News

New Member Spotlight: Kaycha Labs

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We are thrilled to welcome Kaycha Labs Colorado to Colorado Leads!

Kaycha Labs is the largest network of full-service, ISO-accredited cannabis testing laboratories in the U.S. Its state-of-the-art testing equipment utilizes more than 500 automated methods and procedures to accurately, consistently and quickly deliver regulatory testing and testing analysis for quality control, traceability, shelf-life, batch creation and refinement of cannabis products. Additionally, Kaycha’s research lab assesses the efficacy of CBD products for therapeutic outcomes and provides this data to physicians, patients, and researchers. Kaycha is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and it has Gold Standard labs in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Oregon and Tennessee, all of which meet the guidelines and requirements of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Colorado Leads member companies include a wide range of licensed cannabis operators and ancillary businesses, and we encourage any organization or individual who shares our vision and mission to consider joining. Visit the Membership section to learn more.

New Member Spotlight: Harmony Extracts

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We are proud to welcome Harmony Extracts as the latest member of Colorado Leads.

Founded in 2015, Harmony Extracts hit the ground running with a singular goal: To create cannabis concentrates of the highest quality with uniquely rich terpene profiles.  In a young industry, the Harmony team has more than 100 years of combined experience in cannabis development using state-of-the-art medical grade equipment, along with proprietary solvent blends to transform our plants into high-end BHO products that have earned the company an incomparable reputation. Just like nature’s little hummingbird, Harmony works to extract the best of what nature has to offer and is fiercely dedicated to the Harmony standard of purity, quality, and consistency.

Colorado Leads member companies include a wide range of licensed cannabis operators and ancillary businesses, and we encourage any organization or individual who shares our vision and mission to consider joining. Visit the Membership section to learn more.

Colorado Leads Guest Column in The Colorado Sun

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The Colorado Sun published a guest column by Colorado Leads Board President Chuck Smith regarding the strong public support for legal medical cannabis in Colorado and the success of the state’s efforts to regulate it.

In the nine years since Colorado became the first state in the country to legalize adult-use marijuana, three things have become clear: the vast majority of Coloradans support legalization and consider cannabis as medicine (Opinion: After 20 years, it’s clear that marijuana is not ‘medicine’, Colorado Sun, Jan. 4).

They also believe kids should not have access to it unless it’s for medical treatment.

Nowhere is this more evident than in two Colorado laws that have just gone into effect. One closes a loophole by restricting young people with medical cards from accessing unlimited marijuana products, a practice known as “looping.” The other expands the right of students with “valid medical marijuana recommendation(s)” to access their medication at school.

Both laws are representative of the consistent collaboration among elected officials, regulators, and public-health experts and the cannabis industry, its customers, and patients. Over the last decade, the state has protected kids through responsible regulations, such as enhanced child-proof packaging, and strong education campaigns, while also recognizing that cannabis is critical medicine for post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, epileptic seizures, insomnia, and numerous other medical conditions.

The ability for multiple stakeholders and elected officials to fairly balance these complicated interests is the primary reason Colorado’s regulations are considered the strongest in the country and continue to be held up as a model for other states.

Read the rest of the article at The Colorado Sun.

Wins at the Ballot Box

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Even before the legislative session ended in May, Colorado Leads was preparing to fight a proposed November ballot measure—Proposition 119—to increase taxes on retail cannabis sales by five percent. The measure, backed by Gov. Jared Polis and former governors of both political parties, would have mandated the tax increase to fund a new education program characterized even by education experts as lacking accountability, transparency, and oversight.

Another initiative in Denver, Initiative 300—funded by an out-of-town, 29-year-old crypto-billionaire— proposed to raise marijuana taxes for pandemic preparedness research. Had both Prop 119 and Initiative 300 passed, Denver’s marijuana taxes would have been the highest in the country among the largest cities where retail cannabis sales are legal.

Leads formed a campaign committee, Cannabis Community for Fairness and Safety (CCFS), as a vehicle to fight the ballot measure. Despite being outspent 50 to one, Colorado voters defeated Prop. 119 (54-46), with majorities in 59 of the state’s 64 counties opposing the measure. Initiative 300 was also defeated, sending a clear message that voters in Colorado and the Mile High City think taxes on cannabis are currently high enough.

Board Member Spotlight: Jennifer Benda

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Colorado Leads welcomed Jennifer Benda of Hall Estill to its Board of Directors earlier this year.

A former Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Jennifer is an experienced tax attorney who handles tax controversy and income tax planning and compliance matters. She serves as a steadfast advocate for clients, developing relationships with IRS personnel and IRS Appeals and state departments of revenue, and leverages these relationships to successfully resolve her clients’ tax matters. While Jennifer recognizes that out-of-court solutions can be more beneficial to her clients, she is prepared to take cases to court when necessary to ensure her clients are treated fairly.

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Advocating for a Responsible and Balanced Potency Policy

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Colorado Leads was at the table during this year’s legislative session, collaborating with policymakers and stakeholders to help create a bill with responsible regulations and balanced public policy.

HB-1317, floated by a Democratic state lawmaker, was originally a broad and far-reaching bill. It included provisions to ban any form of legal marijuana, recreational or medical, that tested over 15% on THC potency. Politics surrounding the bill made outright opposition difficult, if not impossible, so Leads seized the opportunity to influence changes to the bill that would not jeopardize the continued existence of the cannabis industry.

Leads organized and led strategy sessions with lobbyists, stakeholders, and patient advocates to fight the bill in the Legislature and in the court of public opinion. Leads and other industry leaders proactively recommended limits to how much marijuana product 18- to 20-year-olds with medical marijuana cards can purchase daily and proposed using the already-in-place statewide tracking system to determine when individuals reach their daily legal limit.  Leads also engaged in a proactive communications strategy through reaching out to patients, parents, veterans, law enforcement, and cannabis leaders for news stories, letters to the editors, op-eds, and TV interviews.

These careful and thoughtful recommendations were adopted by the sponsors of HB-1317 and are perhaps the most critical provisions in the legislation that passed in the General Assembly

Colorado Cannabis Sales and Tax Revenue Reach Record High

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Colorado cannabis sales exceeded $2.22 billion in 2021, marking a new high for the state’s steadily maturing cannabis market. The public’s share of the pie also increased, with the state collecting more than $423 million in tax and fee revenue. And that doesn’t include the tens of millions of dollars in local cannabis tax and fee revenue collected by municipal governments across Colorado.

The Denver Post reports:

“We’ve hit a record each year since sales began,” said Shannon Gray, marijuana communications specialist at the department’s Marijuana Enforcement Division. Thursday’s announcement “isn’t really out of the ordinary, but more notable that we continue year after year to see an increase.”

In total, Colorado has sold a whopping amount of weed over the past eight years: more than $12 billion. The data spawns from the state’s marijuana sales reports, which track monthly sales made by both medical and retail marijuana stores by county.

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New High for Legal Marijuana

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Support for cannabis legalization in the U.S. is stronger than ever before, according to a Gallup Poll released November 9. It found two out of three Americans (68%) think the use of marijuana should be made legal, while just 32% think it should remain illegal. This includes majorities of most demographic subgroups, including gender, age, education and household income. Support is also steadily growing stronger among Republicans, with half (48%) now in favor of legalization.

According to Gallup:

Since 2012, when Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana, there has been a slow trickle of states that have followed suit. Over that period, Americans’ support for marijuana legalization has risen 20 points to a record-high 68%. This measure has enjoyed majority support from the public since 2013. Additionally, Gallup data from earlier this year find that 70% of U.S. adults now consider smoking marijuana to be morally acceptable, marking a five-percentage-point uptick in one year.

Ahead…

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The Democrats won the presidency and narrowly retained the U.S. House. Control of the U.S. Senate will be determined in a January runoff. The President still won’t concede or start a transition process.

So what does this mean in the short term for the industry?

There are some potentially positive developments, but we will have to wait and see (again) what happens in the next few weeks.

Here’s the current federal landscape:

  • House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told lawmakers last week that he would hold a vote in December on a bill that would decriminalize cannabis, create a process to expunge nonviolent pot convictions and remove the drug from the Controlled Substances Act.  It is expected to pass the House, but the Senate? The House vote may end up being largely symbolic, experts say.
  • NORML released a public letter recommending that Biden install an attorney general who favors cannabis legalization. “We cannot allow this sort of Reefer Madness to continue to flourish at the Department of Justice,” the letter stated.
  • 420 IMPAC, or 420 Interstate Marijuana PAC, has been formed to advance the industry’s influence in Congress.In addition to supporting pro-cannabis legislation, the PAC is aimed at removing “prohibitionist” lawmakers and is focused on fundraising for the 2022 midterms. Read more here.
  • Senate appropriators have released several 2021 spending bills that include cannabis-related provisions.  They include measures banning Washington, D.C. from using its own local tax dollars to implement a regulated marijuana market, protecting state medical cannabis programs from federal intervention, and removing barriers to marijuana research caused by federal prohibition. The House released their cannabis-related spending bills over the summer.

Meanwhile, as the feds fiddle, Colorado continues to thrive . . .

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In September, dispensaries brought in nearly $206.5 million in sales.  This was a slight drop from August, and roughly a 9% decline from the record set in July ($237 million). However, sales were still 25% higher than in September 2019. To date, taxes and fees for the state total $318 million.The cannabis industry is helping the Colorado economy even as tourism revenue tumbled more than 50% because of the coronavirus pandemic. Great graphics on this can be found here.

On Election Day, 12 towns voted on cannabis tax issues, allowing cannabis sales, or both.

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