The first year or so of legal cannabis in Canada has been a bumpy ride. There is a growing legal industry where there wasn’t one before, but there have also been collapsing share values and mass layoffs.
People involved in Canada’s cannabis industry say some of the issues just come with the territory of companies pressured to get too big too fast, and the fact that legal weed still costs a lot more than the competing grey-market product.
But over and over again, members of the cannabis industry say their main problem is a painful lack of retail stores in high-population provinces like Quebec and Ontario.
But even with many more stores, how big will Canada’s legal cannabis economy be?
“The market’s not going to be nearly as profitable as people thought it was,” one business professor predicts. “I’m not sure I see a very bright light at the end of the tunnel.”
What ails Canada’s legal cannabis industry? Lack of stores, mostly
Machel A. Emanuel smells and analyses cannabis plants at the University of the West Indies Mona campus in Kingston, Jamaica. (Getty)
In brief:
• On Thursday, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published a useful update on the young London, Ont., teen who suffered serious lung damage from vaping. He spent 47 days in hospital, some of it in a lung transplant centre in Toronto, and still suffers from limited lung function. He has been using nicotine-based vaping fluids, to which he sometimes added THC. Doctors suspect that diacetyl, a flavouring chemical in the vaping fluid, is to blame. Of note, the case wasn’t caused in the same way as vaping-related lung injuries reported in the U.S. Doctors there are looking at vitamin E acetate, sometimes used as an additive in vape cartridges.
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control said Thursday that 2,290 people had fallen victim to the vaping outbreak in 49 states (all except Alaska) of whom 47 had died. The CDC said that the newly reported cases were a mixture of new cases and older cases that had recently been reported.
• A U.S. poll shows steeply rising numbers in favour of cannabis legalization, with just over two-thirds now supporting it. Legalization has remarkably consistent support across racial and educational groups, and among both men and women. The only real dividers were party affiliation and age.
• In Congress on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted for a bill that would legalize cannabis federally, leaving the issue to the states. It’s quite likely to pass in the House, but faces a rougher ride in the Republican-controlled Senate. “It’s going nowhere,” predicted a Georgia Republican on the losing end of Wednesday’s vote. Forbes cannabis reporter Mike Adams explains why he thinks the bill’s chances of becoming law are “slim to none.”
• Ontario Premier Doug Ford was short on specifics Friday when he was asked about when the province would allow more stores to open, saying that his government is still working toward its commitment to an open cannabis retail system.
• Alberta-based Fire & Flower says it will bid to operate soon-to-be-privatized Cannabis NB.
• A business professor who follows the cannabis industry predicts that privatization will mean that many of New Brunswick’s cannabis stores will close. Nova Scotia’s model of selling cannabis in existing liquor stores makes more sense for a rural province, Michael Armstrong argues.
• Colorado’s outdoor recreational cannabis growers are reporting an increase in cross-pollination from hemp farms. One grower says he lost US$40,000 to cross-pollination.
• Quebec provincial police have raided a Montreal mail-order marijuana operation, seizing edible cannabis, hashish, weapons and nearly $30,000 in cash.
• Taber, Alta., is planning a 60-acre industrial park devoted to all aspects of cannabis production.
• In a piece in Inside the Jar, Amanda Siebert argues that B.C.’s 20 per cent tax on vaping-related materials, which seems to have been aimed at nicotine-based vaping but also covers products like dry herb vape devices for cannabis, targets the wrong problem in the wrong way.
• Apple suddenly got rid of all vaping-related apps last weekend, making dry herb vape devices like the Pax 3, which are made to work with an app, much less useful. “Millions of consumers … rely on the Pax Mobile App to control their session size, set the correct temperature and have lockout abilities to prevent children from accessing our devices,” Pax said in a statement. Apart from anything else, the company’s Pax 3 vape device, which is designed to work with the app, costs $60 more than the Pax 2, which isn’t.
Cannabis plants used for medical purposes at an indoor plantation in Thailand. (Getty)
You asked:
I have a home grow. Harvesting and trimming the plants is a lot of work, and my kids have offered to help. Can I allow this without breaking the law?
Cannabis lawyers Carrie Levitt and Matt Maurer took this on. They reference Ontario, but other provincial cannabis laws are worded similarly.
“Both the federal and Ontario legislation prohibit young persons to participate in the cultivation, propagation, and harvesting of the plant,” they write. “There is an exemption that allows a young person with medical documents to possess cannabis, but that exemption doesn’t extend to cultivation, harvesting, etc.”
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