Having worked with many medical marijuana growers, processors, and dispensaries in Oklahoma, it has become abundantly clear that the cannabis industry still lacks best business practices and accounting support. As I meet with business owners during my capacity as a c-suite consultant, the stress of the cannabis business is ever-present.
One of New Zealand’s leading universities will soon become the first in the country to offer a postgraduate course in medicinal cannabis.
Legal cannabis sales continue to grow despite the strength of the illegal market. The new State of Legal Cannabis Markets report from The Arcview Group highlights the strengths of the industry going into 2020, while also acknowledging the challenges ahead.
Empirical evidence pertaining to many disruptive developments such as the invention of the World Wide Web, the growth of social media platforms, and the over-the-top content streaming industry, reveals that identifying and investing in these developing trends early could lead to multi-bagger returns.
California was the first state to pass legislation for medical marijuana, and it was among the first to generate a legal adult-use weed industry. After just two years of operation, the recreational dispensaries have generated over $1 billion in tax revenue, which has gone to fund childcare and anti-drug programs for the state’s youth, environmental initiatives like park maintenance and wildland restoration and public safety grants for local police and fire departments. It is amazing to see so many good things come from the simple act of legalizing marijuana.
The Canadian-German market connection has been a “thing” ever since the middle of the last decade. But this is not the only international cannabis connection. Indeed, firms in multiple countries have been developing international partnerships for quite some time – and not just deals involving the plant or its extracts, but on the cannabis technology front.
This year and going forward expect these to bear fruit, and in interesting ways.
What are the trends? And who is doing what?
Cannabis legalization is becoming an important discussion topic in most countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on the economy globally. Amid the pandemic, most countries seek relief in the marijuana industry, which is still an evolving industry. Bermuda, a British overseas territory, might expand its legal cannabis market. The government wants public feedback on making marijuana legal.
In recent years, lawsuits directed against the federal government’s prohibition of cannabis have tried—and repeatedly failed—to knock down marijuana’s Schedule I status.
A recently filed lawsuit, however, suggests the legal wall against cannabis legalization should not even exist, due to a mistake made more than 25 years ago.
In late May, Sue Sisley with the Scottsdale Research Institute (SRI) in Arizona, along with three military veterans, filed a legal action against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
