The first man through the door had waited so long for this day that he collapsed, sobbing, in Chris Visco’s arms.
Visco, co-founder and CEO of TerraVida Holistic Centers, a three-store medical marijuana dispensary chain, didn’t expect that. But the man pressed his face into her shoulder, and instinctively, she hugged him back.
Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is joining the ranks of politicians remaking themselves as marijuana pitchmen.
Nutter told NJ.com late last week that he had signed on to handle community relations for Green Leaf Medical New Jersey. The multistate operator, which is headquartered in Maryland, also has operations in Pennsylvania under the gLeaf brand. Nutter was named senior adviser and consultant for the company.
For those trying to break into the burgeoning medical cannabis industry, there’s a lot to learn about laws, sales, and the daily ins-and-outs of building a business.
Philadelphia’s University of the Sciences has consolidated some of that knowledge into a new MBA track, which the school says is a first of its kind.
The University of the Sciences in Philadelphia announced last week that it would begin offering a Master of Business Administration degree program focusing on the cannabis industry. The university is currently enrolling students in the Cannabis Industry Option MBA in Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Business program and will begin conducting classes online in September.
But in the back of Philadelphia Temple of Hemp and Cannabis is something far more unusual — a sanctuary and lounge where medical marijuana patients are encouraged to light up.
“It’s not your normal church,” says Patrick Duff, the co-owner and high priest of the Frankford Avenue shop that brands itself Philly THC. “In fact, it’s licensed as a gift shop. We pay taxes. But the reason we opened is that there was nobody providing a space for marijuana patients to come together and take their medicines socially.”
Stockton University will partner with Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University’s Institute of Emerging Health Professions to enhance its cannabis studies program.
The partnership, announced Tuesday, will provide collaboration opportunities for staff and students with Jefferson’s Lambert Center for the Study of Medicinal Cannabis and Hemp.
In a blockbuster cannabis deal orchestrated by a Philadelphia law firm, high-flying marijuana retailer MedMen is acquiring grower-and-dispensary operator PharmaCann in an all-stock transaction valued at $682 million.
"We believe this is the largest acquisition merger ever in the legalized cannabis industry," said Joshua Horn, a partner at Philadelphia's Fox Rothschild LLP.
In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, recent state Supreme Court rulings have made it markedly easier for police to search for marijuana. The high courts in both states have decreed that police only need smell the pungent odor of weed to conduct an immediate search — without the need for a warrant from the judge. "It opened the floodgates," said Eric Morrell, a defense lawyer based in New Brunswick, N.J.
Some police commanders say they have stepped up drug enforcement overall to tackle the opioid epidemic, and marijuana arrests are up accordingly.
This week is shaping up to be a big one for medical marijuana.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health awarded 13 permits Tuesday to cannabis cultivators, bringing the number of companies licensed to grow and process medical marijuana in the state to 25.
And on Wednesday, vaporizable “flower” — the most popular and affordable form of marijuana — goes on sale at a dozen dispensaries across the state.