4 Leaf Consulting Supports Cannabis Operators Nationwide

California’s regulated cannabis industry is fraught with pitfalls that can make running a successful operation a challenge. These challenges come on top of those common to all businesses, leading many operators to seek guidance from seasoned professionals, including Los Angeles-based 4 Leaf Consulting.

Toni Forge, 4 Leaf’s founder and CEO, is an experienced lawyer with more than three decades of experience as a litigator, managing attorney, state mediator, and associate general counsel. She started the firm in 2016 as California prepared for the legalization of cannabis under Prop 64, which the state’s voters passed in November of that year.

4Leaf Consulting now provides services for issues such as licensing and compliance nationwide, including a roster of clients representing six state-regulated markets. Forge says she finds that most often, prospective cannabis operators come to the industry with strength’s on the supply side: they have fire genetics or a top-tier product ready for the market. However, they also often lack experience with the day-to-day aspects of managing a successful enterprise.

In an interview with IgniteIt, Forge says that in many cases, “People running cannabis businesses don’t know business.”

“You need to have the foundation of the business, because I want people to have sustainable businesses,” she says, adding, “and that’s what we’re seeing does not exist in California, especially in social equity, and especially in Los Angeles.”

Forge sees a similar challenge with regulatory agencies. Because regulating cannabis is so new, the ramifications of complying with strict rules is not fully understood by those who are making the rules for the industry.

“A lot of times, the regulators and policy makers that make decisions that really affect generational wealth, affect people’s business, have no idea about cannabis,” Forge says. “There is no ramp up, there is no kind of course correct that these people need to take in order to get them knowledgeable about some of the issues that affect cannabis.”

4 Leaf and Social Equity

As 4 Leaf Consulting grew, Forge became a staunch advocate of social equity programs that encourage participation in the regulated industry by members of marginalized communities. To support those efforts, she added licensed social equity operator Whitney Beatty, founder of Los Angeles cannabis speakeasy Joshephine and Billie’s, to the 4 Leaf Consulting team.

“People can hear you preach all day long, but it’s different when you walk through those flames,” says Forge. “And so that’s the expertise that Whitney brings—she understands from a real-life perspective the issues that really plague operators in the social equity space.”

With a master’s degree in film production, Beatty’s early career was spent in the Hollywood entertainment industry. She then saw opportunities in the cannabis industry that resulted in the formation of high-end humidor maker Apothecary. That led to her foray into the Los Angeles social equity program with the founding of Josephine and Billie’s.

Beatty now shares the knowledge and experience she gained throughout her career with 4 Leaf’s clients in the cannabis industry. She notes that the industry’s regulatory landscape is dynamic, often requiring operators to stay on top of new developments in the sector.

“The problems that we have six months from now are not the ones that we have right now and not the ones we had six months ago,” Beatty explains. “It becomes incredibly critical that we are working in a community… to make these businesses survive. It is a very difficult landscape out there, especially in the state of California.”

For more information about 4 Leaf Consulting, visit the company’s website.