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Boston Globe
02-06-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Sleeping, eating, or sex? There's a cannabis strain for that
Iannuccilli said the days of buying cannabis based on whether it's an His web-based platform called Advertisement On the Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up The platform will also recommend pairings for 'wellness' conditions like stress, appetite, and nausea. Iannuccilli, a radiologist who previously worked in oncology, spoke to the Globe about the new software, and how he hopes it changes the way people shop for cannabis. Advertisement Q: Tell me about your new software PowerLeaf, and why did you feel like it was necessary? Iannuccilli: The vast majority of consumers don't understand that cannabis goes well beyond THC. There are other ingredients in the product — in fact, hundreds of them — that vary from strain to strain. And those ingredients actually do play into the differences in mood or the spectrum of effects that consumers get from the product itself. So the software that we developed takes the individual product that is on the shelf, that is seed-to-sale tracked from the grower, and it takes the lab results that were generated for that product from the regulatory testing. Those lab results get processed by a proprietary algorithm that I built around the science of cannabis, and it actually spits out information that can be used by the consumer to actually understand what the effects are going to be. What are some of the things that a customer would filter for? There are about 11 dominant activity states that we've identified. It can be exercise, just general relaxation, some people like to use it for meditation or stretching, and a lot of people are using it for intimacy. Some of these ingredients, they don't even need to get into your body. They don't need to be absorbed. If they tickle the nerve endings that are in your nose and your brain recognizes an aroma and says, 'oh, this smells like lavender,' not only does your brain recognize that, but it's also starting to release the chemical in your brain that has a calming effect. So do you not even need to smoke it? Advertisement You don't need to smoke it. But in order to get the aromatic effect, you do need to smell it. Inhaling is a very, very common method of using cannabis. As a physician, I am actually trying to do my best to educate consumers not only about what product to pick, but the safest way to consume it. So if you're going to inhale it, you can use other devices like a vaporizer — whether it vaporizes the dry herb or it's an oil form of the product — to create that aroma without actually having to burn the product. Does this work for edibles? Because that wouldn't have the aroma. It doesn't work for edibles. I've seen the app Leafly, or StrainBrain, or dispensaries that let you filter by mood. How is your product different? We are different because we are not going on subjective consumer reviews of a product experience. Let's say you strolled into a dispensary here in Rhode Island and you heard a lot about this product, 'Blue Dream.' The 'Blue Dream' that someone had in California who wrote a review on it could be chemically very different than what's being sold to you over here in Rhode Island. This platform doesn't just rely on the name of the product. It actually pulls the chemical ingredients for the exact product that you're looking to buy on the shelf. A terminal inside Mother Earth Wellness, a dispensary in Pawtucket, allows customers to select an activity and receive a strain recommended by the PowerLeaf software. Steph Machado/Globe Staff Can't I just go up to the budtender and say, hey, I'm looking for a strain that's going to help me sleep? You can, but the level of budtender education really varies in the industry. We're very new. A lot of people are very familiar with cannabis, but they're not so familiar with the science behind it. Advertisement In the industry we do see a lot of gamesmanship. And it's not fair to the consumer, but if something is selling and is very popular and there's a trend, people are going to go out and they're going to be looking for it. So it's very easy for a cultivator that isn't so sincere to just change the name of something that they think is similar and say, oh yeah, this is 'Super Orange Soda' or whatever that hip strain is at the time. And consumers really don't have that level of transparency. Some people will say this is just marketing, you're trying to sell these products. How would you change their minds? I would say you're absolutely right, but it's based on truth. This is actually chemistry, it's not just the THC effect. What we're trying to do with this platform is we are trying to get people to understand that they should not be shopping by THC potency. And in fact, when you overwhelm the experience with THC, the nuanced mood effects that a lot of people are looking for get drowned out. If you're able to scale it, how does this change the industry? It changes the industry by more effectively pairing the product to the consumer in a meaningful way. Think of wine: it's not just red versus white. Cannabis should be the same way. We're trying to get consumers to see that cannabis is a lot like wine. This Q&A has been condensed for length and clarity. The Boston Globe's weekly Ocean State Innovators column features a Q&A with Rhode Island innovators who are starting new businesses and nonprofits, conducting groundbreaking research, and reshaping the state's economy. Send tips and suggestions to reporter Alexa Gagosz at . Advertisement Steph Machado can be reached at
Forbes
21-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
California Cannabis: Setting the Record Straight on the One-Acre Cap
Steve Deangelo is no small figure in the evolution of the commercial cannabis sector – many have called him the 'Father of the Legal Cannabis Industry'. I have watched Steve from afar and have known him for many years. I have worked alongside him on various projects over the years from Mexico City, MX to Roanoke, VA, and many places in between. And so, recently, I had to sit down with him to talk about the state of the California cannabis industry. In doing so, one particular issue came up and really seemed to perturb Steve – the One-Acre Cannabis Cap. And so, I dove beneath the surface to explore this issue more deeply. Steve DeAngelo For years, a persistent myth has circulated in cannabis industry circles: that Steve DeAngelo—founder of Harborside and one of the most visible figures in cannabis reform—was responsible for eliminating California's one-acre cultivation cap. This claim, which first appeared in a 2017 Leafly article and was later repeated in Rolling Stone and WeedWeek, is not only misleading but ignores the public legislative and regulatory record. As a cannabis attorney who has worked on policy across the U.S. and internationally, I've had a front-row seat to California's legal evolution. The real story is not one of backroom lobbying or last-minute regulatory sabotage—it's a story of legislative sequencing, local government action, and a state struggling to reconcile medical and adult-use cannabis systems. The groundwork for license stacking in California began in October 2015, when lawmakers passed the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MCRSA). This framework allowed licensed dispensaries to cultivate up to four acres and permitted multiple licenses on a single property. It also gave local governments a deadline: establish your own cultivation rules or default to the state's. In the months that followed, Humboldt, Monterey, Santa Barbara and other counties passed ordinances authorizing cultivation in excess of one acre. Humboldt allowed up to four acres per operator and up to twelve acres on some parcels. Cities like Desert Hot Springs, Coalinga, and San Jose approved unlimited license stacking or large-scale operations. In one instance, Coalinga sold a former prison to a cannabis company for more than $4 million. Then came Proposition 64, passed by voters in 2016, legalizing adult-use cannabis. State agencies then set about reconciling the pre-existing medical cannabis regulations with the new adult use law. In April 2017, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) issued draft regulations that stated: 'The Department shall not restrict the total number of cultivation licenses a person is authorized to hold, provided the person's total licensed canopy does not exceed four acres.' The term 'person' included both individuals and businesses. Then, in June 2017, CDFA issued a Programmatic Environmental Impact Report reaffirming that policy, and in the same month the Legislature passed SB 94. It merged the state's medical and adult-use systems under one law: the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA). MAUCRSA formally eliminated the four-acre limit and reaffirmed that multiple licenses could be held on a single parcel—legalizing unlimited license stacking statewide. By the time CDFA issued emergency regulations in November 2017 the legal foundation for license stacking was well established. Industrial-scale operations were already underway. Jurisdictions had issued entitlements, and state agencies would have faced legal liability had they attempted to reverse course. In explaining the final regulations, CDFA spokesperson Steve Lyle said: 'The one-acre limit was in a draft version of the rules. It was left out following evaluation of the emergency regulations, including input from stakeholders.' The Leafly article that ignited this controversy cited unnamed sources and made no mention of the legislative history or the CDFA's own public documents. The result was a narrative shaped more by speculation than fact. Steve DeAngelo never asked anyone to remove a one-acre cap. He never authorized a cultivation plan beyond Harborside's four-acre entitlement. In fact, Harborside only began cultivation after the City of San Jose mandated full vertical integration for dispensaries. Their farm was built not to dominate the market, but to comply with local law. Yes, Harborside lobbied in 2017—but not on canopy limits. Their efforts focused on keeping doors open for people with cannabis convictions, including DeAngelo himself, who had a prior felony from the pre-legalization era. They also opposed a regulatory scheme that would have forced all transactions through third-party distributors, hurting the small growers Harborside had supported for years. Steve explained, 'The new regulations posed two existential threats, two knives at our throats. One was the felony exclusion— it would have made it impossible to convert Harborside's medical cannabis licenses into adult use licenses. And the mandatory distribution scheme would have forced us to sever our relationships with the 500 small growers who supplied Harborside, and instead purchase all our cannabis from distributors who knew nothing about the plant.' At CDFA, Harborside weighed in on real compliance issues: provisional licensing, CEQA timelines, canopy definitions, pesticide and testing standards, track-and-trace rollouts, labor safety, and environmental protocols. There was no ask to expand cultivation limits. Steve didn't respond to the original accusation because he believed the truth would speak for itself. He was also planning to launch the Last Prisoner Project (LPP), a nonprofit focused on freeing those incarcerated for cannabis—a mission that required diplomacy and unity across sectors. 'I didn't respond to the first article because I didn't think it would be viewed as credible. Later on, I was moving other urgent projects forward, like the launch of LPP, and didn't want to attract new attention to the story.' But now, as federal cannabis reform looms and that false narrative continues to circulate, it's time to set the record straight. The future of this industry depends on fact-based policymaking and mutual respect—not finger-pointing rooted in misinformation. License stacking in California was the product of years of legislative development, local ordinances, and public regulatory processes—not the actions of one man. To suggest otherwise isn't just incorrect—it does a disservice to the movement that made legalization possible.
