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<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The South by Southwest festival is billed as a convergence of music, films and interactive experiences. It\u2019s an event that descends upon Austin, Texas in a mad sprawl. South by Southwest opens previously shuttered businesses just for the weekend, it takes over breakfast spots downtown and rebrands them for dating apps, it restricts access to certain bars only to SXSW badge holders. It boosts intimate musical performances, conference discussions with Hollywood celebrities and esteemed journalists \u2014 and, this year, it also included a cannabusiness track<\/a>. <\/p>\n But make no mistake about it, while SXSW<\/a> may have dabbled in hemp-derived CBD<\/a>, there was no THC<\/a> permitted. Texas<\/a> still has some of the strictest laws<\/a> in the nation when it comes to providing even medical marijuana to its neediest citizens. In step with the Federal Controlled Substances Act, cannabis is still one of the most dangerous substances on the planet in the eyes of Texas lawmakers. <\/p>\n The fact that people are still be incarcerated for a plant that\u2019s been legalized in some form in over half the states in the nation was a key element to the cannabis conversation at SXSW last week. And, the nation\u2019s overwhelming desire to end the prohibition of marijuana has made for some surprising additions into the world of cannabis commerce, most notably, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner<\/a>. At SXSW, everyone was on board to legalize cannabis on a federal level, but the discussion was clearly starting to center on who will make the profits when this seemingly inevitable conclusion arrives.\u00a0 <\/p>\n It\u2019s the first day of the cannabusiness track and I\u2019m sitting in the plush chairs in the Leafly<\/a> lounge, looking at a wall of cannabinoid and terpene combinations designed to explain the intricacies of the cannabis plant. I\u2019m talking with Leafly\u2019s California editor David Downs<\/a>. We\u2019re on the sixth floor of the Hilton Hotel, most of the way through the workday, when he remarks at how odd it is to be celebrating cannabis at SXSW when there are people who are still in prisons in Austin and elsewhere for cannabis offenses. It\u2019s a strange concept to consider while looking at the free slushy machine decorated with strain names in the insulated conference room. It\u2019s also a problem Boehner says, in his keynote address the following day, that he believes is about to be resolved, at least, for those who haven\u2019t already been caught up in the criminality of marijuana\u2019s prohibition. <\/p>\n \u201cWashington has Speaking as the chair of cannabis investment company Acreage Holdings<\/a>, Boehner noted the banking challenges and onerous IRS regulations against cannabis under its definition of a Schedule I narcotic. <\/p>\n \u201cThe federal The passage of the STATES Act<\/a>, Acreage CEO Kevin Murphy said, would give his company a better tax code to operate under and even the playing field between the U.S. and Canada. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve provided hundreds of careers and hundreds of jobs for people that are passionate about this business that want to help people help themselves,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be nice to have a normalized tax code where we can pay these people better and where we can have a more profitable business to give back more on social issues?\u201d<\/p>\n Murphy said his company was seeking the privilege of being listed on the U.S. Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq, calling out that Canadian companies already have this ability, and mentioning Canopy specifically.<\/p>\n \u201cSo they\u2019ll Boehner, who \u201cYou\u2019ve got industries who are looking for ways to grow who are shrinking today,\u201d Boehner said. \u201cAnd long term, that\u2019s not good for their investors, that\u2019s not good for their stock and they\u2019re looking for ways to grow their company. There\u2019s Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, soft drink companies\u2026 When you look at the size of this market, of what it\u2019s going to look like 10 years from now, of what it\u2019s going to look like 20 years from now, we\u2019re in the very early stages of what is going to be a huge industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Mentioning the 50 billion dollars of sales each year in the tobacco industry and getting a laugh when he answered \u201cmy fair share\u201d after being asked how many of those tobacco products he personally consumes, Boehner said he guesses the legal cannabis industry will be bigger than tobacco in the next \u201cseven to eight years.\u201d<\/p>\n Outside in the lobby area of the Hilton where Boehner spoke, a small group of activists held up a banner that read \u201cJust Say No to Big Marijuana.\u201d The group was organized by the Equity First Alliance<\/a> and was in protest of the appearance of both Boehner and MedMen<\/a> CEO Adam Bierman.<\/p>\n \u201cLess than a The group, which also displayed banners on the highway near the event, also called out Bierman.<\/p>\n \u201cMedMen faces The group \u201cWhen Also fighting I\u2019m glad at least a tiny part of the legalization movement is listening to us. #StopBigMarijuana<\/a> #SXSWEED<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/sKUjOc6bN5<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kevin Sabet (@KevinSabet) March 15, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Speaking at a panel on March 15, Heisman trophy winner and former NFL player Ricky Williams \u2014 who went to school at the University of Texas when he played football \u2014 offered a different perspective on cannabis than what is typically discussed at events surrounding cannabis commerce. Williams said he had his first meaningful experience consuming cannabis was just blocks from where the conference took place. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot Williams is the vice president of product development at Real Wellness<\/a>, a California-based company developing with a line of both CBD and THC products. <\/p>\n \u201cThe story of when I left football was \u2018football player giving up millions giving up everything to smoke pot\u2019 and that\u2019s partially true, but the deeper truth is you can\u2019t always judge a book by its cover,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re all victim of our conditioning. I think in many ways I was conditioned to chase money, to chase fame, to chase power, but underneath there was something subtler, something truer. And I think it\u2019s the same with cannabis in that on the outside, most of us have been conditioned that this is a drug and this is bad for us, but just maybe if we go a little bit deeper and ask some deeper questions, we might find a different reality.\u201d<\/p>\n In a SXSW panel moderated by Cannabis Now publisher Eugenio Garcia, Matthew Morgan described how his cannabis journey took him from his family\u2019s expectation of taking on the multi-generational family homestead in Montana, to running one of the largest cannabis companies in the world. Morgan started a cannabis company in Arizona (Bloom) before becoming CEO of Reef Dispensary. He has since moved on from Reef to other ventures in California.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ended up creating a 165,000 square-foot center, a cannabis center, that was two blocks off the strip in Vegas,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cAnd when it was medical, there weren\u2019t very many patients, our assumptions were way off, we were just bleeding from every which direction from the company standpoint. Well, the minute they flipped over that recreational switch in Nevada, July 1, 2017, I\u2019ll never forget the company instantly went cash-flow positive.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan said the \u201cYou need Big Business TELL US,<\/strong> do you think big corporations have a The post Debates Over Big Cannabusiness Dominate the SXSW Conversation<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The South by Southwest festival is billed as a convergence of music, films and interactive experiences. It\u2019s an event that descends upon Austin, Texas in a mad sprawl. South by Southwest opens previously shuttered businesses just for the weekend, it takes over breakfast spots downtown and rebrands them for datingContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":33767,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9365,50,1211,69,3899,385,9366,6062,9367,8072,726],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33766"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33768,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33766\/revisions\/33768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cannabis](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/cannabissxsw.jpg\")
Team Cannabis?<\/h4>\n
\njust been in the way,\u201d Boehner said. \u201cThirty-three states have done this. Under
\nthe 10th<\/sup> Amendment, the states can do whether they want to do as
\nlong as it doesn\u2019t violate the constitution and as long as they\u2019re not
\nbigfooted by Washington. So thirty-three states have done this and it\u2019s not
\nthat Washington is purposely getting in the way. It\u2019s just that they have been
\nin the way and they\u2019re not getting the hell out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ngovernment just needs to get out of the way, whether it\u2019s the STATES Act,
\nwhether the FDA decides we\u2019re going to reschedule cannabis to a Schedule III or
\nIV or deschedule it all together, there are a number of things that could
\nhappen, but right now the STATES Act is where, I think most of the momentum is,\u201d
\nhe said. \u201cAnd it says if the state has decided that they want to make cannabis
\nlegal, the federal government recognizes that it\u2019s legal in that state. That
\nwould be a giant step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nwelcome the Canadians to basically, frankly, repatriate all of that money back
\nto their country,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI think it\u2019s time that we change our view so
\nthat we can be on equal footing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nsaid he did not personally use cannabis, but might in the future in the place
\nof an Advil PM, made several references to the imminent arrival of Big Business
\nin the cannabis space. <\/p>\n![\"Cannabis](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/cannabissxsw-4.jpg\")
Strange Bedfellows<\/h4>\n
\nmile from Travis County Jail, where people of color are still
\ndisproportionately incarcerated for cannabis possession, multibillion-dollar
\nconglomerates that are disproportionately controlled by white men will speak at
\nSXSW about dominating the cannabis marketplace,\u201d the group said in a news
\nrelease. \u201c[Boehner\u2019s] voting record in Congress (1991-2015) shows that he
\nconsistently opposed criminal justice reform, civil rights, LGBTQIA+
\nprotections, environmental protections, and public education. After 24 years of
\ndevastating communities with his policies, John Boehner wants to profit off of
\ncannabis in the wake of the War On Drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nallegations of wage theft, racism, and homophobia in the workplace, as well as
\nfinancial improprieties in their pursuit of profit,\u201d they said in a release
\nexplaining the SXSW actions. \u201cIn spite of being valued at $1.6 billion, MedMen
\nhas not made any significant commitment to funding equity justice or repair in
\nthe cannabis industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nsaid both men were representative of a trend towards racial inequality in
\ncannabis.<\/p>\n
\nunderstood in the context of a War on Drugs that has disproportionately harmed
\nlow-income communities of color for decades, this state of affairs requires
\ncommunity intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nagainst the tide of Big Cannabis, Project SAM CEO Kevin Sabet tweeted a
\nstatement of support. <\/p>\n\n
Cannabis as a Spiritual Guide <\/h4>\n
\nof talk these days about medicinal marijuana and how important THC and specifically
\nCBD are for athletes, especially athletes that are experiencing brain trauma,\u201d
\nhe said. \u201cI think that\u2019s real and I think that\u2019s meaningful, but my personal
\nexperiences with cannabis have touched me in deeper ways beyond the body.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Cannabis](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/cannabissxsw-3.jpg\")
From the Farm to the Las Vegas Strip<\/h4>\n
\nrecreational marketplace in Nevada allowed him to become head of one of the then-highest
\nrevenue cannabis companies overnight. Morgan spent most of his talk giving
\nadvice in regards to strategies to secure capital and successfully brand
\ncannabis companies. When asked if the industry will be dominated and can
\nsurvive without Big Business, Morgan said the answer was no.<\/p>\n
\nto legitimize the industry and for Washington, D.C. and other politicians to
\ntake you seriously,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cI think there\u2019s definitely still room for
\nyoung aggressive entrepreneurs that want to create a foothold in the space, I
\nthink there\u2019s still an opportunity for that. As more time goes, it\u2019s going to
\nbe tougher and tougher to enter the space as a stand-alone, but I think Big
\nBusiness is necessary to give the legitimacy to the industry and, you know, I
\ndo see those guys being industry leaders long-term just because they have first-mover
\nadvantage and they have so much capital behind them at this point that it would
\nbe hard to take them down.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nplace in the cannabis industry?<\/p>\n
\n
\nRead More: Debates Over Big Cannabusiness Dominate the SXSW Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"