By Alyson Martin | January 10, 2020 With Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2020-21 budget, big changes are coming for the state’s nascent, legal cannabis market — also the nation’s largest. California’s adult use market has been struggling for a number of reasons, including local bans on cannabis businesses, which the industry says exacerbates its most significant concern: the persistent, sprawling illicit market, which, as it is untaxed and unregulated, has been threatening the bottom line of legal cannabis businesses. It was with this backdrop...
By John Schroyer| November 27, 2019 The Los Angeles marijuana market is enduring more licensing delays. This time, it’s for a government-ordered audit of the city’s cannabis regulators. It means more uncertainty for marijuana firms. And, perhaps most excruciating, it means more money down the drain. That’s the ongoing narrative surrounding the L.A. marijuana market, where hundreds of entrepreneurs have waited months to learn if they can launch legal cannabis companies. Some, in fact, have reported losing tens of thousands...
By John Schroyer| November 21, 2019 After having avoided an increase in state taxes on legal marijuana, California officials changed course Thursday and announced MJ excise and cultivation taxes will go up effective Jan. 1. High state and local tax rates have been an industry problem that have made legal businesses less competitive with the illicit market: Unlicensed retailers can lure customers with lower prices, since rogue shops don’t pay any taxes. In announcing the move, the...
By Emily Alpert Reyes | October 29, 2019 Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson has called on the city to suspend the approval process for new shops selling cannabis products, arguing that the latest round of the licensing process was “compromised” by some people gaining early access to the application system. In a letter to the Department of Cannabis Regulation, Wesson urged the department to stop processing applications for new marijuana retailers, refund the latest round of cannabis applicants, and get...
By Chloe Aiello | October 1, 2019 As authorities scramble to address a mysterious vaping illness that has sickened more than 800 people nationwide and killed 12 or more, a proposed year-long ban on vaping in Los Angeles has sent the cannabis industry reeling. Adam Spiker, executive director of cannabis trade organization Southern California Coalition, fears outlawing one of the most popular forms of cannabis consumption would only feed the dangerous illicit market. “If the city does go through with the...
By Contributing Editor | August 22, 2019 The Los Angeles commission that oversees cannabis regulation advanced a proposal to the City Council Thursday that requests the creation of a law allowing city officials to padlock, barricade or fence in a property where marijuana is sold illegally without a license. The request came from Los Angeles City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, which was deliberated by the city’s Cannabis Regulation Commission, and it asks the...
| AUGUST 20, 2019 LOS ANGELES (AP) — An alliance of large marijuana businesses had a message for the public Tuesday: We’re good corporate citizens. In an ongoing effort to extinguish unlicensed cannabis sales, the Los Angeles City Council recently introduced a motion to padlock, barricade, or fence off properties where this illicit business activity is found to occur. The motion, presented by councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mónica Rodríguez last Thursday, notes that, “Despite increased law enforcement efforts to shut...
| AUGUST 16, 2019 SAN FRANCISCO—Unregulated cannabis vaporizer cartridges tainted with a potentially deadly lung toxin have hospitalized seven people with pneumonia-like symptoms in Hanford, California, officials there reported Wednesday. The cluster of tainted vape cart poisonings caused the Kings County public health department to issue a rare warning this week urging consumers to avoid buying cannabis e-cigarettes from unlicensed sellers. Street cannabis products are not subject to the rigorous testing that licensed products...
