Welcome to Senior Cannabis Digest. This week we look at a credit card for cannabis, a luxury coffee with CBD, a new guide to CBD and more. Enjoy.
Financial News
There may be good news for mature consumers and others who find the cash-only nature of the cannabis businesses to be inconvenient and frustrating.
A company named SuperNet has announced it will issue and process credit cards that will work in dispensaries. It is expected the card will launch in January 2022 and be accepted at 100 California retail locations.
That’s the word from Matt Burns, reporting for TechCrunch. According to Burns, this means consumers can pay for their purchases by using a plastic card or NFC app instead. Consumers who use the card will no longer have to withdraw cash from a bank before visiting a dispensary. And yes, the card offers a loyalty program.
The card can be good news for retailers as well, since they will no longer keep large amounts of money on site. Plus, the card company claims it will make it easier for retailers to collect more data about who their customers are and their product preferences.
SuperNet CEO Michael W.K. Tsang told TechCrunch, “It’s a real credit card they’ll get from us. It’s just like any other credit card in your wallet, except instead of a VISA or MasterCard logo, it’s a SuperNet logo. You can spend it anywhere SuperNet is accepted.”
Burns says SuperNet’s cards will work like regular credit cards. Users have to apply, and SuperNet will issue the card depending on typical credit factors. In-store transactions take seconds or less. Cardholders pay their balances online, and there’s an NFC component allowing touchless and smartphone transactions.
However, it’s important to remember this is a credit card and not a debit card. That means the card carries an interest rate and charges fees, which SuperNet describes as “competitive.”
Even in the cannabis world, convenience has its costs.
To learn more about the card and the individuals behind the operation, we urge you to read Matt Burns informative and entertaining article in the December 1, 2021 issue of TechCrunch.com.
techcrunch.com/2021/12/01/supernet-credit-card-cannabis-weed-dispensaries/
Cannabis Quote of the Week
“There’s no evidence to my knowledge that occasional [adult] marijuana use has harmful effects. I don’t know of any scientific evidence of that. I don’t think it has been evaluated. We need to test it.”—Nora Volkow.
What makes this relatively measured statement significant is that Nora Volkow is Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). It’s not exactly the fire and brimstone the public has come to expect from a NIDA director.
As Kyle Jaeger points out in an article in Marijuana Moment, the quote from Volkow is taken from an interview that appeared in the publication FiveThirtyEight, an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging. In that article, Volkow generally highlighted possible risks of cannabis use while providing an overview of studies that run the gamut on marijuana health impacts.
Jaeger also noted that Volkow said she found it “surprising” that research has indicated that cannabis consumers tend to have a lower body mass index (BMI). “BMI is lower in marijuana users, and that was very surprising, and yet we know that high BMI, particularly the older you get, can have negative effects,” she said. “This is why we need to study it.”
Said Jaeger, “This is certainly not to say that the NIDA director supports marijuana commercialization efforts. But to advocates, it’s encouraging to see a federal health official rely on the science and acknowledge that, as it stands, the evidence hasn’t pointed to serious harms for adults who occasionally use cannabis.”
He also makes the point that Volkow seems to view substance misuse through a public health lens, rather than a position that advocates subjecting people to criminalization for using drugs.
As always, Kyle Jaeger’s reporting is clear and insightful. You can learn more by reading his article in the November 30, 2021 issue of Marijuana Moment.
Cannabis Collaborations
The latest story of an unexpected international partnership in the cannabis game involves a luxury goods brand with a very recognizable name and a Canadian cannabis company that produces CBD products.
Hemp Industry Daily reports that Toronto-based cannabis company Flora Growth Corp. has signed a licensing agreement with Tonino Lamborghini, an Italian luxury lifestyle brand with food and beverage interests. As a result, the Italian company will sell CBD-infused beverages in North America and Colombia.
The article in Hemp Industry Daily points out that while Tonino Lamborghini is run by members of the Lamborghini family—descendants of Ferruccio Lamborghini who founded the sports car brand—the company is not affiliated with the automaker, which is now part of Volkswagen.
Starting with coffee drinks made in Florida, the two companies intend to introduce products in the first quarter of 2022 throughout the U.S.,“wherever cannabis-based products are legal.” Tonino Lamborghini has been dealing in the coffee sector for more than 30 years with its line of premium espresso brands.
Said Tonino Lamborghini CEO Ferruccio Lamborghini, the grandson of the Lamborghini dynasty founder, “The cannabis market represents a very interesting niche, and we intend to offer a different luxury experience.”
To learn more we suggest you read the article that appeared in the November 30, 2021 issue of Hemp Industry Daily. Simply click on the link that follows.
Stats of the Week
This week’s magic number is 3,800. According to NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, that’s how many scientific papers have been published on the subject of cannabis in the first eleven months of 2021.
That’s more than the total number of papers published during all of last year. In 2020, scientists published over 3,500 papers on cannabis in peer-reviewed journals, which at that time was the most ever in a single year.
The figures for both 2020 and 2021 were obtained by performing a keyword search of the National Library of Medicine/PubMed.gov website. Available to the public online since 1996, PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature.
Said NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano, “Despite claims by some that marijuana has yet to be subject to adequate scientific scrutiny, scientists’ interest in studying cannabis has increased exponentially in recent years, as has our understanding of the plant, its active constituents, their mechanisms of action, and their effects on both the user and upon society.”
Armentano contends it’s time for politicians and others to stop assessing cannabis through the lens of ‘what we don’t know’ and instead start “engaging in evidence-based discussions about marijuana and marijuana reform policies that are indicative of all that we do know.”
Much like that old ad campaign for prunes—”Are five enough? Are six too many?”—conversations about the need for more research on cannabis tend to beg the question, “How much is enough?” We have long held the position that often, when someone says, “More research is needed,” what they are really saying is they want to keep looking for research that will produce results that will confirm their opinion.
Just for the record, we do believe more research is always needed on a wide range of cannabis-related topics, particularly investigations focused on the consequences of long-term medicinal use of cannabis by mature consumers—but that’s a discussion for another day.
You can learn more, including a brief overview on research trends, by reading the article, Record Number of Scientific Papers Published About Cannabis in 2021. It appeared in the December 1, 2021 edition of the blog NORML.org. Simply click on the link that follows.
norml.org/blog/2021/12/01/record-number-of-scientific-papers-published-in-2021-about-cannabis/
Holiday Gifts
If you or someone on your gift list uses CBD or would just like to know more about it, there is a new book published by that other Digest, Reader’s Digest, in collaboration with the website Project CBD, that just may fill the bill.
Called “Reader’s Digest The Essential Guide to CBD: Everything You Need to Know About What It Helps, Where to Buy, And How to Take It,” it’s described as an “authoritative but user-friendly primer on CBD.”
The book offers an overview of how CBD works, how it differs from THC and marijuana and how it affects the brain and body, influences genes, reduces inflammation, and more.
It also includes what it calls the latest research on how CBD may be used to prevent or treat 35 common health issues, including chronic pain, heart health, sleep disorders, anxiety, cancer, and weight gain. It even describes how it can be used to help pets.
In addition, the guide shows readers how to create a CBD action plan, identify what type of CBD best fits their needs, where to find products that are legal and safe, and how to calculate dosage.
Published by Reader’s Digest, the book is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Good Reads and other retailers in paperback, audio and tablet formats.
Senior Cannabis Digest is compiled and edited by Joe Kohut and John Kohut. You can reach them at joe.kohut@gmail.com or at 347-528-8753.
