As you may have heard, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA Championship last week. As you receive this email, the victory parade will be well underway. Of all the social media congratulations, none was as “on brand” as the Canadian Border Services Agency – your Laugh this week…
New Regs
From the CBSA to Health Canada. The new regulations for edibles, beverages, concentrates, etc. came out from Health Canada on Friday. For those with time to read the Mueller-Report-Length document, you can find it here. For everyone else, there is Trina Fraser, Deepak Anand and the folks at CannDelta.
As part of our recent Sessions broadcast, CEO of Organigram Greg Engel connected with Business of Cannabis and Ample Organics to talk about what the new regulations would mean for the Moncton, NB-based company.
Provinces
And not a moment too soon with the new products as Provincial distributors/retailers are losing money… “[SQDC]…posted a $4.9-million loss that will be covered by the province’s taxpayers…”
And it looks like it may get worse before it gets better, because SQDC has labour issues at one shop: “…The 21 employees of the Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie location, one of 15 Société Québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) stores in Quebec, are asking for better salaries, paid holidays and bonuses…”
Knowing the new regs were coming, Ontario issued a product call for the next wave of products last week.
From the US
As Canada celebrates the Raptor and digests the edibles regulations… the US Congress is busy “…Almost a dozen cannabis-related amendments will be considered by a key congressional committee next week.”
Perhaps this is one the US Congress could unpack as well: the Canadian government wants to make sure the neighbours to the south honour Canadian cannabis pardons “…so that U.S. officers have the most accurate information when deciding whether to let people cross the border.”
And with new regulations and expansion of legalization across the US, cannabis-labour rights issues are coming to the forefront, including in Nevada “…Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) has signed into law a bill making his state the first in the nation to ban employers from failing or refusing to hire applicants who test positive for marijuana.”
And why all the attention in the US? Well, states like Colorado are raking in cash. 5 years into legalization, $1 billion in tax revenue.
One last US note, California-based Harborside went public on the CSE on Monday in Toronto. Making the timing of the Ample Organics x Business of Cannabis interview with Harborside legend Steve DeAngelo even more timely… and leading us to 3 Things We Learned from Sessions.
And Finally, Some History
If you thought the legal cannabis in Canada was dry “…Humans smoked cannabis as part of ritualised burial ceremonies 2,500 years ago, according to the latest evidence unearthed at a burial site on the Pamir Plateau in western China.”
