RE:RE:RE:RE:InterestingHere is an extract of the Globe article:
Health Canada issued a licence to Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. late Friday that will bring the company one step closer to being able to distribute medical cannabis to patients.
The government has awarded Shoppers with a production licence, according to the government’s website. This type of licence has been issued only once before, in March, 2018, to CannMart Inc., which is owned by Namaste Technologies Inc. Shoppers' licence, which was granted to numbered company 9408843 Canada Inc., allows it to label and test – but not yet sell – product grown by other licensed producers.
It’s a two-step process to get licensed, and the next stage would allow Shoppers, the national pharmacy chain owned by Loblaw Cos. Ltd., to sell to patients through an online store. Currently, Canadian regulations restrict medical cannabis from being sold in person, such as in retail pharmacies.
Shoppers applied to become a licensed producer of medical cannabis in 2016. At that time, Health Canada was only awarding licences to cultivate and sell medical cannabis. But Shoppers doesn’t want to grow marijuana. Instead, it wants to sell products made by other legal players. It has already signed deals to source supply from major legal growers such as Tilray Inc., Aphria Inc., MedReleaf Corp. and Aurora Cannabis Inc.
CannMart, for its part, also received its sales licence on Friday. On Sept. 10, Namaste said it had prelaunched a website for CannMart so that it would be ready to sell medical cannabis to patients after obtaining its sales licence.