• The issue is largely bureaucratic. The Saskatchewan Lottery and Gaming Authority is in the process of screening applicants, many of whom worry the delay will cost them their chance to open a REC store.
• Those who were runners-up in last year’s lottery may yet get their chance to apply for REC retail licenses.

Quick Hits

1. Chris “Equity Guru” Perry wrote an entertaining and profane rant about the difficulty of accessing legal cannabis in BC, “literally the worst system in Canada.”
   Equity Guru
2. New Brunswickers are enthusiastic about learning to grow cannabis at home, even if they’re not buying many seeds from Cannabis NB.
   CBC New Brunswick

• Provinces with the greatest number of REC stores saw the greatest decline in MED sales.
• The chief barrier to MED growth is excise tax, which increased the cost of MED by up to 30%, depending on province.
• Materia CEO Deepak Anand called for governments to enable pharmacy sales of MED and to scrap the taxes.
  Twitter

Quick Hits

1. Most LPs will be using recycled post-consumer resin (PCR) packaging by the middle of next year, while plans for “biodegradable” plastic packaging are questionable.
   Globe and Mail
2. Intellectual property gets complicated in a sector where people have been innovating in secret for decades. That means it’s hard to get patents on cannabis.
   Bloomberg

• Hoping to change that, a Windsor river cruise company planned to hold its first strictly BYOC “cannabis cruise” this month. That event was canceled as it violated the Smoke Free Ontario Act.
  CTV News

Quick Hits

1. A not-quite-licensed Brampton company claims it has technology to create odourless cannabis.
   Yahoo Finance
2. Health Canada data shows there may be an oversupply of cannabis oil.
   Leafly

• A pleasantly unexpected 55% of Quebeckers support legalization, while 45% do not. That’s a distinct jump from the 2017 CROP poll which found 40% of Quebeckers were in favour of legalizing and 54% were opposed. (In the rest of Canada, which we Quebeckers call “the ROC,” 58% supported legalization.)
  Leafly, CROP—In French
• A strong majority (72%) of respondents said legalization had done little or nothing to disturb public order.
• A quarter of Quebeckers have changed their opinions about cannabis since legalization: 8% feel more negatively, while 17% feel more positively.

• Most Quebeckers (72%) were pleased with the SQDC model, and 66% opposed the sale of cannabis through private retail.

• Building on the ideas First Nations consultants raised with Bill Blair two weeks ago, the working group said Blair asked the group to develop a proposal by April 1 of next year.
  CBC Indigenous
• The group must resolve a number of challenges, including developing revenue sharing, respecting individual First Nations’ cannabis laws and customs, and protecting the safety of cannabis products entering or leaving communities.
  Net News Ledger

Quick Hits

1. Since the Liberal government launched its system of record suspensions, only 71 Canadians have taken them up on the opportunity—and only 44 have gotten their records suspended.
   Global News
2. A report by Eight Capital predicts product differentiation will begin next year when the market reaches supply equilibrium, while sales will rise with the number of stores, and LPs will continue signing deals with Fortune 500 companies.
   Globe and Mail

• All were disqualified for failing to deliver required paperwork on time. The plaintiffs claim they were all delayed in being officially informed by registered letter of their lottery win, and should have been given five days to fulfill requirements, but were not.
  Globe and Mail
• They are represented by Peter Brauti, the same lawyer who defended two Toronto police officers who stole and consumed edibles during a dispensary raid, then greened out and called for backup, screaming they were dying.
  Jameson Berkow

• Brauti claimed the suspension was “a huge win. You hope for a home run, but a grand slam is what this was.”
  Globe and Mail
• The move will delay the plan for new stores to begin opening on October 1. It will also affect those wait-listed lottery entrants who moved into winning positions after the plaintiffs were disqualified. Lawyer Trina Fraser noted the Ontario market could handle 11 more stores than planned.
  Twitter—David George-Cosh, CBC Toronto, Twitter—Trina Fraser

• Hobo Cannabis announced plans to open a 5,000-sq. foot multi-level REC store in Ottawa’s Byward Market area. Hobo’s other Ottawa location appears to have completed more transactions than any Ontario REC store.
  CTV, Twitter

• The Ontario Cannabis Store—both in online retail sales, and in wholesale sales to retailers—generated $64M in the year ending March 31, but had $106M in expenses, compared with $6M in the first year of operations.
  CBC Toronto
• The Ontario government collected $19M in excise taxes, roughly half the $35M it estimated it would collect.
  Twitter—David George-Cosh

• Canada legalizes extracts and opens a vape-pen market of its own this fall. While many expect vape-pens to surge to the head of Legalization 2.0 products, the vape-illness wave might check that growth. Or our regulations could build consumer trust in vape pens, depending on who you ask.
  Bloomberg
• LPs insist that when their exhaustively regulated cannabis vape-pens enter the market in mid-December, they will cause none of the illnesses associated with US vaping products.
  Financial Post
• Those who sell dry-herb vaporizers are worried their sales will be affected by the panic, despite it affecting only concentrates-vaporizers.
  The Leaf

• The US Centres for Disease Control is not yet ready to cite illicit vapes or cutting agents like vitamin E as the principal cause of the outbreak. The American Medical Association called on consumers to stop using any “electronic cigarette” or vape pen until the cause of the illness was clear.
  National Post
• At home, BC Liberal MLA Shirley Bond appeared to call for a ban on vape products.
  Twitter
• The Ontario Lung Association launched comic strip The Toker to encourage young people to reduce lung-health risks.
  NewsWire

• Saying he spoke with “a fellow named Andrew” and “some people who report directly to a guy named Justin,” Linton predicted political fears would prevent the leading Liberal party and second-place Conservative party from discussing cannabis much.
• Though the Liberals created a legal industry that now employs 9,200 Canadians at 175 companies (up from 1,438 people at 37 companies in the 2016/17 fiscal year), Linton predicted the Liberal Party would shy away from anything that made Justin Trudeau, a former drama teacher, “look light, not serious.”
  Statistics Canada
• Linton added, “I don’t think the Liberals want to look light and fun” as they face major challenges like Ethics Commisioner Mario Dion’s conclusion that Trudeau broke conflict of interest laws in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
  The Star
• The Conservatives, meanwhile, aggressively opposed legalization. Linton said, “The Tories lost the last election in part because they tried to tell a majority of Canadian adults they are wrong. [Now they] don’t want to touch it.”

• Federal pharmacare funding for MED (Deepak Anand) and removal of excise taxes on MED products (Michael Verbora);
• And lowered barriers to entry for micro-cultivators. (Steph Ostrander)
  Twitter

• Expungements (SheCann) and an end to overpackaging (Coffeetwomilk);

• Organizer Shari Paterson, who added cannabis to help widen the exhibition’s appeal said, “Lots of competition here. People get pretty involved in it and want to win one of those blue ribbons.”

• Cannabis commentator Dan Adelman visited the exhibition and said, “They are so excited to have cannabis as a category and they say not only have they had an overwhelming amount of interest, they have had a ton of support outside of the cannabis community.”

Quick Hits

1. The Cannabis Mercantile Exchange announced its first-ever listing of CBG isolate: 13kg CBG isolate at 94.7%.
   Twitter

• The summit was attended by AFN Chiefs and their representatives, who talked about the potential for cannabis as an economic driver, the communities who do not want to deal with the plant, and the complexity of jurisdictional issues associated with cannabis in Indigenous communities.
  Globe and Mail