Marijuana Business Magazine January 2019

Marijuana Business Magazine | January 2019 22 Arkansas Two of the businesses licensed by Arkansas to grow medical cannabis say they expect to have product available for dispensaries as soon as April. Arkansas voters approved a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana in 2016, but the state’s MMJ industry has been beset by legal challenges and licensing delays. Bold Team and Natural State Medicinals told the panel they expect to have medical marijuana ready for dispensaries by April. Osage Creek Cultivation, Natural State Wellness Enterprises and Delta Medical Cannabis are aiming to have MMJ product ready in the summer. An outside firm is reviewing applications for Arkansas dispensaries seeking to sell MMJ. California The majority of more than 90 cannabis-related local ballot measures in Califor- nia were approved by voters on Election Day, a development that is expected to be a boon for marijuana entrepreneurs looking for new markets. Only 15 of the 94 initiatives were defeated at the ballot box, with most of them approving new marijuana business taxes. Voters in Oakland approved a measure that could lead to a drop in local marijuana business taxes. Voters in Los Angeles defeated an initiative that would have created a public bank that could have been utilized by marijuana businesses. Colorado The state’s U.S. attorney, Bob Troyer, said his office might take action against licensed marijuana businesses that violate Colorado law or use their state-legal status “as a shield” while selling product on the black market. Until now, federal officials in Colorado have largely focused on prosecuting entirely illegal mari- juana grows—operations often concealed on federal forest land or inside houses. “Now that federal enforcement has shot down marijuana grows on federal lands, the crosshairs may appropriately shift to the public harms caused by licensed businesses and their investors—particularly those who are not complying with state law or trying to use purported state compliance as a shield,” Troyer wrote in an opinion piece published by the Denver Post. Connecticut State regulators added chronic neuropathic pain associated with degenerative spinal disorders to the list of conditions that can be treated with medical can- nabis, bringing the total number of conditions to 31 for adults. Patients younger than 18 can be treated with medical marijuana for eight conditions. The committee also changed state regulations to allow the use of Epidiolex—a CBD drug manufactured by GW Pharmaceuticals to treat rare types of epilepsy— after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently removed it from the most restrictive class of controlled substances. Industry Developments | International & State