Do Allergic Reactions to Cannabis Happen? One study published in 2013 concluded that sensitivity to Cannabis sativa was more prevalent, but the typical symptoms were mild and uncommon. Higher occurrences were connected to other plants through cross-reactivity. Common cannabis allergy symptoms are itchy eyes, sinus inflammation, sneezing, congestion, and wheezing. Severe allergic reactions may cause throat swelling, hives, or rashes. The plants’ effects themselves may cause complications that only compound the problem such as nasal drainage, itchy skin, red eyes, sinus issues, and migraines. Causes Cannabis allergies may be caused by pollen, terpenes, or other irritants such as cannabis smoke. When male cannabis plants pollinate, they produce vast amounts of pollen. People can become sensitized when regularly exposed to a plant’s pollen. Allergies associated with cannabis use share many of the same symptoms and signs of traditional allergies. One likely reason is that some cannabis allergies result from the plant’s essential oils or terpenes, fragrant molecules present in many plants. They are vital for protecting plants from insects and environmental stressors, and also serve as building blocks for the creation of complex molecules. A terpene allergy from one plant may cause cross-reactivity to the same terpene in cannabis. Molds and resins can be vectors for hypersensitivity when considering sinsemilla because of its high concentrations of terpenes. Overexposure to essential oils like terpenes can lead to allergic responses as a result. Hypersensitivity may last indefinitely, keeping someone from utilizing cannabis for therapeutic benefits.
Other allergy treatments include antihistamine medication or natural allergy remedies like nasal irrigation, butterbur, or quercetin.
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3 Tips to Survive a Workplace Shooting
An ill-prepared dispensary workforce puts lives at serious risk. You never know when the cannabis dispensary could be robbed so it’s best to prepare for active shooter incident ahead of time by considering all your option in advance and mentally rehearsing how you would respond in such an incident.
Remember, most active shooter incidents are over by the time police arrive at the scene.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that between 2006 and 2010, 551 workers were killed due to work-related homicides each year on average. In 2010 alone, 78 percent of such workplace homicides involved shootings. Do you know what to do when the unthinkable happens at work?
Dealing with Active Shooter Incidents
Active shooter incidents are unpredictable and evolve quickly and according to safety experts, there are three (3) survival strategies in the event of a dispensary workplace shooting:
Infographic: Active Shooter Survival Guide
You never know when an active shooter situation may ariseat a dispensary workplace. Employers implement safety procedures, but even the best plan cannot prevent every incident so it is important to educate dispensary staff on active shooter training.
One way of reducing injuries and casualties is workplace violence safety training for all employees. If you know what to do before an active shooter incident occurs, the damage can be minimized. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has published a booklet entitled Active Shooter: How to Respond.
Remember these steps to protect your life and the lives of co-workers and customers during an active shooter situation.
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Cannabis Cultivation: Water Efficiency and Regulations
The exact amount of water it takes to grow cannabis depends on several factors such as the location, size of plants, type of soil, strain, etc. There is always a more efficient, environmentally-friendly option available; it just depends on if it’s a viable, cost-effective solution for a company. With the problem growing exponentially over time, water efficiency is imperative.
There are various factors that affect water efficiencies like plant size, humidity, wind speed, solar radiation, soil types, chemovar, and water temperature. Complying with cannabis cultivation policies in each state is also essential. These are guidelines that establish laws for environmental protection, specifically the protection of water quantity and quality.
Water Conservation Solutions
However, because many cultivators grow cannabis in a controlled environment, reducing water waste is possible. In places where cannabis is still grown outside, many grow operations plant their crops in containers to conserve water. It’s also more efficient to irrigate plants earlier in the morning or just before sunset.
There is still unnecessary water waste in the form of excess water that evaporates from the plant. Growers can reduce this by eliminating overwatering. One of the smartest conservation techniques is dehumidifying the grow area to capture the condensation for reuse. Adding nutrients to the captured condensation allows growers to use it again. This process enables cultivators to minimize water waste significantly. Reclaiming water is also cost-effective and helps ROI.
Art & Science of Dispensary Conflict Management As the complexities of the cannabis industry increases, so does the potential for conflict, both internal and external to the cannabis organization. Cannabis businesses should sharpen their conflict resolution skills and even embrace conflict as an opportunity to drive creativity, alignment, and growth. We train people to be expert in managing technology, numbers, finance and the law. But this most fundamental characteristic of human interaction – conflict – is something we are somehow just supposed to figure out as we go along, but we don’t. Not knowing how to handle it, we prefer to ignore it and hope it goes away. The bad news is that it won’t go away; unresolved conflict festers and grows. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. In Ancient Egypt, conflict was called repdat. In Javanese, konflik. In Hmong, teeb meem. While the definition of ‘conflict‘ is pretty much the same in every culture, ‘conflict resolution‘ is a different animal. Cultural constructs and historical contexts influence the meaning and practice. In English, conflict resolution is frequently interconnected with sports terminology and industrial disputes. In Arabic, it revolves around honor and Islamic ethics. In Hebrew, it’s tied to military metaphors. Those constructs and contexts can influence business relations globally. It’s a pervasive challenge, and now as the cannabis industry expands its reach globally, the potential for conflict is on the rise – internally and externally. Add in a complex cannabis organization adds new opinions, customs, conventions, and personalities. One of the most comprehensive studies ever done on the issue, “Workplace Conflict and How Businesses Can Harness It to Thrive,” by CPP Inc. in its Global Human Capital Report, found that in 2008, U.S. employees spent approximately 2.1 hours per week involved in conflict (as defined as “any workplace disagreement that disrupts the flow of work“). That translated into over $300 billion in paid hours or the equivalent of nearly 400 million workdays, the employee survey also found:
Art of Confronting Conflict We did some polling questions on a webinar, and one question was, ‘What is your instinctive first response to a conflict situation?‘ Some 53 percent said it was to delay responding. Avoiding conflict can be highly destructive, they often escalate into personal conflict, but if they go unresolved or fester, it can have a negative impact on the relationship and turn into a relationship conflict. Then a lack of trust permeates the entire alliance. So you are doing your company a disservice if you don’t raise and resolve issues constructively. Task-oriented communications are neutral or positive and focus on ideas and perspectives; relationship-oriented communications can be negative and focus on emotions and people. The goal should be to stay rational with the task and start with basic foundational questions such as:
The task should be objective and rational. But sometimes it bleeds over into the relationship-oriented side, and the skills you need to move it back to task-oriented require constructive responses and analysis to get you back on track. Companies typically have a difficult time dealing with conflict and there are five widely accepted methods for resolving conflict: collaborating, competing, compromising, accommodating and avoiding. Most people think conflict is negative and may want to ignore it. If used correctly, it can be a very powerful tool.
It can help us become better leaders and better relationship owners. By managing and working with conflict, you can enable better change management styles. Some people think it’s ‘My Way or the Highway.’ In any cannabis business relationship, if you show you can accommodate different viewpoints, you are creating one of the first critical steps in change management. You are building the start of a collaboration. Arreche said an easy-to-recall exercise HR professionals can use daily to enhance their conflict resolution skills is the three (3) S-Exercise, which helps “make things happen“:
Forging the Toughest Steel The old adage “the toughest steel is forged in the hottest fire” may have some merit in conflict resolution practices. What many call “good conflict” can actually enable innovation and creativity when applied appropriately so conflict can have a beneficial component. Having open discussions with disagreement encourages people to be candid and opens up points of view and perspectives. If employees are working in an environment with openly shared ideas and critiques, you can build, and then innovative solutions can emerge. So what happens if progress is unlikely to continue and it is time to throw in the towel? There are always going to be times where people have such conflicting views. If you can’t build an agreement, you might have to go your separate ways.
It’s okay to say ‘No!‘ Negotiation is sometimes saying ‘Yes‘ to maybe the better of the worst options. But conflict resolution and building an agreement could still be the genesis of something completely new. Many of the tools we use create options that support both parties and might be better than either extreme. The Re-Emergence of Hemp Oil What Exactly is Hemp? To know what hemp and its related products like hemp oil are, you must first understand what cannabis is. Cannabis has been around for thousands of years, and there is evidence that the plant was cultivated all over the world. However, the origin of cannabis is said to be Asia as the ancient Chinese were known to utilize the plant and its products for various purposes including industrial, medical and spiritual. Cannabis has both psychoactive and non-psychoactive components; the quantities of these determine whether the plant is hemp or marijuana (scientific name is ‘cannabis‘). When the psychoactive component of cannabis known as tetrahydrocannabinol or THC is more than 0.3%, then the plant is classified as marijuana. The hemp plant, on the other hand, is characterized by considerable quantities of the non-psychoactive component cannabidiol or CBD and little to no THC. It is worth noting that some varieties of cannabis are bred specifically for THC, these plants have very little to no CBD at all. Also, CBD counters the effects of the psychoactive THC further separating marijuana from hemp.
However, CBD oil can be obtained from both marijuana and hemp plants with the difference being the THC content. CBD oil derived from the marijuana plant will generally have a higher percentage of THC. Where to Purchase CBD Oil You can find CBD oil in dispensaries, or stores that specialize in health and nutritional products. It is easier though to order the product online from reputable stores that offer lots of information on various popular brands in the market for your benefit. Benefits of CBD Oil Here is a highlight of six benefits of CBD:
Hemp is generally seen as a plant of great economic importance. It can be used in the production of food and nutritional supplements and cosmetic products. It is also utilized for industrial purposes in the production of paper, textile, wool, plastic materials, etc.
Hemp cultivation has been banned in the United States since the 70’s. However, the U.S. is still a significant consumer for imported hemp products in this booming multi-million-dollar industry.
When Dispensary Employees Leave & Exit Interviews
Ask workers to identify all the locations where cannabis business information could be housed – including paper copies, external hard drives, and thumb drives. Tell us all the places where that information exists, don’t destroy it, and let’s make arrangements to get that information back.
An exit interview also gives a dispensary employer a final opportunity to emphasize any obligations the employee may have regarding the confidentiality of trade secrets and employer data. In addition, it may raise a warning flag for the employer if the employee objects to any provisions of a confidentiality agreement that he or she may have signed or otherwise challenges the obligation to keep trade secrets and data confidential.
Importantly, employers should view the exit interview as an opportunity to make the cannabis dispensary’s processes better. The whole purpose of an exit interview is to obtain information that will hopefully improve the employer’s relationship with its employees and their employment experience.
The exit interview is a perfect time to retrieve employer property and materials, such as swipe cards, laptops, company-issued mobile phones, and keys. While doing this, the dispensary employer can also follow up with the exiting employee to confirm that no company data is stored on personal computers, tablets, phones or other devices.
Resolving Problems
The exit interview allows the dispensary employer to explore, to the extent the departing employee is willing to share, the reasons for the employee’s departure. A thorough exit interview can allow an employee to air any grievances based on his or her experience with the employer.
Hopefully, the employee hasn’t waited until the exit interview to report inappropriate workplace conduct or a problem with a manager. But even if this is the first time he or she has voiced concerns, it may give the dispensary employer the opportunity to resolve things with the departing worker or to address the issues that were raised so that other employees don’t have the same problems.
If the worker doesn’t air any grievances but later files a complaint or lawsuit, the cannabis employer can show that it gave the worker a chance to discuss any issues and potentially resolve them. Additionally, if the employee raises compensation or benefits compliance problems, the employer may be able to correct those issues before the employee files a complaint or seeks legal advice.
Employers are almost always better off knowing about negative or problematic issues before they result in litigation.
Remote Workers
Tips for Employers
To start, employers should ask workers why they are leaving and if there is anything the employer can do to make its work experience better in the future.
It is suggested that HR or a designated representative conduct one-on-one interviews because dispensary employees may be less candid with their supervisor present. The interviewer should:
Virtual Classroom Solution Must-Have Features
Today, we have come a long way from traditional brick-and-mortar classroom training in the cannabis industry, yet there are quite a few eLearning tools we can and should incorporate into our online learning experiences. While asynchronous learning has pushed the boundaries of eLearning like never before, it has also taken the joy away from the collective learning experience.
There several webinar conferencing platforms available in the market today, but only a few of them offer the ideal eLearning solution with the adequate level of reliability that is required to conduct successful webinars, online training or presentations.
The features and characteristics you need in a web conferencing system naturally depend on the purposeof your usage. Offering a weekly sales webinar has different requirements from conducting 6-hour online training daily. However, there are requirements that are common to most usages of webinar conferencing as cannabis businesses increasingly use this powerful online tool for new applications.
We discuss the ten (10) most important features and how they can benefit your cannabis business based on our experience with customers. It is a proven fact that employees have higher retention and an increased interest in learning when they have a peer group to discuss ideas with. Virtual classrooms are an elegant solution, leveraging the power of personal interaction to make eLearning better.
We see several solutions like GoToMeeting, Zoom, WebEx, WebinarJam, BigBlueButton, WizIQ, and many more, offering extensive features for synchronous learning in live webinars. From screen sharing, to live note-taking, to real-time interaction and much more…the list of features becomes rather daunting!
Not to worry. It is simply a matter of prioritizing your requirements and choosing the service accordingly. Nevertheless, there are some must-have features for your virtual webinar solution that make training management easier and smoother.
Must-Have Features for Your Virtual Classroom
But web conferencing when used for business-critical applications is like electricity. It is ‘not good enough‘ to have 3% of the time technical problems. It must work all the time. Many systems allocate 1 server to 10,000+ users to reduce their costs. Reliable systems cost a little more but provide servers with fewer users, high availability and more importantly the ability to instantly and seamlessly switch to another server or servers in case of technical trouble.
2. No Software Installs One of the most important factors is the ease of access and use. No matter what type of webinar or online presentation you want to carry out, you need to make sure your attendees can access your conference room in simple steps. Having a browser-based system that truly does not require any software installs is important.
Many systems claim to be web-based but require installing a large Activex or run on Java (which is not present on a significant portion of computers) that defeats the purpose of being browser-based. In addition to making the access easy the first time, no software installs mean it that there will not be necessary to make any software upgrades which makes system maintenance convenient.
Advanced systems optimize image transmission speed and reduce required bandwidth by only sending the areas of the screen that change.
4. Integrated Voice
With the advanced VoIP (Voice over IP) technologies available today, you should demand the system have a fully integrated voice system. This means that your attendees would simply listen through their computers without using the phone or any other device. A bridge to outside telephone lines, however, offers more flexibility. You might have attendees or presenters not always able to use the audio on their computers. Most systems, however, lack the high-quality voice that you need in web conferencing.
It should mean the ability to have attendees access the conference room with a click from your IT infrastructure. This would make user-management easy for you, but also offers a better experience for your customers.
6. Full Reporting
The back-end administration of web conferencing platform is also very important. You should be able to access reports on attendance, archive views, typed messages… as soon as an event ends. You should also be able to export reports in Microsoft Excel format and/or use API’s to download them automatically and interface with your Learning Management System (LMS) platform.
7. Flexible Recording
The ability to record and archive a presentation is critical. Most systems produce either very large file movies or low-quality ones. You need to ensure the recording function provides a compromise between quality and file size so that your viewers don’t need to download Gigs of data to see a 30-min movie. Another important factor is the ease of accessing the movies and the advantages of using video formats that they can be accessed from any browser on PC or Mac without any software installs.
In addition to traditional recording methods, the conference room ‘remembers‘ every step of the presentation (including audio and video) and at the time of replay reproduces the event exactly the way it happened live in an interactive environment. This means that during the replay time, the viewers can access shared files and take polls, for instance, as if it was live.
8. Powerful Slide Show
Although you can use the application or desktop sharing function available in most systems, it is preferable to use a slideshow functionality in webinar conferencing platforms to show Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. The main reasons behind this are: a) Your viewers may not have the same screen resolution as you do, and they may get scrollbars on presentations if you show your desktop. b) Fast animations may not be seen properly through desktop sharing. c) When running a PowerPoint show, it covers your entire screen (although this is configurable) and would not allow you to see participants’ messages and questions.
You need a slideshow module within a webinar conferencing platform that supports both PowerPoint, you also need to make sure it does support all or most animations. Many webinar solutions and slideshow functionality do not do a great job at supporting animations.
9. Configurable Chat
Although all web conferencing platforms offer some type of chat (ability for attendees to type messages), many lack some important features that can enhance your online meeting experience. You may want to have the option to privatize the chat so that attendees cannot read each others’ messages. Ability to create a moderator, the person who oversees selecting the questions to pass to the presenter, can be very useful particularly in large presentations. And finally, having the ability to make major announcements is also a plus as it helps your important messages not get diluted among the many messages that scroll up.
10. Controllable Document Sharing
You should be able to allow your attendees to download files such as brochures, agendas, presentations and such within the web conference interface without having to email them. Shared Folders provide this function and there may be times that you would need to mark a document as private so that only selected moderators or presenters can access those files. That’s it! These are the ten (10) features we think are must-haves for a virtual classroom module in your Learning Management System (LMS). Let us know what you think. Side Effects of Cannabis-Based Medication Whether you like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or not, formal approval of any medication in the United States is delivered by the FDA. While their processes have come under scrutiny numerous times, the FDA looks at research studies to decide if drugs should be approved for use for specific conditions. Recently, the FDA formally approved the first cannabis-derived product to be used in treating severe forms of epilepsy. Epidiolex™ (cannabidiol) was recently approved for the treatment of two (2) forms of epilepsy that are rare: Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. The medication is approved for use in patients who are over the age of two. There is no such thing as a medication or drug that does not have potential side effects. Medications alter the functioning of the individual’s system and this alteration can lead to imbalances of hormones, neurotransmitters, etc. that can result in side effects. Side effects occur on a probabilistic basis meaning that they will not definitely occur in everyone. The common side effects that are associated with Epidiolex™ include:
Other side effects include:
A more comprehensive list of side effects and indications for use of the above medicines can be found in the reference section of this article (look at the link for each drug). The probability of experiencing the potential side effects of the substances or of any substances increased with increases in the dosage. Again, side effects from medications occur on a probabilistic basis and some people are more vulnerable than others depending on numerous potential risk factors.
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authorLilly, the gardener. Archives
September 2019
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