Canopy Growth Corp. led another mass selloff in the Canadian cannabis space after an earnings miss had investors once again looking for a bottom in the battered sector. Both retail and institutional investors have called the bottom on the cannabis industry multiple times through an eight-month-long bear market that has seen the North American Marijuana Index shed almost 60 per cent of its value. Finding a bottom in cannabis stocks has proven to be challenging, given the constant cycle of bad news, including a lack of profitability, significant writedowns and dwindling cash reserves and withdrawn guidance. (See also: Sliding pot prices are leaving cannabis producers vulnerable to writedowns | Canopy Growth, Aurora post steep losses, revenue declines as legal cannabis sector falters)

The British Columbia government announced that they will allow “small-scale producers”, including nurseries, the option of delivering cannabis directly to licensed retailers, as well as farm-gate sales, in the coming years. The provincial government says the decision came from recommendations from long-time cannabis growers, Indigenous leaders and other stakeholders, and is one more step towards allowing for so-called “farm-gate” sales, which the Province also says it continues to work towards. The “targeted launch” for both programs is 2022. How they are defining “small scale” producers is unknown. Federal regulations require that licence holders selling into a provincial retail system must have a processing licence, as well as product sales licences.

Things haven’t been this good in the illicit cannabis industry in British Columbia in many years. Factors such as increased wholesale prices on the black market, a low level of enforcement, and too many challenges for legal players from all levels of government are helping to encourage people to not transition into the legal market. As BC works to create a thriving legal cannabis industry alongside what is arguably one of the most robust illicit cannabis industries on the planet, the appeal of staying in the black market is strong. Even as many former black market growers and retailers do successfully make the transition to the legal industry, many others continue operating as they have for years. (See also: StatsCan: Legal pot spending beat black market for first time in Q2)

Canada’s medical cannabis industry is making a push in the Senate to ban large-scale outdoor cannabis cultivation. Allan Rewak, the executive director of the Cannabis Canada Council, an industry association that represents licensed producers of medical marijuana, urged senators Wednesday to prohibit large-scale outdoor cultivation in the government’s pot legalization legislation. But others have made the push for the government to open up outdoor pot cultivation to reduce the carbon footprint of growing weed indoors. “There are significant environmental costs to indoor production, including electricity usage,” he said. “Outdoor production can mitigate some of these problems and should be considered an option.”

The BMJ has uncovered links between companies, campaign groups and individuals lobbying for wider patient access to cannabis for medical use and a parallel campaign to create a lucrative recreational market for the drug in the UK. The article focuses on the links between commercial organisations that are seeking new markets for recreational cannabis and patient groups and researchers. Some suggest that the debate is being fuelled by a growing breed of new companies, ranging from large scale cannabis growers and distributors in Canada to UK and international investment groups, which are manoeuvring to take advantage of a widely anticipated shift in the UK’s cannabis regulatory landscape.

Earlier this month, an unremarkable sentence appeared in a quarterly report published by Alliance One International, a tobacco company headquartered in North Carolina. “In January, we successfully acquired majority stakes in two new joint ventures,” it reads. Further into the document, it is announced that an Alliance One subsidiary called Canadian Cultivated Products had secured a 75-percent equity position in Canada’s Island Garden Inc. and an 80-percent stake in Goldleaf Pharm Inc. Island Garden and Goldleaf Pharm are medicinal-cannabis companies. (See also: Big US tobacco company buys stakes in Canadian cannabis growers, American hemp firm)

A publicly traded U.S. tobacco company has bought controlling stakes in two Canadian marijuana producers and invested in a North Carolina hemp grower, making what is believed to be the first foray by a significant tobacco business into the cannabis industry. Alliance One International, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol AOI, said it acquired a 75% equity position in Canada’s Island Garden and an 80% stake in Goldleaf Pharm. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed. The moves were first reported by New Cannabis Ventures.

A policy brief by the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation and the University of Toronto looked at c-suite level executives, parent companies and licensed producers in Canada. The research reveals that two years after legalization, 84 per cent of cannabis industry leaders are white and 86 per cent are men; only 2 per cent of industry leaders are Indigenous, and just 1 per cent are Black. Lead author Akwasi Owusu-Bempah says the lack of Black and Indigenous leadership in the industry goes beyond just an issue of representation or diversity: "Black and Indigenous people that we found to be underrepresented in leadership in cannabis were the two groups that were most targeted by prohibition. So they were the groups that were most criminalized, for example, for minor possession."

Senior operating staff working at CannTrust Holdings Inc.’s Pelham, Ont. facility late last year brought cannabis seeds from the black market into production rooms, leading to some illicitly-grown pot flowing into the legal market. In an apparent effort to conceal the black market cannabis seeds from regulatory inspections and other staff members, some CannTrust employees changed the names of as many as 20 strains to those which the company was licensed to sell in the legal medical and recreational markets. Adding cannabis seeds obtained through the black market would have allowed CannTrust to significantly bolster its production at a time when it had overcommitted itself with supply contracts with provinces and other licensed marijuana producers.

The surprise ousting of the chief executive officer of Canada’s foremost cannabis company is a sign of things to come, some observers warned, as the young industry grapples with investor impatience in the face of what has so far been disappointing financial results. Canopy Growth Corp. announced that Bruce Linton, who founded and grew the firm into the world’s most valuable cannabis company, was “stepping down” from both his role as co-CEO and as a member of the board. But in multiple media interviews, Linton said he had effectively been terminated by the company’s board of directors — a majority of whom had been appointed by Canopy’s largest investor, the U.S.-based alcohol giant Constellation Brands. (See also: How will history judge Canopy Growth’s founder as a dealmaker?)

Two Canadian researchers hope their work — mapping the cannabis sativa genome — will get rid of the stigma which they say surrounds the cultivation of hemp and marijuana in Canada. University of Saskatchewan's Jon Page and University of Toronto's Tim Hughes hope other scientists will use their work to develop marijuana as a legitimate medical ingredient, and hemp as a high-quality, fast-growing crop.

Canada remains in the grips of a deadly toxic drug crisis that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands. It’s a crisis that has been blamed on a war — the war on drugs — fuelled by what policy experts and people who use drugs say is a mix of prohibition, criminalization, lack of supports and stigma. In the face of what is called government foot-dragging on providing the tools needed to stem the tide of death, activists are taking action, recently launching a fulfilment centre and compassion club in Vancouver, which procures, tests, repackages, and distributes drugs to people at high risk of overdose. The group is risking their liberty in the process, as the club is not legal — but they’re fighting the federal government in court so that it can be. They haven’t been shy about publicizing their activities, and have even been visited by the federal minister for addictions.

Psychosis is quite rare – fewer than three in 100 people will experience a psychotic episode in their lifetime. People who smoke or otherwise consume cannabis, especially in significant quantities, have a higher incidence. Some people have vulnerability, a genetic predisposition to psychosis, and cannabis can be a trigger, as can other things like trauma or amphetamines. Severe mental illness like schizophrenia tends to arise in late teens and early adulthood, the same time young people tend to experiment with drugs, so the psychosis can be coincidental. Finally, many people with severe mental illnesses that feature psychotic episodes self-medicate, with cigarettes, alcohol and cannabis.

La legalización de la marihuana ha reportado a las arcas públicas de Canadá 186 millones de dólares canadienses (139 millones de dólares estadounidenses) entre octubre de 2018 y marzo de 2019, según datos dados del organismo público Estadísticas Canadá (EC). Los impuestos especiales a la marihuana suponen un dólar extra por cada gramo. De esta cifra, un 25 % va a parar a las arcas federales y el resto, a las provinciales. Los impuestos a la marihuana legal están haciendo que muchos consumidores de cannabis sigan recurriendo a la compra de marihuana de fuentes no legalizadas. Los datos de EC establecen que, mientras que el precio medio de un gramo de marihuana legal en Canadá es de 10 dólares canadienses , en el mercado negro el precio es de 6,4 dólares canadienses.

As Canada prepares to legalize marijuana this summer, politicians are facing growing calls to grant a blanket amnesty for people convicted under the existing drug laws – many of whom belong to marginalized groups. Since the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was elected in 2015 on a manifesto promise to legalize cannabis, more than 15,000 people have been charged over marijuana-related offences – joining close to 500,000 Canadians with marijuana convictions on their criminal record. The Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty launched a petition asking the government to consider pardons for possession charges. The group hopes to gain at least 5,000 signatures by the end of May.

Hace cuatro meses, en el Senado de un país donde la guerra contra el narcotráfico ha dejado más de 250.000 muertos en poco más de una década, un empresario canadiense dedicado al negocio del cannabis dijo ante los congresistas: "Su localización en el mundo es perfecta, sus costos laborales son perfectos, su clima es perfecto (...) Dejen que las empresas privadas expandan sus negocios, que hagan lo que saben hacer". Los ojos de los grandes nombres en el negocio del cannabis están puestos en el Senado mexicano. Algunas empresas tienen cabilderos que recorren los pasillos de la Cámara alta con la esperanza de quedarse con una tajada de un negocio multimillonario.

El 17 de octubre de 2018 Canadá se convirtió en el segundo país en el mundo -después de Uruguay- en legalizar el uso recreativo de la marihuana. En ese momento, el optimismo se esparció entre los habitantes y vendedores de cannabis, generando una especie de "fiebre verde". Sin embargo, a más de un año de la puesta en marcha de la ley se han evidenciado una serie de deficiencias en cadena para adquirir y vender la hierba. Una de las principales preocupaciones es que el mercado negro de cannabis no ha desaparecido precisamente. Los impuestos especiales de un dólar por gramo y los costos de operar en una industria altamente regulada, generan que el cannabis legal aumente su precio esto hace que los consumidores prefieran comprar de manera ilegal.

Desde octubre del año pasado, Canadá legalizó el uso privado del cannabis. Este negocio se transformó en una mina de oro para muchos empresarios. El límite de posesión por persona es de 30 gramos. Ya previamente, Canadá era uno de los países con mayor consumo de marihuana per cápita en el mundo. El mercado negro se avalúa en cuatro mil millones de euros. "Todo el mercado está enloquecido por el cannabis", explica Mark Rendell. El periodista del diario The Globe and the Mail ha monitoreado por un año y medio la industria del cannabis. "No es normal que seamos pioneros en una industria. Pero debido a la legalización, es mucho más fácil para nosotros que los bancos y los accionistas financien el cannabis", explica Rendell.

Mark Rendell, a business journalists  for Canada's second-largest daily, The Globe and Mail, says the decision to legalize cannabis has led to a gold rush mentality within the emerging industry. He saw even sober-minded investors get "high" on cannabis stocks. He is skeptical in view of the many broken promises made by a lot of companies about their production targets so far. "Companies had to drive their story forward, they had to come out with press release after press release... saying we are going to build this and sell this because they were talking to a retail investor audience. So there was a real shock, how much they underperformed." (See also: Establishing territorial footprint has been what the race in Europe has been all about since mid 2016 for the Canadian LPs so far)

While many Canadians have focused on the supply problems and overly optimistic business projections that have marred Ottawa's marijuana legalization project, it's also left behind some international loose ends that still haven't been tied up. Not all other countries have accepted Canada's right to forge a new path on cannabis law. And the ending of Canada's 95-year ban on cannabis appears to have accelerated the demise of a worldwide consensus and treaty regime that, for decades, underpinned the global war on drugs. A year after legalization, Canada remains in flagrant violation of UN drug treaties that it signed — an uncomfortable situation for a country that likes to see itself as a stickler for international laws and treaties.