The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has established seven principles as guidelines by which cooperatives put their values into practice.   The Second Principle is Democratic Member Control: “Co-operatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions.  Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership.  In primary cooperatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one votes) and cooperatives at other levels are…

The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has established seven principles as guidelines by which cooperatives put their values into practice.   The First Principle is Voluntary and Open Membership: “Cooperatives are voluntary organizations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.” We see immediately that membership in a Co-op must be a voluntary act – no one shall be…

What Happens After Cannabis? Cannabis legalization has spread across most of the country in some form – more than 2/3 of the states have a medical marijuana program and 15 states (representing about 1/3 of the US population) have adult use laws.  A number of other states (like New York and Connecticut) are queuing up to legalize soon.  Hemp has now been made federally legal and federal regulation of CBD should be forthcoming.  While the…

The title of this post is misleading. There’s not ten types on the list, but that’s not the point.  We are actually going to take a tiny, non-inclusive peek into history to look at some types of cooperative businesses that have previously existed, in order to compare to the “standard” list of coop types you will get on the first page of a Google search.  Why would we do this?  To emphasize the idea that…

The term “organic” can be found widely used in the cannabis space, in website copy, advertising, and in casual conversations.  Organic is a term that is, perhaps, most often associated with the produce at certain high-end grocery stores or at the local farmers’ market.  But what does it mean in relation to cannabis? Even though a lot of cannabis is grown in high-tech greenhouses by technicians in lab coats and is regulated like nuclear waste,…

What is the Massachusetts Craft Marijuana Cooperative license? At the time of this writing, there are only three Craft Marijuana Cooperatives that have submitted an application.  No Co-op has yet received a final license.  Contrast this with the approximately 250 cultivator applications.  Why so little interest in the Co-op license type?  Let’s take a look at what this license actually is. In the Law from the Beginning The original intent of the Co-op license was,…