Personal
- Name: Joan Oleck
- Author with Leafreport since: May 2020
Education And Work Information
- School(s) Attended: B.A., Liberal Arts, University of Michigan; M.A., Journalism, University of Wisconsin
- Charters and certifications: CFA Charter holder
- Honors and distinctions: B.A., with Honors; Jesse Neal Award for Trade Press Series in Restaurant Business magazine; GLAAD Award for Online Essay, Salon
- Published on: Entrepreneur.com, Business Week, Bloomberg, Forbes
Expertise
- Area of Expertise: Cannabis
About
Joan Oleck is a freelance writer currently specializing in the cannabis industry and cannabis tech. She has been an editor and reporter on staff for such publications as Forbes.com, Business Week, Newsday and The Detroit News, covering such topics as the tobacco industry, southern agriculture, business, movies, books and parenting. She won the Jesse Neal Award for best feature series in a trade publication, Restaurant Business, and a GLAAD Award for a Salon story about discrimination in adoption against single and gay parents.
Recent Activity
The news remains dismal on many fronts: the raging pandemic, America’s deep political divisions and the continuing fallout from the violence at the Capitol fomented both by Donald Trump’s presidency and potential impeachment conviction.
Companies seeking to innovate have been strapped for funds this difficult pandemic year, and startups in the cannabis category are no exception.
Talk about happy holidays! The global CBD industry received two welcome gifts at the start of December: On Dec. 4, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 228-164 to support the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act), which aims to legalize cannabis at the federal level.
A U.S. House bill which would decriminalize cannabis and end its prohibition at the federal level will come before the House membership this week, likely some time between Wednesday and Friday.
The 2020 election exacerbated America’s already bitter political divisions. But one thing on which voters seemed to agree was … cannabis.
It’s Women’s Small Business Month. And in the cannabis business, women entrepreneurs need help to prime their startups. That’s where accelerators come in
The 2020 election season is loudly, sometimes alarmingly, in play. But whom and what to support? Biden/Harris? Trump/Pence? The Democrats or Republicans running for Congress in your state (with 35 seats Senate seats being contested and 435 in the U.S. House)?
With the arrival of September, America’s approximately 17,000 hemp farmers are getting ready to harvest their half-million-acre 2020 crop. And in so doing, they’re besieged by multiple problems: the pandemic, of course, but also extreme weather, natural disasters … and politics.
Boomers (born 1946-64) and Millennials (born 1981-96) have long engaged in an off-and-on culture clash, each airing generational complaints against the other for two decades now: Which group comes across as more entitled? Which takes work (especially attire) more seriously? Which is hopelessly inept at technology?
The European Commission about to kill the hemp sector: preliminary view states natural hemp extracts are a drug, against all reason, the latest scientific literature and the EU green ambitions. Catherine Wilson, EIHA vice president refer to those matters on Leafreport’s interview
For any Americans looking north these days to Canada to learn how cannabis startups in the Land of Maple Leaf are faring there two years into national legalization, a data-rich new report offers insight.Turns out that Canadians, in several important respects, are … just like us.
Actor-Comedian-Writer Seth Rogen shared support for expungement of criminal records for cannabis crimes in a recent panel discussion ‘Reimagining Justice’
The evolution of the cannabis industry from stoners tending clandestine backyard plots to multimillion companies operating legal, industrial-size operations has grown the need for professionals steeped in supply-chain, financial, management and agricultural skills
Two years after the legalization of hemp via the 2018 Farm Bill, a feeling of antsiness prevails among companies manufacturing products containing cannabidiol, or CBD, the active ingredient in hemp
While George Floyd’s murder put the spotlight on police brutality and racism, What people may not know, however, is the related issue of police and justice-system discrimination against those same minorities, especially black Americans, for minor offenses involving cannabis.
While many Americans still feel skittish about using THC-infused marijuana because of legality issue, the sky’s seemingly the limit for companies offering hemp-derived CBD products. That’s the message of a new study from New Frontier Data study.
For many Americans, today, Memorial Day, is a time to honor our nation’s fallen military personnel. But for George Sadler and Brian Buckley, both leaders of Southern California-based cannabis companies, the day holds something more: a close partnership aimed at helping returning veterans with the difficult transition to civilian life.
Even as Democrats and Republicans in Congress spar over whether cannabis businesses should be eligible for COVID-19 federal loans, most Americans in adult-use legal states already view legalization as successful.