Miscellaneous
Florida's Cannabis News Podcast Friday November 6, 2020 Highlights: This week, the Florida Supreme Court hears a second round of oral arguments on the Florigrown case. Edibles hit the Florida medical marijuana market. Trulieve, popular in marijuana stocks and cannabis stocks and cannabis news, expanded operations into Pennsylvania. For a high overview, an MMTC applicant is challenging Florida’s vertically integrated medical marijuana licensing structure. Vertical integration means in order to participate in Florida’s medical marijuana market, you must cultivate, process, and distribute the plant. Grow the plant, process the plant, and distribute the plant’s products and your dispensaries. There are no individual licenses for the different aspects of the industry (that would be a horizontally integrated model, which I think depending on the outcome of this case could be Florida’s fate years). To me, based on the judge’s questions it seems like they could be agreeing with the state that it met its constitutional obligations in enacting a limited license, vertically integrated structure. The court did not set a time frame for a ruling one way or another. If the Supreme Court court agrees vertically integrated businesses are unconstitutional, the state’s lucrative medical marijuana market would open up to additional, stand-alone licensing opportunities. It would flip the market on its head. _____________ The introduction of edibles is important because (1) MMTCs can expand their product selection, (2) customers have more options to medicate, (3) the opportunities for licensing deals skyrockets. Edibles also pave the way for cannabis companies to participate in interstate commerce without violating the federal prohibition on the sale and cultivation of cannabis. _____________ Our last top story comes out of Tallahassee, FL where Trulieve has announced they are expanding operations into Pennsylvania. As we know Trulieve has a dominant presence in Florida, they have over 64 dispensaries, tremendous leadership with CEO Kim Rivers, and own the majority of Florida’s market share. expanding operations into Pennsylvania will be trulieve’s move into five states total. There is a lot of room for growth in Penn, especially on the retail side because the state has allowed for 198 dispensary locations and only 87 of those locations are up and running. And as we’ve seen in Florida, it seems Trulieve is opening a new dispensary every other week, so I imagine they will continue their retail domination in Penn. Top Stories: // Florigrown Oral Arguments Round II Source 1, Source 2 // Edibles Hit Florida’s Medical Marijuana Market Source 1, Source 2, Source 3 // Trulieve Expands into Pennsylvania Source 1, Source 2, Source 3 ** Latest Patient and Dispensary Count from Florida's Office of Medical Marijuana Use Love the show? Rate, Review, and Subscribe. Instagram: @FLCannabisPod Twitter: @FLCannabisPod Like Our Facebook Page: https://bit.ly/36bGsAQ My Email: David@FloridaCannabisPod.com My YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3oPZkOq Donate to My PayPal: https://bit.ly/3ezF92l