The Wink In Weed: CannaFest Destiny Takes MJBA To Las Vegas

September 3, 2017 by drheins Leave a Comment

MJBA Expands National Footprint, Relocates HQ To Silver State

This summer I undertook a cross-country, coast-to-coast, “CannaFest Destiny” road show. Sponsored by Curved Papers, the MJBA tour made ‘official’ stops in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Indiana, Massachusetts and New York. We gathered in small groups and large, hosting meetups, participating in panel discussions, exhibiting and speaking at trade shows, investor summits and Hempfests. We exchanged ideas, shared our dreams and committed to working together to build a truly sustainable, profitable and ethical legal industry.

The MJBA held court at Indianapolis’ oldest political venue, the storied Antelope Club, where alongside Hoosier Veterans for Medical Cannabis and the Indiana Chapter of the Libertarian Party, where we discussed ways that Hoosiers can participate in the Cannabis and Hemp revolution today.

The CannaFest Destiny Tour generated excitement and positive press – in local newspapers and radio, on podcasts, through Facebook feeds and social media – opening eyes and making new allies and friends all along the way.

Having spent much of the past 5 years working to build the legal cannabis industry in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado, it has been exciting for me to witness CannaFest Destiny at work: how each new state and local community is incorporating and modifying best practices from Washington, Colorado and Oregon to create a unique legal marketplace tailored to the needs and sensibilities of the local culture. While laws, rules and regulations vary widely, I found a common spirit of community and cooperation and commitment to building a fair and responsible industry.

Nowhere did I witness more radical change in such a short time as Nevada. It has not been too many years ago that possession of a seed or stem in the Silver State would get you 20 years, and trafficking could earn you life behind bars. Today, Las Vegas is home to the biggest of the industry trade shows (though recently the Casino and Gaming Commission has discussed banning the legal cannabis industry from Casinos) and nearly 150 licensees grow, process and sell some very fine cannabis.

The state passed its medical marijuana initiative in 2000, and its recreational initiative in 2016. Adult use sales began on July 1^st and since that time Nevada has outpaced the launch of both the Colorado and Washington markets. With 42 million tourists visiting annually, Las Vegas is ground zero for the next wave of the legal market, heralding in the era of Commercialization and Normalization. Demand has challenged supply, overwhelming a short-lived monopoly by the alcohol distributors and causing major bottleneck. Pains of growth are inevitable and signs that legalization, once the exclusive province of the liberal West Coast, has now reached the mainstream. Las Vegas is where America (and the world) comes to play – and the players want their legal weed.

True to our mission to provide reliable business intelligence, professional networking and business opportunity to participants in legal cannabis, the Marijuana Business Association has decided to relocate its HQ to Las Vegas. An ideal location to service the expanding national footprint of the MJBA, Las Vegas offers cheap and easy travel, amazing entertainment venues and one of the fastest-growing legal cannabis marketplaces in the world. In addition to hosting meetups and professional education events, we will be in a better position to support our growing MJBA Chapters in Oregon, California and Washington, while simultaneously growing our presence on the East Coast – expanding MJBA New York and launching MJBA Boston.

We’re taking on new partners, and soon will be unveiling a more robust suite of member benefits, including meaningful discounts on the industry’s most important trade events and media opportunities, a new b2b technology platform, and exclusive members-only invitations. Stay tuned to this space!

GrowGeneration Officially Opens 11th Store In Las Vegas

January 20, 2017 by MJ News Network Leave a Comment

NEVADA: GrowGeneration, one of the largest specialty retail hydroponic and organic gardening store chains selling to both the commercial and home cannabis markets, announced the opening of its 11th store in Las Vegas on January 17th. GrowGen separately announced that it is one of 11 companies recently added to MJIC’s Marijuana Index.

GrowGen’s 11th store, located at 5885 South Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89118, is a 10,000 sq ft store, and will serve a wide range of small, medium and large scale commercial growers. Conveniently located minutes from the Las Vegas strip, we believe GrowGeneration Las Vegas is one of the largest hydroponic stores in the Nevada market.

Addition to MJIC Marijuana Index

The United States Marijuana Index tracks the leading public cannabis companies operating in the United States. The index is equal-weighted and rebalanced quarterly. The North American Marijuana Index now has 28 constituents, and the U.S. Marijuana Index and the Canadian Marijuana Index have 17 constituents and 11 constituents, respectively. The Marijuana Index includes companies that have achieved a weighted average minimum market capitalization of $30 million USD, daily trading volume of $400,000 USD and share price of $0.10 USD. Companies with more than $5 million USD of revenue over the prior year are exempted from the above trading requirements. GrowGeneration’s revenue production in 2016 qualified it for inclusion in the Marijuana Index.

GrowGen CEO Comments

Darren Lampert, Co-Founder and CEO, said, “The addition to the MJIC Marijuana Index is another validation of GrowGeneration’s rapid growth and market position as a leading supplier of equipment and grow supplies to the cannabis and indoor cultivation industry. With 11 stores and counting, we are excited to open the doors of our Las Vegas store and for the trajectory of GrowGen’s growth to be tracked in the leading index of public cannabis companies. Executing and opening our GrowGen Las Vegas operation, furthers our business plan to aggressively expand our store footprint in all adult use markets.”

Freedom Leaf Reports Tech Hiccups, Success In Live Election Night Coverage With Cannabis Radio

November 10, 2016 by MJ News Network Leave a Comment

NEVADA: The morning after a marathon live video feed of election coverage on Tuesday night in conjunction with Cannabis Radio, Freedom Leaf, “The Marijuana Legalization Company™” discovered early Wednesday morning, to the consternation of many friends and shareholders that its websites (http://www.freedomleaf.com/ and http://freedomleafinc.com/) were not responding.

The company released this statement n response to numerous inquiries about the incident:

When informed, in an email from our Virtual Private Server provider, that the sites were taken down, “As a part of A2 Hosting Perpetual Security, we’ve discovered a security issue in your VPS account. The evidence of the security issue: 69,581 pps during 5 second interval (DoS attack)”, Clifford Perry, President and CEO of Freedom Leaf, Inc. commented, “That doesn’t make any sense. We are the Good News in Marijuana Reform. No one takes the good guys down so there must be another explanation.”

Initially, Management believed that the high volume of traffic to the site during the election coverage like what happened to Canada’s immigration website crash during the US vote, and possible traffic to the site from foreign visitors in earlier time zones, was the cause of the outage. Freedom Leaf’s IT department looked at the analytics and noticed that the inbound traffic from Europe and Worldwide brought about as a result of our media partnership with www.LaMarijuana.com the largest player in the Hispanic market worldwide.

The sites were restored about 10:30 am (PST) and no credible evidence of an organized attack was found. The incident actually was tracked to other media properties that are in development and hosted on the Freedom Leaf server. “The volume of traffic certainly attests to the success of the election coverage. We and our partner Cannabis Radio are grateful to all of our friends and supporters who helped spread the word about the broadcast. Regardless of how people feel about the election, cannabis came out the winner and we are very happy to have been part of telling the story,” said Mr. Perry. “We expect to be there to announce when Federal Agencies finally catch up to the states that increasingly recognize the rights of the people to care for their own health needs,” he concluded.

It makes sense that this election season generated a large spike in views for the Freedom Leaf website, considering it was the largest marijuana legalization event in the history of the nation. The number of recreationally legal states doubled to eight, and four more states now have medical marijuana programs. Visit Freedom Leaf’s results guide.