August Action Alerts for NCIA Members: CAOA and SMS

by Rachel Kurtz-McAlaine, NCIA’s Deputy Director of Public Policy

STOP what you’re doing and ask yourself 2 questions:

1. Have I read the discussion draft or summary of the Senate bill to legalize cannabis at the federal level and now have an opinion on how NCIA should approach the bill? (Tell NCIA.)
   
2. Has my SMS/text messaging service gotten more expensive, become unwieldy with rules, or been taken away altogether? (Tell NCIA.)

If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, please take a quick moment to let us know! Click on the unique link next to the relevant question. If you want to learn more about either issue, keep reading.

Senate Legalization Bill Discussion Draft: Your Thoughts?

Hopefully, by now you’ve had a chance to read the discussion draft of the Senate bill released a few weeks ago, detailed in Michelle’s last blog post, Crazy for Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA). If not, at least read the summary so you understand what is happening with this potentially historic legislation.

We are at the precipice of federal legalization, but as you know, in such a highly regulated industry, how legalization gets implemented can have a significant impact on your business. So it’s important that your voice is heard when these laws and regulations are being discussed. We’ve created this simple form for NCIA members to easily give us feedback on the CAOA. If you’re a committee member, you can provide feedback through your committee as well.

Text Messaging Service Disruptions: the Cannabis Industry Can Fight Back

You may remember reading my article, Text Messaging (SMS) Crackdown Impacting the Cannabis Industry, published back in May, written when we were first learning the scope of the issue. Although many companies seemed to be able to move on with workarounds, we’re hearing even workarounds are disappearing. And even when businesses are still able to operate, they get charged high fees or are severely hampered in what they can do with the messages.

Because this issue has been affecting so many of our members in one way or another, we want to help, but we need to hear from you. This isn’t a law that we can lobby to change, it is a convoluted policy that telecommunications giants are enforcing on their customers, ostensibly to cut down on customers complaining about spam, but in some cases, they are applying blanket bans on cannabis companies.

As an industry, we can fight back. We are organizing a working group to take on the telecommunications giants, including a potential class-action lawsuit. If you want to be part of this or learn more, please email me.

Those workarounds going away, or extremely expensive and cumbersome. It can seem overwhelming to fight back.

At this point, time to organize and use strength in numbers against giant telecommunications companies.