Welcome to Episode 32 of This Week in Cannabis News.
While you didn’t necessarily have an election this past week, voters in Oklahoma did. They were voting on adult-use legalization in that state and rejected the measure. Now, Oklahoma does have medical cannabis but adult-use seemed one step too far.
If the Oklahoma story has you down, MJBiz has some bright spots for you. They went to Delaware and Hawaii to look at adult-use prospects on those states.
Last week, the big news came out from the Office of Cannabis Management in New York that they will double the size of New York’s Conditional Adult-Use Recreational Dispensary (CAURD) program for dispensary licenses, increasing the maximum number of CAURD dispensaries to 300. The decision comes after criticism that the original cap was too low and would have created a bottleneck in the industry. But, also as a reminder, only 4 of the current CAURD licensees are open so far.
From a new market to one of the oldest. California has launched a $20 million grant program to help expand local cannabis retail. The grants will be given out to cities and counties that have established equity programs to help people who have been disproportionately affected by the war on drugs to open new shops.
Note: Earlier this week we had our second California-focused webinar titled: Acquiring Customers in the California Cannabis Market featuring both Dutchie and outside experts talking about best-practices when it comes to attracting and retaining customers in that market - both online and in real life. Watch a full recap of the webinar:
In the first month of legal adult-use cannabis sales in Missouri, the state has already sold over $71.7 million of cannabis. For reference, that’s a very, very big number. And, that number is expected to rise as more dispensaries open and the market matures - as it only opened in late February. Recall that Missouri legalized medical cannabis in 2018 and had hundreds of thousands of medical cannabis patients registered when adult-use sales began on February 28th.
Las Vegas City Council is set to vote on a proposal for cannabis consumption lounges in the city. If approved, the lounges could be up and running by the end of the year.
This week, our cannabis expert is Sarah Trent from Valley Wellness in Raritan, New Jersey. Sarah Trent joined Dutchie’s own Erica Loftin earlier this week on International Women’s Day and we wanted to share that conversation as part of today’s This Week in Cannabis News.
Valley Wellness is a medical dispensary. She has a background as a public defender and she brings that methodical, legal approach to her work at Valley Wellness. Trent was in conversation with Erica Loftin of Dutchie’s New Jersey team.
See you next Friday at Noon Eastern/9 AM Pacific on Dutchie’s LinkedIn page.
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