WeedLife News Network

People used cannabis in large numbers during the height of the lockdowns caused by the pandemic. Investors, including big-name celebrities and well-known venture capital funds, are banking on that trend to continue as the pandemic lessens its hold on the country.

The interest in cannabis became apparent the moment lockdowns began as long lines formed at dispensaries. Many governments named cannabis dispensaries as essential businesses. Cannabis sales jumped 45 percent. Investors took notice.

It’s up to entrepreneurs, activists, and various public entities to create campaigns making their local cannabis industries less exclusive and much more inclusive.

The statistics on disproportionate arrests against Black people when it comes to marijuana-related crimes are nothing short of shocking. Systemic racism plagues the industry, and cannabis crimes are just one part of it.

As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted work, school and life schedules, it also caused marijuana buyers to change when they shopped, shifting from the evening hours to the daytime. A year later that pattern is returning to normal, with more shoppers visiting cannabis retail outlets in the evening.

Retailers in general, including marijuana outlets, experienced shifting peak hours after the outbreak of the pandemic as consumers sought safer, more-convenient shopping experiences during the day versus the evening. Many consumers were able to shop at different times because of new working conditions, or they deliberately avoided popular times. Knowing and understanding that peak shopping hours are shifting back will allow cannabis retailers to better predict their scheduling needs.

Since the start of the pandemic, cannabis use has skyrocketed. Americans spent $18.3 billion on cannabis products last year – 71% over what they spent in 2019 – meaning we the people needed a lot of weed to cope with 2020. According to a recent survey, many of those people are parents.

2 Marijuana Stocks To Watch At The End Of The Month

As the market still looks to recover investors are still looking for marijuana stocks to buy. In recent market action, marijuana stocks have been on a volatile pattern. Some of this is due to why the sectors have had trouble sustaining any upward push in trading. Yet even though some marijuana stocks are trading at lower levels does not mean all is lost. In the last year of trading, many marijuana stocks have been moving up in the market.

Cannabis is undergoing a reputation makeover. Public perception has gradually shifted to viewing marijuana products as respected medicine and wellness products instead of illegal drugs. These changes in attitudes are likely due to a variety of factors, including new legal markets and increased access, available educational materials, numerous scientific studies, and overall more significant conversations of safety and use on various media platforms and forums.

Time to pounce?

Last week was a big one for U.S. cannabis companies, with several leading multistate operators (MSOs) posting their fourth-quarter earnings results. Three leading MSOs -- Green Thumb Industries (OTC:GTBIF), Trulieve Cannabis (OTC:TCNNF), and Cresco Labs (OTC:CRLBF) -- all beat revenue and earnings expectations handily.

Yet each cannabis stock was down for the week, some materially so. That was despite not only good company results, but also positive developments on U.S. federal and state regulations. So is the post-earnings dip a buying opportunity for these companies?

Are cannabis and technology the great equalizer in women’s representation in the C-suite? It may be too soon to know, but female executives in the Canna-tech space are nonetheless making their mark.

According to a recent white paper by The Arcview Group and National Cannabis Industry Association, only 8 percent of cannabis CEOs are women. Surprisingly (or not), this mirrors the national average of women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies (a milestone reached this year).

 New hemp production and manufacturing rules from the USDA went into effect this week.

As the industry continues to grow across the country and here in Florida, stakeholders are continuing to press for safety.

“So what we’re doing here is packing off our gummies,” Margaret Richardson said, as she gave Spectrum News a tour of Global Widget, a CBD manufacturing company in Tampa. 

Richardson is Global Widget’s chief compliance and legal officer.

The company’s gummies are infused with CBD and made on their own confectionery line.

Virtually every business needs access to banking services, including a bank account to put money in, checks and debit cards, and other services that banks offer.

Unfortunately, members of the cannabis industry are often locked out of receiving banking services because of cannabis’ legal status in many countries.

Nowhere is that on greater display than in the United States where state-legal cannabis companies are either prevented from gaining access to banking services in the first place or have their accounts shut down not long after they are opened.

While it could take several months or more than a year for marijuana and cannabis businesses to hit the ground running on sales of the product, there’s another challenge facing the industry that will take federal legislation to resolve.

Working with a bank remains one of the challenges for the industry.

Department of Agriculture officials said that 323 farmers have applied for permits to be able to grow hemp in South Carolina.

Last year, 265 farmers grew the crop.

It was first legalized in 2018 and grown by 20 people that year.

Hemp is considered to be one of the biggest trends in the farming world with research firms estimating it to be a $20 billion industry by 2027.

This year's permits will be granted next month.

In a budding industry, every year seems to possess a distinct significance. As someone who has traversed the globe advising on all things cannabis for more than a decade, I can confidently say that no two years have been the same. New patterns and market fluctuations come and go rapidly - a fairly common occurrence as a nascent industry builds its foundation.

On any given day, more than a million dollars worth of cannabis products are on the move at the Nabis warehouse in Oakland, California.

Products like cannabis-infused chocolate bars and berry-flavored vape cartridges sit on the shelves, waiting for pick-up and shipping to dispensaries across the state. This movement of goods – facilitated by the Nabis’s own e-commerce platform developed for its wholesale business-to-business model – is being fueled by a surge in cannabis use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vince Ning, co-founder and CEO of Nabis said BEFORE the pandemic the company shipped about half of what it ships now.

In its annual National Drug Threat Assessment report, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) calls out hemp production as a way for drug trafficking organizations to cover up illicit cannabis operations.

In its report, the DEA says a “significant number of hemp businesses and grow operations” are owned and operated by people illegally producing and trafficking cannabis. The agency claims this problem is especially prominent where marijuana production is legal.

The US House just reintroduced the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, an act that if passed, would help the cannabis industry have access to financial services.

More than a year into the legal recreational marijuana industry in Illinois, a glaring omission remains among minority-owned businesses.

When Governor Pritzker and Springfield legislators pushed for recreational use of cannabis, they said they were doing so with an eye towards equity.  Dispensaries opened statewide on Jan. 1, 2020. Yet, 15 months later, no minority-owned cannabis businesses operate in the state.

Illinois’ cannabis business accounted for $1 billion in sales in its first year of legality. However, social equity remains a work in progress.

The study of workers ages 40 to 62 found that cannabis had no adverse impact on productivity and offers workers a new, effective form of pain management therapy.

The slow unraveling of the many myths told about cannabis during decades of the War on Drugs continues. In the latest case, a new study has found that states where recreational marijuana is legal have seen a drop in the number of workers compensation cases.