2022 Preview: What to watch for in DC and Key Markets

All right, the attendee room is filling up. Let's give it some time. Yep. Okay. All right. It is the top of the hour, and let's get this thing going. So welcome, everybody, to Cannabisness Key. I'm your host, Jason Klein. I'm a principal attorney in the cannabis practice group of Ramone Law. Uh, as many of you know who've joined us on this webinar series in the past, this is an educational webinar series, uh, that focuses and highlights on thought leaders in the cannabis space. Uh, we're here to provide you with an educational opportunity to learn about some good, important information related to your cannabis business or your investment in the cannabis space. We've got a great guest today in Steve Hawkins. He's the CEO of the US Cannabis Council. And we're going to be talking about legislative development, sort of what happened or didn't happen in 2021 and what to look forward to primarily on the federal level. We might touch on a little bit of state issues. As well, um, you know, for, for what to look forward to in 2022. He is certainly, uh, one of the, um, the most clued-in guys on, uh, this topic. So we're gonna have an opportunity to ask him questions, uh, to pick his brain a little bit and find out, um, you know, what he sees coming down the path for the next year. So we're really happy you've joined us here. I'll give you a little orientation around the Zoom platform here, if you're not familiar. We want to make this interactive and we want you to be able to ask Steve your questions and we want Steve to be able to sort of answer them as directly as possible. So what we'd like you to do is use that chat feature and/or the Q&A feature on your toolbar there and type in your questions. You can type them in just so the panelists can see them or you can type them in so everybody can see them. But regardless, we'll be monitoring them and we will be— I'll be sort of fielding them for Steve or, you know, tossing them over to Steve so he can answer them. So go ahead and, you know, start typing them in. Type them in throughout the presentation, throughout the discussion. We want to, you know, have this be interactive, as I said, and give you an opportunity. We'll also share Steve's contact information so you can reach out to him and the folks over at the US Cannabis Council after this event, if you'd like to get in touch. Just before we begin, I'd like to announce we've got— we're going to continue the 6th year of the Cannabis News Key Series in January of 2022. It's going to be on the 21st of January, Friday. At noon Eastern time as usual. We'll have a great lineup for 2022. We're going to focus on key personalities in cannabis industry and big businesses starting in the first quarter of 2022. So should have some really interesting interviews to bring in. You know, stay informed by going over to Cannabis Business Executives, CBE, which always cross-promotes our webinar series. And, you know, you can stay on our, on our email listserv. If you're not on that, just go ahead and shoot me your email and make sure that you get all the announcements and updates. Okay, so with that, I'd like to start our conversation with Steve Hawkins. So I'm sure If you're on this webinar as an attendee, you've heard of Steve or seen Steve speak before. He is the CEO of the US Cannabis Council and until very recently was Executive Director of MPP, the Marijuana Policy Project. US Cannabis Council is a first of its kind strategic alliance that combines the collective resources of leading cannabis companies and prominent advocate advocacy organizations to speak in one voice and end federal cannabis prohibition. Uh, until recently, Steve was the executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. That's a leading national organization that advances legalization for cannabis and adult use, particularly does great work on the state level. Steve began his career as a civil rights attorney and has served in national leadership roles in a bunch of different organizations that advance civil and human rights and criminal justice reform. He was previously Executive Vice President at the NAACP, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, and President for the Coalition of Public Safety and Executive Director at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. So he's a graduate of Harvard College and NYU School of Law. So, Steve, thank you so much for joining me today.

Well, thanks for having me, Jason, and congratulations on the upcoming anniversary of the show.

Thank you very much. I do appreciate that. Steve, you are in San Francisco now at a conference, so we really appreciate your time. Maybe you can just give us a little background on, you know, yourself, the US Cannabis Council, where you've been in 2020, won, and, uh, in, and, uh, you know, where we stand now at the end of, at the end of the year, looking at, uh, coming up on midterm elections in the end of next year.

Sure. So, uh, as, as you pointed out in my, uh, introduction, I've been in, uh, leading organizations and working on advocacy for the better part of 30 years. And what excites me about cannabis is this incredible change that we've seen, Jason, in, in a short period of time, right? From when California first legalized for medical in '95 to Colorado legalizing for adult use through the ballot initiative in 2012, just the incredible growth of not only the industry but the shift in public opinion. And that is showing itself now in Congress. I think Congress has gotten to the point in, in leadership, as well as in the rank and file, that the cannabis legalization is ultimately inevitable. It will take us a, you know, a short time to get there, but that certainly is the track that we're on. We've seen a lot of bills introduced in this session of Congress. I'm sure we'll get into many of them. So, so that really is, is what brought the US Cannabis Council into existence. You know, several of the leading companies in the country, leading advocacy organizations like the Marijuana Policy Project, Cannabis Veterans Project, some of the trade groups all came together realizing that this was a moment that we could not let pass and that only with collective action are we going to see the change that we hope to have in Congress. No one can afford to, I think, see this as a spectator sport. We are fighting for an industry against a lot of, you know, barriers that I know we'll get into some of those barriers. But I certainly encourage anybody listening to consider joining the US Cannabis Council. Bring your company under, under the tent because no one company has the resources to do it alone. And we're only going to see the change that we all want in Congress if we all come together and collectively put in the resources to make it happen.

Love your optimism, Steve. I too believe that cannabis prohibition will end, hopefully sooner rather than later. But I guess sort of from the highest level, it seems like to me that there's a bit of a tension whether it's going to end slowly or whether it's going to end all at once, right? Or with a big bang. Will it be incremental or will it be big substantial leaps? And some of these bills we're going to talk about today may sort of bring different approaches to how to tackle that. Maybe on the highest level, what's your thinking? Is it going to be something that's going to take longer to do, but when it does happen will be a big leap? Or do you think it will be smaller incremental steps along the way?

Sure. In my time working in Congress on a range of advocacy issues, it rarely happens that Congress passes something all at once. Right. And we have to be prepared and strategic, I think, to recognize that we're going to see change come in a couple of pieces. But having said that, you know, Jason, at the end of the day, this is three-dimensional chess, right? And we certainly want to always be supportive of larger reform efforts. And there are some bills on the table, both— on both sides of the aisle that offer that opportunity. But we also have to be thinking very strategically about what is possible in this session of Congress and to make sure that we leave this session of Congress with a victory. And, you know, we certainly have an opportunity to see some substantial reform for the industry in this session.

It certainly does seem like things are lining up in a way that we it's going to make this session very interesting because we've got a few different bills to talk about. And I think we're going to— let's jump right into a few of them. In fact, why don't we start here? We've done this before with some of the attendees who may have been on a webinar in the past. We've got a few polls, and maybe the best place to start would take a little temperature of about what your— you, the attendee watching at home. Let's see, let's launch this poll. What your legislative priority is for 2022. So maybe you've heard of some of these bills, the CAO, Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, Safe Banking Act. Most people probably have heard of that. That's been around for a while. The MORE Act, you may have heard of that one too. 280E reform, which is, you know, the tax law and the States Reform Act, which you may have heard of before. Go ahead and click on an answer there so we can get a sense of what you at home may be interested in talking about. I'll keep it up for a few more seconds here and get a few more responses. Okay. Oh, wait, we've got a budget— we've got a bit of a confusion on this poll. It looks like there's a mismatch between the question and the title, but regardless, all right, we're going to end the poll. We've got, Steve, we've got pretty much everybody here. Two-thirds of the respondents answered Safe Banking Act. And then the other respondents split between the CAO and the MORE Act. So certainly people are interested, I think, mostly in the Safe Banking Act, and they've heard about safe banking for a couple of years now. That seems to be something that's had momentum in Congress. It's got a lot of sponsors. Maybe you can just describe for us a little bit about what safe banking does and what its prospects are for moving forward in 2022.

Sure. So, you know, in essence, what the SAFE Banking Act would do is make financial services, banking services available to the cannabis industry. It would certainly have a transformative change for for many companies, but particularly smaller ones that lack the, you know, the capacity to access banking. We know that there's also safety concerns. Many dispensaries have been robbed and targeted around the country. But here's what is so helpful about safe banking. Enjoys tremendous bipartisan support. And I know some people may be wondering, well, if it has such support, how come it has stalled? You know, what we're seeing in Congress is a tension between wanting to see some more comprehensive legislation. That's what Senator Schumer has been pushing through the CAO Act. Which itself is still, Jason, has not fully been revealed, and maybe we will see that in January or February. It's still in draft form. But I am hopeful that when the smoke clears, we are going to see a safe move. I think if it came to the Senate floor tomorrow, it would pass, and it certainly has passed 5 times now in the House. There was recently an effort to connect the safe banking bill to the National Defense Authorization Act. It was going to be a hard effort. They tend to strip out a lot of anything that there isn't complete agreement on, but we generated a lot of, a lot of support. We had 5 senators from the Senate Armed Services Committee all leaning in and saying, look, we see this as an important measure. And so, you know, SAFE just has this incredible support, and I am very optimistic that we can get it over the finish line next year and certainly before the end of the congressional session.

Yeah, you know, I think when we talk about financial services and banking, people often think about big business, you know, banks, right?

Right, right.

You know, and lenders, you know, and and sort of, you know, the elite in the financial sector. But I think, you know, from my perspective, safe banking is also very much about individual operators, you know, down to the individuals who work in dispensaries, and particularly because we know how dangerous, you know, the way that cannabis businesses are sometimes operating can be, right? And, and we've made great improvements through the years. Okay. So it's not as common to have as much cash laying around because there is some banking access, um, you know, and, and there, it's not as common to have, have the type of, um, you know, dangerous situations to put your employees in, uh, as it was maybe 5 or 6 or 8 years ago. But still, uh, you know, having Access to banks and to traditional banking services is to me an important component of building an inclusive industry that serves and protects everybody all the way down to the patients and the customers. So just my two cents on that. I mean, I'm not sure if you've got some further thoughts you want to add along those lines.

Well, I think you're right. I mean, I think for certainly for some, many of the larger businesses, you know, they have secured, you know, decent banking services, but who really suffers is the smaller operators. We did a panel with several, operators from communities of color and talking about either being robbed at gunpoint several times, a smaller business operator having to drive 2 hours to deposit money and, you know, and wanting to take advantage of the bigger— the opportunities to secure a an adult use license in New Jersey, but then having to think about how that would— just the feasibility, the logistics of getting to the bank. So I think we've done a really good job of reframing the message in Congress that this is not just about, you know, big banks and big business, but that this is really about the the capacity for this to be an inclusive industry that, that, uh, that makes it possible for people of color, women operators, small mom-and-pop shops to survive and be able to have a stakehold. So, um, so that debate moves forward in our Congress, and, and I think we have a really good chance of seeing SAFE pass.

Well, you know, connected to that, and, um, people may not have heard of this one, sort of a little lesser known, the HOPE Act, which was recently introduced. And that's an interesting one. But I've heard you say elsewhere that you think it, it may be that the Safe Banking and HOPE Act sort of move together, or more specifically, that this HOPE Act is the supplement to Safe Banking that, that sort of gets them both over the finish line. And it seems to me— well, first of all, a couple of interesting things about the HOPE Act. It's got bipartisan sponsorship right off the bat. It's been introduced by Joyce and AOC together. Okay. And there does seem to be some thought process that there are there are some pieces in the HOPE Act that people find to be missing in safe banking. So maybe you can just talk a little bit for a few moments about the HOPE Act and whether you think that's something that sort of can be that push to get safe banking over.

Yeah. So for, you know, for the folks listening, the tension that we've been struggling with in Congress is that that Senator Schumer, as well as Senator Booker, have been saying, look, we're not going to move banking because there's no equity there. It's not addressing the harms that have been done to communities of color and other impacted communities on— can't be because of cannabis prohibition. I frankly disagree. I think that The SAFE bill has equity in it because it makes it possible for those same communities, the operators in those communities, to be able to have banking services and the potential to get loans and grow their businesses. But putting that aside, the fact that AOC, one of the most progressive members of Congress, has teamed up with a David Joyce, a member of the Republican Party who's been exceptionally good on cannabis reform over the years. The fact that they have come together to put on the table the HOPE Act. And here's what the HOPE Act does. It provides money to the states to make possible expungement and to make it, to streamline it, to make resources available for those states that are moving forward with expunging records. And there are many states that are doing that and could certainly use an injection of resources from, from the federal government. So it's a solid bill. And I think, Jason, we will see, I that bill move over to the Senate. There may be a companion bill brought forward in the Senate, but that's, but that's an example of how I think where we're going to see cannabis reform move forward. We're going to see, you know, banking matched with expungement. My hope is that we see both of those bills pass together in, in the next session of Congress. I think it's quite possible. I think we would see support for expungement in the Senate from a range of senators, some of whom I worked with around criminal justice reform. So someone like Mike Lee, Chuck Grassley, they're not going to be— they're not going to stand in the way of seeing records expunged. They were champions on the First Step Act with Cory Booker. So I'm really excited about that, that development and what it does, Jason, it opens the space to say this shouldn't be like an either/or, like an all or nothing proposition. We can move forward key parts of equity and everybody realizes that people have had their lives ruined with these former cannabis convictions and those records need to be expunged. We can do that and move forward with safe banking. And I think if we get both of those done in this Congress, it will be hugely successful. And it's certainly where the priorities of the US Cannabis Council will be lying. You know, we will continue to certainly support efforts around comprehensive reform, but but the priority will be to see both of those bills get passed.

That's great, that's great, that's great stuff. I want to remind everybody, oh, we're sort of about halfway through here on our time. If you could just sort of pop in your questions into the chat or the Q&A, we can lob them over to Steve as we continue to go. I've got another poll here on safe banking, so I'm going to launch this one up just since we We're just talking about it. So what does our audience think? Should we pass safe banking now or should we be holding out for something bigger? I know everybody wants it all at once, but it sounds like Steve's on the incremental side. All right, everybody's jumping in here. Got good participation. I'll keep it up for a few more seconds. Looks like we've got a pretty good consensus growing. Let's see if I can share the poll results. All right. Final answers, final answers. And let's share, see if we can get this up. Most of our attendees think we should pass it. Yeah, I think I'm in the same boat with them, Steve. I mean, there is a lot of damage that, you know, cannabis prohibition has done for the last 75 years. It's not sort of unring that bell. It's not something you can just do all at once. It's not possible to fix all the sort of historical demo. I mean, it's not possible. Things are done, but it's not possible to, in my estimation, write a perfect bill or write a comprehensive bill that does everything that needs to be done anyhow. You know, it's been an institutionalized prohibition on cannabis for 75 years that damaged communities and, you know, all people, families, as you said, sort of just devastated entire communities for decades. And, you know, not only do we need to change the laws going forward, but we need to do something to get everybody back onto a level playing field. And so it's— yeah, in my mind, this is a really complicated problem. And taking it stepwise may not be as fast as everybody wants it to be, but it's probably at the end of the day going to have more staying power, or we're going to make better policy decisions as we move forward so we can focus on these things. Steve, I wanted to— maybe move on to another interesting bill that people are talking about and looking at. And this is the States Reform Act. So the States Reform Act was actually introduced by a Republican congresswoman. This is Mace out of— I think she's out of North Carolina or South Carolina. South Carolina. South Carolina.

Right.

I think this one may have taken some people by surprise because this is a pretty comprehensive bill coming out of a Republican Congresswoman out of a place like South Carolina. What can you tell us about this one? And is this one getting any legs?

Oh, I think it very well may. Nancy Mace is an incredible supporter. It is showing. Her support, Jason, is showing that even from a conservative state like South Carolina, which by the way hasn't even passed medical yet, but you see a leader in Congress, a new Republican congresswoman, really taking the bull by the horns. And there is a lot to like in the state's reform act. You know, Representative Mace has looked at, I think, some of the, some of the holes that were in the draft that we've seen from the Cannabis Administration Opportunity Act. She is— her bill focuses jurisdiction over cannabis with the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau, TTB as we call it. That's where we want to be. Put, you know, a lighter touch with the FDA. You know, she sets, you know, goals for when the agencies have to get regulation in place. She has a very low federal tax. What are we saw from the bill put forward by Senator Schumer was, what, 25% federal tax on top of what most folks have is a 30%, you know, state tax. It would have just been devastating. So she addresses that with a low federal tax. So it's a great bill, and it is It is showing the change that we're seeing in Washington. This is the first comprehensive bill put forward by the Republican side of the House. And if Congress does change hands next election, her bill will be front and center. I worked on criminal justice reform, Jason, before I got to, to, to the Marijuana Policy Project and now the US Cannabis Council. And I tell you, you know, we, we saw Congress change hands and the Republican bill moved forward and made the, made the difference. So, so her bill is one that we should all pay attention to. It has, as you pointed out, already has co-sponsorship, and I suspect that that will get more. So I'm very excited about the States Reform Act and where it may go in Congress.

That's great. Yeah, I mean, it seems to me, Steve, that the States Reform Act is it's not mutually exclusive with these other bills that we're talking about. They tackle different things. So there's no reason why it's not one or the other when it comes to safe banking, for example. Safe banking can move forward, maybe even in conjunction with HOPE, and make an impact, make some change. But that this States Reform Act can also move forward with its own momentum on its own timetable. Well, these things take time. This is a bigger, more comprehensive bill. This would really sort of end cannabis prohibition in the way we think of it in the United States if this thing were to move, because this essentially decriminalizes marijuana. Takes it off the Controlled Substances Act and essentially from a federal level treats it like alcohol, which, you know, has a different history of prohibition and then the end of prohibition, obviously with constitutional amendments, but devolves the regulation of the product for the most part down to the state, which is what's currently happening. But instead of, you know, eliminating the federal laws against it. And really, it would be quite a big change.

Yeah, the deference is there to the existing state programs, which is hugely important, right? We wanna make sure that anything that happens at the federal level doesn't freeze what's been happening, the regulation that's been put in place at the state level. We don't want a federal bill to come forward which would actually cripple the market that's been existing. So for example, the Schumer bill was really silent about medical cannabis, right? And Mace's bill addresses it and makes clear that existing medical patients would be protected and that the state programs would continue there. The last thing we would want to happen would be for medical cannabis to somehow fall within this jurisdiction of the FDA and then be studied for the next, you know, God knows how long. You know, many of the states, Jason, have created two different tiers where medical patients can get cannabis at a lower tax and and more cheaply that exists at the federal level for prescription drugs. But, you know, one of our fears is, does that mean the FDA then takes over jurisdiction of that and freezes everyone's medical program, forcing medical patients to then buy in the adult use space, but in many instances having to pay more. So So those are some of the thorny pieces that still have to be decided in a more comprehensive bill. But Mace does a good job of creating some lanes that would allow for the industry to continue while the feds get their act together.

Seems like it's moving forward in some thoughtful ways. But yeah, I agree, it's not as simple as It's just saying the federal government can come in and trump everything that the laboratories of democracy have been working on and being fairly effective at doing that. We're going to talk about one of those laboratories of democracy in a minute. We have a question about Virginia and Maryland that I know you've got. Your focus now is on the federal level, but you definitely have a lot of history and understanding of these various states. But before we jump into that question, we have a question about the White House, and we haven't talked about the current administration and sort of your impression of their support or lack thereof, or what's going on with the current administration? Are they sort of living up to expectations? And as far as, is there anything that they could be doing that they're not, or do you see them standing in the way of any of these, these bills?

Yeah, the current administration could be doing so much more and very disappointing. We know that this president has not been supportive of legalization. He has stated that he's supportive of decriminalization, but But recently, Jason, we had a fly-in of our CEOs that are in the US Cannabis Council. Many of the top CEOs in the, in the country came to Washington. We spent 2 days going to House and Senate meetings. All of the CEOs signed on to a joint letter to the president calling for the release of those individuals who are still in federal custody. Some, you know, a couple of thousand people fall in that category for, for, uh, you know, for cannabis, uh, convictions, not non-violent cannabis convictions. The White House hasn't moved forward with any of that, um, and that's the low-hanging fruit. Um, and so very disappointing. Um, and, you know, we will continue to put pressure on the White House. I am encouraged by, by, you know, a few changes that we're seeing, at least with the federal agency. Right. So we, so we have the incoming head of the Food and Drug Administration who has prescribed medical cannabis B4 to patients. Right. That's, that's, that's new. The, um, we're seeing, um, you know, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the drug czar, you know, sort of take, you know, very little interest in anything having to do with cannabis and focusing the collective efforts in that organization on the opioid crisis, which makes sense. Um, so we're seeing voices within the administration where we're seeing the VA, call for resources for, for research into cannabis. And I know, I know some folks may say, look, this thing has been researched enough, and I agree. But I think there are folks who at least know, look, we need to get our nose under the tent here and not, you know, not take a position that this is bad and we can't do anything, right? So we're seeing, I think, Jason, voices within the administration, you know, saying, look, here is what we can do to get started. But the administration has not moved forward on its basic promises to do something around decriminalization. And at least it starts with seeing people released from federal custody. You know, but that shouldn't be the end of it, right? We should then be in a discussion still about the, uh, de-scheduling, right? Because ultimately federal decriminalization has to mean doing something about, uh, the Controlled Substance Act and cannabis being still after 50 years, uh, equated with heroin, which, which no American, uh, thinks so. Um, and it, and an interesting poll, Jason, that I saw, since we're talking about polls, is that there is more support among Americans for legalization of cannabis for either adult or medical use. I think that's polling at what, 94, 97%? More Americans agree on that than evolution.

Sounds about right. I haven't seen that recent poll. I believe you because I know, I mean, years we've been seeing, you know, 10 years ago, support for medical, uh, was, was, you know, a majority, you know, and, and it's been growing ever since. And I think, you know, well, obviously the, the vast majority of Americans live in places that have medical cannabis, um, in states that have medical cannabis. And I think, you know, what happens is that a medical cannabis dispensary comes to your neighborhood and you realize, oh, that place isn't so bad. You know, the walls aren't crumbling. It's not crime-ridden. It's not making my community worse.

Right.

You know, maybe it's just there's, there's some people that it can help. Maybe it doesn't help me, or maybe I don't do it. But, you know, they want to do it. That's fine. No harm, no foul kind of thing. I think we have more people that are exposed to it. They realize, well, there's, you know, the downside is very, very minimal. And, you know, the potential to to help is more. So, you know, people become supportive as they encounter it and live with it. And I don't know what the polling's at for full adult use, but that's got to be growing very quickly as well. You know, I don't know where we're at either as far as, I mean, total number of states that are full adult use is a dozen now.

Well, actually we're at 18 states for full adult use. We had one in South Dakota. The Marijuana Policy Project had helped lead that effort. Governor Noem sued in court, and some very interesting legal reasoning— I'll leave it at that— by the South Dakota Supreme Court reversed that the day before Thanksgiving. But look, the activists in South Dakota, which, you know, again, ruby red state, right? Voted overwhelmingly for, uh, for, uh, for President Trump. Um, uh, you know, it shows it, you know, the, the fact that there was overwhelming support in South Dakota, uh, for cannabis legalization shows that cannabis enjoys broad support, um, among Americans regardless of their geography, regardless of their political stripe. You know, Jason, I would not be surprised if half the states in the country legalize cannabis by the end of 2022. We're going to see Rhode Island, you know, clearly move forward to have a vote for legalization. I think we're going to see ballot initiatives in North Dakota, South Dakota. We're going to see ballot initiatives I, you know, there's definitely going to be one in Maryland. So a lot of movement. And that trend will continue. And I think what that trend also does is it is letting members of Congress know that legalization is inevitable in the United States. And even if you, as you were pointing out with the public, Even if you don't partake of cannabis yourself, you still see the, the fact that this is going to be inevitable and you have a responsibility as a lawmaker to figure out how to regulate it and ensure public safety and labeling and all of that. So that's where we're moving in Congress. I don't need to convince every member of Congress that they should enjoy their constituents.

Their constituents are convincing them. The constituents are going to the ballot box and they're getting asked questions. I mean, we're talking on the state level, very diverse states, right? Like the ones you listed, Mississippi passed medical use last year. Montana is adult use, and South Dakota, and it's happening in all different kinds of states and all different geographies and all different sort of makeups of the constituents. On the local level, too, lots of local cities and municipalities have ordinances that are up. You can't even track all those. But certainly those politicians, the Congress people have to be watching that and saying, well, look, people that are sending me to Washington to do my job there are also speaking on this issue and appear to want it. So about that, you know, the sort of question from Eddie here who wants to know what your thoughts on legalization in Virginia are, you know, basically as a, you know, a Southern state, it's a purple state, it's a complicated state that's been changing quite a bit over the last decade. But, you know, there was an election in Virginia, statewide election in Virginia just last month. And that's going to sort of push control of the Virginia State House back over to the GOP. And with that, you know, sort of legalization movement afoot and rolling out in Virginia, what are your thoughts there on sort of the pathway for Virginia? Do you think it still moves towards, you know, a full adult use program maybe rolling out in 2023 or Do you think it's going to start walking a little slower now?

It could end up walking a little slower. I mean, the, the incoming governor is not opposed to campus legalization. You know, I think it's going to be an incoming administration. He's going to have to wrap his head around it a bit. But, you know, hopefully we, things move forward in Virginia before 2024, which is what was originally passed in the legislation. And, you know, we certainly have lobbyists that will be, you know, talking to the governor and pushing to move things forward. And I think, you know, Jason, as you said, constituents, right? I think, I think there are enough Virginians of all stripes that will be weighing in. So we won't see the Virginia program derailed. I, you know, this governor is supportive, the, the incoming governor, but it's just a matter of, you know, the idea of timing. Jason, I, I know that I am getting a bit unstable, my battery life, something has happened with my computer, so just giving you a heads up, it's telling me I got about 30 minutes of life, but I don't trust that.

Well, I think I heard you all the way through. You might have frozen for a minute there, but I think I've got you on a pretty good connection now. And I think we got the message. I mean, it seems like you're still optimistic in Virginia. I would mention Maryland as well, because Eddie was asking about Maryland. And I can certainly tell you that the— I think the sense in Annapolis right now is— and there's a few bills that will be introduced this legislative session, which starts in a few weeks in Annapolis. But I think the leadership clearly wants this to go to a ballot initiative, which would be on the ballot in the fall of 2022. And the sort of early, I don't know if we can call it polling or sort of temperature taking on that poll, is that something that would pass in the state of Maryland. But I think legislators would rather see it pass that way than legislatively.

Yeah, you know, and Eddie's raised great question here. You know, look, we will see— we're going to see in Maryland like we saw in New Jersey where the legislature couldn't agree, so it goes to a ballot which everybody knows will pass. But what we need to do, you know, in this time period, Eddie, is to get that implementation bill ready, right? So just like in Jersey, all the work was done, um, in advance. So let's say, Jason, the legislature passes it in November. In December, you want to introduce a comprehensive implementation plan. So between now and then, we work out all the aspects of the bill. All the parties are engaged. And that's where things are in Maryland. You need to have a bill shelf ready. It can be introduced in December, voted on in January, and get Maryland up and running. It's unfortunate that we have to do that, but that's the nature of the political beast sometimes.

Well, sure. And we've seen it so many times with delays. You pass something, everybody's excited about it. And then it takes 2, 3, 4 years or longer. I mean, right.

Yeah.

You know, it seems like we are, we're getting to better best practices when it comes to implementing these things. But yeah, I mean, that's where the hard work sort of real details, you got to get the dirt under your fingernails. Steve, I know that you're running low on battery, we're running low on time. I think we've answered the questions that have come through, but I do want to encourage everybody. Steve, where can, where can people find you? What's the best way to connect with you if they want to talk about joining UCC or just talking to you further about how they can, you know, what difference they can make in their neck of the woods, whether with their business, their investment, or just because they're interested in, in staying on top of developments. How can they stay in touch with you? Sure.

I mean, our website is uscannabiscouncil.org. I know that's a mouthful, but uscannabiscouncil.org. I'm at Twitter @StephenWHawkins. So folks can certainly reach out to me there. I'm on LinkedIn as well. So So all of those ways, you know, I can be reached and encourage folks to get involved again with USCC because, again, a lot happening in Congress and we need everybody collectively around the table. Absolutely.

Yeah, I think it's a— I think it's— sometimes people think of lobbying as very costly, you know, or talking to their legislators like as just as cutting a check. And certainly, you know, your, your, your politicians want your money too, right? You know, they're always looking to raise money. There's no doubt about that. But when it comes to making your voice heard, there's a lot of ways to do it besides just cutting a check, right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, part, part of, part of what joining is, is letting us understand the whole asset map, right? So let's say we're going into a district. And, you know, and, and one of your listeners has a company that's in that district, we want to be able to go to that member of Congress with you and say, look, we are in your district and we are, you know, we are a job creator, we are paying taxes. That's part of what we have to be able to show in Congress. You know, lobbying dollars are part part of it, but it's the showing up, it's the representation, it's letting members of Congress realize who we are. And because part of Washington is both— part of changing Congress is both the inside the Beltway aspect, but it's also being able to show up in district offices and on the ground. And that's where our strategy has a lot of room to expand. And only can really do that as people join and we collectively bring the message home to the district offices of members of Congress.

Right, exactly. And to share this message more widely too. So, you know, we've been recording this webinar, you know, for people who are listening now, you've got friends or family in the industry colleagues who may want to hear from Steve. He's obviously a great advocate for the industry. And there's, you know, there's so much that can be done to further this and for so many reasons, right? And, you know, not just for your business or financial reasons, but, you know, to right the wrongs of cannabis prohibition and history and to make a better future. For all of us, for our country and for our kids. So we've been recording this webinar as always. We're going to send around the recording. Please go ahead and push this through to your friends and family or people who you think may be interested in watching this. And then, you know, encourage them to reach out to Steve and to the US Cannabis Council and find a way to get involved, you know, state, local, federal level, whatever it might be, wherever you think I think is most impactful. There's a lot of work to be done, but Steve, with you at the helm over there, I think we're gonna make great progress in 2022. I'd love to have you back at the end of next year.

Sure, happy to come back.

For a celebratory sort of victory lap on everything that you passed in the—

Right, I'm looking forward to that.

That sounds great, that sounds great. Well, thank you everybody again. We're gonna be coming back on January 21st Friday, uh, 2022. Uh, we're gonna have a great series, uh, throughout 2022 on the Cannabis Business Key. In the meantime, I hope everybody has a wonderful holiday season, a wonderful new year, happy and healthy, and, uh, we'll see you on the flip side. Thank you all very much. All right, bye-bye.