How's it growing, folks?! Oh, do I have a special Windy City-edition of the newsletter for you! From local to international, Here Weed Go! has you covered like kief on a good bowl of flower.
Let's start first with the podcast, where my feature interview is with Michael Sassano, CEO and Chairman of Somai Pharmaceuticals. Based out of Portugal, Somai is a pharmaceutical and biotech company centered on manufacturing and distribution of EU GMP-certified, cannabinoid-containing pharmaceuticals throughout the European Union and globally.
Perusing Somai's menu of products, you'd think you were looking at something offered by any number of brands at medical and recreational dispensaries here in Arizona and other legal states.
The difference, as Sassano explains, has to do with regulatory status and how different countries in the EU approach cannabis.
Basically, since the federal government here in the U.S. has left it to each individual state, and because of how cannabis is still considered a narcotic with no medicinal qualities and therefore can't be studied at a wide scale, states have been forced to treat safety in the cannabis industry like the food service industry instead of the potential pharmaceutical it more appropriately should be classified as.
Listen to more of what Sassano has to say in the podcast, it was maybe the most surprising and enlightening interview I've had on Here Weed Go!
Next in the bowl is the centerpiece story: my look at the Pima County Board of Supervisors’ upcoming vote on proposed amendments to the zoning code dictating where marijuana dispensaries, cultivation facilities and production sites can be within unincorporated parts of Pima County.
While some of the proposed changes would allow for marijuana-related facilities in a wider swath of industrial and commercial areas, another change could end up making Pima County unattractive to any potential social equity dispensary license holders.
The jist of it is that, after some lobbying from the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Planning and Zoning Commission decided to disregard staff suggestions and to recommend adding a conditional use permit to the process for social equity licensees.
The Board of Supervisors will decide Aug. 2 which proposal, staff's or the commission's, will pass.
I'm closing out the newsletter with a look at a fun, ‘90s-themed event for a good cause going on over at Arte Bella on 4th Avenue this weekend.
On top of the free vendor fair from 12-6 p.m. featuring Burr's Best and Desert Garden Collective — some of the local brands I featured in the newsletter a few weeks back — as well as other local cannabis-centric brands, the event also functions as a way to give back to the community: Every person who brings school supplies (think: backpacks, 3-ring binders, note pads, calculators, etc.) to be donated to the Boys and Girls club of Tucson, will be entered in a drawing for fun goodies and gift cards.
Although I'll be in Chicago for the next week for a friend's wedding (and to finally get out of this heat!), I'll for sure be at Arte Bella in spirit this weekend!
So get out and enjoy a little of what's happening in Tucson and around Pima County this week, folks! Until next week, keep growing towards the sun because, Here Weed Go!
Eddie Celaya, TucsonMarijuanaGuide.com / Arizona Daily Star
