Business | CalPotNews.com

UC Davis profs launch Halent cannabis testing lab

Jul 092011

Two UC Davis researchers are on a mission to make sure pot is pure. Chemistry professor Donald Land and university lab manager Kymron deCesare are running a startup medical marijuana testing facility in West Sacramento called Halent Laboratories. Both describe themselves as true believers in the therapeutic effects of cannabis, Hudson Sangree reports in the Sacramento Bee. Land, a tenured faculty member at UC Davis, said his mother died from cancer and his brother died from HIV/AIDS, both in great pain and without access to medical marijuana. He said he’s intent on removing the social [...]

North Coast banks on high alert for pot proceeds

Business, Dispensaries

Feb 282011

Federal regulators are instructing North Coast banks to scrutinize their customers’ financial transactions for signs of money laundering and drug deals, the result of the region’s reputation for marijuana production. The little-known policy has drawn local banks into the war on drugs, forcing them to spend time and money searching for evidence of illegal activity, Nathan Halverson details in this special report from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. To avoid the hassle, some have simply closed the bank accounts of medical marijuana dispensaries, which were authorized by California voters in 1996 but remain illegal in [...]

‘First honest hydro store’ set to open in Sacramento

Business, Cultivation, Medical marijuana

Feb 252011

The Wal-Mart of weed is coming to Sacramento. At least that’s the moniker embraced by weGrow, a cavernous hydroponics store enthusiastically marketing itself as a retail outlet for people cultivating marijuana for personal medicinal use. The 10,000-square-foot weGrow store, which opens Saturday at 1537 Fulton Ave., is the first national franchise for a company that bills itself as a supply and training destination for legal pot growers. The enterprise, started in Oakland last year as a warehouse store called iGrow, doesn’t sell any marijuana, Peter Hecht reports in the Sacramento Bee. Yet the gardening emporium [...]

Eureka to announce 3 candidates for cannabis permits

Business, Dispensaries

Feb 242011

The city of Eureka will announce on Friday which business proposals will be recommended to apply for the limited number of conditional use permits available to open a medical marijuana commercial facility. The council-appointed Medical Cannabis Selection Subcommittee sifted through 25 proposals that were submitted in December, Allison White reports in the Eureka Times-Standard. The applicants were from both local and out-of-town sources, and the committee narrowed down its recommendations to three proposals, said Community Development Director Sidnie Olson. “They seem to have a very strong desire to move the therapeutic and medical aspect forward,” [...]

Placer County cannabis grows boost hydro stores

Business, Cultivation, Medical marijuana

Feb 052011

Is a modern-day Gold Rush taking place that centers on loosening marijuana restrictions and the rise of indoor, hydroponic pot grows? Or has the bottom fallen out of the market in Auburn and other California communities? Auburn has four storefronts selling all the equipment needed to grow everything from tomatoes to marijuana – three that have popped up in the past two years, Gus Thomson reports in the Auburn Journal. But with Prop. 19 going down to defeat in November and more growers with plenty of pot looking at more competition to supply medicinal marijuana [...]

Leno bill aims to protect job rights for Prop. 215 patients

Business, Medical marijuana

Feb 012011

In 2008, then-state Assemblyman Mark Leno got a bill passed in both houses of the California Legislature to prohibit employees from firing workers simply because they were medical marijuana patients. A little more than two years after the bill was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Leno, now a Democratic state senator from San Francisco, has introduced similar legislation. Leno’s Senate Bill 129 would prohibit employers from discriminating against workers with medical marijuana recommendations in hiring or firing decisions or in their rights to participate in the workplace, Peter Hecht reports in his “Weed Wars” blog. [...]

Soquel artist puts his brand on medical cannabis sodas

Business, Medical marijuana

Jan 242011

SOQUEL — How strange is the emerging world of medical-marijuana entrepreneurship? Consider Clay Butler, who may soon be marketing a food product that he’s never tasted, and that he would never buy. The product is called Canna Cola, and it’s a soft drink that contains THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, aimed at medical marijuana dispensaries. “I don’t do drugs,” said the Soquel-based commercial artist. “Never have. I never drank, never smoked. I’m a clean-living guy. I’ve had two beers in my whole life, and I remember them both too. No marijuana, I’ve never smoked [...]

New cannabis trade group sets up shop in D.C.

Advocates, Business, Medical marijuana

Dec 122010

WASHINGTON – The cannabis industry has flexed its muscles in 15 states, including California, where it’s legal to smoke marijuana for medical purposes. Now the industry is ready to go to work in Washington, Rob Hotakainen reports in the Sacramento Bee from McClatchy Newspapers’ Washington bureau. A new trade group, called the National Cannabis Industry Association, aims to bring together sellers, growers and manufacturers and to promote pot on Capitol Hill. “Our intent is to be the go-to organization in Washington for this industry,” said Aaron Smith, the group’s executive director. For the past five [...]

General Cannabis takes WeedMaps public

Business, Marijuana News, Media, Medical marijuana

Dec 052010

This week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been on a tear, but it’s nothing compared to the recent highs achieved by an obscure stock known as General Cannabis (ticker symbol: CANA). Since word leaked out in September that the company was acquiring the popular Yelp-for-pot site WeedMaps.com, the value of its shares has skyrocketed 300 percent. Last week General Cannabis officially finalized the purchase, Josh Harkinson reports in Mother Jones, making WeedMaps the latest and most brazen marijuana business to go public. Founded in 2008 by a University of California computer science graduate, Justin [...]

S.F. fundraiser runs into High Times trademark

Advocates, Business, Marijuana News, Media

Nov 162010

Kevin Reed can’t catch a break. Reed, the CEO of medical cannabis delivery service The Green Cross, has for the past three years hosted an annual pot party/fundraiser called the SF Cannabis Cup (re-dubbed the “Cannabis Competition” for this year’s fete due to copyright concerns), in which a select group of judges — all medical cannabis patients — get completely ripped as they sample roughly 60 of the best grams of cannabis, concentrates, and edibles Bay Area dispensaries have to offer. The fourth annual iteration is this Sunday, Nov. 14 — but after a few [...]