Category: aBIZinaBOX Inc. and Jordan S. Zoot

IRS Updates CTR Exams – While we do a very significant amount of writing for our clients, partners, friends and the cannabis industry in California as a whole, we also do a very substantial amount of reading, and perhaps our three “go-to reads” are

IDPH Making Effort – we are somewhat pleasantly SHOCKED and SURPRISED that the Illinois Dept. of Public Health in particular, and State of Illinois government, in general, seems to be making a REAL and CONCERTED effort to implement cannabis policy.

CA DOJ Medical Cannabis Rule Summary -The 16-page document from Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office is “a good, solid first step” for enforcement, Kazan said. It spells out what is and what isn’t lawful grow.“I appreciate that it is coming from the top,” he said. The document summarizes more than 20 years of state laws, regulations, and guidelines concerning the growing, distribution and transportation of medicinal cannabis in the Golden State. The purpose of the release was “to reflect the evolution of cannabis legalization in California,” according to a statement from the Attorney General’s Office.

On August 6th we published an article that illustrated the savings for consumers and additional profits for cultivators that could be produced through the use of a properly organized Cannabis Cooperative Association (“CCA”). This article describes the savings for consumers and the additional profits for cultivators in movement of cannabis in the form of extracted oil.

We decided to illustrate the financial efficiency of moving cannabis from cultivator to consumer through a fully integrated CCA for the benefit of all California residents.  Every California resident is impacted by this industry regardless of social, moral or political viewpoint relating to cannabis, and regardless of economic standing.

We ran across an article by Hilary Bricken, Esq. entitled “Welcome to the Jungle: Changes in Ownership, Financial Interests, and Entities for California Cannabis Businesses.” The article is a valiant attempt to capture a very real and complex problem. However, our view is that the article falls far short of addressing the totality of the problem

On July 17, 2019, we described five critical changes the Bureau of Cannabis Control (“BCC”) must immediately cause to be made in connection with the regulation of cannabis in California. [See Critical Changes] In the introductory paragraph of our July 17th article we noted the California Department of Finance (“CDF”) recently released a scathing audit report on the enforcement activities of BCC. [See California DOF Audit Report on BCC]

Wake Up California Cannabis Growers Its 2019  and the world you may have grown up and worked in since the late 1990’s was changed forever on January 1, 2018 due to the passage of SB 94 [Proposition 64].

Proposition 64 was an ill-conceived, poorly-drafted amendment to California’s Constitution. The black cloud of Proposition 64 has one serious silver lining. Proposition 64 preserved Proposition 215

We have decided to write a primer on the advantages of Cannabis Cooperative Associations (“CCAs”) because many of our readers have asked us why we keep talking about them.

As our readers are aware, we look at developments in California’s cannabis industry differently than most. AB 97 and SB 97 were signed into law by Governor Newsom on July 1st. These Bills address expiring provisional licenses and add a new tool for law enforcement to use against unlawful cannabis activities. We applaud the Legislature and the Governor for trying. However, these Bills merely assure that the chaos will continue. These Bills address none of the causes of the chaos in California’s cannabis industry.

Cannabis Business Reality. Conference Agenda Mismatch. For those of you who read our post regularly, it is no surprise that we have been “beating a drum” over problems within the cannabis industry in California that focus on licensing and the underground market.

We were prompted to write this article by the juxtaposition of two articles republished by Cannabis Business Executive in its July 4th Edition. The title of the first article, The Top 5 Most Dangerous Cannabis Contracts in California, caught our eye. We were intrigued by the title. What is a “dangerous” contract? We will come back to the list of the five most dangerous cannabis contracts in a moment. First, we want to briefly comment on What’s a Cannabis Lawyer? The juxtaposition of this article with the above article was surprising. It seems to us the answer to the question “What’s a Cannabis Lawyer?” is ……. “A lawyer who can identify the five most dangerous cannabis contracts ” That would be a good start for retaining an effective cannabis lawyer?

We quoted Lori Ajax in a recent article.  We will repeat the quote, “I just want to crush the illegal market,” Ajax said to applause at Meadowlands.  “I don’t usually say that out loud …We didn’t go through this the last few years to have (the legal) market be undermined.”

We were prompted to write this article by the Los Angeles Times publication of “California to Give Struggling Cannabis Businesses More Time on Provisional Permits” on June 14, 2019.   The Times article describes yet another band-aid the Legislature is slapping on California’s maladroit roll-out of cannabis regulation. This particular band-aid is an emergency extension of time through a budget Trailer Bill. The Bill, which is opposed by environmental groups, extends provisional licensing.

We happened upon an article about a New York conference that both piqued our curiosity and reminded us of another conference which was held in Upstate New York a bit over sixty years ago. MjMicro is an invitational forum that unites publicly traded cannabis companies led by seasoned executives with next level, high net worth investors looking for shorter term ROIs and guaranteed liquidity.

What does the acronym “CCC” mean? CCC is our acronym for “California Chaos Causes” We cannot list all of the causes of problems in California’s cannabis industry. The list of causes becomes longer every day. Our CCC refers solely to major causes.

By now, anyone that reads our articles is certainly aware that we like the cannabis cooperative association [“CCA”] structure, its an amazing vehicle for small craft cannabis cultivators to pool their resources, save money and remain competitive in a market that is quickly filling up with large vertically integrated businesses. We have become incredibly frustrated with the reticence of CalCannabis to issue a license to a CCA other than one that is fo4Redacted RParrottLetter (2) engaged in cultivation or processing. One of the professionals we know that is active in seeking to get CCA’s licensed wrote a letter to Mr. George Parrott, the Director of CalCannabis. We are sharing a redacted version of that letter with everyone so that everyone becomes aware of where this situation stands. We intend to distribute this broadly in the hope that we can resolve this without litigation.