Lp,s are doomed!
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Your problem is Your Big Boys are growing bunk.
Bunk weed is not cutting it in Canada nor in the States.
Folks are not cannabis naive. THEY WANT DANKNESS.
So they purchase on the free market.
FROM LEGACY TO LEGAL, THE CANNABIS MARKET BELONGS TO WHO?
Three years ago, Canada legalized cannabis, but the market did not come with products familiar to most Canadian customers.
Beloved small growers and their brands could not make Health Canada‘s initial cut, including a shortlist of former licensed producers.
A shift from legacy to legal industry occurred, but license holders don’t own the industry because the cannabis market belongs to consumers.
Legacy cannabis — the black market — was slowly shut down after legalization. After establishing regulations, the shift restricted most product and brand promotion, limiting consumer connection and knowledge. Producers also struggled to maintain quality for a reasonable price.
And so, customers became harder to satisfy in part because of regulations. Beyond quality, however, industry experts think the legal market completely lacks brands and high-quality products to attract customer appeal.
Legacy brands were free to market themselves, but the legal industry belongs to consumers despite the regulation imposed restrictions.
A lighter is granted endless marketing potential compared to Canadian cannabis.
A brand house rolls up a piece of Big Cannabis
Old-school home growers, on the greener thumb, have spent years sussing quality.
Whereas, for three years, Canada’s legal cannabis industry has struggled to overcome a plague of bad bud. Product is put on shelves dead after irradiation and typically left to dry out in monotone clunky cardboard-cocooned containers.
During a phone call, Trang Trinh, the founder of TREC Brands, agreed that the legacy market is an asset while also urging that customers are key.
What I noticed is that everyone was focused on funding capacity and pumping dollars into infrastructure and no one was focused on selling to the end consumer. And what I learned during my days working with really large clients and companies at Deloitte, and what I learned from all of these transactions, is that people always come first.
Raid after raid, brands fell from the free market
However, many Canadians were left deserted after decade-old traditional, legacy market brands were wiped out three years ago, raid after raid.
Industry experts agree that companies spent millions of dollars on infrastructure that simply functioned as a sponge for investors. Therefore, it’s evident that the legacy market’s role continues to be suppressed rather than adequately replaced by Big Cannabis.
Labels in Canada’s market remain sorely short of colour and information, speckled instead with overstated warnings. These shortfalls disengage consumers from the legal market, encouraging them to fall back on legacy, tradition and the brands and small businesses consumers used to love.
TREC is acquiring Agripharm with hopes of growing in the Canadian market. Over the last three months, they captured a 1 percent hold on the dry flower market in BC, Alberta, and Ontario, doubled from six months prior.
They plan to integrate vertically, backwards into the Canadian market to more than double a revenue currently on pace for $10.5M in 2021. But does their success rely on the cannabis market, which truly belongs to the consumers?
Consider that legacy market producers are known to establish an independent network and dip. Additionally, that Agripharm is one-third owned by Canopy Growth. And small growers have launched off of and away from Canopy in the past.
Is the legacy market a foundation for Big Cannabis?
El Hasho, known formally as Mike Imposimato, is a legacy market hash producer (hashishin). El Hasho is a well-recognized figure in the hash and solventless cannabis extracts industry. Co-founded by El Hasho, alongside John Fowler and Scott Walters, BIG (Blaise Independent Growers) processes cannabis under an agreement with Agripharm, a licensed cannabis producer.
This is one example where legacy growers and processors act as a key in a market sorely lacking experience. As such, Trang agreed that Imposimato — alongside other extract artists — accounted for a piece of their decision.
That is one component that inspired the transaction [with Agripharm], but the deal also checks a lot of other boxes for us.
Trang
Three current owners comprise the licensed producer her company plans to acquire in the coming months. And still, details regarding management and ownership have yet to be completely sussed in the transaction. Regardless, Canopy Growth Corporation, Organa Brands, and Green House Genetics collectively own Agripharm and have become shareholders of TREC (Trust, Respect, Ethics, and Compassion) with a 35 percent claim.
But will vertical integrations promote strength in the partnership, or will acquisitions encourage experts from the legacy market to move into their own business?
TREC will actually commercialize the products, meaning that we will facilitate the listings with the boards and sell to retail partners, and also from a marketing perspective, get consumers to pull.
Trang
To satisfy customers, they hope to rely on brand development and their new partners to produce quality products. A new report by Deloitte, HiFyre, and BDSA suggests 86% of consumers are willing to pay a premium for better products and that craft cannabis climbed 158% since 2020.
Due to regulations, though, high-quality cannabis takes considerable effort to produce. Furthermore, brands do not yet play a role in the market according to Deloitte’s report.
Another recent study proved that consumers unknowingly make decisions based on terpene profiles. So, quality is quintessential, and the secret behind repeat customers is finding a perfect ratio between THC ratio, aromatics, and effects. Terpenes, however, face many unfortunate restrictions before they can reach a consumer’s palate.
Improved product management and distribution can solve the issue of year-old, oxidized cannabis, except in provinces that host their liquor board as a centralized middle-man.
In early October, a cannabis retailer in Pemberton, BC, noted extracts produced under Agripharm brands — alongside several other products — were sold out on the BC Cannabis Stores Wholesale Website, the solitary access point for BC stores. To be fair, though, Agripharm is located in Creemore, Ontario.
Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC, WEED). November 17, 2021.
Buying power, a cannabis market big or small belongs to the consumers
In any case, consumers might see more legacy market producers at least enter the legal market if access was more convenient for consumers. In the event they do, a brand house might have a chance at success relative to Canopy’s independent track record of dumping dollars. But will customers make the same transition, or will their traditions and sales be dedicated to the legacy of the free market?
Another legacy market network is currently drafting into Canada’s legal industry that carried several unlicensed brands in the shadows throughout the gantlet of legalization. Those familiar with El Hasho might recognize the brand house, Ghost Drops.
At the end of the day, albeit grand with opportunities, stock options are not traditional or viable in a cannabis market that belongs to consumers and patients. Any brand house’s success will rely on the craftsmanship of farmers, hashinins, and extract artists. So is any brand house or distributor in the right laneway to preserve and express those terpenes despite a haze of regulation and law, or will a farm-gate cannabis model better fit the market?
Let us know in the comments if you think legacy producers should draft into legal operations or keep hashing it out on the free market. And stay tuned to learn how the shift the cannabis industry took during the pandemic paled in comparison to the legacy market shutdown.
https://cannabislifenetwork.com/from-legacy-to-legal-the-cannabis-market-belongs-to-who/
Ponzi
i don,t see how... bunk is not gout du jour...
Bag holder
Prohibition does not work and lps can’t compete.
Stock market weed cartel monopoly is doomed!
Do You Know What Happened to the 100,000 Cannabis Plants Seized in the Historic San Fran Area Bust?
A massive illegal grow operation was taken down in the San Fran Bay area with over 100,000 marijuana plants
Posted by:
Thom Bonno on Tuesday Nov 12, 2021
Millions of dollars in cash and over a hundred thousand cannabis plants were confiscated some days ago in the Bay Area of San Francisco. Law enforcement officials in cannabis legal states are clamping down hard on illicit cannabis operations. Although these illegal operators keep springing up every other day.
Black Market Production Of Cannabis In Alameda
The law enforcement officers in Alameda were able to put an end to multiple cultivation sites in the area in a raid that spanned over 48 hours. These sites had one thing in common: they were all unlicensed cultivation sites operating something the police forces termed 'modern-day bootlegging'.
The massive raid is now regarded as one of the biggest illegal cannabis cultivation site busts in California.
The Alameda County sheriff's office dutifully carried out these operations across the East Bay and they were able to successfully confiscate millions of dollars in cash, while also seizing cannabis plants worth tens of millions of dollars in probable black market sales. This estimation was made by the law enforcement department.
The public information officer for the town's county sheriff's office, Ray Kelly, said that the raided sites were organizations operating outside the law, and working around the normal protocols of cannabis governance in the state. These operators were making millions of dollars in profits all because they refused to obtain licenses and remit tax to the government.
Kelly added that upon inspecting the raided sites he found out that these operations made use of high-tech and extremely sophisticated farming practices. The operations weren't shabby in any way but were rather profit-oriented while being motivated by greed. He also added that several suspects were arrested during the raids on the sites; the names of the arrested individuals have not been released yet. The establishments were built solely for cash grabs.
The Raid Had Been In The Works For Several Months
Last week's raid was successful because over a hundred personnel and agents working in the sheriff's county devoted the last eighteen months of their lives to the mission. Investigations about the raided sites started around March 2020. As expected, the law enforcement officers did not run into the scene at the first complaint they got. The 100 staff worked together with the Alameda county narcotics task force. The team served search warrants at 18 different cannabis sites in East Oakland, Castro Valley, San Leandro, and Hayward.
Alameda county's narcotics detectives were the first to commence investigations in this area when they received a tip from undisclosed sources about the existence of illicit cannabis grow operation in the Bay area. In addition to the cash and pot Which were confiscated onsite, the agents also seized Rolex watches as well as other jewelry pieces.
In his speech, Kelly disclosed that the raid yielded over 12,000 pounds of marijuana products that have been processed and harvested. If the raid had taken place a day or two later those products would have been transported for sale in other areas or states.
It's not surprising how much money these illicit operations have on-site because the black market cannabis industry is way larger than the legal market. The raid at a cultivation site in Oakland yielded about $10 million in cash. The officers also obtained evidence of a money-laundering operation at the raided warehouse.
All these could have been avoided if the owners of these cultivation sites had done the legal thing by applying for a license. Now, the police action may as well have cost them everything, because as experienced in the past, the owner of these sites never show up.
Applying for proper permits, paying the required fees for licenses and taxes would have prevented everything that occurred last week in Alameda. At the press conference which was held at the Oakland warehouse, Kelly showed the reporters a bag that had about $1 million in cash. He revealed that the bag was one of the seized props gotten during the raid. In his speech, he disclosed that the raid helped bring down some of the largest illegal cannabis farms ever detected in recent years.
The raided cultivation sites were compared to the cannabis operations which operated in the 1920s. Those were also more interested in bootlegging operations. There is no sense in investing that many millions in a business that has not been licensed. The county revealed that they believe that these illicit grow operations have about 500k square feet of farmland which they use to grow more cannabis.
The entire business operations of these raided sites are even more sophisticated than some legal cannabis grow sites within California. These operators thought everything through, from infrastructure to storage houses, to other necessary buildings and the needed handymen. Everything was in place, except for the papers that would have legalized the entire business.
AAAAA top shelf Weed worth millions of dollars now turned to ash
In case you're wondering what happened to the seized pot, it would interest you to know that they were moved to a site in California's Central Valley and then burnt. That's about 12 truckloads of cannabis up in smoke.
The sheriff's spokesman also announced that the office believes forensic accountants had a role to play in the business run by the illicit operations. Search warrants are still being processed to search more areas for evidence that might help the case.
The organization is starting to look like one that exists in Utopia because they were so sophisticated and organized. At least each week they made tens of millions of dollars in profits alone. The Alameda sheriff county announced on Facebook that it had seized more than $10 million in cash alone, not counting the highly expensive equipment, infrastructure, supplies, and even generators that were seized across the raised areas.
Takeaway
At least seven suspects are currently behind bars and more will be getting arrested as soon as the agents are linking the pints and solving the main puzzles.The disappointing aspect of this successful raid is that it is not enough to stop these illicit operators from setting up shop again.The black market has a very lucrative business, hence this sort of bust will do little to serve as a deterrent.
You got that Ponzi right!
If you’re worried about contaminants in your cannabis, don’t buy pot from a licensed producer – while some of their cannabis might be OK, LP pot is famous for contaminants, and corporate capitalism is famous for cutting corners on quality for the sake of greed. Instead, consider either growing your own with organic compost and soil you obtain from non-sketchy sources, or buying from an activist dispensary – be sure to ask if they test for contaminants. Most expert growers would scoff at using recycled soil for a pot garden – too many unknowns.
https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2021/11/10/lp-soil-scandal/
In a recent CBC news story titled “Unregulated cannabis not as potent as advertised, study finds”, one could find a perfect example of pro-pot cartel propaganda. The story’s title suggested a scoop on over-inflated potency claims by the black market, but the CBC also decided to question the purity of black market cannabis:
“The study also found that illegal cannabis products were contaminated with microbes and pesticides. These chemicals were negligible or not found at all in legal products. ‘Pesticides are not allowed to be used in licensed products,’ Botelho said. ‘There are regulations in place in order to protect the safety of the consumer.’” (2)
Image #2: cbc.ca
I found this part of the article to be quite misleading. There was no mention of the many times the Licensed Producers were caught using banned pesticides, nor any mention of the fact that the illegal producers and retailers were shut out of the market using bunk science regarding cannabis psychosis to justify hard-drug regulations and an artificial low limit on the number licenses for a product that should actually be regulated as a soft drug like organic coffee beans currently are. This missing context is vital to explain why the article seemed so one-sided to cannabis industry veterans like myself.
The study the CBC reported on – “Analysis of Illicit and Legal Cannabis Products for a Suite of Chemical and Microbial Contaminants” (3) – conducted by the New Brunswick Research and Productivity Council (RPC) – was also misleading. The study looked at 7 samples of unregulated buds and 5 samples of regulated buds from a potential sample size of thousands or tens of thousands all over Canada, and then both the RPC and the CBC drew conclusions about the entire industry.
Image #3: rpc.ca
There was no random selection of samples – for all we know the “personnel legally authorized to obtain and submit illicit cannabis” helping to conduct the study could have picked the sketchiest, skankiest, shwagiest samples he or she could find from the illicit market and compared it with the most bomb-ass diggity samples from the legal market, in order to solidify their “rich history in providing cannabis analytical services to industry” that the conductors of the study bragged about – you gotta keep your customers happy, after all.
According to the RPC study, there were no pesticides at all found in any of the legal buds, and each and every nug of illicit herb was dripping with pesticides. I’m not claiming this is never the case. I’m sure there is some excellent legal cannabis, and I’m also sure there is some terrible black market cannabis. What I am arguing is that the process by which we evaluate the quality of cannabis in the media and in academic studies is in itself unfair, and the history of this process is filled with fraud and conflicts of interest.
There is a massive incentive for the government to lie about how pure regulated cannabis is, and how impure unregulated cannabis is. One of the ways Justin Trudeau and his crew have repeatedly justified the cannabis cartel that has stolen the pot economy away from thousands of Canadian legacy growers and dealers is by claiming that the pot his regulations produce is cleaner than black market pot. (4)
Section 7 of the Cannabis Act states:
“The purpose of this Act is to protect public health and public safety and, in particular, to . . . (f) provide access to a quality-controlled supply of cannabis . . .” (5)
Time and time again this particular justification – like the other six justifications provided – has proven to be a fraud. (6) The Licensed Producers have supplied customers with moldy gummies, (7) have been caught using banned pesticides multiple times, (8) has worked with Health Canada to hide their contamination issues from the Canadian public, (9) has not been honest or transparent in discussions about quality control in the media, (10) and has proven to have a much more toxic product than the dispensaries they have attempted to replace in every head-to-head comparison up until this latest study. (11)
Image #4: cannabisculture.com
In spite of this quality-control clownshow, the government has maintained that their product is “of competitive price and quality and choice” with the black market, and that buying pot produced by Licensed Producers is “a healthier choice”. (12)
So when I was informed a few weeks ago that the Licensed Producers have been caught yet again selling a poisoned product, I was not surprised. But this time, the poisoned product wasn’t cannabis. This time, the poisoned product was soil used to grow cannabis in. And it wasn’t sold out in the open – it was sold out the back door.
With most (or all) of the 3-year-old Canadian Licensed Producer cannabis market suffering losses for the last two years, (13) it’s not surprising that at least one LP was desperate to cut their losses, scale down their production and raise additional revenue somehow.
Image #5: ca.finance.yahoo.com
So imagine my lack of surprise when I heard that gardening stores were claiming to be selling LP soil – and that it tested positive for pesticides banned by Health Canada.
My friend who shall not be named gave me the heads-up. Apparently her gardener had gone to his local gardening store in Burnaby and had been told that there was some “recycled soil” available from a “marijuana production facility” run by “marijuana producers”. According to the seller, they were offering it “to a number of recreational pot growers who are giving us rave reviews on its productivity”. (14)
Image #6: DML’s (Author’s) friend
When her gardener brought back a bag of the soil to my friend, she had it tested at MB Labs (mblabs.com) of Sidney B.C. – a licensed, accredited testing laboratory. The soil tested positive for pesticides, specifically “Imadacloprid” (91.9 ng/g), “Myclobutanil” (254 ng/g), “Paclobutrazol” (84.0 ng/g) and “Propiconazole (22.0 ng/g).
Imadacloprid is a pesticide used on plants and bare soil. It has been shown to be “very toxic to honeybees and other beneficial insects.” (15) It is the active ingredient in at least 18 different products made by Bayer Cropscience. The Canadian government issued some “label amendments” in 2019 and again in 2021 due to its detrimental effects on bees and other beneficial insects. (16)
Paclobutrazol (PBZ) tends to bioaccumulate in soil and water and has demonstrated toxicity to the developing organs of certain fish species. (17) The Canadian government issued some “label amendments” for Paclobutrazol in 2014 due to concerns over its effects on aquatic life. (18)
Propiconazole has demonstrated liver toxicity in a wide variety of animals, (19) as well as targeting the pituitary gland of other animals. (20) Due to these concerns, the government of Canada issued some “label amendments” for Propiconazole in 2017. (21)
Myclobutanil is of particular concern. Found in pesticides such as “Eagle 20”, (22) it cleaves into hydrogen cyanide when burned. Hydrogen cyanide was the poison used to kill people in the gas chambers in Nazi death camps. (23)
Image #7: pot-facts.ca
When I first talked to the supplier of this soil, they confirmed it was from a licensed producer, but would not say which licensed producer supplied the soil. They then requested the testing information – I gave them my friend’s contact info – and said they would respond to my questions after reviewing the data. After a week went by, I called again, and the person I talked to on the phone referred me to a different person – an employee, apparently – who responded by email, assuring me that the licensed producers were not involved at all, and that the soil was a “blend”;
“The history of this soil comes from having access to an abundance of old growth recycled soil for which we decided to make a blend (created in-house as an experiment) combining composted soil amender along with the recycled soil and adding vermiculite and peat for moisture retention. The intentions of this soil was to see if we could grow better tomatoes and peppers for which I’ve personally been doing in my home greenhouse with much success. At the same time, we have a commercial greenhouse client which is also testing a small amount on some of his stronger plants and late season root vegetables and finding success too. Knowing the heartiness that cannabis has we have since now offered it to a number of recreational pot growers who are giving us rave reviews on its productivity.” (24)
This employee went to great lengths to repeatedly assure me that the licensed producers were not involved.
“What I hope you will read is that there isn’t a Licensed Producer involved with this soil. As mentioned, the soil we blended was a mixture of our soil amender along with recycled green waste soil mixed with peat and vermiculite.” (25)
“Soil recyclers will accept all types of green waste to compost before it comes to us but I can guarantee you there is no knowledge on our part of any Licensed Producer or cannabis company that has provided pot plants/dirt to our soil sources.” (26)
The employer who I talked to on the phone did not explain why his employee initially held out the soil to be from a “marijuana production facility” run by “marijuana producers”, nor would he explain why he himself confirmed this information during my first phone call with him. He wouldn’t even reply to a question regarding whether the person he referred me to was an employer or employee. He merely insisted that I contact his associate by email, where their new story was waiting for me to believe or not believe. After discussions with my friend and her gardener, we deduced his associate was an employee, and that the explanation given by email was unsatisfactory.
I then contacted the Health Canada Medical Marijuana division (cannabis@canada.ca) and their “media relations” contact line (613-957-2983) on September 29th, to inquire about their rules – if any – regulating the sales of pesticide-ridden soil. I received a call-back the same day from Mark Johnson of their media relations department, who assured me he would respond to my question. On October 5th – the day the RCP study was reported on by the CBC, Health Canada got back to me:
“In regarding to your question to Mark Johnson, The Cannabis Act does not address the sale of soil.” (27)
Image #8: DML’s gmail
While the LPs might be able to legally sell their poisoned soil off to unsuspecting soil dealers, it’s understandable why they would want to do it in secret, as getting a reputation for selling bunk soil would easily turn into a reputation for selling bunk cannabis.
It saddens me that Health Canada did not express an interest in investigating reports of contaminated soil, or acting in such a way as to prevent such a product from being sold. Health Canada could easily prohibit the LPs from selling poisoned soil by regularly testing the soil for pesticides and then supervising the decontamination of such soil, getting the LPs to pay for the cost of that decontamination. Decontamination of agricultural soil using biological agents is a thing. (28)
By digging around on the internet a little, I was able to determine that Health Canada claims to have the ability to test the soil of Licensed Producers for pesticides.
“Inspectors may collect samples of cannabis and cannabis products from the licence holder’s site for testing at Health Canada’s laboratory. In addition, samples collected may include inputs used at the site, such as soil, fertilizer, carrier oils or PCPs (Pest Control Products). . . . Put adequate measures in place to reduce the chance that external residues and PCPs will contaminate the cannabis, by: . . . Testing inputs used during cultivation for contaminants (e.g., growing media or soil, water)” (29)
There are a number of reasons why Health Canada should routinely test LP soil. As was mentioned above, LPs have been known to use banned pesticides on many occasions. As well, American LPs using recycled soil contaminated by pesticides has also been known to have happened. (30) Contaminated soil can lead to contaminated cannabis products:
“Pesticide residue not only lingers in soil and plants, but can also linger in extraction equipment. Biomass contaminated with bacteria, pesticides, or other contaminants could conceivably find its way into regulated infused products that use cannabis oils extracted from raw materials, which are ultimately ingested or administered topically, exposing consumers to yet another health threat.” (31)
This problem isn’t an occasional problem, rather, it is everywhere. Myclobutanil alone has been found in a majority of the cannabis produced in California;
“It is said that California has the strictest regulations for cannabis production, however the 2017 statistics published by Jan Conway on Statista showed that 66% of the cannabis produced in California contained Myclobutanil, a chemical used as a fungicide that is also a known carcinogen. Myclobutanil has been banned for cannabis production in Canada, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Oklahoma but what pesticides are allowed in our local markets?” (32)
Image #9: amazon.com
The Myclobutanil contamination problem is so big that there are calls within the testing industry to conduct surprise inspections in order to deal with it:
“However, Wendy Riggs, director of MB Labs in B.C., said she would like to see more frequent unannounced inspections done by third parties to create greater separation between the regulator and producers. . . . ‘This is definitely a red flag… There is no safe level of myclobutanil,’ she said. ‘I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.'” (33)
The health effects of even small amounts of Myclobutanil are profound:
“Small doses of hydrogen cyanide are not fatal, but prolonged exposure is linked to various cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological illnesses.” (34)
Image #10: sciencedirect.com
“Broken Coast patients have not come forward to say they’ve suffered adverse effects as a result of using the tainted cannabis, but Organigram patients interviewed by the Globe said they lost weight, suffered severe aches and pains, developed strange itchy rashes, and coughed up wads of mucous after consuming product from the producer.” (35)
These health effects might explain the recent phenomena of “cannabis hyperemesis syndrome” (CHS) which has gotten a lot more media attention recently than the problem of pesticides from corporate pot. It is difficult to determine the cause of CHS if it occurs in people who believe they are using organic soil in their gardens, when the reality of the situation might be that the soil they are using is sold as organic but is in fact contaminated with pesticides from a under-inspected soil supply system. (36)
Image #11: celebstoner.com
I’m not a big fan of vaporizers (I like blowing smoke rings), but if the data regarding Myclobutanil is correct, vaporizers may offer some protection from Myclobutanil poisoning, as Myclobutanil releases hydrogen cyanide if heated past 400 degrees Fahrenheit, (37) whereas some vaporizers operate below that temperature. (38)
The amount of Myclobutanil found in the soil sample MBLabs tested was 254 nanograms per gram. 254 nanograms per gram equals 0.254 ppm. (39) This amount of myclobutanil, if found in cannabis itself, would fail even Oregon’s allowable levels of myclobutanil, (0.2 ppm) (40) which are ten times less strict than Canada’s allowable levels of Myclobutanil (0.02 ppm). (41)
Here’s the kicker. Health Canada has dismissed health concerns over myclobutanil in its LP cannabis on its website by claiming that hydrogen cyanide is present in cannabis smoke anyway – naturally:
“Here are the facts. When the cannabis plant is combusted, a number of compounds are produced, including very low amounts of hydrogen cyanide. Health Canada’s analysis of the recalled cannabis products show that the trace levels of myclobutanil that were present would have produced a negligible amount of additional hydrogen cyanide upon combustion, in comparison to the levels already produced by marijuana alone.” (42)
Image #12: canada.ca
Now … where did they get the idea that hydrogen cyanide is produced from marijuana smoke as well as from pesticides? The Health Canada website doesn’t say. Perhaps it was from a 2007 Health Canada study, which claims that “Hydrogen cyanide . . . were found in marijuana smoke at concentrations 3–5 times those found in tobacco smoke.” But this Health Canada study got its sample of marijuana from Prairie Plant Systems Inc. (PPS), Health Canada’s first Licensed Producer:
“The preparation of both the marijuana and the tobacco cigarettes, the combustion of those cigarettes, and the resultant analyses of all mainstream and sidestream smoke were carried out by Labstat International (Kitchener, Ontario). The analyses employed the Health Canada Official Methods listed in Table 1, unless specified otherwise. A commercially available fine-cut tobacco product was used (Players brand). A standardized, quality-controlled, dried marijuana product, made of flowering heads only, reference H55- MS17/338-FH, was obtained from Prairie Plant Systems Inc. (Saskatoon, Canada), which grows the material under contract to Health Canada.” (43)
Image #13: njgasp.org
It is difficult to understand what the authors of this study meant by “quality-controlled.” Of course the PPS cannabis used in the Health Canada study isn’t organic. PPS have never claimed their cannabis was organic. (44) PPS has claimed that they have “never” used pesticides, (45) but it’s hard to trust what they say, given that the late Dr. Lester Grinspoon resigned from the advisory board of Cannasat when Cannasat refused to share toxicology reports on PPS cannabis with him. (46) Cannasat had stock invested in – and business ties to – PPS. (47)
In fact, PPS Cannabis was grown in one of the most toxic areas in all of Canada: Flin Flon, Manitoba:
“The Canadian Environmental Defence Fund said mining smelters in Canada released more than 2.3 million pounds of heavy metals in 1998, including arsenic, mercury, lead and nickel compounds, all highly poisonous and harmful to people’s health and the environment. Ranked by facility, the fund’s report said Inco’s Copper Cliff operation in Sudbury, Ontario, was a major polluter, followed by Noranda’s Horne smelter in Quebec, then Hudson Bay’s Flin Flon smelter in Manitoba…” (48)
The blueberries grown around Flin Flon have been suspected of being contaminated by pollution, and PPS admitted to using local sources of soil and water for growing cannabis with:
“‘Community concerns have historically not been adequately addressed, and much information, including that collected by Health Canada (e. g., toxic metal levels in blueberries) has not been made available to the residents of Flin Flon.’ [iv]And from a Manitoba Conservation report: ‘Air pollution at Flin Flon near Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting continues to exceed provincial air quality objectives, with no noticeable changes from previous patterns. Records also show that, in Flin Flon, levels of particulates, and concentrations of lead and arsenic, sometimes exceed provincial objectives and guidelines.’ [v]A past interview conducted with PPS President Brent Zettl indicates that the water source used by PPS is drawn from a nearby lake, and that the growing medium for the cannabis is enriched local outdoor soil [vi]. If this is the case, this could well be the source of the reported contamination.” (49)
Maybe some cross contamination of blueberry pesticides got into that PPS cannabis. It is known that myclobutanil is used on berries:
“It is interesting to note that as of February 10, 2017, Health Canada has not required medical marijuana producers to test for banned chemicals. This is after product recalls from two Canadian medical marijuana producers because of the presence of a banned pesticide, including myclobutanil, which is a fungicide that can emit hydrogen cyanide when heated (see Robertson 2017b). Although the chemical is approved for use for some food crops, including lettuce, fresh fruit, and berries, is designed to be washed off and is banned for plants that are smoked, including tobacco. There are also health and safety concerns with respect to pesticide use in tobacco (MacKenzie, Freeman, and Winstanley 2016), another crop that is smoked. Some evidence suggests that the tobacco industry exerts considerable influence over the pesticide regulatory process (McDaniel, Solomon, and Malone 2005). However, there is currently little detail on the type and quantity of pesticides used on tobacco crops worldwide (MacKenzie et al. 2016).” (DML’s emphasis) (50)
Flin Flon is famous for being a wild blueberry growing area. (51) So famous in fact, their local music festival is called the “Blueberry Jam Music Festival.” (52) These blueberries have been tested for heavy metals, but not myclobutanil. (53) Health Canada appears not to care about the amounts of pesticides used in the blueberry industry, and has recently indicated it will allow even more pesticides to be used on wild blueberries. (54)
Image #14: cbc.ca
I’m not saying that the soil that was sold as “recycled from a marijuana producer” was probably contaminated with blueberry pesticide run-off. I’m saying that the LP soil was probably contaminated by the LPs use of banned pesticides, and that the blueberry pesticide run-off explains why Health Canada believes all pot gives off hydrogen cyanide when burned – their “quality control” sample used to come to that conclusion was itself probably contaminated in various ways.
Health Canada isn’t really famous for understanding – or caring about – contaminant concerns in the cannabis they regulate. The most surprising fact I have learned about their regulatory process in my many years as a pot activist is that they have no standards at all – zero – regarding limits to heavy metals in cannabis – or tobacco (55) in spite of a mountain of evidence of these radioactive heavy metals (originating in chemical fertilizers) being the source of most if not all of the tobacco-related cancers. (56)
Image #15: pot-facts.ca
When I talked to my friend about Health Canada’s position on contaminated soil sales – that Health Canada didn’t care about it and doesn’t regulate it – my friend had this to say;
“This isn’t about all LPs. This is about one nursery claiming they were selling LP dirt. Now the supplier claims it was never sold that way. I believe there is a cover up here but believe that not all parties are behaving badly and painting them all as being bad will hurt the credibility of the story. I think more work needs done to understand which LP provided the soil they are pretending wasn’t LP soil. I think the other banned substances bear further investigating and another sample of dirt from a different garden should be tested to understand what might be typical of soils found in garden stores. Is the It’s About Thyme nursery still selling this product? What are they telling people now? We turn away product from OUR dispensaries that is sold in others because those owners don’t care. Our members are trusting us to do the work for them and we take the responsibility seriously. Others, legal or illegal, are paying rent and buying cars.” (57)
My friend did end up testing another bag of soil from the It’s About Thyme nursery, purchased a few weeks after the first bag was tested, and after the nursery was warned not to sell that soil due to pesticide contamination. The good news is that the most recent test came back negative for 3 of the four pesticides found in the first bag: “Imadacloprid” (91.9 ng/g), “Myclobutanil” (254 ng/g), and “Paclobutrazol” (84.0 ng/g).
The bad news is that the most recent test revealed there was “Propiconazole” again, but less of it – 8.55 ng/g rather than the 22.0 ng/g found in the first test. The most recent test also revealed two other pesticides: “Fluopyram” (4.51 ng/g) and “Tebuconazole” (12.9 ng/g).
Fluopyram is a fungicide and nematicide (parasitic worm killer) used in agriculture. It is used to control fungal diseases such as gray mold, powdery mildew, apple scab, Alternaria, Sclerotinia, and Monilinia. (58) A 2014 study done by the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety concluded that “there is a moderate risk of effects on fish when (pesticides containing Fluopyram are) applied to beans/strawberries without the use of a vegetated mitigation bufferstrip.” (59)
Tebuconazole is a triazole fungicide used agriculturally to treat plant pathogenic fungi. (60) Tebuconazole targets the liver, the adrenals, the hematopoetic system and the nervous system in both rodent and “non-rodent” species. Ocular lesions are seen in dogs following chronic (long term) or sub-chronic (short term) exposure. It is categorized as a “possible human carcinogen”. (61) Perhaps the nursery in question should begin testing the soil they sell.
So the take-away from all of this is that one needs to test one’s soil to truly know what’s in it, that there is really no evidence that proves that LP cannabis is cleaner than black market cannabis, that Health Canada pretends to care about contaminants in cannabis but doesn’t really, that the government pretends to care about clean cannabis but doesn’t really, and the soil that you are told is perfect for growing pot in might not be.
If you’re worried about contaminants in your cannabis, don’t buy pot from a licensed producer – while some of their cannabis might be OK, LP pot is famous for contaminants, and corporate capitalism is famous for cutting corners on quality for the sake of greed. Instead, consider either growing your own with organic compost and soil you obtain from non-sketchy sources, or buying from an activist dispensary – be sure to ask if they test for contaminants. Most expert growers would scoff at using recycled soil for a pot garden – too many unknowns.
Oh … and if anyone knows of any nursery or gardening store selling soil from a “marijuana producer” … email me at malmolevine@gmail.com and I will write an update to this story.
Citations:
1) Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi (Official Lyric Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2595abcvh2M
2) Unregulated cannabis not as potent as advertised, study finds – A recent study compared illicit and legal cannabis products in New Brunswick for potency and contaminants, Nojoud Al Mallees · CBC News · Oct 05, 2021
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cannabis-potency-study-1.6199374
3) Analysis of Illicit and Legal Cannabis Products for a Suite of Chemical and Microbial Contaminants, New Brunswick Research and Productivity Council, 2021
https://rpc.ca/english/press/Comparison%20of%20Illicit%20and%20Legal%20Cannabis%20Samples.pdf
4) “Khurram Malik, CEO of the Toronto-based cannabis company Biome Grow Inc., last month blamed, in part, the tough regulations imposed by Health Canada on the country’s 132 licensed producers for the lack of adequate supply to meet demand. He also said the federal department was taking too long to approve licences for grow-ops but added it was also taking time for cannabis producers to develop quality and compliant products.”
“Those who resisted legal pot now ‘caught flat footed’ on supply: Trudeau,” December 17th, 2018
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/those-who-resisted-legal-pot-now-caught-flat-footed-on-supply-says-trudeau-1.1184542
“And the strict regulations governing legal sales, the prime minister promised, would ensure that Canadians were consuming marijuana not adulterated with other drugs or toxins and would eliminate sales to minors.”
2 Years After Legalizing Cannabis, Has Canada Kept Its Promises?, Ian Austen
Published Jan. 23, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/world/canada/marijuana-legalization-promises-made.html
5) Cannabis Act (S.C. 2018, c. 16)
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-24.5/page-2.html#docCont
6) The Cannabis Act Is A Fraud By David Malmo-Levine on April 18, 2021 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2021/04/18/the-cannabis-act-is-a-fraud/
7) http://pot-facts.ca/corporate-cannabis-companies-haven-st-and-agro-greens-supplied-canadians-with-mouldy-gummies/
8) http://pot-facts.ca/licensed-producers-poisoned-their-pot-with-gas-chamber-poison-28-different-times/
9) http://pot-facts.ca/health-canada-and-the-licensed-producers-have-both-hidden-dangerous-cannabis-contamination-from-the-public/
10) http://pot-facts.ca/canopy-ceo-has-a-misunderstanding-on-quality-control-issue-3-different-ways-media-only-calls-him-on-1-way/
11) http://pot-facts.ca/dispensary-cannabis-is-safer-than-lp-cannabis/
12) “I remain confident that as that new retail environment is built up by the provinces, as Ontario gets more stores opened and consumers have access to a product of competitive price and quality and choice, that they’ll make the legal and socially-responsible choice and a healthier choice . . .”
Blair ‘very confident’ more pot shops, supply chains can convert grey market cannabis users, Amanda Connolly, Global News, April 14, 2019 https://globalnews.ca/news/5161583/bill-blair-cannabis-black-market-canada/
13) Cannabis producer Organigram Holdings Inc. reports $10.2M third-quarter loss Armina Ligaya The Canadian Press Published Monday, July 15, 2019 https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/cannabis-producer-organigram-holdings-inc-reports-10-2m-third-quarter-loss-1.4508230
Cannabis producer Hexo’s loss surges; cultivation suspended in Niagara Published October 29, 2019 | By Matt Lamers https://mjbizdaily.com/cannabis-producer-hexos-loss-surges-cultivation-suspended-in-niagara/
HEXO posts loss of $56 million, driven by $17 million write-down on cannabis inventory Last week, the company laid off 200 employees and suspended cultivation at its Niagara facility and a portion of its Gatineau facility, Vanmala Subramaniam, Oct 29, 2019 https://financialpost.com/cannabis/cannabis-business/hexo-posts-loss-of-56-million-driven-by-17-million-write-down-on-cannabis-inventory
Canadian Cannabis Licensed Producer Index Suffers 18.2% Loss in October November 1, 2019 https://www.newcannabisventures.com/canadian-cannabis-licensed-producer-index-suffers-18-2-loss-in-october/
Canopy Growth plunges to record low after revenue drops most since cannabis legalization $32.7 million charge from returned products; $15.9 million writedown for excess inventory, Vanmala Subramaniam Vanmala Subramaniam, Nov 14, 2019 https://financialpost.com/cannabis/cannabis-business/update-1-pot-company-canopy-growth-reports-bigger-loss-on-charges
Canopy Growth won’t cut jobs despite losses, interim CEO insists ‘We simply don’t have enough places to sell our product in Ontario’ CBC News, Nov 15, 2019 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canopy-growth-jobs-loss-cannabis-1.5361044
Canadian Cannabis Licensed Producer Index Ends 2019 Down 44% January 1, 2020 https://www.newcannabisventures.com/canadian-cannabis-licensed-producer-index-ends-2019-down-44/
COVID-19: London-based WeedMD puts 40 workers on leave, slashes management pay, Dale Carruthers, Apr 27, 2020 https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/covid-19-london-based-weedmd-puts-40-workers-on-leave-slashes-management-pay
Cannabis company Tilray reports US$2.9 million loss on US$56.5M revenue in Q4 TD, Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press, Feb. 17, 2021 https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/02/17/cannabis-company-tilray-reports-us29m-loss-565m-in-revenue-in-q4.html
Cannabis company Aphria reports Q3 loss, revenue up from year ago mark Tara Deschamps The Canadian Press Staff Contact Published Monday, April 12, 2021 https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/cannabis-company-aphria-reports-q3-loss-revenue-up-from-year-ago-mark-1.5383882
Aphria earnings: COVID-19 lockdowns hit sales, $361M net loss Jeff Lagerquist Jeff Lagerquist April 12, 2021 https://ca.style.yahoo.com/aphria-earnings-covid-19-lockdowns-hit-sales-361-m-net-loss-120918701.html
Benchmark Botanics Continues to Seek Long Term Financing – Announces Temporary Employee Layoff at Peachland Facility, August 23rd, 2021 https://money.tmx.com/en/quote/BBT:APH/news/8348522037938080
14) Tom Ciprian, tom@artisangardengroup.com, September 18th, 8:03 am
15) Imidacloprid General Fact Sheet
npic.orst.edu/factsheets/imidagen.html
16) Re-evaluation Decision RVD2019-06, Imidacloprid and Its Associated End-use Products: Pollinator Re-evaluation Pest Management Regulatory Agency 11 April 2019
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/consumer-product-safety/reports-publications/pesticides-pest-management/decisions-updates/reevaluation-decision/2019/imidacloprid.html
Re-evaluation Decision RVD2021-05, Imidacloprid and Its Associated End-use Products Pest Management Regulatory Agency 19 May 2021
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/consumer-product-safety/reports-publications/pesticides-pest-management/decisions-updates/reevaluation-decision/2021/imidacloprid.html
17) Toxic Effects of Paclobutrazol on Developing Organs at Different Exposure Times in Zebrafish Wen-Der Wang et al. Toxics. 2019.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31817812/
18) Re-evaluation Decision RVD2014-06, Paclobutrazol Pest Management Regulatory Agency 16 October 2014 https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/consumer-product-safety/reports-publications/pesticides-pest-management/decisions-updates/reevaluation-decision/2014/document-paclobutrazol-rvd2014-06.html
19) https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/08/12/2019-17143/propiconazole-pesticide-tolerances
20) APPROVED: 9 June 2017 doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2017.4887 Peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance propiconazole https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2017.4887
21) Re-evaluation Decision RVD2017-03, Antisapstain and Joinery Uses of Propiconazole Pest Management Regulatory Agency 13 October 2017
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/consumer-product-safety/reports-publications/pesticides-pest-management/decisions-updates/reevaluation-decision/2017/propiconazole.html
22) https://www.reddit.com/r/microgrowery/comments/5otrm8/psa_eagle20_is_deadly_do_not_use/
23) http://pot-facts.ca/licensed-producers-poisoned-their-pot-with-gas-chamber-poison-28-different-times/
24) Tom Ciprian, tom@artisangardengroup.com, September 18th, 8:03 am
25) Tom Ciprian, tom@artisangardengroup.com, September 26th, 9:16 pm
26) Tom Ciprian, tom@artisangardengroup.com, September 27th 2021, 4:12 pm
27) André Gagnon (He/Him – il/lui) Media Relations Advisor | Conseiller en relations avec les médias Serving Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada | Au service de Santé Canada et de l’Agence de la santé publique du Canada (e/ce) andre.gagnon@canada.ca; Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada, personal communication.
28) Potential of Biological Agents in Decontamination of Agricultural Soil Muhammad Kashif Javaid, Mehrban Ashiq, and Muhammad Tahir, Scientifica (Cairo), 2016 May 3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4887633/
29) MANDATORY CANNABIS TESTING FOR PESTICIDE ACTIVE INGREDIENTS Requirements, Health Canada, August 30, 2019
https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/services/publications/drugs-health-products/cannabis-testing-pesticide-list-limits/Mandatory-Cannabis-Testing-Requirements.pdf
30) “‘We have recently begun to see residual pesticide and fungicide toxicity in the soil of clients who have amended compost into their soils,’ says Soilscape Solutions co-founder Samuel Deyton, a certified master soil consultant. One common denominator seems to be the use of compost from facilities that accept waste from the viticulture (grape) industry as part of their compost production feedstocks. Further research has revealed that it is legal for the California viticulture industry to use pesticides and fungicides in their management programs that contain residuals that are banned in the production of cannabis. ‘Of these substances, one in particular seems to stand out among the rest — myclobutanil — which is used as a fungal pathogen suppressant on vine grapes,’ Deyton says. ‘Unfortunately, this substance is so resilient that even the thermophilic (high heat) composting process cannot affectively break down the carbon ring structure of the compound. Thus, feedstocks containing the toxins will contaminate the finished compost products. When compost containing these toxins is applied to soils in which cannabis is being cultivated, the cannabis plants accumulate these toxins in their plant tissue, as cannabis is both a dynamic and toxin accumulator. This can lead to failed pesticide and fungicide screenings of finished product bound for sale to consumers, and especially so for concentrates.’”
PESTICIDE USE written by Russell Pace August 28, 2017
https://www.marijuanaventure.com/pesticide-use/
31) https://www.cannabissciencetech.com/view/an-essential-element-for-commercial-cannabis-and-hemp-manufacturing-practical-cleaning-solutions-for-extraction-and-processing-equipment
32) https://cannawestseattle.com/2020/06/09/clean-cannabis/
33) https://globalnews.ca/news/6233169/health-canada-testing-data-pesticides-in-pot/
34) https://acslabcannabis.com/blog/cultivation/hydrogen-cyanide-in-cannabis-no-its-myclobutanil/
35) https://www.canncentral.com/myclobutanil-why-are-some-licensed-cannabis-producers-using-this-banned-pesticide
36) CNN Pushes Hilarious Medical Study About Recreational Drugs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7WCPvkPXFI
“Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome burst upon the medical scene in 2004, when a group of Australian researchers wrote about 19 chronic marijuana users who had repeated episodes of abdominal pain and retching. The researchers followed nine of the patients over time and found symptoms went away when cannabis use was stopped but returned when it was restarted.” https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/health/marijuana-vomiting-wellness/index.html
37) “When Myclobutanil is applied to tobacco or to marijuana, very serious health problems do occur: Myclobutanil releases highly toxic gases if heated past its boiling point of 205°C (400°F) Butane lighters, such as those used to ignite marijuana for consumption, produce temperatures in excess of 450°C.”
https://cleanlight.nl/why-you-should-never-ever-spray-myclobutanil-on-cannabis-plants/
“We also know that myclobutanil turns to hydrogen cyanide when it’s heated beyond 401°F.”
https://acslabcannabis.com/blog/cultivation/hydrogen-cyanide-in-cannabis-no-its-myclobutanil/
38) “The THC in cannabis vaporizes when heated to between 338 F and 372 F. This is not hot enough for the plant material to burn so many of the toxins associated with smoking are not released. On the original Volcano classic vaporizer, this range is between 4.25 and 6 on the temperature dial.”
https://volcanotips.com/volcano-vaporizer-guide/volcano-temperature-settings/volcano-temperature-setting-basics/
39) https://calculate.plus/en/categories/fraction/convert/100/ng-per-g/to/ppm
40) “If a lab test were failed, it would contain pesticides at or higher than the required action level. Oregon’s action level, or the measured amount of pesticides in a product that the OHA deems potentially dangerous, for Myclobutanil is 0.2 parts-per-million (PPM).”
November 30, 2016 Steep Hill, ACCL Find Pesticides in Over 50% of Cannabis Samples By Aaron G. Biros https://cannabisindustryjournal.com/tag/myclobutanil/
41) “One sample tested on Dec. 12, 2018 contained dangerous levels of banned pesticides, including myclobutanil at 14 ppm and bifenazate at 3.1 ppm. The limit for both chemicals is 0.020 in dried cannabis flower.” “Health Canada data reveals roughly 95% of pot samples tested negative for pesticides”, Andrew Russell & Patrick Cain, Global News, November 29, 2019 https://globalnews.ca/news/6233169/health-canada-testing-data-pesticides-in-pot/
42) Clarification from Health Canada on myclobutanil and cannabis https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2017/03/clarification_fromhealthcanadaonmyclobutanilandcannabis.html
43) A Comparison of Mainstream and Sidestream Marijuana and Tobacco Cigarette Smoke Produced under Two Machine Smoking Conditions, Chem. Res. Toxicol. 2008, 21, 494–502, Safe EnVironments Programme, Tobacco Control Programme, and Drug Strategy and Controlled Substances Programme, Health Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1A 0K9, and Labstat International Inc., Kitchener, ON, Canada N2C 1L3 ReceiVed July 31, 2007 njgasp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Chem_Res_toxic_tob_vs_marij_smoke_2008.pdf
44) CLEAN INNOVATION IN FOCUS: THIS ISSUE FEATURING Prairie Plant Systems Inc., A special publication prepared by CETAC-WEST with support from NRC-IRAP and the Government of Alberta https://cetacwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Prairie-Plant-Systems-CetacWest-SuccessStory.pdf
45) “‘CanniMed Therapeutics has never, and will not in the future need to use pesticides, fungicides or PGRs in the manufacturing of our medical cannabis products because we follow a strict GMP process, following 281-points of quality control,’ said Brent Zettl, President and CEO, CanniMed Therapeutics Inc.”
Independent Laboratory Analysis Confirms CanniMed Medical Cannabis Products Free from Pesticides, Fungicides, and Plant Growth Regulators February 22, 2017 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170222006516/en/Independent-Laboratory-Analysis-Confirms-CanniMed-Medical-Cannabis-Products-Free-from-Pesticides-Fungicides-and-Plant-Growth-Regulators
46) “Dear David, In response to your last e-mail let me briefly outline my reasons for resigning from the Cannasat Scientific Advisory Board. 1) When I first heard the complaints about the PPS marijuana which was being sold as a medicine I became concerned about heavy metal and other contaminants and shared my concern with Andrew Williams of Cannasat and asked him if I could see the toxicology reports. I was promised that they would be sent within two months, as soon as they were available. I asked for them several times over the course of more than a year; I never received them.”
https://www.icmag.com/forum/talk-about-it/medicinal-cannabis-forum/51162-poll-is-it-right-for-health-canada-to-charge-a-1-500-per-cent-markup-on-marijuana
47) “In mid-2004 Cannasat purchased a non-controlling minority interest in Prairie Plant Systems (PPS).” https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2005/04/12/4181/
48) http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9602 Community http://safeaccess.ca/research/flinflon/flinflon.htm
49) http://safeaccess.ca/pr/csapr8.htm
50) Toward a Regulatory Framework for the Legalization of Cannabis: How Do We Get to There from Here? Author(s): PHILIPPE CYRENNE and MARIAN SHANAHAN Source: Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques , Vol. 44, No. 1 (March / mars 2018), pp. 54-76 Published by: University of Toronto Press on behalf of Canadian Public Policy https://www.jstor.org/stable/90019788
51) “The climate and landscape of the Flin Flon area promotes an abundance of wild blueberries.” flinflonsoilsstudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FlinFlonSoilsStudySummaryPamphletJune2010.pdf
52) “Relatively new to the town is the Blueberry Jam Music Festival, a 4-day celebration designed for musicians and music lovers. Located at the Flin Flon Tourist Bureau & Campground, the festival brings in talent from out of town while also showcasing local artists.” https://www.travelmanitoba.com/blog/the-water-and-the-wild-10-things-to-do-in-flin-flon-manitoba/
53) The Flin Flon Soils Study An Assessment of Exposure and Human Health Risks in the Flin Flon Area SUMMARY DOCUMENT AND INTEGRATION OF RESULTS June 2010 flinflonsoilsstudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FlinFlonSoilsStudySummaryPamphletJune2010.pdf
Manitoba Conservation Blueberry Study. Manitoba Conservation. 2000. (Unpublished). flinflonsoilsstudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/AppxCLiteratureReviewDataGapAnalysisandSupplementalData.pdf
54) Ottawa wants to allow more pesticide residue in wild blueberries The limits would be higher in Canada than they are in the United States CBC News · Posted: Jul 28, 2021 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/blueberry-pesticide-residue-increase-1.6120711
55) http://pot-facts.ca/there-are-currently-no-legal-limits-to-heavy-metal-content-in-either-cannabis-or-tobacco-in-canada/
56) http://pot-facts.ca/big-tobacco-knew-radioactive-particles-in-cigarettes-posed-cancer-risk-but-kept-quiet/
http://pot-facts.ca/chemical-fertilizers-are-radioactive-and-the-real-cause-of-tobacco-related-cancer/
57) Friend of DML, personal communication
58) “Fluopyram,” Wikipedia
59) Risk assessment of the fungicide Luna Privilege with the active substance fluopyram, Opinion of the Panel on Plant Protection Products of the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety Date: 19.02.2014 https://vkm.no/download/18.2994e95b15cc54507161eed8/1501772354494/0ae9276074.pdf
Red is his favorite color
He bounce right back when he read my piece KLEIN HAS A PLAN!
We have an eye on him but... dude tried to walk away with my weed.
Fluffy is a proponent
1% sale is not enough to make a living.
FOOD & BEVERAGE
The cannabis beverage market is bubbling with brands
Spiked seltzer is coming down from its highs, so there’s space for a new buzz-inducing drink. Enter: cannabis beverages.
SEPTEMBER 10, 2021
· 7 MIN READ
Thom Bonno
Two years ago, the internet declared 2019 “White Claw summer,” with consumers so obsessed that they caused a shortage. But now, spiked-seltzer sales are coming down from their highs, and there’s shelf space for a new buzz-inducing drink. Enter: cannabis beverages.
According to Brightfield Group research agency, THC-infused beverages will account for $1 billion in US sales by 2025. Sales of CBD drinks, which are available on a wider scale and in places where cannabis is not yet regulated, are expected to hit $2.5 billion. Meanwhile, legal cannabis sales are set to increase from $30 billion in 2020 to $90 billion in 2025, per Euromonitor data.
Quick science lesson: THC and CBD are both derived from the cannabis plant, but THC is known for its psychoactive high, while CBD is considered a “non-psychoactive” compound, meaning it provides more of a light buzz.
Already, alcohol companies like Pabst, Lagunitas, and Constellation Brands are eyeing those numbers and hopping on the weed wave with their own cannabis beverages. But they’re counting on small cannabis CPG purveyors to pave the way.
“Similar to the spiked-seltzer space, you’re going to see an explosion of small boutique brands,” Kearney’s Bryson Waterman told Retail Brew. “You’re going to see the big players in the marketplace sit back and allow these small growing brands to navigate the hurdles of regulation and overcome the complexities.”
Dixie Elixirs, one of the first cannabev manufacturers, debuted in Colorado in 2010. Its line of THC drinks has since expanded to include gummies and chocolates.
The flagship elixirs are served at 100 mg of THC per bottle with a “dosing” bottle cap that allows drinkers to measure out their servings (a typical dose is 10 mg).
“That’s something that’s a bit unique to liquid products, that it’s very easy to titrate your dose,” David Grigsby, brand director for Dixie’s parent company BellRock Brands, told Retail Brew. It’s ideal for the “canna-curious consumer.”
That broad appeal is also why—even as cannabis moves toward a “CPG-minded” industry (BellRock’s roster of companies, for example, sell CBD and THC edibles, ingestibles, and topicals in 2,000+ dispensaries nationwide)—cannabevs are an obvious early winner, Grigsby explained. They “hit a very unique audience, separate from other things that you might find in a dispensary.”
US cannabis-infused beverage sales surged 40% last year, to $95.2 million, according to the Cannabis Beverage Association.
Beverages make up roughly 3% of all purchases at dispensaries in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, per Forbes; 6.5% of consumers in those states purchased a THC-infused drink last year, up 10% from 2019.
“Most people know what it feels like if they have one glass of wine,” Grigsby said. “Cannabis is still new to a lot of people. So we find that the beverage format really bridges that gap and makes for ease of use and confidence.”
Taking a page from seltzer: Hard seltzer’s growth outpaced beer (160% vs. 15% YoY sales increase in 2020) on the backs of health-minded consumers. And cannabevs are following suit. Lagunitas Hi-Fi Hops, for one, has zero calories, zero carbs, and is gluten-free. Pabst High Seltzer has 25 calories.
“We’ve tried to really mirror [spiked seltzer’s] strategies in terms of no sugar, low-calorie, and very flavor-forward,” Grigsby said of Dixie Elixirs. “We're seeing people leaning towards healthier options.”
Cann, another cannabev leader, bills itself as a “social tonic” with only 35 calories, compared with spiked seltzers’ 100-something cal count. Cofounder Jake Bullock reasoned that the spiked-seltzer craze made consumers question their drinking habits and health, a boon for cannabev brands.
When Cann hit the market in June 2019, it had one SKU and four retail locations in Los Angeles. Now, it has 18+ products and is in 550 stores across California, Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
Cann is the No. 1-selling cannabis beverage in California with 24% of market share, according to BDS Analytics. After two years in business, the company is nearing its 10 millionth can sold.
“What spiked seltzer has really done well is understanding their core consumer and why they’re choosing their product as an alternative,” Kearney’s Bryson Waterman said. “The [cannabis] industry is getting smart about...how [consumers] are looking to incorporate cannabis into their lives...and really making sure that the value proposition comes clear.”
But, but, but: The nascent cannabev category only represents about 1% of total cannabis sales through the dispensary channel. And until THC drinks have regulatory access to a broader market with more conventional retail channels, that won’t change, Waterman noted.
“We’re going to see the industry handcuffed a little bit,” Waterman told us, despite its supercharged growth—which he pegs at about 40% YoY for the THC cannabis beverage market, with the CBD side likely settling between 15% to 30%.
Consider the buzzy CBD seltzer brand Recess, which can be purchased via thousands of retail locations, e-tailers, and Amazon. It also just inked a distribution deal with one of the largest alcohol distributors in the country, Breakthru Beverage, that will launch the drink in 14 new states.
Still, “CBD is in this regulatory gray area,” Benjamin Witte, Recess founder and CEO explained. “We’re still waiting on full FDA approval to use CBD as a food ingredient or supplement.” As a result, ingestible CBD brands are only stocked in independent and regional retailers, not Target or Whole Foods. “That makes everything harder, from distribution to finding manufacturing partners to advertising your product on Facebook and Google. Everything is more challenging.”
This challenge is also a blessing, Witte reflected, as it gives Recess and other early adopters the opportunity to establish themselves before the Cokes and Pepsis of the world enter the space.
“Trust me, they want to come in, but they’re going to wait until there’s full FDA clarity,” he said. Recess hasn’t disclosed revenue, but Witte said the company has grown 300% over the past two years.
Regionality is another obstacle for cannabev companies. “The fact that it’s not a federally legal industry and still regulated by individual state municipalities is challenging,” David Grigsby told us. His brand Rebel Coast, for example, has a California warning label on the can, so it can’t produce and sell in, say, Maryland, without all new packaging. And packaging restrictions—like whether a company can use fruit in images marketing cannabis—vary across state lines.
What’s next? Brands, brands, and more brands.
Witte predicts they will distinguish themselves by marketing distinct feelings and lifestyles, rather than ingredients. Notably, the letters “CBD” are absent from Recess’s pastel labels. “There are going to be so many different sub categories: THC versus CBD versus adaptogen mood-enhancing versus relaxation versus sleep.”
“Food and beverage categories are correlated with the zeitgeist of society. And I think it’s clear a focus on mental wellbeing will be a big part of the future.
Canopy Growth Closes Cannabis Facility And Lays Off Staff After Earnings Miss
More pain at cannabis producer Canopy Growth Corp. (TSX:WEED)
Th Smiths Falls, Ontario-based company has announced that it is shutting down one of the biggest cannabis greenhouses in Canada as the pot giant looks to cut costs amid its ongoing pursuit of profitability.
Canopy Growth is shutting down its Tweed Farms greenhouse located in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, a one million-square-foot facility. As a result of the closure, 30 staff will be permanently laid off, the company said in a statement.
News of the closure comes after Canopy reported yet another disappointing quarter that missed analyst sales and earnings expectations.
The company also withdrew its forward guidance on when it expects to become profitable, pushing its shares down to a new multi-year low of $14.60 per share.
Canopy also said it sees a further $80 million to $130 million in savings it plans to make over the next several quarters in addition to the $70 million in costs it has already achieved.
Canopy along with other large cannabis producers have closed dozens of facilities across the country after realizing that they were growing far too much legal cannabis for the Canadian consumer market to handle.
In December 2020, Canopy Growth announced it was shutting down five of its Canadian facilities in a cost-cutting move that resulted in the departure of 220 staff.
Canopy Growth says it will now focus its cannabis production at its existing facilities in Smiths Falls, Ontario and Mirabel, Quebec, as well as a hybrid greenhouse in Kincardine, Ontario.
The company said it is also looking to purchase cannabis from third-party producers to offset any impact these closures may have on its product rollout.
The Tweed Farms facility was once touted as the world's largest legal cannabis greenhouse when it was first constructed in 2014 but has since been surpassed by other producers.
Happy will love the news.
She believed in Klein right from the start.
KLEIN HAS A PLAN!
Canopy Growth's global ambitions have been scaled back to concentrate on premium products. The goal now is profits.
“This is a complicated business.”
Those words, uttered Friday by Canopy Growth CEO David Klein towards the end of an hour-long conference call, summed up his company’s ongoing challenges very well.
While the Smiths Falls cannabis giant generated net revenues of $136 million for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30 — up 23 per cent year over year — it lost $64 million on an adjusted basis and shed some market share. The fault, Klein said, lay within — “growing pains,” he explained. He and his colleague, chief financial officer Mike Lee, spent part of the call talking about the various challenges of running a new business. In particular, the executives promised to do a better job of planning operations, forecasting demand for products and moving them through the manufacturing plants.
To be fair, this is not an easy business to get right, not least because it’s still very new and heavily and unevenly regulated. Canada legalized recreational marijuana in October 2018 and followed up a year later by legalizing the sale of cannabis-infused drinks and foods. Dozens of U.S. states have since followed suit, but the U.S. federal government hasn’t yet.
To achieve economies of scale in a competitive business, Klein needs plenty of heft. Although Canopy Growth is posting revenues at the annual rate of more than $540 million, the company doesn’t expect to produce profits until its fourth quarter ending next March 31. And that projection hangs on two very large assumptions: first, that revenues will grow strongly in both Canada and the United States during the next three quarters; and, second, that relatively more of Canopy Growth’s sales involve premium products with fatter profit margins.
Momentum also depends on the economy continuing to re-open. During the pandemic, when sales were mostly online, the company found it difficult to market its premium products. People go with what they know, the executives observed. It takes in-store persuasion to create a shift.
In the nearly 20 months since Klein took over as top gun at Canopy Growth, he has profoundly changed the physical shape of the firm. Klein, a former executive with wine, beer and spirits giant Constellation Brands, has sacked one-quarter of Canopy Growth’s workforce and launched dozens of new cannabis and related products.
After closing sites last December in Saskatchewan, Scarborough, Bowmanville, Fredericton and St. John’s, the size of Canopy Growth’s Canadian workforce shrank by 1,000 to roughly 2,400 as of March 31. Not quite half operate out of company headquarters in Smiths Falls. The base of employees outside Canada slipped a comparatively modest 160 to 900.
There are none because there is no money in it...
my first post here in 2015 read LPs are doomed!!!
You cannot grow cannabis at scale and expect fire.
Mold is a bitch, and these canna naive suits have mixed over 500 tons in cat litter to prove it.
Canucks want fire, not bunk!
Bruce set the Ponzi and suckers fell for it.
They flopped growing flowers, but 2.0 will be a winner!!!
EX-SQEEZE ME A BAKING POWDER
Canadian canna market was allready overcrowded in 2014...
Lol
CRAPPY GROWTH IS SELLING IT,S ASSETS TO DRUM UP CASH-O-LA
Canopy Growth Corp. is shutting down one of the biggest cannabis greenhouses in Canada as the pot giant looks to cut costs amid its ongoing pursuit of profitability.
A Canopy spokesperson confirmed that the company is shutting down its Tweed Farms greenhouse located in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. on Friday, a one million-square-foot facility. As a result of the closure, 30 staff will be laid off, a company spokesperson added.
News of the closure comes after Canopy reported disappointing second-quarter results that missed analyst sales and earnings expectations. The company also withdrew guidance on when it expects to become profitable, pushing its shares down to a new multi-year low. Canopy also said it sees a further $80 million to $130 million in savings it plans to make over the next several quarters in addition to the $70 million in costs it has already made.
Canopy along with other large cannabis producers have closed dozens of facilities across the country after realizing that they were growing far too much legal marijuana for the Canadian consumer market to handle. In Dec. 2020, Canopy announced it was shutting down five of its Canadian facilities in a cost-cutting move that resulted in the departure of 220 staff.
“This site optimization supports both our path to profitability and the realization of efficiencies from the acquisition of Supreme," a Canopy spokesperson said in an emailed statement to BNN Bloomberg. "Recognizing the valuable skills of our team members at the Niagara production site, we are pleased to be offering roles for the majority to transfer their employment to an alternate Canopy facility."
Canopy will now focus its cannabis production at its existing facilities in Smiths Falls, Ont. and Mirabel, Que. as well as a hybrid greenhouse in Kincardine, Ont. that it acquired from its takeover of Supreme Cannabis Co. earlier this year. The company is also looking to purchase cannabis from third-party producers to offset any impact these closures may have on its product rollout, according to Canopy's Chief Executive Officer David Klein.
The Tweed Farms facility was once touted as the world's largest legal cannabis greenhouse when it was first constructed in 2014 but has since been surpassed by other producers.
they will burn that money in no time
My data shows there is no money to be made in the legal market.
Black market has got zero incentive to go legit.
LPs cannot compete in this overcrowded canna market.
Canadians are playing, making $$$.
Them dollars need to be harvested...
Stock Market Artificial Monopoly Cartel swims in a RED sea.
Bunk weed is a bitch!
LPs are doomed!
California
California legalized weed five years ago. Why is the illicit market still thriving?
California voters approved a ballot initiative to legalize cannabis in 2016.
California voters approved a ballot initiative to legalize cannabis in 2016. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP
Despite appearances, the state’s cannabis industry is in disarray as legal businesses struggle to make a profit
Thom Bonno
Tue 2 Nov 2021 10.00 GMT
Five years after cannabis legalization, California is awash with signs of an apparently booming industry. Californians can toke on Justin Bieber-branded joints and ash their blunts in Seth Rogen’s $95 ceramics. They can sip on THC-infused seltzers, relax inside a cannabis cafe, and get edibles delivered to their doors.
But behind the flashy facade, the legal weed industry remains far from the law-abiding, prosperous sector many had hoped for. In fact, it’s a mess.
Voters passed a law in November 2016 making recreational marijuana legal. But today, the vast majority of the market remains underground – about 80-90% of it, according to experts.
Because that 2016 law, known as Proposition 64, gave municipalities the power to ban weed as they see fit, the majority of cities and counties still don’t allow the sale of cannabis, inhibiting the growth of the legal market.
In the places that do allow pot shops and grows, business owners say high taxes, the limited availability of licenses, and expensive regulatory costs have put the legal market out of reach. And many of the Black and brown entrepreneurs who were supposed to benefit from legalization have actually ended up losing money. Meanwhile, consumers remain confused about what’s legal and what’s not.
For now, the only way legal, state-licensed businesses say they are able to stay profitable is to keep one foot in the illegal, unlicensed market – often called the “legacy” or “traditional” market.
Cannabis products at a dispensary in Los Angeles, California, say 'relief', 'calm' and 'passion'
Cannabis products at a dispensary in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
“You have to go into the traditional market to stay afloat,” explains the cannabis consultant Ophelia Chong. “Considering California is the home of cannabis, we messed it up in so many ways.”
California’s cannabis conundrum speaks to the enormous challenges of bringing a gray market that for decades has thrived in the shadows into the light. But the problems run deeper than any flaws in Proposition 64, or actions taken over the past five years. Rather, the state’s weed economy is in disarray largely because of everything that happened in the two decades before Prop 64 passed.
How we got in a marijuana muddle
Cannabis has long been a crucial part of Golden state culture, a perfect fit for the laid-back, health-conscious attitude that has been percolating out west since well before the first hippies arrived in the Haight.
The story of California’s legal weed chaos dates back to 1996, when voters passed a law allowing medical marijuana. At the time, Bay Area Aids activists saw the way pot relieved pain and stimulated hunger among their emaciated and desperately ill friends. That led to a grassroots campaign to get Proposition 215, a measure legalizing the medical use of cannabis, on the California ballot.
However, Prop 215 only allowed doctors to recommend that patients and their caregivers grow their own weed. Essentially, it legalized a commodity without legalizing the business side of it.
For the next 20 years, a laissez-faire, gray market for medical marijuana flourished and became entrenched. With doctors’ recommendations for medical marijuana easy and cheap to come by, cannabis entrepreneurs practiced a lucrative form of civil disobedience, opening dispensaries, manufacturing edibles and growing acres of plants that brought in enough money to offset intermittent law enforcement crackdowns. The industry developed protocols to get a business back up and running right after a raid, such as keeping cash offsite and obscuring ownership through a series of management companies.
If you could withstand the legal uncertainty, it was a good time to make money in marijuana. By 2010, the city of Los Angeles had about 2,000 pot shops illegally selling cannabis. Statewide, the total illicit market surged, causing Mexican cartels to either stop growing weed or to relocate their grows to California.
Some municipalities attempted to get this wild west of weed under control by licensing, taxing and regulating local businesses, but many cities and counties were scared off, especially after a court ruled in 2011 that any local government trying to regulate weed was complicit in violating federal law. Other places tried to prosecute and shut down as many dispensaries and grows as possible, only to find that even the most resource-intensive efforts were rarely effective.
So by the time California lawmakers actually set about creating licenses and regulations for medical cannabis in 2015, and voters passed an initiative legalizing recreational weed in 2016, much of the industry had become accustomed to operating illicitly and preferred to keep it that way. A vibrant and unregulated marijuana ecosystem was operating in every corner of the most populous state in the country, now the fifth-largest economy in the world – attempting to get it under control was like trying to put toothpaste back in a tube.
“It’s complicated, because we had a 20-year history of a quasi-legal, look-the-other-way gray market,” says Adam Spiker, executive director of the Southern California Coalition, a cannabis industry group. “The reality was if someone didn’t get a license, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna stop doing what they do to provide for their families, and that’s what we’ve seen, up and down the state.”
The challenges of going legal
California’s illicit market is enormous and efficient. This year alone, the state has seized more than 1.2m illegal cannabis plants and more than 180,000lb of processed pot.
Thandi Dunn sells product at the Cannabis Karma booth during the National Cannabis Festival in Washington DC on 28 August 2021. Cannabis Karma is a black, female owned and operated business with the mission of normalizing the adult consumption of cannabis.
The cannabis industry is booming, but for many Black Americans the price of entry is steep
The illicit market encompasses both well-intentioned entrepreneurs who tried to legalize but couldn’t afford it and cartels with guns, growing pot using harsh chemicals that leach into local groundwater. It comprises both legal-looking storefronts selling unregulated vape pens to Californians and traffickers bringing marijuana to states where sales remain illegal.
For a marijuana enterprise today, becoming legal has often meant sacrificing a good deal of profit. Businesses frequently pay an effective tax rate of 70%, in part because they are breaking federal law and therefore aren’t able to take tax deductions, but also because politicians see the industry as a source of tax revenue and set higher rates.
“The level of taxation in California has destroyed the legal market,” says Ryan Jennemann, founder and CEO of the cannabis company THC Design. “They’ve priced cannabis out of the market for everybody, and in particular for the people who don’t have money.”
One of the most significant promises of California’s legal weed market was that it would serve as a form of reparations, providing “generational wealth” to the Black and brown communities that suffered disproportionately under prohibition. But today there are far more Black and brown people in California who have lost money trying to start and run a pot business than those who are raking it in under the “social equity” programs that were ostensibly designed to help.
Despite progress, the vast majority of California’s market is estimated to still operate illegally.
“Folks are coming in thinking they’re going to sell some weed and make millions, and that is not how it works,” says Amber Senter, an entrepreneur and equity activist in Oakland.
Chong, the consultant, agrees. “Running a dispensary is not a million-dollar thing. It’s so not,” she says. “People have such a wrong perception.”
Very few people are making money in legal cannabis, says Spiker. “If there’s 10% turning a profit in California, I’d be shocked, and they may not be doing everything on the up and up. They may still be dabbling in the illicit market.”
Small businesses are competing with both the illicit market, which offers lower prices and often appears legal to consumers, and corporate firms, which might be backed by private equity, public markets in Canada, or deep-pocketed investors like Jay-Z.
“I tried to go legal,” one illicit dispensary owner says, preferring to speak anonymously because he continues to break the law. “Everybody wants to stand up straight in the universe. Nobody wants to be criminalized.” He struggled, he says, with the strict zoning requirements and the steep costs, among other factors. “Nobody could find a building. Nobody could find any money. It was just a bunch of bullcrap.”
So do California’s struggles spell doom for the broader effort to legalize weed?
States including Virginia and Illinois have already legalized adult-use cannabis, while several others are considering it. And while a few places are in better shape than California, several, including Oklahoma, Michigan and Washington, are in similar straits, or will be soon.
At a federal level, cannabis legalization remains a low-priority issue. Even though 68% of Americans think weed should be legal, the political will to make it happen simply isn’t there. Cannabis will never feel as urgent as inflation, immigration, or the pandemic.
And even if it did, California shows that fixing America’s chaotic approach to the cannabis economy wouldn’t be easy. Legalizing in order to drum up tax revenue seems to only raise the cost of running a cannabis business and therefore the cost of a gram of weed, pushing sellers and consumers back into the illicit market. Local politicians will always fight for the ability to opt out of a legalization measure, but allowing individual cities or counties to make their own decisions about whether to participate in legalization seems only to ensure the survival of those who operate outside it.
But the longer we allow cannabis to remain state-legal and federally illegal, the harder it will be to fix. Though botching weed legalization sounds like a trivial issue, it intersects with many of the issues that are fundamental to our lives, from criminal justice to public health, gang violence to economic inequality, the opioid crisis to the wellness craze. Cannabis is the second-most-valuable crop in the country, after corn and ahead of soybeans. It’s the most common reason for arrest in America. And despite marijuana’s dubious reputation, research has shown the plant “may have therapeutic potential in almost all diseases affecting humans”.
Legalization remains trapped in a bizarre netherworld of low-priority, high-complexity issues that are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Yes, it’s cool that you can legally buy watermelon lemonade weed gummies with consistent dosage at hundreds of stores across California, and yes, it’s great that far fewer people are being arrested for cannabis crimes. But if legalization was supposed to convert California’s marijuana chaos into an orderly, legal, and profitable industry, the first five years have been a failure.
PRIVATE CANNABIS RETAILERS UP IN ARMS OVER UNLICENSED SHOPS
Thom Bonno 2, 2021
BUSINESSCANNABIS
Cannabis retailers in British Columbia, particularly the Okanagan, are frustrated with the competition. The worse part is, they are unlicensed and shouldn’t be interfering with private retailers’ profits. The unlicensed shops create an unfair advantage in an already over-saturated market.
Licenced cannabis shops are also upset with government interest in undercutting private legal retail cannabis stores through taxpayer-subsidized operations rather than achieving this goal through actual enforcement measures.
The Okanagan Cannabis Collective, which represents approximately 20 cannabis stores in the Okanagan, has released an open letter, going as far as calling for B.C.’s minister of public safety and solicitor general, Mike Farnworth, responsible for the enforcement of the provinces cannabis laws, to resign.
Illegal Operations
The collective released a Google Map document highlighting 35 known cannabis stores operating in B.C. without a provincial licence. Many of the stores are on Indigenous land. No effort for collaboration with indigenous nations has been put forward.
Legal shops feel they have the right to do business how they see fit. The government should be assisting those individuals in obtaining licensing or providing them with the resources to operate on the same level, quality-wise, for the product.
“Our cannabis law (OKIB Cannabis Control Law) supersedes the provincial law. We’re federal, and we’re sovereign, so how we’re going about it is different than anybody else,” says Cory Brewer, owner of Tupa’s Joint, an Indigenous-owned cannabis dispensary.
In October 2018, the federal government legalized non-medicinal cannabis and moved enforcement to the province.
The Community Safety Unit (CSU), a branch of the B.C. government tasked with applying the province’s cannabis laws and enforcing the Federal Cannabis Act, left First Nations out of the law altogether. First Nations say they were not consulted during the development of the law, leaving many communities to develop their own laws.
Level Playing Field
To level the playing field for those licenced cannabis shops, the government would have to :
Eliminate PST
Eliminate the 15% markup on products
Remove licencing fees
According to CSU, officers continue to actively follow up with unlicensed retailers in communities across B.C. and have been increasing enforcement action.
The ministry said 173 unlicensed retailers either closed or stopped selling cannabis as a direct result of CSU actions. As of Oct. 4, the province has collected more than $1.2 million in penalties from illegal retailers who chose to continue to operate.
“The CSU is also educating those who own or operate properties about the potential consequences for allowing their premises to be used for the sale of cannabis. To date, CSU officers have completed more than 70 inspections involving the seizure of cannabis with a total estimated retail value of approximately $20 million.”
B.C.’s minister of public safety and solicitor general, Mike Farnworth
The ministry also wants legal retailers to know they are staying committed to supporting the growth of diverse, legal and strong cannabis sectors, always reviewing cannabis regulations, and looking to make sure the sector is supported in being as successful as possible.
too late,
red&blue canna market is OVERCROWDED
How Ontario is killing cannabis retail
Razor-thin profit margins, supply chain hoarding and licensing fees are pricing legal retailers out of the market
BY Thom Bonno
Oct 31, 2021
Three years after legalization, the reality of Ontario’s cannabis industry for retailers is far darker than our wildest imagination.
Ontarians rejoiced at the prospect of being able to enter the market in its infancy when the Ford government announced plans to allow privatized retail sales of cannabis. What nobody realized was how corrupted the industry would turn out to be.
Ontario Cannabis Store’s virtual monopoly
The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) was originally supposed to be the cannabis equivalent of the LCBO – the sole distributor and retailer of cannabis in the province. Ford’s administration changed those plans but with one caveat: the OCS would serve as the sole e-commerce retailer, and private companies would operate brick and mortar stores.
This was supposed to be a temporary measure to ensure all Ontarians had access to legal weed while bricks-and-mortar stores could be built.
But three years later, the OCS continues to be the sole distributor – and the main supplier – of licensed stores who have had the financial disadvantage of having to invest heavily in application fees, security systems, and overpriced real estate.
The OCS is also their main competitor.
There’s a benefit for retailers to having OCS as a supplier – they all pay the same price for the same product. This takes control of supply away from licensed producers that either own or have a stake in retail stores.
If retailers were permitted to purchase directly from producers, large chains like Tokyo Smoke, for example, which is owned by Canopy Growth, would have the power to undercut their competition.
But as it stands, a licensed producer can only own up to a maximum of 25 per cent stake in a retail store. But, that regulation hasn’t prevented Canopy Growth, for example, from the franchising of Tokyo Smoke. Meanwhile, Sundial Growers, a licensed producer from Alberta, recently purchased Spiritleaf and recently signed an agreement to buy Alcanna, which owns and operates Value Buds stores.
On the other hand, the OCS sells products to retailers based on its own retail price. The OCS’s wholesale price is a fixed markdown, but it’s still profiting from the wholesale price. That is a great disadvantage for retailers, who must pay labour costs, rent, utilities, security, and credit card processing fees.
You may say, “business is about volume.” And you would be right, until there are five stores in a two-block radius, and the OCS is still the only delivery option.
Stores that opened under the old lottery system had the advantage of having the market to themselves for almost a year. But there are now more than 1,000 licensed stores in the province, with 80 new licenses a month being granted. Ontarians like weed, but not that much.
Undercutting retailers
The pandemic has introduced many changes and challenges for retailers.
During the first wave in the spring of 2020, the OCS began offering free delivery throughout the province. The OCS also doubled down on same-day delivery for an $8 fee in select cities with the highest number of licensed retailers.
Retailers just won the right to deliver, but the change has still to be legislated. Why would the OCS compete with its retailers in markets that have plenty of brick-and-mortar options while it continues to charge outrageous delivery fees to retailers that have no other option?
To be fair, the province has allowed retail stores to provide delivery services at two different times during the pandemic. But this came with strict rules.
Retail deliveries must be carried out by an employee of the store. Meanwhile, the OCS can use a third-party to deliver.
Retailers must also deliver directly to the person who placed the order and ensure the ID is checked and the credit card used for payment is verified.
At the peak of the pandemic, retailers could only deliver until 8 pm. Any orders not delivered by this deadline must be returned to the store. The OCS has been delivering as late as 11 pm. Although stores can now deliver until 11 pm, the issue is that technically if it’s past 11 pm, the employee must abandon the delivery and return the product to the store. Score that: Private retailers 0, OCS 3.
Moreover, the OCS’ e-commerce business is operated with a complete disregard for the environmental and financial problems that arise from shipping to the entire province from a single warehouse.
Yes, when a customer from Thunder Bay orders, it is shipped from the warehouse in Guelph, yet there are many stores in Thunder Bay that could simply deliver around the corner from their location.
Hoarding high-volume product
The consumer has spoken, and the cannabis market is now divided into three segments: customers looking for value, premium, and high-end products. These three categories have different markets.
Where the OCS has failed is in identifying these segments and securing enough supply for stores. The OCS hoards the high-volume products for its e-commerce operation while stores are out of stock.
Why don’t retailers just order more when it is in stock, so they don’t risk running out? The answer is that the OCS places limits on the quantities each store are allowed to purchase
The OCS is also purely cash-on-delivery, meaning that a retailer must pay for the product on the day they receive it. There are no payment terms, no credit card payments, nothing. The payment is withdrawn from the retailer’s bank on the day of delivery. With razor-thin margins, retailers must control their inventory tightly.
Lack of product rotation at the OCS warehouse means retailers may receive a product packaged months before its delivery date. This is extremely frustrating, as consumers demand the freshest possible product.
In the normal business world, if you are unhappy with the product delivered, you can return it, no questions asked. In Ontario’s legal cannabis industry. Retailers are often given a song and dance about Health Canada regulations around cannabis shelf life, blah blah blah.
Transparency is an unknown word to the OCS. It is all left to the wrangling and negotiating of each individual producer.
Pay to play
The majority of licensed producers currently listed with the OCS are very large publicly-traded companies, but there are hundreds of small micro-cultivators in Canada who are not given a chance to sell their product. There’s this thing called pay-to-play.
Large retailers demand payment from small producers for shelf space. This is masked as remuneration for data, but producers have no option but to oblige or be shut out from large retail chains, some with upwards of 50 stores in Ontario alone. Many smaller producers are not able to afford the cost and they can’t even find an agency to represent them.
Additionally, the OCS is now delisting hundreds of products. This will cause many more write-downs for already struggling producers.
Most people in the cannabis industry bring up the “send us what you can” joke. Yes, the OCS has and does place orders with licensed producers by saying “send us what you can”.
The province has also announced it would allow licensed producers to operate “farmgate” retail stores at the production facilities, similar to what breweries and wineries do. So far some six applications have been approved.
Compliance conflict of interest
Cannabis stores are pretty similar to corner stores or liquor stores in terms of operations. All cannabis products are received and sold as sealed packages. There is very little creativity needed to provide the basic service.
Yet, the provincial agency tasked with licensing retailers chose to make the process extremely expensive and time-consuming. Criminal background checks and financial stability confirmations are required. Being subjected to the sort of scrutiny most individuals and corporations had to go through, just ensured the underprivileged had no chance of entering the industry, as did the $6,000 application fee for a Retail Operator License.
Deloitte, PWC, KPMG are tasked with performing the background checks. Having a third party do the heavy lifting is perfectly acceptable, but these third parties are also in the business of consulting for cannabis firms looking to enter the retail market.
Deloitte purchased Cannabis Compliance Inc. in late 2019. CCI is a cannabis consulting firm that has plenty of retailers as clients.
Once an applicant has been approved for a retail operator license, they must shell out another $4,000 application fee to receive a retail store authorization. It really starts adding up.
By comparison, liquor license applications cost $1,150 and there are bigger risk factors in serving alcohol than there are in selling packaged cannabis over the counter. Could it be that the pricing is meant to deter from applying in order to aid the larger corporations with deep pockets?
The biggest head-scratcher is the cost for an individual to apply for a manager’s license.
This license is strictly for people who want to be employed in a retail store in a management role. Retail store managers are usually people who oversee staff, place orders, count inventory, etc. A manager is an employee, yet the AGCO requires a $750 application fee. A criminal background check with Toronto police is $20 and a credit report is in the $25 to $30 range.
Turns out, if you want to make a staff schedule, you have to be perfect. Traffic tickets, financial difficulties, civil litigation, bankruptcies, overdue taxes, anything really, could make the application for a manager license take months. For what? A $50K to $70K job?
Asking officials, the answer is always the same: we want to prevent people from using the legal market to provide for the illegal market.
Why would anyone in the illegal market want to enter the legal market? There are dozens, if not hundreds, of illegal delivery services doing phenomenal business without the restrictions, regulations, and reporting required of the legal market. The risk of criminal charges is next to nil, as the owners of CAFÉ have proven.
Their stores continue to operate normally, even during a pandemic. The CAFÉ location at 104 Harbord actually won the second allocation lottery in August 2019. The AGCO and its third-party consultants did not disqualify this location. Instead, this lottery winner was permitted to move to the proposed location (something that was technically not allowed in the rules of the lottery).
Unlicensed dispensaries have multiple advantages over the legal ones in Ford’s poorly constructed legal cannabis market. Packaging, marketing, advertising, and THC levels in edibles, everything consumers want, they can get in the illegal market, but not in the legal one.
The licensed producers are being impacted negatively by these operations. The oversupply in the legal market is going to have a terrible effect on the balance sheets of these companies and the ones to pay the price will be the employees that will be laid off.
CRAPPY GROWTH IS NO LAYS
Taste like shit.
Enough B.S. allready !!!
You grow bone dry bunk nobody wants...
November 5 will be a duzy.
You are doomed!
They should grow good weed as bunk does,nt sell well.
They are fucked!
Hexo auditor raises ‘substantial doubt’ about company as it reports $67.9M loss in Q4
TD
By Thom Bonno The Canadian Press
Fri., Oct. 29, 2021timer3 min. read
updateArticle was updated 2 hrs ago
Hexo Corp.’s auditor raised serious concerns about the company’s future as it reported a $67.9 million net loss in its latest quarter.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said its recent review of the Ottawa-based cannabis business showed that Hexo “did not maintain, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting” and several factors “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”
“The company has suffered recurring losses from operations, has had cash outflows from operating activities, and has financial liabilities that may require significant cash outflows over the next twelve months,” the auditor wrote in a six-page report filed along with Hexo’s fourth-quarter earnings.
It also noted that Hexo’s existing funds and operational cash flow are “not sufficient” enough to fund debt repayments, capex budgets, and potential cash requirements under a senior convertible note.
The auditor’s report come as Hexo is trying to quell the upheaval stemming from a recent strategic reorganization that involved the departure of co-founder and chief executive Sebastien St-Louis and chief operating officer Donald Courtney last week.
St-Louis was replaced with Scott Cooper, who ran Truss Beverage Co., a joint venture between Molson-Coors Canada and Hexo that produces the Little Victory, Mollo and Veryvell beverages.
Cooper told analysts on Friday he was nine days into the job, but “quickly getting my arms around the business” by cramming in meetings with employees, investors, board members, analysts and customers.
“These will also help me understand where Hexo can capitalize on strengths and where we may need to augment capabilities to compete for and earn our customers’ and consumers’ business,” he said.
Cooper will also look for barriers he can break down to help the company meet its targets, address the risk presented by the company’s debt structure and work to help integrate Hexo’s recent acquisitions of Zenabis Global Inc., Redecan and 48North.
The company’s financial position and its senior convertible note will also factor into his and Hexo’s priorities.
“We maintain that positive relationship with the note holder,” chief financial officer Trent MacDonald said on the same call as Cooper.
“We understand the risk this note holds and we take it very seriously.”
Analysts are also watching the company’s share price closely.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Douglas Miehm and analyst Sahil Dhingra pointed out that the company’s stock has declined by about 70 per cent since its third-quarter results “came in weaker than expected due to what were expected to be transitory challenges.”
Its stock sat at $2 on Friday morning, a 1.72 per cent drop.
That drop came as Hexo reported its $67.9 million net loss in its fourth-quarter, which compared with a net loss of $169.5 million in the same quarter last year.
Its net loss amounted to 48 cents per share for the period ended July 31, down from a loss of $1.60 per share in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Hexo says its net loss for the entire year amounted to 89 cents per share, down from a loss of $7.08 per share last year.
The company’s net revenue from sale of goods totalled $38.6 million, up from $27 million at the same time last year.
Hexo says its recent, $235-million purchase of Zenabis contributed $6.8 million in net revenue to the quarter.
But Miehm and Dhingra say data they analyzed shows the market share of a combined Hexo-Zenabis-Redecan-48North has dropped from about 16 per cent in March to 13 per cent in August across Alberta, B.C. and Ontario.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2021.
Companies in this story: (TSX:HEXO)
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version listed the loss per share for the company’s year-end as the loss per share for the quarter.
Incompetence at it,s finest
Stock market weed is a Ponzi.
Suckers paying Klein 43$ million to run the company to the ground.
Bag holders purchasing shares to keep the company afloat.
Legacy Croptober is upon us... and it,s Dank city!
Folks are easily overgrowing that "legalized" stock market cartel.
Canadians don,t like monopoly and it shows big time.
THAT DOLLAR NEEDS TO BE HARVESTED!!!
November rain will add to Tweed,s miseries
Martha/Dog made millions on Crappy Growth while Tweed sales ducked.
They are thinking of Nancy Grace as possible CEO...
I have to disagree. They blew it in Canada!
They will blow it in the USA as well.
Why?
Bone dry bunk weed taste like shit and burns your throath.
American want AAAAA,s, not mids.
Besides, you are too late.
US cannabis market is allready overcrowded... Bankruptcy is a drag..
COLUMBIA WILL CLEAN YOUR ASS!!!
With export restrictions eased, Colombia's medical cannabis business is poised for liftoff
By Thom Bonno
Bogota, Colombia (CNN)When Beatriz Porras was studying agronomy at university in Tunja, Colombia, she thought her career would lead to growing coffee, like her parents, or flowers, the traditional agricultural staples for the country's export market.
Back then, growing marijuana was illegal, and security forces targeted plantations with forced eradication campaigns aimed at stemming illicit trafficking.
Five years later, the 29-year old engineer oversees the cutout process at Clever Leaves, one of Colombia's largest medical marijuana companies and the first in South America to receive the EU certification to trade pharmaceutical products.
With more than 130,000 medical cannabis plants, Clever Leaves' farm, a former cattle ranch a few hours north of Bogota, represents Colombia's turnaround on marijuana and its aspiration to convert one of the world's largest ecosystems for illegal drugs into a legal weed powerhouse.
Although marijuana cultivation has been legal since late 2016, for the past five years Colombian companies could only export active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and therefore were banned from the most lucrative parts of the business.
In July, Colombian president Ivan Duque loosened regulations to allow the export of dry cannabis flowers, which accounts for more than 50% of the demand in markets like the US.
Thanks to that policy change, Colombian companies are now confident they can compete in the pharmaceutical markets in Europe and North America.
Favorable conditions
The Andean nation enjoys perfect conditions for the cultivation of marijuana: 12 hours of sunlight give way to 12 hours of darkness virtually every day of the year, with minimal seasonal change.
High altitude — Clever Leaves' farm, in Boyacá, sits at 9,377 feet above sea level — means fewer pesticides are required to stem bacteria and disease than at lower altitudes, making it easier to grow organic products.
"If you think about it, greenhouses in other countries are trying to emulate the natural conditions we get here for free," Clever Leaves' president Andres Fajardo told CNN. "Your factor costs in terms of labor are significantly cheaper."
Investment in Colombian medical marijuana has picked up, with the government reporting more than $250 million in foreign funding in the sector. The majority of those dollars come from international cannabis companies, mostly Canadian, that are partnering with Colombian producers to farm there.
Flora Growth, a Toronto-based firm listed on NASDAQ, has purchased 100 hectares of land — about 247 acres — in central Colombia. "I hope that over the next three-to-five years we are going to run out of land," said Luis Merchán, a Colombian businessman who quit his job as a VP at Macy's to become Flora's CEO last year.
Flora estimates its production costs to be around $.06 per gram of dry cannabis flower, a fraction of the go-to price that ranges from $.50 cents and $2 in the US.
"Licenses here are also much cheaper than abroad, we are talking of $15,000 to $20,000 per license," said Juliana Salazar, a private consultant involved in the Bogota cannabis industry. "And an initial investment of roughly $100,000 to start producing here, which is a lot of money in Colombia, but a smaller investment than if you look at Germany, Spain or the United States."
Since 2017, almost 2,000 licenses for cultivation, seeding and trade of marijuana products have been issued by the Colombian justice ministry, with the majority of producers operating near the industrial hubs of Bogotá and Medellin.
An initial wave of cannabis investment was spurred in 2017 when cultivation was first legalized, but the market stagnated for a couple years before growing again this year, according to Salazar.
Fajardo thinks the future will be more about steady growth than a booming industry. "I agree there was a bit of a hype, a lot of people had some land from their aunt and thought they were going to use it and produce CBD products and going to get rich," the Flora CEO said, "but I think that's over now and the companies that are here are focusing on the quality of the product."
Export market
Limited local demand and high manufacturing costs for pharmaceutical products mean the market is focusing on exporting raw materials, such as APIs and now dry flowers, to expand.
Flora Growth is trying to augment that by partnering with Colombian retailers to sell edibles, fashion and cosmetic products in Bogota and other main cities, but it remains an exception.
Recreational use is still banned and thousands of small-scale farmers continue to grow illegally for drug cartels and narco-traffickers, but early backers believe the opportunity is there for further change.
"I think the world has come a long way in terms of understanding what should be legal and what shouldn't be legal," Flora Growth's Merchán said. "The cannabis plant has a tremendous amount of benefits."
Merchán points to the US opioid crisis as the ultimate peg to sell Colombian medical products. "Cannabis is poised to alleviate some of the pressure coming from patients that are being treated by opioids in a much more natural and safe way," he said. "The opportunity is there not only to rectify some of the wrongs, but to add employment, blue collar jobs in the farms of Colombia, and that is very rewarding."
YOU ARE FUCKED!
With export restrictions eased, Colombia's medical cannabis business is poised for liftoff
By Thom Bonno
Bogota, Colombia (CNN)When Beatriz Porras was studying agronomy at university in Tunja, Colombia, she thought her career would lead to growing coffee, like her parents, or flowers, the traditional agricultural staples for the country's export market.
Back then, growing marijuana was illegal, and security forces targeted plantations with forced eradication campaigns aimed at stemming illicit trafficking.
Five years later, the 29-year old engineer oversees the cutout process at Clever Leaves, one of Colombia's largest medical marijuana companies and the first in South America to receive the EU certification to trade pharmaceutical products.
With more than 130,000 medical cannabis plants, Clever Leaves' farm, a former cattle ranch a few hours north of Bogota, represents Colombia's turnaround on marijuana and its aspiration to convert one of the world's largest ecosystems for illegal drugs into a legal weed powerhouse.
Although marijuana cultivation has been legal since late 2016, for the past five years Colombian companies could only export active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and therefore were banned from the most lucrative parts of the business.
In July, Colombian president Ivan Duque loosened regulations to allow the export of dry cannabis flowers, which accounts for more than 50% of the demand in markets like the US.
Thanks to that policy change, Colombian companies are now confident they can compete in the pharmaceutical markets in Europe and North America.
Favorable conditions
The Andean nation enjoys perfect conditions for the cultivation of marijuana: 12 hours of sunlight give way to 12 hours of darkness virtually every day of the year, with minimal seasonal change.
High altitude — Clever Leaves' farm, in Boyacá, sits at 9,377 feet above sea level — means fewer pesticides are required to stem bacteria and disease than at lower altitudes, making it easier to grow organic products.
"If you think about it, greenhouses in other countries are trying to emulate the natural conditions we get here for free," Clever Leaves' president Andres Fajardo told CNN. "Your factor costs in terms of labor are significantly cheaper."
Investment in Colombian medical marijuana has picked up, with the government reporting more than $250 million in foreign funding in the sector. The majority of those dollars come from international cannabis companies, mostly Canadian, that are partnering with Colombian producers to farm there.
Flora Growth, a Toronto-based firm listed on NASDAQ, has purchased 100 hectares of land — about 247 acres — in central Colombia. "I hope that over the next three-to-five years we are going to run out of land," said Luis Merchán, a Colombian businessman who quit his job as a VP at Macy's to become Flora's CEO last year.
Flora estimates its production costs to be around $.06 per gram of dry cannabis flower, a fraction of the go-to price that ranges from $.50 cents and $2 in the US.
"Licenses here are also much cheaper than abroad, we are talking of $15,000 to $20,000 per license," said Juliana Salazar, a private consultant involved in the Bogota cannabis industry. "And an initial investment of roughly $100,000 to start producing here, which is a lot of money in Colombia, but a smaller investment than if you look at Germany, Spain or the United States."
Since 2017, almost 2,000 licenses for cultivation, seeding and trade of marijuana products have been issued by the Colombian justice ministry, with the majority of producers operating near the industrial hubs of Bogotá and Medellin.
An initial wave of cannabis investment was spurred in 2017 when cultivation was first legalized, but the market stagnated for a couple years before growing again this year, according to Salazar.
Fajardo thinks the future will be more about steady growth than a booming industry. "I agree there was a bit of a hype, a lot of people had some land from their aunt and thought they were going to use it and produce CBD products and going to get rich," the Flora CEO said, "but I think that's over now and the companies that are here are focusing on the quality of the product."
Export market
Limited local demand and high manufacturing costs for pharmaceutical products mean the market is focusing on exporting raw materials, such as APIs and now dry flowers, to expand.
Flora Growth is trying to augment that by partnering with Colombian retailers to sell edibles, fashion and cosmetic products in Bogota and other main cities, but it remains an exception.
Recreational use is still banned and thousands of small-scale farmers continue to grow illegally for drug cartels and narco-traffickers, but early backers believe the opportunity is there for further change.
"I think the world has come a long way in terms of understanding what should be legal and what shouldn't be legal," Flora Growth's Merchán said. "The cannabis plant has a tremendous amount of benefits."
Merchán points to the US opioid crisis as the ultimate peg to sell Colombian medical products. "Cannabis is poised to alleviate some of the pressure coming from patients that are being treated by opioids in a much more natural and safe way," he said. "The opportunity is there not only to rectify some of the wrongs, but to add employment, blue collar jobs in the farms of Colombia, and that is very rewarding."
THAT BONE DRY BUNK RED SMELL!!!
They run a canna monopoly and they blow it with bone dry bunk weed.
Cannabis sells itself, but it has to be dank...
"OCS: Almost 5 per cent of all cannabis sold in Ontario was sold through the legal market in Q1 2021
The most popular product in the quarter was Pure Sunfarms Pink Kush, with Ontarians purchasing 160,000 3.5-gram units.
Author of the article:Thom Bonno
Publishing date:Oct 21, 2021 • 1 day ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation
FILE: Cannabis greenhouse at Pure Sunfarms in Delta, BC, August 1, 2018. /
FILE: Cannabis greenhouse at Pure Sunfarms in Delta, BC, August 1, 2018. / PHOTO BY ARLEN REDEKOP /PNG
Article content
The price of legal cannabis is improving and the regulated market is pulling in more consumers, according to the latest report from the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS).
The average cost of legal dried flower has dropped to $6 a gram and nearly 50 per cent of all cannabis sold in Ontario during the first quarter of this fiscal year (April 2021 to June 2021) was sold through the regulated market.
According to the OCS report for 2020/2021, retail stores and the OCS sold 99,100,000 grams of legal recreational cannabis valued at approximately $840,100,000, representing a 182 per cent increase in volume over the previous year.
Ontario now has 1,000 cannabis retail stores
Some retailers could close down once faced with increased competition and a crowded marketplace. /
Stiff competition could see some cannabis retail stores in Ontario having to close their doors: OCS
Retailers were permitted to offer delivery and pick-up services during the pandemic and advocates have argued that the success of the temporary measures proves it’s a viable and safe option for consumers.
Ontario set to make cannabis delivery, curbside pick-up permanent
During that time, Ontarians purchased $307 million worth of cannabis, an 8 per cent increase over the previous quarter.
“This achievement was driven through the rapid growth of brick-and-mortar stores in the province, with 92 per cent of all sales occurring through private licensed retailers,” notes the executive summary of the report.
In August, Ontario surpassed the 1,000 store mark and now leads the country in retail shops. According to the report, physical stores accounted for 92 per cent of all cannabis purchases. In Q1, Ontarians bought $282,800,000 worth of cannabis from brick and mortar stores compared to $24,200,000 via the OCS.
Dried flower continued to dominate all product categories, accounting for 86 per cent of all cannabis purchases. Flower with THC levels above 20 per cent was most in-demand, with those products being purchased 354 times faster than low-THC products.
Vapes and pre-rolls rounded out the top three product categories, with each amounting to 15 per cent sales.
Online, dried flower sales were led by Pure Sunfarms (nine per cent), Good Supply (seven per cent) and Original Stash (four per cent). In brick and mortar stores, Pure Sunfarms (11 per cent), Redecan (eight per cent) and Good Supply (six per cent) rounded out the top three.
A few companies led product categories both online and in brick and mortar stores. Original Stash was the top seller across the board for concentrates, while Redecan led in oils and pre-rolls. And though seeds made up less than one per cent of total sales, 34 Street Seed Co. held the largest market share across all product categories, accounting for 53 per cent of all seed purchases online and 63 per cent in physical stores.
When it comes to vapes, Back Forty was the product leader in Q1, accounting for 13 per cent of online purchases and 16 per cent of brick and mortar buys.
The most popular product in the quarter was Pure Sunfarms Pink Kush 3.5g dried flower, which sold 160,000 units. This was followed by Redecan Redees Wappa Pre-Rolls, with Ontarians purchasing 159,700 packages of the 10-pack, 0.35 gram pre-rolls. Redecan Redees Cold Creek Kush Pre-Rolls rounded out the top three, selling 139,000 units.
Dried flower prices also dropped across the board, with the average gram going for $6 on the OCS, $8.28 at retail stores and $4.51 on the illicit market.
By store count, as of June 30, 2021, Spiritleaf was the leading retailers in Ontario, operating 33 stores each. They were trailed closely by Sessions Cannabis (30 stores), and ShinyBud Cannabis Company (25 stores).
Consumers have also demonstrated a preference for a hybrid model of shopping, splitting purchases through the OCS and physical stores. Quality, potency and price were the top three attributes for OCS.ca shoppers when choosing a product.
When it comes to quality assurance, Ontario fared slightly better than the rest of the country as only two recalls out of five issued by Health Canada affected the OCS this quarter. A total of 4,734 units were recalled during Q1, which impacted less than one in 1,000 units distributed by the OCS. Label and packaging issues were the number one issues for the recalls.
However, as sales increased, so did the total number of customer complaints, jumping from 2,209 in Q1 2020 to 33,323 complaints in the first quarter of 2021. Vapes continue to represent the most quality complaints and demonstrate an opportunity for improvement, the report notes."
WHERE IS MARTHA?
want to kill the black market?
GROW BETTER WEED!
"and to eliminate the black market for cannabis in the country."
Good luck!