Welcome to our wrap-up of Episode 18 of This Week in Cannabis News.

Here’s what you need to know this week

Post-election news

The polling firm Gallop annually checks in on voter and public sentiment on cannabis legalization, and Forbes broke down that poll this week. As it turns out, legalization is widely popular—with 68% of U.S. adults favoring legalizing cannabis, which matches a record percent of support in the Gallop poll. As discussed in our post-election webinar last week, Liberal, younger, less religious voters are most supportive. Unfortunately, only 32% of conservatives aged 65 and older are in favor.

Congressional hearing

Just one week after the election, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held their first hearing of the lameduck session titled: “Developments in State Cannabis Laws and Bipartisan Cannabis Reforms at the Federal Level.” The hearing was largely pro-legalization, and the Ranking member of the Committee, Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace stated:

This plant literally saved my life. I’m glad I can share my experience with all of you today.

We'll hear from another Congressman in a few weeks with our webinar titled: What a New Congress Means for SAFE Banking with Congressman Ed Perlmutter. Register today on our LinkedIn page!

New York

Now to New York, where it's always a busy week...

• The NYC Sheriff’s office, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), and NYPD all partnered to start a crackdown on grey market dispensaries in New York.
• Cannabis Farmers have cannabis to sell, but nowhere to sell it, this according to a Cannabis Business Executive story posted this week.

There are a number of important decisions and announcements (likely) being made next week by the Office of Cannabis Management in New York, including those about Culitvation, Nursery, Processing, Distributions, Retail Dipsensary, Microbusiness License and Cannabis Collectives or Co-Ops. So get ready for deep reading on regulations over your Thanksgiving dinner table!

Featured guest: Thomas Winstanely, Chief Marketing Officer at Theory Wellness

Thomas Winstanely the Chief Marketing Officer from Theory Wellness, a dispensary/retail brand operating in MA and ME, joined us yesterday as part of what we’re doing here at MJBiz in Las Vegas. We talked about key markets in the Northeast and how Theory is approaching them, about customer experience in-store and how to create a loyal customer base, and how compelling it is to be solving business challenges without a defined playbook. Here is just a snippet of a conversation with Thomas Winstanley, recorded at MJBiz this week.