REC Retail Sales Crack $100M/Month

• Canadians have spent $686.4M on legal REC since legalization.
  Twitter—David George-Cosh
• July's sales jumped the most in BC (34.1%) and Northwest Territories (23.5%), while sales remained closer to stable in the Yukon (1.4%), Saskatchewan (1.7%), and Nova Scotia (5.3%).
  Twitter—David George-Cosh
• Though BC's sales increased, they remained the lowest per capita of any province, due not only to a slow REC retail rollout, but also to the province's longstanding legacy market.
  Globe and Mail

Sector Analysts Uneasy

• US stock-research firm MKM Partners cautiously initiated coverage of five Canadian LPs, rating Aurora "sell" due to flagging profitability, which they expect will improve. The company rated Canopy, Tilray, and Cronos "neutral" and gave Hexo a "buy" rating. MarketWatch

• Cannalyst author Craig Wiggins warned "Canada is legally harvesting at 81% of TOTAL Projected Cdn Cannabis demand" leaving "an 892-day supply glut of existing inventory" and a coming wave of bankruptcies, which will leave behind them "inventory of varying quality."
  Twitter—TheCannalysts

Ontario May End Gov't Wholesale, Dismisses Disqualified REC Retailers

• The Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation owns crown online REC retailer the Ontario Cannabis Store and funnels all REC through its provincial wholesale warehouse.
• The motivation for the change is the threat that after legalization 2.0, there will be so many new products the provincial warehouse will not have space to stock them.
• Lawyer Trina Fraser praised the idea, saying, "There is no reason for a provincial distributor. The integrity of the supply chain can be maintained without product sitting on the shelf of a warehouse in Oakville for god knows how long."

• The judges will explain their ruling within 10 days.
• The 11 disqualified lottery winners argued they did not receive news of their wins quickly enough to give them time to file their paperwork. Judges apparently agreed with lawyers for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario's claim that applicants were responsible for making sure they've given the correct email address.
  CBC Toronto
• Toronto lawyer Caryma Sa'd posted several informative threads before and during the hearing explaining the issues in exhaustive detail.
  Twitter

Retail Checkup

• Alberta REC retailer Ryan Roch tweeted "Articles like this show me most retail CEOs have a lack of understanding on the industry […] We easily moved product from slow moving brands when we used traditional strain names and abandoned 'brand' names."
• Roderick C. Elliot, of public policy consultancy Global Public Affairs, noted, "Nobody has a clue about brands unless they are buying stocks." Twitter

Vape Illness Threatens Burgeoning Canadian Market

• Industry people trust Health Canada's strict regulations will protect the Canadian public, though La resse discovered that a Canadian company applied for a patent on vitamin E as a viscosity agent for cannabis vaping liquid—the same chemical connected with many or most U.S. vape illnesses.
  Bloomberg, La Presse—In French
• A coalition of several medical groups called on Ottawa to subject vape products to the same strict limits on advertising and flavouring as tobacco.
  CBC Health
• Rumours are circulating that Health Canada may delay legalizing vape devices until after October 17, but there's little to suggest this is true. One insider suggested the real challenge for manufacturers will be due diligence that their hardware does not allow metal leeching. Twitter—Matthew Greenberg, Aaron W. Anderson

Quick Hits

1. The Canadian Centre for Substance Use and Addiction launched its searchable Canadian Cannabis Research Database, charting cannabis research under 40 topic headings.
2. Aphria launched a program for parents to discuss cannabis use with their children. They partnered with Drug Free Kids Canada, an organization with which Health Canada severed ties in November after learning it was founded by a donation from opioid company Purdue Pharma.
   Winsor Star, Hill Times

Green Party Cannabis Platform Riddled with Errors

• The platform promises to lower the non-existent "federally set price for cannabis," to eliminate non-existent "requirements for excess plastic packaging," and to "allow outdoor production" (licensed outdoor LP growing began in June and more than a dozen LPs are now licensed to grow outdoors).
  CTV News
• A Green government would also "impose organic production standards," a move BC Independent Cannabis Association President Courtland Sandover-Sly said "would devastate the industry."
  Twitter

Quick Hits

1. CBD LP Eureka 93's entire leadership team resigned following an Ontario Securities Commission cease-trade order on the company's stock early this month. In good news, the company just got a new greenhouse license.
   Globe and Mail
2. The Toronto Stock Exchange debuted the TSX30, recognizing the 30 best-performing stocks over a three-year period. Canopy came in first, and there are four cannabis companies in the top 10.
   TMX

Plant Theft Gets Serious

• Thefts are occurring all over, aided by the strong smell of flowering plants.
  Windsor Star
• The good news is plant thefts are covered under home insurance, with coverage depending on the company. In London, Ontario, police even managed to return stolen plants to their rightful owner after the thief dropped a backpack containing his ID.
  CBC London

• Growing outdoors in a residential neighbourhood has other risks: Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana's Dan Goulet reported his plants were pollinated by neighbours who didn't recognize male plants. Goulet said, "Growing outdoor in Canadian suburbs in 2009 seems to be yielding similar results as growing outdoor in Canadian suburbs in 1975."
  Twitter

Quick Hits

1. Cannabis aquaponics (growing in water used in fish farming) is still in early days—after only two LPs have received aquaponics licenses, Habitat Craft Cannabis became Canada's first craft aquaponics licensee.
   NewsWire
2. Hemp growers in PEI are asking Ottawa to be allowed to grow high-CBD hemp plants, which they say would make them competitive with US counterparts.
   CBC PEI

Cannabis Sending Kids to Hospital More than Booze

• Among those older than 25, cannabis is associated with only 11% of substance-use-related ER visits, while alcohol is associated with 58% of such visits.
• A majority (69%) of all substance-use-related hospitalizations required mental health care. Among cannabis-related hospitalizations, 81% involved mental health care, compared with 49% of those with opioid-related hospitalizations.
• Alberta youths were hospitalized for reasons related to substance use more than those of other provinces. CBC Calgary

Quick Hits

1. Quebec's CAQ government will not require renters to show landlords their MED prescriptions to prove they use cannabis for medical reasons, leaving it up to provincial housing authorities to decide on whether renters involved in a dispute with landlords need to prove their medical need.
   Ici Radio-Canada—In French
2. Canopy's Ontario hometown of Smiths Falls hopes to reframe itself as Canada's REC tourism destination, except no one in the town of 9,000 can legally sell you any weed.
   Leafly

The Week in MED

• The report finds the top five symptoms treated with MED were muscle pain, anxiety, depression, joint pain, and insomnia.
  Regina Leader-Post
• REC legalization changed little about how MED patients treat their illnesses.

Quick Hits

1. Pure Global Cannabis signed an agreement to grow 17,000 acres of hemp in China's Yunnan province. Hemp Industry Daily
2. BC Business discussed the potential for cannabis beverages with two retail CEOs and Tantalus CEO Dan Sutton.
   BC Business

Cannabis "Breathalyzer" for Employers

• Cannabis HR expert Erin Gratton argued, "To market this product to employers in this fashion is dangerous. It puts Canadians' workplace rights and protections at risk."
• She accused the company of fostering fear and stigma in a video where its co-president falsely said, "Use of marijuana is as high as alcohol in our society."
  Twitter—Erin Gratton

• However, short of actual drug testing, employers do have the right to set strict limits related to cannabis, including banning even the possession of cannabis in the workplace.
  Globe and Mail
• As they did prior to dry-flower legalization, employers are nervous edibles legalization will cause workplace inebriation.
  Canadian HR Reporter

Quick Hits

1. Newfoundland paper the Telegram profiled Atlantic Canada's responses to a year of legalization. In Nova Scotia, one in four has bought legal REC, though many continue to buy on the illicit market.
2. BC's municipalities still haven't gotten their share of cannabis excise taxes, though on the upside apparently Vancouverites who live in RVs are now growing weed in them. Good for them.
   Globe and Mail, Vancouver is Awesome