Marijuana Business Magazine October 2018

lNSlGHTFUL lNDUSTRY OBSERVATlONS What They’re SAYING “While Facebook has held a pretty hard line on advertising, which cannabis companies have been dealing with for years, this is a big hit to cannabis businesses and brands. A company’s social pages are as important, if not more important, than their website.” – Rosie Mattio , founder of New York’s cannabis-focused Rosie Mattio Public Relations, on Facebook’s recent “shadow banning” of mari- juana companies, a move in which the businesses’ posts become invisible to users searching for them. Source: Marijuana Business Daily “We focused on it as a re- lationship, which meant we put down a whole bunch of specific ways we worked. For example, they were our sole partner for beverages, but if we wanted the same outcome not in a beverage, that was all our business. … We spent 11 months putting together the deal so that everybody would understand where they could play and where they couldn’t play, (so) the conflicts would be minimized.” – Bruce Linton , CEO of Canopy Growth, on the behind-the-scenes work that led to global liquor giant Constellation Brands’ $3.8 million in- creased ownership stake in his Ontario, Canada-based cannabis company, a deal that was announced in August at MJBizConINT’L in Toronto. Source: Marijuana Business Daily “Looking at the terms of this agreement, you can really see that things were left undefined and up to the parties as to what each side was expected to do and not do. Particularly when it relates to intellectual property, you want to be really persnickety and specific.” – Cristina Buccola , a New York lawyer who works in the mari- juana space but isn’t involved in a trademark-infringement lawsuit between California firms Peak Health Center and CBD Naturals, on the importance of cannabis companies evolving from “handshake agreements” to having professionals draw up partnership agreements. Source: Hemp Industry Daily 120 • Marijuana Business Magazine • October 2018