EXCLUSIVE: 'Get Loud,' Cannabis Pros Advise — If Feds Call Shots Without Us, 'We'll Be Screwed'

U.S. regulators are currently making decisions on behalf of the cannabis industry, such as reclassifying it from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance.

The move certainly bodes well for the overall industry, but there's just one problem, according to Christine De La Rosa of The People's Ecosystem. Regulatory changes are happening without any input from the actual cannabis community.

Decisions are being made "by people who don't use cannabis," De La Rosa told the crowd in attendance at Wednesday's Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference (CCC) in Chicago. "If we're not part of the regulatory process at the federal level, we are going to be screwed," she said.

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Fellow speaker and panelist, Jackie Cahan of 240 Holdings, agreed.
"Get loud," Cahan advised, citing how the health and wellness aspects of cannabis are overlooked, yet they exceed the recreational market in both size and scope.

De La Rosa and Cahan were joined by FloraWorks CEO Alleh Lindquist for the CCC segment "Inside Out: The Synergy Between Cannabis And Wellness."

When moderator Rosie Mattio mentioned the recent call from Health and Human Services (HHS) to take cannabis out of a category that includes high-risk drugs like heroin, the speakers explained that an official reclassification can't happen soon enough.

If and when it does, it'll only improve product labeling and supply chains, which are currently not up to par with other industries, Cahan explained.

"My goodness, the supply chain is broken," Cahan said. "It is so fragmented for medical patients to get the goods they need and at the right time."

Having the proper seed-to-sale technology in place will also help ensure that patients have access to the right products when they need it, without worrying whether it's in stock or not, she added.

And burgeoning dispensary businesses will benefit, too. Say, for example, a retailer gets "stuck with goods that don't move, and we can't predict the velocity of those goods... the retailer will die," Cahan warns.

Having the same standards and practices that are evident in the pharmaceutical industry, even if it means big pharma's entering the cannabis space, is a positive trend, according to De La Rosa, who began using cannabis years ago as a treatment for Lupus.

"It's so import for me that I get the same thing every time I buy a product," she said.

From a consumer adoption standpoint, more research and clarity is needed, Lindquist says.

"We've slowed down in terms of education to have proof of efficacy," he said on the panel. That's one of the things FloraWorks is hoping to change, he added. For example, the biotech firm recently completed a 1,500-person placebo study to evaluate the effectiveness of cannabinol, or CBN, for treating sleep disorders.

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Photo by Carlos Alvarez