It’s time for your Daily Hit of cannabis financial news for July 9, 2020. 

On the Site 

High Times 

The Cannabis Law report has confirmed from HighTimes Holding Corp. lawyer  Stephen Weiss and Megan Penick of L.A. based Michelman Robinson LLP that the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has halted sales of shares in the company. The story as reported by Teri Buhl states that the reason the sales were stopped is the company hasn’t filed its annual report. 

The last time the company filed official annual earnings was June 2019. High Times had told investors it would get updated financial information on June 12, but that did not happen. The company has extended the offering of shares for two years, initially telling investors that it would list its shares on the NASDAQ. Then it lowered those expectations to the Over-The-Counter Marketplace. Still, it hasn’t happened. 

What has happened is that the company continually announces acquisitions and tells investors how much money the new acquisition will bring in. Then months later, the deal typically quietly goes away. Sometimes announced in an SEC filing and sometimes just through a press release. In some cases, the acquisitions just never close and stay in a suspended state waiting for the shares to go public as payment for the acquisition. 

Higher Ground 

Higher Ground media and Seattle-based cannabis company Saints Joints have created The Ballot Box, a high-end box of cannabis joints designed to smash stoner stereotypes by registering people to vote. In addition to five premium pre-rolls, the Ballot Box contains a QR code that immediately registers voters, a mini version of the Bill of Rights, and non-partisan information about voting and elections. 

“The cliche, obviously, is that pot smokers are lazy and couch-locked, when – in fact – we’re as active and involved as any community,” notes Higher Ground Editor-in-Chief Michael A. Stusser. “With the Ballot Box, we’re using a new platform as an entry point to spark engagement, and register new voters.” 

In Other News 

Marijuana Policy Project, the largest organization in the U.S. focused solely on enacting humane cannabis laws, is launching its “Reimagining Justice” Initiative on July 15. The event will take a deeper look at Race, Cannabis and Policing in America with an afternoon of thoughtful discussion amongst America’s leading civil rights and cannabis activists, including former NBA star Al Harrington and Canadian cannabis entrepreneurs and Houseplant co-founders, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. 

“As our country grapples with how to address criminal justice and policing reform, it is of the utmost importance to include cannabis legalization in the discussion. For decades, cannabis criminalization has disproportionately harmed Black and Brown lives and has served as a pretext for countless police stops, some of which end with fatality. While cannabis legalization is not the cure-all to end oppressive policing, it is necessary and would provide an opportunity to shift policing away from the failed drug war and towards community healing,” said Steve Hawkins, Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project.