Andrew Hatch

At a time when many cannabis businesses are feeling the squeeze from competition and price compression, the question arises of how to continue to add value to employees when wage increases are not on the table. For many companies, a permanent wage increase is a difficult sell right now, but employees that feel undervalued often leave, and the cost of turnover can’t be excluded from the equation. Training and education can add value to your employees and organization when the budget won’t allow for wage increases.

Years ago, in a conversation with an employee on my team, he expressed frustration that he hadn’t gotten a raise recently. He felt undervalued, and said that he needed to either be compensated appropriately or that the company should provide additional training and development. This was a stellar employee, but we were in a cash crunch so there was a freeze on raises. It got me thinking, so I asked him if he would like more ownership of his projects, and I created training courses related to our goals as a company for him and other employees. He took hold of the opportunities immediately, and the response from nearly all employees that took the training classes was very positive.

Additional training allows the employee to continue to make personal career progress during times that are lean for the company, while also increasing the overall knowledge base of the organization. In addition, allowing employees the opportunity to cross-train in additional departments adds to their skill set, but also gives the company as a whole more flexibility and fosters interdepartmental communication and understanding.

Someone reading this is probably thinking, “How do we know who wants to be developed, and who is just trying to get out of work for a day?” The answer I have found useful is to have the employees fill out a very brief application about why they want to take on the additional training or project. This small step is usually enough to separate out the ones who want to be there. This won’t be practical in all situations, and every workplace is different, but I have seen initiatives like this bring new energy into entire departments. Training courses from NCRMAcademy or another qualified training provider can expand the knowledge base of your human capital at relatively low cost. Adding value to your employees adds value to the entire organization, and additional training is a value-add that continues to pay dividends long after it is completed.

On February 13th, the DEA issued a statement clarifying their stance on hemp-derived Delta-9 THCO and hemp-derived Delta-8 THCO, stating that they consider them both Schedule 1 illicit substances under the Controlled Substances Act. These products were being sold under the assumption that the law allows for their sale because they are derived from legal hemp, but since these cannabinoids do not occur naturally in the plant they are to be considered synthetic THC, which is prohibited under the Act.

There are good reasons to be cautious with these two compounds. Delta-9 THCO and Delta-8 THCO are relatively new to the market, so very little study has been conducted as to their safety. There is no federally-mandated safety testing of hemp products, so these products are often contaminated with heavy metals, pesticide residues, or harmful microbes and their byproducts. Many reports of negative effects have been received by the FDA, with a range of symptoms including hallucinations, vomiting, tremor, anxiety, dizziness, confusion, and loss of consciousness. In addition, Munger et al. found that vaporizing THCO products creates ketene gas as a byproduct, which can be lethal at a concentration at 5 ppm or greater (2022).

The announcement has consumers concerned and producers scrambling to pivot. More research into novel cannabinoid health effects is needed to determine the actual level of risk for consumers, but we aren’t quite there yet. Until then, producing products that contain novel cannabinoids carries serious risk, both to the consumer and the operator.

Hop Latent Viroid (HLVd)–a plant pathogen common in the hops industry–is a fast-emerging threat to cannabis businesses across the nation. It causes stunting and reduced yields, is easily spread amongst plants, and is extremely difficult to kill on surfaces with heat or disinfectants. Viroids are naked, single-stranded, circular pieces of RNA that are very tightly bound together, so they are very difficult to destroy. They lack a protein coat, so they can’t enter cells by attaching to receptors in the cell membrane the way viruses do. They instead must enter damaged cells, where they replicate in either the nucleus or chloroplasts. 

HLVd is spread by mechanical transmission, so a plant can be infected by contaminated shears, razors, or even by rubbing against another plant in the grow. Currently, the most effective way to sterilize contaminated tools and surfaces is to use a 10% bleach solution for 60 seconds. Isopropyl alcohol, peroxides, chlorine dioxide, and other traditional disinfectants are largely ineffective; according to Dr. Tassa Saldi of TUMI Genomics, isopropyl alcohol actually helps the viroid infect plant tissue, and the viroid can withstand the heat of a blowtorch. 

To safeguard your business against HLVd and other plant pathogens a holistic approach is necessary. Proper quarantine and testing of incoming nursery stock, appropriate process controls for propagation and cultivation, and ongoing, preemptive testing of the crop are just a few of the requirements to maintain a healthy, disease-free grow. National Cannabis Risk Prevention Services can help your company identify and control major risks to your business, and our Academy can fill in employee knowledge gaps so that your business can not only succeed but thrive in this uncertain industry. Let NCRPS help you protect your business from HLVd and other preventable risks.

Product quality management is still an emerging field in cannabis production. This has mostly to do with federal prohibition, and partly because legalization and its attendant demand moved faster than research could be done. This has created a situation where many veteran operators do not fully understand the risks posed by microbial contaminants in cannabis production. This is risky for both operators and consumers. 

Growing clean cannabis requires a quality management approach that encompasses the entire production process. Just as the HVAC, lighting, and watering have to be in balance for the plants to grow well, quality management in cannabis requires an understanding of which parts of the process are most vulnerable to product contamination, and a coordinated effort by staff and leadership to ensure that appropriate process controls are maintained. To help companies accomplish this, we have developed two continuing education courses: Cannabis Contaminants and Cannabis Microbiology and Pathology. 

Cannabis Contaminants covers the four main types of contamination commonly found in cannabis–residual solvents, pesticide residues, heavy metals, and microbial contaminants–and how to prevent them from causing harm to your business and customers. Cannabis Microbiology and Pathology is an in-depth look at the risks posed to cannabis operations by microbes. At over 140 slides, this course is packed with information on the microbes associated with cannabis, and provides practical guidance on how to avoid major risk. 

Microbial contamination can destroy entire crops, cause batch failures and recalls, or cause serious health problems in both employees and consumers. Until there are uniform quality standards in the industry, the onus is on producers to safeguard their customers, employees, and businesses. Fortunately, NCRPS has a stepwise process to identify and control product risk across an entire vertically integrated cannabis operation. Product contamination doesn’t have to keep you up at night, we can help.

Before legalization, most cannabis breeding was done with very limited numbers of plants to select from, and almost entirely with the aim of increasing yield and THC content. For these reasons many alleles—or specific variants of a gene that code for different traits—were lost. Some of these alleles contributed to the plant’s ability to survive, and reintroducing them into modern strains could result in plants that are more productive, disease resistant, and stress tolerant.

Enter the Seed Enthusiast! Dedicated seed collectors have been putting away cannabis seeds for decades, and there are many important collections. Despite the value of these seeds to our industry, many people are too afraid to try to germinate old seeds for fear of destroying them. There is very little good data on the viability of cannabis seeds in storage, but there are corollaries in mainstream agriculture. A date palm was grown from seeds that were 2000 years old a few years back, and the seeds of many other plants have been extensively researched. I also know an orchid grower who germinated 35 year old cannabis seeds from Afghan cannabis with a 75% success rate just by planting them.

More study is needed to determine the optimal methods for germinating old cannabis seed so that we can restore vigor and variety to the sea of cannabis strains on the market. If we want better cannabis, we need better genetics. Keep saving those seeds, but I challenge the industry to start cautiously figuring out how to get these genes out of storage and into our crop, the future of cannabis depends on it.

Inefficiency is one of the biggest problems I see in the cannabis industry today. One major consequence of the rapid expansion of the cannabis industry is that companies had to scale so quickly to meet market demand that efficiency was often an afterthought. In the early days in Colorado vertical integration was a huge asset because it allowed companies to maximize their profit margin and grow quickly, essentially as fast as they could produce product and sell it. The need for warm bodies to expand the ranks of a business often outpaced the number of qualified candidates available, with long-lasting consequences to the organization.

As companies rapidly expanded, small inefficiencies were overlooked for the sake of progress--or due to lack of knowledge--and eventually these grew in magnitude and number. As basic best practices began to emerge, companies just entering the marketplace were able to draw on a more reliable knowledge base than those that entered the marketplace earlier and avoid some of the more costly mistakes. This, coupled with the leveling-off of demand, have created a situation where vertical integration is a liability if the company is inefficient. The same scale that allowed some companies to dominate the market early on has hamstrung some of these same companies as more agile producers gain competitive advantage.

The high market price of the early days allowed many companies to operate extremely inefficiently and still be profitable, but those days are over. In today’s more mature market the consumer is savvier, the competition is fiercer, and the regulations are tighter. The successful modern cannabis operator must make efficiency a priority from the start, and the way to do this is by developing a business framework that is based on established best practices rather than regulatory constraints. The real leaders emerging now are those that can accurately track cost, quality, and productivity across their organizations, allowing them to produce superior product while keeping costs to a minimum. This proactive approach allows companies the flexibility to allocate resources to new challenges as they arise, rather than face the business continuity issues and reallocation of resources that a more reactive approach creates.

In Colorado the wholesale price of cannabis has dropped below the cost of production for many operators, and these same operators are having to sell at a loss to move inventory and pay their costs, feeding the price collapse further. I have talked to multiple operators over the years who could not tell me what it cost them to produce a pound of cannabis. If an operator is already on the edge of profitability a sudden change in regulations, a product recall, or even a few batches that fail testing could put them under. The most important part of building any structure is the foundation, and NCRPS provides a complete framework for cannabis businesses that draws on the decades of experience we possess in the fields of risk management, cannabis R&D, large-scale cultivation, plant pathology, product safety, environmental site assessment, compliance, finance, and more.