October 17th: Canada’s Cannabis Revolution is Complete

Long live the Revolution! Cannabis Day has come to Canada.

It’s been three (seemingly) long years that Canadians have waited since the current Liberal government made cannabis legalization a central plank in its election campaign platform. Even at that time, the normalization of cannabis laws was an irreversible trend in North America and, to a lesser extent, around the world.

As cannabis Prohibition dies a long-overdue death, cannabis facts are finally beginning to replace cannabis fiction. We now know that there was never even the slightest justification for cannabis Prohibition.

Cannabis isn’t “a dangerous drug”. It never has been. Cannabis is non-toxic and non-addictive. The only vaguely narcotic substance in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is a mild psychoactive drug whose two primary and best-known effects are to induce sleep and stimulate our appetite.

Yet in the United States, with its surreal “War on Drugs”, cannabis is still given an even more restrictive legal classification (and considered supposedly more dangerous) than cocaine and crystal meth. Ludicrous.

Back in the real world, people and investors are rediscovering the commercial potential and extraordinary usefulness of the cannabis plant – the most useful and potent plant species on Earth. Even so, cannabis propaganda continues to freely circulate in our societies.

With absolutely no evidence that cannabis poses any danger to adults, anti-cannabis propagandists still continue to insist that cannabis is “dangerous” to minors. Really? Once again cannabis facts trump cannabis propaganda.

The endocannabinoid system and its receptors are of great importance during prenatal development, but they are also relevant after childbirth. Not everybody is aware that there are already natural cannabinoids in breast milk and what role they play in the development of a human.

In 2004, the European Journal of Pharmacology published a study that stated that all humans are born with cannabinoid receptors, suggesting that endocannabinoids and their receptors have a strong influence during pre and postnatal development.

Cannabinoids – the active ingredients in the cannabis plant – are now known to possess numerous health and wellness properties. Endocannabinoids (the cannabinoids produced naturally within the human body) are believed to play an important role in maintaining and regulating our health, and mother’s milk naturally feeds these cannabinoids to infants.

The pseudo-science that cannabis is “dangerous to children” doesn’t pass the smell test, like decades of anti-cannabis propaganda that has preceded it. There is a strong argument to be made that it is inadvisable for children to consume cannabis. Many parents also want to shield their children from caffeine consumption – another recreational drug. But legitimate medical evidence that cannabis is a danger to children does not exist.

On October 17, 2018; Canada becomes the first major nation to completely and officially banish cannabis Prohibition. In social and legal terms, this is a tremendously positive development for our society. In commercial/investment terms, it marks the beginning of a new era of opportunity.

The genie is out of the bottle. Cannabis can never again be illegitimately banned for our personal use and as a commercially valuable crop. As the rest of the world catches up to Canada, this means that Canadian-based cannabis companies have a major head start versus other jurisdictions.

Cannabis is (potent) medicine. Cannabis is a (totally safe) recreational drug. Cannabis has nearly infinite uses as a health & wellness supplement. Then there is hemp, the other sub-species of cannabis.

Hemp provides all of the commercial and social applications of the marijuana sub-species except as a recreational drug. Hemp has near-zero THC content, meaning that there is absolutely no narcotic effect of any kind produced from hemp. This is legally very significant.

Marijuana Prohibition was a politically corrupt and totally indefensible abuse of our legal system. Hemp Prohbition was simply insane: pretending that a totally harmless/benign plant with more commercial and industrial applications than any other plant species was (somehow) “a dangerous drug”.

On Cannabis Day, October 17th, Canada officially puts to rest its shameful legal history concerning cannabis. Meanwhile, the cannabis industry in Canada is already in high gear.

Even as provincial governments put in place their regulatory and distribution frameworks for the initial legalization of adult-use cannabis, cannabis companies (and cannabis investors) are looking even further down the road. The enabling legislation for adult-use cannabis includes a clause that “infused” cannabis products are to become legal in Canada one year from now.

Just as there are separate markets for recreational cannabis and health & wellness/medicinal cannabis, the same is true with respect to cannabis infusion. Some companies are already at work developing adult-use infused cannabis products. Some are developing cannabis-infused wellness products. Some are exploring both avenues of opportunity.

Meanwhile, Canadian-based cannabis companies are only beginning to seriously pursue the enormous commercial and industrial potential surrounding hemp. Hemp has literally thousands of commercial/industrial applications. In addition to the uses for marijuana, hemp is also a superior fiber for the global textiles industry.

Hemp is a super-food. The hemp seed kernel is simply the most-concentrated source of nutrition available: packed with protein (more than red meat), fiber, Omega fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.

The wildcard in the hemp equation is the pending U.S. Farm Bill 2018. If passed, this would legalize hemp in the United States at the national level. Should this occur, this would then provide a competitive advantage for U.S.-based cannabis companies in hemp – due to a much, much larger commercial marketplace.

At the moment, however, Canada is center-stage today in the global movement for the normalization of cannabis. Investors who got on board with this movement at an early stage have generally done very well for themselves. The message to newer investors is very definitely that the commercial (and investment) opportunity for cannabis has just begun.

Cannabis is a very serious threat to claim vast amounts of market share competing against trillion-dollar sectors like alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, clothing & textiles, and food. The billion-dollar market caps for Canada’s current industry leaders in the cannabis space are not a pinnacle, but rather just a launching pad.

Cannabis Day is here! Canadians should be celebrating this day on multiple fronts.

Celebrate Cannabis Day as an end to injustice. Celebrate it as the dawn of a new era in medicinal and consumer products. Celebrate it as the official birth of an industry with decades of exciting investment potential.