California Marijuana

The cannabis plant is an expression of feminine energy in its purest form. The industry remains male-dominated, much like other agricultural sectors, with only 17 percent of women in cannabis working in cultivation according to the Women in Cannabis Study . However, there are more women growers making waves in the industry today than ever before. We spoke with a few of these trailblazers to learn more about what inspires them, the challenges they face, and their advice to the female farmers of tomorrow. Tina Gordon, founder and owner, Moon Made Farms, California Photo by Claudia Goetzelman Tina Gordon found herself in the Emerald Triangle 15 years ago as part of a documentary film crew. Inspired by the majesty of the plant’s full expression, she felt called to cultivate full-time and soon made Northern California her home. Gordon quickly became a staple of the Humboldt County community, advocating for legacy growers throughout the region. A Sun + Earth certified operation, Moon M...

Las Vegas, NV — Mobius , a leading manufacturer of pharmaceutical-grade cannabis processing equipment, today released a scaled-down cannabis mill that delivers the precision and grind quality of industrial mills at a lower price point. The newly released M60 Mill draws technology from Mobius’s flagship M210 Mill. Both utilize slow rotational speeds to reduce heat degradation, and precision cutting matrixes to maintain uniform particle sizes without THC loss. Precision milling is important because an inconsistent grind can adversely affect how ground cannabis packs within the cone, how it burns, and if the cone breaks during transport or consumption. In a crowded market sector like pre-rolls, brands need to deliver consistent quality to survive and thrive. “We’re excited to fit full-scale technology into our Mobius M60 Mill,” said Amanda James, Director of Strategy at Mobius. “It empowers smaller pre-roll and extract producers to achieve a top-quality grind at a much lower price p...

LOUISVILLE, Colo. — BDSA , provider of the most accurate and comprehensive retail sales data for the cannabis industry, today announced the launch of its coverage of the New Jersey cannabis market. BDSA’s Retail Sales Tracking reveals that New Jersey’s nascent adult-use market has shown solid performance, with monthly sales growth outpacing that of other, more established adult-use markets tracked by BDSA. Despite having one of the lowest per capita retail counts of any adult-use market, New Jersey has seen a strong start to 2022. BDSA Retail Sales Tracking shows that the state brought in approximately $200 million in legal sales from April 21st to July 31st. Dollar sales have seen a compound monthly growth rate of roughly 10% from May through July 2022. As a point of comparison, Illinois posted a compound monthly growth rate of just 3% in its first three full months of adult-use sales. “Although it has faced an abundance of regulatory challenges, New Jersey’s cannabis market ha...

The Source+ , an award-winning cannabis company with locations across Nevada and Northampton, Massachusetts, raised a grand total of $12,563.18 to support Friends of Parkinson’s during the month of July. In support of the Friends of Parkinson’s association and its mission to connect and create local, nationwide and international initiatives that support the neurological community, The Source+ raised funds for Friends of Parkinson’s by encouraging customers to round up their purchases to benefit the organization. “We are extremely moved by Friends of Parkinson’s and their choice to advocate for Parkinson’s and the neurological community,” said Steve Haffer, CEO of The Source+. “There will always be a need for advocates looking to serve individuals with various forms of ailments. Medical cannabis has played a part in managing Parkinson’s for some time now and we want to make sure our patients and our community have the resources and help they are looking for.” The Source+ has priorit...

WOBURN, Mass. — Bloom Automation Inc., an agri-tech company specializing in cannabis trimming equipment, today released the Bloom Artificial Intelligence Engine 2.0 — a suite of new algorithms that visually analyze cannabis flowers for faster, more accurate machine trimming. The AI software update makes Bloom’s robotic cannabis trimming system twice as fast as human trimmers and creates possibilities for other identification-related tasks such as defoliation, harvest weight prediction, and flower bucking. “We’re excited to announce Bloom’s 2.0 AI Engine for more reasons than one,” said Jon Gowa, CEO and Founder of Bloom. “The new AI increases the speed of our machine while also opening the door to support a wide range of third-party applications and equipment.” The AI performance leap is powered by a confluence of machine learning advances and an ever-expanding database of images collected through years of R&D. Updates to the system’s graphics processing unit (GPU) also enabled...

BLAZE is an award-winning cannabis software suite for cannabis cultivators, distributors, retailers, and delivery services. Founded in 2017 by tech entrepreneurs and cannabis company operators, BLAZE has worked diligently to build a reputation as an industry leader by meeting the needs of its 1,400+ customers across the U.S. and Canada. We have achieved this by offering innovative software products at competitive prices, providing white-glove customer service, and processing orders quickly with unparalleled reliability and efficiency. Our seed-to-sale software and apps enable businesses across the supply chain to automate compliance reporting and operate safely within local laws and tax requirements. Cannabis commerce is effortless with our retail point-of-sale platform that centralizes operations and combines efficient online ordering, inventory management, and payment processing. BLAZE offers full APIs and integrates seamlessly with more than sixty cannabis tech platforms, allowing ...

Does your grow room construction partner provide guidance from design to closeout? Prioritize hermetically sealed spaces? Deliver eco-friendly building material solutions? Help you maximize CO2 Usage? We’ve got it under control. PermaTherm is a manufacturer of insulated metal panels, primarily for indoor growing and cold-storage facilities. Largely serving the food and cannabis industries, PermaTherm panels are the ideal insulation material for vertical farming, indoor growing, hydroponics, processing, packaging, and temperature-controlled storage. With more than thirty-three years in business, PermaTherm takes pride in having extensive knowledge and experience within the controlled environments industry. PermaTherm’s team of insulated panel consultants provide expert project consultations free of charge, as well as offering onsite visits to project locations when needed. View cultivation facility buildout stories from other growers on the company’s website 24/7/365. Click to le...

Cannador ® is a premium brand that markets and manufactures quality cannabis humidors and humidor accessories for the discerning connoisseur. Since 2014, Cannador® has built a reputation of quality products by working with the best suppliers globally and distributes in the US, Canada and Europe. Functional design is extremely important to the end-user and therefore, Cannador® has taken the steps to acquire and distribute a US patented humidity control device for humidors called VaporBeads , which ultimately separates Cannador® from the competition. Each Cannador® uses this technology to ensure every humidor is properly humidified and maintains the quality of a connoisseur’s collection. Cannador® also has partnered with an environmental non-profit to plant one tree for every Cannador® purchased because we firmly believe in replenishing what we take and helping mitigate the effects of deforestation. 

Boulder Creek Technologies is leading extraction innovation in the cannabis and hemp industries with advanced Vapor-Static processing equipment that is safe, sustainable, and engineered for true commercial scale. The result of years of research as well as the founders’ passion for the environment, Boulder Creek Technologies’ patented Vapor-Static system represents a sea change in solventless cannabinoid extraction and creates high quality oil for all product categories, from concentrates and vapes to edibles and topicals. In marrying proven extraction technology with a turnkey installation model, processors and manufacturers of all sizes achieve high-efficiency production of exceptionally pure extracts while dramatically reducing operating expenditures. Models are available that can process up to 5,000 lbs of biomass per day with continuous feed operation for maximum productivity with a single operator.

Early in the pandemic, Lincoln Barnett III began dabbling in cryptocurrency and got some exposure to early-stage non-fungible tokens (NFTs). “I went down the wormhole,” said Barnett, a cannabis industry veteran. “I was buying NFTs, being super-active on Discord channels, learning absolutely everything I could about Web 3.” Web 3—or, among the cognoscenti, web3—is a conceptualized third-generation internet predicated on a decentralized network using blockchain technologies and token economies. Barnett began his cannabis career as a teenager, cultivating with his father and moving weight around Southern California in the pre-recreational era. More recently, he played a foundational role in getting the trade show Hall of Flowers off the ground. While he was well-versed in face-to-face gatherings, chat rooms on the platform Discord—once the exclusive stomping ground of gamers—introduced Barnett to a global community of web3 enthusiasts who displayed the same camaraderie and thirst for kn...

Cannabis companies work incredibly hard to cultivate their own particular branding, voice, and culture around their products. Communicating their brand effectively and authentically has its challenges in this current market. Having the tools to express their brand directly to consumers through multiple, effective channels is the most important need for cannabis companies today. In cannabis, communicating with your customers has its unique challenges. You would be hard-pressed to find a business, brand, or retailer that has not expressed the worry that their carefully curated social media page could be taken down, shadowbanned, or deleted altogether for violating the notoriously vague “community guidelines”. Many companies have had to face this reality and have had to rebuild their social media platforms and audience from scratch. While some businesses have seen success advertising cannabis on mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram , and Linkedin, it’s far from...

Both solvent-based and solventless extraction methods have their defenders and detractors. For now, methods that use hydrocarbons like butane, propane, and ethanol are the most common, with advocates saying they provide efficiency at scale, are more versatile, and produce a purer product. But the hydrocarbons, also called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are toxic and require purging with heat, which can destroy terpenes. They’re also flammable and can be dangerous in inexperienced or careless hands. Commercial extractors large and small say commonly used solvents may have bad reputations, but modern closed-loop extraction systems make them much safer than they were twenty years ago. Hydrocarbons also make business sense: Butane and propane extraction are less expensive than other methods. The substances’ low boiling point preserves more of the hemp and cannabis compounds while effectively separating cannabinoids from the biomass. Carbon dioxide, also a solvent, is non-toxic, non-...

Many entry-level retail jobs experience a high turnover rate, and the cannabis industry is no different. Dispensary budtenders are categorized as an entry-level foray into cannabis, and unsurprisingly 55 percent of these employees who worked at any point over the past previous 12 months had departed by the end of that time period in the U.S. and Canada according to data firm Headset . There are quite a few factors that may play into this phenomenon, especially in the early days of legal cannabis when budtenders were often overworked, underpaid, and constantly in danger of being raided and rendered unemployed by the federal government. But today, with cannabis closer to federal legality than ever before in the U.S. and fully legal in Canada, operators are rightfully making a more pointed effort to retain their budtenders by making them feel valued, respected, and heard in their vital role as knowledgeable ambassadors between cannabis products and interested consumers. Why Cannabis Bu...

NEW JERSEY – State Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-NJ) filed a new bill to allow for interstate cannabis commerce with other legal medical and adult-use states. The aspirational bill is the latest move in a growing campaign to permit the transportation of cannabis products across state borders, contingent on changes in federal law. The New Jersey state senator filed the legislation as California advanced a similar bill , following a precedent set by Oregon in 2019 in preparing for interstate commerce. The timing of the legislation, on the heels of the passage of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act in the House, signals a seriousness in this endeavor. “The economics of this industry won’t be rational until we are able to move cannabis from where it is most effectively grown to where there is in most demand,” Adam Smith, president of the non-profit Alliance for Sensible Markets, said . If the bill passes, it would take effect immediately but the ...

Rodrigo Chaves, the recently elected President of Costa Rica, marked his first 100 days in office this week by announcing an initiative to legalize recreational cannabis. The president’s announcement to send the initiative to Congress for discussion came on top of reassurances that his administration was nearly ready to publish the regulations for medical cannabis, which were approved by the previous Congress. “We really did not expect this last announcement about [recreational] cannabis,” said Guillermo Argüello, the president of the Costa Rican Hemp Association. According to Argüello, Costa Rica still has a long road ahead before it will be in a position to compete with the existing Latin American markets. “If we compare Costa Rica with Latin American markets we are at a disadvantage because we have not yet begun to plant cannabis,” he said. “We do not have large tracts of land. The pandemic and external factors such as the increase in the price of oil and the war in Ukraine hav...