Member Spotlight: CannaRegs

This month, as we watch nine states vote on cannabis-related ballot initiatives on Election Day, we’re highlighting NCIA member CannaRegs, the company that is responsible for the data that appears on NCIA’s online State Marijuana Policies Map. Co-founder Amanda Ostrowitz prepares now to handle a flood of incoming data as new states begin to implement cannabis laws in the coming months and beyond.

cannaregs_logo_big2Cannabis Industry Sector: Legal/Technology
NCIA Member Since: 2015

Tell me a bit about your background and why you founded CannaRegs.

CannaRegs co-founder Amanda Ostrowitz
CannaRegs co-founder Amanda Ostrowitz

Prior to launching CannaRegs in May 2015, I was an attorney specializing in banking regulation. While serving in my position at the Federal Reserve Bank, I was engaged in several conversations regarding the issues of banking and cannabis. With just a few questions in mind, I began to research the rules and regulations of the cannabis industry. Although the questions seemed simple, it required several hours of research and more importantly, I noticed the answers varied by location, and at the state, county, and municipal levels. At that point I realized that I probably would not be able to fix the banking problem, but I had an idea to simplify researching the regulations into a user-friendly online database – CannaRegs was born!

What unique value does CannaRegs offer to the cannabis industry?

CannaRegs offers a unique value to the cannabis industry as the only cannabis-specific comprehensive research platform that aggregates state-, county-, and municipal-level law. Notable features of CannaRegs are:

  • Searchable Cannabis Rules and Regulations: The law on CannaRegs is searchable using three unique search functions—browse, smart search, and search laws. These search features were created by attorneys to address the difficulties encountered using conventional legal research tools. What previously took hours of research has been reduced to minutes.
  • No longer do you have to compile binders full of ordinances: CannaRegs’ technology and team of attorneys are constantly monitoring the law, keeping the database up to date. As new regulations and ordinances are adopted CannaRegs is the reliable source for a current amalgamated version of the law.
  • Rule-making Event Calendar: CannaRegs provides a consolidated schedule of rule and policy-making events happening around the U.S. In the month of October 2016, CannaRegs covered 82 municipal, county, and state-sanctioned meetings specific to marijuana.
  • Access to Official Publications: Where most databases provide access to the law, CannaRegs goes beyond by providing quick access to any official publications including forms, official guidance documents, industry bulletins, position statements, product recalls, etc.
  • screen-shot-2016-10-31-at-2-01-46-pmCannaRegs Resource Tools: CannaRegs provides additional resource documents to help navigate the intricacies of cannabis rule-making.
  • CannaRegs & NCIA State Policy Map: This resource is the result of a collaboration between NCIA and CannaRegs that provides a detailed summary of each state’s cannabis market and regulations. This interactive resource is free to the public and is a great starting point for learning the basics about each state. CannaRegs keeps this map updated so that viewers are always looking at current information. Click on the map to see this unique member benefit or to sign up for a demo of CannaRegs.

With nine states voting for either adult-use or medical cannabis ballots on November 8, what does this mean in the larger scheme as it relates to your work?

The CannaRegs team of attorneys is prepared to begin monitoring laws and regulations for the nine state-level votes and more than 50 local marijuana ballot initiatives on November 8. It will be a busy time for the team, but it has also been exciting to see the growth in the number of CannaRegs users in anticipation of legalization.

In the larger scheme of things, the results of this election are likely to inform the trajectory of legalization for years to come. It is not just the number of states voting that is key, but also the states themselves.

  • California has the largest population of any state in the U.S., with nearly 12% of the entire country’s population living there. The results of California’s adult-use vote are likely to have a ripple effect throughout the country.
  • If California, Maine, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Nevada all approve adult-use, then nearly 25% of the U.S. population will live in states with adult-use cannabis.
  • If the medical initiatives in Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Montana all pass, then approximately 64% of the U.S. population will live in states with robust medical cannabis programs.
  • If the Arkansas initiative passes it will be the first state in the South to have a robust medical marijuana program. Combine that with the more limited program in Louisiana and it will only be a matter of time before the rest of the South embraces medical cannabis.
  • Three of the four states voting on medical cannabis are historically red states (Arkansas, North Dakota, and Montana). This is notable because up until now only two historically red states (Arizona and Alaska) have created robust medical marijuana programs. Louisiana has a more limited medical cannabis program than other red states.

cannaregs_ncia-q3-caucus-image-5Why did you join NCIA? What’s the best part about being a member?

CannaRegs joined NCIA to be able to connect with industry leaders and other cannabis organizations that are committed to best practices in the regulated market. NCIA offers several ways to support the industry in its efforts to legalize marijuana federally. As the most important trade association to the cannabis industry, NCIA has helped CannaRegs to connect with industry peers at annual conferences, networking events, or quarterly caucuses. CannaRegs was also excited to collaborate with NCIA on the creation of the State-By-State Marijuana Policy Map. We always look forward to connecting with other NCIA members, and provide a 15% subscription discount to other member businesses.

CannaRegs Website
CannaRegs Facebook
CannaRegs Twitter

 

New Report: “Cannabis: A Promising Option for the Opioid Crisis”

Cannabis: A Promising Option for the Opioid CrisisFrom Cannabis: A Promising Option for the Opioid Crisis:

Jack Stiegelman returned from a 2004 deployment in Afghanistan with a debilitating back injury, for which doctors prescribed daunting amounts of morphine and muscle relaxants. But the medications never felt right.

“It wasn’t making my back better,” he says. “I was just numb for hours.”

Nor did the pills help with the PTSD that caused him to wake up screaming in the middle of the night and physically threaten his squad leader. Eventually, doctors cut off his pharmaceuticals, causing him to buy pain meds on the black market for years.

Relief only came when Jack began using medical cannabis, which allowed him to kick his opioid habit.

“The rage wasn’t there anymore,” he says. “It helped with the stabbing pains and relaxed my back spasms, and it helped me think clearly and stay in tune with my body.”


The opioid epidemic continues to ravage the country, with prescription painkiller and heroin overdoses now killing more Americans annually than car crashes. As state and federal policy makers grapple with the crisis, a new report details how increasing legal access to marijuana could be a potent weapon in the fight — saving lives and millions of dollars in health care and treatment costs.

Cannabis: A Promising Option for the Opioid Crisis, produced by the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), reviews recent research showing significant progress in the fight against opioid addiction and death in states that have legalized access to cannabis in some form.

  • A decade-long survey showed that medical cannabis states had 25% fewer opioid deaths over that period than other states.
  • Medical cannabis states report a 28-35% reduction in opioid addiction treatment admissions.
  • The average doctor in a medical cannabis state prescribes 1,826 fewer prescription painkiller doses per year than doctors in non-cannabis states.
  • State medical cannabis programs were responsible for $165.2 million in Medicare prescription savings in 2013 and $178.5 million in Medicaid prescription savings in 2014.

Additional research indicates that cannabis is not only effective as an alternative to opioid use. It may also be an effective treatment for opioid addiction. One study of heroin-addicted rats found those that were treated with a cannabis extract were markedly less likely to seek out heroin again.

“The mounting evidence for cannabis as a tool in managing the opioid crisis is too important to ignore,” said NCIA executive director Aaron Smith. “Anyone who cares about saving lives and lessening the damage opioid abuse is wreaking across our country needs to read this report and consider what the research is telling us.”

The report also debunks the widespread but discredited “gateway theory” that cannabis use leads to hard drug use and makes recommendations for policy makers battling the opioid epidemic, including how to make cannabis access safer and more effective at the state level and how to resolve the current crippling conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws.

The full report can be read and downloaded at TheCannabisIndustry.org/CannabisAndOpioids.

Video Newsletter: An Election Day Tipping Point?

In this month’s video newsletter, we look ahead to the possibilities for progress in nine states voting on pro-cannabis initiatives on election day. With Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada voting on adult-use, and Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota voting to create or expand medical cannabis programs, our industry has incredible potential to grow. Hear more from NCIA’s Executive Director Aaron Smith about this exciting election season.

If you’re not yet a member of NCIA, join today!

Guest Post: Top 5 HR Mistakes that Cannabis Companies Make

by Caela Bintner, Faces Human Capital Management

It’s no secret that employment demands for the legal cannabis industry have soared in recent years. According to Marijuana Business Daily’s 2016 Marijuana Business Factbook, cannabis-related companies in the U.S. are now employing between 100,000 and 150,000 workers.

That data, if correct, means that legal marijuana companies in the United States are currently employing around the same number of people as there are librarians, web developers, data administrators, or flight attendants.

But the dramatic need to fill cannabis-related positions has also created some major issues for legal cannabis companies when it comes to their hiring practices. A lot of these mistakes can be found in any start-up company – but given the “Wild West” nature of the legal marijuana industry and its outlaw roots, there are also some unique HR issues.

We’ve boiled these issues down into a list: The Top 5 HR Mistakes that Cannabis Companies Make.

Poor Job Descriptions by Employers
As mentioned, many of the people now running cannabis companies don’t come from a traditional corporate background, so they’re not aware of how important a thorough and detailed job description can be.

A lot of these employers are also stuck in a start-up mentality, and haven’t yet made the mental leap when it comes to thinking long-term about who their employees are. And while these bosses are very knowledgeable by necessity when it comes to cannabis compliance and regulations, they’re still not used to explaining their company vision and mission to potential hires.

Verifying Employee Eligibility
Federal law requires that every employer recruiting an individual for employment in the U.S. must have those employees complete an I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form. The I-9 form helps companies ensure their employees’ identity and their authorization to work in the country.

interview-1371360_640But while cannabis companies are focused on legal marijuana compliance and regulations issues, this crucial piece of the employment puzzle often falls by the wayside – and that can be disastrous.

Most cannabis companies don’t realize that a missing or improperly filled-out I-9 form can lead to potentially ruinous government penalties if your business comes under a federal audit. We recently saved one of our clients close to $100,000 in fines by doing our own, internal audit of their paperwork and correcting their I-9s.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Classifications
The FLSA are the minimum wage, overtime pay, record-keeping and youth employment standards established for employees in both the private and government sectors.

In most mainstream companies FLSA classifications help to establish which jobs should be considered exempt or non-exempt, or whether some positions are eligible for overtime.

These classifications are another important but overlooked issue for cannabis businesses. Part of the problem is because some of the jobs in the legal cannabis sector are still new and employers remain ignorant or uncertain as to how they should be classified.

For example, should the growers who daily tend the cannabis plants be considered exempt, or should that classification be reserved only for the geneticists who develop a company’s unique strains? And who gets overtime?

High Turnover
Part of this issue comes back to the dilemma of poor job descriptions. Employers in the legal cannabis sector might begin by hiring friends they can trust, but soon discover those friends don’t have the skills or commitment needed to stay with their jobs.

As a new industry, cannabis also attracts a lot of millennials – young workers for whom this might be their first “real” job, and who statistically are notorious job-hoppers. Once the novelty of working with marijuana wears off, and if they don’t feel invested in their work and their company, they often get bored and move on – taking their newly acquired skills with them.

Another important issue: hiring people who are comfortable with the rough-and-tumble cannabis culture. Most legal cannabis companies don’t want to have a rigid work environment, but they need to be concerned about potentially litigious issues that could lead to claims of harassment.

Recruiting
As these companies struggle to find the right employees, they’re often not thinking of the best methods to attract and engage potential workers, especially for the long haul. Most cannabis business employers aren’t aware they can offer their employees things like health benefits, direct deposit, and other perks that works at mainstream companies take for granted.

Admittedly the legal cannabis industry faces some very unique challenges as it grows and develops. When you’re working with an all-cash business model, it’s hard to get into the habit of keeping good records and an accurate paper trail. And the current federal prohibitions can put any legal cannabis industry high on the government’s radar when it comes to scrutiny for any possible regulatory slip-ups.

All these issues underscore why it’s very important that legal marijuana companies realize the importance of outsourcing or hiring in-house HR professionals – the people who can ensure their operations run smoothly and remain complaint across a wide variety of everyday workplace issues.


Caela Bintner, Faces Human Capital Management
Caela Bintner, Faces Human Capital Management

Caela Bintner is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Faces Human Capital Management, based in Denver, Colorado. With over 25 years of sales, Caela has acquired a unique skill set including public relations and marketing experience.

She started her first public relations company in 1996 after she worked for The Bush Administration. She is also a member of Women Grow, the organization created to help women leverage their influence and succeed in the legal cannabis industry.

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