Quick Hits

1. Canopy became the first LP to be allowed to bulk-import MED directly to its UK distribution hub.
   Financial Times
2. Cronos share prices spiked as much as 40% overnight on Wednesday following a series of block purchases, prompting a Stifel analyst to upgrade the stock and dub it “the new king of the north.”
   Market Realist, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily

• Previously the company estimated it would lose $51M worth of assets that were non-compliant.
• Turns out if you want to destroy $77M worth of cannabis, you can’t just “put it in a big pile outside the building and spark it up.” (Not even if you keep the children upwind?) Instead, the material may be mulched, buried in landfills, mixed with kitty litter, or torched in an industrial incinerator. National Post

Quick Hits

1. Once worth $4.40 (December 2017), MYM Neutraceuticals’ stock is now trading at $0.12. That’s bad news for the Quebec municipality of Weedon, where MYM was going to build a 1.5M square-foot production site. Construction stopped last fall and hasn’t restarted.
   Journal de Montréal—In French
2. MED researchers continue to complain about Health Canada’s glacial clinical trial approval process. Some say it’s now faster to go to the US and endure the DEA’s three month wait for clinical trial approval.
   Twitter—Jonathan Page

• OCS CEO Cal Bricker said the demand for new products legalized this week motivated the move to privatize wholesale.
  CBC Toronto
• The OCS has no intention of letting anyone else sell REC online in Ontario.
  Twitter—Trina Fraser
• The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has so far granted 24 REC store licenses and disqualified 20 REC retail applicants.
  Twitter—Matt Maurer

• In Saskatchewan, owners of small stores worry they can’t compete against REC retail chains backed by large corporations.
  Star Phoenix

Quick Hits

1. Lawyer Jodi Butts—wife of Justin Trudeau’s close friend and former principal secretary Gerry Butts—was nominated to Aphria’s board, and will likely be confirmed on November 14. She’ll be compensated with $150,000 cash and another $150,000 worth of deferred share units.
   National Post
2. Darryl Dexter, former NDP premier of Nova Scotia who now advises on cannabis issues, called on Ottawa to get involved with complaints from the sector that banks are refusing access to and closing accounts of cannabis businesses.
   MJ Biz Daily

• The CAQ government’s regulations will also cap edibles and beverages at 5mg per serving with maximum 10mg per package, and ban all sweetened edibles. They will allow “granola bars” and “bran muffins,” however.
  La Presse—In French
• Since the SCDC won’t be allowed to sell vape pens and many other products that will shape legalization 2.0 for the rest of the country, the crown corporation will begin by stocking mostly cannabis beverages, as well as hashish no stronger than 30% THC.
  Journal de Montréal—In French
• The CEO of the Société Québécoise du Cannabis, Jean-François Bergeron, hopes to cut long lineups at SQDC outlets, hence their recent plan to nearly double the number of stores (from 22 to 43) by April.
  Montreal Gazette

• Quebec police used blood tests to detect the presence of cannabis in 113 drivers believed to be impaired—up from 73 the previous year. (Tests cannot confirm impairment.) Montreal Gazette

• Hexo acknowledged price is a main reason consumers choose the illicit market and said they hope to win-over legacy market buyers.
  The Star

Quick Hits

1. Inexhaustible Globe reporter Jameson Berkow crossed Quebec and into the maritimes, profiling LPs as he went.
   Globe and Mail
2. Canadian legalization has been a catalyst for interest in legalizing from a variety of other governments, including Mexico, Luxembourg, Australia, New Zealand, and the US.
   GrowthOp, Associated Press

• Licensed parties can now submit products for approval and procurement, which may take up to 90 days. The earliest retailers can order the products will be December 16.
  Government of Canada, CBC Nova Scotia
• As Baked Edibles founder Brandon Wright put it, “Edibles arrived a year after legalization of flower. Makes sense if you think about it, they take a while to kick in.”
  Twitter—Brandon Wright

• In spite of public uneasiness, vape pens will likely be the first 2.0 products to hit the market, and the biggest LPs will have the advantage.
  Botaniq
• Legal vaping will only increase the industry’s waste problem. Even reusable vape pens are non-recyclable, but many big LPs are rumoured to be developing disposable pens like those popular in the US.
  Twitter—Rachel Colic, Ryan Lee

• Here’s a chart breaking down the new-product regulations.
  Twitter—CFAMM
• The maximum dose for THC extract capsules will also be 10mg, with a maximum 1000mg (or 100 capsules) per package. (It’s unclear why Health Canada allowed extract-capsule packages to contain so much more THC.)
• Cannabis researchers still can’t decide what constitutes a standard dose of THC.
  Globe and Mail
• Many expect the real money will be in CBD-infused beverages, rather than THC products.
  Cannabis Retailer

Read the whole thing.

• lower legal REC sales than expected,
• plummeting stock prices,
• disappointed consumers and aggrieved investors,
• Ontario’s botched retail rollout,
• LPs acknowledging they now have too much mid-quality stock nobody wants.
  Financial Post, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, The Province
• That’s before we get to the Bonify and CannTrust scandals and the revocation of Agrima’s licenses.
  CBC Manitoba, MJ Biz Daily, CBC Health
• REC retailers and others in the industry remained optimistic, but they don’t really have any other choice.
  CBC British Columbia

• Lawyer Chad Finkelstein broke down the questions a marketing team needs to ask in order to develop compliant advertising. Cannabis Retailer offered a list of dos and don’ts for REC promotion. Globe and Mail, Cannabis Retailer

• Also helping illicit production are the number of growers who attempted and failed to receive Health Canada approval—but went ahead and grew all the same.
  Ici Radio-Canada—In French
• Meanwhile, the illicit dispensary model has shifted to a system of underground delivery services that will be harder for police and bylaw officers to stamp out.
  CBC Politics, Vice
• Former Liberal health and justice minister Anne McLellan, chair of the 2016 legalization task force, stressed, “You do not create a regularized market in a year.” Noting Canada still has markets for illicit tobacco and alcohol products, McLellan said she expected within a decade illicit cannabis trade could be reduced by 80%.
  Globe and Mail
• Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics lab predicted legal cannabis will reach 50% of total sales by 2025.
  Twitter—The Food Professor

• Among the toughest appraisals of the last year came from NORML Canada, who used the anniversary to launch their post-legalization platform, demanding improved consumer access to REC and MED products, assistance for those wishing to move from the legacy market to the legal market, full expungements and more.
• Researchers said it would take roughly five years before we can assess changes to demands on the health care system resulting from legalization.
  Journal de Montréal—In French

• As of October 11, the Parole Board of Canada had received 156 applications for cannabis-conviction pardons under Bill C-93’s new record-suspension system. They have granted 74, or 47%.
  Twitter—Solomon Israel

• Though national consumption averages have remained mostly flat, consumption has increased in conservative provinces like Alberta (33% increase in a province that few expected would become synonymous with cannabis) and Saskatchewan (50%) that liberalized REC retail after strong prohibitionist positions.
  Global News, The Star

• Nipissing First Nation Chief Scott McLeod criticized the Liberal handling of legalization Bill C-45, which entirely omitted First Nations from the regulatory and revenue-sharing discussion. “Instead of reconciliation, we get racist legislation,” McLeod said. North Bay Nugget

• Regardless of the outcome of next week’s election, an Assembly of First Nations working group is organizing to present Ottawa with a plan for a separate system of regulation by and for First Nations. CBC Indigenous

• Twitter grower/reviewer @Donfazool began his review of Pure Sunfarms‘ cultivar White Rhino on a positive note, praising bud texture and scent—until he discovered the botrytis fungus growing on one of the buds.
  Twitter—Donfazool
• In August, Sundial was accused of being slow to respond after Zenabis returned 554 kilos of Sundial product due to contamination. Now a US law firm has filed a class-action suit against Sundial for failing to disclose information about supply issues and the above quality control problems.
  Marketwatch, CBC Calgary
• On a less dramatic note, a Twitter commentator noted the widest THC range in the Ontario Cannabis Store is Aphria‘s Solei-Sense cultivar, with an expansive listed-THC content of “9.5 – 28.5%.”
  Twitter—What’s My Pot

• Baking your own cookies versus buying cookies retail wouldn’t matter. You can’t go out to the park and eat them,” Pallister said.
  CTV News
• The Winnipeg Free Press editorial board puzzled over how such a ban could possibly be enforceable.
  Winnipeg Free Pres
• SheCann founder and MED activist Ashleigh Brown noted the law also applied to MED edibles. She vowed, “The minute the law passes I will be ingesting my medicinal cannabis on the steps of our legislature- in front of media.”
  Twitter—Ashleigh Brown

Quick Hits

1. REC retail conglomerates decried limits on the number of REC stores a single company may open in BC. BC Independent Cannabis Association president Courtland Sandover-Sly noted the rule was designed precisely to keep major corporations like those from dominating the market.
   Business in Vancouver, Twitter—Courtland Sandover-Sly
2. The second in a series of Telegraph features on Atlantic Canada after legalization focused on microcultivators, the use of MED in combatting addictions to other drugs, and the variety of companies waiting for edibles to become legal.
   St. John’s Telegraph