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ABOUT NE LEAF
from Sept. 2020 - NE Leaf - Issue 01
by Northwest Leaf / Oregon Leaf / Alaska Leaf / Maryland Leaf / California Leaf / Northeast Leaf
WELCOME TO NORTHEAST
You are reading the debut issue of Northeast Leaf magazine - a free, monthly print publication dedicated to covering all things Cannabis in the Northeast. Just a few short years ago, this project would have been inconceivable. The West Coast and Colorado have dominated marijuana media for decades and, unless you were chronicling unjust pot arrests, you wouldn’t really want to focus too much on states like New York or New Jersey. But times have changed. The green rush has headed east and suddenly a regional Cannabis magazine focused on the Northeast is not just possible, it’s essential.
The eight states covered by Northeast Leaf magazine - Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont - are at different stages of marijuana-law reform, from full adult-use legalization with rec sales to decriminalization and strictly enforced medical rules. But the region is undoubtedly progressing and, when it comes to Cannabis, things can change quickly. By the end of the year, there’s a good chance that Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Vermont will all have recreational programs with retail sales. As the region evolves, Northeast Leaf magazine will be there to cover the pot progress and the passionate people who have transformed the Northeast into a vital part of the Cannabis world.
Another reason this project would have been inconceivable just a few years ago is because the staff worked for a different Cannabis company at the time.
Four former High Times magazine senior staffers teamed up with Leaf Nation to create Northeast Leaf. Former High Times Senior Cultivation Editor Dan Vinkovetsky (previously known as Danny Danko), Editor-in-Chief Mike Gianakos, Director of Technology Pete Thompson and Advertising Executive Michael Czerhoniak, joined forces with Leaf Nation, bringing decades of marijuana media experience to The Leaf’s latest venture.
Since 2010, Leaf Nation’s regional magazines have become the most trusted, recognized Cannabis publications still in print in America. Beginning with Northwest Leaf in Washington state, The Leaf has expanded to Oregon, Alaska, Maryland and California, setting the standard for Cannabis journalism, covering every aspect of the plant and the people who care about it.
Teaming up with The Leaf to create this magazine is a natural fit. All of us here at NE Leaf grew up and currently reside in the Northeast. We’re proud to represent the region’s Cannabis community and cover its burgeoning industry. We hope that with Leaf Nation’s expertise in launching and maintaining regional publications and our media experience and passion for the plant, we can become the voice of Cannabis culture for the more than 40 million people living in the region.
Our goal is to reach the medical marijuana patients, Cannabis connoisseurs and pot aficionados of the region by providing a unique perspective on news, culture and the everchanging political climate here in the Northeast, as well as local coverage of all eight states on the issues that are important to you.
Looking to be a part of the Northeast Leaf community, or want more information on contributing, advertising, distributing or subscribing?
Email us at: info@neleafmag.com Thanks for reading — The Northeast Leaf Staff
Researchers with the University of Waterloo, School of Public Health in Canada surveyed 5,530 adult respondents living in Alaska, California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state, and they found some very reassuring news, reports NORML.
Adults over the age of 21 who live in states where retail Cannabis sales are allowed tend to have positive impressions of the marijuana industry, according to data published in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
“The current findings suggest generally positive perceptions of the legal “THIS DATA ONCE AGAIN AFFIRMS THAT Cannabis market,” the authors reported. “Most respondents, including frequent MOST VOTERS DO NOT Cannabis consumers, perceived legal EXPERIENCE ‘BUYER’S REMORSE’ FOLLOWING MARIJUANA Cannabis to be of equal or greater quality and convenience, and as safer to buy and LEGALIZATION.” use than Cannabis from illegal sources.” “This data once again affirms that most voters do not experience ‘buyer’s remorse’ following marijuana legalization,” said NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano.
northwest CANNABIS SOCIAL EQUITY MAKES PROGRESS IN WASHINGTON STATE
Attempts to increase minority participation in Washington state’s marijuana industry are ongoing, but government officials there face hurdles in creating a workable social equity program, due to stiff competition and plentiful supplies, reports Marijuana Business Daily.
Governor Jay Inslee in March signed House Bill Gov. Jay Inslee 2870 to create a new social equity program “that provides business opportunities to people from disproportionately harmed communities so they can ... become a Cannabis retailer.”
Existing weed retailers in Washington are well established, as the state began recreational sales in 2014. That makes the state one of the most competitive in the nation for all types of Cannabis licensees.
It will still be months before any social equity business licenses are issued, according to state health department employee Christy Hoff.
Members of a task force - expected to consist of about a dozen people from state agencies, Cannabis businesses and minority representatives - haven’t been selected.
politics PELOSI DEFENDS MARIJUANA’S COVID-19 THERAPY POTENTIAL
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August defended a provision of the Democratic coronavirus relief bill tied to Cannabis. “I don’t agree with you that Cannabis is not related to this,” Pelosi said during a press briefing, reports The Hill.
“This is a therapy that has proven successful.” House Democrats passed their own $3 trillion stimulus bill called the Heroes Act on May 15, but it never got a vote in the GOP-controlled Senate, reports Forbes.
The provision would have allowed legal Cannabis businesses to work with banking services, reports USA Today. Cannabis business have been deemed ‘essential’ during the pandemic, but aren’t eligible for Small Business Administration loans, according to the National Cannabis Industry Association.
southwest ARIZONA LEGALIZATION INITIATIVE WILL BE ON NOVEMBER BALLOT
Cannabis could become legalized in Arizona in the near future as a new measure has officially qualified for the November 2020 ballot. The Secretary of
State in August announced that activists had turned in enough valid signatures to qualify, one month after about 420,000 signatures “ADULTS WOULD HAVE THE RIGHT were submitted, reports TO LEGALLY
Marijuana Moment. Adults would have POSSESS UP TO AN OUNCE OF CANNABIS the right to legally UNDER THE possess up to an ounce MEASURE.” of Cannabis under the measure.
Cultivation of up to six plants for personal use would also be allowed.
Restorative justice provisions are also included in the measure, such as allowing people with prior pot convictions to petition for expungements and establishing a social equity
Cannabis business ownership program.
LEGALIZATION NEW INITIATIVE TO LEGALIZE CANNABIS SALES FILED IN D.C.
Activists have filed a new proposed bailout initiative to legalize Cannabis sales in the nation’s capital. The “New Modern Day Cannabis Justice Reform Act” would halt prosecutions of marijuana cultivation, sales and consumption, reports Marijuana Moment.
It would also stop Cannabis from being the cause of police searches and provide for record expungement of prior marijuana convictions. D.C. voters approved a legalization measure in 2014, but it only covered possession and home cultivation - not sales.
The city has been prevented from implementing a retail model due to a Congressional rider barring it from using local tax funds for such purposes.
The currently unregulated system of legalization has failed to address problems such as racially disproportionate enforcement, according to Dawn Lee-Carty, Executive Director of the campaign behind the initiative.
To qualify for the ballot, activists would need to collect 24,835 valid signatures from registered voters. Activists recently submitted enough signatures to qualify Initiative 81, which would decriminalize psychedelics in D.C.
-New Approach Montana Political Director Pepper Petersen, describing the group’s successful effort to get Initiative 190 and Constitutional Initiative 118 on the November 2020 ballot.
7
tons of Cannabis hidden inside lime boxes was seized at the Mexican border by authorities in August.
16
percent of Canadian Cannabis market share is earned by vape pens, reports Headset data.
75
new Cannabis retail licenses will be issued by Illinois in September, more than three months after the deadline.
266
Cannabis plants were seized after two men were arrested for illegal cultivation in Bradford, England
$50m
is the projected value of Virginia’s limited commercial medical Cannabis program by the year 2024.
$348m
was the jaw-dropping record amount of retail Cannabis sales reported for California in just the month of July.
SUPPLYING DEMAND
PATTERN HOLDING
Connecticut’s 18th medical Cannabis dispensary is now open for business. Herbology, located in Groton, is the final storefront to open after the state expanded its medical program in 2018, permitting nine additional dispensaries.
The new shops are necessary to keep pace with increased demand for access to medicine. When the state last licensed a new dispensary in 2016, there were fewer than 10,000 registered patients in Connecticut - there are now almost 42,000. Marijuana Business Daily estimates that medical Cannabis sales in Connecticut could be as high as $160 million in 2020. Last year, sales reached $125 million, up from about $90 million in 2018. The program’s growth can be attributed in part to lawmakers adding to the list of conditions that qualify patients for medical Cannabis. The addition of chronic pain in 2020 brought the number of qualifying conditions to 38, up from the 11 permitted in the original law.
Groton was announced as one of the new storefront locations in 2018. The state received 73 applications for the nine new dispensaries permitted to open.
Herbology is the second dispensary to open in New London County, servicing patients in Southeastern Connecticut. It is not, however, a homegrown success story. Herbology is operated by Grassroots Cannabis, a Chicago-based business that was recently acquired by industry giant Curaleaf. The $830 million acquisition made Massachusetts-based Curaleaf Holdings the world’s largest marijuana company by revenue. Curaleaf can now be found in 23 states. The company boasts 88 operating dispensaries, 30 processing facilities and 22 grow sites.
After a delay of nearly four years, Maine officials announced that recreational Cannabis sales would begin on October 9. However, the wait for retail sales might be a bit longer for Portland.
A federal judge ruled that Maine’s biggest city couldn’t use a scoring system it had developed for awarding licenses to rec shops because it unfairly prioritizes Maine’s residents. The ruling comes less than a month before the state plans to begin issuing licenses to recreational Cannabis companies, on September 8.
Wellness Connection of Maine, which is owned by the Delaware company High Street Capital - which is itself owned by New Yorkbased Acreage Holdings - filed a lawsuit against the city seeking an injunction that would prevent Portland from discriminating against out-of-state businesses when it awarded its 20 retail licenses. A temporary restraining order was granted and now things are on hold in Portland.
The city argued that the scoring system doesn’t reject out-ofstate applicants and Wellness could still win a license by earning points in other categories. However, the judge found that denying companies from other states “equal footing” in the new market was discriminatory.
Wellness is currently Maine’s largest Cannabis company. It has four of the state’s eight medical dispensary licenses. And it has a conditional state license for retail sales in Portland.
Earlier this year, Portland approved a local ordinance that capped the number of recreational Cannabis shops allowed to open at 20. However, a citizen’s initiative that seeks to remove the cap will appear on the ballot this November.
RISE OF THE MACHINES
Massachusetts dispensaries will experiment with Cannabis vending machines this fall. The machines are prefect for people concerned with excess contact in the age of COVID, and also for misanthropes. The self-checkout kiosks, called anna, offer a touchscreen interface for browsing the inventory - at just eight square feet, the machine can hold 2,000 pot products. Customers can also save time by ordering online and scanning a QR code when they get to the shop. anna machines will dispense the order and accept cash or debit payments. While the dispensing is automated, human employees are still needed to verify that customers are of age.
The Boston-based company behind anna believes an automated option will actually allow for more one-on-one time with budtenders for customers who need extra help at the dispensary, leaving the self-checkout to more experienced consumers who know exactly what they want to order.
The marijuana machines debuted in Colorado dispensaries in mid-August and will hit Massachusetts pot shops in September. The company plans to have 14 kiosks in the two states by October, before deploying units in Nevada, California and Canada.
WEEDWORKERS UNITE
While self-checkout kiosks like the anna machines being rolled out in select markets may be convenient for the customer and cost-effective for the proprietor, that’s probably little comfort to the thousands of Cannabis industry workers in Massachusetts who are attempting to unionize and likely won’t appreciate an essential dispensary job, like budtender, being automated.
A growing number of workers in Cannabis cultivation, manufacturing and processing facilities, as well as labs and dispensaries, are turning to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union for help in obtaining adequate health coverage, fair wages and better treatment from their employers. UFCW, one of the country’s largest private sector unions, now represents 1.3 million marijuana workers.
Sira Naturals was the first dispensary in Massachusetts to unionize in November 2019. More recently, Cultivate Holdings in Leicester, Mayflower Medicinals in Holliston and Curaleaf dispensary in Hanover voted to unionize.
“The legal Cannabis industry is a newly regulated market that can offer local communities jobs with strong wages and benefits that can’t be outsourced,” the UFCW said in a statement. “Jobs that pay better wages and provide better benefits - like the ones we represent - are vital to keeping our economy afloat and families out of poverty.”
CHIPPING AWAY AT PROHIBITION
New York legislators want to ensure that all residents who have been convicted of minor marijuana offenses can have their records cleared. This summer, the Senate passed a bill that would make people with Cannabis convictions prior to 1977 - when the state first decriminalized - eligible to have their records automatically expunged. The bill is necessary to close a loophole that was created by the state’s 2019 decrim update.
Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved a law that expanded decriminalization, making possession of up to two ounces a civil violation and allowing for automatic expungement of previous marijuana offenses. However, the legislation only addressed violations that occurred after New York decriminalized, leaving those caught with Cannabis prior to 1977 with no remedy.
While New York seemed poised to pass a recreational Cannabis law in 2019, legalization efforts have stalled this year and residents must settle for incremental improvements to the state’s existing legislation.
The expansion of decriminalization in 2019 was necessary to change another loophole in the law regarding Cannabis in public view. Previously, despite statewide decrim, possession of pot in public view was still an arrestable offense. That distinction allowed officers to target minorities under the city’s stop and frisk policy beginning in the 1990s, which led to a massive spike in marijuana arrests in New York City.
This spring, a ban on pre-employment testing for marijuana use went into effect. The law prevents employers from requiring a drug test for Cannabis as part of the application process. There are, however, exemptions that allow testing for “safety sensitive” positions. Nonetheless, many advocates applaud the bill as a step in the right direction for New York City. >> Continues pg. 14
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon
SUPPORT FOR A GREENER GARDEN STATE
New Jersey voters are ready to legalize marijuana. According to a new poll, nearly 70 percent of voters in the Garden State support the upcoming adult-use ballot measure that would tax and regulate Cannabis.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy supports recreational marijuana and lawmakers have considered several legalization bills in recent years. However, the legislature has been unable to agree on a plan. Now the issue will go directly to the voters this November.
The recent poll by DKC Analytics shows overwhelming support for legal pot in New Jersey, with 68 percent of would-be voters approving of the policy change - up seven percent from a poll released in April.
According to the DKC poll, 50 percent of New Jersey voters also favor allowing social consumption lounges, while 56 percent approve of online ordering and home delivery of pot products.
The survey also asked voters why they favor legalizing Cannabis for adults and reported that 70 percent are most interested in preventing illicit sales, while 61 percent focused on revenue generated by taxes. Issues like ensuring safer products, saving money, stimulating the economy and creating jobs all received strong support. However, just 43 percent of respondents said they favor legalizing marijuana because it is safer than alcohol.
Those who oppose legal pot told pollsters they were concerned about impaired driving, underage consumption and Cannabis acting as a gateway drug.
Photo by Marketeering Group
RHODE ISLAND RAKES IT IN
Medical Cannabis sales are up again in Rhode Island. Officials are reporting that the state’s three licensed dispensaries combined to sell nearly $60 million worth of marijuana products in the last fiscal year. This marks the third consecutive year of rising sales for the Ocean State. In the previous year, dispensaries reported about $53.5 million in sales - up more than $15 million from 2018’s total.
Rhode Island legalized medical marijuana in 2006. The original law set the number of dispensaries serving registered patients at three. However, lawmakers recently approved adding six additional dispensaries to serve the state’s growing program, as well as registered patients from out of state taking advantage of reciprocity in Rhode Island. Unlike the original three dispensaries, which are allowed to cultivate their own Cannabis, the new stores will be retail only. The state is accepting applications for the new dispensaries through December 15 and will award the six new licenses through a lottery next year. Those who win the opportunity to open a dispensary will have to pay the state a $500,000 licensing fee.
Rhode Island also licensed its first testing laboratory this summer. Green Peaks Analytical will now test medical Cannabis grown by the state’s licensed cultivators. Previously, testing was handled by the grower or by the dispensary that sold the product. Officials will now set a deadline for testing results from a licensed lab to be included on all medical Cannabis products sold in the state.
