Company News
A post from the road | CBDS Shareholders' Meeting | hi Dispensaries | hi Releaf
The CBDS Shareholder Meeting was held last Thursday in Oakland, California - so I loaded up Marlene and Popi the Boston Terrier puppy into the old Benz (even with 340,000 miles on her, she's till going strong) and we headed off to Northern California. We finally landed in Berkeley on Tuesday afternoon, where we were happily greeted by a huge "FlowCana" billboard, and funny enough, it ended up looming right over the motel we stayed at. It was very cool to see mega advertising from so many new weed businesses - those guys and gals are working hard on positioning themselves in California!
The Shareholder Meeting was awesome! Among those in attendance was noted cannabis author Ed Rosenthal (Big Book of Buds), who is always a welcome voice. Board member and former Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Stephen Downing told us how it went the day before when he'd joined California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom onstage at a news conference in San Francisco to announce that the Adult Use of Marijuana Act has qualified for the November ballot. The measure would allow adults 21 and older to possess, transport and use up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational purposes and grow up to six plants. It would also tax retail sales at 15 percent, although it allows local communities to opt out of licensing retail sales.
Debby Goldsberry and her associate Amber brought the hi Releaf and hi Releaf Plus packaging to show the group. The products looked better than we could have hoped for! At the time of this writing, the Releaf products are offered at Magnolia Wellness. I am certain that their marketing will contribute greatly to CBDS becoming a major factor in the California market. Its great to have a business associate as solid as Magnolia Wellness! Thank you Debby and Amber!
Fresh from a successful showing of Cannabis Sativa products at "Women Grow" in Los Angeles, Hal Lewis addressed the branding issue and how to best approach the California market in 2017. Hal is entrenched in the LA community and his thoughts about branding, labeling, and marketing were well received. Hal has been an associate for years and is a welcome addition to the CBDS effort.
Chris Cope from Ibudtender, who had a great show at HempCon San Francisco a few weeks ago (and also sold through 20 cases of Wild Earth Naturals CBD Water at his booth) gave his viewpoint regarding online information portals and how the future of that technology might evolve.
Questions were asked, answers were bantered about and overall it was a great upbeat session and we ended with the re-election of the Board for another 1 year term.
After the Meeting ended, the group was invited over to Magnolia Wellness to see the hi products and the displays in the dispensary. Debby and Amber had the hi Releaf and hi Releaf Plus products finished and they looked great! We had the chance to compared the hi Lineup next to the other topicals that Magnolia Wellness had in their inventory, and we were quite pleased to see how the hi branding compared. Watch out Whoopi and Maya - we're confident about what's inside our container, and well, I think the outside just speaks for itself…
Magnolia Wellness did a great job with their billboard - it features the orange hi circle branding, and they also just put out a full page ad in the East Bay Express which features the hi Releaf topicals and proper hi branding. http://www.magnoliawellness.org/ 
We wrapped up our California part of the trip with lunch at The Fat Lady, and then we headed towards Portland, Oregon to visit the hi Dispensary on Powell Street. It was inspiring to see dispensaries immediately off the Interstate 5 exit - and the orange hi sign was very easy to spot! We pulled in and spent some time with Mike the budtender and saw more great branding for hi.
Our trip then continued up the majestic Northwest Coast to Olympia, Washington, where we were greeted by another billboard asking "Got weed?" The answer is yeah, we got some! Who doesn't love Washington?
All in all, the Shareholders' Meeting, dispensary & manufacturer visits along the way, the beauty of America on the open road - a breath of fresh air - were all very inspirational, motivational, and much needed. I hope next year to see even more enthusiastic shareholders join us at the Meeting. I'm looking forward to all of the exciting new developments that we're hard at work on at Cannabis Sativa, Inc., and I'm proud to be a part of it all. Let's make it happen in 2016!
