Cannabis In The News: What Happened This Week?

by WEEDS Blog December 20, 2019

Another week over. Time to recap on what we learned and what entertained us over the past few days!

Canada:

CBD Capsules Recall In New Brunswick

Vancouver based Zenabis was forced to recall 770 bottles of CBD capsules in New Brunswick this week. The caps in question were found to contain 2.247 mg instead of the .19 mg indicated on the label. Although the capsules contained over 1000% more THC than advertised, they still contained a very, very low dose of THC. No complaints from the public were received by either Zenabis or Health Canada.

Canadian LP Sued By American Company

Tilray, a BC based LP, stands accused of an alleged scheme to bankrupt soap company Trimax, located in Florida. Trimax alleges that Tilray hoped to acquire their CBD line of soaps for “pennies on the dollar”. According to the lawsuit filed earlier in December, Tilray’s parent company Privateer Holdings tried to convince Trimax’s owners to bankrupt their own company. Like many Canadian cannabis businesses, Tilray saw its share prices steadily drop throughout 2019 and since the start of the year, the company has lost about 80 percent of its market cap. More details are expected in the New Year.

LP At Risk of Running Out of Money

Aurora Cannabis also saw their stocks plummet in 2019 - 70% in the past six months and 14% just since the end of November. With Aurora’s debts rising some analysts are speculating that the company will run out of money before they see an uptick in the legal market. Aurora seem to be holding out hope that things will turn around with legal edibles hitting the market this week and once they launch more CBD products now that they have acquired Hempco. Unfortunately with prices like $10 for a pack of 5 mints totalling 10 mg of THC, they may not see consumers flock to the market in the numbers Aurora presumed.

Abroad:

News of Canada’s lacklustre legal cannabis market also made it to this week’s New York Times. While mainly focusing on the terrible year that the likes of Canopy Growth (who lost $1.6billion in the first half of their fiscal year this year) and others (see above) have had, the article is at times tinged with a sort of “reefer madness”. Possibly an attempt at tongue-in-cheek humour, the article celebrates the fact that legalizing cannabis has not turned Canada into a stoner nation, as was widely feared. Hurray! The author of the piece goes on to suggest that heavy stigma still lives on in post-prohibition Canada, claiming that on a recent evening in Ottawa, most customers leaving a cannabis store declined to discuss their purchases with him. One college student did stop to talk but she said she feared using her full name as it might harm her employment prospects after graduation. You do have to wonder how much of this was constructed or misinterpreted by the author. That’s our round up for this week. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and FaceBook for daily cannabis news and information!