The industry will continue to be a battleground with many startups looking to grow market share and expand. Around 70% of California cultivation licenses are issued to small commercial operations of less than 5,000 sq ft of the canopy. Access to traditional capital markets and banks is necessary for these small businesses to continue to thrive as large players look to solidify their place in their respective markets. Operators in larger markets are starting to feel the price compression and are closing shop with more hard times to follow. Technology implementation and process optimization is the best strategy for small operations looking to compete with larger operators.
Kellen Finney, Eighth Revolution
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
Does the Cannabis Industry need scientific underwriting? It’s a redundant question. Let’s count the ways. The multi-billion-dollar Cannabis industry has flooded the market with new, yet poorly validated Cannabis products. Many of these newer products are introduced into the marketplace without legacy data to support their safety. Isomers of THC, like delta-8 or delta-10, can be produced as Hemp to side-step state and federal THC restrictions. Government departments and the media have raised concerns about the safety of high potency Cannabis products. Despite the safety concerns, there is good news. Congress may finally pass the SAFE Banking Act. The move will introduce mainstream banking services and allow a more mature industry to validate products. Banking and insurance due diligence will likely direct the need for product certification.
Cannabis Science is an exciting and relatively new field. Scientific explorations of Cannabis have ranged from contributions to original science (e.g., the discovery of the endocannabinoid system) to investigations from the cognitive mind to the psychedelic experience. Applying the collective wisdom of the Cannabis-using community, the CESC does its part to certify community-accessible Cannabis products. Our approach incorporates five selected integral steps into the scientific underwriting of any Cannabis product.
The CESC believes in assessing outcomes based on a realistic potency analysis of Cannabis product actives. This entails using bioassays, such as those routinely used in pharmacology and biotechnology, that permit the assessment of potency quantified by both actual activities and by weight-based analytics currently used in the industry. The appropriate bioassay describes potency as International Units (IU) with metrics that can be standardized worldwide. The approach considers a broad spectrum of actives and answers questions about the relative potencies of various cannabinoid isomers, increasingly finding their way into the marketplace.
Process Control Charting permits the assessment of product variances obtained through 3rd party testing services and helps to ensure batch-to-batch consistency. Control Charts were created about a century
ago by Walter Shewhart and implemented early on at the Motorola corporation. This statistical quality control technique is used to determine whether a measurement or manufacturing process is in control and can be used to interpret trends needing correction. The Control Charts are foundational to Six Sigma analysis and a key element of the ISO 17025 standard.
The Flight Concept derives from an in-depth CESC analysis of Cannabis chemotypes carried out over the last decade. Flights permit a categorical correlation of product effect and safety outcomes with defined Cannabis flowers. This approach is fundamental to predictable outcome models for all Cannabis product categories. The long view of the Cannabis industry necessitates scientific underwriting to mitigate the risks of evolving products.
Proper characterization, categorization, stratification, and correlation enable the certification of Cannabis with batch-to-batch comparisons. Potency Bioassays Process Control Charting and Flight Concepts are several corrective approaches used by CESC in evaluating safety and efficacy. The CESCunderwrites Cannabis products with a scientific approach to solving safety and efficacy questions intrinsic to the accessibility and liability of products in the marketplace.
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The California industry considers the illegal market its toughest competitor. With consumers paying 40% or more in tax, folks have little reason to give up “their guy.” Meanwhile, illegal farms remain a menace to their communities.
Gov. Gavin Newsom responded this month with news of a crackdown. He’s converting California’s multi-decade, seasonal law enforcement task force, Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), into the year-round Eradication and Prevention Of Illicit Cannabis (EPIC). It will target illegal grows and the criminal networks underlying them.
The industry response was mixed. Companies need the illegal market to wane, but many don’t want to see more money supporting law enforcement efforts to prosecute the plant. They’d rather see taxes lowered to make the illegal market less profitable.
In other news: The California Cannabis Industry Association published a white paper warning about the dangers of a “national, unregulated, hemp-derived, intoxicating cannabinoid market.” The industry awaits a paper on the matter from the Department of Cannabis Control.
Called “Pandora’s Box,” the CCIA paper’s arguments include:
Hemp manufacturers are producing “novel, synthetic cannabinoids many times stronger than THC.”
Intoxicating, unregulated hemp products are “rife with contaminants, inaccurately labeled and brazenly marketed to children.”
PLUS: Snoop Dogg, in partnership withTsumo, released Snazzle Os infused onion rings.
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
