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U.S. NEWSWednesday 6 January 2016
LivWell store manager Carlyssa Scanlon shows off some of the products available in the marijuana Even with Mideast tension,
line marketed by rapper Snoop Dogg in one of the marijuana chain’s outlets south of downtown
Denver. LivWell grows the Snoop pot alongside many other strains on its menu. supply dictating price of oil
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
DAVID KOENIG
Emerging pot industry tries to build brands AP Business Writer
DALLAS (AP) — A persistent glut of oil is trumping Mid-
KRISTEN WYATT in towns with a legal mari- That isn’t for lack of trying. dle Eastern tension, extending the slump in oil mar-
Associated Press juana market, show the in- Hundreds of marijuana- kets into the new year.
DENVER (AP) — Snoop dustry taking halting steps related patents have likely The price of oil fell 30 percent last year, following a
Dogg has his own line of toward the mainstream. been requested by the U.S. 50 percent plunge in 2014. At below $36 a barrel on
marijuana. So does Willie Problem is, those brands Patent and Trademark Of- Tuesday, the price is down more than 2 percent early
Nelson. Melissa Etheridge aren’t much more substan- fice, according to those in 2016. Even the breakoff of diplomatic relations be-
has a marijuana-infused tial than the labels they’re who work in the industry. tween Saudi Arabia and Iran, two big oil-producing
wine. printed on. Patents and Exact numbers aren’t avail- countries, failed to halt the slide.
As the fast-growing canna- trademarks are largely reg- able because pending Oil prices are likely to remain about where they are
bis industry emerges from ulated by the federal gov- patent information isn’t until either production drops or the world economy
the black market and starts ernment, which considers public. perks up and drives demand higher. The U.S. Energy
looking like a mainstream marijuana an illegal drug So far federal authorities Department expects the nation’s production to drop
activity, there’s a scramble and therefore ineligible for have either ignored or re- by about 500,000 barrels a day this year, but OPEC
to brand and trademark any sort of legal protection. jected marijuana patent has vowed to hold to existing production levels.
pot products. The result is a Wild West and trademark requests, as The price of benchmark U.S. crude was down 77
The celebrity endorse- environment of marijuana in the 2010 case of a Cali- cents to $35.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile
ments are just the latest at- entrepreneurs trying to fornia delivery service that Exchange in afternoon trading after falling 28 cents
tempt to add cachet to a stake claims and establish applied to trademark its on Monday. Brent crude, reflecting the price of inter-
line of weed. Snoop Dogg cross-state markets using a name “The Canny Bus.” national oils, was down 2 percent on Tuesday after a
calls his eight strains of pot patchwork of state laws. “They haven’t issued a smaller drop Monday.
“DANK FROM THE DOGG- The result is that consumers single patent yet. But gen- New reports indicated that manufacturing is con-
FATHER HIMSELF.” Nelson’s have no way of knowing erally speaking there is tinuing to struggle, with factory activity falling in De-
yet-to-be-released line says that celebrity-branded pot broad agreement within cember for the second straight month in the U.S. and
the product is “born of the is different from what they the patent law commu- the 10th straight month in China.
awed memories of musi- could get in a plastic bag nity that they will,” said Slow growth means that the current oversupply of
cians who visited Willie’s from a corner drug dealer. Eric Greenbaum, director oil could be more stubborn than expected. Govern-
bus after a show.” “You can’t go into federal of intellectual property for ment figures show that the stockpile of U.S. crude oil
The industry’s makeshift court to get federal bene- Ligand Pharmaceuticals, grew by 2.6 million barrels during the week ended
branding efforts, from ce- fits if you’re a drug dealer,” Inc., which is seeking a pat- Dec. 25 and was 9.9 million barrels higher than a
lebrity names on boxes to said Sam Kamin, a Univer- ent for a strain of marijuana year ago.
the many weed-themed T- sity of Denver law professor to treat seizures that it has Surveys by Genscape Inc. show that stocks of
shirts and stickers common who tracks marijuana law. developed in Minnesota.q benchmark U.S. crude near the key hub in Cushing,
Oklahoma, are at all-time highs, said Brian Busch, di-
rector of oil markets for the energy-research firm. It’s
not limited to the U.S. Oil-storage terminals in South
Africa are full, and China-bound tankers have been
seen waiting offshore until there is room to offload
their shipments of crude, he said.
With little reason to expect stronger demand or cuts
in production soon, investors seemed to discount
the rising tension between the Saudis and Iranians
over Saudi Arabia’s execution of an opposition Shiite
cleric. Stewart Glickman, an analyst with S&P Capital
IQ, said geopolitical risk has lost some of its ability to
influence on oil prices.
“It is maybe a sense of security from the marketplace
that with this seeming glut of crude oil that you can
have tensions in Middle East and they don’t count
for as much as they used to three or four years ago,”
he said in an interview.
The explanation lies partly in robust production from
the U.S., Glickman said. Saudi officials are reluctant
to cut production in a bid to raise prices because
they’ll just concede sales to U.S. producers who will
fill the void in supply.q
