August 7th, 2018

Doctors in Canada want to see the medical cannabis system phased out once legalization happens later this year, says a Canadian Medical Association vice-president.

“The medical profession, as a whole, has really struggled with the whole concept of medical cannabis. There’s definitely some physicians who feel comfortable in that area but most don’t,” Dr. Jeff Blackmer, vice-president of medical professionalism for the Canadian Medical Association, told CBC Calgary News at 6.

“And [that is] primarily because of the lack of evidence, the lack of scientific studies showing it actually works, the lack of knowledge around dosing and interactions with other medications — all these types of things. Our recommendation was that once it is legalized, that there really is no reason for a separate medical system.”

The federal government has tabled legislation that will make marijuana legal in Canada on Oct. 17.

A lack of clinical studies is the reason most healthcare plans in Canada don’t cover the cost of medical marijuana, said Blackmer.

“Right now, the type of evidence, the quality of evidence that we typically look for before approving drugs or before funding drugs, isn’t there for cannabis,” he said. “That’s not necessarily to say that it won’t be there in the future, and certainly that’s something that a lot of physicians are watching carefully.”

Education, said Blackmer, will be important in the lead-up to legalization.

“The reason for that is there’s a lot of misperceptions around cannabis and we know that, from surveys and studies that have been done,” he said. “We really want people, when they’re deciding whether or not to use cannabis once is becomes legalized, to make an informed decision. To understand there are risks associated with that, that there are potential health consequences.”

Dr. Jeff Blackmer says many doctors don’t feel comfortable prescribing marijuana due to a lack of study around the effects of consuming cannabis. (Robyn Miller)

One concern Blackmer has centres around teenagers using cannabis. Some provinces — including Alberta — have set the minimum age for use at 18, while others set the minimum age at 19.

“We know that more young people use this substance than older people. We know it is something teenagers often try in high school and we know that it has a detrimental impact,” he said.

“There’s a difference between a 15-year-old smoking cannabis versus someone who’s in their 40s, where the brain is already fully developed. It does have a detrimental impact [in young people] and we’ve seen that in studies and surveys and other research.”
Cannabis is set to be legalized in Canada on Oct. 17. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy)

Once legalization happens, Blackmer said, there will be no reason for people to access it through their doctor.

“If anyone can go down to the local dispensary and get cannabis, there’s really no need for a separate medical authorization system. You really don’t need to have people going to their doctors because anyone who has a medical condition and thinks they might benefit from it can go ahead and try it,” he said.

“And there’s nothing to stop them from asking their doctor, ‘might it work for this condition,’ or ‘do you have any idea about what doses I should use,’ or these types of things.”
Doctors want education to be a big component of marijuana legalization. (Ron Ward/Canadian Press )​

Blackmer says the number of medical authorizations has gone down in jurisdictions where cannabis has been legalized, something he expects to see here as well.

“The hypothesis is that there’s a lot of people who may have initially turned to the medical system to get access who now don’t need to do that anymore. So the number of prescriptions, or authorizations, seems to go down,” he said. “And that’s sort of what we’re anticipating in Canada, that the system sort of phases itself out over time, as we get more experience with [legalization].

“There will be some physicians who feel that this has a real place in terms of treatment options and will continue to have those conversations with patients. But we’re hoping for the vast majority of physicians who are uncomfortable, it will mean their patients can just seek it out on their own, they won’t have to find another doctor or to go to a cannabis clinic. They can go down to the dispensary and see if it works for themselves.”

Not a typical prescription

And it’s “more accurate to say authorized,” rather than prescribed, says Blackmer.

“It’s not a typical prescription because it’s not something where you’d give it to a patient on a piece of paper and they’d take it to a pharmacy of their choice — that’s really a prescription,” he said.

“An authorization is something the doctor authorizes and faxes it or emails it to a specific distributor of cannabis and then the patient goes through that distributor, so it’s definitely a different process.”

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/canadian-medical-association-cannabis-legalization-1.4772000

July 4th, 2018

Canada gets ready to implement legal recreational marijuana later this year, the U.S. neighbor’s cannabis stocks have surged and some experts suggest marijuana could be the next Bitcoin.

“I believe the incredible tailwinds blowing at legal marijuana’s back make it so the opportunity here is much like the one internet stocks offered in 1994 … or the one bitcoin offered in 2015,” Matt McCall, founder and president of Penn Financial Group wrote for Investor Place.

Cannabis stocks were also among Canada’s best performing last year. Canopy Growth and Aurora Cannabis are the top publicly traded marijuana companies, and those who invested in them a year ago have “easily reaped Bitcoin-like returns,” Canada’s Global News reported.

After Canada’s parliament voted to legalize recreational weed on June 19, marijuana stocks in the country immediately surged. Canopy, the nation’s largest producer, increased by 6 percent to a record high of $34.17. Arora increased by 3.8 percent and Cronos Group Inc., another marijuana company, surged 6.2 percent, Bloomberg

Marijuana activist Chris Lawson makes a speech on stage during a rally in support of legalizing marijuana on June 5, 2004, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. After Canada’s parliament voted to legalize recreational weed on June 19, marijuana stocks in the country immediately surged. Donald Weber/Getty Images

Canada’s legal marijuana industry is already valued in the billions. Top companies Canopy and Aurora are estimated to be worth about $6.7 billion and $3.8 billion respectively. With legalization set for October 17, most experts expect rapid growth over the next few months.

“If you missed the opportunity to make 50 times your money in internet stocks … or if you missed out on the opportunity to make 50 times your money in bitcoin, you’re going to want to know how to play weed,” McCall wrote.

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A 26-year-old Canadian enigneer who plans to invest in the cannabis market, but prefers to remain anonymous due to the persistent stigma, told Newsweek that those who invested last October and November have quadrupled their money. However, right now “it’s more of ‘fear of missing out'”, he said. “There’ll probably be another spike in October [of this year] … so I’ll bet on that.”

At the same time, experts have also cautioned that some companies won’t be able to meet their commitments once cannabis is fully legalized. Some also suggest that there won’t be enough weed to go around.

“I think there’s companies very well suited to back up what they’re saying, and I think there are some that are just hoping for the best,” Matt Bottomley, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, told Bloomberg . “There are some in this market that are not going to be long-term participants.”

Bruce Linton, who leads Canopy, also predicts “there will be a massive undersupply in 2018,” according to Global News.

Allan Gregory, a professor of economics at Queen’s University, told the Canadian news outlet that he doesn’t think cannabis is “an investment product for the faint of heart.”

While stocks will surge and many companies will launch in the coming months, Gregory warned that while not “every marijuana stock is going to fall … the losers will outweigh the winners.”

Another potential risk to the Canadian marijuana market is the reaction from the U.S. While nine U.S. states have legalized cannabis for recreational use, and 30 have done so for medical purposes, it remains completely illegal under federal law.

Uruguay, the first nation to decide to legalize recreational marijuana in 2013, has felt the repercussions of this legal reality. Top U.S. banks have refused to do business with Uruguayan banks that manage money from legal cannabis sales. The banks have cited U.S. federal regulations against drug trafficking and money laundering. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also reportedly warned Canadian lawmakers prior to Ottawa’s vote, saying that legalization could cause problems for Canadians.

Although it remains unclear whether banks will take a similar stance when it comes to Canada, Hannah Hetzer, senior international policy manager at Drug Policy Alliance, believes the U.S. neighbor’s prominence could shelter it from a similar fallout.

“It really remains to be seen if U.S. banks will do the same for Canadian banks,”Hetzer previously told Newsweek. “We might just see that U.S. banks decide to say nothing in this case,” she said, but added that “it could create an obstacle” if banks decide to take a stance against Ottawa’s new policy.
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Source: http://www.newsweek.com/canada-legal-marijuana-new-bitcoin-1004284

June 29th,2018

The majority of Canadians want marijuana legalization delayed for up to one year to give federal and provincial governments more time to figure out how to deal with the societal implications, according to a new poll.

After the Cannabis Act passed its final vote in parliament last week, Justin Trudeau announced that marijuana will become legal on Oct. 17, giving provinces and territories just under four months to get ready. But 55 per cent of Canadians want legalization delayed, and 69 per cent are worried that the black market will continue to thrive because legal cannabis will cost more, according to a new Dart Insight poll conducted earlier this month.

In fact, six out of 10 Canadians think the Cannabis Act “is just a big political move to get votes and nothing else.” This sentiment is most common in Alberta (68 per cent) and Quebec (64 per cent), while 51 per cent of people in B.C. disagree. This view is also more likely to be held by men (62 per cent) than women (55 per cent), but even 58 per cent of young Canadians, aged 18-34, agree that the Liberals legalized marijuana for political gain.

“We’ve got a majority of people in this country, about half the population, that is deeply concerned that marijuana is going to roll out and key sections of society are not prepared to deal with it,” said John Wright, CEO of Dart Insight. “The motive is purely political, but the impact at the local level is very real…. If it comes off the rails, the Liberals may pay a price for it in the next election.”

A majority of Canadians (55 per cent) and 61 per cent of people over 55 think that their province is not ready to deal with stoned drivers. More than 60 per cent of people in Quebec and Alberta do not think their government has an effective plan in place, while people are more likely to think their province is prepared in Ontario (52 per cent).

“The issue with driving under the influence is, how do you detect it? Especially when there are edibles on the market. How do you measure it? How do you detect it? How do you identify who is under the influence and by how much?” Wright said. “We have a lot of science on alcohol but not on (cannabis).”

The country is split on how legalization will affect minors. Just over half (51 per cent) of those surveyed think underaged kids are more likely to get addicted to marijuana than cigarettes. Two thirds of Quebecers (64 per cent) are concerned about this, while the majority of people in B.C. (57 per cent), and Alberta and Atlantic Canada (56 per cent) disagree. Most Canadians (73 per cent) want joints to be treated like cigarettes, including how they are packaged.

In another attempt to protect children, the poll found that 67 per cent of Canadians think adults with children should be banned from smoking marijuana at home. Women (70 per cent) were more likely to hold this view than men (63 per cent).

“The federal government has been on this path for the last couple of years, but the rubber doesn’t hit the road at the federal level, it does so at the provincial level. That’s where ground level distribution, intoxication, resourcing issues lie,” Wright said. “I think these are legitimate concerns.”

The online survey was conducted from June 8 to 13 and polled a representative sample of 2,560 members of the Maru/Blue Online panel. The results are considered accurate to within 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Source https://nationalpost.com/cannabis/deeply-concerned-marijuana-legalization-moving-too-fast-for-most-canadians-poll-suggests

June 6th,2018

Lawyer Blair Pritchett leading marijuana in the workplace seminar in St. John’s.

Blair Pritchett is helping businesses in Newfoundland and Labrador prepare for legal cannabis. (Andrew Sampson/CBC)

In anticipation of marijuana, dry herb, weed vaporizers, becoming legal across Newfoundland and Labrador, and in the rest of Canada, employers still have many unanswered questions.

Some of them have been turning to lawyer Blair Pritchett, a partner at McInnes Cooper in St. John’s.

He led a half day seminar on Tuesday at Memorial University to brief them about what they’ll have to look out for when pot is legalized.

“I think the biggest issue is going to be … the issue of residual intoxication,” said Pritchett in an interview with CBC Radio’s On the Go.

“A lot of drugs … we have a more firm understanding about how long they stay in your system, how long they’re psychoactive, and how long they impair your performance, and marijuana that’s very much up in the air.”

He said it also isn’t clear how many people will start smoking weed when it’s finally legal.

“There’s a small part of me that thinks that this may be another Y2K phenomenon,” he said.

“That [day] will come along and the world will keep spinning, and the people that consume marijuana in their own time in their own way will continue to do so and we won’t see a serious change in circumstances.”
Strict drug testing laws in Canada

One of the things employers will want to do is make sure their employees aren’t using or impaired from marijuana while at work.

Pritchett said in Canada employers can only test employees for intoxication if there’s reasonable cause, or if it’s suspected following a workplace accident.

“It’s certainly not like the United States where you can randomly test your workforce as you see fit,” he said.

In the meantime, employers will have to assess on the job performance on a case-by-case basis.

He’s hopeful that after legalization there will be more evidence of how long the effects of marijuana linger after ingestion.

“Until there’s a bit of an advance in the scientific understanding it’s going to be very difficult to sort out when can you comfortably [know] somebody is no longer impaired.” said Pritchett.

“But at the end of day, that uncertainty about how many more people will be using, how much bigger a problem might on the job intoxication be, that’s what scares people right now.”

Source : www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/weed-at-work-employers-brace-for-legalization-1.4692793

May 8th, 2018

New Brunswick veterans with PTSD are preparing to take the federal government to court in hopes of winning a declaration that Veteran’s Affairs Canada violated their rights when it reduced the amount of medicinal marijuana it would cover.

Members of the group use the drug to treat their service-related injuries. In an unusual move, instead of seeking payments for damages, the veterans plan to ask a federal court to rule that VAC violated its obligation to vets last May, when it reduced the daily allowance of medical cannabis by 70 per cent, from 10 grams to three.

David Lutz, the Saint John-based lawyer who is representing the plaintiffs, said they want to be compensated for enough cannabis to avoid resorting to prescription drugs to control symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other conditions. The lawsuit, which has yet to be filed, could also seek a declaration that VAC must address the rights violation by restoring funding to its previous level.

“We are asking for a declaration by the court that reducing from 10 grams to three grams is a violation of the government’s obligation to the veterans,” Mr. Lutz said. “We need to make a new law here.”

When the cuts were instituted last May, more than 2,500 veterans across the country had authorization to use more than three grams of medicinal marijuana a day to treat symptoms of PTSD, chronic pain and more, even though scientific evidence on its use as a treatment is scant.

The cuts forced all of those veterans onto lower doses and many former soldiers told The Globe and Mail they tried to take their own lives to avoid relapsing with uncontrollable symptoms. Some followed through, including one veteran who told his family he could not survive on the reduced dose and killed himself after just one week.

One year later, funding has been restored for nearly half of the veterans whose coverage was cut to three grams, in many cases up to 10 grams a day. Those who have signed onto the effort to launch a class-action lawsuit – which is being funded by Veterans for Healing, an advocacy and support organization in Oromocto, N.B. – want to ensure nothing similar happens to vets in the future.

“It’s not about money, it’s about doing what’s right,” said Jamie Keating, a Saint John-based veteran who will be the named plaintiff. It is also backed by well-known veteran and cannabis advocate Fabian Henry. “You can’t just cut vets off cold turkey when something works,” Mr. Keating said, adding: “If it was opiates, they wouldn’t be able to just stop.”

Costs of VAC’s medical marijuana had skyrocketed to more than $60-million – making it the most costly item in the department’s drug-benefit program – and the lack of science to support using cannabis as a treatment factored prominently in the decision to scale back.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-veterans-with-ptsd-plan-lawsuit-over-cuts-to-funding-for-medical/

April 4th, 2018

Terry Booth didn’t expect his life would come full circle, thanks to canadian marijuana.

He sold pot in high school, peddling quarter ounces for $25 to help out his dad. He spent the next two decades working as an electrician and entrepreneur, and planned to semi-retire to the golf course after taking a step back from his construction permit firm. That idea went to pot, literally, when his business partner Steve Dobler said his brother-in-law was looking for investors on a marijuana play.

“Steve’s a pretty conservative guy; I thought he was kidding,” said Booth, 53, sitting in a hotel conference room in Edmonton, not far from where Aurora Cannabis Inc. is building a greenhouse the size of almost 14 football fields. “But he wasn’t.”

Booth and Dobler are the largest individual holders of Aurora, Canada’s second-largest marijuana firm. Their combined stakes are now approaching $200 million, making them among the wealthiest shareholders in Canada’s growing crop of newly-minted marijuana millionaires.

As Canada moves to legalize recreational cannabis, the value of the nascent market has ballooned to more than $25 billion, swelling the ranks of affluent pot investors who have significant holdings in companies such as Canopy Growth Corp. and Aphria Inc. The U.S. legal market is expected to reach $75 billion (U.S.) in sales by 2030, almost as large as North America’s soft drink market, according to research firm Cowen & Co. Canadian sales could soon be worth between $7 billion and $12 billion a year, Beacon Securities estimates.

Even after a recent sell-off, many marijuana-related stocks have more than doubled in the last year. Never mind that recreational marijuana won’t be legal until later this year and some publicly traded companies have yet to make a sale.

“Insiders have created a huge amount of wealth for themselves and even early investors,” PI Financial analyst Jason Zandberg said in a telephone interview. “It reminds me of back in the dot-com days. You always heard of a friend of a friend who got in early and got their company bought out.”

Companies initially began piling into the sector in 2013 after Canada changed the rules governing medical use to allow access through licensed producers. Still, before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wooed voters in the 2015 election with a promise to legalize recreational marijuana, publicly listed medical pot firms were trading for pennies. In mid-2015, Aphria traded for less than $1 (Canadian), while PharmaCan, which later renamed itself Cronos Group Inc. and listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market, hovered around 30 cents.

Source : https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/04/06/canadas-marijuana-millionaires-surprised-by-stock-surge.html

March 12th, 2018 

  Canadians will have to wait until at least early August and possibly as late as early September to legally purchase recreational marijuana. That’s the bottom line now that senators have struck a deal to hold a final vote by June 7 on the legislation that will usher in the legal cannabis regime. As recently as last week, the Trudeau government was insisting it was on track for legalization in July. But given the Senate timetable, Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor conceded Thursday that’s not going to happen.

“If you do the math, you can certainly see it certainly won’t be July 2018,” she said.

Assuming Bill C-45 is passed by the Senate by June 7, royal assent would follow almost immediately. But it would take another two or three months before legal weed was actually available for purchase. That’s because, as Petitpas Taylor reiterated Thursday, provincial and territorial governments need eight to 12 weeks following royal assent to prepare for retail sales. In other words, legal pot won’t be available until at least early August, and possibly not until a month later. Petitpas Taylor said legal cannabis will go on sale in all provinces and territories at the same time, which suggests if just one of them requires the full 12 weeks to get ready, they’ll all have to wait.

As part of the deal struck by Sen. Peter Harder, the government’s representative in the Senate, with other Senate factions, initial debate on Bill C-45 will continue until March 22. That’s three weeks beyond the deadline Harder announced earlier this week, when he threatened to move a motion to cut off second reading debate if senators didn’t agree voluntarily to end it by March 1. However, the additional three weeks includes a two-week parliamentary break so, in reality, senators will get just an extra three days of debate.

Source:

Global News: https://globalnews.ca/news/4030429/recreational-marijuana-canada-sale-delay-august/

 February 5th, 2018

Only cannabis and cannabis accessories will be on the shelves in legal marijuana dispensaries in B.C come July. The prohibition is one of several details Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth released Monday. Countless more will come out in the next few months before the new era of legal cannabis arrives in Canada on July 1. Farnworth said the government’s adaptation will carry on for a long time after that. And a lot of the further details will involve municipal governments, which have significant say in shaping the retail landscape and have been grappling with how to do so.

July is only the beginning…

All governments will be assessing and refining the regimes being put in place for months and years to come.

B.C. is the one taking shape, looks to be a middle-of-the-road approach comparable to what other provinces are putting together. Cannabis will be sold in both public and private stores, but only the government-run side will be able to offer online sales. Various sensible restrictions are imposed, but public use will be allowed, although not in high-traffic areas like parks or beaches. Other jurisdictions allow use only in private dwellings.

Interest groups urged Farnworth to allow cannabis to be sold in through B.C. liquor stores, but he was warned off that idea by public health officials who didn’t want to see alcohol and marijuana available together. Very few jurisdictions are going that route, so the government stores will be stand-alone cannabis-only shops. And there are no distance limits from schools or other retailers, although municipalities can set them.

The decision to sell separately from alcohol will involve building a brand-new network of dozens of government stores from a standing start. A separate wholesale system is also planned.

That is only one part of the tens of millions in up-front costs B.C. will incur, well before it starts bringing income in, by way of sales and taxes. Which means mark up on Marijuana and weed vape products.

http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/legal-cannabis-won-t-come-cheap-in-b-c-1.23165810

January 10th, 2018

The prospectors in Canada’s new market are working hard and cutting deals as we steadily approach the nationwide legalization of marijuana and weed vaporizers. The Canadian marijuana industry is currently valued at more than $22 billion. This figure includes growing and retail sales, transportation, security, edibles, taxes, and tourism.

Canadian entrepreneurs could also be at the forefront of a growing global enterprise. Not only exporting cannabis, but the technology used to grow it. Marijuana sales have amounted in billions of dollars while employing many people. However, this is on the black market run by illegal criminal organizations.

The first major test for cannabis entrepreneurs is whether or not that can capture the nations estimated five million customers and take them away from the black market. “Just like any other competitor entering a new market, the incumbents aren’t going to give up easily,” says Kyle Murray, vice dean of the University of Alberta’s school of business.

Replacing the black market

   Many provinces are still discussing how exactly they plan to sell marijuana and weed vaporizers to the public. The only two that have announced a retail plan are Ontario and New Brunswick. Both have agreed on government-owned stores. According to an analyst with Mackie Research Capital Corporation, they are making a big mistake. Greg McLeish things that government-run retail stores will only help the black market. “These guys have been growing for a long time,” he says, noting that price and convenience will be key in determining where people buy their weed.

When Corporate and cannabis cultures combine

  Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis is one of the early leaders in the industry, among those actively recruiting from the black market. “The hybrid culture that we’ve created, that uniquely hybrid culture has been incredibly satisfying to be part of,” says Cam Battley, Aurora’s executive vice president. 

He says, “Aurora is made up of suits like me, people from business backgrounds as well as people from the cannabis culture and have extensive knowledge and passion for the cannabis plant itself.” The company is currently producing medical marijuana at its 5,000-square meter facility.

More money, more jobs

   The impact of legalizing marijuana and weed vapors could be large, in the area of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Cannabis companies that emerge will need to hire people like accountants, customer service professionals, packagers, security, lawyers, etc. These same organizations will need to rent out office space, purchase furniture, pay taxes, and hire a lot of new employees.

Governments are currently spending millions of dollars on education, legal authority and testing. Labs are also receiving a boost as part of research and development. The legalization of cannabis and weed vaporizers provides the potential for many new jobs. People with the skill of recognizing the subtle different qualities of a bong rip could find themselves with a career in bud-tending. The opportunities are endless.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-cannabis-greenrush-1.4383010