Just in time for 4/20, Ardent has debuted its new decarboxylator, a machine that activates THC and CBD from raw cannabis flower. The Nova FX, which also serves as an infusor, stands at seven and a half inches high and retails for $350. Already, more than 1,000 machines have been shipped to customers.
Ardent founder and CEO Shanel Lindsay calls it "the Easy-Bake Oven for cannabis." To go along with the device, Ardent sells kits that people can use to make edibles at home—personal cakes, infused olive and coconut oil, chocolate "magic shells" and more.
The Nova FX's launch comes at a time when people are largely staying in their homes to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, but they're also unable to buy marijuana for recreational use.
Massachusetts has essentially shut down sales of recreational marijuana, classifying pot shops as non-essential businesses. Five cannabis dispensaries and a medical marijuana patient (who happens to be seeking to open his own recreational cannabis store) sued Gov. Charlie Baker over that decision on April 7, asking a Suffolk Superior Court judge for a preliminary injunction against the order, but the judge sided with the Baker administration last week.
For Ardent, the shutdown is a double-edged sword. The startup can continue its own operations; it makes its edibles in Commonwealth Kitchen, which recently reopened, and its hardware is made in a factory that has been deemed an essential business. And folks looking to stretch the use of any flower they bought before the shutdown might be motivated to buy the Nova FX, as well as its younger, smaller cousin, the Nova decarboxylator and infuser.
Still, the closure of dispensaries may impact Ardent's sales.
"I think it cuts both ways," Lindsay said. "On one side, people often buy our product to use it with the flower and concentrates they're buying at dispensaries, so anybody who was doing that before no longer has the opportunity to buy the flower. On the other side, people who don’t have access to gels or topicals, they can make it on their own."
Lindsay pointed out that people can use the Nova FX to make their own cannabis products aside from edibles. The device helps customers make CBD-infused topical gels to relieve pain, beauty aids and more.
Ardent has begun publishing a series of video tutorials both on its Facebook page and in a Facebook group specifically for customers. It will go live at 3 p.m. Monday on Facebook and Instagram with more tutorials.
"There's entertainment value," Lindsay said. "People need to stretch their product and have something to do all day. We add some excitement and connectivity."
Lindsay is a longtime advocate for legal cannabis use in Massachusetts. She sits on the Massachusetts Cannabis Advisory Board and is an author of the Massachusetts Marijuana Legalization Initiative, a.k.a. Question 4 on the November 2016 ballot that first legalized the use of recreational marijuana here.
Years' worth of shifting regulations, however, meant that no recreational dispensaries opened in Massachusetts until November 2018. The first pot shop within Boston's borders opened only last month, in Roxbury. Now, those shops are temporarily closed, which could be a devastating blow to the owners, Lindsay said.
"From my perspective, there are real barriers to access for people," Lindsay said. "There's a lot of concern about what Boston is going to do... There can't be any movement. This is definitely a crushing blow to the entrepreneurs who had been waiting for years."
