A recap of Morning Brew’s cannabis coverage so far

You might have picked up on a trend this month: We’re digging into all things cannabis—from CBD bevs to how dispensaries open up shop—and so are our friends at Emerging Tech Brew and Marketing Brew. We pulled together a wrap-up of their coverage so far so you don’t miss a single hit, standout quotes included:

• How cannabis businesses get around a web of online advertising barriers: “What used to be a strong ‘No’ has now morphed into a ‘Yes, but only here,’ or a ‘Maybe in the future,’” said Juanjo Feijoo, CMO at Weedmaps.
• Limited by other platforms, weed marketers are flocking to podcast advertising: “Podcasts were initially a trial for us, then we realized that we could scale. We haven’t found that in any other media outlet,” said Missy Bradley, VP of marketing at Caliper.
• LA’s only dispensary owned by a Black woman is using OOH to work around tricky ad restrictions: “If we give people something to talk about, then that word of mouth with social media really carries,” said Kika Howze, who leads marketing for Gorilla Rx. “We’re the first, but we’re doing this to make sure we’re not the last.”
• Weed farmers are using drones as crop cops: “Because cannabis itself is very persnickety, it’s very delicate for a weed, growers are very, very, almost secretive—and protective—to not let any foreign...pathogen enter the space, including through drones,” said Jason Warnock, chief revenue officer of Flora Growth.
• How a cannabis-focused AI platform helps growers predict yield: “Some people expect us to go in, turn a button on, and be able to predict things like the next day,” said Himansu Karunadasa, cofounder and chief technology officer at FolioGrow. “That doesn’t happen, right? So you have to collect thousands of data points to be able to build the model, train the model, and then actually make the predictions. So that has kind of become an issue.”

Don’t worry, there’s more to come.—GT