Yesterday’s news that Canada is expected to have legal marijuana sales available by July 1, 2018 is very promising. The government will be making their announcement the week of April 10, but other than the Feds, we have not yet heard from the people on the ground who this decision will directly affect.
Those are, of course, the licensed producers across Canada and members of the currently unlicensed, but hopefully soon to be validated dispensary community.
In light of this, we spoke with Mark Zekulin, President of Canopy Growth Corporation and Tania Cyalume, a former owner of the recently closed Queens of Cannabis Dispensary in Toronto.
Let’s start with Mark:
The Government of Canada will be announcing that legal cannabis sales will be available by July 1st 2018. How does Canopy feel about that?
The clarity is great news. It’s something that we’ve known is coming, we never doubted it, and the timing is about right. It’s very nice to see it come forward as a plan.
I haven’t checked Canopy stock yet but has it gone up since the announcement?
[Laughs] I think it has, I also try not to check on a daily basis, that kind of stuff can drive you crazy.
By your estimation, do you feel that it was a decent amount of time that PM Trudeau took to get to this point?
These things take time to do as a government, and they still have a lot of difficult things to work through. But I think they also recognize that there is a need to move quickly. The quicker they move forward and explain the new system in place, the better.
There is still the big matter of getting the capacity online to supply a market like this, and as leaders in the sector we’ve been working very hard to build out our footprint.
In regards to distribution, once this goes into play, it looks like there will be a mixture of different systems in place across the country. Some of them, more than likely, are going to include licensed dispensaries. At that time, will Canopy be prepared to and interested enough to supply those dispensaries with product?
Whether it’s dispensary owners, or licensed producers or the government, I think everybody agrees on two key principles which is, there is a place for an element of retail distribution, but of course you want to see that regulated. But no matter who you are this is a good development. Each province will make its own decisions, some will look like public distribution, similar to public alcohol distribution, and some will look like private distribution.
Whatever that system is, we will very happily engage in that.
As you know, Canada has to pull out of, or at least deal with, three UN treaties to make this a reality. Any opinion on if that will hold us up?
I’m not sure you necessarily have to pull out of those treaties. There certainly are UN treaties, some dating back decades, that are in place and have to be considered. There are different ways to go about it.
I think the government wants to ensure that they remain participants in an international framework but still move forward with the right policy approach. I believe that a lot of the other countries will respect that.
So you think an amendment or something of that nature could be in order?
Yes, I think there will be ways to do it that fall short of outright saying that [Canada] is no longer playing.
Will the creation of the adult-use industry have any effect on the medical industry? Once everyone can buy pot from anywhere, is that going to wipe-out the medicinal industry?
No question the adult-use market will have an impact on the medical market, but I think both will remain important. There will be a need to recognize the distinct purposes for medical cannabis to ensure proper access for patients and to keep a system in place.
Over the course of time I suspect what a product looks like in the medical world versus the recreational world will start to look very different, as people introduce capsules and move through drug development. On the [adult-use] side, people will start to have chocolates or drinks. There will be two distinct markets, and their needs to be. On day one they will look very similar but over the course of time they will look very different.
In the adult-use market, I assume you believe and hope that edibles are a part of the mix, correct?
As the conversation plays out, there’s a bunch of reasons why you want to include [edibles]. Firstly, there’s the stated goal of removing the criminal element. If you limit the legal market to exclude what is essentially 25 – 30 percent of the market, you can’t eliminate the criminal element.
The other reason of course is the public health element to not want to encourage smoking. Certainly vaporization is an option, but other forms of consumption that don’t involve any inhalation makes sense.
Some LP’s have been lobbying against the suggestion of plain packaging for cannabis products, how do you feel about that?
Nobody is suggesting that we want advertising that is aimed at youth or public consumption. But there’s a big difference between talking about public advertising and branding, aimed at consumers who have already made the choice to consume cannabis.
Cannabis is new to a lot of people and it’s very important that we are able to explain Indica vs Sativa [for example]. It’s just like every other product, in that brands matter. Tweed is very proud of who it is and what it stands for, and we like explaining the care we take for our product and we want to associate that with our product.
So what does a member of the dispensary community think of all this? Tania Cyalume, the former owner of Queens of Cannabis responds.
What was your initial reaction to the news this morning of the upcoming announcement?
I feel like every year we are promised legalization and it keeps getting pushed back a year. In terms of storefronts, I still feel that there is hope. There’s a new dispensary that just opened [in Toronto] yesterday, so I still think that the dispensary store model is loved. It’s going to be hard [for the government] to get rid of it.
As you know, distribution is a Provincial decision and Premier Wynne [of Ontario] has traditionally favoured the LCBO as a distribution model. Despite this you still think dispensaries will be included in Ontario?
Yes, because one of the recommendations of the task force was to not co-locate, meaning don’t sell alcohol and cannabis at the same place.
When I spoke with Canopy Growth, they said that they want to make sure there is room for edibles in the market, I assume you agree with that?
Yes, edibles are one of the most medicinal products that cannabis offers.
Do you think that craft cannabis growers should also be included in the mix? As in licensed dispensaries being allowed to grow as well?
In terms of the licensed producers, having people like Shoppers Drug Mart for example distributing cannabis, I feel that there’s not enough infrastructure for all that to happen. Because of this there will be a push for craft cannabis in the market.
As Monday comes to a close, no matter who you are, whether it’s an LP, or a dispensary owner, or simply someone who loves cannabis, yesterday was a day for good news.
Canada now has a date to legalize adult-use cannabis after many decades of unneeded prohibition and criminality.
Looking at it from that perspective, we all win no matter what happens.
Credit: marijuana.com
