NCIA Expo Oakland: Day Three (Plus Mini Cup Results!)

Following a night of festivities across the cannabis industry’s spiritual home in Oakland, the final day of the National Cannabis Industry Association’s Summit & Expo hit on emerging issues like tax reform and industry-wide packaging standards. Things started fast on the final day of the NCIA expo: Harborside Health Center’s CEO and co-founder, Steve DeAngelo, and the dispensary’s lead attorney, Henry Wykowski, (one of the top pot tax attorneys in the business) talked about section 280E of the tax code, which prevents legal lot businesses from deducting basic business expenses like rent. Last November, following Berkeley Patients Group’s victory over the Department of Justice, Wykowski told Cannabis Now that Harborside’s own 280E case is a big domino waiting to fall— the results (either way) will set precedent for the entire industry. “If we knock 280E out of the box, we’ll lose one of the biggest problems we have,” he said. “Getting rid of 280E will help us a lot in dealing with the tax situation.” The expo floor was popping off as people decided what specs they wanted on their outdoor cannabis defense drone: NXT Robotics can hook your murdered-out cannabis killbot up with people, fire and smoke detection — you might as well shell out for the license plate reader too, just to make sure it’s your boys at the gate. NXT Founder, Jeff Dubosse, said leveraging one of the units as a security asset (using a “subscription model”) could save cultivators up to $70,000. You can even have a conversation with the person robbing your…

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