Believe it or not: The Voice of the Plant can still be heard at MJBizCon 2024
Cannabis industry hopefuls from around the world descended on Las Vegas in Nevada. MJBizCon 2024 was an interesting blur. As America’s top cannabis industry event, I always attend with an eye towards sussing out that blurred line between cannabis industry and cannabis culture. Let’s start with the bad stuff and work our way towards higher heights.
Walking the MJBizCon floor for me was frankly depressing, I could only see so many new lights, preroll and trimming machines, and other ancillary businesses before realizing that the entire conference catered towards a specific demographic. Without getting into specifics on how to spot these people, I’ll just say that a good portion of the most paid for and glitzy advertising I saw was catered towards… a certain type of people with a certain type of wallet and a certain type of mission. The type of people that don’t know about the medical marijuana movement and cannabis history that birthed the very industry they are now putzing around in with other peoples’ money.
Anyhoo – to a little on the ground recap: First day, I woke up in the car, went to breakfast than a few of the forums – The Marketing Forum, Science Forum, and Finance Forum – to catch some interesting talks. I ended up running into some people that I had met at MJBizCon events from the year before that were hailing from states that are still under the Prohibition like Texas and Tennessee.
Walking around in either of those states, or even the floor at Vegas, it’s hard to feel that Prohibition unless you try to light up inside. All I see is the coming commercialization that has infiltrated even those states. I greatly enjoyed listening to Dr. Holloway from Phylos talk about modern breeding techniques at the formal science forum. If you can do the breeding project in 3 cycles instead of 15…wouldn’t you?
I also caught Dr. Russo’s talk and was even able to catch a hash hole with Vietnamese landrace hash from First Cut Farms and Mattole Valley Sungrown Paradise Pine with Dr. Scialdone. That combo knocked socks off every time it came out in the smoking area.
Speaking of the smoking area, MJBizCon moved it from the front of the venue to the back of the venue – which I understand for security reasons but definitely stymied the zone. There were less people at the smoking section than last year, just like there were less people on the floor and less cannabis touching companies on the floor too. Instead, what was on the floor was a whole lot of ancillary stuff which my marketing eye immediately identified as having marketing copy targeted towards the type of people that the cannabis culture likes to refer to as “Chads” but I’ll use the more widely understood term “suits.” Generally, they don’t touch the plant.
Examples of pictures from the industry side:
My eyes. they bleed.
The next day, once the floor was open, I experienced a part of MJBizCon that I sure hope the culture will never leave. On the journey of the plant to a consumer packaged good, it all starts with a seed. Yes, even in the majority of modern scenarios where the journey starts with a clone and ends in a non smokeable product – there was a seed at the beginning of that. I guess not just a seed, also a story. You need the seed, the story, and someone able to recognize the dankness of a plant and help amplify the plants bioacoustic screams.
Voice of the Plant
The best part of MJBizCon hands down was the Voice of the Plant section and all the panels that went on in that section. Heads from all over the world were there talking genetics, breeding, and seeds. The people here, they touch the plant.
Mario Guzman aka SHERBINSKIS curated days of content that I could see was catching and keeping the attention of anyone walking by.
Examples of pics from the culture side:
One of my main goals at MJBizCon was to meet some folks I’d only seen on the interwebs whom I believe are properly straddling the ongoing line between industry and culture. Association Day seems to be the best place for that.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures and short recap.
The Highest Critic MJBizCon 2024 Recap
Here’s my main thought of the year: MJBizCon 2024 highlights a bifurcating national industry. The hemp industry is leaving the recreational and medicinal regimes behind in a way that is already having cultural implications. The implications on cannabis genetic bottlenecking? Dire.
tldr;
- Yes it was sparsely attended compared to previous years. It’s clear that the money/mindshare in cannabis is now overseas in newer markets if we’re looking at purely attendee count.
- If you look at where new genetics are though, the US still leads, and breeders from both the East and West coast were in full swing repping their stock at MJBizCon this year in large part thanks to Sherbinskis – the Voice of the Plant. Seriously,
- To belabour this point even more, the biggest cannabis news announcement from MJBizCon this year was Barney’s Farm and Sensi Seeds attempting to make the move across the pond with ILGM. While it’s unclear if this merger will be successful, it sure is indicative of the times.
- Associations Day needs to be more crowded next year. Despite the numbers, I greatly enjoyed talking with the activists that remain active in the cannabis space. Cannabis researchers assemble!
- I went to Blunt Brunch for the first time. I wore my dangly earrings and had a great time.
- People like vietnamese landrace hash. Whodathunkit. Don’t ask about the yield.
- Despite Las Vegas’s best attempts to squash it, a small group of cannabis culture afficionados were able to get Litty in the City at its 3rd and final location. Best Dead Prez concert ever and a much needed reminder while researching the intersection of cannabis and music that… “It’s bigger than Hip Hop.”
I’ll leave y’all with this video:
Founder of The Highest Critic
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