San Juan Medicinal cannabis

Medicinal Cannabis in Puerto Rico Leads to $128 Million in Sales

October 29, 2019 By karlicobuzzi Leave a Comment

What’s next for Puerto Rico’s booming medicinal cannabis industry?

Puerto Rico’s first medicinal cannabis dispensary opened just three years ago. The industry has already grown into a huge operation that does around $4 million is sales every month! Cannabis medicinal in Puerto Rico has definitely made a mark.

Dispensaries have reported a total of almost $128 million in sales to the government. These businesses also play $13.9 million in sales and use tax. Tax revenue this year has grown by 127.5% so far.

How many medical cannabis dispensaries are in Puerto Rico?

According to the Medicinal Cannabis Office, there are 101 dispensaries in Puerto Rico. They serve 112,363 registered cannabis patients. The majority of these patients are located in the northeast region of the island. To learn more about how you can register as a medical marijuana patient in Puerto Rico, click here.

Goodwin Aldarondo, President of Puerto Rico Legal Marijuana, says that they are adding around 10,000 patients each month.

Top dispensaries who have been in business for a while are bringing in between $100,000 to $300,000 in sales each month. They are employing many Puerto Rican residents, as each dispensary needs between 5-8 employees. The industry as a whole has offered thousands of jobs.

PR’s Cannabis Industry is On Par with the U.S.

The United States also has a flourishing legal cannabis industry. There are laws in place for medical marijuana in 33 states. In 11 other states, marijuana is also legal for recreational use.

Teresita Santiago Lebrón, president of the Chamber of Commerce Cannabis and Hemp Committee, said the industry in PR is comparable to similar ones in the states.

Medical cannabis sales in the U.S. are projected to increase by 1.8%. This means a jump from $5.1 billion (2017) to $12.5 billion (2025).

How did the industry become so successful in PR?

Santiago, who is also the founder and CEO of El Morro Technologies, believes that Puerto Rico had an advantage in the industry.

“Puerto Rico had a robust manufacturing and pharma industry,” said Santiago. “Having all these professionals and that structure helped us establish the program.”

The medical cannabis industry has been and will continue to be a huge benefit to Puerto Rico. It is a great source of revenue for the government, which has had recent financial struggles.

The industry is booming, but it’s had some hurdles. Puerto Rico is still working to get banks involved in the business. Most banks are concerned about governmental interference. The U.S. has begun to remedy this issue with their Safe Banking Bill. The House passed the bill, but it awaits debate in the Senate.

One credit union, Tu Coop, does offer some banking support for dispensaries in Puerto Rico. But other than that, businesses essentially run their shops as “cash only.”

Medicinal Cannabis in Puerto Rico Will Be Impacted By U.S. Vaping Crisis

October 22, 2019 By karlicobuzzi Leave a Comment

Will Puerto Rico’s medicinal cannabis sales be affected by the vaping crisis?

The “vaping crisis” in the U.S. has led to a large decrease in market value for the top cannabis companies. Forbes reports close to a $10 billion drop as of now. Could this affect the medicinal cannabis industry in Puerto Rico?

What is the vaping crisis?

According to the CDC, over 380 cases of lung illnesses have occurred as a result of e-cigarettes, which included six fatalities. Dr. Paul Bonucci, medical director of the emergency department at Illinois Valley Community Hospital, urges everyone to “pay attention to that.”

There hasn’t been a single device or product linked to all of the illnesses, but many of the patients reported having used THC, which is the ingredient in marijuana that causes a high.

This actually points to one of the major issues with vaping in the U.S. According to Jazsmine Farley of Boss Vapes, many consumers are purchasing empty cartridges and filling them with their own homemade products. These products are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) launched a multi-state investigation into the illnesses and fatalities on August 1st. This begun what is known to the cannabis companies as the “vaping crisis.”

Learn more about the investigation by clicking here.

How exactly has the vaping crisis affected cannabis companies?

Four of the largest cannabis companies are Tilray, Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis, and Cronos Group. All four of these companies have decreased by nearly $10 billion in market value since the investigation began.

The vaping crisis on the media has also led to many health scares throughout the U.S.. Unfortunately, many cannabis investors have been hesitant to keep investing for fear that products are dangerous. This could have detrimental consequences on sales, especially when Canada legalizes vaping products.

Some states in the U.S. have legalized recreational use of marijuana. In these states, vaping makes up between 10% to 25% of the market. As a result, it’s clearly been a problem that many are shying away from vaping recently.

What does the crisis mean for the top cannabis companies?

It’s pretty certain that cannabis will become a very large industry in the future. But these top companies have only recently become public. The vaping crisis is just one of many challenges they will face.

As Morningstore analyst Kristoffer Inton says, “In the long run, [the vaping crisis] is just a bump in the road.” Inton believes that the cannabis market will actually grow best from products like edibles and beverages.

Will the U.S. vaping crisis affect medicinal cannabis in Puerto Rico?

It’s possible that the vaping crisis the U.S. will have an impact on the medicinal cannabis industry in Puerto Rico. Just last month, Health Secretary Rafael Rodríguez Mercado stated he is considering banning the sale of flavored e-cigarettes.

Rodríguez Mercado’s announcement comes after President Donald Trump enforced this ban in the states because of the recent deaths. The U.S. Health Secretary, Alex Azar, also agreed with Trump. According to Azar, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will also be enforcing that ban in the near future.

Rodríguez Mercado said, “Parallel to federal dispositions that President Trump could implement in regard to the sales ban for these products, locally we maintain vigilant of the possible actions that we could take to implement more rigorous measures ahead of what could represent a life threat to thousands of Puerto Ricans”

Right now, the use of e-cigarettes is allowed in Puerto Rico as long as users are following the guidelines of the Medicinal Act. You can read more about the act here.

It is possible, however, that medicinal cannabis use in Puerto Rico will be banned when it is in the form of e-cigarettes. This will, of course, have an impact on dispensaries as well as consumers.

CBD Oil in Puerto Rico: Are You Using a Legal, High-Quality Product?

October 9, 2019 By karlicobuzzi Leave a Comment

There’s been a lot of hype lately about CBD oil in Puerto Rico. CBD oil comes from the compound cannabidiol. Doctors advertise the oil in their offices. Baristas try to sell it in their coffee shops. You can find it in health food stores and even spas.

But not all CBD oil is created equally. Some oils are created off-market, making them a lesser quality, not to mention illegal. That’s why its important to know exactly what kind of CBD oil you’re using. That way, you can avoid breaking the law AND reducing the benefits. This article will teach you how to tell if you’re using a good form of CBD in Puerto Rico.

First, why would you want to use CBD oil?

Cannabidiol occurs naturally in cannabis plants. It’s sometimes taken from marijuana plants and sometimes taken from hemp plants. But it is not the same thing as marijuana. Unlike marijuana, cannabidiol is not psychoactive. This means that it will not get you “high,” as it does not contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Furthermore, it also means CBD is not addictive.

CBD has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that help to treat a variety of ailments. People have used CBD oil in Puerto Rico to treat depression, anxiety, psychosis, joint and muscle pains, memory issues, and nausea.

What’s the deal with CBD on the market?

The problem with CBD oil’s popularity is that consumers have a hard time figuring out if they’re receiving the best quality oil.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recently caused more confusion on this front. They stated that they consider CBD oil products derived from hemp as illegal. Now people are concerned whether or not the CBD products they are buying are legal and actually beneficial. To read more about the DEA and CBD Oil, take a look at this article.

Hemp and cannabis seem pretty much identical, but they do have one important difference: their cannabinoid profiles are not the same. The strains usually used for hemp do not produce much THC, typically below .3%. Click here to learn more about the difference between CBD and THC.

People can only use CBD products made from cannabis in states where marijuana or medicinal marijuana are legal.

But CBD products created from hemp strains are legal in all 50 states and in Puerto Rico. CBD on its own is not considered a controlled substance, but it’s relation to cannabis cause people to believe that it’s similar to marijuana.

Unfortunately, many places are also selling “hemp oil” that contains little to no cannabinoid, and they market it as CBD oil. Situations like this one are why consumers need to be extremely conservative about where they purchase their products.

There’s a very simple way to know whether your CBD oil is high quality: check your source.

Always do your research about the products you buy. See if you can locate the manufacturer and the laboratory results. If you cannot seem to get the information you need about the product, it’s best to purchase it from somewhere else.