The Supreme Court of Canada today decided medical marijuana patients are not breaking the law when they process their medicine into oils, extracts, edibles, salves, tinctures and creams (and toothpastes and generic Rub-A535 and giant kitty litter-style weed beanbags that they can roll around in and anything else that floats your boat, medically).
For a half second, there was much rejoicing in the weedco community, because that side of the medicinal cannabis business is big stuff. Much bigger than selling jars of dried leaf.
But the devil is in the details – rather, the lack of detail, when it comes to actually producing and/or selling such products.
The courts have said it’s fine for a patient to ingest their medicine as they please. Which is smart, because smoking is horrible. But it’s also counter to the Harper government’s stance that, just because the courts say patients should have access to weed, that such access should be simple, fast and patient-focused.
The courts have not directed Health Canada to open their licensing program to edibles. Thus, edibles remain illegal to produce for sale.
This won’t change the existing landscape one iota. Illegal dispensaries already sell edibles by the truckload, and those who have used them widely report their lack of reliability in delivering proper dosage.
A patient in Burnaby I spoke to just last night told me she has a bad back and buys edibles from Weeds dispensary, “But when I use them, I have to clear my schedule for the next day because there’s just no telling whether it’ll have no effect at all, or I’ll be completely useless the next morning. You can’t tell. I take a half dose just to be sure but sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes that’s too much and I’m stoned out of my gourd.”
For edibles and extracts to be reliable, they have to be properly regulated. And to be properly regulated, you need an organization likes (sadly) Health Canada to establish standards and rules and processes for proper licensing.
And Health Canada couldn’t give a shiit.
So the new ruling is great for patients buying weed who can then take the time and effort to go home and do their own extractions and bake their own brownies, but licensed producers will still not be allowed to produce and/or sell them, dispensaries will still sell hand-made illegal products produced with illegally-sourced weed, and consumers will still be getting sometimes relief, and sometimes totally hosed.
But which companies are poised to jump in when Health Canada does (perhaps forced by more lawsuits) get its act together?
Licensed producers. All of them. They’ve all had one eye on the edibles and extracts space for a long time, and they all have plans to be first to market.
I spoke to Peace Naturals last week, and CEO Mark Gobuty told me the margins in extracts are so extreme as to make the existing business of growing and patient sourcing almost negligible by comparison. Tweed boss Bruce Linton made a plea during a Vegas weed convention earlier this year for ‘anyone’ who might be able to partner up on the value-add front to come find him.
Nutritional High (
CSE:NHL,
Forum) is the only Canadian company actively working in the edibles space, as it builds out a multi-US state strategy to do business in that much larger market. CEO David Posner told me this week that the company had no plans to do business in Canada while Health Canada was gumming up the works bureaucratically but that “once edibles open up, we’d be ready to get involved, either as a producer or as a partner for companies looking to produce.”
I tried to reach Posner again this morning for comment, but he’s buried in meetings, presumably about this very issue.
No public company has released any news relating to edibles and extracts at the time of writing, even to say they’d be totes into it. True Leaf released news to say they’re going to a weed convention. Lexaria put out news about a patent filing for some of their tech. Enertopia slung out a note yesterday about its ‘V-Love’ product that is a “sexual desire gel and personal lubricant for women.” But that’s it.
UPDATE: Sure enough, Posner just spoke to a
Forbes contributor about edibles in Canada, saying, “This is monumental […] Another market the size of California just opened up for our products.”
UPDATE II: The news is out.
David Posner, CEO of Nutritional High commented - "We are very pleased with the Supreme Court's decision to expand the definition of cannabis to include derivative products. Being a Canadian company, this inclusion presents new opportunities to Nutritional High at home, as marijuana-infused products and oil extracts are our core specialty. We will evaluate potential ways to leverage our expertise that we've developed in the United States in Canada, as the regulators implement additional licensing measures."
NHL also announced a new inclusion on their board, with Bill Morrison coming aboard. His bona fides are substantial, especially in the growing, vaping and extracts businesses.
Go see the news release for details; it’s worth it.
NHL has been busy, signing a licensing deal that gives them access to
Jimi Hendrix branding, which the market basically ignored but has real potential to make a dent in the US market, and publishing a
deep detailed update on their plans the day after. Clearly Nutritional High is sick of being ignored, and rightly so.
Read more at https://www.stockhouse.com/news/newswire/2015/06/11/medical-marijuana-update-nutritional-high-first-to-embrace-canada-s-edible-rush#DjUW8LmDj6bgO0Sz.99