another try at safe banking
Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown, a Democrat out of Ohio, said on Tuesday that he is sorting out complications on the right and the left as he prepares for a potential committee vote on cannabis banking legislation. Senator Brown said the vote would hinge on Senator Steve Daines, a Republican Senator who is a lead banker on the cannabis bill, to deliver more GOP co-sponsors. "We're not going to take a bill to the floor and have McConnell undercut it with 58 or 59 votes," Brown said. "He's done that many times. So, we want Daines... to sign on the dotted line on this and really commit to getting members to co-sponsor. If they're serious, they co-sponsor." In response, Daines spokesperson Rachel Dumke said: “Senator Daines and Chairman Brown had an agreement when he reintroduced the bill, and now Democrats are demanding changes. We have enough Republican votes to get it passed but Democrats keep moving the goalposts.” At the end of the day, this bill does Daines, but rather hinges on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. If McConnell doesn't want this bill to get passed, which he hasn't in previous attempts, then it won't get done.
AYR Acquires its third Ohio Dispensary
AYR Wellness (AYRWF) announced today that it has entered an option agreement that provides AYR with the future ability to acquire 100% of the equity interests of Twice the Wellness, an entity provisionally licensed to operate a medical marijuana dispensary in Ohio. Twice the Wellness intends to open a dispensary in Woodmere, Ohio, a suburb of the Cleveland Metropolitan Area. “AYR continues to focus on building a vertical presence in Ohio, a market where we have the ability to build considerable depth and market share,” said David Goubert, President and CEO of AYR. “We have begun to scale cultivation and production in the State with the opening of a 58,000 sq. ft. cultivation facility in Parma and have recently entered into agreements to acquire two dispensaries, pending regulatory approval, with Twice the Wellness set to become AYR’s third future location in Ohio. We look forward to operating these locations soon and scaling our business ahead of a potential conversion to adult-use sales.” The Company previously entered into option agreements to acquire Daily Releaf located in Riverside, Ohio, part of the Dayton Metropolitan Area, and Heaven Wellness, located in Clermont County, part of the Greater Cincinnati area. The Company anticipates all three dispensaries to open by year-end.
threads vs. Twitter
Last year, Twitter was the first social media platform to allow cannabis advertising. Trulieve was the first cannabis company in the country to have an ad on a major social media platform. Last week, Meta launched its new platform called Threads, which is a direct competitor to Twitter. Threads has a much different approach to cannabis than Twitter does. Threads is asking people if they want to “get help” finding drug treatment resources from a federal agency if they search for posts about “marijuana” or psychedelics like “psilocybin” or “ibogaine.” But searches for content about other drugs that are linked to serious addiction and death like alcohol and tobacco come with no such warning. In the first week of Threads existence, 100M users flocked to the platform.
