Lp,s are doomed!
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Stock market weed love to burn cash…lol
Great CEO
Canopy Growth greenhouses to be sold
Bonno
Wed, August 30, 2023
Niagara-on-the-Lake was once home to what was touted by Linton as the largest medicinal marijuana-growing operation in the world.
Canopy Growth closed its Tweed location on Concession 5 in 2021, a property with one million square feet of indoor greenhouse space that opened in 2014.
And finally, after sitting empty for several years, the website of real estate firm Avison Young says the property, with a listing price of more than $32 million, has been sold.
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An online website that lists property transfers indicates it sold for $21,800,000 in May, to a company that grows mushrooms — neither the realty company or Canopy Growth responded to calls or emails to confirm that information.
Angus Foreman, the man who originally purchased the Concession 5 greenhouses and received Health Canada’s permit to grow medical marijuana, told The Local that with the exception of the more recently built greenhouse added to the range, the range was not well suited for growing cannabis.
He later sold the operation to Canopy Growth, and said he would expect it to be purchased by a produce or flower operation,
He thought it unlikely, he said, that another cannabis producer would purchase it, because growing the crop has turned out to be not very economical.
Coun. Erwin Wiens, who has been a local grape grower for 26 years, said he has heard the former Canopy Growth site had been purchased, but not who bought it.
It appears interest in growing cannabis, medicinal or recreational, has dried up in Niagara-on-the-Lake, as the Canopy Growth facility is the only legal one to have ever set up shop within the municipal boundary, said Marah Minor, spokesperson for the town.
Minor said the municipality is unaware of what might be moving into the greenhouses.
“The town is not aware of any current operations at this site,” she said. “There are no formal applications for this property at the current time.”
When the operation, originally known as Park Lane Farm when Foreman started it, and then Tweed Farms under Canopy Growth took over, opened in NOTL, there were only a couple of other legal medicinal cannabis operations in Canada, tightly controlled by Health Canada, and since it closed nobody else has come forward looking to grow cannabis in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
“The town has not received any inquiries for potential growers in Niagara-on-the-Lake,” Minor said.
Once Canopy was already in operation, selling its harvest through mail orders only, the town implemented an interim control bylaw to curb any further facilities from starting up, until its cannabis production and processing bylaw was implemented in 2020.
But Canopy was allowed to continue because the bylaw came after it was already growing, said Wiens, who noted the most important factor of the bylaw was the mandatory 600-metre setback put in place for future growers, which was largely intended to address odour concerns.
“Folks in St. Davids, their concern was always the smell,” said Wiens, referring to when Canopy was in business.
It was often “overwhelming and overpowering” for them, he said.
It also seems that a forecast of large-scale, commercial grow operations as the next agricultural cash cow hasn’t budded the way some were predicting, although there were those who tried.
In 2017, police arrested two people for growing marijuana in a greenhouse on Larkin Road in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was reported at the time it was believed they were operating under medical marijuana licences, but outside Health Canada regulations.
At least two other greenhouses operations were suspected of growing cannabis illegally, and investigated by police, one on Lakeshore Road in 2014, at a time when the town said it had five applications for growing cannabis, and one in Virgil about five years later.
Wiens said it’s his understanding that cannabis didn’t become the booming business many expected it to be, which is likely the reason why sites such as Canopy Growth are closing, and new ones aren’t sprouting up.
“In agricultural products, it comes down to the economics of it, and so consequently, you’re not seeing a major uptick in growth,” said Wiens.
Asked if there were a lot of owners of agricultural lands who thought when legalization came into play, and was getting plenty of attention, that they might be able to sell their assets and retire, Wiens said that back then some did.
But as it turned out, growing cannabis “was not as economical and profitable as it was originally thought,” said Wiens.
Bunk cannabis is a hard sell.
Even though cannabis facilities, for both medicinal and recreational purposes, continue to be allowed in town under certain restrictions, he doesn’t see a resurgence coming.
“It’s hard to find a spot in Niagara-on-the-Lake where the setbacks work,” he said, adding the municipality “just doesn’t have the space” for them to exist.
He’s also said he would not expect another cannabis company would occupy the former Canopy Growth property.
Cannabis also can’t be purchased legally in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a result of council opting out in 2018 of allowing retail stores to open in the community.
It was the “right idea at the time,” said Wiens, adding that residents “didn’t have an appetite for them.”
Municipalities, under regulations from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, are unable to opt out after agreeing to allow stores on their streets or in local strip malls.
However, they can reconsider and welcome retail stores after initially saying no.
Wiens said there hasn’t been any discussion at council since making the first decision to opt out.
Stock It Out and others who send private m.
Sorry to say that I cannot answer
(free account caper)
I do not consult either…
Just playing and having a good time…lol
Taking you cues from Bloomberg?
They will say what’s you want to hear… lol
Best to get your D.D. from folks who actually got a leg in this biz.
Stock market annalist don’t know what is really going down in this moldy market
Government gave Crappy Growth 200 millions during covid.
These fuckers took the money and promptly dumped their workers.
My tax dollars at work!
Dumped into a money pit…
Selling weed with government protection… lol
Folks do not like these bloated Ponzi!
You lose again!…lol
Fools… they don’t even know that large producers grow moldy bunk burning throat weed. Lol
D.D. At work!
Do not take cues from others.
Experiment and get under that boulder 🙏.
You are SO DOOMED
You and your gay friend are ignorant and DOOMED
Hey Losing & 1v fan… read and learn where you are heading…you ignorant fool…lol
Home / Cultivation
Canadian cannabis exports surge 50% to CA$160 million in 2022-23
Matt Lamers, International Editor
August 30, 2023
(This is the first in a two-part series about Canada’s medical cannabis exports. Part 2 will explore where those exports are going.)
Amid declining medical cannabis sales in Canada’s domestic market and cutthroat competition in the adult-use industry, some licensed producers are increasingly looking to overseas markets for a financial lifeline.
Exports continued to surge in the 2022-23 fiscal year, with Canada shipping medical cannabis products worth 160 million Canadian dollars ($118 million) overseas, a 50% increase over 2021-22’s CA$107 million, according to figures shared by Health Canada with MJBizDaily.
David Hyde, CEO of Hyde Advisory & Investments in Toronto, believes Canada will have a leg up over competing export countries for one more years.
“For the next year, we’re going to see continually increasing medical numbers (exports),” he said in a phone interview.
The brisk export growth comes as domestic sales of medical cannabis continue to contract.
Canadian domestic sales from April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, were CA$401 million, which was 29% lower than the previous year and 20% lower than the same period two years earlier, when medical cannabis sales were CA$501 million.
When medical exports are combined with domestic sales, Canada’s medical cannabis industry was worth just over CA$560 million last year – still the largest federally regulated medical marijuana industry in the world.
Will exports pivot from flower?
Health Canada did not share a breakdown of the value of flower exports versus extract exports, but flower is thought to command a majority of international sales.
But for how much longer?
Hyde said so-called Cannabis 2.0 products such as vapes and hash could help drive exports.
“I think there’s going to be a healthy export market in Canada for years to come," he said.
"It’ll pivot from flower, gradually, to other product forms.
“At the same time, cultivators in those (importing) countries will start to dial in their production, and Canada won’t have a captured market forever.”
Hyde noted Canada’s domestic industry is still dealing with a product glut, and the bottom dropped out of the market for business-to-business wholesale cannabis.
“So, what are your options? It’ll cost you CA$1.50 per gram to produce poor quality cannabis and you can’t sell it in Canada for more than that. So you’ve got to look at export,” he said.
Hyde also said more U.S. multistate operators are dipping their toes in the global market, and a lot of them are doing it through Canada - although New York-based Curaleaf Holdings has secured a toehold in Europe via the 2021 purchase of Emmac Life Science and a July acquisition of a processing facility in Portugal.
Craft driving exports?
Some industry insiders say higher-quality cannabis is helping drive exports higher, and that is increasingly coming from small-batch cultivation.
This comes as more Canadian cannabis entrepreneurs are turning to smaller micro-cultivation facilities at a time when the industry is facing a glut of “standard” or “bunk” product and falling prices.
As of March 2023, Canada had 423 micro-class licenses, which are typically associated with craft production because of their 200-square-meter growing limit.
At the same time, there were 568 standard licenses.
That's a big change from two years earlier, when there were 426 standard licenses and 179 micro licenses.
Phil Campbell - the CEO of Herbal Dispatch, a marijuana marketplace that addresses the medical, recreational and export markets - helps facilitate international shipments of medical cannabis.
“There’s a lot of mass-produced poor qualiry greenhouse product by large, licensed producers, but some of the best product available is from craft producers, who don’t have a viable path to export unless they work with a company like ourselves,” he said in a phone interview.
Campbell said there’s complexity in getting import and export permits issued and establishing relationships with foreign regulators and vendors.
Such hurdles can be especially acute for small businesses.
“The global export market is very competitive. There are a lot of low-cost countries that are fighting for the international market,” Campbell said.
Deepak Anand, principal of ASDA Consultancy Services in Surrey, British Columbia, suggested craft production has been increasingly finding its way to international markets.
"A lot of the crafts and micros, because their licenses are only cultivation and not processing, they don't have the ability to export cannabis," Anand said in a phone interview.
"So they are now basically connecting with companies like Herbal Dispatch, as an example (to help facilitate those exports).
"That's the future, because a lot of people don't want bunk product from big companies, whereas the craft guys have great products but they don't have the certification.”
Good call!
HOW CANNABIS BUREAUCRACY DESTROYS WEALTH GOSING
Read and learn, you freak you.Lol
Last week, the government of Canada released a review of Health Canada’s cost-effectiveness for issuing cannabis licences.
Of course, a “licence” from a government body is asking permission for a freedom you already have. When you have to ask permission to produce from people who produce nothing, your society is ass-backward.
Case in point: You’d think bringing in $160 million in screening fees, import/export fees, and other regulatory cash grabs would yield a profit.
No, Health Canada spent $430 million managing licence applications. Imagine a private accreditation agency reporting a $270 million loss and making up the difference via a taxpayer bailout.
That’s how cannabis bureaucracy destroys wealth.
According to the review, Health Canada expected to recover 100% of their regulatory costs. “Based on estimates of market size and the number of licensed producers at the time,” they write, believing the hype that LPs were promoting.
Of course, to anyone paying attention, there was a supply glut. The numbers LPs were throwing around in 2018 were extravagant and in no way based on fundamentals. We reported on this. It wasn’t a secret.
As Ringo Starr said, “everything government touches turns to crap.” And it wouldn’t be a true bureaucratic boondoggle without rubbing salt in the wounds.
Not only has Health Canada failed to recover the costs of their regulatory program, but this regulatory program is suffocating the legal cannabis industry.
From compliance fees to arbitrary banana-republic-style decisions, the cannabis bureaucracy is destroying wealth and is out of control.
And they know this. As part of the review, Health Canada sent questionaries to licence holders. The response?
Given the economies of scale, fees, excise taxes, and other compliance costs have a greater impact on micro-producers.
From the review,
Despite the relatively lower fees, a higher proportion of micro licence holders (37.5%) compared to standard licence holders (20.5%) reported that fees accounted for over 10% of operating costs.
Micros spend over 10 percent of their costs on security requirements compared to standard licensed producers. This is despite having fewer requirements than the bigger guys.
Micros also pay more for record-keeping (nearly 30%) than standard LPs (13.5%).
But remember to add salt to the wounds.
The government’s monopoly cannabis boards favour low-cost cannabis products. They want to buy bulk flower on the cheap. It is not ideal for craft growers specializing in premium goods.
This is how cannabis bureaucracy destroys wealth.
They charge $1,781 for a security clearance fee. They charge $658 for import/export permits.
Health Canada charges standard cultivation and processing licences 2.3 percent of their revenue for an annual regulatory fee, or $23,000 (whichever is higher).
For micro-cultivation and processing and nursery licence holders, the rate is 1 percent of cannabis revenue up to $1 million. (And then 2.3 percent over $1 million).
Excise taxes are outside the scope of Health Canada’s regulatory program. Although, they don’t help. All these fees and the bureaucracy can’t even recover its operational costs.
A business operates on the margins. They can’t afford this kind of petty tyranny.
Small businesses must carefully assess the marginal revenue they create. They must weigh regulatory costs against additional revenue from expanding operations.
The more a business produces, the incremental benefits decrease. Regulatory costs add another layer of expense that diminishing returns cannot justify. This, in effect, makes small marginal businesses unable to expand.
Something is seriously wrong when you have to ask permission to produce from people who produce nothing.
THE INFERIORITY OF GOVERNMENT ACCREDITATION AGENCIES
The Inferiority of Government Accreditation Agencies
To sum up, cannabis bureaucracy destroys wealth. They do this through:
Coercion: Government regulatory agencies use coercive force to enforce compliance. This is morally repulsive.
One-Size-Fits-All: Government regulations are simple tools in a complex, capital-intensive economy. Ultimately, they stifle innovation and adaptability.
Bureaucratic Inefficiency: Health Canada believed the hype of LPs that the Canadian cannabis market would be huge. It wasn’t. It was a bubble that they based their calculations on.
Political Influence and Capture: Political pressures and lobbying influence regulatory agencies. This leads to regulations that benefit specific interest groups rather than the consumer.
Lack of Accountability: Government agencies lack the same level of accountability as private entities. There is no rational economic calculation and no consequence to being disastrously wrong.
In contrast, a system of private accreditation works better. Imagine buying cannabis with the following:
a seal from a reputable company
a seal from a less reputable company
a seal from a company with a lousy reputation
no seal, and thus, no guarantee the grower hasn’t sprayed their product with pesticides.
Contrast this to the one-size-fits-all approach, and you can see how cannabis bureaucracy destroys wealth.
The Superiority of Private Accreditation Agencies
Private accreditation agencies are voluntary. Everyone determines the value of the accreditation through market demand. A competitive market means multiple agencies can exist, catering to diverse needs and keeping each other in check by directly competing for customers.
Private enterprise adapts and produces technological advancements. They respond better to new developments and aren’t burdened by bureaucratic inertia.
Private agencies can focus on specific industries, allowing them to tailor accreditation criteria to what helps inform and protect consumers. Consumers can choose which agencies’ standards they value and trust.
There’s greater cost efficiency in the private sector. No private accreditation agency would survive long posting an annual loss. Private enterprise is also decentralized, giving stakeholders more control over regulatory standards and reducing political lobbying and undue influence.
Overall, however, the main benefit of private accreditation is that it’s a system based on contracts. Courts could resolve disputes (over edibles, for example) when the terms and conditions of the agreement are clear.
In other words, there is greater freedom and efficiency when we don’t base our producer-regulatory relationships on metaphysical theories about the “social contract,” no one has ever seen or signed.
MARKETS WIN
Health Canada’s cost-effectiveness is abysmal. No one is surprised. All bureaucracy, cannabis or not, destroys wealth. It is the nature of the institution.
On the other hand, markets create wealth. Markets are also self-regulating since, in effect, markets are just people like you and me trading goods and services with each other.
Only control freaks try to control and limit peaceful acts between consenting adults.
I never went back into the woodshed.
Awesome sound did not go back either.
We both are headz and we know this market extremely well we are EXPERIENCE.lol
But you are not.
There was no room to navigate for lps.
We knew that all along.
Legacy own this cannabis market in every country you go to.
Stock market weed is a bad investment.
Called HYPE
I’ve called it everyday here since 2014.
They lose money everyday growing mold.
Heads buy bulk from legacy.
Juniors and lightweights alike buy their one bunk pre-roll to hit Bob’s party next Saturday night…lol
You are doomed dude, you were too greedy, should have sold at 40$.
Greed is a bitch.Lol
Home / Cultivation
S&P discontinues Canadian, international cannabis stock indices
Matt Lamers
August 28, 2023
Two indices tracking the performance of cannabis businesses on North America’s largest stock exchanges have been discontinued amid waning investor interest in marijuana stocks and billions in losses suffered by the companies.
The S&P/TSX Canada Cannabis Index was decommissioned with little fanfare earlier this year after being launched on Jan. 20, 2020.
A second cannabis index, the S&P/MX International Cannabis Index, was decommissioned in November 2021.
The S&P/TSX Canada Cannabis Index measured the performance of a basket of cannabis companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange, including Canopy Growth Corp., Cronos Group, Organigram Holdings and Village Farms International.
No official reason was given by Standard & Poor’s.
But a methodology document on S&P equity indices stipulates that an index may be discontinued if it sees declining investor use or interest – the same issue that contributed to the shuttering this month of a cannabis-focused, exchange-traded fund linked to San Francisco-based Poseidon Investment Management.
Large Canadian cannabis companies have struggled to turn a profit as overproduction and taxes and fees continue to weigh on the sector.
Industry bellwethers Canopy and Tilray Brands, for instance, lost a combined 5.2 billion Canadian dollars ($3.8 billion) in their latest fiscal years – CA$3.3 billion for Canopy and CA$1.9 billion for Tilray.
The S&P/MX International Cannabis Index, launched on Nov. 18, 2019, had lost more than 92% of its value from its peak in February 2021.
That index largely focused on the legal cannabis industry outside North America, which has struggled to meet lofty investor enthusiasm after legalization drives fell short, were scaled back or mothballed in several countries.
The index had measured the performance of cannabis companies trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, according to a notice by the TMX Group, which owns and operates the TSX and TSXV.
“Through our collaboration with TMX, we’re giving market participants a simple way to dissect and analyze this growing market segment,” a senior director for S&P Dow Jones Indices said when the index was launched.
In many cases, corporate executives lightweights put the cart before the horse by building out their businesses before legislators and bureaucrats in key markets had prepared adequate laws and regulations to facilitate sales.
That got investor’s attention…
Legislators in Mexico repeatedly missed Supreme Court deadlines to legalize adult-use cannabis.
In New Zealand, the “no” side narrowly prevailed in a 2021 referendum on cannabis legalization.
Germany, meanwhile, backpedaled on its plan to implement nationwide recreational legalization, opting instead for a two-track, scaled-down approach with limited commercial opportunities.
And in Colombia, the Senate fell just shy of approving a legal framework to regulate recreational marijuana sales this year.
Cannabis-related mutual funds and exchange-traded funds have also fallen on tough times.
In 2020, the Evolve Funds Group, a Canadian fund manager with more than CA$630 million under management, said it would shutter a small, poorly performing cannabis mutual fund and an even smaller ETF.
ETFs are similar to index mutual funds, but their prices fluctuate throughout the day and they can be traded like stocks.
Last week, the AdvisorShares Poseidon Dynamic Cannabis ETF, managed by the Paxhia sibling founders of marijuana hedge fund Poseidon Investment Management, said it was shutting down.
The closure of the Dynamic Cannabis ETF reflected headwinds facing the industry, including falling wholesale prices and the slow pace of federal reform in the United States.
Legacy, meanwhile has traction with fire.
We all know that you are not very smart.
And you are doomed.
But you just don’t know it, just yet.
Bureaucrat.
Coming down burning in 🔥.
Got a lot of flacks for providing cannabis market facts when Linton was pumping a Ponzi with Trudeau’s bag man.
DBrown even called me a Russian Bot…lol
You see, i’m having fun but you are not.
It will get worst but.
It will go at zero in no time cause is has never worked, it doesn’t work, and it will never work.
I called it doomed on my first post here in 2014. 😂
They did not know what to do!
All those billions lost in smoke!
They are fucked.
50% of total population is crazy…
They are dying from covid, and, get that…they still claim covid is a hoax!!!lol
The same 50% believe tilray is a 🏆 winner.
Fools rush in, where wiseman never go…
I,m a retired doctor who sold his clinic facility.
Money is not my problem.
I won’t gamble on a Ponzi.
Facts bother you?
Remember that i called lps “doomed” on my first post here in 2014.
I was right then, and i’m right now.
You are DOOMEDlol"………
You don’t like it?
Have a toke… you will be much less nervous.
You need a rest.
Gambling is not for you!
😂
Suckers are still buying this dog?
Gomer, oversupply will burn you ass… lol
😂
Thailand’s Weed Industry Is Poised to Grow Fast
By Mike Ives, The New York Times on August 27, 2023
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The country’s legal marijuana business — a rarity in Asia — is struggling with oversupply, illegal imports and regulatory ambiguity. Investors are piling in anyway.
In Bangkok these days, it’s hard not to notice the weed dispensaries catering to tourists that have multiplied since the government decriminalized the drug last year.
Many of them take advantage of lax regulations to openly sell visitors dried marijuana flowers that have been well grown. On a recent afternoon, one shop advertised its pungent offerings — weed strains with names like “Ice Cream Cake” and “Lemon Cookies” —
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nssrr5
Re: GoSing post# 13725
Monday, August 28, 2023 10:15:42 AM
Post# of 13727
Not to mention I want the pot my kids smoke to be government approved - its as simple as that...
Folks who use cannabis don,t think like you do…lol
That is the reason why Canadians shop legacy.
Government weed is moldy and taste like shit.
It is way too expansive. Lol
But there,s a few suckers in the lot who don,t know any better.
Suckers like you and your sons…lol
We have a new thingy… it’s called internet.
You Google cannabis and you order.
I order all my bulk oil on the web.
2 day delivery dude.
You live under a rock gomer.
Your lack of judgment is evident…
I’ll break it down for you.
Walmart will never sell drugs.
You pumperdreamer you…lol
Home / Legal
New York court keeps order blocking new adult-use cannabis retail licenses
By MJBizDaily Staff
August 25, 2023
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Don’t believe the hype. Get realistic market forecasts, state-by-state insights and benchmarks for all cannabis sectors. Get the 2023 Factbook.
The court order blocking new entries into New York’s struggling adult-use cannabis market remained in force after a Friday hearing in Ulster County Supreme Court – despite a new appeal filed by the state attorney general to lift the stay.
However, 30 applicants who filed for their permits in time might be able to open for business.
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Several hundred more would-be recreational marijuana entrepreneurs, including both small businesses and major multistate marijuana operators, must wait at least a few more weeks to see how an ongoing legal challenge to the state’s Conditional Adult Use Recreational Dispensary (CAURD) program plays out.
The latest kink in the rollout of New York’s legal marijuana market started Aug. 2, when a group of four service-disabled military veterans sued the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) and the Cannabis Control Board, alleging the CUARD program is unconstitutional.
The veterans claim they want to open dispensaries across the state, including in Manhattan and Queens.
But because they are not “justice impacted individuals” with a qualifying arrest, they do not meet the criteria for a CUARD license.
As of Friday, only 23 licensed adult-use stores are open for business in the entire state, according to the OCM. Of those, five are delivery-only.
Separately, a lawsuit brought by a group of MSOs calling themselves the Coalition for Access to Regulated and Safe Cannabis (CARSC) remains pending.
An Aug. 18 injunction on granting any new licenses, imposed by Supreme Court Judge Kevin Bryant, remains in place.
In that hearing, Bryant declared the CUARD program in “legal jeopardy.”
The judge said it’s likely that a final ruling will find the CUARD program violated the state’s March 2021 marijuana legalization law and that the OCM’s refusal to award licenses to the defendants likely caused “irreparable harm.”
More arguments are scheduled for Sept. 15.
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Separately, the state formally appealed Bryant’s injunction in an Aug. 24 court filing.
The injunction does not apply to anyone who’d completed most of the process by Aug. 7.
The state on Tuesday released a list of 30 would-be retail operators who met that criteria.
During a roughly 35-minute court appearance on Friday, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued for the release of documents that would outline the state’s enforcement strategy against the estimated 2,000 illicit cannabis sellers currently operating in the state.
The plaintiffs also objected to several of the 30 licenses identified as sufficiently in-progress by Aug. 7.
One is in a town that has banned dispensaries, another is too close to a school and six are delivery-only and should not be allowed to operate temporary brick-and-mortar retail locations, they argued.
Bryant took no immediate action on the plaintiffs’ objection.
Attorneys for other retail applicants who argued their clients should not be subject to the injunction have until Sept. 5 to make their case, Bryant also ruled.
Photo by piter2121/stock.adobe.com
Two indices tracking the performance of cannabis businesses on North America’s largest stock exchanges have been discontinued amid waning investor interest in marijuana stocks and billions in losses suffered by the companies.
The S&P/TSX Canada Cannabis Index was decommissioned with little fanfare earlier this year after being launched on Jan. 20, 2020, a spokesperson for S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed in an email to MJBizDaily International Editor Matt Lamers.
A second index, the S&P/MX International Cannabis Index, was decommissioned in November 2021.
The S&P/TSX Canada Cannabis Index measured the performance of a basket of cannabis companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange, including Canopy Growth Corp., Cronos Group, Organigram Holdings and Village Farms International.
No official reason was given by Standard & Poor’s.
But a methodology document on S&P equity indices states that an index may be discontinued if it sees declining investor use or interest - the same issue that contributed to the shuttering this month of a cannabis-focused, exchange-traded fund linked to San Francisco-based Poseidon Investment Management.
The S&P/TSX Cannabis Index had lost more than 92% of its value from its peak in February 2021.
Good luck with that caper dude.lol
Home / Finance
Former CEO, Canadian prime minister exit board of marijuana MSO Acreage
By MJBizDaily Staff
August 25, 2023
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Don’t believe the hype. Get realistic market forecasts, state-by-state insights and benchmarks for all cannabis sectors. Get the 2023 Factbook.
Former CEO Kevin Murphy and ex-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney have resigned from the board of directors of New York-based marijuana multistate operator Acreage Holdings.
In an Aug. 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said neither resignation was the result of a disagreement with Acreage “on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices.”
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In June, Acreage streamlined its board to prepare for the company’s acquisition by Canopy USA, the American arm of Canadian producer Canopy Growth Corp.
Smiths Falls, Ontario-headquartered Canopy announced in October it was expediting plans to acquire Acreage, Jetty Extracts and Wana Brands.
Canopy struck a deal in 2019 to buy Acreage for $3.4 billion, pending U.S. legalization.
Murphy founded Acreage and served as chief executive 2014-20. He had chaired the board since 2014.
Mulroney, Canada’s prime minister 1984-93, joined the Acreage board in 2018.
The company had a lot of promise at the time, having also added to its board John Boehner, former speaker of the House of Representatives; Douglas Maine, a former IBM chief financial officer; and Larissa Herda, a former CEO of TW Telecom (formerly Time Warner Telecom).
However, the company did not turn a profit.
Acreage reported net losses of:
$32.3 million in 2018.
$195.2 million in 2019.
$360.1 million in 2020.
$73.2 million in 2021.
$168.7 million in 2022.
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In a 2018 interview, Mulroney told MJBizDaily that “others will follow” Canada’s lead in legalizing cannabis at the federal level.
So far, no nation has.
Mulroney is still listed as a board member of Quebecor, a media company in Quebec, and the Blackstone Group, a U.S.-based alternative asset manager.
Simon is no match for Legacy… lol
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwTvO21pwCM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Rats leaving sinking boat in droves…lol
https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1762359/000176235923000080/acrg-20230804.htm https:/
Former Canadian PM Brian Mulroney resigned from American cannabis company Acreage, where we was on the board of directors, earlier this month.
— Matt Lamers 🌻 (@matt_lamers) August 25, 2023
Still listed on the boards of Blackstone and Quebecor.#cannabisindustry #cdnpolihttps://t.co/WtwdKkWTu4
DOOMED
Canadian cannabis companies back off from US hemp CBD market
Solomon Israel
August 24, 2023
Back in the regulated marijuana industry’s more heady days, a U.S. hemp-derived CBD subsidiary seemed like the must-have accessory for any Canadian cannabis company worth its bud.
Canopy Growth Corp. owned a hemp farm in Springfield, New York, and planned to build a $150 million industrial park in Kirkwood, New York, to produce hemp products.
Aurora Cannabis bought Reliva – a Massachusetts-based producer of hemp-derived CBD products – in a $40 million deal that included potential earnouts.
And Cronos Group spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire the Lord Jones hemp CBD brand.
The purchases came after the passage of the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill that legalized low-THC hemp, including hemp-derived CBD.
That legislation generated optimism about a new, multibillion-dollar market for hemp-derived products.
Now, after investor exuberance about the cannabis sector has largely worn off, several Canadian marijuana companies have retreated in one way or another from the hemp-derived CBD market south of the 49th parallel:
Canopy announced in 2020 that it would stop farming hemp in New York in the face of “an abundance of hemp,” although it continued producing and selling hemp-derived CBD products. The Kirkwood project was abandoned, local media reported.
Cronos announced in June it was exiting the U.S. hemp CBD market and relaunching Lord Jones in Canada.
This month, Aurora said it was closing Reliva.
Green Roads, a Florida CBD manufacturer acquired by Canadian cannabis manufacturer The Valens Co. – which was subsequently acquired by Canadian producer SNDL — filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and was acquired by Global Widget, parent company of Hemp Bombs.
The Canadian pullback from hemp CBD in the U.S. partly reflects the diminished fortunes of once-high-flying Canadian cannabis licensed producers.
It also reflects a general lull in the American hemp-derived CBD market, given the U.S. government’s continuing struggle over how to regulate products containing CBD.
“It’s a very, very difficult market in the U.S. right now,” said Bethany Gomez, managing director of Chicago-based cannabis analytics firm Brightfield Group.
Brightfield Group data shows the U.S. CBD market peaked in 2021 at roughly $4.7 billion in sales before contracting to $4.4 billion in 2022, with another decline expected in 2023.
Canadian ambitions
When big Canadian cannabis companies originally invested in U.S. hemp-derived CBD assets, they were well-capitalized and eager to expand their operations around the world.
“And around 2020, it was starting to become clear that there’s only so much that these cannabis companies can grow within the country of Canada – Canada’s only so big, and there’s only so much cannabis that can be consumed there,” Gomez explained.
Canadian licensed producers (LPs) invested heavily in international markets, but Gomez said the U.S. was “the golden prize.”
As publicly traded companies in the U.S., those LPs couldn’t deal with a substance that’s federally illegal.
The American hemp-derived CBD market seemed like a way “to get a foothold there without violating federal law,” Gomez said.
“They could play in the CBD space and then eventually take that presence in CBD into the (high-THC) cannabis space. ”
For Canadian firms, operating in the U.S. CBD space was meant to be “an opportunity to plant the seed of a brand early on (and) get that into the mainstream,” said Beau Whitney, chief economist of Portland, Oregon-based hemp and marijuana data and analysis firm Whitney Economics.
“And then, as the adult-use market opens up, you’ve already got a brand established – and then you just convert over to your adult-use product line.”
American hemp CBD headwinds
So far, the plan to leverage U.S. hemp CBD assets to get a leg up on adult-use cannabis in the event of federal legalization hasn’t played out as expected.
“Fast forward to 2023 – there’s no movement at all on federal legalization for cannabis,” Brightfield’s Gomez said.
“There’s very little optimism in federal legalization toward cannabis, there’s no movement from the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) on (regulation) of CBD, and that market has really hit a standstill.
“And there’s not a lot of promise, in the near term, of cannabis taking off, or having a type of triggering event that would allow them to really tap the U.S. cannabis market.”
In the meantime, the cannabis industry faces an ongoing “capital crunch,” Gomez added – and investors aren’t willing to wait for businesses to become profitable given the uncertainty of federal legalization.
“There’s this pressure to get rid of anything that is not profitable. … Cash is king, and people are starting to run low on cash in many areas.”
Cronos, for example, said it was exiting its American hemp CBD operations “to improve its cash flow in the near term and position itself to directly enter the U.S. THC market” when regulations permit.
Cannabis economist Whitney said Canadian LPs are “pulling back (and) focusing in on their core business” as well as cutting fixed costs in both the U.S. and Canada.
Whitney noted another challenge for companies operating in U.S. hemp CBD: State-level uncertainty amid a lack of federal regulatory guidance.
“And so this is also a risk-mitigation play,” he said, citing shifting state regulations regarding hemp-derived cannabinoids.
Despite the pullback, Canadian cannabis companies haven’t entirely abandoned the U.S. hemp market.
Canopy Growth still sells Martha Stewart and This Works CBD products in the U.S.
Tilray Brands’ Canada-based wellness brand, Manitoba Harvest, operates in the U.S., although Brightfield’s Gomez noted the Tilray subsidiary is more focused on hemp foods than CBD products.
Village Farms International, the parent company of Canadian LP Pure Sunfarms, also owns hemp CBD company Balanced Health Botanicals, although Village Farms isn’t strictly Canadian.
Evolving business practices
The continuing Canadian pullback from U.S. hemp CBD comes as overall hemp production has declined, with U.S. Department of Agriculture data showing a nearly 50% decline in planted hemp acreage between 2021 and 2022.
For hemp CBD, “the amount of licensed acres in the United States right now is less than what it was before the 2018 Farm Bill,” economist Whitney said.
“And so, the number of cultivators have been dramatically reduced for cultivation of hemp with the intention of cannabinoid use, or cannabinoid productization.”
Meanwhile, Whitney sees an evolution in the way some companies approach the cannabis market, citing as an example Canopy’s move toward an “asset-light model” with third-party sourcing.
Whitney expects companies will “develop that very same model for hemp and hemp-derived products.”
By way of analogy, Whitney offered ketchup.
Canadian LPs and U.S. multistate marijuana operators alike have “tried to be experts in the equivalent of growing tomatoes, of processing tomatoes, of making ketchup and distributing that ketchup,” he said.
But ketchup kings such as Heinz or Hunt’s “don’t do that with their ketchup,” he continued: They contract out to tomato growers and processors, then brand and sell the ketchup themselves.
“I think that’s the very same model that we’re starting to see evolve for cannabis, for the LPs out of Canada, and for some of the MSO brands in the United States,” he said.
“Now it’s starting to come into a branding play and an outsourcing play, (a) contract-manufacturing play, much more so than a vertical-integration play – even though, with the Trump tax cuts a few years ago, it was favorable to develop a vertically integrated model.”
The retreat of some companies from the American hemp CBD sector might benefit those who remain, suggested Brightfield’s Gomez.
Hemp CBD assets are “being sold at a fraction of the cost that these companies paid for them,” she said, “which indicates that valuations are an order of magnitude lower, and there’s a lot of people that are out there right now that are shopping for distressed assets.”
Regulating cannabis 'the Canadian way' costs a lot of money. Canada's federal gov't spent $430 million on the regulation of cannabis between 2018-2022.
— Matt Lamers 🌻 (@matt_lamers) August 22, 2023
And if you include a projection for 2022-23 (which ended in March), the feds spent well over half a billion dollars. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/zErrD2Ptf0
I,ve travelled to India and China many times. We adopted 4 girls from 🇨🇳.
You are wrong on both counts.
Wrong. I have 15 free post. I’m a hard worker.
Doomed!
“ According to market research firm Prohibition Partners, over a million German patients will have access to medical cannabis by 2024, and the German medical market alone will be worth 7.7 billion euros by 2028.”
Got to love the pumping…
Sounds familiar?
Proposition worst than Canada.
Germany pass canna law 5 hours ago. I
It will be a major dud!
Worst than Canada’s DOOMNESS…Lol
It was a great Ponzi, while it lasted.
Pumpers have left for “new” pump and dump.
Dude is dying from covid, needs new organs, but claims covid is a hoax…
Typical gambler’s reflex…
Doubling down on that Ponzi… lol
Fake it till you make it!
Canopy selling cannabis facility back to chocolatier Hershey for CA$53
August 17, 2023
A Canopy Growth Corp. flagship facility that was once emblematic of the prospective wealth and new beginnings of the country’s legal cannabis industry is being sold back to its original owner, chocolate maker Hershey Canada.
The sale of the Smith Falls, Ontario, facility – for 53 million Canadian dollars ($39 million) – is part of Canopy’s drive to shed costs and transition to an “asset-light” model, the struggling company said in a news release.
But it’s also symbolic of Canada’s faltering marijuana industry, which has sustained more than $20 billion in losses.
Canopy – which has yet to record a profit – has lost almost CA$6 billion since becoming the first cannabis company to go public in 2014, when it was known as Tweed Marijuana.
Back in February, Canopy said it planned to shutter the Smith Falls facility and lay off 800 workers to save money.
The facility has a rich history and has undergone a major transformation over the past 15 years.
Hershey stopped producing chocolate in Smiths Falls in 2008, leaving the plant empty for years.
In 2013, Tweed Hershey Drive – a company affiliated with Canopy Growth – bought the plant from Icon International, a specialized finance company in Canada and the United States, according to local media reports at the time.
“This is the latest milestone in our focused effort to reduce costs and further enhance our balance sheet,” Canopy CEO David Klein said of the facility’s sale back to Hershey.
“Once again, we have demonstrated Canopy Growth’s ability to achieve significant organizational and operational change to position the Company for future growth in the Canadian market.” LOL
In announcing the pending sale Thursday, Canopy said it will retain its Smiths Falls-based post-harvest manufacturing facility.
Canopy plans to centralize its post-harvest manufacturing at its former beverage facility in Smiths Falls.
In addition, the company is moving its head office across the street. That alone will save tons.
The former beverage facility has been retrofitted to support both post-harvest manufacturing and office functions, Canopy told MJBizDaily in an emailed statement.
For almost three years, Klein has been unwinding many of Canopy’s decisions, and the Hershey facility sale is the latest example.
This year alone, Canopy has grossed roughly CA$155 million from the sale of seven properties, the company said in its release. Not bad.
The foundation for Canopy’s losses was largely laid by former executives, who aggressively expanded the business across Canada and around the world fooling a boat load of naive cannabis investors.
The problem was the company – and the industry – overshot production capacity and overestimated demand for cannabis products. Investors fell for that evidence. The more you grow, the more we sell. Not!
Lps have a following, but these guys don’t purchase much…
By 2017, before adult-use marijuana was legal, Canada’s licensed producers had bankrolled more than enough production capacity to meet demand for recreational cannabis. It was mostly moldy weed…
But companies kept building and buying, and by 2021, Canadian cannabis businesses had sold less than 20% of the marijuana they had produced – a major factor in the industry’s mounting losses - ideally, you want to sell it all.
Canopy, for its part, bought large greenhouses in Canada and overseas in Colombia, Denmark and Lesotho.
Unwinding those purchases, which started in late 2019, has affected thousands of workers.
In 2020, Canopy said it was ceasing some cultivation in Africa, Canada, Colombia and the United States to “improve efficiencies” in its global operations.
Months later, Canopy shuttered more facilities across Canada to save money.
Canopy also unloaded greenhouses in British Columbia, which it once touted as the largest cannabis greenhouses in the world.
US Cannabis Businesses Expect “A Lot More Exposure To Violent Crime” Following Mastercard Ban
BYBEN STEVENS
AUGUST 17, 2023
US cannabis businesses are bracing for increasing threats from criminals following Mastercard’s decision to ban cannabis purchases.
Last month the credit card giant made the controversial and abrupt decision to prohibit its cards from being used to make purchases in cannabis stores.
This has left many businesses, already pushed to the fringes of the US financial system, forced to turn away customers and, crucially, shift their operations increasingly towards cash.
According to a report from Bonno, with the possibility Visa could also follow in Mastercard’s footsteps, many business owners are anticipating ‘a lot more people using cash and a lot more exposure to violent crime’.
READ MORE: Global Cannabis Industry Faces Fresh Banking and Payment Hurdles As Mastercard Bans Cannabis Purchases
Andrew DeAngelo, a Northern California-based marijuana consultant said: “More transactions are going to move to the underground market, where you don’t have this cumbersome problem with payments.”
Cash-dependent cannabis stores are already being increasingly targeted by criminals, reportedly with near impunity.
In 2022, licensed cannabis stores in California reported 329 burglaries with losses, according to Department of Cannabis Control figures, more than double the 147 reported a year earlier.
Mr DeAngelo says the police are slow to respond or fail to follow up, ‘emboldening’ the criminals who feel they can target these stores without consequence.
Several operators are monitoring in-store cash-handling as well as reviewing cash-courier services and security procedures.
When you don’t know what you are doing… Lol
Yikes, did anyone tell @Organigram_Inc that a Jolt similar product is on the market…and no one tell Health Canada’s lawyers either as this could get very embarrassing for them very quickly (100mg THC per pack) #cannabis pic.twitter.com/nCBrCxz1o7
— Shane Morris (@DrShaneMorris) August 17, 2023
So many were harmed, still being harmed.
— stevefoote123 (@Stephenfoote) August 17, 2023
Why doesn’t the world know of the failure of Legal Cannabis Public Policy in Canada?
— stevefoote123 (@Stephenfoote) August 17, 2023
Look into the deal with the Bertrands, and the Delta and Aldershot greenhouses..
— Mr. Monty (@MrMontytex) August 17, 2023
Oh it’s way worse than that
— Scott Sinclair (@MScott_Sinclair) August 17, 2023
Matt Lamers 🌻
@matt_lamers
The tycoons of Canadian cannabis made money all kinds of different ways, while their businesses sustained massive losses. One was buying property and leasing it back to the company - for years and years - as was the case with Canopy Growth and its cofounder, Bruce Linton. 🧵
Cannabis market naive folks all fell for it.
The ones in the know laught. Lol
Linton was a great pumper.
LPs ceo’ do not know what they are doing.
They faked it till they make it…
Doing a superb job! Lol
Or when Tilray’s bunk weed inventory is worthless
Canada’s unsold cannabis inventory balloons to 1.5 billion grams
author Matt Lamers
16-08-2023
Business failures and consolidation failed to stop Canada’s stockpile of unsold cannabis from reaching a new high in the final quarter of 2022, the latest sign that shrinking prices and margins could continue to squeeze companies.
Packaged and unpackaged inventory of dried cannabis jumped to an all-time high of 1.47 billion grams (3.2 million pounds) as of December 2022, according to the latest data from Health Canada, which tracks overall unsold stockpiles of licensed producers, wholesalers and retailers.
That’s an increase from 1.3 billion grams in December 2021.
Federally licensed cultivators were sitting on 1.39 billion grams of packaged and unpackaged inventory as of December 2022, while stores and wholesalers held 80.7 million grams of packaged inventory.
The data suggests the country’s cannabis industry remains gripped by a supply-and-demand imbalance, even though many of the biggest producers have mothballed their largest cultivation facilities.
Last year, for instance, Aurora Cannabis closed its flagship Aurora Sky facility in Edmonton, Alberta – one of the biggest in Canada.
The oversupply situation is thought to be one of the factors forcing down cannabis prices.
The retail price of cannabis has fallen by almost 60% since 2018, when Canada legalized adult-use sales, according to Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index.
Other estimates suggest the overall price decline is more severe.
Wholesale prices in the country tumbled more than 40% last year alone, according to the Canadian Cannabis Exchange (CCX), a live trading platform for B2B wholesale marijuana.
Hypercompetition
Falling prices are putting the squeeze on businesses across the cannabis supply chain in Canada.
Fourteen of the 35 Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) filings in Canada between Jan. 1 and Dec. 22 of last year involved companies operating in the cannabis space.
The filings are equivalent to bankruptcy filings in the United States.
“I don’t think there’s a lack of competition in Canada – I think there’s overcompetition,” said Elad Barak, CEO of Djot, a Toronto-based company selling cannabis dispensers and pod systems for concentrates.
“They’re growing cannabis because that’s what they do. But when they go to sell it, they can’t,” he said.
“You’re seeing two results – some companies are going under, but the cannabis doesn’t disappear. They hold it or sell it” via liquidations of unsold inventory, as companies go bankrupt, he said.
Citing the latest Health Canada figures, Barak noted that there are now nearly 1,000 licensed producers in Canada that are competing in various parts of the federally regulated supply chain.
The number has not stopped growing since legalization in October 2018, despite companies exiting the industry via consolidation and others via the CCAA.
As of last summer, there were 886 licensed cultivators, processors and sellers under Canada’s Cannabis Act.
That figure was approximately 730 in 2021.
In 2020 and 2019, the numbers were 440 and 206, respectively.
Record ‘croptober’
Canadian cultivators produced a record amount of cannabis during last fall’s “croptober” – when most of the outdoor cannabis harvest comes in.
Dried cannabis produced last September, October and November totaled 640 million grams, a year-over-year increase of 14%.
In the same three months of 2021, approximately 560 million grams of dried cannabis was produced.
In all of 2022, roughly 2 billion grams of cannabis was produced, according to Health Canada data.
For perspective, in the same year, approximately 360 million grams of dried flower and pre-rolls were sold at retail in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Saskatchewan, according to Cooper Ashley, analytics manager at Seattle-based cannabis data firm Headset.
Those provinces account for about three-quarters of the Canadian market.
Cultivation area falling
Canada’s licensed growing area is continuing to decline, according to the Health Canada data.
The total area within federally licensed sites where indoor/greenhouse cannabis cultivation activities occurred measured 1,595,724 square meters in December 2022.
That’s almost 30% lower than the all-time high of 2,217,216 square meters reached in May 2020.
Cannabis greenhouse area as a percentage of all greenhouse area – including those used for vegetable cultivation – is also in decline.
At its peak in 2020, cannabis cultivation accounted for a little more than 11% of Canada’s total greenhouse space.
As of today, cannabis accounts for 7.6% of Canada’s total greenhouse and indoor cultivation area – a reduction of more than 30%.
Licensed outdoor cultivation area is declining at a much slower rate.
The area where outdoor cultivation activities occurred in December 2022 measured 595 hectares (1,470 acres).
That’s approximately 16% lower than the all-time high reached in December 2021, when 713 hectares were used for cannabis cultivation.
Businesses cope
Some businesses have adopted strategies to cope with falling prices and soaring inventories.
SNDL, a cannabis producer and retailer based in Alberta, launched a “pop-up” retail brand called Firesale Cannabis.
Pop-up retail outlets are stores which are not intended to be permanent.
In an investor presentation, SNDL called the pop-up strategy a “solution to the sustainability challenges facing the cannabis industry.”
“Our cannabis liquidation pop-ups help licensed producers sell aged inventory at deeply discounted prices, with the aim of providing the most affordable cannabis products in Canada.”
SNDL operated two Firesale stores as of May 12, 2023.
Adam Coates, chief revenue officer of Decibel Cannabis Co. – one of the top cannabis producers in Canada by sales – said falling prices in the discount and value segments puts pressure on the core and premium segments.
“Pricing in those categories is relative, so while there are a lot of discount and value options in dried flower, the more profitable core and premium segments see volume declines when the price difference between those lower price tiers widens,” he told Matt in a phone interview.
“It has an impact on how we think about our pricing strategy and what’s required to be successful in dried flower.”
He said price is being used as the main driver by some competitors to get market share and volume growth.
“But that strips out all the profitability as well, because excise tax stays the same no matter where your pricing is (when priced below $10 per gram),” he said.
“At some point, that has to stop.”