CCMA Political greenBrief
Thursday, August 16, 2018
www.cannabismanufacturers.org
Good Meds, A Medical Cannabis Center In Colorado Fulfills An Order. Sales Reached $9 Billion In the U.S. In 2017 And Could Climb To $21 Billion In 2021 With The Addition Of Recreational Markets In California And Other States. CDTFA Today Announced That There Was An Increase In Cannabis Tax Revenue From Q1 & Q2
“After six months of legal cannabis sales there is a staggering gap between today’s tax revenue numbers and what voters were promised. Regulators must adapt before California’s lawful cannabis businesses are obliterated by the illicit market.”Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Campbell) On The Slow Cash Flow From The Cannabis Market
“The emergence of legal cannabis in certain U.S. states and Canada may result in a shift of discretionary income away from our products or a change in consumer preferences away from beer.”Molson Coors On Cannabis Becoming A Risk To The Beer Industry
Cannabis Tax Revenue Increases In 2nd Quarter Of 2018 Rise Shows Compliance Trend Growing (CA – Cannabis Taxation)
CA Department Of Tax & Fee Administration (August 16, 2018) The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) today released revenue numbers for cannabis sales for the 2nd quarter of 2018. Tax revenue from the cannabis industry totaled $74,240,257 from April 1, 2018, through June 30, 2018, which includes state cultivation, excise and sales taxes. It does not include tax revenue collected by each jurisdiction. California’s excise tax on cannabis generated $43,490,668 in revenue during the second quarter of calendar year 2018. The cultivation tax generated $4,482,119, and the sales tax generated $26,267,470 in revenue. Medicinal cannabis is exempt from sales tax if the purchaser holds a valid Medical Marijuana Identification card.
https://cdtfa.ca.gov/news/18-4
California Marijuana Tax Revenue Reveals This Good News About Market (CA – Cannabis Industry)
Investor’s Business Daily (August 16, 2018) California brought in around $74.2 million in marijuana industry tax revenue during the second quarter, up 22% from the first three months of the year, in what the government said was a “growing” trend toward complying with regulations. The figures, released late Wednesday by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, arrive as taxes and regulations appear to keep many customers partially encamped in the state’s illicit market. That market includes anything from street sales and shops that don’t have a license.
https://www.investors.com/news
Pot Taxes Pick Up In California But Still Far Off Target (CA – Cannabis Market)
Chicago Sun Times (August 15, 2018) When it comes to the taxman, California’s legal pot market is off to a sluggish start. Marijuana cultivation and excise tax collections hit $48 million between April and June, state officials announced Wednesday. That’s a jump from the prior three months but well below the windfall envisioned by the state. Finance officials had estimated California would bank $185 million from excise and cultivation taxes in the first six months of broad legal sales, which kicked off Jan. 1.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/c
OP-ED: SB 311 Shows What’s Wrong With Transition to Marijuana Legalization (CA – Cannabis Legislation)
Fox & Hounds (August 16, 2018) Marijuana legalization isn’t working for a simple reason: the new legal system doesn’t come with enforcement. That’s the paradox of legalization—it requires a new drug war of sorts. When you’re transitioning from a black market to a legal market, you need to do two things. You need to develop a clear, coherent, easily regulated and taxed system for the legal market. And you have to crack down on those businesses that remain in the black market.
http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.c
Marijuana Is Not Really Legal In California If Residents Don’t Have A Reasonable Way To Buy It (CA – State Regulations)
Los Angeles Times (August 14, 2018) California law allows adults to buy marijuana. It allows licensed businesses to deliver marijuana to customers, and it says specifically that cities and counties cannot prevent delivery services from traveling on public roads. Yet even though cities can’t stop deliveries traveling through their jurisdiction, many cities currently ban deliveries to their jurisdiction. That means that unlike deliveries of virtually every other legal, adult-use product — including alcohol and cigarettes, which can be ordered over the internet in California — marijuana deliveries are barred.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion
2 Chainz Hits Up California’s First Legal Cannabis Cultivator (CA – Cannabis Cultivation)
Civilized (August 16, 2018) Rapper 2 Chainz continues his never-ending quest to experience the very best that money can buy in this latest video from Viceland’s ‘Most Expensivest,’ wherein the Georgia native visits California’s first legal weed cultivator. The short, loudly-produced clip follows 2 Chainz as he checks out operations at Canndescent, the first municipally permitted cannabis cultivator in California. While checking out the facility in the city of Desert Hot Springs, the rapper was joined by the local mayor for a chat.
https://www.civilized.life/art
Faced With ‘Losing Everything,’ California Valley Marijuana Growers Ask To Harvest Crop (CA – Cannabis Cultivation)
The San Luis Obispo Tribune (August 15, 2018) San Luis Obispo County is issuing hefty fines and demanding cannabis cultivators remove plants in California Valley, where the regulated crop that was previously allowed was banned when new county rules took effect. Now faced with economic loss, some growers who bought land and houses in the valley when medical cultivation was allowed are challenging the county and asking a judge to postpone action against them.
https://www.sanluisobispo.com/
Legal Weed: How Republicans Learned To Love Marijuana (USA – Cannabis Politics)
Newsweek (August 16, 2018) Jason Isaac, a fourth-generation Texan and conservative state representative, has a clear memory of his first mind-expanding encounter with marijuana. It was January 2015, and the Texas state Capitol building was swarming with lawmakers returning to work. Two women were sitting on the stairwell opposite his office, waiting for him. He sat down with the pair—his constituents—and heard their stories. One had a child with intractable epilepsy, the other a child with severe autism.
https://www.newsweek.com/2018/
What Corona Owner’s $4 Billion Bet On A Marijuana Firm Says About Pot’s Future (USA – Cannabis Investments)
The New York Times (August 16, 2018) What does a beer company do to hedge against slowing growth in its main business? In the case of the parent company of Corona, the answer is to invest heavily in the marijuana industry. Constellation Brands, which also makes Robert Mondavi wine and Svedka vodka, announced on Wednesday that it had invested $4 billion in Canopy Growth, a publicly traded Canadian cannabis producer. The deal comes nearly 10 months after Constellation first took a 10 percent stake in Canopy to help create nonalcoholic cannabis-infused drinks and other products.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0
Joints For Homeless Offers Compassion And Cannabis (USA – Cannabis Cares)
High Times (August 15, 2018) A grassroots campaign that is encouraging members of the cannabis community to help homeless people has a twist in its approach. In addition to offering food and personal care items to people on the street, Joints for Homeless suggests that people include a little cannabis in their kindness. Shane Pettas AKA Boppin told High Times that his grandfather taught him to give back to the community and help the homeless when he was a kid. He’s carried on the tradition and said he plans to teach his kids to do the same.
https://hightimes.com/activism
12 Cutting-Edge Marijuana Marketing Tactics That Work (USA – Cannabis Market)
News Times (August 15, 2018) Changes in the cannabis industry are occurring at light speed, and perhaps none so fast as in the marketing space. Remember when cannabis ads showed up in our social media feeds, and then, in what seemed like five minutes later, Facebook/Instagram and Google/YouTube began shutting companies down for posting them? The very nature of marketing is changing, too. Usually it takes a creative marketing strategy to get a company noticed. But in cannabis industry, where The Man is always one step behind, those battles have to be won at the tactical level.
https://www.newstimes.com/news
1 Important Fact About Canadian Marijuana That You’re Probably Overlooking (Canada – Recreational Cannabis)
The Motley Fool (August 16, 2018) In a shade over two months, on Oct. 17, history will be made. After months of debate in Parliament, and years of promises from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, recreational marijuana will become officially legal in Canada and go on sale in private and government-owned dispensaries. To say that legalized cannabis is a big deal would be a big understatement. Though estimates vary wildly given that no industrialized country has ever given the green light to adult-use weed before, the industry could be looking at adding $5 billion in yearly sales.
https://www.fool.com/investing
Pot Industry Puts Environmental Strain On Washington State (WA – Littering)
Waste 360 (August 16, 2018) Washington state has collected $315 million in taxes on retail sales of marijuana in fiscal year 2017, according to The Washington Post. However, that revenue generated from the booming cannabis industry comes at an environmental cost. Plastic tubes, small Mylar bags and other marijuana packaging products are being dumped in public sewers and making their way into state waterways. In addition, millions of pounds of harvested marijuana, which should be composted, ends up in landfills.
https://www.waste360.com/organ
