💸 The Tape

This is a MUST READ excerpt from an Op-Ed ran in Marijuna Moment. The complete article can be found HERE.

Late on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) quietly announced the appointment of Clint Kellum as the next director of the state Department of Cannabis Control (DCC).

The timing of the announcement, released at a moment when the Newsom administration could be confident that few Californians would be paying attention, was not lost on close observers of the cannabis market. It revealed the administration’s deep discomfort with the conversation this transition should provoke: a candid examination of DCC’s failures under the leadership of current director (and longtime Newsom ally) Nicole Elliott, and the profound damage those failures have inflicted on California’s legal cannabis market.

It is a conversation that’s long overdue.

Nearly a decade after the passage of Proposition 64, California’s legal cannabis system bears little resemblance to what voters were promised. Instead of a well-regulated market that displaced the illicit one, the state has allowed unlicensed cannabis operators to flourish, unsafe and untested products to proliferate and enforcement to collapse. The legal market is now forced to compete with the very illicit activity legalization was meant to eliminate.

But many of the industry’s deepest wounds were not inevitable consequences of legalization. They were regulatory failures, and specifically failures of DCC under its longtime leadership.

Since its inception, DCC has been at the center of a long and unbroken sequence of scandals and breakdowns.

Most prominent was the pesticide testing scandal, in which the agency allowed products contaminated with banned pesticides to be sold on the legal market. This failure undermined the very premise of “legal and tested” cannabis in California, a premise the state had used to justify stringent compliance costs and high taxation.

As the regulatory agency tasked with ensuring safety failed at the most basic level of product oversight, consumer confidence in the legal cannabis market predictably collapsed.

📈 Dog Walkers

$HITI ( ▼ 0.38% ) Plants Flag In Germany

High Tide Inc. (Nasdaq: HITI, TSXV: HITI, FSE: 2LYA) has officially planted its flag in Europe, opening its first international Canna Cabana in Berlin, Germany—a move that marks the company’s bricks-and-mortar debut on the continent and sets the stage for a broader European expansion.

The new storefront, located at Alte Schönhauser Str. 2 in Berlin-Mitte, sits steps from Alexanderplatz and within strolling distance of cultural heavyweights like the Fernsehturm, Berlin Cathedral, and Museum Island. In other words: High Tide chose the retail equivalent of a power seat.

The Berlin debut follows High Tide’s acquisition of Remexian Pharma GmbH, a licensed medical cannabis importer and distributor, signaling the company’s intention to build a full-stack European presence spanning retail, e-commerce, and medical distribution.

CEO Raj Grover said the time is right: Germany, with 83 million people, is Europe’s largest and most influential cannabis market, and imports have already hit a record 143 tonnes in the first nine months of 2025. With usage rising, Grover expects strong demand for Canna Cabana’s “cutting-edge consumption accessories.”

Grover framed the opening as the start of a familiar playbook. In Canada, High Tide built a massive base of accessories customers before transitioning them into cannabis retail. “Now, we’re bringing that same winning formula to Europe,” he said.

With Germany inching toward further liberalization, High Tide appears determined to secure an early—and stylish—head start.

Fluent Has Some Growing To Do

FLUENT Corp. (CSE: FNT.U, OTCQB: CNTMF) reported its Q3 2025 results, highlighting a quarter defined by operational fixes, cultivation upgrades, and the ongoing quest to revive margins that have recently looked more wilted than fresh flower.

Interim CEO Dave Vautrin said revenue held steady at $26.0 million, essentially flat year-over-year, but noted that gross margins took a hit—falling to 31% from 54.6%—thanks to extraction inefficiencies and a less favorable product mix in Florida, the company’s largest market. Adjusted EBITDA landed at $2.8 million, down from $7.5 million last year.

The company has been busy addressing those pain points. In Florida, FLUENT brought its new Rosa indoor cultivation facility fully online, nearly doubling premium flower capacity and delivering higher yields that management says will support a margin rebound heading into 2026. The company also closed underperforming stores, opened a new Brandon location, and teed up additional dispensaries in Orlando Sand Lake and Palm Bay.

In New York, FLUENT activated its Buffalo premium indoor facility and will launch Connected and Alien Labs SKUs—20 strains in the first wave—aimed at boosting wholesale momentum through ENTOURAGE, its distribution arm.

The company operates 37 retail locations across Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas, with expansions underway, including a Houston Education & Pick-Up Center and new RSO and distillate SKUs in development.

Despite margin pressure, FLUENT ended the quarter with $15.1 million in cash and remains focused on operational excellence, capital efficiency, and long-term margin expansion.

🗞️ The News

📺 YouTube

The Five Moments That Actually Defined Cannabis So Far in 2025 | TDR Cannabis in 5

What we will cover:

✅ What were the five moments that actually defined cannabis so far here in 2025? In this episode of TDR Cannabis in Five, presented by Dutchie, host Shadd Dales breaks down the political, financial, and cultural shifts that have shaped the industry this year — and the trends that are already setting up the road to 2026.

The first major inflection point came on August 11, when President Trump publicly confirmed his administration was actively reviewing cannabis rescheduling. That single remark immediately moved markets, pushed operators to rethink strategy, and shifted federal reform from speculation to a near-term conversation.

The second moment was the most dramatic: a nationwide ban on intoxicating hemp-derived THC products — Delta-8, Delta-10, THCA flower, and anything with detectable THC — wiping out roughly $28 billion in sales overnight. Industrial hemp remains legal, but the consumer intoxicant market was eliminated.

Next was the corporate collapse of Ayr Wellness (CSE: AYR.A, OTCQX: AYRWF). After months of lender-directed restructuring, the company formally entered Canada’s CCAA creditor-protection process on November 17, marking one of the largest cannabis restructurings North America has seen.