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Former Michigan House speaker, 3 others plead guilty to cannabis bribery scheme

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A former Republican Michigan House speaker accepted more than $100,000 in bribes from would-be cannabis business operators in exchange for help obtaining licenses, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

The corruption allegations unveiled Thursday against Rick Johnson, 70, and three others amount to “the largest public corruption scandal in the state’s capital in 30 years,” according to The Detroit News.

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Johnson served as speaker of the state House from 2001 to 2004 and later chaired Michigan’s medical marijuana board from 2017 to 2019,

It is also the latest example of public corruption connected to preferential licensing in legal marijuana – and perhaps the most high-profile case to date.

According to U.S. Attorney Mark Totten of the Western District of Michigan, Johnson, took “cash and benefits from at least two companies” and later voted in favor of granting them licenses.

The companies were not identified, but one was operated

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Building cannabis brands that reach across markets

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(This is a contributed guest column. To be considered as an MJBizDaily guest columnist, please submit your request here.)

Richard Proud (Courtesy photo)

Consumers can be a perplexing group – and even contradictory – especially in an industry as new and complex as cannabis.

This makes the task of building cannabis brands that resonate across geographical areas a significant challenge.

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The best brands find ways to connect, knowing their audience will react to brands that help them feel good about themselves, their community and the decisions they make.

As former Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz said, “If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.”

Consumer appeal and connection

For marijuana businesses, consumer nuances pose a unique challenge: How

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From client to co-founder, Storz & Bickel executive on US tour to drum up cannabis business

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Jürgen Bickel is not only the founder and managing director of Storz & Bickel, he’s also a longtime client of the company’s iconic cannabis smoking device.

The medically certified product manufacturer, based in Tuttlingen, Germany, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its Volcano vaporizer, which has sold hundreds of thousands of units worldwide since its early days on the market when Bickel first tried it as a consumer.

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“It’s really for people who are frequently using cannabis,” he told MJBizDaily during a recent interview and product demo at a private cabana at The Woods in West Hollywood, California.

“There’s a lot of patients who really need to use it several times a day.

“They need reliability and reproducibility.”

The Woods, owned by

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Virginia governor expected to veto recreational marijuana sales legislation

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Virginia appears set to remain the only state in the country with recreational marijuana legalization but without legal sales.

That status quo would continue if, as widely expected, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin again vetoes adult-use sales legalization bills that state lawmakers recently sent to him.

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For the second straight year, Virginia’s Democratic-controlled General Assembly passed legislation that would finally set up adult-use sales in the state.

Youngkin’s Democratic predecessor, Ralph Northam, signed legalization into law in 2021, but that bill had a clause that required further action to create a market projected to be worth hundreds of millions.

The most recent legislation would give exclusive adult-use sales rights to the state’s existing medical marijuana businesses, which include major multistate operators such as:

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