The Reality Issue - Edibles Magazine - Edition 62

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THE REALITY ISSUE

ISSUE 62 | AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE

From Reality TV Producer to Edibles Baker How Cosmic Edibles Launched with Funding From The President

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12 Issue No. 62 The Reality Issue Edibles Magazine™ Team Publisher/CEO B. Le Grand Editor-in-Chief Patrick Ian Moore Contributing Writers Dr. Mike Heller Dr. Sally Burgundy Marc Wasserman, Esq. Patrick Ian Moore Jack Paradise Tommy Knowledge Rakafet Abergel April Flores Crix Lee Wednesday Jones Bishop Henry Long You Richard Bell Lynn You Chef Matt Michelle Tippens Graphic Design DesignsByBo.com Photography & Video B. Le Grand Alexander Andres Interested In Advertising?

Call Or Email Us Info@EdiblesList.com 310.601.7299 Subscribe at EdiblesMagazine.com EdiblesList.com Meetup: Cannabis Infused Products Meetup: Asian Cannabis Association Download our App in the iTunes Store, Google Play or Amazon Apps Store: Search for "Edibles List Magazine" Answers to Issue 61 Crossword Puzzle Across 2. Beezwax, 6. Beauty, 8. Podcast, 10.

Ontario, 12. Medmen. 15. Pasadena, 16. Coconut. 17. Showgirl, 19. Coffee, 24. Extraction, 25. Tulsa, 26. Frozen, 27. Universe, 28. Lipstick 29. Vitamin Down 1. Berner, 3. Eyeliner, 4. Boston, 5. Cake, 7. Quebec, 8. Pageant, 9. Canada, 11. Oklahoma, 13.

Cannabidiol, 14. Outsiders, 18. Leafly, 20. Oxygen, 21. Hawaii,22. Terpenes, 23. Internet

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Cosmic Edibles Launches With Money Made From Producing Donald Trump's The Apprentice

TABLE OF

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CONTENTS LETTER FROM THE EDITOR POT STOCKS & STOCKED POTS: IIPR & QUINOA CANNABIS KALE SOUP

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AMSTERDAM CANNABIS TOURS NO MORE: BANNED BY LOCALS

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OPINION: TOP 10 THINGS WRONG WITH CALIFORNIA'S LEGAL WEED SYSTEM

21 22 24 28 30 32 36 39 40

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY: CANNTRADE

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COLORADO SURPASSES $1 BILLION IN LEGAL CANNABIS SALES

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DEPT. 420 MONTHY COMIC STRIP

COVER STORY: COSMIC EDIBLES CEO LAUNCHES CO. WITH MONEY FROM TRUMP

SMOKE SCREEN: THE DARK UGLY UNDERSIDE OF CORPORATE CANNABIS CANNABIS INFUSED RECIPES (PAGES 24-27) DISPENSARY FEATURE: PLANET 13 VEGAS SUPERSTORE MONEY TALKS: PAY-TO-PLAY ON CANNABIS RETAIL STORE SHELVES PRODUCT REVIEWS (PAGES 32-34) TOP 7 CANNABIS MOMENTS IN REALITY TELEVISION HEADSTRONG: COMEDY AND CONCUSSIONS WITH ROB VAN DAM FDA HEEDS CONCERNS OF HEMP FARMERS OVER LAB TESTING REGS

NEW BILL MIGHT PROTECT CANNABIS USERS FROM LOSING THEIR JOBS

Q & A WITH ARMY VETERAN MICHELLE TIPPENS, CTE, PTSD & MORE UTAH LAWMAKERS FIGHT TO KEEP RECREATIONAL CANNABIS ILLEGAL CANNABIS EVENT GUIDE CANNA CROSSWORD PUZZLE

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Greetings my friends,

Spring is upon us and that means a few things. Saint Patrick’s Day and Easter are coming up and so is the early part of planting season. So if you’re an early cannabis planter you’ll want to have your seeds ready to germinate soon. It’s warming up and the seasons are changing.

We’ve put a great issue together this month with Cosmic Edibles on the cover and boy do they have a story to tell.

My ‘How to ROLL a joint’ video on the Edibles Magazine Youtube Channel got a

comment this week. The video is over two and a half years old now but it’s always great to get feedback. The comment says: “I used to have a friend that worked at High Times Magazine in the 1970's. She had access to some awesome weed.

Me, I learned to roll in 1968. Only thing to remember about rollin' is "will the joint burn evenly". I've seen fat (pregnant) joints, skinny (Puerto Rican) joints and all kinds.

You don't need a grinder, we never had one. Hell, just break it up with your hands.

It ain't rocket science. Use the thinnest papers you can find, preferably without glue, your freakin' spit will hold it together and we didn't use filters. When the hell did that start??? The weed filters itself, duh.

Besides how else you gonna get roaches for roach weed?? One last thing people, PLEASE don't bogart. Just toke and pass it on. Fuhgeddaboudit.” -- Marty Jewell Thanks for the advice Marty. There have been a few exciting developments in joint rolling technology in the last 52 years though, and that includes grinders, glue and filters. Why fight the future, right? Is this the part where I say, “Okay Boomer.”?

We’ve been travelling a lot lately to Hawaii,

Oklahoma, Las Vegas, and Boston following all of the latest cannabis developments happening throughout the Nation. The Oklahoma Cannabis Expo is happening soon and we’ll be there with Chef Matt and Tommy Chong. Chef Matt provided the recipes in this issue and Tommy Chong is on our list of the Top 7 Cannabis Moments in Reality Television. The list is inspired by our cover story featuring Kevin Harris, who was an executive producer on The Apprentice, with President Donald Trump.

Yes it’s a little crazy and you can read the entire story in this very magazine! We’ve got a new crossword puzzle and reviews of Rob Van Dam’s CBD tincture and his documentary. Enjoy the Reality Issue, As always, smile at your budtender, tip your delivery driver, and know your dose.

“Truth is not obliged to stick to possibilities.”

Patrick Ian Moore Editor-in-Chief

INVESTOR CORNER

POT STOCKS & STOCKED POTS: INNOVATIVE INDUSTRIAL PROPERTIES & QUINOA CANNABIS KALE SOUP Patrick Ian Moore

Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. (NYSE: IIPR) is focused on the acquisition, ownership and management of specialized industrial properties leased to experienced, state-licensed operators for their regulated medical-use cannabis facilities. Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. targets medical-use cannabis facilities, including sale-leaseback transactions, with tenants that are licensed growers under long-term, triple-net leases. As of February 26, 2020, Innovative owned 51 properties that were 98.9% leased based on square footage to state-licensed medical-use cannabis operators and comprising an aggregate of approximately 3.2 million rentable square feet (including approximately 871,000 rentable square feet under development or redevelopment) in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Quinoa Cannabis Kale Soup 4 tablespoons extra virgin Cannabis infused olive oil 1 medium yellow or white onion, chopped 3 carrots, peeled and chopped 2 celery stalks, chopped 1 to 2 cups chopped seasonal vegetables, like zucchini, yellow squash, bell pepper, sweet potatoes or butternut squash 6 garlic cloves, pressed or minced ½ teaspoon dried thyme 1 large can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well 4 cups (32 ounces) vegetable broth 2 cups water 1 teaspoon salt 2 bay leaves Pinch of red pepper flakes Freshly ground black pepper 1 can (15 ounces) chickpeas, rinsed and drained 1 cup or more chopped fresh kale 1 to 2 teaspoons lemon juice, to taste Instructions Warm the olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Once the oil is shimmering, add the chopped onion, carrot, celery, seasonal vegetables and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring often, until the onion has softened and is turning translucent, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme. Cook until fragrant while stirring frequently, about 1 minute.

Pour in the diced tomatoes with their juices and cook for a few more minutes, stirring often. Pour in the quinoa, broth and the water. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 2 bay leaves and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Season generously with freshly ground black pepper. Raise heat and bring the mixture to a boil, then partially cover the pot and reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook for 25 minutes, then remove the lid and add the beans and the chopped greens. Continue simmering for 5 minutes or more, until the greens have softened to your liking. Remove the pot from heat, then remove the bay leaves. Stir in 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Taste and season with more cannabis olive oil, salt, pepper and/or lemon juice. Enjoy with friends and be careful investing.

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. (IIPR)

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WORLD NEWS

Amsterdam Cannabis Tours No More: Banned By Locals Bishop Henry

According to a CNN article, during a recent survey of 1,100 tourists to the city famous for its liberal laws which include legal prostitution and cannabis cafes, the question was asked: “what would happen to the willingness of tourists to visit Amsterdam if either the availability or accessibility of one or more of these factors should reduce or disappear?” The tourists questioned were between the ages 18-35 and who had or were visiting the Red Light District.

Of those interviewed, 72% said that they had visited a café in Amsterdam. 57% of the tourists said coffee shops are an important reason for their visit. 34% said they'd come to Amsterdam less often if they weren't able to visit coffee shops, and 11% said they wouldn't come at all.

The mayor's survey questioned visitors about whether they'd pay an entry fee to visit the district, 32% said they would stop coming altogether and 44% said they would visit less often if they had to pay. Only 1% of those

surveyed mentioned window prostitution as the reason for their visit.

There has been a big movement in trying to curb the influx of visitors in recent years.

Amsterdam has always been a popular tourist destination, but with the dropping price in air fares, more and more people have been coming to the area. Projections say that the tourist number will reach 42 million in 2030, almost ten times the population of the Dutch capitol.

In a separate CNN interview, Ellen van Loon, a partner at Dutch architectural firm OMA, says: "The pressure is very high. We don't want to turn into a Venice. The problem we are currently facing is that Amsterdam is so loved by tourists, we just have so many coming to the city." The Dutch economy gains $91.5 billion dollars from tourism.

One of these measures is a “residence only” restriction to Cannabis cafes that a Dutch judge ruled as legal in 2012. As reported by BBC News, the order allows establishment owners to ban tourists from their places of business. Currently, the ban exists in Maastricht in the southern part of the country.

Weed is still illegal in the country, authorities choose to openly ignore it, only prosecuting those in possession of more than five grams.

The "Gedogen" approach, which basically means “to look the other way”, has been applied to cannabis use in the Netherlands since 1976.

It’s not the laid back attitude towards sex and weed that has made Amsterdam a must when it comes to travel, the survey actually revealed that the bans might not do much to curb the influx of visitors at all. The survey shows that it’s the Dutch lifestyle itself that tourists find so attractive. Scenic landscapes, perfect weather, and bike lanes that stretch across a gorgeous countryside is a hard thing to resist. The Dutch are going to have a hard time keeping the secret under wraps now that the word is out on how beautiful a country the Netherlands is, regardless of how good the weed and sex are!

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Times are changing in the once friendly land of the Dutch. Gone are the days of walking down the red light district and looking at sex workers in window displays and soon, the potential end of cannabis cafes. Effective April 1, 2020, tours to the area have been banned under the threat of a $200+ fine to the tour guides. If locals have it their way, cannabis café’s will be a thing of the past as well! Why? Well, Amsterdam is just frankly getting tired of all the visitors ruining their beautiful countryside and is trying to get us to stop coming, or at least slow us down!

After the publishing of their “Prospective 2030” report, Netherlands travel officials made the decision to withdraw as an official “Travel destination”. Instead, Dutch officials will focus on “destination management” instead of “destination promotion”. The document outlines that if action isn’t taken the capital will be severely impacted by "visitor overload". Solutions listed include dissuading "nuisance" visitors by either limiting or completely shutting down "accommodation and entertainment products".

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COVER STORY

Kevin Harris, Cosmic Edibles CEO, Launches Cannabis Company with Money From Trump's The Apprentice Patrick Ian Moore

Kevin Harris launched his California edible company, Cosmic Edibles, with money he earned from being CoExecutive Producer of Donald Trump’s hit television show The Apprentice.

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After six seasons, Kevin’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and he wanted to not only have the time to care for her, but also to give her clean medicine that he could both trust, and that he knew would help her cope during her recovery. He also conquered his own personal battle with melanoma. Edibles Magazine sat down with Kevin recently at the Cosmic Edibles kitchen in Los Angeles for this infused interview.

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KH: Yeah. Yeah. It got to a point where, after about halfway through the first season, we determined that just one single person needed to produce him. Because he would use crew members to get what he wanted, when it was different than something we needed or wanted. So I would just 100% exclusively manage him, almost entirely, from picking him up at his apartment, to going to set, to going over what he was going to talk about during that scene that we needed, who did what on the challenges, what the status was, where we were. I shadowed him almost the entire time.

EM: How many years did that go on?

Edibles Magazine: You have a very interesting story and background we want to share with everyone. First off, you were heavily involved with the popular TV show The Apprentice. Can you tell us the story of how you came to be involved with The Apprentice.

KH: I did 6 seasons, so that’s 3 years pushing 4. Then I backed off from it at that point. My contract was up with Burnett's production company. But I did the first 6 seasons in the field.

Kevin Harris: Well, I was in the television business already. I started in the film business and production and somewhere along the line in my career I met Mark Burnett, who was doing Survivor at the time. I started doing a show called Eco Challenge with him, great show.

Then at some point after doing two of those shows, Mark said, “Hey, I’m putting together a ‘Survivor in the City,’ show with Donald Trump. Do you want to come out to New York and put it together?

KH: I first met Donald in 1999, and then we shot in 2000. I think it aired in 2001 or 2002, somewhere in that range is when we launched. That's when it just blew up. The first season, still… I think our finale had 40 something million viewers, which is astronomical for television. 10 million viewers is a lot right now, so 40 million is crazy.

I said, “Okay.” So I went out to New York and met Donald and helped formulate the show. We basically figured out what the show was, built the whole thing, with Donald, came up with the challenges. And then launched it.

Initially, we did kind of structure it like ‘Survivor in the City.’ But then we quickly learned it wasn’t that, and it was quite a different beast in itself. Initially, the whole “Fired” thing we didn’t even have as part of the creative, that came naturally as we had the first board room with Donald.

EM: What was that first year?

EM: We went back and re-watched the first Season in preparation for this interview, with Omarosa and Sam. KH: Do you like Sam? EM: He's an entertaining guy and he was featured in a documentary about Donald Trump recently.

KH: I was Co-Executive Producer.

KH: He was doing the push ups with the plant vase that he dropped. He didn't last long. He told me afterwards, he knew he was going to go soon, so he started making it memorable. That was his whole thing. He was like, “You know what? I’m gonna make this the best… I know I’m going soon, so I’m gonna start having fun with this, cause I want people to remember me.”

EM: Oh wow. So you worked very closely with Donald Trump.

EM: So you had an awareness of where some of the contestants felt like they were taking their characters?

EM: What was your original title?

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COVER STORY

EM: You said you worked on the Martha Stewart one as well?

KH: Yeah. I was.

EM: How different was that than the Donald Trump?

KH: Well structurally, it was exactly the same. Outside of we kind of made it instead of business chops we kind of made it creative chops in a sense. So the people that we cast into it had a little bit more of a creative sense to them.

You know chefs, artists and stuff like that, whereas the Donalds contestants were real estate people, bankers, you know his kind of thing. So outside of that and the fact that you know Martha kind of wanted to be a little bit softer, instead of the board room we would call it the conference room. Just little things.

EM: And they’re pretty different personality types KH: Donald is Donald is Donald. It’s always what I’ve said.

Cameras turn on it’s the same guy, cameras turn off it’s the same guy. He never really had this switch for television, where Martha did. So Martha would do and say things off camera that were golden nuggets for us, but yeah the minute we turn on the camera Martha turned into Martha Stewart every time. It was a little more challenging to produce her actually than it was Donald.

EM: Was there a point during The Apprentice that you had a good idea that Donald Trump wanted to be President.

KH: No there was not really a point where I thought he would run, I think however he wanted the power, but I don’t think he wanted the job is my opinion. He never talked about it much, I mean there was always jokes about running for President and what not. I think he kind of played with it early on a few times, but it was mostly for the promotion is my guess. And I think this one might have started that way, I think it might have started as a promote-able thing to do,

because he’s pretty good at that stuff.

EM: Your time on The Apprentice ended when?

KH: 2006, roughly.

EM: Oh, okay.

KH: I mean for producing, I think I came off the front line around that time, ‘05 or ‘06.

EM: And how did you get into doing cannabis cookies?

KH: Well basically my mother in a sense. I was still out producing shows after The Apprentice and my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I kind of at the time understood the benefit of cannabis and when a loved one is going through chemotherapy and all the ups and downs and the crap you have to deal with. You kind of almost think of anything and I wasn’t a big consumer at the time, but I just knew there were benefits to it. So I just said, “You know mom you should try some cannabis, I can get you an edible if you need and you know see if it helps.” So I bought her some gummies. I got my medical card and went down and bought her some gummies and she loved them. So that’s when I kind of was like alright let’s see what I can do to make these better. A friend of mine said,'' Well your cookies are pretty good, why don’t you do something with that for her? You know, make some cookies for her, I mean she likes those.”

EM: So you were already making cookies?

KH: Yeah I was. I mean I’ve been baking the chocolate chip cookie since I was probably 8 or 9. A long, long time.

EM: Oh wow.

KH: Yeah it’s my grandmother’s recipe and I just took it at some point and became the family cookie maker. The first time I made the recipe I actually screwed it up, but it was better. Everybody loved them better than grandma’s original recipe. I messed up some of the ingredients that I used. So then I just kept with mine because everybody loved that and I made that for 40 years. Same one, just over and over and over again. So whenever we had a family thing, everybody would be like,”Oh is Kevin making cookies?” Then when I was 12, I was making cookies for the family thing.

EM: That’s cool.

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KH: Yeah, in a way. I mean, they’re not taking them as much as we are. But yeah, we casted characters, we casted A-personality people who we felt would wear it on their sleeve, and their emotion in the moment would actually come out. We tried to do a casting episode once, and it just did not work. A lot of the techniques to figure out if somebody will, what we call ‘Lay on the Sword,” or whether actually somebody’s going to fight, it’s not quite so straightforward. So when we were asking the questions in casting, they were kind of unorthodox, and the whole thing didn’t look great.

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COVER STORY a lot of companies who were presenting donations in order to try to help that. I just figured the timing was perfect, and it’s something I had to do. That’s kind of what started it. Then you get into the whole business thing and I have an economics degree.

EM: In addition to your degree in economics do you feel like your time with Donald Trump and producing The Apprentice taught you more or new things about business that you have been able to use?

KH: So then I decided you know what, let me try to figure out how to put cannabis into these cookies. It was quite an ordeal. The first few that I was sending to my mom were probably not the best, but they had the cannabis in it to help her.

EM: And it helped with your mom?

KH: Yes, she loved them! She still, to this day, uses them, mostly though with CBD now. Just for her I got CBD. We do have them, but we just don’t sell them much, a CBD cookie. So I put 25mg because she played with the milligrams for a long time and 50 was her golden spot. So two of these cookies a day and she loves it. It replaces her narco in a sense, sometimes she still needs the narco because the pain is intense.

She says about half the time she reaches for the cookies now.

EM: How is she now?

KH: Fine. She got through it, she fought it and beat it, had some other medical problems that started, it was a touch and go time. She was battling breast cancer and then a couple days later had a stroke. So that sidelined her, then she had to put off all the treatment on the cancer because the stroke trumped that. No pun intended. So yeah, but she got through it all and she got back probably ninety-eight percent of all of her function.

KH: I think so. I learned a lot from him, he’s very shrewd. I’ve learned some things not to do and some things to do. He’s the iron fist business guy. He throws his fist and does that [slams the table] and it’s crazy. I did learn leverage and understanding information is power. Whoever you’re negotiating with, if you know what you’re talking about, you have a much better chance of succeeding. I did really learn quite a bit from him, business wise. He treats his staff, some of staff members have worked for him for 30 years, you can’t keep people for 30 years unless you treat them well, it’s just not gonna happen. He does have a lot of positive business traits, that worked well for him at the Trump organization and despite some failures it still did pretty well. It was relatively successful.

EM: Did you learn anything from Martha Stewart that you’ve used in your edibles business?

KH: No, I wish. Clearly I wish I could’ve had her try my cookies. But no, it wasn’t even a blip on the radar.

Martha was a much more challenging person to learn from because she’s much more, not reserved, but hard to crack in a sense and that was my forte, cracking hosts, celebrities.

EM: She was out of prison?

KH: Yeah she had the anklet on.

EM: Oh great.

KH: Yeah, yeah. She was treated really great in the hospital.

EM: You said you had your own battle with cancer?

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KH: It was melanoma and 10 years ago - beat it before it took me - but that also had a lot to do with exiting The Apprentice.

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EM: What led to it being taken into the actual cannabis space?

KH: After my mom’s treatment she said you should do this for more people than just me. So this kind of opportunity to help others and create something amazing in the cannabis business was very appealing, I said to myself, you know maybe I’m going to take a swing at it. I was really interested in this UCLA study on using cannabinoids instead of painkillers and the study was based there because it had to be privately funded, it couldn’t be federally funded. So there were EdiblesList.com I EdiblesMagazine.com

COVER STORY EM: Oh right.

KH: So she could work outside of her home for 40 hours a week at that time and we would use all 40 hours basically.

EM: People do get a little more guarded after they’ve done time. That’s not unusual.

KH: It’s not.

vegan ingredients going in, it’s a vegan cookie going out. That’s kind of how I got into it. You know I’m not a big meat eater myself, so it was an accomplishment to get to a cookie that still tasted like a fresh bakery cookie that is fully vegan.

EM: Then it helped with the shelf stability?

KH: Yeah, by removing the things that went bad, we were able to stretch it out for months. Then I started using some different ingredients, different syrups and stuff that helped with the moisture. We’re using a rice syrup right now and it works really well with keeping the moisture in the cookie. I mean it’s not a secret as we do put it on our packing. Obviously how much we put in and how we do it is our own little formulation of it.

EM: You guys were able to develop a way where you know every single cookie’s dose?

KH: Yeah it took us a long time. We hit some misdosings in our early levels.

EM: Yeah that happens.

KH: Yeah, yup and that part of the process of doing that was to make them better for my mom. So in that whole process of a year, prior to launching, I literally made a list of all the ingredients and said, what do I need to remove to make these dose-able every single day because I know my mom is going to want to eat them every single day.

EM: Right.

KH: That’s when I decided to go down to bite size, but still keep the doses in there, so this way you can eat them every single day without a cookie this big after a month, a cookie everyday, that’s 30 cookies in 30 days.

That’s a little nuts. So it was part of the reason I went down in size and then….

EM: Going vegan?

KH: I made the list of all the ingredients and said what can I remove? I said I can take the sugar, I want to cut it in half right away. I know you still need sugar to maintain what I was going for, which is a fresh baked, traditional flavor cookie. It wasn’t a lot of the substitute sugars you could use and they work just fine, but it didn’t meet what I was going for, which was the traditional. I knew I still had to have sugar, so I just bought the best I could buy organic straight up cane sugar with not a lot of processing to it, which does help, they don’t bleach it.

There’s a lot of cleanness to just straight up cane sugar.

I tried to replace it, I just didn’t want to. The eggs and the butter seemed like a very natural thing to remove. At the same time, I was working on preservation.

I knew that if I stacked her with 100 cookies, in a few days they would get stale. Fresh cookies only last for a short period of time. That was another reason to start removing those things. It got to a point where I looked at the ingredients and said oh wow, this is all plant based, everything in this. As long as I was using

KH: You have to be really careful with that and there’s a lot of steps you have to take in the actual making of the cookie to ensure you’re hitting your potencies. We spend a lot of time there, that’s definitely our bottleneck, the oven isn’t even our bottleneck. It’s the creation of the dough ball.

EM: Let’s go ahead and talk about the aesthetic a little bit. Cosmic Edibles? How did you come up with that?

KH: So originally we were rocket edibles. Our legal team at the time, they did a whole lot of research to figure out what kind of risk we had. There was a Rocket edible in Colorado, that wasn’t operational, but they still had the trademark now. The lawyer suggested that we rebrand right away, just so it’d cost us a heck of a lot less now than further in the game and they could easily come after us and have a case. At that point we made a big list of names. It was actually my son who came up with Cosmic and I just loved it. I was hammering on and he said you should just name it Cosmic and it was just basically over at that point. My son didn’t even know what type of business I was starting.

EM: It’s a great name.

KH: Then when we developed the little tubes we made. I wanted, since they’re soft cookies. It’s recycled packaging, so when we made them, the craft is recycled paper. What I did is, I found the smallest cookie scoop I could possibly find. It took me, I mean I probably went through 20 or 30 cookie scoops. You know the little hand scoop things.

Then I made a ton of cookies on the smaller ones, the smallest ones I could find to try to keep the consistency.

After doing that and measuring them and analyzing the formulas long enough, I came up with the average size of what the cookie would be, which is what turned out to be this size here. This way when the cookie goes into them, they stack. There’s no movement, so when you throw them in your car or your bag, you’ll still end up with intact cookies in the end. That’s the reason why we tubed them as opposed to bag them. We have this bag

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EM: That kind of brings us back to, now the cookies have been, they’re vegan.

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COVER STORY

that actually goes down inside too.

EM: So then the bag inside is the childproof compliant packaging?

KH: Yeah, you can have multiple packaging, just one of them has to be compliant at some point.

EM: Where are they available right now, that’s California only?

KH: California only, yeah. Focusing mostly on the Southern California market right now. Just because we distribute all of our own cookies, we manage all the accounts, we do all the in-store promotions and everything all from this facility, so the further out we go, the more that was stretched. We’ve decided to really focus on this market here because it’s massive in Los Angeles, all the way down to Orange county and all the way up to Santa Barbara.

That’s our market right now. We’ve had a lot of interest in other markets that we will expand to eventually once we get this one stable. If you visit our website, there’s a map, that we keep pretty much current, with what shops we’re in. Plus if you go to our social media, we put fresh drop indicators on there, basically when we drop fresh cookies we’ll put it on our social media.

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EM: What’s the social media handle?

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KH: @edibles_cosmic, but you can also search just Cosmic edibles and we’ll pop up. Which is a funny silly story too when we started as Cosmic Edibles. I realized that by searching edibles, so if someone was just going into instagram and searched the word edibles, if I had it as cosmic edibles we were further down, if i had it as ‘@ ediblescosmic’, we were higher. So I switched it. So were initially ‘@ediblescosmic’, but then instagram deleted our instagram account twice. So the first time they deleted it we were ‘@ediblescosmic’, second time they deleted it we were ‘edibles.cosmic’ and now we’re sitting on the third one which is ‘edibles_cosmic’. The reason I just kept adding them was that we already had it in print. All the old prints, if you still search them, we still come up even with the underscore. So you don’t have to put the underscore, but yeah we’re @edibles_cosmic basically.

EM: So what’s next? Anything on the horizon?

KH: Well we will expand to some other products eventually, but we really wanna make this. Once we, not conquer, that’s a bad word, get out much much bigger on these cookies, the base product, our cookie line, is selfsufficient and running itself, then we can start adding layers of other products to it. We’re gonna have some new flavors. Obviously this next holiday, we’re probably going to have a holiday cookie. We’ve tried it before, but the

regulations make it a little more difficult to have special edition cookies. The national holiday season is long enough that you can necessitate doing a special cookie for that. So we’re probably gonna do that. We’re putting out our content, which we’re gonna do a lot of fun things with cannabis content. Most likely if we get off onto some other tangents, we’ll just keep it ,keep it our brand which is high quality premium edibles and products, and keep it intact. Make sure that we remove all the bad items out of it and re-develop them.

EM: We have a lot of readers and listeners from outside California, but anyone visiting California with a valid ID can find these in Southern California.

KH: Yes they can. We’re definitely looking to expand, we’ve already started looking at some of the other states. Just initially to see where licensing is much easier and also partnering with people that could make them for us in those other states.

EM: Do you think there’s any point where our current president is gonna try these cookies?

KH: I don’t know, Donald - you want some?

EM: That'd be cool.

KH: I don’t know how the heck you’d get cookies into the president. It has to go through a massive process right?

Like it’s crazy. They bring their own chefs, they bring their own food...

EM: And they get a secret service guy to try one first to make sure. It’s legal in DC. KH: Ultimately it’s not far fetched to say, the money that I made on The Apprentice, I’m using to fund this. You could squeeze that even tighter and say Donald Trump, I mean he owned the show. The Apprentice is half his show, so I worked for him. Technically he was my boss and I produced that show for him and I got paid for that, but from him.

EM: Right.

KH: And here I am using that money, he may even be proud of it, I don’t know. It’s a good business.

EM: I think that’s the quote that we’d use to get his attention: if he funded your edibles business.

KH: It’s not that far-fetched because I’m definitely using the money I made from The Apprentice to do this.

EM: That’s a good cause though.

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COVER STORY

EM: Any final thoughts on The Apprentice, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart?

KH: I’m a registered Democrat, no matter what I tend to lean that direction. I’ve always said to myself that Donald Trump’s organization is a dictatorship, he made all of the rules and the decisions period. A lot of things came out of the organization and promotional things that probably shouldn’t have happened because no one was willing to say ‘no’ to him. Like he made a water and on the label, it was all red and orange. He asked one day if I liked it, it was called ‘Trump Ice’, if I liked the label and I guess I was the only one to say no because I said,” It’s red, it feels like it’s hot water. I don’t want to drink– should be blue or something so I can feel like it’s cold.” He said,”It’s ice.” I said,” I know, but it’s red!” I think most people just said,” Yeah! That’s great!” I knew by committee, he’d had a hard time, he doesn’t operate like that. He’s making a decision, period. Would he take consultation? Maybe. But ultimately, he would do what he wanted to do, period. I knew it would be a struggle because that branch of government is only one part of our government and he had to work with the other branches. To me I thought that would be the biggest struggle that he would have, he’s not the type to operate in a democratic government. I guess there’s a lot of things that are happening that prove that point.

EM: Any thoughts about what he’s said about cannabis having potentially some medical benefit.

KH: I don’t know, I try to keep up with what he’s saying about the cannabis business now that it affects me. I’m not sure he’ll mess with it. I think he’s got a pretty negative train of thought about it, just based on being around him so much. I can’t imagine he’s completely behind it, I think he understands that if somebody has a traumatic medical problem, you’d do anything you can for them. I think that’s where he sees the benefit of cannabis, is for that specifically. I think he truly still believes that people using it recreationally, is not good and I can’t imagine he would support any kind of that. He doesn’t even like alcohol. He’s adamant against it. We'd have wrap parties and I wouldn’t drink anything until he left because I just knew he’d look down on you if you were drinking in front of him, so I never did. He’d only stay an hour and then he’d bail anyway. I’d have time to have a couple more beers you know.

a podcast, like totally, I rewatched it and basically talk him up because I did witness him writing checks to troubled children organizations and stuff like that. I physically witnessed that stuff. He pulled over one time to help somebody that was stranded in their car, in his limo going to New Jersey. They were stranded on the turnpike or whatever, so we pulled over and helped him.

EM: You shared with us a story the other day about Martha Stewart making you a latte, can you tell us that story again?

KH: The cappuccino? We had tasks basically every single episode and I had a list of them. I was sitting with her at her house going over the episodes we were gonna shoot and getting her feedback and her opinions. We’d go back and change them based on more insight to her world. At some point, while we were having this discussion, she says to me,”Kevin would you like a cappuccino?” I’m like,”Yeah, sure.

I love cappuccinos, I'll have one.” I was thinking to myself that she would call out helpers or workers and say give me two cappuccinos. She literally stood up, the cappuccino machine wasn’t far from where we were sitting. We were at her dining room table and you could see it. She gets up and tells me to continue and walks over to the cappuccino machine and starts making me a cappuccino. I’m like, I’m about to get a Martha Stewart cappuccino, a real Martha Stewart cappuccino. She brought it back to me and hands it to me and I was in heaven, thinking to myself, oh my god this isn’t some little Martha Stewart cappuccino mix that you buy at the store and put hot water in it. This is a Martha Stewart cappuccino. That was the best cappuccino ever.

EM: Well, thanks so much! We’ve been talking to Kevin Harris of Cosmic Edibles. If people want to learn more, see the store locator, see what products are available. What’s your website?

KH: www.CosmicEdibles.com. You can also see the Instagram link on there. It has all of our shops, all of our products, all the ingredients. Everything is on there, all the information you need. You can subscribe to our newsletter, which we haven’t done one yet, but we’re gonna. It’s just one of those things.

We’ve picked up quite a few, from the bottom where you put your email, I’m surprised, out of the blue. We’re going to start utilizing that and sending information that way.

EM: Very cool, thank you so much for talking to us today.

KH: Of course it’s my pleasure.

EM: Cool, that’s funny. Well, he signed the Farm Bill, which had the hemp clause in it and that was beneficial to hemp cultivators. (Also, he may not have read the whole thing.)

KH: I think he gets a lot of pressure from other Republicans in this arena, is my guess. I think he was a Democrat at one point and I think he has some heart in him. I just said that on

Read the rest of the interview with Kevin Harris, watch the video interview or listen to the podcast online at EdiblesMagazine.com

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

KH: I’m self funding it all, I have no investors. There’s some partners who have small percentages, who did sweat equity for me initially, finances, stuff like that I couldn’t get my head around.

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OPINION

Top 10 Things Wrong With California's Weed

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

B. Le Grand

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These are the top 10 reasons the little guy There's also a 60% Tax Penalty for Being 1 will not survive the California Cannabis Day Late. Part of the biggest problem Prop 64 Business Purge: created was the complete unilateral control and autonomy of the CDTFA (California Department 1) Taxing Tax & Increasing Taxes: of Tax and Fee Administration). They get to • In case you didn't know, the reason choose however the cannabis industry gets California's legal cannabis products are taxes with or without cause. So when they costing so much more than illegal stores feel like they're not getting enough taxes they or black market products is because of just raise the tax rates like they just did with the quadruple taxation on the states part. cultivation and distribution. A 60% penalty is There's the cultivation tax, distribution tax, enough to put a company out of business. the retail tax and sales tax. And that sales tax isn't just the state sales tax there is 2) Too Many Agencies to Answer To: also city, county and district sales tax AND Overall cannabis companies licensed in cannabis tax. A $6 wholesale product ends California have to answer to a minimum of up exiting the stores at $25, and 80% of 11 agencies: every dollar is going to taxes. Furthermore, • BCC (State Oversight) the cultivators can’t pay the cultivation tax • City Departments of Cannabis so it gets passed onto the manufacturers • CDFA and distributors, even though the CDTFA • CDTFA says the cultivator is the one who has to • County pay that tax. Ultimately the rising costs all • District get passed onto the consumer. And what’s • Franchise Tax Board worse is that dispensaries are marking up • Department of Sanitation the wholesale tax, so that the product ends • Department of Fish and Wildlife up at a 127% markup instead of the normal • Department of Weights and Measures 100% keystone so that the retailer doesn’t • IRS end up feeling the weight of the distribution tax…. But the end consumer also pays the 3) Chain of Supply Taxation: retail excise tax. To top it all off, the cities • In no other type of business does a chain are raising their local tax rates putting of supply wholesale tax get applied. For people out of business in places like Santa cannabis, not only is there a wholesale Cruz and Oakland. tax, that tax is due to the city and state, regardless if you collected that money.

AND the cities want their 1-15% tax rate on With the rising cost demand to operate, TOP of the CDTFA markup tax. It’s illegal to retail stores are requesting net terms, tax tax, but that’s what’s happening. Don’t promising to pay in 30 days. If that store forget that at the end of the day, the IRS doesn’t pay the supplier within 30 days, doesn’t allow cannabis companies to write the supplier is still responsible for the off anything, so whatever profit would be distribution tax, which just got raised. The left is taxed Federally with no deductions CDTFA chose to write it as: 15% on an 80% because of Section 280E. So you could be markup, which is effectively 27%. Why bringing in millions of dollars, but still go didn’t they just say it’s 27%? Sound too high? bankrupt… but cannabis companies can’t Yes, it does. Because it is too high. This tax even declare official bankruptcy because - which gets taxed as well by the cities, is that is a Federal protection. Let’s not what’s killing California’s cannabis chain of forget the state just raised the taxes for supply. The problem is the people writing cultivators and distributors. the law are not the operators. When you EdiblesList.com I EdiblesMagazine.com

Continued on Page 20

OPINION

Top 10 Things Wrong With California's Legal Cannabis System (con'td) ask any questions to the CDTFA about how you’re supposed to collect that tax, they never answer the questions consistently. Every single time I’ve called the CDTFA to ask them about the cultivation tax and who is supposed to pay it and who is supposed to collect it, they answer me differently EVERY SINGLE TIME. They obviously have no idea what’s going on. There's no cohesion at all.

4) Prop 64 Eliminated the Right to Voter Legislation Change: • That's right. Maybe you didn't realize it when it passed but Prop 64 took away the ability to reform cannabis laws by voter legislation... which is unconstitutional. But Mr. Sean Parker of Napster put millions of dollars behind promoting Prop 64, so it passed. Now the repercussions are setting in fast, deep and hard. We have no way to change the tax laws or ordinances without the regulating agencies choosing to make a change.

5) No Banking Available: • The state wants their tax, the cities want their taxes but the state has not created a pathway for safe access to banking.

Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, and Arizona have all created safe banking pathways so that bills can get paid and audits can take place efficiently. California put the cart before the horse creating legalization laws without provisions to indemnify banks for doing business with cannabis companies. How can an audit even take place with no bank accounts? Furthermore, when paying city or state taxes cannabis companies have reported that their bank accounts have gotten shut down as a result of an item showing up in their account as "Cannabis Tax Payment." So not only are we penalized by the taxes for being cannabis companies, we get penalized by the banks for trying to pay our cannabis taxes.

6) High Financial Demand (requiring partners and funding): • The way this system has been designed requires deep pockets and sustained losses for long periods of time.

There’s just no way a small business who is under funded or self-funded can survive without taking on investors or financing. But the market is so volatile and costly that greed takes over and rears its ugly head all too often. One of the most common stories we hear right now is about licensed California companies in partner or owner disputes causing companies to close, sell, or end up in court with a receivership taking over the business. Our number one best piece of advice is BE CAREFUL WHO YOU PARTNER WITH - including required social equity partners.

7) 70% of Cities Don't Have Ordinances For Cannabis: • California’s dual licensing system requires obtaining Issue 62 I Page 20

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OPINION a city permit before a state licensed can be issued. Out of 488 cities, only about 25% of them have created a structure for cannabis licensing. The state made it illegal for cities to prevent deliveries or distribution vehicles from entering said city. As a result at least 25 cities are suing the state over this.

8) Extremely High Insurance Costs: • The minimum cost for insurance coverage for cannabis companies averages $40,000 a year. That's the average salary of an annual employee. Only a few companies even underwrite the kind of coverage required by the state of California. To top it off, it's unclear how and if insurance will actually pay out in the event of an incident, and how much the premium will increase as a result of a claim.

9) Metrc™ Track-and-Trace Problems: • No Lab Testing Integration existed for Test Results for two years up until now • No way to check out Booth Display Samples in Metrc™ • No longer a way to create multi-destination transfers • No way to track sales in Metrc™ • It takes 2 weeks for Metrc™ to reply if you need to troubleshoot for any reason, they reply 'Read the Manual' • When you start Metrc™ access, it takes 6 weeks to get your tags, but you must first discover that they blocked access to tags in order to request the tags • When something is destroyed in Metrc™, it doesn’t actually adjust the original “package” • Because Metrc™ is a web based software the access gets throttled and sometimes at peak business hours it takes as long as 3 minutes for a page to load to execute a transfer.

10) No Consistency in Lab Testing - No Mandatory Calibrations or Protocols If the lab doesnt have the $500,000 machine, they're only getting 80% of the yield and the lab results are going to be outside the 10.% plus or minus buffer from the state.

We've sent the same sample to 3 labs and got 3 completely different results. That means that businesses are on the edge all the time, just one mishap or bad compliance test could put a company out of business.

Final Thoughts: They are literally making it impossible to do business and stay afloat in California as a licensed cannabis company. If the state wanted more tax revenue, the answer is simple, reduce the barrier to entry and reduce the application fees and taxes to encourage more people to get licensed and legal. Instead, the exact opposite is happening.

California's broken legal market continues to drive the black market, creating the demand for low cost cannabis products and encouraging people to feed into the illicit market because there's no profit to be made legally.

Everyday we see another cannabis company (big and small) go down, quit, or exodus leaving the state for other more promising markets. It's a massive intentional purge and only big companies backed by millions will survive.

The Reality Issue

Issue 62 I Page 21

CORPORATE CANNABIS

Ep. 6 Smoke Screen: The Dark Ugly Underside of Corporate Cannabis #TooFastTooHard This is a regular series of articles intended to be chapters in a compilation story book of lessons to learn from Corporate Cannabis. Names have been changed to protect the guilty (and the innocent).

gummies from the company’s website, which purported that each product contained anywhere from 150 mg to 550 mg of CBD. The suit claims the actual amount in at least one of those products was far less, although it does not explain how the actual amount was determined.

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Episode 6 in the Smoke Screen is about a big CBD company that has fallen flat Due to the fact that the FDA was on its face. investigating them, and the fact that they’re a public company, the SEC They went public on the American (Securities Exchange Commission) who exchanges early on, and raised plenty regulates the stock market, started of investor money to make themselves investigating them. successful quick, fast and hard.

The SEC tipped off the FBI and their They advertised everywhere, became corporate offices were raided. Now they the leader in white labeling and private can’t pay their bills and are trying to labeling, gaining the attention of keep their white labeling business alive, everyone, including the FDA. but the market is flooded, and their reputation is destroyed.

The FDA started looking into them because of their product claims and They’re still attending conventions and marketing claims that their products cold calling distributors, but they’re “helped” or “cured” diseases on their using an alias for the company name website. They were one of the few while pretending not to be connected, companies that got a letter from the FDA despite having the same sales reps, demanding they stop making claims. phone number and physical address.

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Then they were on the receiving end of a class action false advertising lawsuit with the class representative claiming that the products did not have the amount of CBD they said they have in them. The suit alleges the company misrepresented the amount of CBD in their products. The lawsuit says the plaintiff purchased $119.97 worth of CBD

The moral of the story is: The bigger they are the harder they fall.

We are still in a new, almost experimental market. CBD companies may not realize that regulation on the horizon. The bigger you are, the more of a target you become.

Don’t be the one they make an example of.

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COOK INFUSED RECIPES

MORE RECIPES & BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE IN OUR MAGAZINE APP AVAILABLE VIA THE APP STORE

CBD Infused Blackened Salmon

Ingredients: CBDailyEats Olive Oil Blackening rub Preparing the Blackening Rub: 2 tsps. Paprika 4 tsps. Italian Seasoning 2 tsps. Onion powder 2 tsps. Garlic powder 1 tbsp. Brown sugar Edibles Magazineâ„¢ Issue 62

2 tsps. black ground pepper

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1 tsp. Cayenne powder

dry rub and allow it to marinate for 2-4 hours. If not able to marinate you can always use the CBDailyEats

Instructions:

olive oil as a finishing sauce. Cook

I suggest marinating the Salmon in

the salmon and flip to the other side.

CBDailyEats Olive oil then adding the

Do not overcook.

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CANNABIS INFUSED RECIPES Recipes this month are provided by Chef Matthew Stockard. Matthew has had the honor of catering for government officials, city officials, and many other high-end individuals. Matthew has won numerous cooking events during his time as a Chef. He’s won BBQ awards, Cajun/Creole awards, and several other awards to date. He’s assembled a special menu for this issue of Edibles Magazine that includes both THC and CBD infusions of his own creation. Make as a full meal or as individual treats, share with friends and take pictures of your finished products -- we’d love to see them. Bon Appétit! Visit his website to learn more at chefmattcooks.com.

THC Vegan Chocolate Mousse Instructions:

In a heat-proof bowl above simmering water, melt the chocolate. Then, set aside to cool.

In a stand mixer, or using a hand mixer with the double beater attachments, whip the Garbanzo bean juice and sugar until the mixture forms stiff peaks. Fold the slightly cooled melted chocolate into the whipped mixture until it's uniformly incorporated and

Ingredients: 1 Bar of Bhang dark chocolate and 20 oz.

no streaks of chocolate remain. Spoon the

of any dark chocolate chopped up

mousse into serving glasses and chill for

1 ½ cup Chickpea or Garbanzo bean juice

at least 1 hour. Garnish with fresh fruit or

from can 1 ½ cup powdered sugar

shaved Chocolate. Yields 10 servings. 10mg THC per serving.

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

K

INFUSED RECIPES

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INFUSED RECIPES

Canna Mushroom

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Risotto

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Ingredients:

saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in

6 cups chicken broth, divided

the mushrooms, and cook until soft, about

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

3 minutes. Remove mushrooms and their

1 pound portobello mushrooms, thinly sliced

liquid, and set aside. Add 1 tablespoon olive

1 pound white mushrooms, thinly sliced

oil to skillet, and stir in the shallots. Cook

2 shallots, diced

1 minute. Add rice, stirring to coat with oil,

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice

about 2 minutes. When the rice has taken on

1/2 cup dry white wine

a pale, golden color, pour in wine, stirring

sea salt to taste

constantly until the wine is fully absorbed.

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Add 1/2 cup broth to the rice, and stir until

3 tablespoons finely chopped chives

the broth is absorbed. Continue adding broth

4 tablespoons Chef Matt’s Coconut Oil

1/2 cup at a time, stirring continuously,

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove

Directions:

from heat, and stir in mushrooms with their

In a saucepan, warm the broth over low heat.

liquid, butter, chives, and parmesan. Season

Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large

with salt and pepper to taste.

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INFUSED RECIPES

Choco Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup Baking Cocoa 1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions: Preheat oven to 375° F. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, brown sugar,

1/2 teaspoon salt

granulated sugar and vanilla extract in a large mixing

1 cup Chef Matt’s

bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs for about 2 minutes or

Hemp butter softened 1 cup packed brown sugar

until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in flour mixture.

3/4 cup granulated sugar

Stir in morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes

2 large eggs 2 cups Semi-sweet chocolate chips

or until cookies are puffed. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Vinaigrette

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DISPENSARY FEATURE

Planet 13 Vegas Superstore

B. Le Grand

It's like nothing you've ever seen. A true cannabis superstore. You're greeted upon entry with the calming sounds of flowing water over their giant planet sculpture sign. After checking in with your ID there's a large cafe to your left where you can grab a coffee or a pizza and just chill. They even hold industry events there for networking or afterparties during conferences.

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

The dispensary itself is massive with cases of product on display everywhere. It looks like there's at least 30 budtenders on duty and probably 300 people working onsite. Whatever you're looking for, you will find at Planet 13.

Many familiar brands from other states are launched and available in Nevada.

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order to you.

They really designed the space to be memorable and in line with the Vegas style of wow-ing their visitors.

If you're just there to look and be wow-ed, that's okay too, there's non-infused souvenirs like Planet 13 hats and t-shirts.

Coming soon to Planet 13's portfolio of "Wows" is a partnership installation of Cannabition, which is a hemp museum moving into Planet 13.

They also hope to launch a social club in the near future, for consumption, when the laws At Planet 13 they manufacture concentrates allow and the moratorium for social lounge and edibles and have a commercial kitchen licenses in Vegas is up. along with a display production line. They plan to incorporate a Vegas style robot show where It's a truly impressive operation and build. the robots making cannabis infused beverages When you're there it's hard not to think, "This start fighting with each other, duke it out, offer is the model for the Walmart of Cannabis." each other a truce with a THC beverage and But without the cheap preconception because then go back to work. everything they carry is top notch, high quality products.

In their home line of products, they make Dreamland Chocolates, HaHa Gummies and In the beginning of legalization, Nevada's Elysium Beverages. system was criticized for being too strict on their laws, but compared to what California's There's a custom Volks Wagon bus with a giant done Nevada is light years ahead and the taxes joint on it's rooftop that you can get into and there make sense. take the perfect Instagram picture, stepping out with clouds of (fake) smoke around you and Watch out California, because Planet 13 is your posse. opening a superstore in Orange County in the way of their Vegas stylings and it's going to If you're local in Las Vegas and have a private become the Southern California go-to cannabis residence to deliver to, Planet 13 will bring your tourist destination.

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US NEWS

Money Talks: Pay-to-Play on Cannabis Retail Store Shelves, Will The Little Guy Survive?

Bishop Henry

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Whether it’s the video game industry, organized sports, or in most context’s it comes up in; “Pay-to-play” hasn’t always been viewed as the best of practices. In video games, players pay extra money in order to gain an advantage over players who are just playing with the base models of what’s available in-game, or what they have to earn slowly over natural progression. In sports, if you pay the fee to be on the team, you are entitled to play, regardless of your skillset. It’s great for the player, it’s not what’s always best for the team. Now, in the cannabis industry, if you have the cash, you can get an advantage over the competition by paying to push your brand in front of others on the shelves, and again, that’s not entirely a good thing.

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companies begin to factor slotting fees into their bottom line.

Retailers are stepping up what they offer to the brands they sell their shelf space to.

Big time retailers like Planet 13 in Nevada, which serves about 130,000 clients a month, a lot of those visitors being tourists, offers a total partnership package from $10-15,000 a month. With 50 television screens to promote product, they also offer in-store promotions, pop-up demonstrations, posts on its social media account, which has about 26k followers on Instagram, and photography and menu board advertising. David Farris, Planet 13’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing says, “What we try to do is provide value for those brands.

The idea is that it translates into revenue for A common practice in the retail industry them. We provide services, and we hope that known as “slotting fees”, individual brands pay that provides value for them. Las Vegas is a retailers a fee to have the prime real estate in destination, and we’re a destination.” their stores, shelves, and displays. According to an article by mjbizdaily.com, some brands pay In California, the legality of slotting fees in anywhere between $500-1500 to dispensaries the cannabis industry is still up for question for priority shelf space. The practice is gaining by manufacturers. In a separate mjbiz.com popularity in California and Nevada, especially article, Cannabis industry attorney Khurshid among shops desperate for any source of Khoja and Hilary Bricken weighed in on their legal income. The black market of cannabis experiences with slotting fees. Bricken, who is still thriving due to the over-taxation and wrote a blog about the trend after several of state regulations, especially in California, and her clients needed to negotiate these fees, it’s making business difficult for legit retail says that there is no clear cut answer and that stores. The cost of doing business is getting all cases would need to be settled on a caseexpensive, and that can spell a lot of problems by-case basis. for smaller operations.

A lawsuit will probably be necessary in order Slotting fees are non-tax deductible. According to clearly define the currently vague California to the IRS Tax code 280E, you can’t write off guidelines. Khoja notes that California liquor any fees associated with selling a federally laws prohibit slotting fees and that the current illegal product. This is a tax practice that legal head of Bureau of Cannabis Control, Lori Ajax, retailers employ when it comes to slotting was a former deputy with the Department fees, which lessens the financial impact of Alcohol Beverage Control. A primary of marketing their merchandise. For now, factor would be, according to Khoja, whether cannabis brands are forced to absorb these California wants to model its regulations after costs. Cannabis consultants recommend that the liquor or grocery industry.

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US NEWS Large companies like Las Vegas Based Vape Company “DaVinci” are taking a proactive approach to shelving fees, according to Shauntel Ludwig, Director of Sales and Marketing for the vaporizer manufacturer, who refers to the fees as “Merchandising fees”. Companies like DaVinci are proactively reaching out to retailers and offering the merchandising fees up front. This gives the company the opportunity to have more control over how customers view their products.

“Even if the person selling isn’t knowledgeable about our products, the consumer can see it and make up their mind whether that’s for them or not,” Ludwig said. DaVinci is implementing a range of product placement programs that it can apply in stores of different sizes, Ludwig said. The plans range from purchasing topshelf placement, displaying posters, and information podiums.

EDIBLES DISTRIBUTION FULFILLMENT & SALES

Adrian Sedlin, the CEO of Canndescent, a largescale cultivator in Southern California says, “This was always going to happen. I don’t see this as retailers gouging their manufacturers or their product providers. You don’t think Procter & Gamble isn’t paying for shelf space?”

As with most industries, big money and mass production means lesser quality. Companies who have the capital to invest in large slotting fees often do so because they mass produce or don’t make a lot of their own product.

According to Nic Easley, CEO of Denver-based cannabis consulting firm 3C, “It’s not just that they’re mass producing, they use their licenses, invest in marketing and shelf space, then loop back around and find supply. They won’t have consistent quality of products.”

The future of the cannabis products we buy could be determined by the company who has the deeper pockets and not the company with the best product. “Pay-to-play” or “Slotting” might work in the retail industry, but given the unique nature of the cannabis industry it might not due so well for both cannabis brands and consumers. Factors like quality, the cost of cultivation, manufacturing, and distribution in such a fledgling industry are still fluctuating and are uncertain. Adding more to the cost of doing business might put a choke hold on those companies who have been barely hanging on and deter new smaller entrepreneurs from entering into an unfair marketplace. “Slotting” is still a fairly new practice in the cannabis retail space and likely still far from being settled.

The Reality Issue

Issue 62 I Page 31

310.601.7299 C11-0000209-LIC

EDITOR'S PICKS TEXT HERE

F E AT U R E D P R O D U C T S

PRODUCT REVIEWS Planet 13 HaHa Gummies Patrick Ian Moore

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Ha Ha Gummies are the in-house THC gummy manufactured and sold at Planet 13 in Las Vegas. Larry Scheffler, Co-CEO of Planet 13 says, "Edibles, especially premium sativa-based edibles, have been very popular with our tourist customer base," said Larry Scheffler, Co-CEO of Planet 13. "HaHa Gummies™ were designed from the ground up using the customer insights we have generated from the over 400,000 people we have served at the SuperStore in just eight months. We expect that the combination of this deep customer connection and an interactive production experience at the SuperStore will quickly make both brands Nevada favorites."

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you can watch them come to life in front of your eyes using the viewing windows at the kitchen inside the giant store in Las Vegas. It’s a bag of ten gummies that are 10mg of THC each, so every bag is 100mg.

Dosed with cannabis infused MCT oil and distillate, the gummies taste sweet and fruity, sugary and soft. Better chewed than sucked, activation time happens within one hour.

If you visit Planet 13’s menu online, the section for HaHa Gummies says: “It all started with a laugh. Our recipes celebrate the free, fun-loving spirit of cannabis enthusiasts and are created with love by passionate, enthusiastic chefs. Celebrate life’s hell yeahs and hip hip hoorays with HaHa Gummies – one sweet little change in the world of cannabis.” The Haha Fruit Punch gummies are handcrafted in the state-ofthe-art production facility at Planet 13, EdiblesList.com I EdiblesMagazine.com

Go to planet13lasvegas. com / ord erin g / a nd get a look at all of the different products available from Planet 13, including HaHa G u m m ies. You ca n get a FREE Ride to Planet 13 from select locations by calling 702.815.1313. Planet 13’s retail location is at 2548 W Desert Inn Rd. Suite 100 Las Vegas, NV 89109.

EDITOR'S PICKS

Cosmic Edibles Double Chocolate Cookies Jack Paradise

Cosmic Edibles delicious Double Chocolate Chip Cookies are soft, chewy, chocolatey, and bite-sized for enjoyable dosing any time of day.

These tasty cookies are plant based and packed into a custom made recycled tube.

eating a cookie, I turned on Netflix to watch Pete Davidson’s new comedy special, “Alive From New York”, and it went very well with these edibles. It’s actually funnier than I expected and there’s a lot of content about cannabis and microdosing magic mushrooms.

Each tube holds ten cookies and every cookie is 10mg of THC, so you’ve got 100mg of THC total per tube. The ingredients are: Organic Unbleached Wheat Flour, Organic Cane Sugar, Earth Balance Vegan Butter, Organic Rice Syrup, Organic Cocoa Powder, Unsweetened Raw Chocolate, THC Oil, Water, Organic Vanilla Extract, Potato Starch, Tapioca Flour, and Himalayan Salt. There’s 4 different flavors to choose from: Double Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip, and Snickerdoodle. The Double Chocolate were my very favorite and this review is mostly about them, and they are delicious.

Netflix and Hulu are talking a lot more about shrooms these days.

Anyway, after 20 minutes of watching the comedy I ate 2 more cookies and washed them down with some unsweetened vanilla almond milk, which was a delicious combination.

You can’t taste any of the cannabis because they’re made using an odorless and tasteless distillate, so all you taste is the chocolatey goodness. Not too dry and just moist enough, they really do taste like a fine homemade cookie. Three cookies (30mg of THC) seemed like the sweet spot for me but I’d recommend normal humans start with less. After

It’s a great edible to take out on a hike or to the movies. You have 10 cookies per pack so there’s plenty to share and the tube makes it easy to take them on the go without worrying that they’ll get smashed. Read more about Cosmic Edibles in their featured cover story in this very issue and visit their website at cosmicedibles.com to see where you can get some cookies.

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Now, I happen to be vegan, and these cookies happen to be vegan, but if you’re more into omnivorous tastes, don’t let the plant based nature of these treats turn you off, you’d never know they were vegan cookies. They’re just re a l ly d a m n g o o d and taste like they’re made with real butter and eggs.

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EDITOR'S PICKS TEXT HERE

RVD CBD Tincture 3000mg

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Jack Paradise

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Recently while we were on a trip to Las Vegas for the USA CBD Expo, we had the opportunity to visit with our friend and professional wrestling legend Rob Van Dam at his new home there.

Rob appeared on the cover of Edibles Magazine back in the Spring of 2017, when California was still medical, and was a special guest presenter at The Best of Edibles Awards. He’s also been a speaker on The Edibles Magazine panel at The Los Angeles Comic Con and came to our MJ BIZ Con after-party in December. We went to the Mike Tyson Ranch for a deliciously infused dinner

by Chef Matt at Ganja Eats with RVD while in Vegas and interviewed him in his house. You can watch that interview on our website at EdiblesMagazine.com.

We were chatting about his new documentary “HeadStrong” (now on Amazon) and his new line of products, RVD CBD. The RVDCBD.com website says, “As a world class athlete and professional wrestler, Rob Van Dam (RVD) pushes his body to it’s limits. As a result, Rob’s learned how to recover quickly and effectively with the use of all-natural, CBDrich products by RVDCBD.” There’s also an educational section where you can learn more about CBD if you like. “Cannabidiol, more commonly known as CBD, is by far one of the most studied compounds of the 116-plus known cannabinoids found in industrial hemp.

Being a natural compound of the plant, it can comprise up to 40 percent of hemp. Unlike THC, CBD is non-intoxicating, which means it will not get you high. Whether it’s to maintain general well-being or becoming more proactive with a daily wellness routine, there are various ways in which CBD oil is useful.”

We actually tried the tincture for the first time while watching the documentary. 3000mg of CBD is a lot for one fluid ounce but RVD has always done everything to the extreme so it makes total sense. Plus when you think of everything he’s put his body through over the last thirty years there’s no doubt that he needs it. There’s 30 total 100mg servings of CBD in every bottle. The only two ingredients are MCT oil and broad spectrum hemp extract. MCT oil is a supplement made from a type of fat called medium-chain triglycerides, and is most commonly extracted from coconut oil.

The dropper is measured in 25 mL increments to make dosing super simplified. The tincture tastes pleasantly neutral and we all immediately felt a sense of clarity and any minor pains we’d been feeling seemed to go away. We gave some to our 15 year old Siberian Husky, and to contributing writer, artist Richard Bell, who suffers from chronic spasms. Richard reported that it helped greatly with his spasms and our Husky was wide eyed and energetic for the rest of the afternoon. Take it alone or combine it with some THC for more of an entourage effect. It really is the strongest CBD tincture we’ve ever tried out and noticeably so.

Go to rvdcbd.com/shop/ to order a bottle of RVD CBD. It’s on sale right now for $144.95, which is a pretty great deal for 3000mg. Rob Van Dam is known as “The Whole F*cking Show” to fans of wrestling around the world and he’s developed a product that you can say the same thing about. In fact his picture is right there on the label.

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COVER STORY

7

TOP CANNABIS MOMENTS IN REALITY TELEVISION Patrick Ian Moore

Reality is defined as: the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unknown individuals rather than professional actors.

There’s been a few good marijuana infused moments in the genre, so here ’s the Edibles Magazine list of the Top 7 Cannabis Moments in Reality TV. Enjoy.

1.

2.

KIM KARDASHIAN THROWS A CBD BABY SHOWER FOR HER FOURTH CHILD ON KUWTK: There was a CBD bar, where people could make their own CBDinfused bath salts and body oils, a tea station, flower arranging, a group meditation and sound baths.

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

SHAHS OF SUNSET - “GG” HAS WUSAH CANNA-BUSINESS LAUNCH PARTY: In the episode “The Prenup Hiccup, Golnesa “GG” Gharachedaghi throws an official launch party for her cannabis brand WüSah and meets Edibles Magazine.

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3. KRIS JENNER EATS

THC GUMMIES WITH HER MOM ON KUWTK: K ris' m o ther, M.J. i s p re s c r i b e d m e d i c a l marijuana and convinces Kris to try it with her.

They get high and Bruce Jenner, who is now known as Caitlyn, gets angry.

COVER STORY

4. RICKY WILLIAMS GETS

WEEDMAPS DONATION ON CELEBRITY APPRENTICE: During the See’s Candies “celebrity candy” fundraising challenge on The New Celebrity Apprentice, Ricky Williams get's a $10,000 donation from WeedMaps.

5. THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF

BEVERLY HILLS VISIT CANNABIS CAFE IN AMSTERDAM: The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills visit a coffee shop during their trip to Amsterdam and try cannabis infused cake but are concerned that their kids would see them getting stoned.

6.

MARCUS LEMONIS TOURS DISPENSARIES ON THE PROFIT : Marcus visits Canndescent in Desert Hot Springs and appreciates their high-end packaging, but he’s not convinced it's better than the market’s cheaper alternatives.

7. CHEECH AND CHONG ARE

REUNITED ON DANCING WITH THE STARS: Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are reunited for Chong’s performance on Dancing with the Stars. Cheech drives him onstage for his performance in a smoke filled convertible.

The Reality Issue

Issue 62 I Page 37

ENTERTAINMENT

HeadStrong: Comedy and Concussions with Rob Van Dam Patrick Ian Moore

majority of bones in his body. Yes wrestling is scripted but the injuries that wrestlers sustain are very real and very dangerous.

That reality sets in once you start watching HeadStrong. The day before the tour started Rob got a concussion wrestling and it’s affecting his vision. You then learn that he’s suffered from hundreds of concussions and he’s never seen a doctor about it. The film makes a definite shift in tone and you can’t help but worry about the health of the subject. He’s been sacrificing his body for “Plans to film pro wrestling legend Rob close to thirty years for the entertainment of Van Dam doing a standup comedy tour his fans and it has taken a toll. RVD told us are drastically changed when concussion that most of the wrestlers he came up with symptoms unexpectedly take priority are addicted to painkillers or have committed in Joe Clarke's candid and unflinching suicide. It’s a sad and tragic reality that you documentary.” don’t hear much about.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma (often athletes), including symptomatic concussions. RVD begins to worry that he might be suffering from CTE and promises the camera multiple times that he’ll see a doctor about it, after also saying that back in the day if he split his head open, they’d close it back shut with super glue and keep on wrestling. Since filming this movie, RVD has gone on to become very outspoken about his cannabis advocacy, so if a sequel to HeadStrong is ever made, hopefully he’ll be able to incorporate more of the work he’s doing with CBD into it.

HeadStrong is a fascinating glimpse into the world of a larger than life personality who’s been through a lot, and managed to survive through it all with a smile on his face. He’s a joker, he’s a smoker, he’s The Whole F*cking Show! Watch HeadStrong and The same can be said of Jackie Chan’s movies learn something new about a living legend. yet somehow he’s managed to break the headstrongrvd.com EdiblesList.com I EdiblesMagazine.com

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

That’s the only plot synopsis given online for Rob Van Dam’s new documentary, “HeadStrong”, now available on Amazon Prime. Originally, the plan seemed to just be for RVD to go on a short, eight day long stand up comedy tour during the Spring of 2016 throughout the United States with comedian Tom Garland. It would be a chance for fans to see him do something other than wrestling and perhaps allow Rob to start transitioning into a new phase of performance that involved less getting hit in the head with chairs and not as much being thrown from the ring. It’s nice and when you see people freak out at the chance to meet Rob Van Dam you come to realize just how strong an impact his wrestling had on their lives. It’s also through clips shown of Rob wrestling over the past 25 years that you see just how extreme his style was. People always mention that wrestling is fake, and if you mean scripted/fictional, you’d be absolutely right.

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H E A LT H C O R N E R

FDA Heeds Concerns of Hemp Farmers Over Lab Testing Regulations

Edibles Magazine Issue 62

Lynn You

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S i n ce the pa ssing of the Hemp Farm Bill in 2018, Hemp has become a hot commodity in agriculture, with its uses ranging from rope and textiles to hemp milk and oil, but government agencies are still unsure of how to regulate a derivative of the cannabis plant, CBD. As of 2020, only one CBD based product has been approved by the FDA for “treatment of seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome or Dravet syndrome in patients 2 years of age and older.” And under the new regulations,

any CBD and/or THC products can’t be marketed or sold as dietary supplements dictated by the FD&C Act, although Hempderived products that meet the standard of the FD&C Act and do not contain any CBD or THC can be marketed and sold as dietary supplements.

In November 2019 many major companies producing products that contained CBD were sent warning letters by the FDA for not containing the chemical levels of CBD that they claimed were in their products.

The companies that

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have received warning letters are listed on the FDA’s website for public view.

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the new commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said “We’re not going to be able to say you can’t use these products.

It’s a fool’s errand to even approach that,” and continues, “We have to be open to the fact that there might be some value to these products, and certainly Americans think that’s the case.

But we want to get them i n fo r m a tion to make the right decisions.” Dr. Hahn’s

H E A LT H C O R N E R

With such a high demand for Hemp and CBD products, the FDA is looking for new ways to regulate and accommodate the Hemp industry into the rest of the agricultural sector. Since Hemp is a strain of the Cannabis sativa plant, it does contain some amounts of THC, but significantly less than that of the Cannabis plant. The DEA wanted more regulation and lab testing through their approved state labs, but people within the industry complained that there was too much of a demand for the selected labs to keep up. Current regulations require that all hemp must be tested 15 days before harvest and there are less than 50 DEA-registered labs in

the country, causing a huge bottleneck for this industry. The DEA and the FDA came to an agreement to allow farmers to test at their local laboratories, as long as they meet USDA standards.

It will remain standard until the 2021 season, when the DEA will once again require approved state lab testing. This will give the agency a chance to gather more DEA-approved labs to cooperate with and more options for disposal of Hemp waste, some of the biggest issues facing the Hemp industry. As with pretty much all Cannabis and Hemp regulation, more testing is needed to study the short and long term effects of cannabis and its derivatives. Even though derivatives of the cannabis and hemp plants are more widely consumed than ever before, governments are slow to create regulation and testing to keep up with demand or allowing for necessary clinical trials to study the effects.

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

predecessor, Dr. Scott Gottleib testified to Congress in February of 2019, “We believe it does have therapeutic value and has been demonstrated [. . .] but I will tell you this is not a straightforward process.

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US NEWS

Colorado Surpasses $1 Billion in Legal Cannabis Sales

DRIVETHRUBUD.COM

Wednesday Jones

The Colorado Department of Revenue reported cannabis shops across Colorado reported nearly $1.75 billion in sales last year, resulting in a new record for annual sales.

According to the Denver Westword, the sales produced $302.4 million in state tax reavenue, which is used to fund much-needed programs including: school construction, law enforcement, public health, drug education, and public safety.

Once thought to have reached peak sales in 2018, this boon resulted in a 13% increase in sales for 2019. Tom Adams, managing director for BDS Analytics (a cannabis market research firm) credited the state’s rebound to “the increase of no-flower products (i.e. edibles, concentrates, etc.) and changes in consumer behavior.

“To see it turn around in 2019 is a bullish indicator that price compression, when market participants price in many years worth of future performance into the current price, can’t keep the popularity of legal cannabis down.” Adams told CNN Business.

Research conducted by BDS also showed an increase in the number of adults who’ve consumed cannabis in a six-month period due to being more comfortable with buying cannabis products (flower or otherwise) and educating themselves on usage as “It’s just become a part of people’s lives more and more.”

This is great news for not only Colorado but for other states who’ve legalized marijuana and the states still on the fence about it.

The Reality Issue

Issue 62 I Page 43

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US NEWS

New Bill Might Protect Cannabis Users From Losing Their Jobs

Bishop Henry

Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta, of Alameda, introduced a bill that would require employers in both the public and private sectors to accommodate workers and applicants who use cannabis for medical purposes. Bonita says “To be discriminated against by your employer because of the type of medicine you use is both inhumane and wrong. Medical cannabis, as recommended by a doctor, should be given a similar reasonable accommodation as all prescription drugs.”

According to an article first published by the Los Angeles Times, the number of Correctional officer applicants disqualified for testing positive for Cannabis doubled from the year before the legislation was passed. Over 800 correctional officer applicants were disqualified in 2019.

According to spokeswoman Dana Simas, the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation has no plans to relax the drug testing requirements for those applying to become correctional officers, “CDCR seeks out only the most qualified correctional officer candidates that exemplify our professional standards and code of conduct. A positive test for cannabis indicates recent usage and as a public law enforcement agency we maintain a drugfree work environment.”

will give to patients under the care and who are prescribed medical cannabis by a licensed doctor. HIPAA privacy laws protect patients’ prescription and medical history, keeping that information private.

The bill would not apply to those jobs that are federally required to be drug-free including pilots, police, truck drivers, or those employers with federal contractors who are required to keep drug-free workplaces.

Bonta adds that 16 other states already have similar worker protection measures in place.

Ellen Komp of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) says that she doesn’t believe that an allout ban on cannabis is necessary. She says “…people can legally and responsibly use marijuana off the job, as long as they don’t show up to work impaired or use it on the job.” Komp wants the Legislature to go further, asking lawmakers to also ban urine testing for weed, except as required by federal law. The current law is untenable, she said.

“The result is to unfairly discriminate against qualified workers, deny them medical treatment with cannabis, and oftentimes compel them to depend on opiates and other more hazardous drugs,” according to Komp.

Opponents of Prop 64 don’t feel that the law should be changed and that the disqualifying of applicants and workers for positive tests was a foreseen sideeffect of legalization. Proposition 64 allows employers to reserve the right to maintain a drug-free work environment. According to Tamar Todd, a UC Berkley School of Law lecturer on Marijuana laws and also Vicechair of the California Cannabis Advisory Committee, who says that Prop 64 didn’t allow for any protections in regards to employment. “People can still be drug tested and disciplined based on a positive It’s unclear what added protection this bill result even if they are using in compliance EdiblesList.com I EdiblesMagazine.com

Continued on Next Page

Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Recreational cannabis users are facing a serious problem with the legal use of weed, testing positive in employment screening drug tests! California voted for the Adult Use Marijuana Act (Prop 64) in 2016, which fully took effect on January 1, 2018. Since then, those who are looking for employment with the government and with those companies who have federally regulated contracts are required to drug test. These companies and organizations are not mandated by the state law and must comply with the federal law when it comes to drug testing, as such, a lot of people are having trouble getting hired at these government jobs.

45

US NEWS CONT'D

New Bill Might Help Cannabis Users Keep Their Jobs (Cont'd) with state law, not at work, and not impaired at work.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, workers who test positive for marijuana had 55% more industrial accidents, 85% more injuries, and 75% greater absenteeism compared to those who tested negative.

In 2018, the nationwide rate of positive drug tests hit a 14-year high at 4.4% for Quest Diagnostics which bases this number on the 10 million tests it has processed. According to Quest, the number of non-safety-sensitive jobs who tested positive for marijuana in California rose from 2.3% the year before Proposition 64 to 3.1% in 2018, which is higher than the national rate of 2.8%.

This upward trend isn’t unique to just California according to Barry Sample, Senior Director for Science and Technology at Quest Diagnostics. Sample says that Positive marijuana tests are trending upward in other states that have legalized recreational use of marijuana. “Marijuana is not only present in our workforce, but use continues to increase. As marijuana policy changes, and employers consider strategies to protect their employees, customers and general public, employers should weigh the risks that drug use, including marijuana, poses to their business.”

Drug testing is required of 25 state agencies including Caltrans, where federal highway safety rules apply to truck drivers and heavy equipment operators.

Caltrans has seen a slight uptick in the number of job applicants disqualified for marijuana use in the last two years compared to before Proposition 64.

The California Chamber of Commerce is generally opposed to restricting the ability of companies to conduct pre-employment drug tests. “Allowing drug use in the workplace — including requiring an employer to accommodate an employee’s marijuana use — could jeopardize the safety of other workers as well as the public,” the Chamber said in a statement this month.

Businesses with federal contracts face mandates to keep workplaces drug-free, said Robert Moutrie, a policy advocate for the Chamber.

Issue 62 I Page 46

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VETERANS CORNER

Q & A with Army Veteran Michelle Tippens, CTE, TBI, PTSD & More Michelle Tippens is a veteran who is currently running for Tulsi Gabbard's seat in Congress. She’s one of the founders of the Hawaii Veteran’s Cannabis Alliance. She also puts on an event in November called Stoke for the Cure, a medical cannabis strain search that finds the best strains for specific medical problems and raises money for veterans. Here’s a quick Q&A with her about PTSD and brain injuries.

Q: How did you get your brain injury?

A: I was in a car accident. I was near El Dorado, Texas, and the sun roof of the car broke my neck when the car rolled over. I crawled out of the car, got a ride from a trucker who brought me to a nursing home where I was medivac-ed to a private hospital and then back to Fort Hood.

Q: What would you like to see changed with the way our society handles PTSD? A: I see a tremendous expectation for sensitivity in dealing with alcoholism as a disease. It would be nice to see PTSD treated with a similar amount of care. PTSD doesn’t simply mean a person has dealt with difficult experiences, it also means those events have negatively affected the way that person interprets and reacts to the world. A person can’t “just stop” being triggered, they have to retrain a more appropriate response and that takes time and practice.

Q: How does cannabis help with veterans, PTSD and traumatic brain injury?

A: The US Patent Trade Office awarded a patent that identifies cannabis as a substance that protects brain cells and causes them to regenerate. However just healing the tissue isn’t enough. Allowing a person to remember an event objectively so they can untrain the survival response is just as important; cannabis does both. Many veterans have true survival memories. Recognizing the survival moment is over is easier with cannabis, calming those survival responses is easier with cannabis, being nice again is easier with cannabis.

Q: What does your brain scan look like now?

A: The last CT on my brain showed “a young, healthylooking brain” according to the neurologist. This was epic news considering I was diagnosed with brain damage in 2003 and had several other CTs that showed the damage prior to starting cannabis in 2010.

The Reality Issue

Issue 62 I Page 49

US NEWS

Utah Lawmakers Fight to Keep Recreational Cannabis Illegal Wednesday Jones

Not surprisingly, Utah lawmakers are still standing strong in their fight to keep recreational cannabis illegal while going over the state’s medical marijuana program.

was Sen. Allen Christensen: “You know how strongly opposed I am to recreational (marijuana), I could never do anything, in my mind, that would lead to any kind of stepping stone toward recreation.”

As a pharmacist, Vickers also said that “designing a functional ca n n a b i s p rog ra m w a s l i ke ‘tiptoeing through a minefield’ to strike the right balance between control and flexibility.”

The bill, known as SB121, received a unanimous vote in the Senate, with Sen. Christensen saying he • Remove a mandate that raw flower only supported it because of its must be sold in a blister pack. sponsor. “If you weren’t my trusted pharmacist, I would be a ‘no’ vote • Increase the number of cannabis on this. But I’m going to take a leap recommendations qualified medical of faith and support you.” providers can issue — from 175 to 275 for general practitioners and Patients and advocates like Nathan from 300 to 600 for specialists.

Kizerian (whose wife used cannabis while dying of colon cancer) • Create an expungement option are fighting this bill. Kizerian’s for patients if they have a past objections to the bill include “60 marijuana conviction that resulted day expiration for raw flower,” from possession of cannabis in a which means patients could never form that would now be legal. legally leave the house with expired flower, and concerns over patient That said, Evan Vickers, Senate privacy/data for those who do use Majority Leader, Utah, reassured medicinal cannabis. t h a t t h e sta te i s n ow h e re near legalizing marijuana for “All I can do is attack this program, recreational use, and went as far as and I’m doing that on social media.” to assure a colleague in the state’s Senate Health and Human Services The bill is expected to launch in full Committee, whom I’m guessing in March.

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

The bill includes the following:

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NATIONAL HEMP EXPO Louisville, KY MOCANN BIZCON + EXPO

nationalhempexpo.org MAR 2ND - MAR 3RD

St. Louis, MO

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OKLAHOMA CANNABIS EXPO

MAR 23RD - MAR 24TH

Oklahoma City, OK THE HEMP WORLD EXPO Uncasville, CT BENZINGA CANNABIS CAPITAL CONFERENCE Detroit, MI NEW ENGLAND CANNABIS CONVENTION Boston, MA CANNABIS WEDDING EXPO Las Vegas, NV ANALYTICAL CANNABIS EXPO Burlingame, CA HALL OF FLOWERS Palm Springs, CA ILLINOIS CANNABIS CONVENTION Chicago, IL

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FEB 29TH - MAR 1ST

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CANNA CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Have an idea for a crossword puzzle?

Email your suggestions to: info@edibleslist.com Visit www.EdiblesMagazine.com to view our past Canna Crossword Puzzles

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Edibles Magazine™ Issue 62

Fill out the crossword puzzle, snap it and tag us on Instagram @edibleslist or @ediblesmagazine to win a free hat & t-shirt

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Edibles Magazineâ„¢ Issue 59

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