Issue 20
Bountiful Farms, Lab Shopping, MJBiz, and more.
Welcome to the 20th edition of Burn After Reading! This is my newsletter on cannabis (and other things). You can check out last week’s issue here, and if you haven’t subscribed yet, please do.
In this week’s Cannabis Confidential, I took a trip down to cranberry country to check out Bountiful Farm’s cultivation facility in Lakeville. This company has only been around a few years now, but has already won back-to-back Cultivator’s Cups.
Cannabis Business Times did a deep dive into the cannabis lab space in their most recent issue. This comes in the wake of a lawsuit against Jeeter in California, as well as a lawsuit against Steep Hill Labs for alleged THC inflation in Arkansas.
At a certain point, you have to wonder what has to happen for this issue to actually capture the attention of the general public. THC inflation and lab shopping have been known issues in the industry for almost a decade now, but little has been done to actually tackle these issues. Perhaps it would be helpful if institutional media treated these stories seriously, instead of going with headlines like “Marijuana company sued for not making customers high enough.”
In related news, The MA Cannabis Advisory Board has put out a survey to solicit feedback on testing lab regulations. If you have some thoughts, be sure to share them here. The deadline is currently set for November 17th.
At risk of being bombarded with emails from PR people who want me to interview the CEO of such-and-such or the CFO of so-and-so, I want to let you all know that I’m going to be covering the MJBiz Conference this month in Vegas! This will be my first time checking it out. If you’re going to be in town, hit me up.
Quick hits. Here are some news stories from around the cannabis world that caught my attention this week:
New England
With new marijuana law poised to take effect, confusion reigns over local fees (Dan Adams/Boston Globe)
Mass. Cannabis Control Commission is staffing up (Hadley Barndollar/Wicked Local)
Former Maine cannabis regulator hangs shingle with consulting firm (Alexis Wells/MaineBiz)
Holyoke City Council seeks stricter regulating of cannabis industry in light of worker’s death (Dennis Hohenberger/MassLive)
National / Rest of U.S.
Legal cannabis is America’s 6th biggest cash crop (David Downs/Leafly)
Biden ponders marijuana moves as states forge ahead (Lauren Clason and Sandhya Raman/Roll Call)
Meet Cannabis NYC’s founding director (Elizabeth Shwe/Gothamist)
International
Tougher cannabis laws impact occasional users but not frequent drug takers (Cormac O’Keeffe/Irish Examiner)
Grenada Commission wants clean slate for persons under 25 years with marijuana convictions (Caribbean News Weekly)
Weed for Export - Raising African Economies High On Medical Marijuana (Giza Mdoe/AllAfrica)
Upcoming New England / Virtual Cannabis Events
11/8: 6th Annual Cannabis Startup Competition Finale
6PM-9PM. Boston.
11/9: Veterans in Cannabis B2B Networking and Key Speaker Event
6PM-10PM. Boston.
11/12+11/13: The Harvest Cup
Worcester.
11/13: Science Over Stigma: Cannabis Data & Decisions
12PM-1PM. Worcester.
1930’s REEFER SONG OF THE WEEK:
In this recurring segment, I catalog one of the many songs written about cannabis in the 1930’s.
Song: If You're a Viper by Stuff Smith
First record in 1936, this song is one of the more famous jazz songs about cannabis (viper was slang for a weed smoker at the time). Perhaps the most well known version of this song was the cover by Fats Weller which was recorded in the 1940’s to be sent overseas to troops as part of the V-Disc program. Censors prevented it from ever making it to soldiers overseas.
Colloquial terms for cannabis used:
Reefer
Mezz
Best of the Lyrics:
Say, you know you're high
When your throat gets dry
Mmmh, everything is dandy
Ah, yes, you run down to the candy store
Bust your conk on peppermint candy
WELCOME DISTRACTION: Inside.
Bo Burnham was trending on social media earlier this week, after an old clip of him discussing the impact of social media companies resurfaced again. This reminded me I never got around to watching the outtakes he released from Inside — the 2021 comedy special that he created and produced during COVID lockdown. If you haven’t seen Inside or the Inside Outakes yet, you’re missing out. It’s one of the more innovative and thought provoking pieces of comedy I’ve ever come across.
Inside is available on Netflix.
CAT OF THE WEEK: Scratch!
Maybe it’s a stretch to include an anthropomorphic blue cat from a defunct hockey team as the COTW, but with Worcester’s current hockey team off to a red hot 6-0 start to the season, let’s take this moment to look back at this mascot that scared the absolute crap out of me when I was a small child.
Scratch was the mascot of the Worcester Ice Cats, a minor league hockey team that existed from 1994–2005.