Ross Rebagliati is a Canadian snowboarder who won a gold medal in the men's giant slalom event at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The International Olympic Committee initially stripped him of the medal due to a failed drug test for cannabis use, but was overruled by an appeals court two days later, resulting in the medal being restored. Since retiring from snowboarding, Rebagliati has become an entrepreneur in the cannabis industry.
Cannabis in California has been legal for medical use since 1996, and for recreational use since late 2016. The state of California has been at the forefront of efforts to liberalize cannabis laws in the United States, beginning in 1972 with the nation's first ballot initiative attempting to legalize cannabis. Although it was unsuccessful, California would later become the first state to legalize medical cannabis through the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which passed with 56% voter approval. In November 2016, California voters approved the Adult Use of Marijuana Act with 57% of the vote, which legalized the recreational use of cannabis.
Leafly is a website focused on cannabis use and education. The company says it has more than 120 million annual visitors and over 10 million monthly active users. Leafly provides a wide range of information on cannabis, including 1.5 million consumer product reviews, more than 9,000 cannabis articles and resources, and over 5,000 verified strains in its database. Leafly additionally provides 4,500+ retailers and 8,000+ cannabis brands with e-commerce tools such as digital storefronts, embedded menus, point-of-sale integrations, targeted advertising, and more. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and from 2012 to 2019 was owned by Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm focused on the emerging legal cannabis industry. Leafly is now a publicly traded company with 160 employees.
Cannabis in Massachusetts is legal for medical and recreational use. It also relates to the legal and cultural events surrounding the use of cannabis. A century after becoming the first U.S. state to criminalize recreational cannabis, Massachusetts voters elected to legalize it in 2016.
Privateer Holdings is an American private equity company that invests in the legal cannabis industry. Privateer Holdings is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and employs more than 350 people in seven countries. The company is building a diversified portfolio of cannabis brands. As of November 2016, the company has raised $122 million. Privateer Holdings secured the first institutional investor to enter the cannabis industry, Founders Fund. In 2019 Privateer Holdings was merged with Tilray.
MedMen Enterprises, or MedMen, is a publicly-traded, United States-based cannabis company with operations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts.
A marijuana vending machine is a vending machine for selling or dispensing cannabis. They are currently in use in the United States and Canada and some may be located in secure rooms in marijuana dispensaries. Some may be operated by employees after a fingerprint scan is obtained from the patient. In Canada in 2013, marijuana vending machines were planned to be used in centres that cultivate the drug. At least three companies are developing the vending machines.
Canopy Growth Corporation, formerly Tweed Marijuana Inc., is a cannabis company based in Smiths Falls, Ontario.
Wikileaf Technologies is a Seattle business providing data services to the cannabis industry and information to consumers. The company provides price indexes and cannabis strain reviews and information.
Cannabis dispensaries in the United States or marijuana dispensaries are a local government regulated physical location, typically inside a retail storefront or office building, in which a person can purchase cannabis and cannabis related items for medical or recreational use. First modeled in Amsterdam in the late 1970s where they were innocently called coffee shops, it would take the Americans more than a generation to successfully duplicate the idea of a retail cannabis storefront. Unlike in the Dutch coffee shops, today dispensary customers are prevented from consuming cannabis on the site of a regulated dispensary in all known markets.
Cannabis in Washington relates to a number of legislative, legal, and cultural events surrounding the use of cannabis. On December 6, 2012, Washington became the first U.S. state to legalize recreational use of marijuana and the first to allow recreational marijuana sales, alongside Colorado. The state had previously legalized medical marijuana in 1998. Under state law, cannabis is legal for medical purposes and for any purpose by adults over 21.
Tokyo Smoke is a Canadian lifestyle brand owned by OEG Inc. that focuses on the legal recreational cannabis industry. The company was co-founded by father and son Lorne and Alan Gertner in 2015.
The Cannabis Act is a law which legalized recreational cannabis use in Canada in combination with its companion legislation Bill C-46, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code. The law is a milestone in the legal history of cannabis in Canada, alongside the 1923 prohibition.
Lowell Herb Co is a California-based cannabis brand owned by Lowell Farms that sells packs of pre-rolled joints in varying blends, including seasonal crops.
Aurora Cannabis Inc. is a Canadian licensed cannabis producer, headquartered in Edmonton. It trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Nasdaq as ACB. As of late September 2018, Aurora Cannabis had eight licensed production facilities, five sales licences, and operations in 25 countries. It had a funded capacity of over 625,000 kilograms of cannabis production per annum with the bulk of capacity based in Canada and a growing presence in international markets, particularly Denmark and Latin America. Aurora is the second largest cannabis company in the world by market capitalization, after Canopy Growth Corporation. The company began trading on the NYSE on October 23, 2018, using the ticker ACB.
KushCo Holdings is an American company that sells packaging, containers, and other ancillary products for the cannabis industry. It is based in Garden Grove, California and is publicly traded on the New York OTCQB marketplace under the stock ticker symbol, KSHB.
Planet 13 Holdings, Inc. is a cannabis company based in Nevada, United States. On Nov 1, 2018, the company opened its cannabis dispensary in Las Vegas which became the largest cannabis dispensary in the world at 112,000 square feet.
Cresco Labs, Inc. is a publicly traded, vertically integrated cannabis and medical marijuana company based in Chicago, Illinois, with current retail operations in nine states where marijuana has been legalized for medical use. The company's stock trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol CL, and in over-the-counter markets in the United States with the ticker symbol CRLBF.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the cannabis industry. Investor's Business Daily said the industry was affected as "customers stock up on prescriptions and recreational customers load up on something to make the lockdown a little more mellow or a little less boring".
