Tag Archives: organization

How Effective is Your Internal Auditing Program?

By David Vaillencourt
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The word “audit” evokes various emotions depending on your role in an organization and the context of the audit. While most are familiar with and loathe the IRS’s potential for a tax audit, the audits we are going to discuss today are (or should be) welcomed – proactive internal quality audits. A softer term that is also acceptable is “self-assessment.” These are independent assessments conducted to determine how effective an organization’s risk management, processes and general governance is. 

“How do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been” – Maya Angelou

Internal quality audits are critical to ensuring the safety of products, workers, consumers and the environment. When planned and performed periodically, these audits provide credible, consistent and objective evidence to inform the organization of its risks, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. Ask yourself the question: do your clients/vendors rely on you to produce reliable, consistent and safe products? Assuming the answer is yes, what confidence do you have, and where is the documented evidence to support it?

Compliance units within cannabis businesses are typically responsible for ensuring a business stays legally compliant with state and federal regulations. This level of minimum compliance is critical to prevent fines and ensure licenses are not revoked. However, compliance audits rarely include fundamental components that leave cannabis operators exposed to many unnecessary risks.

Internal quality audits are critical to ensuring the safety of products, workers, consumers and the environment.

As a producer of medical and adult-use products that are ingested, inhaled or consumed in other forms by our friends, family and neighbors, how can you be sure that these products are produced safely and consistently? Are you confident that the legal requirements mandated by your state cannabis control board are sufficient? Judging by the number of recalls and frustrations voiced by the industry regarding the myriad of regulations, I would bet the answer is no.

What questions do internal audits address? Some examples include:

  • Are you operating as management intends?
  • How effective is your system in meeting specified objectives? These objectives could include quality metrics of your products, on-time delivery rates and other client/customer satisfaction metrics.
  • Are there opportunities to improve?
  • Are you doing what you say you do (in your SOPs), and do you have the recorded evidence (records) to prove it?
  • Are you meeting the requirements of all applicable government regulations?

There are potential drawbacks to internal audits. For one, as impartiality is essential in internal audits, it may be challenging to identify an impartial internal auditor in a small operation. If your team always feels like it is in firefighting mode, it may feel like a luxury to take the time to pull members out of their day-to-day duties and disrupt ongoing operations for an audit. Some fear that as internal assessments are meant to be more thorough than external assessments, a laundry list of to-do items may be uncovered due to the audit. But, these self-assessments often uncover issues that have resulted in operational efficiencies in the first place. This resulting “laundry list” then affords a proactive tool to implement corrective actions in an organized manner that can prevent the recurrence of major issues, as well as prevent new issues. The benefits of internal audits outweigh the drawbacks; not to mention, conducting internal audits is required by nearly every globally-recognized program, both voluntary (e.g. ISO 9001 or ASTM Internationals’s Cannabis Certification Program) and government required programs such as 21 CFR 211 for Pharmaceuticals.

Internal Auditing is a catalyst for improving an organization’s effectiveness and efficiency by providing insight and recommendations based on analyses and assessments of data and business processes. Additional benefits of internal audits include giving your organization the means to:

  • Ensure compliance to the requirements of internal, international and industry standards as well as regulations and customer requirements
  • Determine the effectiveness of the implemented system in meeting specified objectives (quality, environmental, financial)
  • Explore opportunities for improvement
  • Meet statutory and regulatory requirements
  • Provide feedback to Top Management
  • Lower the cost of poor quality

Findings from all audits must be addressed. This is typically done in accordance with a CAPA (Corrective Action Preventive Action) program. To many unfamiliar with Quality Management Systems, this may be a new term. As of Jan 1, 2021, this is now a requirement for all cannabis licensed operators in Colorado. Many other states require a CAPA program or similar. Continuing education units (CEUs) are available through ASTM International’s CAPA training program, which was developed specifically for the cannabis industry.

Examples of common audit findings that require CAPAs include:

  • Calibration – Production and test equipment must be calibrated to ensure they provide accurate and repeatable results.
  • Document and record control – Documents and records need to be readily accessible but protected from unintended use.
  • Supplier management – Most standards have various requirements for supplier management that may include auditing suppliers, monitoring supplier performance, only using suppliers certified to specific standards, etc.
  • Internal audits – Believe it or not, since internal audits are required by many programs, it’s not uncommon to have a finding related to internal audits! Findings from an internal audit can include not conducting audits on schedule, not addressing audit findings or not having a properly qualified internal auditor. Are you looking for more guidance? Last year, members of ASTM International’s D37 Committee on Cannabis approved a Standard Guide for Cannabis and Hemp Operation Compliance Audits, ASTM D8308-21.

If you are still on the fence about the value of an internal audit, given the option of an inspector uncovering a non-conformance or your own team discovering and then correcting it, which would you prefer? With fines easily exceeding $100,000 by many cannabis enforcement units, the answer should be clear. Internal audits are a valuable tool that should not be feared.

A Joint Problem: How Cannabis Testing Policies Affect Applicants’ Attraction Toward an Organization

By Prachi
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Employees with substance abuse issues could cause problems for their employers. Recent legalization of cannabis has prompted organization to re-evaluate their drug testing policies in anticipation of increased usage among employees and potential hires (Rotermann, 2020). Cannabis use has increased from 14.9% to 16.8% post-legalization in Canada. Policies that enable routine cannabis-testing of employees, though beneficial in some cases, might negatively affect the perceptions of individuals toward the organizations that hold these policies. Specifically, job applicants may perceive the administration of such policies as unfair. I investigated the influence of cannabis testing policy and its perceived fairness on job applicants’ perception of organizational attractiveness and their intention to apply to a job vacancy.

A recruitment notice was presented to potential participants, which included a link to the survey. After reading and signing the consent form, participants were randomly assigned one of the three drug testing conditions (severe, moderate, none). Severe drug testing policies include testing pre-employment, randomly during the employment period, and in response to suspicious behavior. Moderate drug testing policies include administering drug testing pre-employment and in cases of suspicion. None is the control (i.e., no testing policy in place). The corresponding vignette was presented, followed by the survey questionnaire (measures on organizational attractiveness, intention to apply, perceived fairness, and perceived stigma), demographic questions, and questions on cannabis usage.

Cannabis user’s perceived fairness of cannabis testing was higher within organizations with no compared to severe testing situations (Figure 1). However, for individuals who do not ingest cannabis, the perceived fairness was higher for organizations with severe compared to no cannabis testing policy. This suggests that cannabis users deem cannabis testing as unfair regardless of the type of policy. This supports previous research findings on recreational use of cannabis and job seekers’ perception of drug testing (Paronto et al., 2002). Based on Gilliland’s (1993) model of organizational justice and perceived fairness, there are 10 procedural rules categorized into three categories: formal characteristics of selection system, explanations offered during the selection process, and interpersonal treatments that help form the applicants’ perceived fairness. In the current study, the no-cannabis testing job advertisement was seen as valid (one of Gilliland’s procedural rules is selection information) and honest (one of Gilliland’s procedural rules is honesty) by the cannabis users; however, moderate and severe testing was not seen in the same light, which might explain why we see decreased perceived fairness for cannabis testing. Those two procedural rules violate reasonableness leading to decreased perception of organizational fairness among cannabis users for cannabis testing.

The current study also supported past research by confirming that the individuals who ingest cannabis demonstrated increased levels of organizational attractiveness and intention to apply to organizations that had none compared to severe cannabis testing policies. If the organization is testing for cannabis use pre-employment or randomly, in addition to post-accident/suspicious behavior (i.e., severe policy), cannabis users’ level of organization attractiveness and intention to apply is much lower. This could be due to the fact that cannabis has been legalized in Canada and 11 states in the US  (Leafly, 2020). Individuals might feel that severe testing is an invasion of their privacy given that they are not doing anything illegal. Furthermore, job applicants perceived drug-testing as harassment toward individuals and claimed it represents a repressive work environment. Given that, this feeling could prevent an applicant from applying or considering the available job.

Implications: This study has important implications for employers and organizations in general. Even though it is important to have cannabis testing policies in place, it is equally important to consider the impact of cannabis testing on the potential talent pool. Such perceptions of drug testing may lead talented applicants to self-select out of the job pool. This would lead to a decreased number of applicants for a job available to the employer. Therefore, knowing the attitudes and intentions of individuals who ingest cannabis toward moderate and severe testing policies will provide employers with solid research-based evidence from which to design programs and policies surrounding cannabis testing.

Logistics and Supply Chain Management in California

By Aaron G. Biros
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Just a couple weeks away, the California Cannabis Business Conference, taking place in Anaheim, CA October 22-23, will host a series of panel discussions where attendees can expect to learn from industry leaders on a variety of topics. As businesses in the state adjust to new regulations and the market matures, one particular topic seems to highlight a challenging new space: distribution.

Track 1 at the CA Cannabis Business Conference, Distribution, Retail and Delivery, will begin early afternoon on Monday at the show, where a panel discussion titled State of Cannabis Distribution: Scaling Cannabis Distribution and Expectations of a Distributor, will tackle a range of issues involving logistics and supply chain management in California’s cannabis industry.

Michael Wheeler, vice president of Policy Initiatives at Flow Kana, will host the panel, joined by Chris Coulombe, CEO of Pacific Expeditors, Jesse Parenti, programs director of Nine Point Strategies and Brian Roth, vice president of sales at KUDU Technologies. According to the agenda, the session will cover inventory management, shipping and transport, managing product data, order fulfillment, manifest creation and reporting on it all. Michael Wheeler says regulatory compliance is one issue they plan on discussing. “Currently the biggest pressure on compliance is the desire by some operators to live under the proposed regulations, instead of the current emergency regulations,” says Wheeler. “Add to this recently signed legislation and we have lots of opportunistic actions each with their own perception of compliance.”

Another important topic they plan on discussing is driver training and hiring practices. According to Chris Coulombe, drivers are one of the top two most important customer-facing teams in the organization. “Between the sales team and the fleet operation, drivers represent half of the face of your company,” says Coulombe. “Much like the sales team, they interface with your retail partners directly, and subsequently provide a sizable portion of the foundation that retailers will use to judge your company’s competency and efficiency.”

Chris Coulombe, CEO of Pacific Expeditors
Chris Coulombe, CEO of Pacific Expeditors

When hiring new drivers, Coulombe recommends the standard background and driver record checks, but urges looking for experience in sales and driving as well. “Find those that have leadership experience and are comfortable operating in quasi-structured environments,” says Coulombe. “To that end, we seek solution oriented candidates that are personable, experienced in troubleshooting on their feet, and understand how to operate inside the structure of an organization.”

Coulombe also emphasizes the importance of driver training in any distribution company. “We built our driver training from scratch based on collective experiences from the military,” says Coulombe. “However, creating this from scratch is not necessary at this point, some insurance companies, such as our broker, Vantreo, provide in house driver training and certification solutions as a risk mitigation measure for companies that they represent. We recommend speaking with your insurance company to find what packages they have available.” Proper training for your drivers can help increase efficiency in operations, decrease maintenance and insurance costs and provide for better employee engagement. Coulombe also says many insurance companies have standard operating procedures for drivers to help supplement your company’s protocols.

Chris Coulombe and the other panelists will dive much deeper into this issue and other supply chain topics at the upcoming California Cannabis Business Conference, taking place in Anaheim, CA October 22-23.

Ellice Ogle headshot

Concentrate On a Food Safety Culture In Your Workplace

By Ellice Ogle
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Ellice Ogle headshot

In A Culture of Food Safety: A Position Paper (2018), the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) defines food safety culture as the “shared values, beliefs, and norms that affect mind-set and behavior toward food safety in, across, and throughout an organization.” In other words, food safety culture in your workplace is the “this is how we do things around here.”

A food safety culture needs to be relentlessly communicated – everyone needs to know it is his or her job, not just a dusty slogan on the wall or a whisper down the halls.Building a strong food safety culture is particularly relevant to the cannabis workplace because of the unique history of the workers and the unique needs of the consumers. The cannabis industry is special in that it was an industry before it became regulated. As such, there are many workers in the industry who have a deep passion for cannabis products, but with experience rooted in working within only a few official standards. Thus, the behavior and mind-set of workers in the cannabis industry must adjust to new regulations. However, even currently, standards are ever changing and vary from state to state; this causes further confusion and inconsistency for you and your workers. On top of that, now that cannabis is legalized in certain pockets, cannabis reaches a larger, wider audience. This population includes consumers most vulnerable to foodborne illness such as people with immunocompromised systems, the elderly, the pregnant or the young. These consumers in particular need and deserve access to safe cannabis products every experience. Therefore, it is that much more important to develop a strong food safety culture in the workplace to promote safe, quality cannabis large-scale production for the larger, wider audience.

To achieve a food safety culture, GFSI emphasizes the vision and mission of the business, the role of the leaders in the organization, and the continuity of communication and training. GFSI also emphasizes that these components are interrelated and all are needed to strengthen a food safety culture. Food safety culture components can be simplified into: 1) things you believe, 2) things you say, and 3) things you do.“this is how we do things around here.”

Things You Believe

Food safety culture starts from the top, with the executive team and senior managers. It is this group that dictates the vision and mission of the business and decides to include food safety and quality as a part of this guiding star. Moreover, it is this group that commits to the support for food safety by investing the time, money and resources. The message then has to spread from the executive team and senior managers to an interdepartmental team within the workplace. That way, the values of food safety can be further shared to front-line workers during onboarding and/or continuous training. To restart a food safety culture, a town hall can be a useful tool to discuss priorities in the workplace. Overall, it is important to have every worker believe in producing safe food and that every worker is a part of and has ownership of contributing to the food safety culture at your workplace (GFSI, 2018).

Things You Say

A food safety culture needs to be relentlessly communicated – everyone needs to know it is his or her job, not just a dusty slogan on the wall or a whisper down the halls. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a saying that “if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.” Thus, the guidelines for a food safety culture need to be embedded in the policies, programs and procedures; and these guidelines need to be a part of training from day one and supplemented with periodic reminders. For effectiveness, make the communication engaging, relevant and simple – use your workers to pose for posters, use digital tools such as memes. In his presentation at the 2015 Food Safety Consortium, Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety at Walmart, says “How many of you created training videos that you show the desired behavior once? You should probably show the behavior more than once and by a few different employees so that when they see it, they see multiple people in the video doing it and that’s the social norm.” By sending a consistent message, a food safety culture can flourish in your workplace.A food safety culture does not happen once; a food safety culture is a long-term commitment with continuous improvement.

Things You Do

A food safety culture does not happen once; a food safety culture is a long-term commitment with continuous improvement. Periodic evaluation of food safety metrics and alignment with business goals contribute to maintaining a food safety culture – it is useful to learn from successes as well as mistakes. In the same presentation mentioned above, Yiannas discusses “Learning from the wrong way [mistakes] lessens the likelihood that we will become complacent” where he defines complacency as “a feeling of quiet security, often while unaware of some potential danger or defect that lurks ahead.” Without the constant commitment, businesses can falter in their food safety and cause costly mistakes – whether that be recalls or illnesses or worse. By not becoming complacent and emphasizing constant accountability, a food safety culture can thrive at your workplace and make your workplace thrive.

With the regulated cannabis industry still in its infancy, the time is now for every cannabis workplace to instill a food safety culture. Before being mandated, the cannabis industry can rally for food safety because it is the right thing to do. With participation from each workplace, the industry as a whole can be united in producing safe product and be better positioned to change stigmas.

NCIA Federal Policy Update: Q&A with Aaron Smith

By Aaron G. Biros
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The Justice Department rescinding the Cole Memo, the Omnibus bill including Leahy Amendment protections, a host of potential bills for federal cannabis policy change: a lot has been happening in Washington D.C. recently with respect to cannabis business. With the National Cannabis Industry Association’s (NCIA) Cannabis Business Summit in San Jose fast approaching, as well as the 8th Annual Cannabis Industry Lobby Days, we thought it would be a good time to hear what NCIA has been up to recently.

We sat down with Aaron Smith, co-founder and executive director of NCIA, to learn what the organization is working on right now and how we might be able to make some real federal policy changes for cannabis.

Aaron Smith, executive director of NCIA

CannabisIndustryJournal: With the Department of Justice rescinding the Cole Memo, working as a group to tackle federal policy reform is now more important than ever. Can you give us a 30,000-foot view of what NCIA is doing right now to help us work together as a group and affect policy change?

Aaron Smith: So our team in D.C. consists of three full-time staff members as well as lobbying consultants, who have been really focused on the appropriations process, which is the way we’ve been able to affect change in such a dysfunctional congress by affecting the budget and restricting law enforcement activities. The medical marijuana protections, formerly known as the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment, [and now known as the Leahy Amendment] prevent the Department of Justice from using funds to prosecute state-legal medical marijuana businesses and patients. Going into the fiscal year, thankfully after a lot of hard work, we were able to include protections for medical marijuana, which just happened last week. Now we are really focused on the next year’s fiscal budget, working to hopefully expand those protections to cover all state-legal marijuana activity so the Department of Justice cannot go after all state-legal cannabis businesses, including those businesses in the recreational cannabis industry, which is certainly one of our priorities right now. As Congress starts to transition into fiscal year 2019 appropriations, the D.C. team is working with Capitol Hill staff and other cannabis groups in D.C. to ensure an organized, uniformed strategy through the appropriations process.

CIJ: What are some other priorities for NCIA in the House and Senate right now? What is NCIA focusing its resources on?

Smith: Another big issue for us is the 280E section of tax code, which prevents legal cannabis businesses from deducting normal business expenses. A lot of these businesses face upwards of a 70 percent effective tax rate. Working with our champions in Congress, we are working on reforms to 280E so we can make normal deductions and be treated fairly, just like any other legal business. The Small Business Tax Equity Act of 2017 addresses this issue and has bipartisan support in the House and the Senate right now, and we are working to build more support for that. This bill currently has 43 cosponsors in the House.

The other big issue for us right now is banking reform, which is a very high priority for NCIA as it affects most of our members. The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act of 2017 provides a “safe harbor” and additional protections for depository institutions who provide “financial product or service” to a covered business. This bill currently has 89 cosponsors in the House. NCIA’s D.C. team and lobbying consultants continue to push for cosponsors and support on these important bills.

CIJ: I saw that the Omnibus spending package includes Leahy Amendment protections for cannabis businesses through September. Would you consider that a win in your book? How are you working to maybe extend those protections?

Smith: It was a big win for us. It doesn’t always seem like it because it is really just maintaining the status quo, but we are up against an Attorney General lobbying congress to strip those protections and the house didn’t allow us to vote on it. But by including the Leahy Amendment in the budget we are not only protecting medical marijuana patients and businesses, but we sent a clear signal to Congress that the intention is not to go backwards. We have been playing some defense recently given the current administration’s policies. But we are working with our allies in congress to negotiate those protections for recreational businesses as well. Negotiations for that are just getting started now.

The fiscal year ends September 30th so the protections are in place for now, but Congress needs to pass another budget for the next fiscal year with those protections included. It’s hard to say when the vote will be, because they haven’t been passing budgets in a timely manner, but usually it’s in May or June, right around our Lobby Days. This is what we are focused on now, getting as many of these cannabis businesses and NCIA members out there to really show Congress what the legal industry looks like.

CIJ: NCIA is hosting the 8th Annual Cannabis Industry Lobby Days a little more than a month from now; do you have any goals for that event? Is there anything in particular you hope to accomplish there? How can cannabis businesses get involved?

Smith: The primary purpose of Lobby Days is to show members of Congress and their staff (many of whom have never had exposure to cannabis businesses) what a responsible industry really looks like. And it lets business owners come tell Congress how current policies and laws are affecting their business. It is great for the cause and helps change minds in DC.

Last year, we came out of Lobby Days with several new co-sponsors of cannabis legislation and we hope to get that again this year. It is a great opportunity to connect and network as well; some of the top people in the industry will be there.

Designing Your Continuing Cannabis Education Program

By RJ Starr
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As many states’ medical cannabis programs are already in full swing and several are launching or nearing their one-year or biennial maturation periods, medical cannabis dispensaries and cannabis cultivation and processing facilities should be fine-tuning their Continuing Cannabis Education Program, or CCEP, and be ready for inspection by state agencies.

While states with medical cannabis programs administer them through various agencies such as Department of Medicine/Health, Department of Pharmacy, Department of Commerce, Alcoholic Beverage Control, each has their own minimum requirements for continuing education in the medical cannabis space, and each structures their program in the direction within which that particular regulatory agency leans. Each state’s personality also brings an influential component as well; for example, a state with a highly visible opioid crisis may place greater emphasis on substance abuse training.

Suffice it to say that while there is certainly insight to be gained from knowing your particular state, there are certain elements of an ongoing professional development program that should be considered in each CCEP. This article will explore a few of the elements integral to any successful human capital and professional development plan from a vantage of compliance, and will offer some insight into the exceptional training methodology designed by Midwest Compassion Center and Bloom Medicinals.

There are a number of key considerations in developing a Continuing Cannabis Education Program, and a thoughtful CCEP should be developed specifically to meet the needs of both the organization and its employees. This can be done by a needs assessment consisting of three levels: organizational, occupational, and individual assessments.

  1. Needs assessment and learning objectives. This part of the framework development asks you to consider what kind of training is needed in your organization. Once you have determined the training needed, you can set learning objectives to measure at the end of the training.
    1. Organizational assessment. In this type of needs assessment, we can determine the skills, knowledge and abilities our cannabis dispensaries need in order to meet their strategic objectives. This type of assessment considers things such as changing laws, demographics and technology trends. Overall, this type of assessment looks at how the organization as a whole can handle its weaknesses while promoting strengths.
    2. Occupational (task) assessment. This type of assessment looks at the specific tasks, skills, knowledge and abilities required of our employees to do the jobs necessary within our dispensaries.
    3. Individual assessment. An individual assessment looks at the performance of an individual employee and determines what training should be accomplished for that individual.
  2. Consideration of learning styles. Making sure to teach to a variety of learning styles is important to development of training programs.
  3. Delivery mode. What is the best way to get your message across? Is classroom or web-based training more appropriate, or should one-on-one mentoring be used? Successful training programs should incorporate a variety of delivery methods.
  4. How much money do you have to spend on this training? This does not only include the cost of materials, but the cost of time. Consideration should also be given to the costs associated with not investing in training: CFO asks CEO, “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?” CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”
  5. Delivery style. Will the training be self-paced or instructor led? What kinds of discussions and interactions can be developed in conjunction with this training? The delivery style must take into account people’s individual learning styles. A balance of lectures, discussions, role-playing, and activities that solidify concepts are considered part of delivery style.
  6. Audience. Who will be part of this training? Do you have a mix of roles, such as accounting people and marketing people? What are the job responsibilities of these individuals, and how can you make the training relevant to their individual jobs? The audience for the training is an important aspect when developing your CCEP. This can allow the training to be better developed to meet the needs and the skills of a particular group of people.
  7. Content. What needs to be taught? How will you sequence the information? The content obviously is an important consideration. Learning objectives and goals for the training should be established and articulated before content is developed.
  8. Timelines. How long will it take to develop the training? Is there a deadline for training to be completed, and if so, what risk analysis can be used to determine the consequences of not meeting that deadline? After content is developed, understanding time constraints is an important aspect. Will the training take one hour or a day to deliver? What is the timeline consideration in terms of when people should take the training?
  9. Communication. How will employees know the training is available to them? Letting people know when and where the training will take place is part of communication.
  10. Measuring effectiveness. How will you know if your training worked? What ways will you use to measure this? The final aspect of developing a training framework is to consider how it will be measured. At the end, how will you know if the trainees learned what they needed to learn?

A thorough review of your state’s rules and regulations should take place quarterly, with one or more specific employees designated to stay abreast of changes. If your regulatory authority has implemented requirements that trainings must be approved in advance, know that as well, and keep your Continuous Cannabis Education Program up-to-date and ready for inspection.

CWCBExpo Removes Roger Stone From Keynote

By Aaron G. Biros
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Last week, the Cannabis World Congress & Business Expositions announced they have removed Roger Stone from their conference’s keynote talk. The news follows a month-long boycott led by a group of women with the #DisownStone campaign, exhibitors, activists and the Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA), among other organizations.

According to the press release, conference organizers met with a number of people and organizations to discuss inclusivity and made the decision to oust Stone, citing the distraction his keynote was causing. “Following collaborative discussions with numerous partners, participants, and interested parties who support the legalization of cannabis in an inclusive manner, Cannabis World Congress & Business Expositions, (CWCBExpo) is announcing that Roger Stone will no longer be featured as a keynote speaker at the upcoming CWCBExpo events in Los Angeles and Boston,” reads the press release. “The forums created by CWCBExpo are crucial to the growth and legalization of the cannabis industry and they supersede the distractions that have surrounded the events.”

When the Minority Cannabis Business Association announced they would boycott the conference unless Stone was removed, support poured in from throughout the cannabis industry and a Change.org petition was created. Shortly after, we published an op-ed in support of the MCBA and their boycott. The boycott received national attention from major news outlets across the country. New Frontier Data, prominent cannabis law firm Greenspoon Marder, Denver Relief Consulting, Cannabis Industry Journal and Dope Media are among the signatories on that petition.

The petition reached 750 signatures in just two weeks and now has 840 signatures. That petition launched the #DisownStone campaign, which was ultimately successful in their mission. According to a statement put out by the #DisownStone campaign, the movement was led Amanda Reiman, Betty Aldworth, Bonita Money, Lauren Padgett, Leah Heise, Tiffany Bowden and Wanda James. It quickly garnered support from organizations involved in the conference. 20 speakers and 11 sponsors and partners signed the petition.

The Facebook post from MCBA where they announced the boycott

The #DisownStone statement praises the CWCBExpo for their decision to remove Stone. “We applaud the leadership at the Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo for their decision to remove Roger Stone from the keynote slot at CWCBExpo in Los Angeles and Boston,” reads the statement. “In choosing to release Roger Stone and to remove the employee that displayed egregious and reprehensible behavior towards members of the industry, the CWCBExpo set an example for the industry to follow. We understand that this decision was a difficult one and respect that the conference chose this route.”

The campaign ended their statement with a forward-looking sentiment, vowing to fight racism in the cannabis industry. “We will continue to denounce racism whenever we see it in the cannabis industry and elsewhere, and look forward to the day when no person can be arrested and jailed for using cannabis,” reads their statement. “We are excited to attend CWCBExpo and continue the conversation in person with their leadership and with attendees.” The campaign is hosting a #DisownStone after party at the LA event to celebrate their victory on September 14th.

Stone told LA Weekly that he plans on suing the conference organizers for $1 million. “The expo is in breach of contract,” Stone told LA Weekly. “I will be suing them for $1 million. I will not be deterred from my efforts to persuade the president to preserve access to legal medicinal marijuana consistent with his pledge to the American people.”

In an email to LA Weekly, Jesce Horton, chair of the board at MCBA, told reporters he is now willing to work with the conference organizers, given their decision to remove Stone. “Roger Stone’s deplorable rhetoric was just a piece of our inability to be involved,” Horton told LA Weekly. “More important is his history of advocating for regulations that work directly against an industry inclusive to small businesses and minority entrepreneurs. I look forward to working with CWCBE and support their decision to stand with us.”

ASTM International and American Herbal Products Association Announce Partnership

By Aaron G. Biros
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According to a press release sent out on June 8th, ASTM International and the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) announced a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on cannabis standards. The press release says that ASTM International will coordinate the work to develop the standards with all stakeholders involved and AHPA will make technical contributions and regulatory recommendations. AHPA will get recognized for their contributions per the license agreement. ASTM International is a standards development organization that develops voluntary consensus-based standards for industries.

This announcement precedes the first committee meetings for the development of cannabis standards, which began Sunday, June 11th and continue through June 12th. That committee group has now grown to roughly 200 members, including businesses, laboratories, associations, governments and more. “Many of our stakeholders – manufacturers, dispensaries, labs, consultants, and others – have laid the groundwork for guidance on the safe use and legal commerce of cannabis,” says Jane Wilson, director of program development at AHPA. “We are thrilled to now be contributing to standards development through one of the world’s top standards organizations.”

Ralph Paroli, Ph.D., the committee’s new chairman and the director of R&D in measurement science and standards at the National Research Council of Canada, says AHPA is a key organization in providing expertise on cannabis standards. “AHPA’s support for this new committee will help expedite international standards development, identify gaps, prevent duplicative efforts, and more,” says Paroli. The cannabis standards committee, officially designated D37, was formed on March 1st.

Soapbox

When the Company’s Revenue Drops, Who’s to Blame?

By Dr. Ginette M. Collazo
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The ultimate goal of any business is to produce and generate revenue. Now, when the company’s revenues drop, who’s fault is it? This question, though silent, is in the minds of everyone in an organization, especially when things start to become difficult.

Working as a consultant in productivity with different industries around the world, I have come to realize that question is not openly discussed, but everyone wants to know the answer. To answer it, we will explore the most common areas of opportunity related to this problem.

When we talk about productivity, we are talking about final tangible results, because of the production process and the effort made by each one; when speaking of income, we are talking about the difference between the purchase price and the cost of entering the market. Seeing these definitions, we might conclude that the increase in income is directly related to the increase in productivity.

On the other hand, we must not lose perspective that the increase in productivity is also directly related to the decrease of losses.

First, we have to put into perspective the goals and objectives that a business or organization may have. Many companies go on believing that everyone is clear about the goals and organizational objectives and what is expected in each one of those roles that compose the organization. The reality is that, if we do not know where we are going, the chances of reaching the goal decrease.

When organization’s objectives are properly communicated, and documented, in such a way that the evaluation of the performance is directly linked to the expected results, the chances of success increase substantially.

On many occasions, I have heard phrases such as: “we work hard, we spend many hours, all sacrifice ourselves… we should be more successful”. The question then is: what are we encouraging, efforts or results?

It is hard for organizations to translate or differentiate between organizational goals and individual objectives (expected results) for each of those roles in the company. We all agree that we want to be the first in sales, the best in service and produce the highest quality, but how is that done?

To be the first in sales, what do I have to do as a seller? Get three customers in a three-month period? As secretary, process the orders in the first three days of receiving them? As a carrier, suggest three ideas be more useful in daily deliveries? How does that translate into individual performance?

We focus too much on telling people what they must do, but we forget to be clear on what we expect them to achieve. Hence, the effort versus result dissonance. The success of an organization is the collective behavior that arises from the conduct of individuals. If we align people, we align the organization.

Other elements that we must ponder, and that are directly related to productivity, are: how much of what we do holds value? How much of what we do does not have value? Moreover, how much of what we do, though it has great value, shall be performed by the requirements of law or regulation?

An analysis of productivity is critical, particularly in a time when we want to do more with less. Lately, an area of great success for many organizations is to streamline processes to make them more simple, efficient and with less risk of error. Human errors generated many losses. Defects, the re-process, the handling of complaints and lawsuits are costing companies money equivalent to the salary of 7,200 employees every day (according to statistics in the United States).

Human errors can be avoided. The idea that to err is human has led us to ignore this problem. We think that we can do nothing and lose an infinite number of opportunities for improvement that can help us to increase our income, reducing losses.

Only 16% of organizations measure the cost of human error. The remaining 84% do not measure it and are paying a high price without knowing it. In Puerto Rico, there are no statistics that could shed light on how many local companies lose because of human error, but it is very likely that the numbers are alarming. Human error can be reduced by 60% in less than a year when an intervention is done on systems. Approximately 95% of human errors are due to the design of the company’s systems, and they can be the simplest errors even in the most complex processes.

Today, we have more information, and we know that errors are symptoms of deeper problems in the processes created by the organizations. People play a crucial role regarding how robust methods are, but, we must not lose perspective that human beings operate according to the policies, procedures, and instructions which the same organization designs. Then, if people work according to the designs of the organization, is it not easier to modify designs than eliminating people?

So, who’s fault? Organizations are responsible for providing clear guidance to individuals in the right direction, and individuals have the responsibility of translating their efforts into results. Both have to work with the same objective in mind, and both employers and employees should communicate openly about these objectives. Only by working in partnership will achieve success. Forget who is to blame and focus on the processes and goals that help us be successful.