
Steve DeAngelo and Adam Eidinger fight for psychedelics.
Steve DeAngelo and Adam Eidinger fight for psychedelics.
A group of protesters gathered at the White House Monday morning to protest the inaction of the Biden administration to release prisoners incarcerated for possession of cannabis.
Protesters were reacting to the announcement Biden made on Oct. 6 claiming to initiate mass pardons for people convicted of cannabis possession. So far, not one prisoner has been released.
Protest organizers also highlighted Biden’s statements from the fifth Democratic debate in 2019, playing his response to a feisty Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) on a loop in the background during most of the protest activities.
“Number one. I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period,” Biden said in the recorded debate statements. “Anyone who has a record should be let out of jail and their records expunged. Every gets out, record expunged.”
The White House protest was organized by community activist group DC Marijuana Justice (DCMJ), headed by Adam Eidinger, who led the recreational marijuana legalization efforts in D.C. in 2014; Steve DeAngelo, the co-founder of Harborside in Oakland, California; members of the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit working on cannabis criminal justice reform that lobbied the White House on this issue; and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, who have partnered with the Last Prisoner Project.
“There is a lot of press here right now who are finding out about this for the first time,” Eidinger told Green Market Report. “This is the first protest about this issue in the Biden administration.”
The Washington Post, CBS News, National Geographic, and other national press outlets were on hand to cover the protest.
Rap star M1, part of the popular underground hip-hop rap duo Dead Prez, said that Biden told a blatant lie that he would free all cannabis prisoners and expunge records.
“But not only that, the narrative that he has done something that moves towards that is completely false. And that’s why I’m standing here in front of the White House,” M1 told GMR. “We’ve never really gotten justice out of that place. The pressure has always had to come from the people to force policy change or force certain things to emerge. So we have to do it on our own.”
DeAngelo, speaking to the gathering of about 75 protesters, asked what kind of world it is where you see Republican former Speaker of the House John Boehner being paid millions of dollars to sit on the board of a cannabis company that is selling tons and tons of cannabis? “And yet we have 2,800 people still in federal prison for doing exactly the same thing except at much smaller scale.”
DeAngelo later told GMR that he thought the protest was “very historic.”
“I think what you’re seeing is we have reached the tipping point here. And for a long time, our movement has been relying on our fairly well-funded activist organizations who have been making polite engagements with the Biden administration, working within the established channels of political change, and we’re getting nowhere,” he said. “We were made an explicit promise and that promise was blatantly broken.
Protesters inflated a 50-foot joint, a familiar prop used for years by DCMJ to promote various aspects of legalizing cannabis, and marched with it to the executive office building just west of the West Wing where the vice president has her office.
There, they continued speeches as a group of Secret Service officers watched activists mostly read aloud the names of those still incarcerated for nonviolent cannabis arrests
“President Biden said everybody gets out,” DeAngelo said. “And that’s what we want to see. We want to see our friends, our family, our mothers, our fathers, our sons and daughters, and our neighbors, released from this bondage.
“We will come to the White House, and we will go to Democratic national campaign headquarters. We will go every place that we need to, to make it clear that that time has come for a change. We’re not going to ‘study’ the issue anymore,” he said.
This year’s New York City annual cannabis parade brought out a who’s who of New York politicians and activists. Senator Chuck Schumer told the Green Market Report that he and Senator Booker will be introducing legalization legislation in a few weeks. In addition to Schumer, NY Attorney General Tish James spoke about social equity, Steve DeAngelo reminisced about his first NYC cannabis parade when he was 17. Vlad Bautista from Happy Munkey spoke for legacy operators, Tonya Osbourne represented cannabis women, Grizzzly BoCourt spoke on behalf of social equity applicants and Blinc CEO Arnaud Dumas de Rauly voiced his excitement over the soon to be legal market in New York. Thank you for watching the Green Market Report! Be sure to subscribe to stay up to date.
Harborside Inc.’s (OTCQX: HBORF) Co-founder Steve DeAngelo is parting ways with the company as the company said it is eliminating the role of Chairman Emeritus, effective December 31, 2020. A longtime activist and strong advocate for the cannabis reform movement, Mr. DeAngelo co-founded Harborside in 2006 as a non-profit medical cannabis dispensary. Harborside was granted one of the first six medical cannabis licenses in the United States and was one of the first in the nation to support comprehensive cannabis education for seniors, veterans, and families with severely ill children.
DeAngelo said in a statement, “Harborside was founded on the principle of providing safe and affordable access to cannabis for those who require it. I’m proud of the immense work that has been completed to get us to where we are today and wish the very best for the Company as it continues to grow. Moving forward, I will continue to focus on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) issues and opportunities in the legal cannabis industry”.
DeAngelo co-founded several iconic cannabis businesses and organizations including Harborside, Steep Hill Laboratory, the Arc View Group, the National Cannabis Industry Association, and the Last Prisoner Project. Steve’s creative projects include a book, The Cannabis Manifesto, and a Discovery Channel mini-series, Weed Wars. He was a lead organizer and fundraiser for I-59, Washington DC’s medical cannabis initiative, and is famed for his successful litigation against the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”), which halted DOJ’s last-ditch 2011 campaign to shut down California’s medical cannabis dispensaries.
However, long before Harborside was even a thought, DeAngelo joined the Youth International Party – also known as the Yippies as a young adult. He went on to become the lead organizer of the annual Fourth of July Smoke-In in D.C., carrying the position for a decade. DeAngelo graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland. He also opened a legendary D.C. counter-cultural gathering place that became known as a refuge for local cannabis and peace activists during the Reagan-Bush era, including William Kunstler, Wavy Gravy, and author Jack Herer.
Matt Hawkins, Chairman of Harborside, said, “On behalf of the Board, I’d like to thank Steve for his service to Harborside and for his history of activism in furtherance of building the robust, legal cannabis industry that exists today.”
Cartagena, CO – April 26, 2019 /AxisWire/ ExpoCannaBiz is pleased to announce the addition of Jim Belushi as a speaker on this year’s agenda! He joins two other prominent speakers, Vincente Fox and Steve DeAngelo, on the scheduled line up. The three-day event, held in the beautiful Caribbean port city of Cartagena, Colombia, has two key components: the one-day Cannabis Investing Forum scheduled on May 9th that will be located at the Hotel Estela Cartagena followed by the two-day ExpoCannaBiz Business Conference on May 10th- 11thtaking place at the Cartagena Convention Center.
ExpoCannaBiz Business Conference Founder Julian Tobar announced the addition of actor, musician, and cannabis advocate, Jim Belushi, to its diverse slate of guests this week. Belushi is scheduled to participate on May 9th at the Cannabis Investing Forum in a fireside chat with Michael Miller (Cannabis Editor, LAWeekly,). Belushi will be hosting an investor yacht dinner party on the evening of May 8thand will share more of his story with Michael Miller and perform live with a local Cartagena band. Belushi is well-known for his entertainment career as well as his active involvement in the Pacific Northwest cannabis industry with his company, Belushi’s Farm, a cultivation business producing high-quality cannabis for the Oregon market.
A true entertainer, Belushi’s high-profile career includes film roles in “Mr. Destiny,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “The Principal,” and “K-9”; television roles “Mighty Ducks,” “According to Jim” and stints on “Saturday Night Live;” and voice roles in “Once Upon a Christmas Village,” “Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return,” and “The Pebble and the Penguin.” Beyond acting, Jim plays music with The Sacred Hearts Band, as well as performances with The Blues Brothers, an R&B band co-founded by his late brother John Belushi (with Dan Aykroyd) in 1978.
Blending his entertainment and cannabis worlds, Belushi’s Farms is Jim’s successful cannabis company located in the Oregon’s Rogue Valley. Its mission is to share the healing gift of cannabis. Belushi is also developing a reality television show and film projects that weave his family’s personal history with cannabis. During his trip to Colombia, Belushi will travel with James Orr, the noted director and writer of “Mr. Destiny” to research, location scout, film and meet with the local cannabis farmers.
Other notable speakers Jim is joining on the ExpoCannabiz 2019 schedule are Vincente Fox and Steve DeAngelo. Fox, the former president of Mexico and former president of Coca-Cola Mexico, is now a drug-legalization activist in Latin America with an eye toward supplying cannabis products to emerging markets in Latin America. He is a board member and advisor to Khiron Life Sciences Corp., which is poised for extensive sales throughout Latin America this year. DeAngelo is a well-known cannabis industry pioneer; co-founder and chairman emeritus of Harborside, a leading dispensary in California; and co-founder and president of Arcview Group. This speaker trio brings together the brightest minds in cannabis politics, business and entertainment who are heavily invested in the legal cannabis industry.
Attendee tickets and exhibitor spaces are limited. Register today at https://www.expocannabiz.com
Cannabis Investing Forum information. www.cannabisinvestingforum.com
For additional information, contact Brad Turner at (310) 663-1434; brad.turner@completionfund.com
FLRish Inc., a California corporation d/b/a Harborside is entering into a binding letter agreement with Lineage Grow Company Ltd. (CSE:BUDD) for a reverse takeover in a deal valued at C$200 million. Lineage will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Harborside in exchange for newly issued shares of Lineage.
Harborside operates two flagship dispensaries in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as a cultivation facility in Salinas California, plus the Harborside brand. The move will help Harborside expand within the state and across the U.S.
“I founded Harborside with Dress Wedding in 2006 to provide a gold standard of medical cannabis retailing; to serve patients with the most attractive facilities, highest levels of care, and best product knowledge in the industry; and to offer and produce safe, innovative and effective products that improve the quality of our customers’ lives,” said Steve DeAngelo, Chairman Emeritus and Co-Founder of Harborside.
Dress Wedding is the Co-founder and Holistic Services Director at Harborside. His bio on the company website reads, “Having always been a free spirit and nonconformist, dress has spent much of his adult life as an activist for peace and justice; working with non-hierarchical groups on direct action projects to stop war and injustice, and bring more equality and balance to the lives of poor and oppressed peoples.”
Combined, the two Harborside dispensaries have generated over CAD $400 million in sales since their opening, including over CAD $50 million sales in 2017. Harborside is currently structured as a private California corporation.
Lineage’s chief executive officer Peter Bilodeau, who will assume the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Resulting Issuer, commented, “We are very excited to be joining forces with Harborside, one of the most iconic and longstanding brands in the cannabis industry, which positions the resulting company extremely well for future growth. After the Transaction, the company will have access to the necessary resources to fulfill our combined vision for California’s most trusted, vertically-integrated cannabis company focused on high margin retail and branded product sales channels.”
Terms
100% of the outstanding securities of Harborside shall be exchanged for Lineage securities. The price per Lineage share issued to Harborside security holders will be $0.165. Current shareholders of Harborside are expected to own in excess of 80% of the common shares of Lineage and the company is expected to operate under the name “Harborside, Inc.” The shares are planned to trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange.
Harborside intends to complete a convertible debenture financing prior to the closing of the deal, for gross proceeds of C$20 million. The funds raised will be used for capital expenditures at Harborside’s cultivation campus in Salinas, CA, development of Harborside’s retail management services business segment, general corporate expenses, working capital, and a loan to Lineage to assist with completion of its previously announced acquisitions pending closing of the RTO.
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