WeedLife News Network

Loyalty programs, long a staple of consumer marketing strategies, have found a place among regulated cannabis retailers in the United States and Canada. By offering perks such as discounts, points, special offers and new-product notifications, retail operators say loyalty programs can be a useful tool for:

Offering those perks isn’t free, but loyalty-program operators say the benefits can easily outweigh the costs.

Data shows loyalty advantage

Recent figures provided by Seattle-based marijuana analytics firm Headset illustrate how loyalty programs can drive shopping habits. Roughly 50 percent of cannabis stores in Washington state appear to use a loyalty program, according to Headset data analyst Cooper Ashley.

Over a 90-day period, the average basket spend among retailers with loyalty programs was $37.18 – 13 percent larger than the average spend at retailers without such a scheme. Loyalty-program baskets also had more items per basket and slightly higher item prices.

“That’s a pretty significant advantage to having a loyalty program right there,” Ashley said. “Your customers tend to have larger transactions.”

Marijuana, cannabis, weed, ganja. All common names for a very common drug. We know, thanks to archeological digs, that cannabis has been used by humans for millennia in rituals, for recreation, and to gain the purported health benefits. 

The effects, both good and bad, of marijuana are well known. With many of them not seeming entirely conducive to being an extraordinary essay writer or a professional in any field. So why is it that, if not for the nootropic effects, marijuana use is rising amongst college students?

For starters, marijuana use has always been high – pun intended – in this demographic. College is a time for exploration, and drug (mis)use is a common part of the journey. 

Cannabis culture is now part of mainstream culture; legalization and medicalization have thrown the limelight onto the plant. Fourteen states, two territories, and even the seat of government – the District of Columbia – have legalized marijuana for recreational use. In addition to this, thirty-five states have legalized medical uses of it. 

That means that 48 out of 50 states have a way to legally use the drug. Most of the population supports legal marijuana too: some of the most recent polls showcased support at 68%. Compare that 68% in 2020 to the 12% who supported it back in 1969. A huge rally in support has taken place as education, experimentation, and evaluation of the war on drugs have presented a strong case for regulating the drug market.

One of the only bright spots in 2020 was the emerging cannabis industry.

Whereas the ongoing global pandemic has negatively impacted virtually every other industry on earth, the legal international cannabis industry has powered forward.

According to data firm BDSA, spending on the legal cannabis industry is expected to top $20 billion in 2020, up from an estimated $14.8 billion in 2019.

To put that number into perspective, the international music organization IFPI estimates that the entire global music industry is worth roughly $20 billion dollars, and unlike the music industry the cannabis industry has plenty of room for growth.

As the year 2020 comes to a close, many in the cannabis community are naturally starting to look ahead towards 2021 and speculating on what the new year may bring for the emerging cannabis industry.

When it comes to cannabis consumption on the European continent, France stands above the rest of the countries in the region.

According to the United Nations, France has the highest rate of cannabis consumption among the list of European countries, over double the European average.

With that in mind, it’s unfortunate that France is not leading the charge when it comes to reforming Europe’s harmful cannabis laws.

Nations like the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy seem to be much more favorable when it comes to the possibility of passing the first adult-use cannabis legalization measure in Europe.

Strong Polling for Legalization

When it comes to support for cannabis legalization, politicians in France are clearly out of touch with popular opinion.

Hawaii is a cannabis market that the industry has been looking at with interest, and now, they may get the green light to come online. This week, the state Senate voted to approve two cannabis reform bills that are now headed to the House. 

Senate Bill 767, which would legalize and regulate recreational cannabis, passed the Senate at a 20 to 5 margin. If it becomes law, individuals 21 years of age and older will be able to purchase and possess one ounce of cannabis and grow up to six plants for personal use. 

Hawaii is already somewhat decriminalized, as 2019 laws reduced the criminal penalties for cannabis possession, but only up to three grams. Currently, instead of serving time in jail or paying a hefty fee and getting a strike against a permanent record, those who possess three grams of cannabis or less get a non-criminal violation and a $130 fine. 

The other bill being considered, Senate Bill 785, passed 24 to 1. It would increase decriminalization from three grams to 30 grams and help expunge past cannabis cases. While it wouldn’t set up a recreational industry, it would make sure that the war on drugs ceases when it comes to cannabis.

Will The Bills Make It To The Governor’s Desk?

However, while passing the Senate was a big deal, some are fearful that these bills won’t make it through the House, as elected officials there lean more conservatively. There are rumors that a key house committee member won’t hear the measure at all. 

Now that we’re in lockdown, many of us are spending a lot of quality time with our phones, consequently glued to our social media apps and living vicariously through our favorite influencer.

Influencers have become more than just a typical internet celebrity, some even become household names, utilizing their large platform to spread their views to an engaged audience.

We’ve compiled a list of some popular cannabis influencers who are using social media as an entertaining and innovative way to normalize cannabis consumption.

So, take a smoke, get comfy, and let’s scroll. 

@sativadiva1997 

With over 170K followers, this 23-year-old Orange County native is a fan favorite on TikTok, where she posts daily hilarious videos involving cannabis.

A recent poll released on Tuesday shows that two-thirds of Maryland adults support the legalization of recreational marijuana. The results of the Goucher College Poll come as the state’s lawmakers consider bills that would legalize cannabis for adults and expunge past convictions for some marijuana offenses.

“The Maryland General Assembly is considering a bill to legalize the use of recreational cannabis,” said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College. “This most recent effort comes on the heels of four states voting to legalize recreational cannabis by ballot measure this past November and, most recently, New Jersey, and Virginia passing adult-use marijuana legalization laws.”

The poll surveyed 725 Maryland adults to ask their opinions on a variety of topics affecting the state. When asked whether they supported “making marijuana legal for recreational use in Maryland,” fully two-thirds (67%) said that they either supported or strongly supported the idea (27% and 40%, respectively). Only 28% said that they opposed recreational marijuana legalization, with 17% strongly opposed to the proposed change.

This year’s poll results show the strongest support for legalizing recreational marijuana in Maryland since the Goucher Poll began asking about the issue in October 2013, when 51% were in favor and 41% opposed legalization. Less than two years ago, 57% of those surveyed were in favor of legalization while 37% said that they were opposed. 

Support For Legalization Varies By Political Party Affiliation

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy indicated this week that he is in favor of a change to the state’s new marijuana law that would allow law enforcement to notify parents of an underage individuals’ first-time pot offense. 

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, the Democrat said he’s receptive to the tweak to the law he signed late last month.

“I personally think that’s a step in the right direction, and so we’ll see where that goes,” Murphy said, as quoted by NJ.com. “It’s got a ways to go, but as a conceptual matter…I support that direction.”

As NJ.com explained, the bill that Murphy signed only a couple weeks ago “removed all criminal penalties and fines for such offenses, replacing them with escalating warnings.” “Under that, the first warning will go to the juvenile only, the second to a parent and the third as a referral to drug education or treatment programs,” the website reported.

A number of lawmakers immediately expressed misgivings with the idea that a minor could get busted for pot without their parents being notified. Last week, a trio of Democratic legislators—State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch), Assemblyman Eric Houghtaling (D-Neptune) and Assemblywoman Joann Downey—introduced a bill to change that part of the law.

A proposed bill in the Minnesota state senate would make it legal for medical cannabis patients in the state to use marijuana flower for treatment.

The legislation cleared its first hurdle earlier this month, with the bill getting passed out of the Senate Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee on March 1. According to local television station KSTP, current law in Minnesota only allows medical cannabis to be distributed in pill or liquid form.

Such restrictions have been decried by cannabis advocates, who argue that patients ought to be able to receive treatment in its most common form. Consumption methods like tinctures and oils are also generally more expensive for both the producer and consumer. Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed the state’s medical marijuana law in 2014, which has gradually expanded in the years since to include more qualifying conditions. 

Criticism of The State’s Current Medical Cannabis Program

The state’s restrictions have prompted some to call Minnesota’s medical cannabis program one of the most conservative in the country. And those restrictions also prevent many patients from turning to cannabis rather than more dangerous painkillers. 

The full plant profile and all of its compounds are considered important in creating the experiences consumers seek.

Today, it isn’t uncommon to hear about the potency or strength of a cannabis product. Typically, the discussion centers on the percentage of THC or CBD found in a plant strain or its products. Advancements in cultivation and tech allowed potency to balloon over the decades, particularly in recent years as legalization spread across the globe.

However, experts in the space tend to agree that potency is far from the be-all-end-all indicator that far too many make it out to be. Instead, most suggest that the full plant profile and its numerous compounds each play an integral part in creating the plant’s true healing potency and quality.

Much More Than THC And CBD Content

Sources say that potency, while important, does not equate to the quality of the plant or its products. Instead, the full plant profile and all of its compounds are considered important in creating the experiences consumers seek.

Today’s flower can reach up to or above 30% potency, a staggering leap from a few decades ago when the plant’s strength was often in the low- to mid-single digits. But many, like High Life Farms Co-Founder Ben Celani, notes that plants with a potency of around 18% can still provide a more effective, robust experience than a 30% plant if it has the right plant profile makeup, which includes its terpene content.5

Terpenes, or the oily compounds found in cannabis and other plants, are critical in producing the unique aroma, flavor and effects in each cultivar. “There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that switching strains to vary the terpene profile consumed can give a user the feeling of having “reset” their tolerance, requiring less consumption to achieve the same level of effect,” reported Celani.

Some reports indicate the cannabis component is on its way to becoming the next rockstar cannabinoid of the legal weed movement.

There have been several reports over the past year or so suggesting that people all over the country who use hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) products are failing drug tests. This is apparently happening as the lack of FDA regulations has allowed cannabis companies to be inconsistent in their manufacturing process.

So, while these products are only supposed to contain no more than 0.3% THC (not enough to get you high or cause a failed drug screen), some have more. But a 2019 study suggests that CBD users really don’t have much to worry about when it comes to the possibility of failing a drug screen. However, if they are using another emerging, cannabis-derivative known as cannabinol (CBN), they might be putting themselves at risk.

Photo by pxfuel

Researchers at the University of Utah Health Science Center say that CBN users could have a difficult time passing a drug test. It seems that while examining a handful of cannabinoids to determine which of them, if any, might react with immunoassays — the most common type of drug test available — they found that CBN was more likely to cause a false positive for marijuana than other cannabinoids, such as CBD or cannabichromene (CBC) and cannabigerol (CBG).

Specifically, the study shows that the Beckman Coulter Emit II Plus Cannabinoid test can register a positive for pot with as little as 100 ng/ml CBN. Researchers say drug testing pros should keep this in mind.

Despite more Americans supporting federal legalization of cannabis, many people still don’t know about the industry’s potential to harm the environment.

Just like other agricultural commodities, there are environmental impacts involved when growing cannabis. But many consumers don’t know, or simply don’t care how their cannabis was grown or even if it was sprayed with harmful chemical pesticides.

Tons of carbon is emitted into the atmosphere too just to grow a single cannabis plant. However, there is a growing number of people who do care how their cannabis was grown, and if they are produced with care to reduce its impact on the environment.

With climate change the number one issue our earth faces today, it’s important for you to help make a positive change by looking for products — your cannabis included — from brands or manufacturers that work to reduce their carbon footprint.

Cannabis is one of the oldest agricultural commodities out there, and more grow operations continue to sprout because of demand for the product. However, growing it using modern techniques especially in indoor grows requires massive amounts of energy and water, which have a major carbon footprint. Despite more Americans supporting federal legalization of cannabis, many people still don’t know about the industry’s potential to harm the environment.

Is it possible to trick a drug-sniffing dog? Enthusiastic members of high society have, for decades, told toker tales about how they avoided getting narced out by a K-9 unit during a roadside shakedown. Some have argued that these stories are only urban legends, while others swear that they know a guy who has a cousin whose best friend once smoked weed with an old man that actually did trick the high-powered sniffer of a canine cop.

The stories circulating the scene often suggest the scent of marijuana was masked with a more pungent substance. Other accounts imply that the secret to fooling law enforcement hounds is all in the packaging. But there is too much at stake to leave pot smuggling to chance.

Although marijuana is now legal in over half the nation, there are still plenty of cowboy cops out there ready to nail your balls to the wall for even thinking about transporting weed into their God-fearing community.

Therefore, it is crucial that we get to the bottom of the science behind drug-sniffing dogs once and for all.

Dogs Are King Sniffers and Narcs

A majority of French people are in favour of legalising cannabis for recreational use, according to a recent parliamentary survey. Although France has Europe's highest number of cannabis smokers, it also has some of the harshest drug laws.

The coronavirus was good for some industries and ruinous for others. For cannabis, 2020 was a breakout year. Legal sales across the U.S.—15 states allow adult use, 35 allow for medical sales—hit a record of $17.5 billion, a 46% increase from 2019, according to a new report.

Most of the sales growth came from adult-use markets, especially mature markets like Colorado, which grew sales by 26% to reach $2.2 billion, and Oregon, which saw sales hit $1.1 billion, a 29% increase over 2019, according to the report published by BDSA, a cannabis sales data platform.

Emerging markets like Illinois, which expanded its medical cannabis market to include adult-use sales last year, saw the largest dollar gain in 2020, rising by $784 million. (Illinois’ cannabis market is now doing over $1 billion in sales.) California, the country’s largest cannabis economy at $3.5 billion, increased sales by $586 million, while Florida saw a $473 million increase.

“We expected more potential impact from an economic downturn, but the industry has proven to be resilient,” says Kelly Nielsen, who runs BDSA’s insights and analytics department. “It’s potentially recession-proof.”

Nielsen says three things contributed to the industry’s growth last year: the Covid-19 pandemic (many states deemed dispensaries “essential businesses” during lockdown); more customers entered mature markets like California, Colorado and Oregon; and states like Illinois and Arizona have created new adult-use markets.

The news Seth Rogen has waited a decade to announce?

He will soon be legally selling weed in the United States. Rogen’s beloved Canadian cannabis brand Houseplant, founded with his creative partner Evan Goldberg, is launching in California. Expect to see Houseplant available initially through a direct-to-consumer ordering platform on the brand’s website beginning Thursday, March 11, 2021.

“If you know anything about me at all, I’m going to assume it’s that I really love weed,” Rogen announced to his Twitter audience of 9.1 million followers on March 1, 2021. The launch traffic was so overwhelming, it crashed the Houseplant’s website servers. Houseplant plans to roll out in select dispensaries across California this Spring.

“We are finally ready to launch in America,” says Rogen. “What we are doing is bringing you the best strains of weed that have been hand-picked, by that I mean hand-smoked, by me. It’s just the weed that I love that I want to be smoking. We have an orange one for sativa, a purple one for indica, and it even stacks.” Green packaging is the Houseplant hybrid strain. Rogen and Goldberg underwent an “extensive process,” testing hundreds of strains before choosing the initial launch strains: two sativas, Diablo Wind and Pancake Ice, and one indica, Pink Moon.

The brand has made waves since its 2019 launch with chic, colorful, and minimalist design. The packaging is recyclable, aiming for an eco-conscious consumer. Houseplant even won a Clio award in 2020 for its unique design. The brand has a partnership with cannabis giant Canopy Growth Corporation in Canada, but will not be working with Canopy stateside. Instead, Houseplant’s California cannabis will be grown by an undisclosed select group of cultivators. Rogen was the talk-of-the-town at Hall of Flowers in 2019 where Rogen appeared in-person to scope out the California competition.

They have names like Dream Lotus, Ghost Dawg and Blue Dream — all varieties of the cannabis plant, subsets within the species that in the world of botany would be called a cultivar but in the cannabis world are referred to as strains. Each one is cultivated for its unique properties, including height, color and leaf structure, as well as THC and CBD content, all of which go into variations in effect on mind and body.

The cannabis education website Leafly lists as many as 5,000 distinct cannabis strains, but many of those are not commonly known to the public. Still, it’s estimated that there are at least 800 cannabis strains currently named and consumed by adult-use and medicinal cannabis consumers — the result of experimentation, discovery and advances in seed saving and cultivation. The sheer variety means that dispensary professionals like those at Resinate in Worcester and Northampton, Massachusetts, can help customers find just the right strain for their purpose, goals and lifestyle.

The three basic strains

Each strain falls into one of a few larger categories: sativa, indica and hybrid. While it was commonly believed that sativa strains are more energizing while indica strains are said to make a person sleepier, cannabis consumers and specialists alike now find that each strain effects the consumer differently, making it a personal experience. Hybrids, as the name indicates, are a cross of indica and sativa, usually with one or the other dominant.

CBD and THC are two major chemicals of many that make up a strain. Sativa plants generally are lower in CBD counts and higher in THC, while indica strains go in the opposite direction. Each specific strain will have different levels of each of these chemicals. There are also physical differences in the shape of the leaves and plant height as well as differences in aroma and texture.

The emerging legal cannabis industry is going global, with a growing list of countries that have legalized cannabis for adult and/or medical use, and even more countries exploring a similar move. At the same time, the world’s climate is changing, with extreme weather patterns picking up in frequency and severity all over the world.

Climate change is affecting virtually every aspect and sector of the agriculture industry, and that is likely to be the case for cannabis too as outdoor cultivation is permitted in more areas. As the global cannabis industry continues to expand across the planet, and climate change, unfortunately, marches on, the problem for cannabis entrepreneurs is going to be more pronounced.

Extreme Weather

Every agricultural crop has a preferred climate, and the cannabis plant is no exception. Cannabis obviously has certain parts of the world where it prefers to grow compared. For example, it grows very well in tropical climates but not at the North Pole. Historically, it thrived in Jamaica and while that is still true, something troubling is going on.

As recently reported by Cannabis & Tech Today, Jamaica has been hit hard by natural disasters and is currently experiencing a cannabis shortage. As climate change continues to negatively impact our planet and extreme weather patterns become more common, what is going on in Jamaica right now could prove to be a foreshadowing of what is to come. It could be something that other historically popular cannabis cultivation countries experience, making it hard to know where the ‘best’ places to cultivate cannabis will be in the future.

Shifting Cultivation Zones

Many scientists are pointing to data that suggests agricultural zones for many crops will be shifting in the future as the world gets warmer at the macro level, and extreme weather patterns pick up at the micro-level. The wine industry is often used as an example, with areas historically known for being optimal for growing wine grapes being less so as the years go by.

Hopefully, in time, these cities will reevaluate the deleterious effects these ordinances have on sales taxes and consumer choice.

Arizonans knew zoning issues could cause headaches for dispensary owners. However, what was unanticipated are the new bans by some of the Arizona cities for recreational marijuana establishments.

Shortly after the passage of Proposition 207, otherwise known as the Smart and Safe Arizona Act (the “Act”), several Arizona cities moved to ban recreational marijuana sales, unless the dispensary is a “dual licensee”. A dual licensee means an establishment that is licensed both as a medical marijuana establishment and an adult use (or recreational) establishment.

The Act specifically allows dispensary owners to hold both licenses (medical and recreational) and to sell both types of products from the same dispensary location. The cities in Arizona, like Mesa, found a way to end run the Act by prohibiting, among other things, recreational only marijuana dispensaries. While Mesa and the other Arizona cities are certainly allowed to pass such ordinances, it certainly appears to frustrate the purpose of the Act, even though apparently lawful to do so.

Why did these cities seek a ban of recreational-only establishments? There have been several theories espoused by others. As the Phoenix New Times reported: