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Mass Layoffs Continue in Cannabis Industry – Globally

February 2, 2023 Published by

What’s one great way to tell if an industry is doing well? More jobs open up, and salaries improve. What’s a great way to know there are problems? When more and more jobs get cut. That’s where we are today, as mass layoffs continue in the cannabis industry, signaling a host of problems, with no solution in sight.

Industry issues

When the industry first started it was a true free-for-all. The predictions for market growth were off-the-charts, and it seemed like every big international company wanted to swoop into newly legalized locations to take advantage of this new reported cash cow of an industry. Everyone wanted in. Lots of people made investments. We all waited with baited breath to see who among us would become the new weed industry millionaires.

Now, we’re a few years in, and the landscape has changed, along with expectations. CBD has faded out into almost nothing, medical markets are getting eclipsed by recreational markets, which themselves are still often eclipsed by black markets. Prices remain high in many places due to insane taxing, and governments have been slow to pick up on this as an issue. Overproduction has (let’s be honest, predictably) come into play, causing prices to plummet in every venue. And the once thriving industry, is now showing its cracks, with sales plummeting in many places.

Last year the reports started really rolling in about industry closures and layoffs. Smaller names were already having a hard time making it in due to expensive regulation, extreme competition, and extra costs like slotting fees at dispensaries; making it seem like a game for the big dogs only. But even they’re having issues. And now as 2023 gets underway, the mass layoffs continue, both in the US, and around the world.

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Mass layoffs in the cannabis industry – global

Clever Leaves Holdings is a Colombian cannabis company with operations in Portugal. On January 23rd of this year, the company announced restructuring plans that include cutting nearly ¼ of its staff. Clever Leaves is in the medical space, creating pharmaceutical-grade products. This restructuring means winding down all operations in the Portugal location. In fact, the company wants to move everything back home to cut costs, saying:

“By exclusively cultivating and producing our cannabinoid products in Colombia, we aim to leverage our existing cost efficiencies in the country as we ramp our dry flower offering,” said Andres Fajardo, CEO of Clever Leaves. “We believe this transition will allow us to optimize our production infrastructure and drive increased cost savings, positioning us to compete more effectively in the global medicinal cannabis market.”

As of the end of September, the company had $12.1 million in assets in Portugal. The facility included cultivation, post-harvesting, and manufacturing activities; though it sounds like all of this will eventually end. It’s also not the only company operating out of Portugal that wants to cut back. On January 17th, cannabis giant Tilray Brands announced it too was looking to cut about a quarter of its staff. The facility in Cantanhede is also a medical cannabis products facility. Said a Tilray spokesperson to MJBizDaily:

Cannabis Problems Part 1: Colorado and Lower Sales

“A total of 49 jobs will be affected in the production, manufacturing, quality, quality control (laboratory), cultivation, supply chain, facilities, warehousing, logistics, procurement, and IT. These changes, which are in line with Tilray’s rightsizing to meet the needs of the current economy and the state of legalization across medical and adult-use cannabis, will take place over the next three months.”

To give an idea why this is happening, consider that in the quarter ending November 30th, 2022, the company posted a $61.6 million net loss. Tilray is a public company and can be found on the NASDAQ and Toronto Stock Exchange under TLRY. Clever Leaves also had huge losses of $37.3 million, in the first three quarters of last year. It only earned $13.2 million in the same time frame. Clever Leaves is publicly traded under CLVR on NASDAQ.

In Canada, Delta 9 announced that it would temporarily lay off 40 people. This is interesting wording as it implies the company does believe it will be able to reverse these layoffs. Realistically, maybe it will, but a stronger reality might be that none of these jobs are coming back for any of these companies. This cut in the company’s Winnipeg facilities accounts for 40% of its staff.

Fellow Canadian company The Flowr Corporation (OTC:FLWPF) a cultivation services enterprise with locations in several countries, made some big changes last year to keep from bankruptcy. It cut employees to the tune of $4 million in savings, accounting for 40% of its workforce. Along with this, it made a deal to sell off its subsidiary Flowr Forests, a 16 acre property for cultivation. This is considered a non-core asset, and makes the company $3.4 million in revenue.

Mass layoffs in the cannabis industry – US

The US might not have federally legal weed, but it is home to the biggest cannabis industries. However, things aren’t doing better within the borders of the US, than they’re doing outside them. One of the big ones to announce major cuts of late? Columbia Care, Inc., which operates in several states, and owns Green Leaf Medical LLC, which is about to make a bunch of people jobless. How many? 73. As of February 28th.

According to the company: “In order to meet the appropriate supply and demand levels of the market, it was necessary for us to reduce the workforce at our cultivation and production facility.” It continued, “We are hopeful that with adult use on the horizon, this facility will be back up to full capacity in the future.” It’s pretty clear this cut is indeed due to a lack of business.

Problems in The Industry? Cannabis Giant Canopy Growth Sells Retail locations

Leaflink, a wholesale tech platform out of New York, is also cutting jobs. Late last year it was reported that 80 employees were sent looking for new work. Much like the other companies to make cuts, the company explained: “Unfortunately, as the cannabis industry continues to face headwinds and the current macroeconomic environment, we needed to take the next step in our evolution to continue supporting the industry.”

Truelieve, a company offering medical cannabis products and services out of Tallahassee Florida, and which operates in many states, also made a similar announcement at the end of last year. Workers were cut from its McKeesport Pennsylvania cultivation facility, numbering approximately 36. This is technically small potatoes considering the company employs in the neighborhood of 8,000, but its also not the first cut. The company laid off workers in three Florida locations: Midway, Monticello, and Quincy, as well.

While the cut was blamed on “Trulieve’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Arizona-based multistate operator Harvest Health & Recreation in 2021,” it also came on the heels of the company posting a quarterly loss of $115 million.

Yet another Florida company, Springbig, a technology company for weed-specific marketing software, cut 23% of its workforce (37 employees) late last year. The company is trying hard to turn a profit amid an industry that seems harder and harder to turn a profit in. These cuts were meant to save $200,000 in the short term, and 21% in the first three quarters of 2023.

Springbig had just merged with Tuatara Capital Acquisition, in order to get on NASDAQ; trading under SBIG. The company’s shares have plummeted from $4.50 last June, to 82 cents at the end of 2022. Prior to the drop it had reported $24 million in yearly revenue, with a $275 million valuation, as per Green Market Report.

If you’re a big reader of cannabis news, then the publication Leafly is likely familiar to you. Well, even Leafly Holdings is having problems. In October of last year, it was reported that the cannabis resource and marketplace, would cut 56 jobs, or 21% of its staff. Leafly, traded under LFLY on NASDAQ, is looking to save approximately $16 million a year, saying, “These reductions will help preserve our ability to respond to opportunities as this industry continues to mature and expand, and allow us to more effectively manage our capital.”

Cannabis Problems Part 2: Layoffs in The Industry

Previously mentioned layoffs in the cannabis industry

This is unfortunately not the first time I’ve reported on cannabis industry layoffs. Last year made one thing very clear: the market is not as sound as many wanted to believe; and the overall market predictions in place, are falling short of reality.

Some of the big layoffs already reported on, include Weedmaps, which cut about 25% of its staff; Curaleaf Holdings, which just got rid of 220 employees; Akerna, which released 1/3 of its staff, or 59 workers; Dutchie, which removed 8% of its workforce, amounting to 67 jobs lost; Canopy Growth which sold all its retail locations, and cut 245 jobs last year; and Aurora Cannabis which cut 12% of its workforce as a part of corporate restructuring to save money.

With the biggest names in cannabis faltering, it brings up the question of who can survive. More companies to let employees go recently, include California’s Eaze, which laid off around 25 employees last year; Lume, a cannabis company out of Michigan closed four out of 30 of its stores; and Nature AZ Medicine, an Arizona medical cannabis company, cut up to 100 employees as a result of medical sales falling.

There’s nothing saying that 2023 won’t turn into a banner year for cannabis sales, and there’s nothing saying that all of these companies won’t recoup their losses, or hire back the numbers they lost. But right now, things aren’t looking fantastic for cannabis industry growth, and these layoffs are a good indication that more bad news might be coming.

Conclusion

Will the cannabis industry rebound? Or are these mass layoffs an indication that the weed industry has hit a wall? And maybe most important to ask, if it can be saved, what kind of changes are necessary in order to facilitate this?

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The post Mass Layoffs Continue in Cannabis Industry – Globally appeared first on Cannadelics.

Cannabis Now America’s Fifth Most Profitable Crop

May 2, 2022 Published by

With recreational pot now legal in 18 states, cannabis is a bona fide profitable cash crop. In November, Leafly Holdings, Inc. released its first ever “Cannabis Harvest Report” that examined “farm licenses and production in the 11 states that have legal adult-use stores open and operating.” 

“Cannabis is medically legal in 37 states, but for purposes of this report we focused on operating adult-use states—the 11 states where any adult can walk into a licensed store and buy cannabis—for salience to the general public,” the report’s authors wrote. “In those 11 adult-use states, cannabis supports 13,042 licensed farms that harvested 2,278 metric tons of marijuana last year. That amount would fill 57 Olympic swimming pools, or over 11,000 dump trucks stretching for 36 miles—and it’s returning $6,175,000,000 to American farmers every year.”

That figure of a little more than $6 billion “ranks (cannabis) as the fifth most valuable crop in the United States,” trailing corn ($61 billion), soybeans ($46 billion), hay ($17.3 billion), and wheat ($9.3 billion) but outpacing cotton ($4.7 billion), rice ($3.1 billion), and peanuts ($1.3 billion).

The report said that in five of the states where adult-use cannabis sales are legal—Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Oregon—cannabis is actually the most valuable crop.

“In each of the 11 states with adult-use retail stores operating, cannabis ranks no lower than fifth in terms of agricultural crop value—often within two years of the first stores opening. In Alaska, the cannabis crop is worth more than twice as much as all other agricultural products combined,” the report’s authors wrote.

The goal of the harvest report, Leafly said, was to “quantify annual cannabis production in operational adult-use states, just like the USDA’s Economic Research Service does for all non-cannabis crops.”

“The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) tracks annual yields, prices, and estimated values for nearly every commercial crop grown in America. But the USDA does not track legal cannabis due to the plant’s status as a Schedule I drug,” the authors wrote. “That’s just weird because in legal adult-use states, cannabis is consistently one of the highest-value crops in the field.”

“We also believe it’s time to end the stigma attached to cannabis farming. Far too many state agricultural agencies and policymakers still treat cannabis growers with contempt,” they continued. “Some right-to-farm laws specifically exclude cannabis farming. Most cannabis farmers must—by law—hide their crops from public view, as if the mere sight of a fan leaf might induce intoxication. These unfair and unnecessary measures are taken against a legal crop that’s one of the top agricultural products in every adult-use state. Cannabis farmers are farmers, period.”

The report’s findings echo a study released last month. That research, which came via the Marijuana Policy Project, found that the 11 states with licensed adult-use cannabis retailers generated more than $3.7 billion in total revenue in 2021.

That figure amounted to a revenue increase of 34% from recreational cannabis in those states compared with 2020.

“The legalization and regulation of cannabis for adults has generated billions of dollars in tax revenue, funded important services and programs at the state level, and created thousands of jobs across the country. Meanwhile, the states that lag behind continue to waste government resources on enforcing archaic cannabis laws that harm far too many Americans,” said Toi Hutchinson, the president and CEO of the Marijuana Policy Project, who added that the findings serve as “further evidence that ending cannabis prohibition offers tremendous financial benefits for state governments.”

The post Cannabis Now America’s Fifth Most Profitable Crop appeared first on High Times.

Hot Cannabis Seeds To Grow in 2022

April 7, 2022 Published by

Luckily for us, cannabis was made illegal. After all, if the U.S. government had not decided to criminalize marijuana, starting with a tax for growing it, we wouldn’t have nearly as many different types. When cannabis growers and breeders were forced underground, they used male and female plants to create their own seedstock. The illegal distinction borne by the cannabis plant has led to it being one of the most diverse botanicals on the planet. When the War on Drugs meant Americans could no longer get landrace genetics like Acapulco Gold from Mexico, we looked further toward Amsterdam’s marijuana melting pot. The fusion of American cannabis enthusiasts and High Times legends like Sam the Skunkman, Ed Rosenthal, and Steve Hager with Dutch seed companies blessed the world with delicacies like Super Lemon Haze and provided the platform to promote them. Today, the worldwide cannabis seed market is a thriving industry.

Seed germination for outdoor growing starts in spring. Seeds require 10-15 days longer than clones, so the end of April is an excellent time to pop them to get the 2022 outdoor harvest outside by Mother’s Day. We checked in with three ganja growing all-stars to see what cannabis combinations they’re excited about this year.

David Downs
Senior Content Manager, Leafly

What seeds are you excited about for this planting season?
For this planting season, I’m super-juiced to re-run Humboldt Seed Co’s Squirt (feminized) for year three. I can smoke that super-optimized modern Tangie cross all day, every day, and it makes a great salad with another sativa during the day or some gas at night.

I’m also hyped to bring back HumSeedCo’s Hella Jelly (fems) for year two as a super-agronimized modern sativa that finishes early and has mad cherry and cotton candy taste and zippy daytime effects.

I’m stoked to run Archive Seeds Dosi-Tree outside for the first time for that Dosi gas plus Lemon Tree’s size and syrupy lemon smell. Yum! Last year it was In-House Genetics’ Slurricane IX—that killed!

And lastly, I’m pumped to run Terp Hogz Geneticz Z3 for the first time this year! I think I’ll always want some Zkittlez in the garden, and Z3 is a way to get at the root of some optimized Z terps, as opposed to chasing new Z crosses. I can’t wait to have a pound of Z3 for Thanksgiving! Terp Hogz is selling seeds direct to your door on NXTLVL delivery in the Bay Area—if you don’t know how cool it is to shop, buy and get Terp Hogz genes delivered in a couple hours—now you know! It’s so clutch.

Do you typically grow from seed? If so, why?
Yes! I like the vigor of seeds, especially regulars—they get huge outside! There’s also less chances of a virus or pest infection from seeds vs. clones. I buy seeds all year and they keep well until it’s time to plant. (But I still might get a clone of Jokerz from Compound Genetics for this year, and if I do, I’m all about it!)

What does your grow setup look like?
I start popping indoors the first day of spring and raise babies inside where it’s warm, then sex the juveniles, and harden them on the porch in The City, before transplanting the keepers into 30-gallon fabric pots outdoors in the NorCal sun by Mother’s Day! We try and KISS (keep it simple, stupid). We use Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil plus amendments and well water on a drip timer. And BT to fight the caterpillars!

Are there certain types of cannabis or specific cultivars that do well where you are growing?
Yeah, I’m an outdoor NorCal Bay Area grower, and I’m deliberately running Humboldt Seed Co, Archive, and Terp Hogz because I think their gear tends to be tested and screened for outdoor runs. I know HumSeedCo does a bunch of mixed-light testing, and Terp Hogz in Mendo also works in mixed light. Archive’s stuff seems to be developed more indoors in Oregon, but I know that Lemon Tree has killed it outdoors in Santa Cruz. 

I want to run stuff that’s been tested outside, for sure. Lots of the latest crosses are bred and tested inside and many breeders and growers don’t know how they’ll react to the variations in heat, humidity, etc. outside. I want stuff that’s hard to fuck up, as opposed to some diva that molds the second it rains, or some crazy sativa that won’t finish until November. But that’s just me! Everyone’s needs are pretty specific!

Jeff Jones
Horticulture Instructor, Oaksterdam University

What seeds are you excited for?
I am fond of recommending and growing varieties that produce well-rounded plants with new tastes and smells. 

Do you typically grow from seed? If so, why?
No, but I have done so with Oaksterdam University students over the years often.

What does your grow setup look like these days?
A simple 4′ x 4′ area light up with LED lights in a larger room that I have found no need for AC to cool. 

What has been your experience growing autoflowers?
To me, this is the best reason to grow from seed. They only come this way and are getting better varieties all the time. 

Are there certain types of cannabis or specific cultivars that do well where you grow in Oakland?
We have a mix of urban growers that are survivors. Many obstacles to keep from having a successful harvest in tight city living. I grow inside due to this better neighborhood policy. I find less issues and arise with having long-term success. But I do know a few good areas that have outdoor gardens with little to no worry for either the garden or neighbors with bad smells.

Shango Los
Podcast Host, Shaping Fire

What seeds are you excited about this year?
Since I live on Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest, I have to choose seeds that will finish flowering fast enough during our short summers. I’ll mostly be growing autoflowers so I can germinate them on June 1 and harvest at the end of August before the rains start. I am excited to grow the Purple Pope collaboration between Gnome Automatics and Night Owl Seeds. The flowers smell of sandalwood, lemongrass, and yuzu. Northern Cheese Haze from Mephisto Genetics is always a winner for me too. It captures some of that fresh sunshine-dried linen sweet smell of haze with the bloomy-rind cheese funk that we love cheese strains for.

The most reliable photoperiod for where I live continues to be Mandelbrot’s famous Royal Kush from Mendocino, which will often finish in 50 days. There is a new collaboration between Emerald Mountain Legacy and Mean Gene From Mendocino called Royale with Cherries that blends the gas and shorter flower times with Mean Gene’s Cherry Lime Pop which contributes a complex Maraschino cherry sweetness. It is exquisite. Last summer, it finished well ahead of all the other photos. And it hashed well for us too.

How was the 2021 Autoflower Cup? Are you experimenting with autoflowers?
The 2021 Autoflower Cup was a great gathering. For so long, autoflowers really didn’t perform as we wanted. But the modern era of autoflowers are so much better tasting and yielding. And because they can be grown nearly everywhere in the U.S., they are quickly gaining a following. And, of course, since autoflower enthusiasts are so often ridiculed by photoperiod growers, it is nice to hang with a big group of people who share this special interest.

I am past simply experimenting with autoflowers at this point and have fully embraced them. Before this season, I have grown 156 varieties. I’m at the point now where I believe in them, understand their advantages and disadvantages and can really work with them to meet my cultivation goals.

The post Hot Cannabis Seeds To Grow in 2022 appeared first on High Times.

7 Digital Marketing Tips to Grow Your Cannabis Business

March 31, 2022 Published by

Are you struggling to get your brand out there? Is your cannabis store not as successful as it should be? Maybe digital marketing for cannabis is what you are missing. Read on for 7 digital marketing tips to grow your cannabis business. Did you know that digital marketing can help expand your reach, attract more […]

The post 7 Digital Marketing Tips to Grow Your Cannabis Business appeared first on Cannabis News, Lifestyle – Headlines, Videos & Cooking.

Annual Leafly Report Shows US Cannabis Industry Supports 428,059 Jobs

February 25, 2022 Published by

The 2022 job report from Leafly explores the newest data on cannabis jobs, which provides an in-depth look at the cannabis industry’s most recent data, as well as predictions for the future.

In conjunction with Whitney Economics, Leafly released its annual Jobs Report 2022 on February 23. The report states that approximately 428,059 full-time jobs have been supported by the legal cannabis industry (as of January 2022) over the past year. This covers a wide variety of cannabis-related roles, from “plant-touching” jobs such as cultivation and retail sales, to ancillary jobs such as accounting, legal affairs, security, or construction. The most recent job number is a large increase compared to previous years, which reflected 321,000 jobs in 2021; 243,700 jobs in 2020; 211,000 in 2019; 149,300 in 2018; and 122,800 in 2017 (the first year that the job report was released).

“In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, America’s cannabis industry sold nearly $25 billion in products and created more than 107,000 new jobs—enough to fill the Rose Bowl and then some,” the report states in its introduction. “That’s a 33 percent increase in jobs in a single year. And it marks the fifth year in a row of annual job growth greater than 27 percent. No other industry in America can match that. Last year, America’s legal cannabis industry created more than 280 new jobs every day. In 2021, someone was hired for a cannabis-supported job about every two minutes of the work day.” The report also provides other means of comparison to put things into perspective, including how there are three times as many cannabis workers as there are dentists in the U.S. and that there are more people working in cannabis than there are a combined total of hair stylists, barbers, and cosmetologists.

It also breaks down the top 10 cannabis markets for jobs, including California, Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania (medical only), Florida (medical only), Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. However, the report also recommends that if you’re looking to relocate for a cannabis job, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York are full of possibilities for various listed reasons, such as the potential of specific markets that are new or beginning soon, or mature markets with a competing illegal market.

Report authors estimate that these numbers will only continue to rise in the coming years, but there is a lot of opportunity for growth. “In the eight years since the nation’s first adult-use cannabis stores opened, the industry has created hundreds of thousands of new American jobs. And there are still plenty yet to be created. Whitney Economics calculates that the 2021 total cannabis sales figure—just under $25 billion—represents only about 25 percent of the total potential US cannabis market,” the report states. It continues by saying that 75 percent of the cannabis industry’s demand is being satisfied by illegal cultivation and sales, and it is estimated that by 2025, the cannabis industry could be worth up to $45 billion.

This data continues to be an important milestone to track the industry’s growth, even amidst the historical job loss that occurred during the pandemic. According to NORML Political Director Morgan Fox, the future looks promising. “At a time when the rest of the economy is struggling and people are leaving their jobs in droves, the legal cannabis industry is blooming, showing exponential employment growth, and attracting talented and driven individuals from across the workforce,” said Fox. “Yet, outdated federal laws define these same people as criminals and as a result, they are frequently denied access to banking services, housing, education, international travel, and citizenship. It is long past time for Congress to end prohibition and start treating this robust regulated market like any other industry.”

The post Annual Leafly Report Shows US Cannabis Industry Supports 428,059 Jobs appeared first on High Times.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020 Headlines | Marijuana Today Daily News

August 19, 2020 Published by

Marijuana Today Daily Headlines
Wednesday, August 19, 2020 | Curated by host Shea Gunther

// Chart: Adult-use cannabis sales remain steady even as unemployment bonus ends (Marijuana Business Daily)

// Inventory growth of Canadian cannabis edibles/beverages far outpaces sales (Marijuana Business Daily)

// Vermont Bill To Legalize Marijuana Sales Finally Scheduled For Key Meeting (Marijuana Moment)

These headlines are brought to you by Natural Order Supply, one of the nation’s premier cannabis cultivation supply companies dedicated to streamlining cultivation and helping industrial hemp farmers calculate their price-per-plant cost. They have everything from lights to harvest supplies to cultivation advice!

// Cannabis E-Commerce Enabler Dutchie Raises $35 Million to Fund Expansion (New Cannabis Ventures)

// USDA on Colorado’s State Hemp Plan: Try Again (Denver Westword)

// Tim Leslie Out as CEO of Leafly After 18 Months (THC Net)

// Biden’s Marijuana Decriminalization Plan Is ‘Meaningless,’ Democratic Congressman Says (Marijuana Moment)

// Advocates Unveil Guide For Psychedelic Healing Ceremonies They Hope To Legalize In Oakland (Marijuana Moment)

// DEA’s Marijuana Delays Are Costing Americans Jobs, Bipartisan Lawmakers Say (Marijuana Moment)

// Marijuana Business License Delays Complicate Illinois’ Goal To Diversify Industry (St. Louis Public Radio)

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Forget The Layoffs: Cannabis Industry Still Huge Job Creator

February 24, 2020 Published by

Countless reports have suggested that the cannabis industry has bitten off more than it can chew and is now face down in a puddle of hard times. There is, most notably, the tanking of pot-related stocks. More concerning, however, are stories indicating that a slew of layoffs is underway in the business of growing and selling weed, which, at one time, was touted as economic salvation for the American working class. But is the situation really as dire as the Internet tells us? Are their cultivation wizards, budtenders and others that once collected a paycheck from pot resting in a pit of despair? Well, probably not as much as you might imagine. It turns out that the cannabis sector is still one of the fastest-growing job markets in the United States, and it is achieving this without so much as a smidgen of support from the federal government.

The cannabis industry presently employs 243,700 “full-time equivalent” workers nationwide, which is up 15% from where it was last year. This means that more than 33,000 people are now getting that weed money than there were in 2019. That’s not too shabby for a business sect that is still technically trying to keep Uncle Sam from swooping in with all guns blazing and dragging them to jail.

Although the cannabis trade has made significant strides in recent years — now legal in more than 30 states for medicinal use, with 11 states going fully legal for adults 21 and older — the federal government still maintains that these folks are selling a Schedule I dangerous drug. But while government operatives like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions have, in the past, threatened to stop the weed trade dead in its tracks, there hasn’t been much in the way of hammer fisted resistance as of late. Even though President Donald Trump recently upset the industry by proposing a lift to medical marijuana protections, that’s just some nonsense that has been going on since the Obama era. In other words, the cannabis industry is now operating at an unstoppable click, providing the equivalent of a small city with the means to pay bills and raise families.

Still, it might surprise you to learn that the U.S. Bureau of Labor doesn’t count this job growth in its monthly report. So, when you hear that the national economy added 225,000 jobs in January, none of those positions have anything to do with the business of weed. It’s part of the reason that cannabis resource Leafly decided several years ago to start issuing its own jobs report. It wanted to show America just how impactful the cannabis trade is becoming and perhaps outline its importance for thousands of workers in those states where marijuana is legal.

“If the U.S. government doesn’t count your job, in many ways, your job doesn’t count,” Leafly Senior Editor Bruce Barcott said in a statement. “We created the Leafly Jobs Report in 2017 to show that the cannabis industry is an unseen economic growth engine. Four years later, that remains true.

“In 2020, we’re seeing older markets becoming more established, and dramatic expansion and growth in areas across the country — proving legal cannabis is not just a coastal phenomenon anymore,” he added. “And we expect big things in 2020, with these trends pointing to triple-digit growth in the Midwest, a spike in hiring in newly legalized states, and even more folks becoming comfortable with cannabis and boosting legal dispensary sales.”

But what about all of those layoffs we’ve heard about?

While it is true that some cannabis firms have had to downsize a bit to stay afloat, the damage hasn’t been all that severe. Hundreds of people employed by cannabis firms in the U.S. and Canada have been let go in recent months, but a lot more opportunities are being created by other companies in the game. Interestingly, even Leafly, the creator of the jobs reports, has had to downsize to stay competitive. It recently laid off 54 members of its staff to “more closely align our business operations with the market realities of the technology and cannabis sectors in which we operate,” according to Leafly CEO Tim Leslie. What that means exactly is anyone’s guess.

The rub is the cannabis industry continues to be a strong contender in the U.S. economy. Sure, some companies are tanking — that’s just the nature of business — while others continue to flourish and grow. We can expect these types of growing pains in the industry for a while. The market is still so new and shrouded by uncertainty that expecting the stability of perhaps a longtime employer such as the alcohol industry is just not realistic. But it will get there, undoubtedly making impressive strides once the federal government gets on board and recognizes the sector as a legitimate business. That’s when we could easily see this industry employing millions.

This growth could happen within the next few years, too, depending on how the upcoming election shakes out.

TELL US, if you could choose to do any job in the cannabis industry what would it be?

The post Forget The Layoffs: Cannabis Industry Still Huge Job Creator appeared first on Cannabis Now.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 Headlines | Marijuana Today Daily News

July 1, 2019 Published by

Marijuana Today Daily Headlines
Tuesday, March 5, 2019 | Curated by host Shea Gunther

// Bernie Sanders Talks Pot Legalization and Drug Reform on ‘The Breakfast Club’ (Merry Jane)

// On-site cannabis consumption rules delivered to Meyer (Alaska Journal of Commerce)

// Ontario marijuana company CannTrust seeks authorization to raise up to CA$700 million (Marijuana Business Daily)

Today’s headlines are brought to you by our friends over at Eaze.com, California’s top one stop website for legal marijuana delivery. If you live in the golden state, swing over to Eaze.com to see if they are active in your area. With deliveries taking place in less than an hour, it’s never been easier to get legal California marijuana delivery. And of course, if you don’t live where Eaze delivers, you can still benefit from all the useful bits of industry insight and analysis they’ve developed using their properly aggregate and anonymized sales data stream.

// Former Amazon Exec to Lead Cannabis Information Provider Leafly as New CEO (New Cannabis Ventures)

// Fall River must change pot shop agreements after asking for more than state law allows (Herald News)

// CA, AZ cannabis retailers with same name headed to court over trademark (Marijuana Business Daily)

// Texas Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Gets Committee Hearing (Marijuana Moment)

// Chart: Farmer and rancher perceptions of cannabis reflect nationwide acceptance (Marijuana Business Daily)

// Key Colorado House panel advances bill that would spur marijuana capital investment (Marijuana Business Daily)

// Oklahoma medical marijuana sales keep climbing, top $7.2M (Ledger-Enquirer (AP))

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• Marijuana Media Connect— A service that connects industry insiders in the legal marijuana industry with journalists, bloggers, and writers in need of expert sources for their stories.

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