Latest

America’s first cannabis restaurant, Lowell Cafe, opened at the beginning of October in Los Angeles. “Yes, we are real AND legal,” the establishment’s website proudly announces. At Lowell Cafe, the food itself will not be infused with cannabis, but a range of pot pre-rolls, vapes, pre-packaged edibles, concentrates and extracts are available for sale—and immediate consumption—alongside high-quality cuisine. The restaurant also provides pipes and bongs, which can be used in the dedicated smoking areas.

Almost three years after the first medical marijuana dispensary opened in Puerto Rico, the medical cannabis industry is blossoming into a fertile enterprise, generating a monthly average of $4 million in sales, despite a few setbacks.

Since its inception until last August, sales and services reported to the government amount to $128 million, with businesses paying $13.9 million for the sales and use tax (IVU by its Spanish acronym), according to the Treasury Department. So far this year, tax revenues from medical marijuana have increased by 127.5 percent.

When New Jersey lawmakers debated earlier this year whether to legalize recreational use of marijuana, the Garden State’s police organizations were adamantly against it.

The cops said that legal weed might lead to an explosion in the numbers of impaired drivers operating under the influence. And the police would be caught flatfooted trying to tell whether drivers they pulled over were high or not.

“With alcohol, if you have over 0.08% in your blood, there’s the presumption that you’re intoxicated,” said Christopher Leusner, head of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police.

“There hasn’t been a blood test or a breath test that can determine if you’re impaired by marijuana.”

Now there is.

It’s a breathalyzer device developed by Hound Labs in Northern California. It’s portable and can run tests for both alcohol and marijuana. It just may change the minds of many of those reluctant police officers, including in Pennsylvania as lawmakers consider several proposals to legalize recreational marijuana use.

Intrinsic Capital Partners, a Philadelphia growth equity fund, is so convinced of a “potential massive market” for the device that it led a $30 million Series D financing round to bring it to market in 2020.

Mike Lynn, a veteran emergency department physician from Oakland, Calif., developed the Hound in collaboration with researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco.

Lynn also happens to be a reserve deputy sheriff.

“It’s about creating a balance of public safety and fairness,” Lynn said. “I’ve seen the tragedies resulting from impaired driving up close. And I have a good idea how challenging it is at the roadside to know whether someone smoked pot recently. But I believe if someone is not stoned, they shouldn’t be arrested.”

Blood tests for marijuana can return a positive result even if someone has used cannabis within the last three weeks.

Lynn claims that his device can detect whether someone has smoked or ingested a marijuana edible within the last three hours.

A Canadian start-up, called SannTek, has a device in development with similar capabilities.

The Hound is comprised of a base station and a hand-held device that together will retail for about $5,000 a unit. The entire machine will be manufactured in the United States, Lynn said. Each test also will require a $20 onetime use cartridge.

“We have spoken with law enforcement agencies and large employers, and from our perspective, there’s a huge, untapped market and unmet needs for something like this,” said Howard Goodwin, principal at Intrinsic Capital Partners.

Dick Wolf, the creator of TV’s Law & Order, is also an enthusiastic Hound backer. So is Benchmark, the Silicon Valley venture capital powerhouse that put up seed funding to Dropbox, Snap, Uber, and WeWork.

“It’s a game changer,” said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively on marijuana legalization.

“I’ve been saying for years it’s only a matter of time before someone developed the technology and got the science right,” Hudak said. “That time apparently is now. And they’re going to make a hell of a lot of money selling it to law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and Canada.”

Goodwin said about 50 million drug tests are conducted each year. He believes the market for a THC breathalyzer may be worth well above $10 billion annually.

About 30 states have legalized cannabis. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are among the dozens with medical marijuana programs. The governors of both states support legalizing it for recreational use. And polls in both states show the majority voters would support full legalization.

But traditionally, law enforcement has been resistant to legalization.

Leusner, the head of the New Jersey police chiefs group, said prosecuting marijuana DUIs is costly and time-consuming.

Marijuana DUI cases hinge on blood test results. Traces of THC metabolites, the drug’s byproducts, can remain in the body for up to a month. Proving impairment is notoriously difficult. There is no “per se” standard, or legal threshold, of what constitutes intoxication. Often, cases get thrown out of court.

Officers who are qualified drug recognition experts and trained to spot stoned drivers can spend up to two days in court on the stand. “That’s expensive,” Leusner said.

John Adams, Berks County’s district attorney, serves on Pennsylvania’s statewide medical marijuana advisory board.

“DUI under marijuana is a huge, huge problem. It’s one of the reasons we’ve been against legalization,” Adams said. “I’ve heard about the breathalyzers. If the technology is out there, it would be a great tool. It would alleviate some of our fears.”

Police have depended on the skunky stench of burnt marijuana to provide probable cause to search a car or conduct a field sobriety test on a driver. But a recent court ruling in Pennsylvania maintained that the smell alone isn’t sufficient reason to initiate an arrest.

In addition, cannabis consumers in many states are slowly trending toward edibles — from pot brownies to infused beverages and lozenges — and, until the recent scare, vaping.

So both the Hound and the SannTek breath analyzers appear to be arriving at the perfect moment.

The Hound breathalyzer, which is about a billion times more sensitive than a standard alcohol breath test, can detect the incredibly low concentrations of THC that are transported through the bloodstream and subsequently exhaled.

“We wanted to be able to detect THC in people who have recently used it — either eaten the stuff or smoked a joint,” said Lynn. “Those are the people we want to discourage before they go to the workplace or get behind the wheel.”

Lynn said he envisioned the device nearly eight years ago when a car drove past him trailing a cloud of weed smoke. But the technology did not exist to create an affordable device.

“I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be.”

In about eight months, Lynn’s team was able to detect THC in the breath of smokers. It took five more years to consistently and accurately measure levels with a machine with a cost in reach of most police departments and employers.

“We could measure small amounts quickly, but it took considerably longer to do the science and complete the clinical studies,” Lynn said.

Though Lynn envisions the nation’s police departments as his first customers, he believes that businesses will adopt the Hound.

“Employers have the same fundamental problems as law enforcement,” Lynn said. “They need to maintain a safe workplace, but not have to worry about what their employees do in their free time. Someone can go home, smoke pot just like I’d enjoy a glass of wine, and not test positive.”

“Employers are facing a workforce now that has close to full employment,” Lynn said. “They don’t want to be firing valuable workers, especially for something that’s legal in most states.”

Recently I discussed all of the congressional marijuana bills awaiting consideration and votes. The bills ranged from reclassifying marijuana to a Schedule II drug to removing it entirely from the Controlled Substances Act. The Act contains five schedules: I as the most serious to V as the least. Two of the major reasons that drugs are classified as most serious under Schedule I is that the drug has “no currently accepted medical use” and has a “high potential for abuse.”[i] No one can deny that as more and more states adopt medical marijuana laws and more studies seem to indicate some medical benefit,[ii] the notion of scheduling marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs is starting to crack.

The continued FDA approval of cannabinoid-based medicines is also causing fissures. Four of them are now on the market. They are dronabinal (marinol) for controlling nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and nabilone (cesamet) to treat anorexia in HIV patients along with the most recently approved drugs Epidiolex[iii] (cannabidiol) [CBD] to treat rare and severe forms of epilepsy and Syndros, a THC dronabinol substance like Marinol (except that it is marketed in liquid form rather than a pill) [iv] which became commercially available in the U.S. as a Schedule II substance. “It seems paradoxical that drugs like these, which contain elements of marijuana and serve the same purported purpose, are designated as Schedule II and III while botanical marijuana remains Schedule I.”[v]

If however the schedule I changes to II, several industries will be impacted. They include, but are not limited to, the synthetic marijuana pharmaceutical companies; the Canadian marijuana industry; the alcohol industry; the pharmaceutical industry in general; the drug testing industry, and, the government.

Some would think these big Pharma companies would be jumping for joy if marijuana were rescheduled to II. But big Pharma synthetic marijuana companies want to protect their monopoly and hold onto the synthetic marijuana industry. Epidiolex is manufactured solely by GW Pharmaceuticals;[vi] it is the first FDA-approved drug that contains a purified drug substance derived from marijuana. It is also the first FDA approved drug for the treatment of patients with Dravet syndrome.[vii] Syndros is marketed by Insys Therapeutics. These companies are the manufacturers and distributors of everything that has been FDA has approved and is currently on the market. “Big Pharma companies want botanical marijuana to remain illegal because it is financially beneficial to them, not because synthetic marijuana is decidedly better for patients.” [viii]

The fact that botanical marijuana is typically cheaper than synthetic marijuana makes the case. Drugs like Marinol are sold for $18 per 5 mg capsule, the equivalent of $3,600 per gram.  In contrast, botanical marijuana can be obtained for $15 a gram, though potency and price of the plant can vary.  For patients without insurance, legal botanical marijuana provides an affordable option to relieve their symptoms.[ix] Insys made huge contributions to the Arizona effort to pass a medical marijuana initiative in 2016 and has been deemed instrumental in stymieing that effort.[x] “Those supporting legalization speculated that Insys was attempting “to kill a non-pharmaceutical market for marijuana in order to line their own pockets.”[xi] “Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) spent $19.7 million on lobbying against the legalization of both recreational and medical marijuana in 2016, according to the Senate Office of Public Records.” [xii]

That is not to say that the pharmaceutical industry in general would not profit if the reclassification does indeed occur. The pharmaceutical industry would likely have significant opportunities to develop new cannabinoid-based drugs for a multitude of medical conditions now being addressed by medical marijuana. For example, there is a growing body of evidence that marijuana is working for chronic pain.[xiii] “The pharmaceutical industry is salivating over trying to find products that will spare opioids or reduce exposure to opioids. Whether or not the pharmaceutical industry can produce a substance they can call a drug that would be approved for a pain indication remains the question,”[xiv]

Declassifying marijuana would also slow the continued growth of the behemoth marijuana Canadian companies. Medical marijuana has been legal in all of Canada since 2001 and recreational marijuana was up and running in October, 2018. This status has afforded the Canadian marijuana companies to trade on the stock exchange and has given them a “leg up” on U.S. marijuana companies. The American companies are only raking in one-tenth of the revenue that Canadian marijuana companies. “Two of the largest Canadian marijuana corporations, Canopy Growth Corp. and Aurora Cannabis, have respective market caps of $5.51 billion and $3.28 billion, whereas the largest among the American corporations, Terra Tech Corp. and Kush Bottles, have only achieved respective market caps of $122.98 million and $342.79 million.[xv]

As the world marijuana companies are growing they are being eyed by the world alcohol industry. “The former chief executive of one of North America’s top beer makers says it’s only a matter of time before all alcohol companies are involved in the cannabis industry.”[xvi] Thus far Constellation Brands has bought an interest in Canopy Growth, the largest Canadian marijuana company to the tune of a 9.9% interest for 245 million Canadian dollars ($190 million), plus options to raise its stake to just under 20%., [xvii] “Molson Coors Brewing selected The Hydropothecary… and Diageo, the maker of Guinness beer and Smirnoff vodka, has been in talks with at least three Canadian marijuana growers.”[xviii]

While the alcohol industry may benefit on one hand with taking a literal interest in Canadian marijuana companies, they may be negatively impacted on the other. Both The Boston Beer Co., maker of Samuel Adams and Jack Daniel’s-maker Brown-Forman have stated in their SEC statements and filings that the marijuana industry may negatively impact their bottom line.[xix] Interestingly however one study found that “individuals who use both cannabis and alcohol tend to use them at the same time and simultaneous use was associated with increased frequency and quantity of alcohol use.[xx]

With respect to the drug testing industry, according to a bcc Research Report, “the global drug of abuse (DOA) testing market reached nearly $3.0 billion in 2016. This market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) 4.5% to reach nearly $3.9 billion by 2022 from $3.1 billion in 2017.”[xxi] “The industry CAGR of 4.5% through 2022 is expected with urine and blood tests remaining market leaders. Increasing use of saliva tests may see a sharper growth in that emerging segment, the report concluded.”[xxii] “Onsite testing by law enforcement and first responders is a smaller market, compared with laboratory-based complex testing, but growth has been steady as employers or state laws dictate a drug-free workplace.”[xxiii] Federal drug tests are mandatory for millions of federal workers which also adds to the uptick for the drug testing industry.[xxiv] If marijuana is reclassified or the pending Fairness in Federal Drug Testing Under State Laws Act (H.R. 6589) bill which will end mandatory drug testing for federal workers is passed,[xxv] it could negatively impact this industry and over time this policy could bleed over to the entire workplace testing scenarios.

Lastly, although the government would benefit from increased tax revenue, it would lose the tax deductions revenues that are not now permissible for marijuana businesses. One analysis shows that if marijuana were fully legal in all 50 states, it would create at least a combined $131.8 billion in federal tax revenue between 2017 and 2025. [xxvi]That is based on an estimated 15% retail sales tax, payroll tax deductions and business tax revenue.[xxvii] “Allowing marijuana businesses to take normal deductions was expected to cost the federal government $5 billion in tax revenue over the next decade.”[xxviii]

Does this outcome change if marijuana is entirely removed from the Control Substances Act? That is another topic to be explored.

References

[i] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/812

[ii] https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/legal-pot/amid-opioid-crisis-researche... http://globaldrugpolicy.org/Images/cannabinoids%20for%20medical%20use.pdf;

Whiting, P., R. Wolff, S. Deshpande, M. Di Nisio, S. Duff, A. Hernandez, C. Keurentjes, S. Lang, K. Misso, S. Ryder, S. Schmidlkofer, M. Westwood, and J. Kleignen, 2015. “Cannabinoids for Medical Use: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” JAMA 313: 2456-2473; Hill, K. 2015. “Medical Marijuana for Treatment of Chronic Pain and Other Medical and Psychiatric Problems: A Clinical Review.” JAMA 313: 2474-2483.

[iii] https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm611046.htm

[iv] Douglas W. House, Insys launches Syndros in U.S., Seeking Alpha (Jul. 31, 2017, 11:30 AM), https://seekingalpha.com/news/3283371-insys-launches-syndros-u-s

[v] http://law.emory.edu/ecgar/perspectives/volume-5/perspectives/big-pharma...

[vi] https://www.gwpharm.com/

[vii] https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm611046.htm

[viii] http://law.emory.edu/ecgar/perspectives/volume-5/perspectives/big-pharma-marijuana-legalization-paradox.html#section-0b79795d3efc95b9976c7c5b933afce2; Andre Bourque, Is Big Pharma for or Against Legalizing Medical Marijuana? Maybe Both., Entrepreneur (Aug. 8, 2017), https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297984.

[ix] http://law.emory.edu/ecgar/perspectives/volume-5/perspectives/big-pharma...

[x] http://law.emory.edu/ecgar/perspectives/volume-5/perspectives/big-pharma-marijuana-legalization-paradox.html

[xi] http://law.emory.edu/ecgar/perspectives/volume-5/perspectives/big-pharma...

[xii] http://www.theprospectordaily.com/2017/02/28/the-sticky-path-to-legalization-in-texas/

[xiii] http://globaldrugpolicy.org/Images/cannabinoids%20for%20medical%20use.pdf;

Whiting, P., R. Wolff, S. Deshpande, M. Di Nisio, S. Duff, A. Hernandez, C. Keurentjes, S. Lang, K. Misso, S. Ryder, S. Schmidlkofer, M. Westwood, and J. Kleignen, 2015. “Cannabinoids for Medical Use: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” JAMA 313: 2456-2473; Hill, K. 2015. “Medical Marijuana for Treatment of Chronic Pain and Other Medical and Psychiatric Problems: A Clinical Review.” JAMA 313: 2474-2483.

[xiv] http://www.kcchronicle.com/2018/07/11/when-marijuana-is-legal-in-canada-americans-are-expected-to-flock-but-the-border-and-u-s-law-stands-in-the-way/aw9600r

[xv] https://www.law.com/ctlawtribune/2018/08/27/prohibition-and-the-future-o...

[xvi] https://mjbizdaily.com/former-molson-ceo-all-alcohol-companies-involved-...

[xvii] https://mjbizdaily.com/constellations-purchase-canopy-stake-transformati...

[xviii] https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/28/which-marijuana-partner-will-d...

[xix] https://mjbizdaily.com/constellations-purchase-canopy-stake-transformati...

[xx] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399000/

[xxi] https://www.bccresearch.com/market-research/pharmaceuticals/drug-testing...

[xxii]https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/06/15/1024596/0/en/Drug-Test...

[xxiii] https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/06/15/1024596/0/en/Drug-Test...

[xxiv]The Federal Drug-Free Workplace Program was initiated by Executive Order 12564 to establish the goal of a drug-free federal workplace. The Program made it a condition of employment for all federal employees to refrain from using illegal drugs on or off duty. https://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/press-announcements/201709291000

[xxv] https://3ncb884ou5e49t9eb3fpeur1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uplo...

[xxvi] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2018/01/10/study-legal-marijuana-could-generate-more-than-132-billion-in-federal-tax-revenue-and-1-million-jobs/?utm_term=.49636311688b

[xxvii] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2018/01/10/study-legal-marijuana-could-generate-more-than-132-billion-in-federal-tax-revenue-and-1-million-jobs/?utm_term=.49636311688b

[xxviii] https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/06/the-sneaky-reason-congress-may...

Some of the people rushing to emergency rooms thought the CBD vape they inhaled would help like a gentle medicine. Others puffed it for fun.

What the vapors delivered instead was a jolt of synthetic marijuana, and with it an intense high of hallucinations and even seizures.

More than 50 people around Salt Lake City had been poisoned by the time the outbreak ended early last year, most by a vape called Yolo! — the acronym for “you only live once.”

In recent months, hundreds of vape users have developed mysterious lung illnesses, and more than 30 have died. Yolo was different. Users knew immediately something was wrong.

Who was responsible for Yolo? Public health officials and criminal investigators couldn’t figure that out. Just as it seemed to appear from nowhere, Yolo faded away with little trace.

As part of an investigation into the illegal spiking of CBD vapes that are not supposed to have any psychoactive effect at all, The Associated Press sought to understand the story behind Yolo.

The trail led to a Southern California beach town and an entrepreneur whose vaping habit prompted a career change that took her from Hollywood parties to federal court in Manhattan.

When Janell Thompson moved from Utah to the San Diego area in 2010, the roommate she found online also vaped. Thompson had a background in financial services and the two decided to turn their shared interest into a business, founding an e-cigarette company called Hookahzz.

There were early successes. Thompson and her partner handed out Hookahzz products at an Emmy Awards pre-party, and their CBD vapes were included in Oscar nominee gift bags in 2014. In a video shot at a trade show, an industry insider described the two women as “the divas of CBD.”

Indeed, Hookahzz was among the first companies to sell vapes that delivered CBD, as the cannabis extract cannabidiol is known. Now a popular ingredient in products from skin creams to gummy bears, cannabidiol was at that time little known and illegal in some states.

The partners started other brands that offered CBD capsules and edibles, as well as products for pets. Part of Thompson’s pitch was that CBD helped treat her dog’s tumors.

By autumn 2017, Thompson and her partner formed another company, Mathco Health Corporation. Within a few months, Yolo spiked with synthetic marijuana — commonly known as K2 or spice — began appearing on store shelves around Salt Lake City.

Yolo and Synthetic Cannabis

Synthetic marijuana is manmade and can be manufactured for a fraction of the price of CBD, which is typically extracted from industrial hemp that must be farmed.

Samples tested at Utah labs showed Yolo contained a synthetic marijuana blamed for at least 11 deaths in Europe — and no CBD at all.

Authorities believed that some people sought out Yolo because they wanted to get high, while others unwittingly ingested a dangerous drug. What authorities didn’t understand was its source.

Investigators with Utah’s State Bureau of Investigation visited vape stores that sold Yolo, but nobody would talk. The packaging provided no contact information.

By May 2018, the case was cold. But it was not dead.

That summer, a former Mathco bookkeeper who was preparing to file a workplace retaliation complaint began collecting evidence of what she viewed as bad business practices.

During her research, Tatianna Gustafson saw online pictures showing that Yolo was the main culprit in the Utah poisonings, according to the complaint she filed against Mathco with California’s Department of Industrial Relations.

Gustafson wrote that while at Mathco she was concerned about how Yolo was produced, that it was excluded from Mathco’s promotional material and that the “labels had no ingredients or contact listing.”

Justin Davis, another former Mathco employee, told AP that “the profit margins were larger” for Yolo than other products.

Gustafson’s complaint asserted that Mathco or JK Wholesale, another of the companies that Thompson and her partner incorporated, mixed and distributed Yolo. Financial records in the complaint show Thompson’s initials as the main salesperson for Yolo transactions, including with a company in Utah. The records also show Yolo was sold in at least six other states, including to an address in South Carolina where a college student said he vaped a cartridge that sent him into a coma.

The former bookkeeper also tipped the Utah Poison Control Center about who she believed was behind Yolo, according to her complaint.

Barbara Crouch, the poison center’s executive director, recalled getting a tip in late 2018 and passing it along to the State Bureau of Investigation. SBI agent Christopher Elsholz talked to the tipster, who told him she believed the company she had worked for distributed Yolo. Elsholz said the company was in California and therefore out of his jurisdiction, so he passed the tip to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

The DEA offered to help but took no law enforcement action, spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said. Spiked CBD is a low priority for an agency dealing with bigger problems such as the opioid epidemic, which has killed tens of thousands of people.

In the end, it wasn’t the synthetic marijuana compound in Yolo from Utah that caught up with Thompson. It was another kind of synthetic added to different brands.

By the time of the Utah poisonings, vapes labeled as Black Magic and Black Diamond had sickened more than 40 people in North Carolina, including high school students and military service members. Investigators were able to connect Thompson to that outbreak in part based on a guilty plea from the distributor of the spiked vapes, who said a woman that authorities identified as Thompson supplied the liquid that went into them.

Prosecutors also linked her to dealers charged in New York, where she pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to distribute synthetic marijuana and a money laundering charge. The only brand federal prosecutors cited was Yolo.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman called Thompson a “drug trafficker” who used JK Wholesale to distribute “massive quantities” of synthetic marijuana as far back as 2014. She faces up to 40 years in prison.

Reached by phone the week before she pleaded guilty, Thompson declined to discuss Yolo and then hung up. In a subsequent text message, Thompson said not to call her and referred questions to her lawyer, who did not respond to requests for comment.

While Yolo was Thompson’s project and she was the exclusive salesperson, her business partner and former roommate was involved in its production, according to the workplace retaliation complaint.

Thompson’s business partner and former roommate, Katarina Maloney, distanced herself from Thompson and Yolo during an August interview at Mathco’s headquarters in Carlsbad, California. Maloney has not been charged in the federal investigation.

“To tell you the truth, that was my business partner,” Maloney said of Yolo. She said Thompson was no longer her partner and she didn’t want to discuss it.

In a follow-up email, Maloney asserted the Yolo in Utah “was not purchased from us,” without elaborating.

“Mathco Health Corporation or any of its subsidiary companies do not engage in the manufacture or sale of illegal products,” she wrote. “When products leave our facility, they are 100% compliant with all laws.”

Maloney also said all products are lab tested. She did not respond to requests for Yolo lab results.

Following the relaxation of cannabis laws safety in the workplace and on the roads is of major concern.

Currently, the medical cannabis segment accounts for the majority of the overall industry, largely because of the growing adoption of alternative treatments. Medical researchers have highlighted that cannabis can be effectively used to treat ailments such as cancer, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and chronic pain. However, as the industry continues to advance, cannabis safety on the roads and in the workplace is becoming a major concern.

The recreational segment is expected to eclipse the medical segment and overall, the number of consumers in legal US states and Canada is rapidly growing as the recreational market continues to mature. Notably, many recreational consumers are purchasing a variety of cannabis-based products such as flower, concentrates, extracts, and edibles.

Most recreational consumers are interested in products that are packed with THC, delivering a potent effect. In particular, concentrates and extracts have become increasingly popular because of their immediate delivery and potent THC content. However, producers have faced backlash from political officials and law enforcement agencies over the plant’s potential abuse.

Cannabis safety concerns

Regulators are concerned about the possibility of driving while under the influence. Companies and even parents have expressed their concerns over the potential abuse of cannabis. In efforts to co-operate with regulators, businesses, and parents, many companies have developed innovative technology.

Some companies are developing technologies for law enforcement agencies in efforts to reduce potential criminal activities that spawn as a result of cannabis use.

Innovative technologies such as THC breathalysers have become popular for law enforcement in legal regions. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana can significantly impair judgement, motor co-ordination, and reaction time.

The advancement of THC breathalysers is expected to reduce the number of consumers who drive under the influence, and as a result, regulators are hoping to reduce the number of dangerous incidents.

Avis Bulbulyan, Chief Executive Officer of Siva Enterprises, said: “When looking at how tech would impact the cannabis industry, it’s important to understand the needs of the industry.

“Generally, this industry is no different than many other industries and it has all of the same business needs that most businesses have. The Schedule One nature of cannabis along with the general misunderstanding of cannabis as a plant for so long has led to a greater need for compliance and transparency when setting up these businesses.”

Louisiana officials hope the federal government will approve the state’s industrial hemp program by Jan. 1 so they can begin issuing licenses.

If all goes according to plan, Louisiana farmers will begin planting the new crop this spring.

Though the federal government is not expected to issue its rules until next month, the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry has crafted the basic framework based on what they expect the feds will want.

“Almost all states are following a similar pathway,” LDAF Commissioner Mike Strain said Monday to a legislative agriculture committee. “I know there’s a full-court press [by the federal government] to get this done.”

Louisiana lawmakers legalized industrial hemp this year in hopes of establishing a new cash crop for the state’s farmers. Hemp is derived from the same plant species as marijuana but has very low levels of THC, which is what gets marijuana users high, and can be used in a wide variety of products such as rope, clothing, plastics and fuels.

The 2018 federal farm bill excludes hemp from the list of dangerous controlled substances and allows states to set up hemp-farming programs. LDAF will license growers, track acreage, inspect crops and potentially seize and destroy plants with too much THC.

Strain said crops will be limited to having about 0.3 percent THC, though he hopes the federal government will allow up to 0.349 percent to give growers a little “wiggle room.” He said his department would work with farmers whose crop has slightly too much THC, though growers who are found to be deliberately trying to skirt the rules could be referred for criminal prosecution.

Strain said he expected between 100 and 200 growers will be interested and expects them to plant between 60,000 and 80,000 acres or more. Licensees will have to pass a criminal background check.

Seeds will need to be certified by the state or a credible third-party agency. Strain said he wants to protect the farmers from buying faulty seeds and ensure invasive species don’t hitchhike on the hemp program.

State Sen. Francis Thompson, D-Delhi, expressed confidence LDAF will carefully regulate the program.

“If we have bad players, we could all be embarrassed by this,” Thompson said.

The Joint Agriculture Committee lacked a quorum to formally approve the state's program framework, but members urged Strain to keep moving forward with an eye toward legislative approval later this year.