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A Look into Colorado's Key Initiatives to Remain an ‘Innovating Force’ in Cannabis and Hemp

Jul 17, 2019

Colorado Hemp Advancement & Management Plan colorado champ hemp members vicente sederberg

Earlier this summer, Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced two major initiatives for Colorado’s marijuana and hemp industries. The first, the Colorado Hemp Advancement & Management Plan, aka the CHAMP initiative, is a broad stakeholder effort to help Colorado “remain an innovating force in the promotion of this high-value agricultural commodity.”

CHAMP will have eight stakeholder groups dedicated to specific steps along the hemp supply chain, including Research & Development and Seed Certification, Cultivation, Transportation, Testing, Processing, Manufacturing, Marketing, and Banking & Insurance.

The collaborative initiative also includes representatives from Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment, Revenue Department, Department of Regulatory Agencies, Office of Economic Development and International Trade, Department of Public Safety, Commission of Indian Affairs, Department of Higher Education, and local governments and industry experts.

Three of the CHAMP initiative’s “industry experts”  have familiar faces: Vicente Sederberg Partner and Hemp & Cannabinoid Practice Group Chair, Shawn Hauser, will participate in the Research & Development and Seed Certification group; Jordan Wellington, VP of Government Affairs for VS Strategies, is a member of the Testing group; and Hemp & Cannabinoid Group attorney Courtney Barnes will participate in the Transportation working group.

Check out this interview with Colorado’s new director of the Department of Agriculture, Kate Greenberg, to learn more.

Governor’s Dashboard is Now Online

The second major initiative out of Colorado this summer is the Governor’s Dashboard, an online resource created to provide “transparency and accountability on key goals set by the administration to move Colorado forward.” The Dashboard shows the progress on several high-priority initiatives in Colorado, including cannabis policy, which has been assigned a cabinet-level working group, complete with what the Governor has termed “wildly important” priorities and goals, including:

  1. Work to implement marijuana delivery and the establishment of cannabis businesses as IPOs
  2. Increase financial service providers who serve cannabis-related businesses by 20%
  3. Establish Colorado as a national leader in industrial hemp research, production, and processing

In addition to the goals for cannabis, the Dashboard includes specific hemp goals under the Department of Agriculture plan. The “wildly important goals” for hemp include:

  • Increase indoor hemp-growing square footage from 7.67 million square feet to 10 million square feet

     

  • Increase outdoor acres devoted to hemp growth from 21,000 to more than 60,000

Stay tuned for more updates as the CHAMP working groups get to work and the Governor’s Dashboard tracks the progress of the Centennial State’s high-priority initiatives.

For assistance understanding how these programs may affect your business, contact a member of Vicente Sederberg’s Hemp & Cannabinoid team today!

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