Regulating cannabis like fish? Excuse me, what? According to Leah Heise, the cannabis industry can learn much from commercial fishing.

An accomplished cannabis exec, Leah’s been the CAO of Ascend Wellness Holdings, the CEO of Women Grow, CXO of 4Front Ventures and President of Chesapeake Integrated Health Institute.

While at Ascend, Leah focused on growing the business from 73 employees to more than 1300 in less than 18 months, taking the company from $19M in revenue in 2019 to a $1.6B market cap in 2021.

Leah is also a medical cannabis patient, having discovered the herb after being hospitalized over 35 times for pancreatitis.

Leah Heise is a cannabis expert. Her expertise is unparalleled, unlike the so-called “experts” in the media who spew drug war propaganda.

So when she says the cannabis industry has much to learn from commercial fisheries, our ears perk up.

Regulating cannabis like fish? Say what?

Regulating Cannabis from Stigma 

Having experience in the regulatory landscape, Leah knows what’s working and what’s doomed to fail. And unfortunately, most legal states have been regulating cannabis from a position of stigma.

“We do everything by piecemeal, by litigation. It’s very costly to the system and there’s just a better, more streamlined way to do it,” says Leah. “And I think that potentially regulating it similar to a commercial fishing industry may be the way to do it.”

Of course, Leah points out that there are other options, and this is just one of many ideas. But, she says, “These regulators need to understand the things they are regulating.”

“They’re doing it from a place of stigma and lack of education,” Leah says. “We have to turn back one hundred years of stigma and propaganda.”

Whether it’s racial stigma or false beliefs that cannabis will rot your brain, Leah emphasizes education. From scientific papers proving cannabis’ efficacy to patient stories to studies that associate legal cannabis with fewer cases of domestic abuse and alcoholism.

“The industry and the plant need a rebrand,” says Leah. “It’s not Cheech and Chong. It’s everyone; it’s diverse. Anybody could be using this, from your great-grandmother to your child, depending on what they have. It’s not going to make their brains die or reduce IQ.”

Regulators Need Education

Simply put, the public (and many regulators) are uneducated on cannabis. Drug warriors amplify its alleged harms while marginalizing its medical and therapeutic benefits.

But how would regulating cannabis like fish help? Leah admits that if the feds get involved, a strong regulatory body needs to be created.

“Or just let the states do it,” she says. “We don’t necessarily need another layer on top.”

But suppose the federal government does step in and institute national cannabis regulations. What can we learn from the commercial fishing industry?

Regulating Cannabis like Fish

What can the cannabis industry learn from commercial fishing? How does one regulate cannabis like fish?

“Fisheries is a highly regulated industry,” says Leah. “Because the government’s trying to balance the interests of the environmental groups with the interest of the commercial fishing industry.”

Yes, they are separate products, but both are natural and come from the Earth. Likewise, generations of people work in the industry, whether it’s multiple generations of fishermen (and women). Or the legacy farmers in the cannabis industry (especially in black and brown communities).

With the commercial fishing industry, there’s the problem of overfishing. “In an effort to save the planet, and the fisheries themselves, the federal government has stepped in,” says Leah.

And she sees opportunities for the cannabis industry and its regulators to learn from the commercial fishing industry.

Commercial fishing regulators don’t regulate from a place of stigma. “I haven’t seen a single state,” says Leah, referring to legal cannabis states, “where there’s not a massive lawsuit. And even with Schedule III, there’s going to be lawsuits.”

Learning from the Commercial Fishing Industry

Leah prefers a more comprehensive way of regulating cannabis, which borrows from the successes of the commercial fishing industry.

“They design things called fishery management plans,” she says. “Scientists in the government will come forward and say, ‘okay we’re starting to see Atlantic sea scallops start to collapse. We’re seeing a decline in the number of new pollock. And we need to come up with a fishery management plan to work this.’”

Leah says the commercial fishing industry has councils with different stakeholders, from environmental groups to commercial industries to recreational groups.

“They come together to regulate themselves,” says Leah. “It speeds up the process and really eliminates a lot of the issues in terms of getting sued, because stakeholders at least feel like they have a voice.”

“Nobody walks away happy,” Leah adds. “Which is kind of what happens with any real decent negotation, right? Everybody’s giving a little.”

Leah thinks having a board of stakeholders would prevent things like canopy caps or taxing inside the supply chain. Things that ultimately hurt the industry and only empower illicit markets.

The problem, says Leah, is that current cannabis regulators “aren’t holistically looking to see what the impacts are,” of the various regulations they’ve instituted.

Regulating Cannabis like Fish – Unintended Consequences?

Is there any state already doing this? What are the odds D.C. will create cannabis regulations that embody the principles of the commercial fishing industry?

One of the biggest problems, says Leah, is the lack of money on the enforcement side. From her regulator days, Leah recalls:

We were handed often times very dense regulations to enforce. But we weren’t given the money that we needed to be given to it, to hire the people, and train the people we needed to actually enforce those regulations.

The result is cannabis operators openly flaunting the rules because paying the fines is sometimes cheaper than observing the regulations.

There’s also debate on how heavy cannabis regulations should be. Should we regulate it like alcohol? Or should we consider cannabis a vegetable no more dangerous than a carrot?

“I think that the polarization that exists in this industry exists in the country,” says Leah, so there’s no easy answer.

Unintended Consequences

But one thing to watch out for is the unintended consequences of regulation. Leah recalls visiting Africa, particularly Botswana, about a year ago.

“The Gates Foundation had contributed billions of dollars worth of mosquito nets,” Leah recalls.

They thought that giving people mosquito nets would eliminate malaria. But what they didn’t understand is that [the Bostwanans] needed food. So what the people did was they used the nets to fish with. But the nets were covered with pesticides. It killed off all the fish. And you still have malaria, and you have no food, and it’s because there wasn’t really a holistic decision in that instance. [The Gates Foundation] wasn’t informed enough to answer what the real primary need was.

Unintended consequences are an unavoidable fact of life. In Canada, for example, the government legalized cannabis from a position of stigma and propaganda. The result is a thriving black market catering to consumer demands the legal market can’t fulfil.

With that in mind, we asked Leah how likely, on a scale of one to ten, would the United States legalize and regulate according to rational and holistic principles? Will authorities regulate cannabis like fish?

If ten is the ideal and one is stigma and propaganda, what’s the verdict?

“I think it’s going to be less than 5,” says Leah. And like the situation in Canada or the more restricted US legal states, the consequences of regulating from stigma suggest a robust illicit market.

“You can decide to go the legal route or you can decide to go the illegal route,” says Leah. “But you’re not going to make it go away.”

The SAFER Banking Act has passed a critical Senate Committee hearing with a vote of 14-9. The renamed bipartisan bill would allow banks to work with cannabis businesses without penalties from the federal government.

The U.S. cannabis industry has long been waiting for SAFER Banking to pass the Senate. Alongside 280E tax burdens, the lack of access to essential banking services has unnecessarily handicapped the industry.

With SAFER Banking passing the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, this marks the first time Senate members have voted in favour of cannabis banking reform. The House of Representatives has voted for the bill seven times before.

But now what? What’s the next step in reforming cannabis banking in the United States?

SAFER Banking Act Passes Senate Committee

While the SAFER Banking Act passing a Senate Committee is undoubtedly good news, it’s not the end of this lengthy saga.

After passing the Senate Committee, the SAFER Banking Act will head off to the Senate and the House for more debates, amendments, and votes. Assuming this goes smoothly, the bill will eventually land on the President’s desk, where everyone expects him to sign it.

The recent Senate Committee vote clears the path for the bill to make it to the Senate floor. Passing the bill would mean cannabis businesses in legal states would no longer have to operate as cash-only enterprises. Handling massive amounts of money in cash is inconvenient but also dangerous. Cannabis operators have been vulnerable to theft and fraud.

Hence, industry stakeholders applaud the Senate Committee for decisively voting for SAFER Banking.

 “[It’s] a historic step towards final passage of a critical policy building block for the cannabis industry,” said Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA) President Kaliko Castille.

MCBA has been committed to ensuring that the House and Senate not only pass the SAFER Banking Act but also contain provisions to aid minority entrepreneurs who have been the primary targets of the drug war.

“The committee’s approval of the SAFER Banking Act gives hope to thousands of compliant, tax-paying businesses desperately trying to access the basic financial services other businesses take for granted,” said National Cannabis Industry Association CEO Aaron Smith. “This uniquely bipartisan legislation has the potential to save lives and help small businesses; it’s time for Congress to get it to the president’s desk without further delay.”

What Next?

The Senate Committee’s passing of the SAFER Banking Act may have been influenced by recent cannabis news coming from Washington, D.C.

Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services officially recommended that the DEA move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III in the federal Controlled Substances Act.

That change wouldn’t affect banking, but it would relieve operators of the burdensome 280E tax. The potential rescheduling gave a shot in the arm to pot stocks. Perhaps it also lit a fire under the butts of American Senators.

SAFER Banking would give the U.S. cannabis industry better access to financial services, including depository services, electronic payments, lending, and other access to capital. 

Even Canadian cannabis companies will benefit from banking reform in the U.S. Currently, Canadian banks take the same drug-war mentality despite the herb’s legal status north of the 49th. Canada’s oligarch banks have a significant presence in the American economy that they don’t want to compromise.

Advocates are hopeful the Senate will eventually pass the SAFER Banking Act, as it has bipartisan support among Republicans and Democrats.

The United States has legal cannabis in 23 states, the District of Columbia and two territories. Every state has a medical cannabis program except Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, and South Carolina.

Three in four Americans live in a legal cannabis state. At this point, federal cannabis legalization seems less of a question of “if” and more of a matter of when. 

While you would think most industries would jump at the chance to operate in an unregulated market, where they can do whatever they want, it seems that model doesn’t work for everyone. Companies who are trying to be honest and actually have some integrity in their products are being overshadowed by an influx of fake, adulterated, and sometimes dangerous products that are infiltrating the market, and casting a bad light on the industry as whole.  

As a result, the American Kratom Association along with several individual companies are requesting help in the form of government regulation to work on getting sketchy products off the shelves. 

What is Kratom? 

Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is a flowering evergreen tree related to the coffee plant. It is indigenous to Southeast Asia but has been gaining popularity in western culture for its stimulating and pain-relieving effects. Kratom is used both recreationally and therapeutically, and just like cannabis, it’s incredibly controversial. Quite a few studies have noted the pharmaceutical potential of Kratom. Kratom is made up of dozens of alkaloids, compounds which are known to hold medicinal value and have been studied independently for decades.  

Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. They are produced by a large variety of organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals and can be purified from crude extracts of these organisms by acid-base extraction, or solvent extractions followed by silica-gel column chromatography. Alkaloids have a wide range of pharmacological activities and there is a lot of existing research to back this up.  

The most abundant alkaloid in Kratom is mitragynine, and for decades it was also believed to be the most potent. Then in 2002, a group of Japanese researchers found a variant called 7-hydronitragynine. This minor compound is extremely potent, more powerful than morphine, and despite being found only in trace amounts, it’s responsible for most of kratom’s pain-fighting properties. Further research has determined that both alkaloids act as partial opioid receptor agonists by activating the supraspinal mu- and delta- opioid receptors.  

Kratom effects vary greatly based on the dosage. Low doses result in stimulant effects, whereas high doses produce sedative, opiate-like effects. Typically, the leaves are crushed then smoked, brewed in a tea, or used in capsules. It’s still used widely in Southeast Asia, from where it originates, and there it is referred to as thang, kakuam, thom, ketum, and biak. In the US, it’s simply known as Kratom, and while it’s still a bit of fringe product, it is growing in popularity here as well.  

Is kratom legal? 

The short answer, it’s complicated. Although it’s technically legal at the federal level, they way it’s usually marketed is illegal because the FDA has not approved kratom for any specific use. So selling as a random smoke shop item is fine, but selling it and saying it can help with pain and boost energy is not allowed.  

Regardless, it can be found everywhere from convenience stores and gas stations, wellness stores, smoke shops, and the world wide web, so as much as the FDA wants to say it has no therapeutic value, that’s not stopping people from using it. As such, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been trying to add kratom the Schedule I list of controlled substances (like cannabis which they say is dangerous, but not cocaine which is safer as a Schedule II); albeit, unsuccessfully.  

Their position has been met with resistance from industry stakeholders, researchers, and consumers alike. In August 2016, the DEA attempted to temporarily reclassify kratom, and due to public demonstrations, petitions, and calls by Congress to overrule their decision, they changed their tune and retracted the reclassification in October 2016, only 2 months later.  

Now, individual states are beginning to make their own laws regarding kratom use. Similar to how states have been granted the authority to regulate cannabis use, despite it going against federal regulations, states are taking similar actions to either protect or prohibit kratom.  

We also have the Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KCPA), a bill drafted by the American Kratom Association, that aims to progressively regulate the US kratom industry. The act is currently under review by several state governments, and the Kratom association is attempting to get more states to adopt better kratom policies. Although this act has been in the works for years, it has not been covered extensively by the mainstream media.  

The bill addresses all topics relating to the growing kratom industry, such as: cultivation, manufacture, distribution, medical benefits, sale, possession, use, age limits, testing, labeling, fines and penalties. Overall, the main purpose of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act is to protect customers from shady companies, and ensure that kratom producers and vendors are only supplying safe, high-quality products that are free of pesticides, heavy metals, fungus, and other contaminants. 

As of now, kratom is expressly banned in the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Certain cities also prohibit the sale, possession and use of kratom: Oceanside, CA, San Diego, CA, Sarasota, FL, Jerseyville, IL, and Union County, MS. 

In a change of pace, the industry requests help from the government  

Because the industry is so unregulated, and downright confusing, business owners are facing an onslaught of import alerts, warning letters, and product seizures. All this legal action has those in the kratom industry who are trying to remain honest, crying out for help in the form of government regulation.  

In the most recent news, this summer, a jury awarded the family of Florida woman $11 million in a wrongful death suit. According to court documents, the woman died from “acute mitragynine intoxication,” which is one of the primary compounds found in kratom. The 39-year-old woman, who had been using kratom for pain management, collapsed and died while cooking breakfast one morning in June 2021. It was determined that the kratom she was using, from Grow LLC, was the cause, although I couldn’t find anywhere if it was related to mislabeling, improper dosing, tainted product, or user error. 

Regardless, the case emphasized to the public that kratom can be dangerous, and that it “produces classic opioid-like effects at high concentrations, such as sedation, nausea, vomiting, addiction, and difficulty breathing, which may be fatal.” 

Stories like this have consumers rightfully skeptical, so in response, the American Kratom Association issued a statement requesting the following:  

1. Urges the FDA to immediately publish product manufacturing standards for kratom products that are sold to consumers and encourage the removal of kratom products that do not contain adequate labeling with recommended serving sizes, product ingredients, and appropriate warnings on conditions of use.  
2. Until the FDA implements a set of standards to protect consumers, the AKA advises kratom consumers not to purchase or consume kratom products that:  
   • Have not been certified by an independent third-party lab to be free of dangerous contaminants or contain adulterants that could be dangerous to consume.  
   • Are offered for sale from a vendor that markets its product with illegal therapeutic claims.  
   • Do not contain the name of the product distributor so that a consumer can file an adverse event report if required.  
   • Are delivered in unprofessional packaging, such as zip-close bags, or that have handwritten product information.

“Recent reports of product liability awards for irresponsibly manufactured or marketed kratom products are the direct result of the FDA’s failure to regulate the kratom marketplace and, in some cases, the exploitive behavior of trial attorneys who do nothing to compel the FDA to act responsibly,” said Mac Haddow, the AKA’s Senior Fellow on Public Policy.

“The AKA supports congressional action to compel the FDA to develop and implement a set of standards for the manufacturing and marketing of kratom products to protect consumers in the United States,” he added.  

Final thoughts on kratom regulation

Kratom regulation is a confusing topic. It’s similar to the early days of CBD when the government was issuing warning letters to companies who claimed cannabidiol can be used to treat various health conditions. If the government steps in, it’s possible that kratom will become less accessible to consumers, but hopefully it means that the products they do find are safer and more effective.

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