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🌿 LeafLink acquires Leaf Trade, DEA holding rescheduling hearing, and lawmakers clamor for clemency

Welcome to another edition of The Pre Roll, the cannabis newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the industry happenings you need to know. Here’s what we’re rolling up this week: LeafLink acquires Leaf Trade, DEA holding rescheduling hearing, lawmakers clamor for clemency, and more. Let’s get to it.

Author

Alex Lipnik
November 29, 2024

together with

Happy Friday Pre Rollers! Welcome to another edition of The Pre Roll, the cannabis newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the industry happenings you need to know.

For starters, Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate!

Here’s what we’re rolling up this week:

  • LeafLink acquires Leaf Trade

  • DEA holding rescheduling hearing

  • Lawmakers clamor for clemency

…and more. Let’s get to it.

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🚨 ROLL CALL
Tech

A whole(sale) nother level. Cannabis wholesale platform LeafLink announced this week the acquisition of competitor Leaf Trade. Together, the companies facilitate an estimated almost $9 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) yearly.

"Leaf Trade has been the clear industry leader serving the MSO and enterprise segment and we are thrilled to welcome the Leaf Trade team to LeafLink. We look forward to working closely with our new customers and providing integrated technology solutions that allow them to run their businesses more efficiently. Our mission at LeafLink is to help the regulated cannabis industry reach its greatest potential. We're doing this by providing products and implementing standards that significantly streamline operational processes and meaningfully improve financial performance. Streamlining the technology stack is critical to ensuring the industry's long-term success and we are thrilled to be partnering with the industry's largest companies in pursuit of this goal."

Artie Minson, President and CEO of LeafLink

As part of the deal, cannabis point-of-sale (POS) Sweed, which merged with Leaf Trade in March of last year, will remain an independent business and become a strategic partner to LeafLink.

Earlier this year, LeafLink unveiled Payment on Sell Through (PoST), a first-of-its-kind payment option for cannabis wholesale that addresses the delinquent payments problem by guaranteeing payments to brands as retailers pay for what they sell, and acquired cannabis fintech Dama Financial’s banking division.

Policy

Source: Veriheal

Now hear this. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is set to hold an initial formal hearing on the proposed rescheduling of cannabis this coming Monday, December 2, 2024 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the DEA Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The preliminary hearing will “serve as a procedural day to address legal and logistical issues and discuss future dates for the evidentiary hearing on the merits” with no witness testimony offered or received. Previous reporting indicates witness testimony likely will not happen until the beginning of 2025 at the earliest.

On May 21, 2024, the Department of Justice proposed to transfer marijuana from schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to schedule III of the CSA, consistent with the view of the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana has a currently accepted medical use as well as HHS's views about marijuana's abuse potential and level of physical or psychological dependence. The CSA requires that such actions be made through formal rulemaking on the record after opportunity for a hearing. If the transfer to schedule III is finalized, the regulatory controls applicable to schedule III controlled substances would apply, as appropriate, along with existing marijuana-specific requirements and any additional controls that might be implemented, including those that might be implemented to meet U.S. treaty obligations. If marijuana is transferred into schedule III, the manufacture, distribution, dispensing, and possession of marijuana would remain subject to the applicable criminal prohibitions of the CSA. Any drugs containing a substance within the CSA's definition of “marijuana” would also remain subject to the applicable prohibitions in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Background for the hearing provided by the DEA

Only designated participants and credentialed media members will be permitted to attend in-person. Members of the public can watch virtually through the DEA website.  

Policy

Source: ACLU

Oh My Darling Clemency. Members of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representative are urging President Biden to take action relating to cannabis before the end of his term.

In a letter led by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), a group of 14 Democratic lawmakers applauded the steps the Biden-Harris Administration has taken on pardons and rescheduling, but believe they can do more “by issuing another round of clemency and an updated memorandum on prosecutorial discretion for marijuana offenses.”

A similar letter penned by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Congressman James E. Clyburn (D-SC), Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA), and 64 colleagues is pushing for the president to use his “clemency authority to rectify unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences given by judges” to “send a powerful message across the country in support of fundamental fairness and furthering meaningful criminal justice reform.”

🇺🇸 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Florida: Medical cannabis licenses are being awarded to 22 new applicants from nearly two years ago.

Kentucky: The state announced the first round of dispensary license winners.

Nebraska: A judge dismissed the legal challenges against two medical cannabis petitions from the November ballot.

🌏 AROUND THE WORLD

Australia: The Senate voted against a cannabis legalization bill.

Canada: More people in Ontario admit to using cannabis before getting behind the wheel.

đź’¨ QUICK HITTERS

  • Senator Tom Carper said he doesn’t know “that it's imperative that we have a federal policy” when asked about thoughts on the SAFER Banking Act.

  • Cannabis regulatory company Metrc launched a new labeling feature to help brands and retailers streamline inventory management.

  • Canopy Growth named current Board member and CPG-veteran, Mr. Luc Mongeau, as the company’s next CEO.

  • An Uber Eats driver called the police after smelling a strong cannabis odor coming from a burrito delivery.

📚 WHAT WE’RE READING

  • This Cannabis Company Is Snapping Up America’s Craft Beer Brewers (The Wall Street Journal)

  • Colorado cannabis companies have a new strategy to attract more hesitant customers: weaker weed (The Denver Post)

🎙️ POTCASTS
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Stay tuned for more cannabis industry news next week!

đź’š,

The Pre Roll Team

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