Licensed Producers

Cannabis firms in Colorado, Florida partner to provide pharma-quality medical marijuana products

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By , The Cannabist Staff

Cannabis products firms Wana Brands and Alternative Medical Enterprises LLC have inked a deal that’s one part national expansion play and another part investment in a growing trend: pharmaceutical-quality medical marijuana.

Wana Brands, an edibles company in Boulder, Colo., on Wednesday announced it signed a reciprocal licensing agreement with Alternative Medical Enterprises LLC, or AltMed, a Sarasota, Fla.-based medical cannabis outfit.

The agreement allows for AltMed to manufacture and sell Wana’s product portfolio in Arizona, and Wana can manufacture and sell AltMed’s line of Müv medicinals — including metered dose inhalers, transdermal patches and topical products — in Colorado.

Financial terms were not disclosed in the deal between the two privately held firms.

“They’re high-growth categories. The topicals have been growing at a nice clip,” said Wana Brands co-owner Nancy Whiteman. “I think the products are a perfect fit for the up-and-coming demographics.”

Those demographic cohorts: women, Baby Boomers and senior citizens.

Although Wana is known for its gummies, caramels and “jewels” edibles, the venture with AltMed doesn’t stray too far from character.

Two years ago, Wana launched WanaCapsXR, extended release medical cannabis capsules. The products — which resemble standard pills and come in a childproof white pill bottle — were developed in partnership with Cannabics Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Bethesda, Maryland-based cannabis drug development firm with a research and development hub in Israel.

At the time, Wana co-founder John Whiteman said that his firm saw a need for a “professional product” with the dependability of Tylenol and Excedrin, according to the Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera:

“Pretty much from the beginning, we realized that the biggest chunk of the market would be regular folks,” said co-founder John Whiteman. “We’ve stayed true to offering a product that is consistent and reliable and that you can trust.”

AltMed is a firm deeply ingrained in developing pharmaceutical-grade manufacturing facilities, practices and products, said Karen Quick, AltMed’s director of commercial operations. AltMed is in the process of qualifying for ISO 9001 certification for manufacturing facilities in Arizona.

“Most of our executives come from a pharmaceutical background, they bring with them a scientific approach to this industry — so it’s about purity, safety and testing and potency,” she said. “The reason we want this is we want safety for the patient. If it’s going to be a medicine, it’s dosed accurately, it’s safe, and it’s tested.”

And if the federal government and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were to shift their stances on medical marijuana, AltMed wants to be prepared.

Expansion is a tricky endeavor for cannabis companies operating in a landscape in which their product remains illegal under federal law and is also banned from interstate commerce. That’s where licensing comes into play.

AltMed has signed similar deals to land its Müv products in five states, Puerto Rico and Canada. However, the Wana reciprocal licensing agreement will be the first to come to fruition as those past transactions are still in the planning stages, Quick said.

Wana met the mark because of its history in the industry, dedication to quality control, and its ability to adapt its manufacturing facility to produce items such as trans-dermal patches, Quick said. Representatives for both firms will make frequent visits to the other company’s facilities to both learn manufacturing practices and to ensure for product consistency.

“We’re representing each other’s products. It behooves me to work very carefully with (Wana Brands’) team to make sure we’re well-prepared,” Quick said.

AltMed could start selling Wana edibles in Arizona by the fourth-quarter of this year, Quick said. Wana Brands is targeting the end of this year as well for Müv, but the first quarter of 2018 may be more realistic, Whiteman said.

Alicia Wallace joined The Cannabist in July 2016, covering national marijuana policy and business. She contributes to the Denver Post’s beer industry coverage. In her 14 years as a business news reporter, her coverage has spanned topics such as the…

Is GMO weed inevitable, given Big Ag’s entry into the cannabis industry?

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By Will Houston, Eureka Times-Standard

Genetically modified marijuana is a term that may strike fear into the cannabis farms in the hills of Humboldt County, conjuring visions of large agricultural companies like Monsanto entering the commercial market with enhanced strains.

While these genetically altered strains have yet to find their way into the marketplace, according to agricultural officials, some who study the cannabis genome such as Dr. Reggie Gaudino of the Berkeley-based Steep Hill cannabis laboratory say it’s only a matter of time before they do.

“The cannabis industry should be aware that sooner rather than later, there will be big ag at play in this industry,” Gaudino said Friday. “And big ag uses exactly these techniques. We’re working to help the current population of farmers and breeders retain relevance when big ag comes knocking on the door.”

After the passage of Proposition 64, local farmers have two years to press their advantage before companies outside the state can enter the cannabis market and until 2022 before grow sizes can reach above an acre.

Other researchers like Phylos Bioscience’s CEO Mowgli Holmes in Oregon disagree with Gaudino, stating that the industry and consumers are not as willing to accept or would even want to associate genetically modified organisms, known also as GMOs, with cannabis.

“I don’t think there is any thing that GMOs could do for cannabis that we need that couldn’t be done by advanced plant breeding techniques,” Holmes said. “GMOs can make cannabis that glows in the dark, but we don’t need that.”

Areas like Humboldt County have already worked to distance themselves from any GMO cannabis market that may arise and are instead working to embrace a regulated industry of environmentally conscious and organic farming practices.

Chromosomes of cannabis

Within marijuana’s 20 chromosomes are what some researchers say is the future of cannabis breeding waiting to be unlocked through the field of genomics.


Dr. Reggie Gaudino, foreground, of the Berkeley-based Steep Hill commercial cannabis laboratory stands next to his PacBio DNA sequencer. (Photo by Elizabeth Peace; Contributed by Steep Hill)

Labs like Phylos Bioscience and Steep Hill formed within the past decade are now using DNA sequencing techniques on various strains of cannabis to begin to unlock what makes marijuana tick. Labs are able to tests for different markers in marijuana’s DNA that coincide with the number of terpenes or the non-psychoactive cannabinoid, known as CBD.

“We have a big map of all the varieties that we’ve ever sequenced,” Holmes said. “It positions the sample on that so it’s near other things it’s genetically related to. Then there is a back report page that gives information on what population may have contributed genes to it. In the future we’ll have genetic tests that will tell people what traits the plant will have as it gets older.”

Gaudino said the work to map the marijuana genome is just in its nascent stages, but that its relevance in the modern market is already at work.

“Using the human genome as an example, that took 13 years, $3 billion and 11,500 sequences to arrive at what we call the human genome,” Gaudino said. “This is just starting for cannabis. There is no quote-unquote cannabis genome yet. In order to develop that you have to sequence lots of different strains.”

While marijuana has grown more potent than strains smoked at 1960s music festivals, these stronger strains are not the result of genetic modification — to most people’s knowledge — but rather tried and true traditional breeding techniques such as hybridization and cross-breeding.

Marijuana farmers like Mom and Pop Gardens co-owner Nicholas — who declined to give his last name — in northeastern Humboldt County states he is a proponent of naturally grown cannabis, stating that breeding has diluted the resiliency of certain types of strains. Even so, Nicholas said he is not entirely against a genetically-modified product.

“If the people that did GMO put the 20 to 40 years of research into this and verified their products were OK, that it didn’t harm people or animals, they might be OK,” he said.

While cloning may seem like a type of genetic modification, it does not fall under that category as it does not involve direct manipulation of the plant’s DNA. Even so, these techniques come with their own issues.

“Some people in the industry believe that cloning has been responsible for perpetuating a lot of the disease issues that you see in the cannabis industry,” Humboldt and Trinity counties’ Agricultural Commissioner Jeff Dolf said.

Future of GMO cannabis

Enzymes are what ultimately work to form marijuana’s aromatic and flavorful terpenes and cannabinoid components like CBD and the psychoactive THC. But some cannabinoids, like the lesser known non-psychoactive CBG, are harder to come by.

“Generally speaking, you can only get elevated amounts of CBG if there is something wrong with the enzymes that make THC or CBD or they are missing,” President and chief scientist Samantha Miller of the Santa Rosa-based Pure Analytics laboratory said.


A medical marijuana farm in Mendocino County in 2010. (Dan Rosenstrauch/Staff)

Miller said genetic modification technology like the CRISPR-Cas9 could certainly be used on cannabis to obtain different levels of cannabinoids and terpenes.

Whether farmers like it or not, Gaudino says genetic modification is coming and if utilized correctly, will work to benefit the industry in the long run. But Gaudino also said what matters is how genetic modification is used, and that he would be wary of creating more drought resistant strains or causing the plant to produce more sugar or proteins.

“The future is not necessarily a bad thing in respect to genetics of cannabis. It’s a matter of understanding what you can do with it,” he said. “I think a lot of people are afraid of it because of genetics. Really it’s something that all agriculture does because it makes sense, because we have the tools and the technology and can do things in a more cost effective, intelligent manner. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re giving up the farm.”

Holmes is on the opposite end of the spectrum and said he has no interest in genetically modifying marijuana. He argues that increased understanding of marijuana’s genome can work to improve plant breeding techniques.

“People have been doing cross breeding and hybridization, but they haven’t been doing it in a scientific way,” he said. “It needs a lot of rapid evolution to be commercially viable as the industry gets more crowded.”

Organicannabis

Under the current federal prohibition of cannabis, consumers are not going to be seeing any certified organic strains on the shelves of dispensaries any time soon.

But there are other types of certifications that mimic federal organic standards, such as the Clean Green, Global Culture and the Eugene, Oregon-based Certified Kind.


Marijuana samples on display during Emerald Exchange in Malibu on March 18. The all-day cannabis event emphasizes organic, sun-grown cannabis. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Marijuana growers seeking these certifications must prove they follow rigorous environmental standards such as refraining from using pesticides and herbicides, generators, illegal diversions and certain types of soils to name a few.

So far only 24 farms are certified. Certified Kind’s founder and certification Director Andrew Black admits the standard is high, but for good reason.

“Part of what we’re doing is trying to build a movement to promote true organic cannabis farmers to protect small organic family farmers and create a marketplace for them in which they can compete and they can call the shots,” Black said. “I see organic cannabis as part of the resistance to big farm and big pharma.”

California’s own medical marijuana regulations also call for the creation of an organic certification program by 2020, but only if the federal government permits it.

In the meantime, Humboldt County created its own organic-equivalent called “Humboldt Artisinal Branding.”

To qualify, growers must have both state and local cultivation permits, only grow 3,000 square feet or less of plant canopy, grow exclusively with natural light and meet all federal organic certification standards.

“It’s not difficult to take what we do for all the other organic commodities and apply them to cannabis,” Dolf said. “We can’t call it organic because it’s a federal term. We already have a pretty good understanding of the principles that need to be followed for the principles to be considered organic.”

This story was first published on TheCannifornian.com

Cannabist Show: She’s a psychologist helping opioid addicts; She’s bringing Israeli MMJ to America

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By The Cannabist Staff

Featured guests: Addiction treatment psychologist Cali Estes and Jyl Ferris of Tikun Olam USA.

LOTS TO TALK ABOUT

•  Using cannabis in treating opioid dependence; concerns about potentially trading one addiction for another.

•  Marijuana use in American professional sports — only the NHL doesn’t test for THC — helping athletes recover in the offseason with CBD and THC products alike.

•  Bringing an historic Israeli medical marijuana company to the United States, fitting in to the system.

TOP MARIJUANA NEWS

Persistent prosecution of Oklahoma head shop seems like “a waste of taxpayer money” to residents: For years, attempts to open up shops in this left-leaning Oklahoma college town to sell things like rolling papers and smoking accessories have faced a harsh crackdown from local law enforcement. Officers raided stores, confiscated merchandise and shut down the operations. While other states across the nation are easing penalties for marijuana use or legalizing the drug altogether, Norman police and its Republican district attorney are taking the opposite tack: pursuing criminal charges against the now-shuttered Friendly Market shop owner Robert Cox and several of his clerks for selling glass pipes in a local store. But the latest target of police and prosecutors is fighting back. –Report by the Associated Press’ Sean Murphy

Trump says he reserves right to ignore medical marijuana protection provision in spending bill: President Donald Trump signed his first piece of major legislation on Friday, a $1 trillion spending bill to keep the government operating through September. Trump signed the bill despite his objections to numerous provisions included in the measure. One such provision prohibits the Justice Department from using any funds to block implementation of medical marijuana laws by states and U.S. territories. In a signing statement that accompanied the bill and that laid out his objections, Trump said he reserved the right to ignore the provision. He held out the possibility that the administration could pursue legal action against states and territories that legalize marijuana for medical use. –Report by The Associated Press’ Darlene Superville

QUICK HIT

A cash transaction at a Colorado marijuana shopAn employee at a Denver marijuana shop handles cash during a transaction in May 2014. (Brennan Linsley, Associated Press file)

Colorado marijuana sales top $131M, set record in March 2017: The Colorado cannabis industry’s unbridled growth hasn’t waned — in fact, it’s still setting records. The state’s licensed marijuana shops captured nearly $132 million of recreational and medical cannabis sales in March, according to The Cannabist’s extrapolations of state sales tax data. The monthly sales haul of $131.7 million sets a record for Colorado’s relatively young legal marijuana industry, besting the previous high of $127.8 million set last September, The Cannabist’s calculations show. It’s the tenth consecutive month that sales have topped $100 million. Sales tax revenue generated for the state during March was $22.9 million, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue. –Report by The Cannabist’s Alicia Wallace

POT QUIZ

Test your current-events knowledge about politicians trading pot insults, a Washington state cop linked to a cross-country trafficking operation, an abstaining pop star and more.

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California gov commits $1.5M to clean up damage from illegal marijuana grows

Published: • Updated:

By Will Houston, Eureka Times-Standard

California Gov. Jerry Brown is earmarking $1.5 million in his May revised budget for cleanup of environmental damage caused by illegal marijuana farms within the state’s cultivation heartland in Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties.

“These illegal grow sites do untold damage to forests and wildlife along the North Coast and with Assemblymember [Jim] Wood’s leadership, we’re doing something about it,” Brown said in a statement Wednesday.


Nearly 900 marijuana plants and a butane hash lab were seized by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and California Department of Fish and Wildlife from this Kneeland property in June 2014. The investigation found that water was being illegally diverted from a nearby creek and that a large area on the property had been graded and clear cut. (Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office)

The announcement from North Coast Assemblyman Jim Wood’s office comes a day after local law enforcement and California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers eradicated an illegal 3,400-plant marijuana grow in the remote hills of southern Humboldt County.

Sheriff William Honsal said he thinks it is great that the state is providing more support to combat the “huge impact” the thousands of illegal grows have had in the region. But he said the amount allocated is not nearly enough to address the extensive damage caused to ecosystems by decades of illegal diversions, clear cutting and grading.

Honsal compared the environmental damage caused by marijuana grows to the contaminated former lumber mill sites throughout the county, and he fears that the damage could be even more widespread.

“We need more resources and more deputy sheriffs dedicated to these illegal grows,” Honsal said. “… I think further supporting the sheriff’s offices in these three counties will ultimately help people come into compliance with state law and be contributors instead of takers from the system.”

‘Closing the loop’

The announcement comes a day before Brown is expected to release his May revise of the 2017-18 state budget. Wood (D-Healdsburg) said he has been working with Brown’s office on this issue since 2014 when he introduced one of three bills that would eventually become the state’s newest and more comprehensive regulations on medical marijuana. Wood said environmental restoration was a major focus of his bill and said he felt like the funding is “closing the loop” on those efforts. Wood said he met personally with Brown about a week ago to discuss the need for the funds.

“Some of the pictures and narratives from our state agencies and some of us in the Legislature I think was enough to help bring some funding along and get started with the process,” Wood said. “It’s not going to be nearly enough, and it’s a start.”

Wood said it has yet to be determined how the funding would be split between the three counties, but he said he will be advocating for the funds to be used first in areas that are most heavily impacted.

Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton “Chuck” Bonham states the funding will be used as part of the Fisheries Restoration Grant Program that was created to address impacts to wild populations of salmon and steelhead trout. Illegal water diversions, clear cutting, grading, pesticide contamination and general pollution by illegal marijuana grows have impacted wildlife on the North Coast and has contributed to declining fish habitat to threatened species like coho and Chinook salmon on the Eel River.

“The $1.5 million will help us continue to clean up the egregious environmental damage, specifically to California’s waterways, caused by illegal marijuana cultivation sites,” Bonham said in a statement.


Thousands of butane gas canisters litter the site of a butane hash lab in southern Humboldt County after an explosion in November 2014. (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

The $1.5 million will be additional funding on top of continued funding for the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Watershed Enforcement Team, which was created in 2014 to address environmental impacts caused by marijuana grows.

Wood said that illegal marijuana operations not only pose a danger to wildlife, but to firefighters, hikers and law enforcement.

“Our beautiful pristine forests have become havens for these illegal grow sites,” Wood said in a statement. “These illegitimate growers have continued to ignore not only state laws for farming cannabis, but have left these sites ravaged by lethal chemicals, clear cutting and thousands of pounds of trash.”

County discussions

At its Tuesday meeting, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors discussed how it would handle marijuana grows that violate the county’s marijuana regulations. First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, who represents a large portion of Southern Humboldt County, was among the supervisors advocating for enhanced enforcement of farms that are not seeking to become legalized under the county’s and state’s marijuana laws.

“If they don’t come in and get permitted there is very good chance they will be having a visit,” Bohn said Wednesday morning. “And hopefully the first people on the list are the ones causing ecological damage affecting our watersheds our rivers and our aquatic wildlife.”

Trinity County Supervisor Judy Morris said in a statement that the importance of the state funding cannot be underestimated.

“The cleanup of these areas will also serve to deter any future rogue growing activity, since the associated infrastructure is a significant cost,” Morris said.

An unspecified amount of tax revenue from the state’s recreational marijuana legalization measure Proposition 64 will also be dedicated to environmental cleanup of illegal marijuana grows. But Wood said that those tax funds may be needed to launch the state’s regulatory system before any comes to environmental cleanup. He said the $1.5 million will act to “jump-start” enforcement activity in the meantime.

Humboldt County is also taxing its medical cannabis farms and is expecting to generate $2.2 million in additional revenue in the 2017-18 budget year. Honsal said he plans to request part of those funds be used to hire three new deputies for the sheriff’s office’s marijuana drug enforcement unit.

“Right now we have two people and three people over the summer,” Honsal said of the unit’s staffing. “That is not nearly enough. We need at least double that number to go out and to make an impact. We want to go after the most egregious violators. And to do that we need more resources.”

Humboldt County 2nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell said county funds can only go so far, and that there is need for further state support.

“With the federal government threatening to pull enforcement funds, it’s now more important than ever for the state to step in and help us address these problems,” she said. “…The environmental impacts of egregiously illegal cultivation practices have been a central concern of our efforts to regulate cannabis growing.”

Will Houston can be reached at 707-441-0504.

This story was first published on TheCannifornian.com

Cannabis concerns? Call Denver’s new Marijuana Health & Safety hotline

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By , The Cannabist Staff

Who you gonna call with your pot questions? Denver now has a 24-7 hotline for marijuana health and safety queries: 1-877-741-3777.

Launched this week, the Marijuana Health & Safety line — a pilot program from Denver Health and Denver Environmental Health — will connect pharmacists, nurses and toxicology officials to consumers and industry members curious about topics such as safe-use concerns, serving sizes, allergic reactions, occupational safety hazards, labeling and pesticides, officials said.

“Given the fact that (marijuana) is more prevalent now, the variety of the calls have gone up,” said Chris Hoyte, fellowship director and associate medical director of Denver Health’s Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center.

Those past poison control calls have included people who weren’t feeling well after consuming cannabis, those concerned about cross-reactions with other medications, those interested in knowing safe and appropriate dosing, and businesses questioning the safety of certain ingredients and additives. Alternatively, Denver’s 311 received a slew of queries and complaints about topics such as licensing, inspections, food regulations and pesticides.

Hoyte and other officials at Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, which has created service lines for questions surrounding substances such as opioids, acetaminophen and cough medicine, saw an opportunity to create a similar mechanism for marijuana. The two-dozen nurses, physicians and toxicologists who currently handle the poison and drug center’s phone line will continue to take these queries on this dedicated line.

The city and county of Denver agreed and put $15,000 to help fund the effort. The phone line’s pilot program has a duration of three months, but could be extended, officials said.

From the conversations — which will remain anonymous and confidential — officials hope to glean some insights about health and occupational safety issues, said Danica Lee, director of the Public Health Inspections Division at Denver Environmental Health.

The line could help officials potentially nip issues in the bud before they turn into broader public health concerns, to develop educational campaigns involving topics that become patterns, and to see where additional research is needed, Lee and Hoyte said.

“We might see some trends or we might not; but either way, I think this will be a helpful resource for consumers (and industry members),” Lee said.

The line will not have information such as marijuana business listings and it is not for use during emergencies, officials said.

If someone has a life-threatening emergency or is in need of immediate medical attention, they should call 911, officials said.

Alicia Wallace joined The Cannabist in July 2016, covering national marijuana policy and business. She contributes to the Denver Post’s beer industry coverage. In her 14 years as a business news reporter, her coverage has spanned topics such as the…

Chile starts medical cannabis pilot program

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By The Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile has become the first country in Latin America to sell cannabis-based medicines at pharmacies.

The pilot program was launched Wednesday at two pharmacies in the Chilean capital, which will sell the T100 and TC100 chronic pain-relief medicines made in Canada.

The program is financed by an alliance between Chile’s Alef Biotechnology and Canada’s Tilray under the supervision of the Chilean National Health institute.

Alef Biotechnology President Roberto Roizman says the viability of the program will be evaluated in six months to determine if it can be produced in Chile and exported.

Tilray is a pioneer in the research, production and distribution of cannabis-based medicines.

Chile has been joining an international trend of easing restrictions on marijuana for medical or personal use.