Washington – Minorities for Medical Marijuana, the largest community-based nonprofit in the cannabis and hemp industry, kicked off Congressional Black Caucus Week with its bi-annual Diversity and Inclusion for Cannabis Equity Mixer in downtown Washington, DC. At the event, M4MM honored two “Champion 4 Change” Awardees, Bakari Sellers and Florida State Senator Tracie Davis. The advocacy group’s goal this week is for lawmakers to recognize how policy will affect minority communities and what is needed for these communities to be a vital part of legalization efforts.

If you were to ask what the main problem facing the largest cannabis market in the country is, there would be one resounding answer – TAXES.

Cannabis taxes on the state and local levels are choking the life out of businesses across the state of California and cultivators, manufacturers, and retailers are looking for relief anywhere.

President Joe Biden began his first State of the Union Address laying out the numerous ways that he is working to support the people of war-torn Ukraine. He went on to describe his triumphs in turning around the economy post-pandemic and then rattled off several issues that he says need to be dealt with like crime, infrastructure, childcare, opioid abuse, veterans care, even going so far as to cure cancer, but the one element that was sorely lacking from the speech – cannabis.

"Operators are kept up at night worrying about how to survive in an environment where there is little support, extremely strong competition from illicit dealers from one side, and the existential threat of corporate competition on the other. The only solution for operators is to advocate for a level playing field and hope that reform will occur sooner, and not later," - Beau Whitney

The legislation would federally deschedule the plant, while allowing states to continue governing themselves with policies they deem appropriate. It also creates much needed social equity programs and creates a strategy for taxation. The two major surprises of the day were how middle of the road the legislation comes across and how fervently Booker is opposed to allowing the SAFE Banking Act to move forward.

Pests and contaminates are a given in the cultivation of cannabis, and most standards developed to control these on other agricultural products don’t apply. This is why the U.S. Pharmacopeia has stepped in to provide analytical methods and risk-based limits for the industry to help protect public health, including looking at how cannabis is grown, not just at how it hits the shelves.

“Strain names are absolutely misleading with considerable variation in the same cannabinoid content among different specimens of the same strain. You can get the same color and the same smell, but actually levels of the THC and CBD and some of the other compounds could be quite different,” says Robin Marles, Ph.D., chair of the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) Botanical Dietary Supplements and Herbal Medicines Expert Committee.

USP has elected to recognize cannabis as a single plant species, Cannabis sativa L., with different varieties or subtypes that can be classified based on their THC and CBD content. The guidelines in the Journal of Natural Products article organize the plant into three ‘chemotype’ categories: THC-dominant, CBD-dominant, or intermediate varieties that contain physiologically meaningful levels of cannabinoids.

Knowing that Republicans are opposed, and every other state has passed on a government takeover of their cannabis markets, doesn’t it seem obvious that his proposal is a poison pill? Does it not seem intentionally designed to fail? There is plenty of precedents that makes it clear from every state why no government in its right mind would take this approach.

The only way to shore up your business and maintain your customer base is through public relations and communication, internally and externally. A lack of information breeds fears and anxiety. You have the power to alleviate those concerns and navigate this health crisis.

If we look closely at the Cuomo cannabis plan there are red flags. According to Cuomo’s budget, “the program will limit the number of producers and retail dispensaries to guard against a market collapse.”

Four of the remaining candidates and a few frontrunners, Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bennet, and Amy Klobuchar, will not be able to campaign and participate in the Iowa Caucus or the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries because they will be sitting in their seats listening to arguments on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.