• Hexo and Molson Coors’ joint venture Truss Beverage Co announced plans to roll out its first white-label CBD beverages in December.
  MJ Biz Daily
• THC testing labs that will handle edibles and beverages say they have received no guidance or reference material from Health Canada about how they should test products.
  La Presse—In French

Quick Hits

1. Canadian pre-rolls are, on average, far larger than the smaller “dog-walker” formats popular in the US.
   Lift & Co
2. Following Hexo’s launch of its budget-cannabis line Original Stash, the Ontario Cannabis Store debuted Tilray/High Park‘s new budget line The Batch, comprised of “assorted cannabis strains with a THC potency between 10 and 15.9%.” Because the product is, as one commentator called it, “random mids in a jar,” potency may vary from bud to bud in the same container.
   NewsWire, Financial Post, Twitter—What’s My Pot

• For some, the licenses are an attempt to divide communities.
  Twitter—Joseph Brant
• The Assembly of First Nations’ plan for a separate Indigenous cannabis regulation and taxation system might be worth billions in revenue for First Nations, though some First Nations critics have dismissed the plan as colonial.
  Globe and Mail, Bloomberg, Twitter—Stephen John Ford

Quick Hits

1. Calgary claims to have spent more than $6.9M on cannabis-related programs since legalization. Trina Fraser noted there was little information about whether these costs have been offset by other spending, since other cities have reported little comparable increase.
   Calgary Herald, Twitter—Trina Fraser
2. Financial intelligence agency the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) is beginning to investigate whether the legal REC industry is being used to launder money.
   Regina Leader-Post

• That was, of course, excepting the Marijuana Party of Canada, who fielded 30 losing candidates. GrowthOp
• Linton said, “As far as I could tell, [no party] was opposed to cannabis, and nobody was in favour of it. […] They should have been on the campaign trail saying ‘This sector created the most jobs of any sector in Canada over the last three or four years.'” Bloomberg

Quick Hits

1. Toronto analysts Trichome Financial offered a “State of the Market” memo including interesting conclusions about the market: management expertise remains varied and the whole industry is learning, production licenses no longer mean what they once did, and financial institutions are hesitant to lend to a heavily regulated industry.
   Google Drive
2. Per 2019 statistics, 50% of Canadian MED patients are treating pain, 20% are treating mood disorders, and 20% use MED to help them sleep.
   Twitter—Dr. Caroline MacCallum

• Much of the sales surge occurred as BC is finally speeding its REC retail rollout, having increased its stores to 94 last month from only 14 in March. BC’s sales spiked by 100.2% between July (5,965) and August (11,943).
  Twitter—Aaron W. Anderson, MJ Biz Daily
• The national average for REC sales increased by 18.6% between July and August, while most provinces’ sales increased between roughly 9% and 16% during that period, even as no new stores opened in Quebec.
  Twitter—David George-Cosh

• Ontario led with total sales ($33.7M), though Alberta banked the most in profits ($24.8M).
  GrowthOp
• High per-store sales resulted from retail scarcity, and retailers may expect declining sales as competition improves.
  The Province

• Farnworth stressed he didn’t want to see the REC landscape “dominated by one or two large-scale variety of producers.”
  CTV News
• He also said his government was working on changing provincial laws banning the sale of “non-cannabis-related” items in REC stores.

• The company’s argument for reducing production as it waits for REC retail to become more established.
  MarketWatch
• TGOD is attempting to sell its Ancaster, ON facility in a sale-leaseback arrangement, allowing the company to collect profits from the sale while also arranging a lease offering four five-year lease renewals.
  Deep Dive
• The company has been attempting to secure a sale-leaseback agreement for a month and has not received suitable offers.
  Twitter—Mark Rendell, Financial Post

Quick Hits

1. Researchers at the University of Ottawa have invented a far cheaper and faster chip-based test for THC:CBD ratios. CBC Ottawa
2. One of the first round of Ontario REC lottery winners wrote about the wild process of becoming a REC retailer overnight. Toronto Life

• The Globe noted in April that over the three years leading into legalization, 36 debt financing deals worth $352M were built on convertible debentures—bonds that can be converted into shares at a fixed price. Such investments are risky and may leave companies with onerous debts when the convertibles come due.
  Globe and Mail
• Financing is getting more expensive and harder to access across the sector.
  Bloomberg

• Analysts puzzled over the raise, considering the company was not expected to face capital shortages for nearly three years, while Hexo stock is close to 52-week lows.
  Ottawa Citizen

• Hexo argued the cuts aimed to achieve profitability and long-term viability—an attitude investors may celebrate.
  Bloomberg
• Tantalus Labs CEO Dan Sutton predicted, “Layoffs start today for large LPs. More are coming. […] This is bad for all of us.”
  Twitter—Dan Sutton

Quick Hits

1. Cannabis NB cut eight management positions.
   919 The Bend
2. If you happen to be in charge of regulating legal cannabis but aren’t sure how to go do that, Transform Drug Policy Foundation offered a helpful how-to guide.
   Transform Drug Policy
3. Parents using cannabis during periods of interacting with their children may feel it makes them more compassionate and responsive to their kids, while researchers worry it may create parental detachment. Chances are a positive or negative effects are connected to a wide number of factors.
   The Conversation

• In late December, reports emerged Bonify had purchased and resold unregulated illicit cannabis as regulated product, causing Manitoba’s Liquor, Gaming, and Cannabis authority to suspend all Bonify sales and seize all of the company’s products on what premier Brian Pallister called “a black day” for legal cannabis. Employees alleged they were pressured to keep quiet about the illegal activity, and one employee sued for unlawful dismissal.
  The Leaf, CBC Manitoba, CTV News, CBC Manitoba
• RavenQuest CEO turned Bonify CEO George Robinson celebrated the decision, saying, “The lessons from Bonify are clear: follow the rules, train your staff and run a clean, well-designed facility capable of producing high-quality cannabis without cutting corners.”
  CBC Manitoba

• Some noted the hypocrisy of Manitoba cannabis laws, which are tough even on the use of edibles in public spaces, while “soft as soft could be on Bonify selling 200kg of illicitly procured cannabis.”
  Twitter—Aaron W. Anderson
• Others noted the first person to be sentenced under the Cannabis Act was an Indigenous man who received ten months in prison for possessing 80 grams of cannabis for the purposes of trafficking (2,500 times less than Bonify procured for the purposes of trafficking). Indigenous rights lawyer Jesse Donovan described this as evidence of “a two-tiered justice system.”
  Twitter—Jordan Brant

• The fact that three very different products (nicotine e-cigarettes, cannabis oil-pens, and dry-herb vaporizers) are all referred to as “vaping” is not helping anything.
• The Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health expressed concerns about “the substantial rise of [nicotine] vaping” among teenagers, and the likelihood that those who vape nicotine products will become smokers.
• One Canadian case of VAPI has been confirmed, while another is suspected. Both are connected with nicotine e-cigarettes.
  Ici Radio-Canada—In French, CTV News

Quick Hits

1. Health Canada is working with Strainprint Analytics to understand how patients use MED.
   NewsWire
2. MED patients complained some cannabis clinics have refused to register them with LPs of their choice due to alleged “education agreement” kickbacks.
   Twitter—SheCann, Global News

• Though residents in some areas have complained about odours associated with cannabis production, a facility is likely to raise nearby property values rather than lowering them.
  CityNews

Quick Hits

1. The Alberta Cannabis Micro License Association, an upstart micro-cultivators association, hopes to turn their affiliation into a canna-tourism attraction, like the Niagara wine region.
   GrowthOp
2. Pharmacy corporation Rexall entered the sector as its online wellness subsidiary Well.ca received a sales license from Health Canada. Rexall’s parent is multinational health care behemoth McKesson, whose 2018 revenue was $208B.
   Twitter—Deepak Anand, David George-Cosh