Month: July 2021

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Legacy cannabis brand The Clear™ continues to dominate in legal cannabis markets across America, earning top honors in the Michigan High Times Cannabis Cup and Las Vegas Cannabis Awards.

The Clear’s signature flavor, Blue Raz won first place in both markets with additional awards in Las Vegas for Chem OG, Lime Sorbet, and Black Cherry Soda.

The complete list of awards and categories include:

• Las Vegas Cannabis Awards
• First Place Indica Vape: The Clear’s Chem OG
• First Place Sativa Vape: The Clear’s Lime Sorbet
• First Place Hybrid Vape: The Clear’s Blue Raz
• First Place THC Dominant Disposable: The Clear’s Black Cherry Soda
• Cannabis Cup Michigan
• First Place Recreational Vape: The Clear’s Blue Raz

The Clear process was invented in California by a group of enthusiasts determined to find cleaner ways to consume cannabis. Clear Cannabis Inc. licenses proprietary processes, flavors and brand identity to its manufacturing partners. The Clear “method” ensures a consistent product from state to state. This is as important as it is unique due to restrictions on interstate commerce as a result of federal laws. First place wins across the nation showcase The Clear’s ability to produce a consistent, reliable quality product grown and manufactured by multiple operators.

Michigan’s booming cannabis market made the opportunity to partner with cannabis product manufacturer Trucenta a priority for The Clear. The recent award shows the strength of the partnership.

“We’ve been following The Clear since 2013,” said Andrew Falconer, Director of Sales at Trucenta. “We were already excited about our partnership with The Clear, and the Cannabis Cup win right in our backyard proved this was the right decision.”

The Clear line is available in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Missouri. Learn more by visiting ClearConcentrate.com.

About Clear Cannabis, Inc.

Clear Cannabis, Inc. is a national cannabis brand company and licensor of The Clear™. Established in 2013, The Clear THC products are available in the U.S., with CBD products distributed internationally. The company is focused on responsible manufacturing, proprietary formulations, widespread distribution, and expanding product lines. Learn more: clearcannabisinc.com

Parents in the Cannabis Industry: Overcoming Stigma 

        As the legalization of cannabis becomes more and more common across the united states, the widespread populating of the positions within the industry similarly begins to ramp up. Dispensaries, cultivation centers, testing labs, corporate offices, sales reps; the world of cannabis has opened up in a thriving, legitimate business world.

This said, a stigma still pervades around cannabis and its industry as age-old criticisms and arguments are rehashed. For some of us, these are easy enough to brush off or ignore as we go about our days and our jobs. For others, though, circumstances can make these conversations a bit stickier. Specifically, the conversation parents of the cannabis industry have with their children, and navigating a space that has been explored very little before.

These conversations are, obviously, already in motion across the legal states, both in private and public platforms. On that wider perspective, author’s have begun publishing books and other literature on the subject, geared both at children and adults alike. One such publication, I.B. Sekandi’s Kids In cannabis: my mom and dad work in cannabis; this is our story allows children a look at cannabis from a business oriented view; like any book a child could read on construction jobs or a career being a firefighter, the book allows a perspective on how the many jobs in the industry work with one another around a thriving industry

The book does a wonderful job of normalizing talk about the cannabis industry, though the conversation doesn’t end there. In truth, much of the conversation has to be done on the ground level, interpersonally between parents and their children. Sekandi’s book and those like it allow a decent foundation for these conversations, but at the end of the day children will always have questions, especially in the face of our culture’s current stigma around the topic.

As difficult as the conversation is, it is one that is already happening in households across the state with our new legal status. One parent having such conversations is Chelsi G, a cannabis worker in a Michigan dispensary. Mother to children aged 1 and 8, Chelsi has already begun this conversation with her eldest. At the heart of the matter, trust and honesty are the foundations of the conversation. Chelsi started out our conversation with the key rule in the conversation: “I’m not going to lie to him”. Formally working in the industry for about a year now, Chelsi has had to redefine her job to her kids, moving from a previous job in carpentry.

Having used cannabis herself for anxiety and sensory overload issues, Chelsi uses her experience to frame cannabis in its medicinal light when discussing with her children. “Cannabis is natural medicine” she notes, focusing on a positive framework for the rest of her discussions with the children. Further, she is intentional with language and boundaries, noting that the products are for adults only. Using more standardized terms also plays a part in Chelsi’s conversation with her kids, preferring to use the term cannabis over any slang terms, such as pot, weed, etc.

These conversations occur across the spectrum of the cannabis industry, not only restricted to those working the front-line dispensary positions. Sandy A, a lead marketing officer in the cannabis industry, similarly has talked to her children about the focus of her work. Adopting a similarly straightforward approach to the subject, Sandy lets her kids, aged 19, 17 and 12, know that she works marketing with a cannabis company. The conversation, though, shifts slightly with ages across the spectrum, the oldest of which is a legal adult and approaching the legal age in a few years. A focus on maturity and  responsibility permeates the conversation, not allowing her presence in the cannabis industry to be viewed as any leeway on the rules “Once they’re of age, of course they can partake. But prior to that, I’ve made sure they’re aware that there are legal consequences to those kinds of actions”. Chelsi had also made clear to her children the boundaries of age as they play into cannabis, clearly defining that the medicine she sells is for adults only.

As a parent, the conversations often don’t end with the children, but the public sphere of daycares and schools. These interactions, while sometimes difficult, prove sometimes to be less intense than one might think. Chelsi notes that often when dropping her youngest at daycare, other parents will comment on her work apparel with the dispensary’s name on it. “A lot of them end up asking me questions, like if they have the right pen for a cartridge”. Other parents, though, are less enthusiastic when it comes to the cannabis industry. Sandy notes that she usually keeps her job vague when talking to other parents, starting out by simply saying she’s in marketing “sometimes they’ll prod until, eventually, I’ll tell them I work in the cannabis industry. It prompts even more questions from the curious parents, while the less approving typically end their questions there.” The stigma surrounding cannabis, and its industry, are still strong in our culture, and the parents of the industry often have to deal with these judgments on the front lines. “There are a lot of misconceptions out there” , Aldrich notes, and she couldn’t be more correct.

The conversations being had at this parental level are a strange lot, navigating stigma and a still freshly developing industry. Whether to children themselves or navigating the public spheres of school and daycare, the conversation is an unavoidable one for these parents. Further still, it’s a dialogue that is never uniform; from person to person, family to family, these conversations shift with the different lives and histories of the people having these conversations. At its core, though, Sandy and Chelsi displayed an honest, straightforward approach to the conversation, keeping the truth in the light and center stage. Allowing the children of cannabis industry workers to remain in the dark helps no one, leaving them uninformed at best, if not swept up in stigma and misconceptions of our culture. Respect can develop for cannabis and those who work in the industry, and this is but one of the many points where that respect is being negotiated.

The world of the cannabis industry is an exciting one, offering a wide array of opportunities and experiences to both businesses and consumers alike. Many of us find ourselves excited at new strains, unique edibles and other products we had never even dreamed of before. Buying cannabis left and right, our horizons have never been as wide or as accessible as they are now. That said, as we find ourselves on the other side of our purchase, many of us find us asking ourselves; what do I do with all these jars?

While obviously not limited to just the glass jars we buy and sell our 8ths in, we find ourselves in a bit of a situation as we examine the amount of waste the packaging of cannabis can produce. Glass Jars, Mylar bags and cardboard boxes, to name a few, accumulate to a concerning amount of trash. The question that is asked, then, is how can we of the industry work to help mitigate the waste created by the industry.

A perspective we’d like to focus on is reaching the customer on a level of engagement and a form of education. There is a decent amount of packaging that cannot be directly recycled, but that doesn’t mean they need to end up in a landfill. There are creative uses for the wide array of packaging forms that might turn them from trash to delightful life hacks around the cannabis user’s home. Cannabis retailers and producers might do well to help facilitate their customers in doing this through fun DIY suggestions pertaining to the products they sell, helping not only the large scale issue at hand, but also allowing them to engage their customers on a community level. Some companies are ahead of this curve, and have begun to even incorporate these reuse features into packaging themselves. The Margarita Chill edible gummy brand, for example,  encourages their customers to utilize their packaging as pre-roll storage after being emptied. By this built-in reuse function, the company has helped take a step towards this reuse paradigm, helping reduce waste in landfills.

The glass jars containing eighths and quarters of flower pose likely the most abundant source of packaging in the industry, though also likely offers the easiest solutions to their re-use. Aesthetically appealing, useful in size, and relatively more durable than the rest of the cannabis packaging, the jar can have a plethora of uses around a customer’s house. As such,the following examples of how to reuse such jars offers a useful jumping off point for ways to reach customers with DIY hacks.

Storage

The most obvious use of the jar, and not particularly far from the original design, the jars allow us another vessel to hold any number of household items, including hair ties, cotton swabs, loose buttons, or anything else that will fit in the jar. The Jars, already designed for aesthetic appeal, allow a fun, canna-chic form of storage.

Candles

For the crafty, pinterest-inspired cannabis customers among us, the glass jars allow a perfect receptacle for homemade, DIY candles. Even for those who haven’t tackled the candlemaker’s trade, now’s a perfect time to try a new hobby. Great for weddings and events, one can even avoid the screw top image with bits of twine or hemp rope wrapped around the top.

Culinary Storage 

For the more culinarily inclined among us, the jars offer wonderful storage for homemade frozen treats, including any form of ice cream or soft serve. Dispensaries might even include a fun recipe for their customers, medicated or otherwise.

Planter 

From one plant to another, we can re-use our jars as small vases and planters. Whether for a holder for a breakfast-in-bed bouquet or for planting a small succulent, the plants will thrive in the jar. From one kind of green to another, the jar remains a cradle of life.

The ideas above allow us a jumping off point into how we can reduce the waste we create as an industry. Different packaging forms offer different obstacles, but also new opportunities for reactive reuse. Mylar bags offer reusable containers and perhaps new materials for DIY wallets, while the plastic pop-top containers used for grams and eighths can find new lives in helping organize your cabinet or serve as travel containers of vitamins. The important step, though, in this process is the role of cannabis companies, offering and encouraging the reuse of the packaging through customer engagement.

For those of us working in the cannabis industry with kids, the realization that talking to our kids about what we do is a little trickier a topic than it has been in the past. Between heavy stigma and the infantile nature of the industry, answers can be a little harder to shoot straight from the hip. As such, getting ahead of the question and preparing for these questions and creating a constructive and productive foundation for these questions is a must. But where do we start?

I.B. Sekandi’s book, Kids of Cannabis: My mom & dad work in cannabis; this is our story, allows a helpful resource to help parents lay a foundation for these kinds of conversations. Amidst the stigma surrounding the cannabis industry, the book makes a great step towards allowing a less judgmental view of the work. In essence, the book allows children the leg up in understanding exactly the things that their parents do not only allows preparation for questions from parents and other children, but gives the children a basis for their own questions towards understanding the industry.

Indeed, one of the more notable strengths of the book lies in its scope of the industry. Rather than focusing on one or a few of the more obvious positions in the industry, such as grower or dispensary positions, but goes further to include elements of the industry overlooked by those less aware of the industry. The inclusion of these positions, such as those in supply chain management or information technology & media, allows the book to speak in more abundant and meaningful ways. The variety of jobs included in the book allow the book to reach a wider audience, offering a solid foundation for kids of industry parents across the board, retailers and office jockeys alike.

The depth of the specifics of the industry, detailing the different points of contact, also allow a way to defend against the stigma against the cannabis industry by showing the full, robust business practices that go into the process. Familiarizing our kids with the complex and genuine business practices can help to shed light on the industry from a base level, allowing kids to feel comfortable and able to talk about what their parents do. Previous to the industry, perceptions cannabis sales had been nothing but off-the-record transactions and illegal dealings. Allowing the kind of perception Sekandi’s book constructs creates a positive juxtaposition to the cannabis industry’s predecessor, framing the current state of the cannabis industry in a more positive light.

Pleasant illustrations and easy reading make the book accessible for children, not just easy to focus on, but to engage with. Simple, clear pictures let the young readers understand the industry ,while also giving a solid, coherent backdrop for their own questions. Regardless of the cannabis industry focus, the book successfully walks a line of simplicity and complexity, giving a relatively in-depth understanding of the industry while not overwhelming the kids with too much information.

If a parent in the cannabis industry is worried,

concerned or anxious about beginning a talk with their children about the nature of their work, I would suggest this book as a great jumping off point. While, admittedly, the book might not address the stigma surrounding the cannabis industry, it instead focuses on a constructive, positive view of the jobs in an emerging field. Obviously, more talks about cannabis and its industry are sure to follow, but using this book as a foundation for that conversation is a great place to start.