'The legal stuff is garbage': why Canada's cannabis black market keeps thriving

gb123

Well-Known Member
North America’s biggest companies have seen their market values lose billions, prompting comparisons to dotcom bust
Cannabis may be legal in Vancouver but visitors looking to score are likely to run into a seemingly counterintuitive suggestion: try the black market.


Recreational marijuana was legalised across Canada in October 2018. And yet on Reddit, the specialist forum website used by millions every day, many of Vancouver’s cannabis connoisseurs still swear by their underground supply.


This is one of the major issues facing North America’s marijuana companies, which experts say are in the midst of a dotcom-style market crash.




On a high: Canada celebrates cannabis being legalised




Read more


Canada and 11 US states have legalised recreational use of the drug, and a little over a year ago companies that cultivate and sell cannabis were seen by investors as one of the hottest tickets in town. Now billions of dollars have been wiped off the market values of the industry’s largest companies.


The North American Marijuana Index, which tracks listed firms in the sector, has plummeted about 80% in the last year and is at its lowest value since 2016, before much legalisation had taken place.


The market capitalisation of Canopy Growth, the biggest firm in the sector by value, has fallen from $24bn in April last year to just over $6bn now, according to figures from the financial data firm Y Charts.


Advertisement

Around $2bn of that loss has come in the last week. Coronavirus fears, which have dragged down stocks across the globe, have not helped. But a large part of Canopy’s latest share price drop came after the firm was forced to admit that it was struggling in Canada.


The company announced last Wednesday that it would be closing two cultivation greenhouses in British Columbia – the western Canadian province where Vancouver is found – leading to 500 job losses. Canopy, which will be focusing on more cost-effective outdoor cultivation, also cancelled plans for a third greenhouse in Ontario.


Bosses blamed the cutbacks on Canada’s recreational market, which they said had “developed slower than anticipated”.




Get Society Weekly: our newsletter for public service professionals




Read more


The consensus on Vancouver’s cannabis-focused Reddit feeds is that the legal market is struggling to attract buyers because its product is more expensive but lower in quality than the black market alternative.


“The government’s pot is too expensive. The government doesn’t show you a picture of what you’re buying before you buy it, so you cannot be informed as a consumer. The government weed has been full of bugs, mouldy or too dry in some cases, and often takes too long to get there,” one user said.


“The legal stuff is garbage,” said another Reddit user. A third said: “Friends don’t let friends smoke government weed.”


The sentiment is not confined to the realms of Reddit. Canadian government survey results released last month found that 40% of the country’s marijuana consumers admit to having obtained the drug illegally since legalisation.


Omar Yar Khan, national cannabis sector lead at the consultancy firm Hill & Knowlton, says legal sales have fallen short of expectations for a number of reasons. Legal prices – driven up by taxes – have been a factor in helping keep the black market “as rampant as ever”, he says.


But Khan, who advises several cannabis companies on public affairs, also believes firms have suffered in Canada at the hands of regulations that restrict their ability to develop brands.


There are strict rules around advertising for cannabis companies. Khan said: “It’s very hard to draw loyal consumers away from the illicit market to a legal market when there is very little brand identity amongst the consumer groups.”


Companies have also been held back in their efforts to open stores, often by local authorities that are against cannabis being sold in their areas.


“There just aren’t enough legal licensed points of sale across the country,” Khan said. “I think in Ontario now we’re up to about 30. But there are over a thousand beverage alcohol points of sale. So if it’s not convenient for consumers to access the product through the legal system, why would they ever leave the legacy illicit market?”




Malawi legalises cannabis amid hopes of fresh economic growth




Read more


Anthony Dutton, a co-founder and former chief executive of Cannex – a US-focused marijuana firm that is listed in Canada and was recently renamed 4Front following a takeover – believes share prices in the sector have been driven down by certain firms overpromising to investors. He believes some of these companies are likely to collapse or be taken over by stronger rivals in the future.


Dutton, who remains a shareholder in 4Front and still advises the firm, likens the current woes of listed cannabis companies to the dotcom crash of the early 2000s.


“The market got ahead of itself, started to drink its own Kool-Aid, and it was a classic example of any bubble,” he said. “So what we’re seeing now, thankfully, is a lot of the companies that probably should never have been financed – and probably should never have gone public in the first place – are slowly withering on the vine and they’ll just disappear.


“Now there will be a consolidation around half a dozen strong operating companies, including 4Front, and those will be the companies that will take it into the next cycle.”


He added: “It’s just like in the dotcom boom. Oracle, Microsoft and other big companies were all around then, and they were profitable. And when the little companies began to fail, Microsoft and Oracle and the others picked up the ones they wanted, and the others they just let die.”


Kevin Sabet, the head of Smart Approaches to Marijuana – a campaign group that opposes lifting laws on the drug – says the legalisation of cannabis has been a “boon” to the black market in many areas because it means consumers are less concerned about trying the product.


Sabet, who has advised White House administrations on drug policy, also believes cannabis companies have misled their investors and politicians about the societal and financial benefits of legalisation.


“The cannabis business has been oversold to investors as a sure thing to get a great return,” he said. “I think there was a big hype over cannabis that has ended up being a reputation it could never live up to.”
 

Kassiopeija

Well-Known Member
You could try to sell your overproduced weed to other countries e.g. here in Germany our dispensaries constantly run out of their shitweed (labelled 20% THC but smokes like 5% at best and looks like outdoor "Hecke" @ 22€/g WTF...) but then, Im sure, some sort of regulations wont allow it.
What these "regulations" do, in fact, is to prevent that a market self-regulates itself!!
 

gb123

Well-Known Member
You could try to sell your overproduced weed to other countries e.g. here in Germany our dispensaries constantly run out of their shitweed (labelled 20% THC but smokes like 5% at best and looks like outdoor "Hecke" @ 22€/g WTF...) but then, Im sure, some sort of regulations wont allow it.
What these "regulations" do, in fact, is to prevent that a market self-regulates itself!!
it's very easy to get rid of anything worth while. unless it's shit grown by a commercial LP. then its good for the garbage lol
 

OLD MOTHER SATIVA

Well-Known Member
The government weed has been full of bugs, mouldy or too dry in some cases

>just like a lot of BM...

oh the great bm weed..

NO only some is great

BM weed has come long way..many people grow great weed..my guess is the big BM sprays..and not organic

unless we know exactly where it came from ..

we have all been ingesting not perfect weed for decades and decades and decades

however... i personally think irradiation is a big quality no no and ruins even well grown weed

lets get real..BM is not perfect either..

that said most BM is vastly superior

..............grown your own
 

TrippleDip

Well-Known Member
The government weed has been full of bugs, mouldy or too dry in some cases... just like a lot of BM
Maybe if you're still in high school.. Up here a good deal of the illegal pot is grown by boomers that mostly just want to supply themselves, and less by organized crime grow houses. I think that in 10 years the legal market will have the majority share for sure because nobody does anything for themselves anymore.
 

Freedom seed

Well-Known Member
The public is slowly wising up to the difference in clean vs. not clean, based on conversations I have had with various people who tried legal cannabis. Given time the market will be moulded by public opinion and the bottom line. It is important to plant the seeds of truth in them to speed up this process.

If the regulations do not allow the LP’s to compete at all (required radiation), they are doomed. The engineered, industrial environment that was chosen by them may not be safe without addressing pathogens through radiation, and that would likely require changes/investment to achieve the type of quality that we demand.

My advice to unseasoned friends that have tried cannabis over the last while is if you think the weed is lousy it probably is, here try some good stuff and know the difference!
 

OLD MOTHER SATIVA

Well-Known Member
in mild defense of LP's.....

...my guess is that all BM weed would flunk HC QA too

..any amount of moisture[which is a good sign of well cured/dried weed]

...has coliform colonies

i would like to be wrong so you guys vwould all be right about how lousy they are..but HC QA appears to be a recipe for failure...

even if grown well

there was person who posted here recently who said the only way his small LP buddy could pass QA was to dry it way past tinder dry..

LP rooms are very clean too from photo's i have seen and reports from visitors..

quote

:If the regulations do not allow the LP’s to compete at all (required radiation), they are doomed.

>so what is this dream..weed is gonna be deregulated and LPs will not be allowed in because they will have to irradiate..??

who is gonna make these "regulations"...?
 

CalyxCrusher

Well-Known Member
i would like to be wrong so you guys vwould all be right about how lousy they are..but HC QA appears to be a recipe for failure...

even if grown well
This is exactly the main issue that will give mom n pops a hard time too sadly.

It is regulated, they have to irradiate. For good reason, too. Remember the one with legionnaires in the cooling water?
They don't HAVE to irradiate in the sense that it's mandated by HC. However the allowable levels have been set so low the only way to achieve them is to nuke the product, thereby ruining it. Legal US states don't do it and the companies that operate there aren't losing money to the tune of hundreds of millions on a quarterly basis nor are there masses of people getting sick.
 

cannadan

Well-Known Member
we all knew HC had made it impossible to pass QA...that's why there should have been mass withdrawals of all applications to become lp's and medical patients would have been able....thru the courts.... to force health Canada to change the QA, in order for only portions of the crop to become irradiated ...portions for those with compromised immune systems... the rest would pass QA without irradiation as long as some guide lines were followed and poisons not detected.
And as far as rec goes...they could have had another complete set of requirements,for cannabis intended to be smoked or eaten...
We all know as well Health Canada intentionally sabotaged the whole deal....which was harpie's happiest hour.....

Harpie and HC should still be held accountable for what they did...everything from the intentional mail out to the impossible to pass standards...
 

oopsididit

Well-Known Member
great post above

thing is HC doesn't care about cannabis or you and the more walls they put in front the happier they are

please never forget they wanted to nuke med grows..they still do
hey I have a question why does it matter if there was legionnaires in the water it's not like when you smoke the weed you're going to get legionnaires?


I use water from the lake and I bet it has all kinds of s*** in it
 

Freedom seed

Well-Known Member
It was actually a mist from the cooling tower that fell on the surrounding neighbourhood. Cooling water is treated as a low risk product, in the way the piping is designed. It is almost certain there was a leak in the system somewhere inside that building.

Lake water has lots of competition in it. Certainly a few pathogens too. What about soil?

This is the way I see it:

Industrial environment - sterilize that shit, increased risk of pathogens.

Anything else - similar to buying zucchini at the farmers market, educate yourself as a consumer.

Required sterilization - unnecessary government oversight (except industrial), if required by immune compromised individuals can easily be accomplished with any weed in any kitchen using much simpler, safer methods.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
This is exactly the main issue that will give mom n pops a hard time too sadly.


They don't HAVE to irradiate in the sense that it's mandated by HC. However the allowable levels have been set so low the only way to achieve them is to nuke the product, thereby ruining it. Legal US states don't do it and the companies that operate there aren't losing money to the tune of hundreds of millions on a quarterly basis nor are there masses of people getting sick.
Does irradiation ruin it? Link please?
 
Top