Cannabis grown indoors is considered better quality and sells for 40% more than greenhouse cannabis, according to an agricultural economist.

While the black market is thriving in nearly every market where cannabis is sold — it was 60% of second quarter sales in Canada in 2019 — it appears to be particularly troublesome in California, where a lack of enforcement, a lack of oversight, and regulatory burdens on legal businesses has allowed it to grow.

Nothing in the brief history of legal marijuana has ever spurred sales quite like coronavirus preppers, and now a week after its record day, the industry looks back at a wild run of days and wonders what the future holds. 

Last Monday, it quickly became apparent that, as word of pending lockdown orders started to spread across California, consumers were rushing to dispensaries. Unsure of what would happen to the cannabis supply chain in that moment, they bought huge amounts of pot.

“Every single day has been busier than 4/20,” an employee at People’s OC dispensary in Santa Ana told L.A. Weekly.

In September, we get to vote on whether to legalise personal possession of cannabis in New Zealand. For a glimpse into what that might look like, Harrison Christian reports from California, where the legal pot business is booming – bringing good times (and some bad) to the masses.

At a pot dispensary in San Francisco, customers wait in an area resembling a swanky hotel lobby until a cannabis consultant beckons them to a marble counter.

Here, there's an exchange about their needs and preferred method of consumption. The customer is shown a menu with a staggering range of options: there are transdermal patches, body balms and disposable vape pens; sparkling drinks, chocolate-covered goji berries and watermelon-flavoured gummies.

Quarantine caused by the global outbreak of COVID-19 is forcing people across the world to find ways to entertain themselves.

In Michigan, people are lighting up.

According to a Twitter survey conducted by the health blog bodynutrition.org, Michigan residents are smoking marijuana more than any other state during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Analysts used trends software with direct access to geotagged twitter data to arrive at the conclusion.

Cannabis dispensaries in San Francisco were allowed to reopen on Tuesday after city officials determined that they are essential businesses that should not be subject to closure during the ongoing shelter-in-place order. The San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) had ordered cannabis retailers to close on Monday along with other businesses deemed non essential as the city struggles to cope with the spreading coronavirus pandemic.

• The San Francisco Bay Area ordered its residents to "shelter in place" on Monday until April 7 in an attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak, requiring people stay indoors and most businesses to go remote or temporarily close. 
• But guidelines over marijuana dispensaries remained unclear until later Monday evening, prompting San Francisco residents to flock to their neighborhood dispensaries.
• "Medical cannabis dispensaries are medical by definition, so they qualify as essential.  But recreational retailers are not an essential service," the San Francisco mayor's office told Business Insider in an email.

Cannabis retailers in California haven’t had the easiest go of legalization. Issues such as illicit storefronts dotting Los Angeles as well as an ever-shifting set of regulations from the BCC have been the reality of California’s adult-use market. This past week the cannabis industry, along with the rest of North America, was hit with a new problem in COVID-19.

COVID-19, or Coronavirus, has taken the world by storm since first appearing in the Wuhan province of China more than 4 months ago. Now entering pandemic stages some states have taken drastic steps to help ‘flatten the curve’ or curb the ever-increasing infection rate. One of these steps to ‘flatten the curve’ has been social-distancing and event closures across the country.

The novel coronavirus continuing to spread around the world has taken the “work-from-home” concept to a whole new level.

At the moment, the global M.O. is to stay home as much as possible. Thankfully, we live in a time where that couldn’t be any easier. With abundant remote work opportunities, numerous product delivery options, and a slew of virtual services available, leaving the house is completely voluntary for some people.