ML - Michigan Avenue

2014 - Issue 7 - November

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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So just how does the industry tackle potential abuse among young users, and even adults? Certainly there are scores of medical marijuana licenses issued to "patients" who are, in fact, using medical marijuana licenses to simply get high. As with alcohol, or any substance for that matter, abuse is inevitable. When asked how this will be navigated, most advocates suggest extensive educational outreach. In August 2014, a controversial Colorado public educa- tion campaign titled "Don't Be a Lab Rat" was driven by the Colorado governor's office. Human-size rat cages were dropped around Denver in an effort to warn teens that Colorado is a testing ground for medical marijuana legal- ization and there is still uncertainty involved in relation to pot use and the young brain. Additionally, though Governor Mark Dayton passed medical marijuana in Minnesota, the state's strict new law bans smoking mari- juana and home cultivation, and allows for only two cannabis dispensaries statewide. The MighTy edible "The only thing consistent in this industry is change," says Tripp Keber. "It's at hyper speed." Standing in what will soon be a sleek reception area of his new 40,000-square-foot headquarters in Denver, the founder and CEO of Dixie Elixirs and Edibles has been recently hyped himself on shows such as 60 Minutes and HBO's Vice. Keber describes the booming marijuana business as having experienced "hockey stick growth," from completely f lat to straight on up. While leading a personal tour of his impressive new facility, he candidly explains, "We are not marijuana people. We are busi- nessmen and women that have applied what we have learned professionally to the cannabis space. There has never been a nationally branded line of THC-infused products like Dixie. Our intention is taking this company not only national, but potentially public." A successful entrepreneur who served in the Reagan administration, Keber has been called the Gordon Gekko of Ganja. But nicknames aside, he helms a serious, and seri- ously lucrative, business, squarely in the spotlight of edible entrepreneurs (the industry is moving so fast that at a recent Las Vegas "cannabusiness" convention, one business pro- posal was a Domino's-esque pot delivery service). Founded just four years ago, Keber's Dixie Elixirs has grown from a 400-square-foot office and two employees that made one product (an orange elixir) to his new marijuana industrial mansion, which currently houses some 50 employ- ees and serves as the assembly line and grow house for the more than 40 Dixie THC-infused products and 100 different SKUs. Most cannabis sold in Colorado dispensaries comes in four forms: as the buds of the plant; as liquid extractions meant to be used in vaporizer pens; as edibles, such as gummy candies, chocolates, and sodas; and as salves and lotions designed for rubbing into sore muscles and joints. The latest Dixie Elixir? Dixie One, a soda that, unlike most edible products, offers one single, measured five-mil- ligram dose of THC. Which begs the question—as the fast-paced edible business booms, how does one properly package and regulate dosage amounts? This growing debate among edible entrepreneurs, marketers, and state legislators was further thrust into the national spotlight when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd alleged in her "Don't Harsh Our Mellow, Dude" column back in June, that she, unaware of the potency, accidentally ate too much of a THC-infused candy bar, resulting in a panic-stricken hotel stay in Denver. Commenting on this (Dixie's Chief Marketing Officer Joe Hodas wrote a reactive op-ed in The New York Times), Keber says, "Dosing is the single greatest focus that we should be looking at as an industry. Now you have your average soccer mom from Ohio who may or may not have had a relationship with cannabis in 20-plus years, and [today] cannabis is dramatically different. What was previ- ously three or four percent is now 23 or 24 percent [THC]." As a potential answer to the growing concern of packaging and market- ing dosing amounts, Keber and his team developed Dixie One to eliminate the guesswork: One soda, one dose. Keber touts his new headquar- ters' state-of-the-art security, a necessary feature at a time when few banks have been willing to pro- vide accounts and other services to marijuana businesses due to its fed- eral Schedule I classification, and most dispensaries have to conduct business in cash. He notes that two dispensaries in his area had recently been robbed. But his some- times risky business also means serious tax revenue—numbers, he opines, that cannot be ignored by the government on both state and federal levels, given the potential for education, city infrastructure, addi- tional medical research funding, and much more. And headway is being made, particularly in Colorado, with bank- ing institutions and the marijuana industry, as politicians and banking co-ops are quickly realizing reform is inevitable in regard to banking and buds. In February of this year, Governor Hickenlooper stated that taxes and fees from recreational and medical marijuana sales would be $134 million in the coming fis- cal year. And though some may criticize his choice of industry, Keber says, "You cannot argue with taxes and jobs. The revenue reported from April [2014] was up 17 percent from the month before, and up 53 percent since the month of January." There's no doubt he believes in the industry's skyrocketing potential. "You are seeing this real steep growth. Sometimes we feel like we have the tiger by the tail." MA "It is the most exciting political change I've seen in my lifetime." — keith stroup, founder of the national organization for the reform of marijuana laws [ [ Tripp Keber Founder and CEO of Dixie Elixirs and Edibles tie-dyed Businessman: "This is not a fool's business. You have to be intel- lectually charged, committed, and funded to succeed because you can't go to the bank and get a loan." a kinder drug?: "There may be two [marijuana-related] deaths in Colorado since January. How many hundreds of alcohol- or opiate-related deaths are there?" Potent Packaging: "We as manufacturers have to set the tone, to make sure that the packaging is not attracting children. Our products are designed to look like a luxury consumer packaged brand." ed bernsTein Las Vegas attorney and talk-show host daughter dana & crohn's disease: "When she smokes medical marijuana, oftentimes before going to the hospital and going through that cycle with the Dilaudid, it takes the edge off her pain." Betting on Business: "The law is still unsettled regarding lawyers and doctors and their professional licenses around dispensaries. But legislators in our state are very positive about medical marijuana; the voters certainly are." gateway drug?: "A lot of people don't understand the medical benefts and have been so brainwashed about marijuana that under any circumstances they are not in favor of it. In the past, to buy it you had to go underground, dealing with people who are selling cocaine, crack, marijuana, and heroin. Legalizing marijuana will have the opposite result. If you have a legal, safe place to purchase the medical mari- juana, then you will not come into contact with the stereotypical pusher. michiganavemag.com  137

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