hire third-party marijuana sales or strain acquisition consultants to facilitate sales activities for them. Those consultants have to provide their services within a very narrow definition of activity in order to keep the transactions compliant with I-502 rules. Among the restrictions they face is the inability to actually purchase and resell marijuana the way a traditional wholesaler would. Oregon’s Measure 91 wholesaler category provides a remedy for that specific limitation and adds an entirely new facet of economic opportunity to Oregon’s implementation of a regulated, legal marijuana industry.
No “tied house” prohibition
“The same person may hold one or more production licenses, one or more processor licenses, one or more wholesale licenses, and one or more retail licenses. ” —Measure 91
Measure 91 allows for a completely vertically integrated marijuana organization. For example, under its generous licensing scheme, Measure 91 stakeholders could own several producer/processor operations, a couple of wholesale operations, and dozens of retail outlets throughout the state. Allowing this kind of structure not only increases economic opportunity, but also creates an environment that can eliminate inventory volatility and would enable micro-chains to provide consistent and reliable access to the most marketable strains of marijuana and marijuana products.
No residency requirement!
Perhaps the most significant characteristic of Measure 91 is that it does not require stakeholders to be residents of Oregon. Both Colorado’s and Washington’s programs restricted engagement (including investment from speculators) of their legal marijuana industries to residents of the state. I have to admit, when I first learned of this characteristic of Measure 91, I was disappointed. I’ve spoken to literally hundreds of I-502 applicants and licensees, and every single one of those was a small, usually family-run, business. Once Washington’s cannabis program catches its stride, those families will lay claim to their share of a half-a-billion-dollar-a-year industry, and that’s a beautiful thing.
After considering it, I think the benefits the non-residency characteristic presents likely outweigh the negatives. True, one could worry about giant companies coming into Oregon and buying up all of the strategic locations and/or resources needed to grow Oregon’s new marijuana industry, and that’s certainly possible under Measure 91 rules. However, even if that did occur, those out-of-state entities would rely upon locals to implement their plans and this would create significant employment and economic opportunities for those people. Also, and quite ironically, legal marijuana’s primary nemesis, its status as a Schedule 1 drug per federal law, works against large companies investing heavily in Oregon’s program. Federally speaking, not only would those large, out-of-state corporations be breaking the law, but they would also be crossing state lines to do so. There’s a good chance that’s more stress than your typical VP of marketing and development can tolerate. Also, it’s possible that there are quite a few Oregonians with the proverbial rich uncle who lives out of state, so the no-residency requirement would prove beneficial should they decide to engage the industry.
Anthony Johnson celebrates the passing of Measure 91 on November 4th 2014. Photo courtesy of Sam Chapman.
Go with a pro
Consider hiring a cannabis-centric attorney such as Oregon’s Paul Loney or Canna Law Group, or a marijuana enterprise consultant (usually cheaper than attorneys), or both, to guide you through the startup and license application phase.
Know the numbers
Starting up a legal marijuana business ain’t cheap. Many of the mandatory regulatory aspects of a legal cannabis business, such as fencing, surveillance and security, insurance, zoning, etc., can be big-ticket items. In Washington, even a small, Tier 1 Producer operation is easily a $100,000 investment. And if you’re a wannabe retailer, don’t forget inventory cash! Right now in Washington state, there’s a retailer bank-wiring $230,000 to a producer/processor for what is likely a 10-day supply of marijuana. Make sure you’re clear on the cash requirements for implementing your business and make sure you can access that cash. Also, be prepared to show the OLCC precisely where that cash is, and where it came from.
Hang tough!
Enduring bureaucratic scrutiny can be exceedingly frustrating. The hoops through which Measure 91 stakeholders will have to jump are significant, and you may reach a point where you consider just bagging it. Don’t. I know people who’ve quit the I-502 process, and not a single one of them is content with that decision. Don’t forget that you’re fighting for an opportunity that represents potentially generations of prosperity for you and your family.
Ford T. Pearson is Publisher/Editor of Flip-Side Magazine, a sponsoring level member of NCIA since 2014. Ford has significant experience within the legal marijuana industry, including working as a publicist for cannabis-related businesses, and as a consultant helping applicants of Washington’s Initiative 502 legal adult-use marijuana program, Oregon’s HB3460 program, and Oregon’s Measure 91 program.Flip-Side Magazine provides news and resources for the northwest cannabis industry, and is the only marijuana trade publication serving Oregon and Washington cannabis professionals.
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