How the Hunt for Relief Created a Brand

 

The MM Report recently interviewed the founder that tirelessly strives to bridge the gap of inconsistency and availability within the cannabis industry, Adel Manuel:

Tell us about the creation of chill, when it first came out, where it started, history prior to being a licensed product, ect?

“I started Chill Medicated in 2017. I was a caregiver before this and had made a lot of good connections in the Lansing market. There was a lot of competition within the marketplace that lacked significantly in quality products. I was frustrated with how I would get an amazing edible from someone and I would then go back and get it again and it would be under medicated or worse. I had patients asking for edibles and I couldn’t recommend anyone with confidence because dosing was so inconsistent. So I started making suckers for my patients and a dispensary in town found out and requested 1,000 suckers for a 420 celebration they had planned, which ended up being a huge success. 

Around the time I was launching the suckers, my mom ended up getting a terrible case of eczema on her hands. That got me motivated to make a rub to help her. I spent a few nights researching everything I could about oils and came up with a recipe. It knocked out my moms eczema in a couple days and I knew I was onto something big. I had a few patients try it for various chronic pain conditions and I continuously received amazing feedback. Soon, I began to receive requests for it from many individuals and, through trial and error and a couple formulations later... we have the rub recipe that’s in use now. 

I was lucky enough to have some really good help along the way and things kept getting bigger but we were able to keep the quality of our products consistent. To be lucky enough to be a part of this industry is something I have never taken for granted. It never got old to walk into a provisioning center and have them happy to see you. Being able to do something you are passionate about is something that not many people get the chance to do; making it that much easier to focus on quality and consistency.”

How did you develop the relationship with MEDfarms? When did Chill Medicated first start getting produced in a licensed processing center?

“My relationship with MEDfarms started in 2018 at their provisioning center in Bay City. I met a gentleman named Pun there and we quickly realized we did business in much the same way and quickly grew a mutual respect for each other. For about a year, I was putting feelers out in the cannabis community that I wanted to license my brand to a licensed processor. That June at the Cannabis Cup, he had approached me with some of the other MEDfarms partners and personnel and we started talking seriously. After a few months of back and forth negotiating, we signed a long term deal in late October and we had the product ready in METRC by January.”

How does this fine medical product respond to the Adult use market? As a prospective topical consumer, you may wonder, do topicals get you high?

“Chill Medicated rubs are perfect for the adult use market. Our topicals get rid of pain without getting you high. That is something so many people want and need. Not everyone wants to be high all day every day and for them to have a product they can use all day every day without getting high is something that has mass appeal. Our topicals are non-transdermal, meaning it does not absorb into the bloodstream; resulting in no psychoactive effects. This makes it an excellent product that you can use all day long while keeping your head clear and focused! What’s on the inside? That’s what really counts! Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Beeswax, Mango Butter, Grape Seed Oil, Vitamin E, Frankincense, Myrrh, Rosehip Oil, Lavender, Helichrysm, Camphor White, Premium Cannabis Oil, Pure CBD Isolate, and lots of Love. Our plant-based premium products are sourced, produced, and tested in Michigan.”

What is the plan for new chill products and the future of chill?

“We have some exciting things planned. We have some great scents coming to our Massage Oil line. We have a lip balm that is going to be on the market soon and we are in the final stages of launching a water soluble gummy line. Our gummies are fast-acting because they are water soluble, making accurate microdosing even easier for the consumer to dose accordingly. I am really excited to get both of these products out to market. We are also in the process of getting our suckers relaunched.

We are also launching a Holiday Topical that has cooling properties as it is infused with peppermint oils! We are very excited for this addition as we haven’t had a cooling topical before. This is a great item to consider exploring for a great gift!

As a brand, Chill Medicated has exciting plans to expand to other states. What I got going in Michigan, I want to do in other states but the focus is on controlled growth so that the quality of our products stays consistent. The biggest thing we have going for us is our reputation as quality medication and the worst thing we could do is grow to fast and lose that.”

Patient Testimonial:

“In 2017, I had gotten into a terrible car accident, resulting in several fractured vertebrae,
nerve damage, and many other unfortunate things. I couldn’t walk for a few months and later on I rehabilitated to be more mobile but I’ve never been the same since. To this day, I still deal with chronic pain, inflammation and migraines. While searching for a holistic approach to make my days more manageable, I came about Chill Medicated. I was speechless after the first time using it. While doing so, I noticed the topicals scar/acne reducing and skin soothing properties that it possesses nearly a week into using it. Needless to say, I put it nearly all over my entire body on a daily basis. This drove me to do my own homework on the brand, which led me to find CBD products that are doggie-friendly that I use for my beloved boomie boy! Showing love and compassion for both humans and furry friends is incredible! I am now using less-harsh pain medications and feeling more myself again and I can’t say that for any other company. I owe it to you, so a big thank you and shout out to the Chill Medicated team for bringing me this much closer to feeling happy again.”

-Nick

John Sinclair - Free the Weed #113 - November 2020

 

A Column By John Sinclair

Hi everybody, as Ernie Harwell used to say, and highest greetings from the campus of Harvard University, where I’ve been in residence for the month of October at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School as a guest of my friend Christian Greer, who now goes by the title of Dr. J.C. Greer and is doing his first post-doctoral teaching term here at Harvard, where he’s teaching classes like Acid Communism and others centering on LSD, weirdness and the occult. Christian also runs my Instagram account for me.

Christian is a graduate of the University of Amsterdam, where I met him and his companion Michelle Owing and was their guest several times, staying with them in their apartment on Jacob von Lennepstraat. Now they’ve both completed their PhDs, Christian is teaching at Harvard Divinity School and Michelle is ensconced as an art historian at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, where Christian hopes to join her as a fellow faculty member next year.

Thinking of our splendid times as residents of Amsterdam, perhaps the most civilized city on earth, I was reminded of an article I read last week in an on-line news source called DutchNews.nl to which I have subscribed for more than 20 years since I started visiting Amsterdam as High Priest of the Cannabis Cup in 1998. DutchNews.nl reports that local businesses are adding pressure on the City Council to “clean up” the city’s sex and drugs reputation.

According to DutchNews.nl, “eight Amsterdam employers’ organizations have joined forces in an effort to persuade the city council to radically reform the city’s image as a haven for sex and drugs, adding further pressure on officials to make major changes. In particular, city officials should act to tackle the window brothels in the red light district and change the policy on cannabis cafes, both as a matter of urgency.”

Earlier this yearthe city marketing agency Amsterdam & partners told DutchNews.nl that “the city is aiming to build a new tourist industry that is socially, economically and ecologically ‘sustainable’.” Indeed the city council has been talking for some time about how best to tackle the problems caused by “budget tourists,”or people who come to the city simply looking to have a good time in the red light district where prostitution is legal and in the coffeeshops where weed is available over the counter. 

“More and more people are coming to Amsterdam who have no respect for the city and are only looking out for number one,”the city’s marketing director said. “We have now drawn up a 10-point priority list, which includes a total ban on holiday rentals such as AirBnB, focused campaigns targeting ‘quality’ tourists, and money to pay for more street wardens. Cannabis cafes should only be open to residents, and there should be fewer music festivals.”

Further, the locals’ plan said, “Mini supermarkets should be banned from selling alcohol and the sex industry should be moved in its entirety to a hotel in a different location, perhaps to a special room-rental complex for prostitutes or an ‘erotic center’ complete with prostitution, sex theatres and other facilities.”

DutchNews.nl also revealed that political pressure is mounting on the city’s coalition to agree to ban non-residents from the city’s cannabis cafes, or coffeeshops.  A survey in February showed that a third of the tourists questioned said that if they were no longer allowed into coffee shops, they would visit Amsterdam less frequently, and 11% would not come at all.  One third of the British tourists said that coffeeshops were their main reason to come to Amsterdam, and 42% said they would come less frequently if only local residents could buy cannabis.

There are a lot of bad things one could say about the British tourists, who are only an hour’s plane ride away from Amsterdam, but it’s mostly because they come to get drunk and stagger around the streets of the red light district making a lot of noise and acting stupid.  Simple law enforcement techniques popular in the United States and Britain could correct this problem if applied with intelligence and good sense, but to ban or plan out of existence the presence of such tourists in favor of upper-echelon white people who will stay in expensive hotels and dine at exclusive restaurants is a solution that borders on economic fascism and casts the Dutch locals into an entirely different light.

Amsterdam has spent 500 years developing its unique cultural setting, a form of western civilization that far surpasses anything we have on offer in America, England, or elsewhere in Europe. The police state aspects we are accustomed to in our cities and municipalities are simply not present in Amsterdam, and the street-level authorities stay pretty much out of everyone’s business unless they spot someone robbing or trying to hurt other citizens. There are no homeless people sleeping on the ground or in doorways in the central city, no drug pushers accosting people on the street, no sleazy characters making life miserable for regular people who are enjoying the attractions of the city’s streets.

People like myself who like to get high in public can go into one of the 200 or so remaining coffeeshops in Amsterdam, buy five grams of weed or hashish over the counter, sit down, order a coffee, tea or juice, and smoke their cannabis alone or with their friends. There are strict rules against minors in the shops, and rowdy or antisocial behavior is simply not tolerated or allowed. 

In my experience, the Dutch coffeeshops provide the highest form of human interaction available anywhere on earth, they pay taxes to the government, and they are a credit to the country and its people who have allowed them to develop over the past 50 years since marijuana use was designated as a decriminalized “gray area” by the national parliament.

Not so far from Holland, in nearby Spain, the International Cannabis Chronicle reports “the very greyness of the status of cannabis per Spanish law” has allowed Spanish citizens to consume cannabis in private clubs for the past three years. But one of the leaders of the Spanish club movement, Albert Tió, the secretary of a cannabis association in Barcelona with nearly 4,000 members, was convicted of crimes against the “public health and illicit association” by the Provincial Court in Barcelona. His conviction was upheld by the Spanish Supreme Court, but Tió is arguing that his conviction is a violation of the rights of autonomy and personal dignity contained in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Tio’s case could impact other European cannabis social club models, particularly in countries like Germany where the right of cannabis has now been enshrined as a medical one. While four countries in Europe—Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, and Switzerland—are moving forward with recreational trials if not plans, Spain as well as countries like Germany have not moved forward to enshrine a formal medical or recreational industry. This also appears now to be on the brink of changing, one way or the other.

When will the federal government of the United States join this elite company? We should see before too long, pending the results of the recent election which I’m unable to predict at this writing, but I’ll definitely have more to say about this in next month’s column. I hope you voted like I did to get rid of that asshole Ronald Rump! Free The Weed!

—Detroit

October 24, 2020

© 2020 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.

Tinfoil Hat Time! November 2020

 

“That whom he could not by the sword destroy, he might supplant by the law.”

-Sir Henry Robart, 1st Baronet, 1614

Quote is back.  She’s a beauty, right?  If you can not physically remove your opposition, you can just
supersede them by using force or treachery to manipulate the policy environment.  Worked 406+ years ago.  Works today.

That’s because there has always been a ‘1%’.  Thinking of clever ways to steal what is not theirs and deny it from others, be it property or rights.  Constantly changing, relative to the total, as percentages tend to do.

For example ~210,000 Covid deaths is ~0.063636363636364% of a population of ~330 million.

Another fun percentage is ~203 business owners and lobbyists being ~0.076851147277842% of ~264,147 Michigan medical marijuana patients.

At this point I am certain the ‘woke’ and ‘science minded’ will wish to consult someone on TV or in politics, perhaps even a government agency run by an official appointed to their large salaried position by a politician, or a paid lobbyist group.  For those of you who are ignorant of ‘facts’ and ‘science’, such as myself, let’s examine this information with our own intellect. 

Tinfoil Hat Time!  I was going to supplant the title with a different one, but I just can not bring myself to let a fraction of a percent of my mind trick the rest of it into controlling it. 

Call it heartless, call it evil, call it unscientific if you must, but a fraction of the total should not control the total, tricks or otherwise.  That notion just makes sense.  That idea is the entire spirit of the ‘99%’ movement.  A tiny little bit of us should not be making all the rules, because when that happens all the rules are made to the advantage of the tiny little bit.  Supplanting ‘that whom he could not destroy by the sword’ with law becomes rather easy, and money and power flow like a sieve directly to the tiny little bit.  

The marijuana industry is no different.  A micro to a macro.  The tiny little bit claiming to seek an environment where cannabis thrives, claiming to represent medical patients, claiming to represent the desires of a species of plant, all the while only truly representing themselves and their private interests.  Manipulating perception with the help of the propagandists, and manipulating law with the help of money.  That should not be.

This weed 1% (well, to be accurate ~0.076851147277842%, but for ease of reading we’ll stick with 1%) sent a love letter to Whitmer on March 18.  The letter begins by telling the Queen how “proud of and grateful to” her majesty this 1% is for her bold and swift decision to shut down the state and decimate its’ economy, and for manipulating law to their advantage by opening up delivery and curbside.  “In anticipation of more restrictions as you work to flatten the curve...” the letter goes on to ask for retail adult-use recreational marijuana to be marked essential, and therefore exempt from her business shattering unconstitutional orders, in the name of, get this, patient access.

Six days later those further restrictions came, and the taxed and regulated marijuana market was deemed essential right alongside medical marijuana.  Actual medical procedures were cancelled and shut down.  Families lost long standing livelihoods.  Funerals were banned.  Places of worship were shuttered and ordered closed.   Schools were emptied.  Going to other peoples’ houses, regardless of whether or not you were buying drugs, or whether or not they were your caregiver, was criminalized.   

But you could pay double plus tax for a bag of retail pot?  And a random person could come to your house to sell you the pot?  No medical condition?  Recreational weed as essential to human life?  Government orders?  

The propagandists told us to celebrate the victory, as if it were a win for the marijuana movement.  Meanwhile big pharma and tobacco CEO’s, investors, and analysts cited essential status in a vast minority of (8/50) states, beaming with pride and calling for their ‘new’ and ‘essential’ product to be federally legalized while re-adjusting their quarterly profit predictions.  Or in many cases, quarterly loss predictions.  Hint.  Hint.

You see, the weed 1% has a problem: their new product is not new, and it’s not theirs.  The pre-existing now deemed ‘black’ market has been selling this product for decades.  Rather successfully and safely, it should be noted.  So safe was the marijuana grown by the pre-existing market that not only are there zero recorded deaths due to cannabis throughout prohibition, but a government, and a populace, that once thought the plant a poison sent by Satan itself, saw the error in their ways and deemed it a medicine for the sick and elderly, even children.  This line they have been feeding us about black market weed being unsafe just does not add up.  It can not be.  Kills no one the whole time it’s ‘bad for you’?  Safe enough to be medicine?  Then suddenly too unsafe for consumption at a party?

It does not take an economist to see that the competition offering 50% cost to the consumer is an insurmountable roadblock on the path to gratuitous market share.  It does not take a business professional to realize that you can not sell a thing at 200% the price of the same thing, and expect to make millions while gobbling up loyal customers.  It does not take a sociologist to note that poor people have less money to spend and want to get more for their dollar.  Nor does it take a mathematician to figure out that $20-$30 with no tax, is less than $40-$60 plus 6% plus 10%, for the same 3.5 grams of marijuana.  That’s excluding the volume price breaks every street dealer has offered as an industry standard for years.

The pre-existing market is not voluntarily going anywhere, what existed in illegal is not going to be intimidated by illicit. It will also not lose in an open and free market where consumers’ wallets dictate winners and losers.  That is why we do not have an open and free market.  That is why safe weed is now unsafe.  That is why the pre-existing market is the ‘black market’ for a product we thought we were making legal.  What can not be destroyed can be supplanted by law.

Case in point the October 6 MRA advisory bulletin titled ‘MRTMA Eligibility’, that opens with “To minimize the illegal market for marijuana in this state…” and later reads “As the commercial marijuana market in the state grows, the impact of the illicit market remains a primary concern.  Products from the illicit market are not grown or processed under the strict conditions required in the regulated market or tested by state licensed safety compliance facilities for harmful contaminants.”  Yes, the weed that has been grown for generations, the same weed so uber safe it flipped illegal to legal and invoked dollar signs in neck-tie wearing eyes all across the globe, is not subject to any of your strict rules and inflated costs.  100% accurate.  From the horse’s mouth.  Thanks MRA, for finally telling the truth.  The question then becomes, did the MRA think of this on their own?  Or did someone send them a letter?

The problem the weed 99% have is that the weed 1% will never be satisfied.  In the coming months and years they will demonize home growing, and quietly pass legislation on whatever level gets them what they want.  People like Robin Schneider and MiCIA, who boast of being involved with the tax and regulate law, while also bragging as a selling point about their influence over publicly funded government agencies and offices, along with the weed 1%, will destroy the very thing they worked so hard and so lovingly to create.  A fraction of a percent will once again dictate direct individual access to a naturally occurring living being, and any relationship with it.  They will target any and all competition be it pre-existing, caregiving, mom and pop, home growing, non vertically integrated, not one of their ‘club’, until only that fraction of a percent controls all.  All others will be removed. 

All without ever picking up a sword.

World News - November 2020

 

New Zealand Looks to Educate Doctors on MJ

In the hopes that education leads to more use as a medicine, the government in New Zealand has asked for proposals on how to provide physicians with information on medical marijuana.

The Ministry of Health believes the resulting resource will give practitioners the information they require in make accurate decisions.  Funding allocated for the project totals 50,000 New Zealand dollars, or US$33,300.

While welcoming, some understand the balance that must be kept between informing, and influencing.  “Industry understand and respects health practitioner independence and does not want to create the impression of any improper influence, but in this fast-moving research space many prescribers do not have appropriate information and education on cannabis based medicines”, the words of the executive director of New Zealand Medicinal Cannabis Council (NZMCC) Sally King.  

Vivo Cannabis Cuts Workforce to Stem Loss

Vivo Cannabis, a Toronto-based Canadian company, will be cutting workforce, eliminating expenditures, and re-organizing it’s leadership all in an effort to move into positive cash flow.  The company operates two licenses, Canna Farms in Hope, British Columbia, and ABcann Medicinals with two facilities in Napanee, Ontario.

Forty-five employees, the majority of which from the ABcann Napanee facility, will be eliminated, an 18% cut to total workforce.  The ABcann Napanee facility is reportedly being repurposed to focus on “low-cost cultivation” and extraction.  Packaging and distribution will be moved to the British Columbia facility.

Vivo Cannabis will cut 18% of it’s workforce, mostly from it’s ABcann Napanee operations.

Vivo also stated that all projects were completed and they will be “monetizing noncore assets” (selling things they do not need) and halting all capital expenditures (not spending any money).  In a news release the company explains, “The actions taken this week will better align the business with the demands and evolution of the cannabis market and well-position the company for future profitable growth.”

2017 saw headlines touting ABcann’s rapid expansion, the company recieving tens of millions of dollars in investents.

Medical Legalization Bill Introduced in Rwanda

Dr. Richard Sezibera presented a bill to the Rwandan parliament that would legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes, adding to the growing list of nations making efforts to nomralize cannabis.

“The objective of this bill is to contribute to the protection of the population while ensuring that drugs and psychotropic substances are exclusively available for scientific and medical purposes, Sezibera stated in an address to parliament.  He insists the bill will not only comply with United Nations conventions on drugs while responding to the UN’s call for every country to have laws against illegal drugs and to control dangerous medicines, but at the same time achieve the Rwandan Health Ministry mandate to ensure that citizens have adequate access to medications.

France Still Faces Hard Opposite to Legalization

A letter printed in a Sunday edition of Le Journal du Dimanche published Oct 4, and signed by eighty members of the French parliament, makes clear their stance on cannabis legalization, “There is no ‘soft drug’.  Drugs are a poison, a plague that we must fight.”  The letter goes on to state, “In recent weeks, some mayors have restarted the debate by saying they are ‘for’ the legalisation of cannabis.  We, MPs and Républicains senators, would like to remind them that we are strongly against this.”

This clear sentiment comes just one week after the same newspaper published a story where three MPs of the same party spoke in favor of legalization, calling it “the best way to eliminate selling and ruin drug dealers”.  

But the eighty stalwart MP’s make clear in their response that is a sentiment they disagree on, “Legalising the sale of cannabis will make current dealers turn towards other, even more dangerous substances.  Just because law enforcement struggles to keep up with dealers, doesn’t mean that we should legalise the practice.”

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin thinks ‘drugs are shit’, and that is a direct quote.

France has a long battle in the way of legalizing marijuana.  In mid-September Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin made his opinion very clear, stating, “Drugs are shit.  I cannot say as interior minister, as a politician, to parents who are fighting for their children to escape addiction to this drug, that we are going to legalise this shit.”

UKs Poster Child for Weed Finally Receives Meds

After years of campaigning by his mother, and fellow advocates, and two years after the legalization of medical cannabis in the United Kingdom, Billy Caldwell has received a lifelong prescription to National Health Service medicinal cannabis.  Billy suffers from severe epilepsy, and his fight has paved the way for patient access all across the UK.

“It’s been a long time coming, I can’t quite believe it.  It means so much to us, it means everything”, stated Billy’s mother Charlotte.

National News - November 2020

 

Vineyards Lose Fight Against Weed Farms

Two grape growers in Oregon filed a lawsuit in 2017 arguing in court that their crops would be marred by odors from nearby marijuana operations.  Yamhill County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Easterday did not agree.

On Oct 22 she ruled that Smera Vineyard and Maysara Winery had not met their burden of proof in order to justify preventing the Wagner family from growing and processing marijuana nearby.  Easterday made her decision after deliberating for almost eight months, relistening to expert testimony several times.  “This was a very difficult and close decision”, she stated, “there is insufficient proof at this time by a preponderance of the evidence that it will damage plaintiffs’ current or future agricultural products.”

Maine Regulatory Agency Ignores Residency Reqs.

Maine law requires owners of marijuana operations to live in Maine and to have filed state income taxes for four years.  However the Maine Office of Marijuana Policy chose to ignore these requirements when Attorney General Aaron Frey advised that the requirements would be unlikely to hold up in court.

James Monteleone, attorney for the two Maine-based pot shops who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, stated it is “not an option” for the state to choose not enforce its own laws.  “We’re just looking for a fair shake.  The Legislature adopted a law that says Maine companies are going to be the ones that are eligible for licenses.”

Raise your hand if you like advising regulatory agencies to ignore residency requirements.

An earlier lawsuit in March claimed the same thing, when the Office of Marijuana Policy failed to recognize the residency requirement again at the AG’s suggestion.  Maine’s largest marijuana dispensary chain Wellness Connection is 49% owned by a Delaware investor who had argued that the requirement restricted them from raising enough money to enter the market.

Businesses named in the lawsuit include three operating under Theory Wellness, part owned by a Massachusetts company, and four others operating under New Hampshire ownership.

Pennsylvania Approves DUI Protection for Patients

An amendment has passed the Pennsylvania house that states that “marijuana used lawfully in accordance with” Pennsylvania medical cannabis laws will be exempt from DUI statutes.

“I think that you can ask any veteran or anybody that’s using medical cannabis right now, if they took the prescription on Monday, Wednesday, the’re not high,” stated Rep. Ed Gainey in a floor speech prior to the vote.

Pennsylvania sees this amendment pass as calls for broader legalization come at all levels of government.  

Gov. Tom Wolf has stated that marijuana reform could potentially generate the revenue to support economic recovery from the pandemic, and the ending criminalization is necessary for social justice.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman also shares in that sentiment, and has voiced his frustration with the state of Pennsylvania for not already having legalized for adult-use like neighboring states.

Metrc Adds West Virginia to List of Clientele

Metrc, the Florida based cannabis tracking company, now includes West Virginia in it’s list of clients.

Fifteen states, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and the District of Columbia all have contracts to use Metrc systems for the tracking of seed to sale marijuana.  

West Virginia will begin the process of issuing medical marijuana patient cards in the spring of 2021.

Delivery Lawsuit in L.A. Tests Social Equity Laws

A lawsuit filed in L.A. looks to overturn a recent requirement that only qualifying social equity applicants can be awarded delivery licenses.

Plaintiffs say they have no desire to end social equity licenses.  They argue in favor of the original plan from 2017 of a 2 to 1 ratio of social equity to non-social equity licenses.  At current some non-social equity businesses will not be eligible for delivery until the year 2025.

Virgil Grant fights for both social equity and legacy operators in California.

Virgil Grant, the African-American co-founder of the Southern California Coalition and the California Minority Alliance has no problem with the lawsuit and believes non-social equity legacy operators should be given access to licensing.  “The legacy operators should have their path to licensure in this program a lot quicker.  Because they’ve been around, they’ve been operating,” according to Grant, “It’s only fair.”