• Thunder Bay Drug Strategy coordinator Cynthia Olsen elaborated on last week’s story about a green powder which contained carfentanil but not cannabis. She said the substance “had no resemblance to cannabis […by…] weight[,] scent[,] or by its texture. There was no indication that that substance was being marketed or sold as cannabis.” The substance was crystalline, not leafy. Its only similarity to cannabis was that it was green.
  CBC Windsor, Ontario Harm Reduction Network
• Olsen added the profit margins on opioids are significantly higher than on cannabis, so it is unlikely that a seller would deliberately lace a cheap drug with a more expensive one.

Quick Hits

1. Canopy announced an expanded partnership with Parent Action on Drugs as well as harm-reduction organization Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Together, they will develop online tools like the “Weed Like to Know” chatbot and the “What’s With Weed” SMS tool. Both will deliver evidence-based facts about cannabis, along with means to encourage consumers to reflect upon their use, and support for those who’d like to consume less.
   NewsWire

• Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin introduced an amendment allowing even those who have not yet paid off fines from their cannabis convictions to apply for record suspensions.
• Amendments advanced by NDP and Green Party members will guarantee cannabis pardons are not revoked if the person in question is later convicted of another possession offence under the Cannabis Act.
• A Conservative amendment that held will guarantee those seeking pardons may receive them even if their records have been lost.
• It remains uncertain whether the Liberal government will be able to pass C-93 before they retire for the summer—and the campaign for the October general election, after which polls suggest the Conservative party may win power. But the Bill might reach the Senate floor next week, and if so might be passed before the summer recess.
  iPolitics

Quick Hit

1. More than 150 professional athletes signed a petition calling on the World Anti-Doping Agency to end their prohibition on cannabis and THC in competitive sport, saying the substance does not meet the criteria of either enhancing performance, harming the health of athletes, or violating “the spirit of sport.” A number of Canadian NHL players are among the 150, notably retired Penguins enforcer Eric “The Hand of God” Godard, and former Habs enforcer George Laraque.
   Canadian Running Magazine

• The 1,500 lbs of harvested and packaged bud (at the time the MMPR only allowed transfer of seeds or live plants) was found in 55 hockey bags and 40 boxes destined for Tweed and Mettrum (later acquired by Canopy and rebranded as Spectrum).
  Twitter–Douglas Quan
  
• The RCMP did not publicise the seizure for more than a week even as Tweed preemptively made statements the RCMP considered “brutally misleading.”

• Tweed had become the first LP to go public on the TSE the week of the bust, and documents show the RCMP considered how news of the bust might affect stock prices.
• They also worried the news would make Health Canada look bad as it rolled out new MMPR regs that week.
  Twitter—Douglas Quan
• RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Janelle Shoihet would not comment in detail, but told the Post, “Decisions with regards to communications will always consider impact on prosecution, timing and whether (or) not a company is publicly traded. These factors have been considered in the past and were not unique to this investigation. Impacts on partners, disclosure, potential or active prosecutions and privacy legislation must all be considered when determining what, if any, information can be made public.”
• Retired RCMP superintendent Garry Clement disagreed, saying, ““When you see something like that, how can you say the RCMP is being objective? They’re playing in the hands of the company. Investors may have made a decision differently had they known the facts.”
• A Canopy spokesman said it believed then and now that it acted in compliance with regulations.
• Grower Travis Lane said, “So many people are in prison for a fraction of this amount. How can anyone have faith in the equity of the system when shit like this (and Bonify) happens? Worried about stock price? Fuck that corrupt bullshit.” Twitter

Quick Hits

1. Hexo CEO Sébastien St-Louis said his company acquired Newstrike Brands primarily for its manufacturing space. The hope is to relieve some of the processing bottlenecks Hexo has previously reported.
   Bloomberg, Globe and Mail—Paywall
2. Law firm Dentons published a review of the proposed Health Canada regs on edibles, extracts, and topicals. However, the regulations are not settled, and no one knows exactly what they’ll look like.
   CTV News
3. Diageo CEO Ivan Menezes says legalization has not affected the liquor giant’s Canadian sales, and for that reason he’s in no hurry to enter the cannabis sector.
   Grizzle

• BMO Capital Markets said the supply shortage was improving faster than anticipated.
  Yahoo Finance
• Alberta Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis (AGLC) has approved the 115 applications that were cleared prior to the moratorium and will begin granting licenses to five of those 115 every week for the next 23 weeks if supplies remain strong. An additional 473 applications remain pending.
  Globe and Mail—Paywall
• Alberta already has 104 REC stores (the most in the country), compared with Ontario’s 20. That means there’s one REC retailer for every 40,565 Albertans, but only one per 755,000 Ontarians.
  MJ Biz Daily
• Alberta REC retailers are finally getting the high CBD oils for which the public has been clamouring.
  Globe and Mail—Paywall
• The office of Ontario finance minister Vic Fedeli said, ” “Ontario continues to monitor the supply situation.”
  Twitter—Matt Lamers

• Unlike some municipalities, which have resisted REC retail, Creston supported Middlebrook, and no one in the community protested her store opening.
• Santé Cannabis co-founder Adam Greenblatt noted, “Meanwhile in Quebec it will soon be illegal for a 20 year old to buy cannabis.”

• When I visited Montreal’s Chronique 420 café on 4/20, the owners said they hoped edibles legalization would allow them to sell infused items. Until then they’re selling regular coffee and baked goods.
• In Quebec City, the restaurant Sinsemilla opened last month, offering a variety of dishes that contain hemp in a cannabis-oriented environment—presumably, like Chronique 420, they hope to add THC after it’s legal.
  Ici Radio-Canada—In French
• Health Canada’s Andrea Budgell told a convention discussion her agency is paying attention to feedback about determining whether edibles were appealing to kids.
• She also noted 7,000 submissions on the draft edibles, extracts, and topicals regulations, chiefly pertaining to the proposed 10mg THC cap, the demand for dedicated manufacturing buildings for infused products, and packaging regs.
  Twitter—Trina Fraser
• Like other cities, Calgary has seen an increase of ER visits related to illicit edibles. But physician Dr. Eddy Lang, a health researcher specializing in emergency medicine, said the numbers aren’t large and in US states that legalized, cannabis-related ER visits declined as mainstream use stabilized.
  Calgary Herald
• Brad “PancakeNap” Martin published a series of infographs exploring the varieties of cannabis available across North American legal markets (broken down by state and province).
  PancakeNap

• The government also announced a $10.1M investment over five years to increase the number of police trained in field-sobriety testing and drug recognition.
  Vancouver Sun
• Bill Blair said, “For many years all we could tell our kids was ‘just say no,’ now we can start telling our kids, ‘think.’ […] It makes us a leader in the world because the world is looking to Canada as a place where research takes place.”
  Straight Cannabis
• Some of the money will go to buy Dräger DrugTest 5000 saliva-testing devices for police forces in BC, despite the devices being useless to test impairment and likely subject to constitutional challenge by drivers claiming the devices were improperly used to declare them intoxicated when they were sober.
  Vancouver Criminal Lawyer, Vice

Quick Hits

1. Researcher Nick Jikomes argued we’re “entering a golden age of cannabis research.” He shared a graph of the number of studies containing the word “cannabis” in their title or abstract, which have been increasing since the 1990s and have more than doubled in the past eight years.
   Twitter
2. A Vernon, BC MED dispensary is being shut down after a series of $1,000 fines and the threat of jail.
   Global News
3. Time is running out for the Liberal government to pass its cannabis-convictions records-suspension Bill C-93.
   Global News

• Erin Gratton, founder of cannabis-HR organization High Values, said on Twitter, “No medical condition, no Code protection.” She explained to WeedWeek, “Until there’s a reliable test for cannabis impairment, safety-sensitive workers need to be aware of possible implications of consuming recreational cannabis outside work hours.”
• The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador’s decision in a landmark case on MED at work,writes Torkin Manes Barristers & Solicitors partner Peter Straszynski, found the “possibility” of impairment up to 24 hours after cannabis consumption represented “undue hardship” to an employer, allowing them the right to terminate a MED user’s employment.
  Torkin Manes

Quick Hits

1. Police in Ontario’s Waterloo Region warned of the discovery of counterfeit cannabis containing the extremely powerful opioid carfentanil, but no cannabis at all. Based on photos circulated, it appears to be a ground dry-leaf product laced with chemicals. This was likely not the culprit in last week’s reports of teens overdosing after smoking what bystanders said smelled like cannabis.
   CTV News, Globe and Mail
2. The owner of an evicted illicit CBD store in Windsor, ON, says his landlord told police “untrue” things about him in a letter to police accusing him of “selling cannabis related products.” Police searched the store and left without pressing charges. His landlord accuses police of forcing him “to do their dirty work” by evicting the store when they did not charge the owner.
   CBC Windsor