Lp,s are doomed!
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Legal Marijuana Handed A Nothing Burger From NY State
Bonno
September 15, 2023
Following the chaos of the recreational weed rollout, the government is trying to figure out next steps. But it seems legal marijuana has been handed a nothing burger from NY state with their last rollout for potential cannabis retailers.. With an estimated $3.5 billion in sales at stake along with tax revenue for the state’s every growing budget, the fumble is costly for a significant number of players. And it has been a huge loss for the marijuana industry as a whole.
What was quickly seen as an opportunity was pounced on in the city with the most billionaires globally along with endless big and small entrepreneurs, and hustlers. Seeing a huge amount of cash on the table, players acted in a quickly in a way bureaucrats will never understand.
Embracing a Wild West approach, officials decriminalizated and fumbled licensed legalization of sales. Despite promises and initial outlines where existing medical marijuana dispensaries could switch to recreational and a fair, for government quick liscnese process, the state tossed it all in one stroke. In a vision of equity, officials decided to reserve the first retail licenses for felons and other “justice-involved” individuals. Lawsuits started, the desired licensees struggled to raise capital and over 1,600 unlicensed retail stores opened in NYC. For the small time players, they have set sidewalk card tables parks, selling roll-ups and handmade marijuana edibles, in full view of the police.
The updated systems was rolled out, but has left people confused, dispirited, and disappointed. The Office of Cannabis Management rolled out the previous Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries (CAURD) program with high hopes. Now, regulators voted to allow the state’s medical marijuana operators to apply for adult-use retail licenses. Multistate operators who have patiently acquired a majority of the state’s 10 registered organization.
RELATED: California or New York, Which Has The Biggest Marijuana Mess
“It was more like an orgy of minimalism. While they are getting ready to open the application window on October 4th (notably, originally it wasn’t intended to be a 60-day window, but rolling applications) for most license types (sans on-site consumption and delivery), they refused to address the CAURD program. Other than to suggest that it remains “a priority”, they have offered only some subtle hints in the guidance to the regulations. These include establishing a priority for retail applications which include secured real estate, which will be given priority after the initial 30-days of the 60-day application window have passed (although they do not define what that means). And noting that existing licensees may apply for an additional license so long as they comply with the rules of a two-tier system. The positive news is that these statements can be interpreted as an invitation to current CAURD licensees, many of whom will also meet other Social and Economic Equity (SEE) criteria entitling them to an additional priority.” shares Andrew Cooper, partner at Falcon Rappaport & Berkman LLP, one of the top cannabis law firms.
Unfortunately, there are multiple losers in the state’s unique approach. One is consumer and medical marijuana patients, including veterans. The unlicensed dispensaries are making a mint due to high demand. Small investors and companies, including those who could be a player in the CAURD, will not have the financial to compete with multi-state and large players. And taxpayers will lose out for years to come as revue it lost to unlicensed dispensaries.
The good news, consumers will continue to find products easily over the next few years. There is even a thriving unlicensed dispensary a few blocks from City Hall.
RELATED: Can Cannabis Help Seasonal Depression
While New York is awash with billionaires, fashion, food and smarts, common sense seems to be lack for making a good government plan.
On X you freak!
Can’t you google?
You guys like to be spoon fed. Lol.
Lightweight on due diligence. 😂
You forgot your friend the D E A… 😂
DEA don’t want no drugs!
Think of the children… 😂
Praising a dud?
I’ve seen it all… 😂
14 congressional Republicans oppose proposed MJ rescheduling
Fourteen Republican federal lawmakers are voicing their opposition to a key federal agency’s recent recommendation that marijuana be rescheduled.
In a letter to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram, eight Republican senators and six GOP representatives declared the Department of Health and Human Services’ Aug. 29 recommendation to move marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act part of an “irresponsible” “pro-pot agenda” and urged that MJ remain listed among the most dangerous drugs.
Doomed!
End of season crop harvest 👨🌾🌳🌳🌳 pic.twitter.com/Z9ggZkI04j
— Cannabis Hub (@cannabishub) September 13, 2023
Reply and tell me what you like!
— Jodie Giesz-Ramsay (@JodieEmery) September 14, 2023
🤗💚 pic.twitter.com/6BFRWP5pUp
CBC News is still reporting that Canopy is "the largest cannabis company in North America," but the truth is it isn't even the largest cannabis company in Ontario.
In terms of market share, Canopy is 8th in Canada among LPs.
The legal market is dead/dying. Stick to the old ways folks. Screw the government. Legal market product is trash anyways.
Canadian medical cannabis registrations at lowest level since legalization
Matt Lamers
September 14, 2023
Active medical cannabis registrations and overall spending on the medicine in Canada fell to their lowest levels since before recreational marijuana was legalized in late 2018.
The number of active patient registrations with a federal license holder was 212,700 as of the end of March, according to the latest data from Health Canada and Statistics Canada.
That’s 38% lower than the 345,520 active registrations in October 2018, when Canada legalized marijuana for adult use.
The Health Canada figures are consistent with Statistics Canada data showing falling spending in the medical cannabis sector.
In the first half of calendar 2023, spending on medical cannabis amounted to 185 million Canadian dollars ($135 million), according to the StatsCan data, the lowest first-half total since 2016.
In calendar year 2022, Canadian patients purchased CA$410 million of cannabis products for medical use, 7.4% lower than in 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
Canada’s annual medical cannabis expenditures haven’t been that low since before 2017.
Sales were CA$279 million in 2016.
One reason for the trend is the increasing availability of non-medical cannabis via expanding legacy recreational storefronts across Canada.
No pharmacy dispensing. No need. Internet to the rescue. No fuss. No muss. No showing i.d. to a fat slob.
The Canadian government has been resisting calls to dispense medical cannabis in pharmacies, even though that’s generally where the product is prepared and sold in many European jurisdictions.
Shoppers Drug Mart, the largest pharmacy chain in Canada, had lobbied for years for approval to sell medical cannabis in its stores.
After it became evident the government wouldn’t make such an allowance, Shoppers dumped its medical cannabis business this year for only CA$2.6 million to Avicanna, which has its head office in Toronto.
Ken Weisbrod, who oversaw the creation of the cannabis portfolio for Shoppers, suggested the dramatic decline in the medical cannabis market highlights the fact that the Canadian government “does not appear to have any true interest in having a proper medical system” for the herb. Or a good rec model for that matter.
“Other countries around the world which are exploring medical cannabis understand the need for current existing health care systems and providers to be involved,” said Weisbrod, a licensed pharmacist in Canada and the United States, via email.
“Unfortunately, for the most part, retail pharmacy has been left out of the conversation and the medical (marijuana) industry has had to adhere to the ‘medical cannabis process’ rather than cannabis following the current existing processes and standards for all medicine.
“These lack of standards have only increased the apprehension of health care practitioners to use this medicine in their treatment of patients.”
Weisbrod said it begs the question, “Why has Health Canada abandoned its (pre-legalization) mantra of treating cannabis ‘like any other medicine’?”
The Canadian government’s commitment to taxing medical cannabis at the same rate as recreational marijuana is said to be another factor driving patients away from the medical system regulated by Health Canada.
“The fear that people will flock and abandon the adult-use market to avoid the tax is not credible given that in other jurisdictions which have a dual system of taxation for medical (i.e., not taxed or taxed at a lower rate) and adult use (e.g., Colorado) this issue has not occurred,” Weisbrod said.
Medical cannabis in Canada is generally shipped via mail directly from a licensed producer or is grown by patients, or someone designated to grow it for them – known as designated production registrations.
The number of approvals to grow medical cannabis, either personal or for someone else, has also fallen since 2018.
Folksno longer bother renewing their yearly licence, saving big $ in the process.
In October 2018, there were 25,945 such registrations. In March 2023, there were 19,076, or 26% fewer.
As domestic medical sales are falling, medical exports from Canada have been soaring.
In the 2022-23 fiscal year, Canada shipped medical cannabis products worth CA$160 million, a 50% increase over 2021-22’s CA$107 million.
When domestic sales are included with exports over the same time period, Canada’s medical cannabis market was worth a little more than CA$560 million last year.
Potential solution
Weisbrod, now a consultant in the international health care industry, suggested one potential solution is for provinces to implement their own medical systems outside Health Canada.
“Although this could be a good policy, Health Canada should lead the way by placing medical cannabis where it belongs – within a pharmacy and under the traditional framework for medicine,” he said.
By doing so, Weisbrod said, not only would certain standards be implemented, such as for chemical, microbial, toxicity and emissions testing, but the acceptance of cannabis by the traditional health care industry would increase.
Some experts are concerned that medical cannabis patients appear to be using recreational channels, which don’t have trained staff or pharmacists to talk about the drug’s interaction with other medicines.
But folks do not need trained staff. They know better… 😂
“Consuming cannabis like any other drug has pros and cons,” Weisbrod said.
“What we have in Canada is an unabated drug consumed mostly by smoking 90% of the time, mostly by people under the age of 30.
“We need to get our health care providers involved now so our young adults are aware and have the appropriate oversight on what they are consuming.”
Young adults don’t like to be told what to do by some lp ceo with a bad haircut but… lol
So what i do is grow my own.
Bumper crop this year.
Fuck the D.E.A.
I’m not a yes man!
Lps are gona… 😂
They have no say in the matter… 😂
D.E.A rule them all suckers…
The 60’s are long gone and nobody wants to get shot… Ohio style.
Doomed in so many ways… 😂
Talent drain
One concern in the current marijuana labor market is that hourly employees and salaried workers will leave cannabis for other sectors because of the industry’s’ struggles and other sectors’ ability to offer attractive pay and benefits packages.
“Companies should retain as much of the exceptional talent we have in this industry,” Bradford said.
“I’m really worried about brain drain or talent drain, because as an industry we’ve spent so much time bringing in people from other industries and training these individuals, helping them understand cannabis and also learning from them about what best practices from other industries do and don’t work in cannabis.
“One of my biggest concerns is that we are losing talent to other industries, and we won’t be able to get them back.
“One big trend right now is attrition. It’s higher now than it’s ever been for hourly workers. … We’re competing for the same hourly worker talent as a lot of other industries right now.”
Tilray skeptics, on the other hand, might argue that the company has lost its focus.
In news releases, Leamington, Ontario, and New York-headquartered Tilray has taken to describing itself as “a global cannabis-lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company.”
“I don’t know what a lifestyle company is,” said Rob McPherson, a CPG veteran and former president of Bacardi Canada who has criticized Tilray management.
“Last time I looked, everything is a lifestyle and anything is a lifestyle.”
Tilray did not respond to Matt requests for comment on its alcohol strategy.
McPherson, the former Bacardi Canada executive, pointed out that alcohol distribution “lives at the state level, not at the federal level, so each individual state can have its own individual definition of distribution.”
Given complex state-by-state differences, McPherson suggested that Tilray’s ability to shoehorn marijuana distribution into the existing U.S. alcohol distribution system is by no means assured.
“I think it would be naive to assume that that will happen – and that it will happen at that pervasive level. … Cannabis is going to be complex enough,” he said.
“And you layer that complexity into the already-complex distribution system for beverage alcohol – it’s just nonsensical.
“But it sounds really good if you say it.”
Analyst Bennett acknowledges that Tilray receives “some criticism that they’re diversifying out of cannabis.”
“But No. 1, they’re very open that they’re no longer a cannabis business,” he said.
That is a smart move.
They are DOOMED
Selling under cost to make 💰 is a bad business model.
Not my style!
😂
Cannabis producer Canopy’s subsidiary BioSteel enters ‘hibernation’ ahead of planned sale.
September 14, 2023
Matt Lamers
(This is a developing story that will be updated.)
Struggling Canadian cannabis producer Canopy Growth Corp. is ceasing funding of its BioSteel subsidiary and plans to conduct a court-supervised sale of the brand and its property, the Ontario-based company said Thursday.
BioSteel, a popular sports nutrition and hydration brand, also obtained an initial order for creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) from a Canadian court, according to a Canopy news release.
Entering CCAA proceedings allows BioSteel to conserve cash, and effectively puts the business “into hibernation to preserve its assets,” Canopy’s said in its announcement.
“BioSteel’s application for and entry into the CCAA process was commenced as BioSteel no longer has access to funding for the brand which continued to generate negative operating cash flow,” Canopy said in the news release.
In the fiscal year 2023, covering April 2022 through March 2023, BioSteel generated 69.6 million Canadian dollars ($51.7 million) in sales, more than double the previous year’s CA$34.6 million in sales.
However, the cost of goods sold for the BioSteel segment outran the brisk sales growth, coming in at CA$110.3 million in the same period, for a deficit of CA$40.6 million.
BioSteel leases a fully utilized facility in Verona, Virginia.
“The decision to seek creditor protection was made after careful evaluation of BioSteel’s financial situation and all available alternatives following consultation with its legal and financial advisors and a determination that a court supervised sale process is in the best interests of BioSteel and its stakeholders,” Canopy said.
The initial order provides for a stay of proceedings in favor of BioSteel and its two American affiliates, BioSteel Sports Nutrition USA and BioSteel Manufacturing.
BioSteel’s board of directors will remain in place, the release noted.
Canopy said BioSteel will be responsible for the sale process under the supervision of the CCAA court.
BioSteel plans to fund the CCAA process from cash on hand and does not expect to require additional financing during the sale process.
The sports nutrition brand also said it intends to seek approval of a sale and investment solicitation process (SISP).
“BioSteel intends to use this process to build on the work it undertook prior to the filing to identify a purchaser on an efficient basis,” according to the release.
If approved by the CCAA court, the SISP will be administered by BioSteel with the assistance of its financial adviser, Greenhill & Co. Canada, under the oversight of the monitor, KSV Restructuring.
In an all ready flooded market… 😂
Will Simon hear your plea? 😂
Just watch!
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😂
They are at the Ritz…😂
Someone took a big dump!😂💃🏻🎯🛶🇯🇵
We are having a great time.
Best to keep looking for revenues… that’s what matters in my capitalist world.
Sales numbers without net revenues means nothing.
Unless one is a : Communist
Or
" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" >insert-text-here 😂
Tilray & Crappy Growth have bigsales!
They are
😂
Net revenue is what you want to know…
LOL
D.E.A.
D. E.A.
Banking in China is the way to go.
They will learn!
You will make some folks jealous… lol
Emotion runs high when suckers 🩸.
Flack city…
Tell me about it.
D.E.A.
Home / Cultivation
Can Tilray successfully synergize its cannabis, alcohol businesses?
Solomon Israel
September 11, 2023
With its right hand, Tilray Brands has consolidated a swath of the Canadian cannabis market, most recently buying moribond Hexo Corp. in its quest to grow market share.
With its left hand, Tilray has gone on a beverage alcohol acquisition bender in the United States.
After several alcohol acquisitions that turned Tilray into one of the largest U.S. craft brewers, the company recently announced an $85 million deal to acquire eight craft beer brands from brewing behemoth Anheuser-Busch InBev.
As the dust settles on Tilray’s latest alcohol purchase, a question lingers for investors: Will the company be able to build meaningful ties between its cannabis business and its alcohol operations, in accordance with statements made by company management?
For now, cannabis remains Tilray’s biggest business in terms of revenue. But it is still a chalenge to get out of the red.
During Tilray’s August conference call explaining the Anheuser-Busch transaction, CEO Irwin Simon said the company’s pro-forma revenue of about $860 million includes:
30% beverage alcohol.
30% Canadian medical and adult-use cannabis.
30% European medical marijuana distribution.
10% food and wellness.
Diversifying beyond cannabis
Proponents of Tilray’s strategy see promise in the company’s diversification into alcohol.
“First, obviously there’s the potential upside in craft beer itself, and even spirits, where they’ve moved into as well,” especially since some big players such as Anheuser-Busch are focusing less on craft beer, said Owen Bennett, senior vice president of equity research at New York-based financial services company Jefferies.
Tilray skeptics, on the other hand, might argue that the company has lost its focus by selling under cost to make money.
In news releases, Leamington, Ontario, and New York-headquartered Tilray has taken to describing itself as “a global cannabis-lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company.”
“I don’t know what a lifestyle company is,” said Rob McPherson, a CPG veteran and former president of Bacardi Canada who has criticized Tilray management.
“Last time I looked, everything is a lifestyle and anything is a lifestyle.”
Tilray did not respond to MJ requests for comment on its alcohol strategy.
Linking alcohol distribution with cannabis
Tilray management has cited potential for cost synergies between its Anheuser-Busch beer acquisitions and its existing beverage alcohol brands.
Beyond that, however, Tilray has spoken of potential distribution synergies between Tilray’s alcohol and cannabis businesses in the event that the U.S. legalizes marijuana federally.
In the August conference call, CEO Simon asked: “Ultimately, upon (U.S. federal marijuana) legalization one day, is there the opportunity for adjacencies in the THC and CBD world, and having that distribution system, having those manufacturing facilities?”
“Again, we’re not dependent upon it,” Simon continued.
“But there’s a lot of great companies that have been built around the beer category.”
“I think it is the most obvious way for them to leverage these beer investments,” said Vivien Azer, managing director and senior research analyst for New York-headquartered financial-services firm Cowen.
Azer said that the alcohol industry has been lobbying for marijuana to be regulated along the same lines as spirits – in a three-tier system of producers, distributors and retailers.
But potential synergies between Tilray’s existing alcohol distribution network and a hypothetical, future U.S. marijuana distribution system are just that – hypothetical – and would depend on the actual details of any federal legalization law.
McPherson, the former Bacardi Canada executive, pointed out that alcohol distribution “lives at the state level, not at the federal level, so each individual state can have its own individual definition of distribution.”
Given complex state-by-state differences, McPherson suggested that Tilray’s ability to shoehorn marijuana distribution into the existing U.S. alcohol distribution system is by no means assured.
“I think it would be naive to assume that that will happen – and that it will happen at that pervasive level. … Cannabis is going to be complex enough,” he said.
“And you layer that complexity into the already-complex distribution system for beverage alcohol – it’s just nonsensical.
“But it sounds really good if you say it.”
Connecting alcohol, cannabis brands
Aside from a distribution link between cannabis and alcohol, Tilray’s C-suite has hinted – albeit sometimes indirectly – at a more ambitious synergy: linking alcohol brands and consumers with cannabis products in one way or another.
In 2020, after Aphria acquired SweetWater Brewing Co., then-Aphria Chief Financial Officer Carl Merton (now CFO of Tilray Brands after Tilray and Aphria merged) told MJBizDaily that the Atlanta-based craft brewer offered “an incredible reach to a consumer that is already thinking about cannabis, and this acquisition allows us to access that consumer years in advance of federal legalization.”
Similarly, in its late 2022 announcement that it had acquired New York-headquartered Montauk Brewing, Tilray cited plans “to leverage our growing portfolio of U.S. CPG brands and ultimately to launch THC-based product adjacencies upon federal legalization in the U.S.”
Consumers will eventually “see beer with THC in it in the U.S.,” Tilray CEO Simon said on a January 2023 earnings call.
“One day, you’ll see spirits with THC in the U.S.,” he added.
It’s not clear whether Simon meant such beverages would contain both alcohol and THC or only THC.
Tilray has also started experimenting with bringing one of its Canadian adult-use cannabis brands, Good Supply, into the U.S. beer market: Good Supply-branded light beer launched in Connecticut, Georgia and New York in June, with the promise of further launches in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
On the August conference call, Simon said that “when federal cannabis legalization occurs, (Tilray) will be able to include THC-based products in our beverage and wellness portfolio as well.”
The exact details of how Tilray might align THC with its non-cannabis brands remain a mystery.
All cannabis consumer expert are claiming that cannabis and alcool do not mix.
Alcool brings inflammation and is not healthy.
However, U.S. beverage alcohol companies are already “pushing the boundaries around brand transferability” within alcohol, observed Cowen’s Azer – for example, the beer brand Coors offers a Coors seltzer product, and the Truly Hard Seltzer brand sells Truly-branded vodka.
“But we don’t have any strong analogues in terms of brand transferability between cannabis and alcohol.”
Tilray is clearly bullish on marijuana drinks, given its recent purchase of the remaining interest in its Truss cannabis drink joint venture from Molson Coors Canada.
On the other hand, skeptics point out that any Tilray plan to link alcohol and marijuana brands in the U.S. after federal legalization simply will not work.
“The first thing that has to happen is, the U.S. has to actually federally legalize – when that’s going to happen is anybody’s guess,” said McPherson, the former Bacardi Canada president.
McPherson pointed out that federal adult-use legalization took years even in Canada, where Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government had a parliamentary majority (and a specific campaign promise surrounding cannabis legalization).
Even in the event that Tilray does extend its alcohol brands into cannabis, McPherson suggested that wouldn’t necessarily be a slam dunk.
“There’s efficiency and there’s effectiveness, and a lot of brands go the efficiency route,” he said, “and you start to see the same brand name playing across multiple categories because it’s efficient: ‘There’s an existing level of consumer awareness, so we’re going to try to leverage that.'”
But branding efficiency can lead to reduced brand effectiveness, McPherson argued, “because you’ve had to cut a wider swath, you’ve had to make more compromises, you’ve had to shave off a lot of the sharp edges that end up catching consumers’ attention.”
Even if crossovers between Tilray’s alcohol brands and cannabis never play out, the alcohol assets have stand-alone value.
They need value. Their cannabis offering is not popular with consumers.
Cowen’s Azer said that Tilray’s beer and liquor acquisitions give it “exposure to the U.S. alcohol segment, which generally grows at a mid-single-digit (compound annual growth rate).”
Analyst Bennett acknowledges that Tilray receives “some criticism that they’re diversifying out of cannabis.”
“But No. 1, they’re very open that they’re no longer a cannabis business,” he said.
Large producers growing cannabis at scale has proven to be a dud… they regularly have to trash moldy weed.
Selling under cost is not helping their bottom line.
“No. 2, as a shareholder, all you should really care about is, is this company generating value? And are they sticking to the strategy they lay out to investors?”
Curious Jacker?
You are a pro!
What is your favorite Tilray's strain?
Upon ´´legalization’´ suckers will notice that you cannot make money in the ´´legit’´ system.
Too much weed!
Yup! The market is all ready oversaturated…😂
We all know that lps are selling under cost.
But pumpers do not.
Adding more bunk weed to the caper will only make matter worst.
Not bad considering Crappy Growth only been in business for a few years… 😂
1000$ by Thursday!
Mark my word…
Tilray to the moon!
Finding a gay partner must be challenging when your old, overweight, misogynist, canna biz naive and broke…lol
Special on 11-12… get yours today… lol
Huh?
You prefer Tilray’s offering?
https://headz.cc/product/promo/
Just a feeling…
Blast from the past…
What happened to good medicine? To treating the person, not the symptoms? #plantmedicine #cannabis pic.twitter.com/08wCA9ZyNC
— RxLeaf (@RxLeafMD) September 10, 2023