PHARMACY DEBATE RAGES ON

Lawyer Trina Fraser accused the federal government of passing the buck on sorting out pharmacy access to MED.”
Twitter

Quick Hits

  1. The vice-chair of Maritimers Unite for Medical Marijuana, Chris Backer, said legalization failed MED users because LPs and politicians know little about cannabis and aren’t sick—and have never had the experience of being forced to break the law in order to use effective medicine.
    Chronicle Herald
  2. McKesson Canada—parent company of major drug store brands Rexall and Uniprix, among others—entered the sector with a patient-education portal on its Well.ca website that offers guidance on treatments, including cannabis.
    NewsWire
  3. Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said despite their partnership with Tilray, the company does not consider cannabis to be “a focus.”
    CNBC
  4. Insiders say there are many testing labs in Canada, but too few testing only cannabis. Startup labs, meanwhile, have to wait months for Health Canada to work through their applications backlog to get licensed.
    Ici Radio-Canada—In French

HOME GROWING FEVER

Globe and Mail lifestyle journalist Ian Brown published a long and self-effacing feature about his attempts to grow his own REC from an illegally procured California seed, using an automatic-growing machine in a grow-tent.

  • Expert response to the piece was derisive. BC Independent Cannabis Association director and grower Travis Lane picked through the story’s errors. These included scientific flaws like long-debunked myths about indica and sativa cultivars and a claim that light cycles in growing have a greater effect than a plant’s chemical makeup does on what kinds of cannabinoids it contains.
  • Lane’s criticisms also focused on bad growing practices Brown was advised to undertake, such has purging the plant of its nutrients, drying for six days, or “drying it beforehand for ten seconds in the microwave.” He noted by Brown’s numbers, he didn’t succeed in drying his cannabis properly.
  • Lane said he felt it important to critique the article because it risked discouraging new growers and “seriously exaggerated” the difficulty of cannabis cultivation. “Home growing is not so difficult. It doesn’t require BS tech. […] If you like gardening, that is the only real requirement for success.” Twitter—Travis Lane
  • Some home growers do it because it’s far cheaper than buying from LPs, or even from illegal sellers. Others do it for the love of the dirt and the plant itself. Growersin legal home-cultivation provinces are excited about the season opening. CBC Business

Quick Hits

  1. The introduction of low-cost outdoor growing may significantly change the industry, offering production at 20 cents per gram compared with more than $1 per gram indoors.
    Globe and Mail—Paywall
  2. Every LP wants to have a passionate and knowledgeable cultivator who understands the potential for developing aromatic, powerful cultivars.
    GrowthOp
  3. An indoor cannabis grow-site uses as much as 200 times as much electricity as the average office building of the same size.
    Financial Post
 

LINTON: CANOPY CHOSE ACREAGE BECAUSE OF HEAVYWEIGHT BOARD’S “REPUTATIONAL RISK”

Canopy CEO Bruce Linton said his company partnered with Acreage Holdings because that company’s board of directors “had a great deal of reputational risk if anything went funny. We knew for sure they’re going to be extremely well-governed because in the period of time from now until we bring them over.”
Bloomberg

Quick Hits

  1. Competition to develop and produce synthetic cannabinoids is escalating. Financial Post

AURORA’S BRIGHT Q3 FINANCIALS

Good news for Aurora, whose Q3 earnings report revealed the company’s sales grew 20% in the last quarter to reach $65M. REC sales generally grew 37% over the quarter, MED sales were up 8%. NewsWire, Barron’s

  • Yet there was scant news in the report about potential partnerships, or the company’s plan to enter the U.S. market. Yahoo
  • Aurora doubled its production with 15,590 kilograms in Q3, up from 7,822 in Q2. Though its international MED sales increased 40%, they were nonetheless hampered by supply shortages.
    MJBiz Daily
  • Aurora entered into a multi-year, multi-million-dollar global partnership with mixed-martial-arts organization UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) to research the relationship between hemp-derived CBD and athletic recovery and wellness.
    Newswire

Quick Hits

  1. Organigram began trading on the Nasdaq.
    Global
  2. Flowr received approval to begin listing on Nasdaq.
    Benzinga
  3. Newstrike announced its shareholders approved Hexo‘s proposed acquisition of the company.
    NewsWire
  4. The Alberta Cannabis Council, established by LPs and retailers, announced its launch this week, following on the path of the Quebec Cannabis Industry Association, which announced its foundation last month. Globe and Mail

CANNABIS CONSUMPTION UP, BEER DOWN

A Cowen and Co. survey found Canadian cannabis use is at a record level, double that previously reported, aided by the popularity of still-illicit edibles. Meanwhile, Canadians are drinking less beer.
Barron’s

  • Two weeks ago, a Dalhousie University survey found 37% of respondents considered themselves “regular cannabis users,” which was a great deal more than the 17% who told Statistics Canada’s they had used cannabis in recent months.
    Globe and Mail—Paywall
  • Cowen and Co. found similar numbers to the Dalhousie researchers, with 40% of respondents in Alberta and Ontario reporting cannabis use in the last month.
  • Cowen and Co. found similar numbers, with 40% of respondents in Alberta and Ontario reporting cannabis use in the last month.
  • As consumers may legally choose between cannabis and alcohol, alcohol consumption tends to go down.
    MG Retailer
  • A US analyst said declining beer sales are “the canary in the coal mine” for the entire alcohol industry.
    Bloomberg
  • The alcohol industry’s existing infrastructure could be used to more efficiently sell cannabis, said Ted Zittell, Canadian-born director of US cannabeverage manufacturer Tinley.
    Daily Hive

Quick Hits

  1. The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users hosts events at which Neil Magnuson and his Cannabis Substitution Project gives out free pre-rolls, edibles, and topicals to drug consumers hoping to swap cannabis for opioids.
    The Straight
  2. Supporters of Vancouver’s 420 celebration claim the Parks Board, which voted to ban the celebration, is maliciously keeping Sunset Beach Park closed more than a month after the protest/celebration/performance in order to generate public hostility to the event. Parks Board commissioner John Coupar responded “I understand that the grass field required aeration, top dressing and seeding #nospin #factsmatter.”
    Straight Cannabis
 

QUEBEC MARKET THRIVES, ONTARIO STRUGGLES

This week was the first since October that the Société Québécoise du Cannabis had secured enough supply to open all stores at their original hours, seven days a week. That isn’t the provincial monopoly’s only good news. Though it raised prices by 5% last month, the SQDC announced its best sales to date in April and is moving to open more stores.
CBC Montreal, Ici Radio Canada—In French, Journal de Montréal—In French

Quick Hits

  1. A Scotiabank analyst warned cannabis oversupply is coming to Canada, and “may be closer than some expect.” Producers have overbuilt and have far greater capacity to produce than Canada and its export partners can consume.
    MJ Business Daily
  2. Globe and Mail political writer Campbell Clark noted that in spite of the drastic warnings about what legalization would do to the country, it hasn’t changed very much at all. Bill Blair called legalization, “A little bit like this generation’s Y2K.”
  3. Simon Fraser University criminology professor and lawyer Neil Boyd argued, “Legalization has been a major accomplishment of the Trudeau government. They don’t describe it this way, but removing the yoke of criminalization was a significant step forward for human rights.”
    Twitter
  4. Conservative politicians MP Ben Lobb and MP-turned Ontario MLA Parm Gill joined the board of food/liquor/cannabis delivery service ParcelPal. The company said the active politicians’ expertise in Ontario will help them expand into that province.
    CityNews, MJ Biz Daily
 

DOUG FORD NEVER FILLED OCS POSITION CREATED FOR FRIEND

Ontario premier Doug Ford’s friend Ron Taverner, a former Toronto Police Service superintendent, was offered a position created for him in the Ontario Cannabis Store. He turned the job down and applied for the commissionership of the Ontario Provincial Police, which he got, before being forced to step down due to accusations of nepotism. The job created for him at Ontario Cannabis Store was never filled.
iPolitics

  • Doug Ford’s chief of staff Dean French pushed police departments across Ontario to raid illicit dispensaries in the days and weeks after legalization, demanding daily reports on the number of stores shut down and the number of owners charged. French also expressed “concerns” about how justices-of-the-peace were ruling on cannabis-related issues.
    Globe and Mail—Paywall

Quick Hits

  1. A head-shop owner in Welland, Ontario who was raided by police, claims he was selling no products containing cannabinoids, and therefore was committing no crime.
    GrowthOp
  2. A 65-year-old Niagara man arrested in 2016 for growing 1,200 plants that he said were MED solely intended to meet his and his sister’s chronic-pain needs will spend 90 days in jail.
    Niagara This Week
  3. Industry experts say consumers moving to the legal system from the illicit market have been forced to take a cut in the amount of information available about cannabis. Dispensaries often provide extensive information about potential effects and the medical applications of different cultivars, but REC retailers are not allowed to do the same, even as consumers shop for cannabis based on desired effects.
    The Star
  4. In provinces that allow home growing, the four-plant limit applies to any plants of the genus Cannabis, even hemp. The Leaf

CONSUMERS COMPLAIN THC RANGES TOO HIGH

MED activists Joya Halls and Ashleigh Brown highlighted unhelpful THC ranges on products listed on CannabisNL’s website. For example, Aphria/Soleil‘s “Gather” Sativa, is listed as between 7% and 21% THC, while Aphria/Riff‘s “Subway Scientist” indica pre-roll ranged from 9% to 27%.
Twitter

Quick Hits

  1. Saskatchewan’s provincial parks are banning alcohol—and cannabis—for Victoria Day weekend, often known ominously as May Two-Four, due to previous incidents of drunken chaos and vandalism.
    CBC Saskatchewan, Urban Dictionary
  2. Summer festivals across Canada have to decide how they will handle REC. The Edmonton Folk Fest will have a designated cannabis-smoking area, but that won’t necessarily be the rule—some festivals will continue to ban smoking of any kind. Some Calgary-area festivals will allow REC, but most won’t.
    The Star
  3. A Newfoundland judge found a designated driver not guilty of having cannabis available in her vehicle after she was arrested for transporting a person she was not aware was carrying cannabis in a mason jar. “With respect, I do not believe that the intent of the legislation is to require that designated drivers must search their passengers before driving them home,” the judge wrote.
    CBN Compass
  4. Rugby team the Toronto Wolfpack—which is based in Toronto but plays in the UK—launched a line of CBD topicals for athletes for sale in Canada.
    Financial Times

THE 2019 OUTDOOR CHALLENGE

This week the first Health Canada license for outdoor cultivation went to BC family-run Good Buds Co, which has 750,000 square feet of licensed cultivation space, for a projected yield of between 5,000 and 10,000 kilograms through the summer. Roughly 200 growers have applied for licences to grow outdoors, a cheaper alternative to indoor growing, though limited by weather to only one annual crop.
GrowthOp, Globe and Mail—Paywall

  • It’s unclear how many LPs will receive licenses in time to plant .
    CTV News
  • 48North, likely Canada’s highest-profile aspiring outdoor grower, had not received their license earlier this week when they signed a supply agreement with Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis. It received its license on Friday.
    Yahoo Finance, Twitter—Simon Kinsman, New Cannabis Ventures
  • Prior to late Friday’s news of 48North’s license, Cannabis brand strategist Rachel Colic said of the 48North agreement: “Never before in my professional career have I see so many companies make promises about their products without a proof of concept. We are feeding a [vicious] cycle. Make a promise. Get paid. Plant. Hope like hell it works….”

Quick Hits

  1. The Alberta Cannabis Council—a body representing the province’s cannabis industry—launched with a mandate to “engage, advocate, educate, protect the public, and give back.”
    NewsWire, The Star
  2. Yellowknife needs to sort out its zoning bylaws before the first private REC retailer can open there. Councillors are arguing over whether it’s necessary to place no-cannabis buffer zones around schools and hospitals.
    CBC North
  3. Despite posting a $11.7M loss in its first year and the New Brunswick government considering privatizing the REC retail system, Cannabis NB was nominated for two Excellence in Retailing Awards from the Retail Council of Canada. One nomination is for “In-Store Experience and Design,” and the other is for “Talent Development.”
    Civilized, CTV News
  4. Quebec’s Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité au travail (CNESST), which oversees workplace health and safety, is investigating after two employees at Hexo‘s indoor production facility fell ill and were hospitalized. At present, the source of their illness has not been identified: CNESST inspectors are considering air circulation problems, as well as the possibility they workers developed heatstroke.
    Ici Radio-Canada—In French
9.

FIRST-EVER OPIOID-CONTAMINATED WEED? OR ANOTHER UNFOUNDED SCARE?

Two teens in Milton, Ontario suffered apparent opioid overdoses while smoking what they believed was dry flower cannabis, purchased from a third party.
CityNews