09 Mar The Longest Shortest Year

On this day a year ago, I uploaded a post entitled, “Coronavirus Impacting Cannabis Industry.” In fact it was my first post on the virus. It started as follows: “It is about all anyone is talking about, understandably.” Mostly it was discussing the closing of travel to and from China and how it was affecting equipment supply chains and the hemp market. It warned cannabis users to stop the normal practice of sharing product and lamented the fact that some industry events had been canceled. We also expressed concern about state legalization efforts and noted that NY Gov. Cuomo was likely to cancel a planned trip to cannabis-legal states to see how things were working. Just nine days later, after NYC (and our law office) shut down, I started the “Corona-Cannabis Update” series with #1. Already getting the lingo, I noted that I “hope you are all staying safe and social distancing” (no mask mandates yet!). My ending piece of advice? “Buckle up (or light up if that’s your preference) and we will get through as we always do.”

My cannabis predictions in that #1 post on March 18, 2020 are interesting to look at now, here they were:

• Expect medical cannabis retailers to be among the last to close, if they do at all (check)
• Expect demand to stay strong, especially with pick-up and delivery (check)
• I am not terribly optimistic about state legalization efforts this year (basically check)
• I am equally unoptimistic about any noticeable surge in financing activity in the coming months (check)

Since then, though dispensaries remained open and saw record sales, the industry did suffer a period of reduced availability of capital. That has reversed rather dramatically since the beginning of the year, and capital is flowing once again into cannabis. A few states legalized but others failed to obtain enough signatures for a referendum due to Covid restrictions.

Your humble blogger received his first vaccine shot last week and should be “clear” by mid-April. Quite different from the scary and uncertain lockdown we were living through here in NY last April. The cannabis industry has always moved in dog years, where a year in the industry made you a grizzled veteran. But this last year, 2020, both Zoomed ahead (bad pun sorry) and dragged and dragged, and this extrovert is very glad to see that we are closer to the end than ever. Hope to see everyone IRL in Vegas in October!!!