Issue 53: Cannabis Workers Should Pay Attention to What’s Happening In Hollywood
I ask: What can cannabis workers learn from the SAG/WGA strikes?
After a much needed week off, I’m back. This issue is a bit Hollywood heavy, as I explore what the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike can teach cannabis workers, and examine a MJBizDaily piece about celebrity brands in CA.
Cannabis Workers Should Pay Attention to What’s Happening In Hollywood
A fun fact about myself that I’m oft to shoehorn into conversations at social events is that I’ve done some work an an extra on a half dozen movies and television projects.
Contrary to a lot of people’s perception of Hollywood, background actors are like the vast majority of people on set, in that you’re not being paid very much. The non-union background (and production assistants, who lack a union of their own) almost always get $114 for 8 hours.
Union crew and SAG-AFTRA background do a bit better, but the reality is that the vast majority of people on set are working insane hours in all sorts of chaotic and outright dangerous environments just to barely scrape by. Even having spent a limited amount of time on sets, it’s extremely easy to understand why workers across the entertainment space are fed up with working conditions and compensation.
This is the first SAG-AFTRA strike in my lifetime, and the first time that both SAG and WGA have been on strike at the same time since 1960. It’s not hyperbole to say the next few months will dictate the future of the entertainment industry for the rest of our lives.
Other than the harsh artificial lighting, there might not be a ton of obvious similarities between working on a set and working in the cannabis space. But while it’s unlikely that a grower or budtender will ever be as famous as the most prominent members of SAG-AFTRA or the WGA, cannabis workers should watch the developments of the next few months closely.
If they do, they’ll realize the rhetoric of studio heads sounds eerily similar to the words used by some of the larger MSO executives when they are pushing back against unionization efforts. They’ll also realize some of the same forces that are negatively impacting workers in the entertainment industry – automation, consolidation, and insatiable Wall Street greed – are also found in the cannabis space.
Workers see a relatively small piece of the billions made by legal cannabis sales, but always bare the brunt of mistakes caused by poor decision making at the top, with Trulieve’s debacle in Massachusetts being perhaps the best recent example of this phenomenon.
There will be an unfathomable amount of changes to the weed industry over the next decade. Every one of these changes will be used by executives as a weapon to extract more revenue for shareholders at the expense of workers, much in the same way that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is currently using AI and streaming.
I don’t see a clear path towards organizing workers in the cannabis space into a unified voice that is as powerful as SAG-AFTRA, but I still think that even a little bit more solidarity and collective action between cannabis workers would go a long way. Work stoppages by industry employees in Illinois and elsewhere have shown how reliant licensed cannabis businesses are on having their badged employees showing up for their shifts, as regulations in most states don’t make it easy for replacements to be brought in.
So while their careers may seem different, the common thread between cannabis and entertainment workers is clear: they’re both the backbone of their industries.
Data Suggests Celebrity Brands Outperform Non-Celeb Brands…But Do They Really?
MJBizDaily put out a piece this week claiming that data from California suggests that celebrity brands are outperforming traditional brands. You can check out the story here.
Respectfully, I have to push back a bit against this conclusion for a couple of reasons. For starters, the graph and numbers look a lot less impressive when you remove CANN, which I would argue really isn’t a celebrity brand. While the ubiquitous cannabis beverage company has attracted a number of high profile investors and spokespeople, it’s clearly not the same thing as building a brand around a celebrity’s persona — like Tyson 2.0 or Highsman.
While there are indeed some celebrity brands in CA that are doing alright for themselves, another way to look at this data is that Justin Bieber’s brand is bringing less per month than he gets for performing a single song at a birthday party, and Willie Nelson’s brand isn’t bringing in enough to pay for the rent of a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco.
If these numbers are accurate, it doesn’t really paint a picture that celebrity branding is in any way a guaranteed pathway to success. The numbers also don’t acknowledge all the celebrity brands who have already launched and then quietly withdrawn. After all, Tyson’s brand “Tyson 2.0” is a direct reference to the fact that his previous attempt to get into the cannabis space went about as well as his fight with Buster Douglas.
I’m interested in the impact of celebrity branding, but I think we’re going to need to see way more data before we can seriously claim that this snapshot of CA’s market tells us anything.
(Headset’s own data snapshot for July 7th shows no celebrity brands in the top five of any sales categories in Massachusetts or California, for example.)
I think it’s also fair to say that celebrity endorsements may go further in Tinseltown than they do on the East Coast.
Even with a complete picture, I think we’ll find that the inclusion of a celebrity is hardly one of the most important factors towards a brand’s success.
Updates on Previous Stories
Alabama
Sorry, peach-flavored gummy fans: Alabama regulators voted this week to delay awarding medical marijuana licenses until a third party has a chance to examine their bungled scoring system. You can read a full recap over at the Alabama Reflector.
Germany
Germany released a draft of its much anticipated cannabis regulations last week. Forbes has the details. I previously put out this infographic to explain Germany’s approach to legalization.
Topless Dispensary
Remember back in March, when I wrote about that topless dispensary idea that the media couldn’t get enough of? While I promised to never speak of this story again, I will now report this boobish idea never materialized. The owners recently announced that they’re likely abandoning these efforts and going back to the original plan of reopening Club Castaway as a strip club. Oh well.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island’s Cannabis Control Commission announced the dates of their upcoming listening sessions. I broke down Rhode Island’s legalization situation in a previous issue.
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New England
BERKSHIRE COUNTY’S RECKONING WITH CANNABIS (PART ONE): THE STATE OF COMMUNITY IMPACT FEES (Sheela Clary | Berkshire Eagle)
As of June 29, Great Barrington has collected $6.29 million in impact fees, over 80 percent of which—or about $5.1 million—has come from Theory Wellness alone. The business has stopped paying their quarterly impact fees, and they want most of the money they’ve paid in fees to be returned back to them. To be specific, they are asking, through their lawyers, for the $4 million dollars that the town has collected, but not yet spent.
ANALYSIS: This is a solid overview of the situation with community impact fees, but it’s important to remember that they started when Massachusetts municipalities were looking for a way to extract revenue from medical marijuana dispensaries, who they weren’t allowed to tax. Instead of banning these deals, legislators decided to make them an official part of the adult use law.
CONNECTICUT CONSUMERS SPENT NEARLY $24 MILLION ON CANNABIS IN JUNE (Hugh McQuade | CT News Junkie)
For the first time, residents purchased more commercial products than medical marijuana products in June. Consumers bought 313,510 commercial cannabis products at an average price of $40 compared to the 303,293 products purchased by medical marijuana patients at an average price of $37.43.
Commercial consumers are capped at ¼ ounce per transaction under a policy by the Department of Consumer Protection.
ANALYSIS: Imagine if Connecticut tried to cap how much money you can lose at Mohegan Sun or Foxwoods Casino? While states around Massachusetts continue to underperform sales expectations, the Bay State’s sales numbers seem to be relatively unimpacted by legalization in RI, CT, and NY. Connecticut’s overly strict regulations certainly aren’t helping convince residents to shop in-state.
PORTSMOUTH POT DISPENSARY SUES OVER 'LABOR PEACE AGREEMENT' IN STATE CANNABIS LAW (Tom Mooney | Providence Journal)
Greenleaf, like other Rhode Island dispensaries, sells marijuana for both medical and recreational use.
In his statement to The Journal, Bock said: “Greenleaf has one mission and that is to provide its medical marijuana patients with the highest quality of product and service compliantly and at an affordable rate. Labor peace agreements do not achieve this. In fact, in this context, the general consensus is that they are unconstitutional."
ANALYSIS: Not content with the massive head start that the state already handed existing medical dispensaries, Greenleaf CEO Seth Bock has decided to introduce himself to Rhode Island’s new Cannabis Control Commission by filing a lawsuit against them.
Ironically enough, that Commission includes a former lobbyist for Greenleaf.
I’m not a lawyer, but the lack of lawsuits in other states that have labor peace agreement requirements suggests that it’s not consensus that they’re unconstitutional. I’m also a bit skeptical that Greenleaf’s “one mission” is somehow different than the mission of every other cannabis business: making money for its owner(s).
The company has already been accused of retaliating against workers who have spoken out a number of times in the past, so I think it’s safe to say that consumers who care about workers’ rights should probably shop elsewhere.
Rest of U.S / National
CANNABIS INDUSTRY ASKS STATE TO 'PAUSE' NEW LICENSES (Robert Nott | Santa Fe New Mexican)
The signatories ask the state to set up a mechanism to “pause new cannabis licensees and provide regulators with a safety valve to turn the application acceptance process back on” once the legal market has stabilized.” The letter also asks the state to conduct a market study to determine when to start approving licenses again — if there is a halt — and do more to prosecute illegal cannabis operators. Jessie Hunt, spokeswoman for Schwazze, which runs 32 cannabis shops in the state, said the letter came in response to a meeting with staff members in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office.
ANALYSIS: An MSO that operates 32 dispensaries in New Mexico — about 5% of the state’s 600+ shops — is complaining about market saturation. That’s a bit rich.
CALIFORNIA CANNABIS COMPANIES TIED TO FAKE UNION COULD LOSE THEIR LICENSES (Chris Roberts | MJBizDaily)
At least a dozen California cannabis businesses that signed required agreements with a labor union now deemed illegitimate – including collapsed distribution giant Herbl – are at risk of losing their licenses, state regulators said Monday.
ANALYSIS: Good.
Audible Sets ‘Yes We Cannabis’ Podcast From Broadway Video Starring Langston Kerman, Punkie Johnson and Sam Richardson (Robert Carnevale | Yahoo)
Broadway Video has set a 10-episode scripted audio comedy series “Yes We Cannabis” with Audible. It’s set to debut exclusively on Aug. 24.
The series “follows the highs and lows of a cannabis start-up through the eyes of George and his two best friends” played by Sam Richardson, Punkie Johnson and Langston Kerman, according to a synopsis on its Audible page. It promises to delve into “family issues, dating, and being Black in America.”
ANALYSIS: Everything old is new again. Media companies are showing a sudden interest in “Fiction Podcasts,” a modern rehashing of the radio shows of yesteryear. The studio suits love these audio projects because they’re cheap to produce, but it remains to be seen if they will truly take off with consumers.
Will Yes We Cannabis be able to capture the absurd nuances of the legal weed space? I certainly hope so, because other attempts to turn this topic into content (Netflix’s Disjointed, Discovery’s Growing Belushi) have been a letdown. It certainly has an impressive cast.
(There’s no word yet on how the ongoing WGA and SAG strikes will impact this project.)
MONTANA’S SENATE ELECTION COMPLICATES CANNABIS LEGISLATION (Natalie Fertig | Politico)
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) raised strong objections about the cannabis research proposal during a caucus meeting and in a conversation with POLITICO over the methodology of a retroactive study in the bill, arguing that the self-selecting nature of the study could skew the results. However, that study was added to the legislation at the behest of Republican Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), according to veterans advocate Amy Rising and a Democratic Senate aide with knowledge of the discussions.
ANALYSIS: Yes, you read that right. Republicans added a provision to the bill, and then used the inclusion of that provision as an excuse to kill that same bill. This is why I continue to point out that you shouldn’t believe any claims that the GOP is serious about supporting SAFE and other cannabis legislation.
Like a lot of the country, we’ve been getting some crazy storms around here lately, so here’s a plug for lightningmaps.org. This website shows you where lightning is currently happening in real time, and gives you something to look at when you’re stuck inside.
This week it’s Alfred, who “seems to like all the attention and doesn't want to share.” He’s currently up for adoption at Baypath.
Special Bulletins
My recap of yesterday’s lengthy CCC meeting will be out later today for paid subscribers.
I’m looking for more work to round out my schedule and help keep the lights on, so if you have anything you think I might be interested in, drop me a line.
If there are any Cannabis workers out there that have questions about unions and unionization, I’m happy to chat!
scoronella@ufcwlocal1445.org
My name is Steff and I’m a union organizer for the UFCW, local 1445.
I’ve worked in cannabis professionally for 5 years. Before becoming an organizer I was a cultivator for AYR Wellness.