• Retailers will also receive updated training for CannSell certification in the sale of edibles, which all REC employees must pass before their first day of work.
  Cannabis Retailer
• Prince Edward Island delayed its plan to offer vape-pens, citing concerns about vape illnesses in the US.
  CBC PEI
• Meanwhile, Manitoba REC retailers—who had product on the shelves on December 16—were cleaned out of edibles by the Christmas rush and await restocking.
  Winnipeg Sun
• Nova Scotia debuted a few products before Christmas and sold out within days. Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation stores restocked January 2 but don't have abundant product.
  Leafly
• To date, Quebec has only offered three 10mg CBD-teas. Sparkling waters and cooking oils will be available next. The province has banned cannabis vapes as well as sweetened edibles.
  TVA Nouvelles—In French, Eater Montreal

• The 10mg limit has been the subject of complaint from many, including MED users. It will mean many regular cannabis users will not opt to pay between $7 and $10 for products that won't get them as high as what's available on the illicit market.
  Global News
• Controversial business journalist Amanda Lang recorded a surprisingly ill-informed opinion piece opposing edibles legislation.
  National Observer, Bloomberg
• Ontario edibles sales will also be constrained by the province's small number of REC stores.
  CTV News

• Already, REC retailers and LPs are attempting to respond to complaints that vape-cartridges can't be recycled. (Disposable ones definitely can't.)
  Twitter—David George-Cosh
• US vape-pen sales declined 26% in the two months that followed the VAPI crisis.
  Bloomberg
• The farcical Smoke Free Ontario Act rule prevents vape sellers from displaying vape pens and dry-herb vaporizers, or their packaging, or allowing customers to handle those products, so REC retailers can only show customers photos of the new 2.0 vape pens.
  Global News, Twitter—Harrison Jordan
• David Lobo, the OCS's VP corporate affairs, said supply would improve by February or March.
  The Star

• This means the regulated market is going through the same hurdles the illicit market did years ago, one longtime grower noted.
  Twitter—Kev in the Shed

• Alberta has developed several successful REC retail chains, which many expect will quickly move into Ontario.
  Twitter—Lisa Campbell
• Canopy announced five more Ontario REC retailers will operate as Tokyo Smoke stores across Ontario, for a total of ten. BC restaurant consortium the Donnelly Group's REC retail arm Hobo Cannabis will open three. Press Releases
• Female-run cannabis stores remain a relative rarity.
  Toronto Star

• The move shores up Supreme's intent to focus on delivering cannabis as a consumer packaged good (CPG), as Moore's Starbucks experience positions him to help the company better determine what Canadian consumers want to buy.
• Dhaliwal will remain a member of the board of directors, though (as the Globe's Jameson Berkow pointed out, there was no mention of this in "the announcement of his unexpected - and immediate - departure as CEO.”
  Twitter—Jameson Berkow

1. A Kingston, ON woman is organizing a group of mothers who want to fight the stigma against mothers who use cannabis. A Saskatoon mother started a podcast with a similar theme.
   Global News, CTV News

• A MKM Partners analyst predicted the move "signals major writedowns ahead," particularly given investors weren't aware of the sale, despite a corporate update on December 23 when Aurora fired Chief Corporate Officer Cam Battley.
  Lexichronic
• Aurora said the site —originally planned as an R&D site—would require significant retrofitting in order to bring it up to the company's standards, and this would have demanded serious capital investment.
  Twitter—Vanmala Subramaniam, Kristine Owram
• The move, representing a $9M loss on purchase price, calls into question the reliability of listed book-value for cannabis assets.
  The Deep Dive

• Marketwatch's Max Cherney noted By last summer Aurora had "the most accumulated non-cash value on its balance sheet" of all Canadian LPs. Much of that non-cash value related to the purchase of MedReleaf.
  Marketwatch
• Aurora may miss covenants on a $360M loan due in August 2021. Two analysts downgraded Aurora and cut the stock's target threefold.
  Bloomberg, MarketWatch

• "It's the size of a roller skating rink," my friend said. "The staff there were pleased to tell us that Aurora spent $2.5M on it."
• It was a Saturday afternoon and my friend reported little more than a dozen customers, which he said made the ratio of personnel to shoppers 2:1.
• The front section of the store is a room of its own, selling no cannabis but offering, among other things, a wall of Dr. Bronner's soaps, colouring books, and "an umbrella that changes colours when it rains." The smoothie bar hadn't finished being built yet, "but there was a staff member staffing it nonetheless."

• Chris "Equity Guru" Parry predicted a coming "period of cannabis company eugenics, where the strong will merge with the strong, and the weak will be drowned at the lake."
  Twitter—Chris Parry
• As recent news about Aurora and Hexo brought those companies' stock values down, stock values across the sector dropped. An analyst predicted some smaller LPs will face bankruptcy in 2020 as survivors won't see the stocks rally until the year's final quarters.
  MarketWatch, CanTech Letter
• Golden Leaf, a small Ontario LP with cultivation, production, and sales licenses (and $400,000 in debts), sold for $3.4M, the lowest selling price for an LP to date. "There is no (scarcity) value in the license anymore or projected production capacity," said financial advisor Aaron Salz.
  The Deep Dive, Globe and Mail, Twitter—Aaron Salz
• Unlike cultivators, extractors did very well in 2019, as every producer in the country tried to get their biomass turned into extracts for vape pens, ingestibles, and topicals, creating enormous return on invested capital for Valens and MediPharm Labs.
  Bloomberg
• Cannabis short-sellers who bet on the sector failing also had a nice year.
  MarketWatch

• Kamploops, BC ER physician Ian Mitchell immediately noted the report repeated the urban myth of cannabis being tainted with narcotics or opioids, retorting "there has NEVER been a confirmed case of cannabis contaminated with narcotics. This is a complete myth that is typically spread by Trump officials."
  Twitter—Ian Mitchell, The Straight
• MED advocates puzzled over the call for physicians to discourage the consumption of homemade edibles, the only edibles strong enough to provide symptom relief to many regular MED users.
  Twitter—Megan Henderson

Quick Hits

1. La Presse surveyed cannabis researchers across Canada, who reiterated reports Health Canada's Office of Clinical Trials is demanding information even LPs don't have, preventing research from getting off the ground. In a subsequent editorial, the paper called the situation "Kafkaesque" and "aberrant" and concluded it was easier to research cannabis before legalization.
   La Presse—In French
2. On a related note, the US leads the world on cannabis research and development, but they can't export cannabis (or even move it between states) because of federal prohibition. That's left the global market for Canada to fill, if we can manage not to bungle it.
   Denver Post

• MJ Biz's Matt Lamers argued the figure "validates concerns among Canadian brewers who long feared the impact of adult-use marijuana on their sales."
  MJ Biz Daily

1. University of Toronto sociology professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah talked with Halifax professor and activist El Jones on the Policy Options podcast about the continuing effects of discriminatory cannabis policing on Black and Indigenous people.
   Policy Options
2. New Brunswick crown monopoly REC retailer Cannabis NB's lagging sales numbers improved in the second half of 2019.
   MJ Biz Daily

• The province's monthly share of federal cannabis excise tax is set to spike in coming years: maybe some of that money might go to support BC growers.
  MJ Biz Daily

1. I'm writing this from the first Lift & Co. Vancouver trade show of 2020—one of the biggest of the year. This year Lift—whose Toronto office laid off 13 in mid-December—is moving to generate revenue through user data.
   GrowthOp, Business in Vancouver
2. A micro-growing consultant reported one of their aspiring micro clients was told by Canada Revenue Agency that until her declared live plants have been audited by the CRA, "You can only water the plants, they cannot have any light."
   Twitter—Forest Farms

• When Brown told the person CBD was illegal to sell without a Health Canada license, the affiliate responded the company was set to launch "pharmaceutical grade" CBD products "without prescription" in Spring 2020. "Hempworx has all necessary licensing," the person told Brown. "We all fall under their licensing as affiliated distributors. We don't need individual licensing." (Hempworx is not listed among Health Canada licenseholders.)
• Hempworx reportedly stopped Canadian sales in 2018 after journalists revealed it was unlicensed but told its sellers the illegal products were "100 percent legal." The company also told affiliates to partner with an unlicensed company run by a person with a criminal record.
  CBC Manitoba

1. "Dry January" is becoming "High January" as people ditching hootch for the first month of the new year discover that's easier when they're stoned.
   Global News
2. Carry the Kettle Nakoda First Nation in Saskatchewan will partner with BC's Indigenous Bloom to develop an Indigenous-owned REC wholesale business on reserve-owned land housing a former tree nursery with 350,000 square feet of indoor growing space.
   CTV News

• Directors' and officers' insurance is a hurdle for many companies: Hexo said the inability to secure such insurance was behind their head office's move from Quebec to Ontario.
  MJ Biz Daily

1. Two Calgarians—who applied for AGLC REC retail licenses and were turned down—are on the run after their illicit online dispensary was busted. Another man, and four companies, face related charges, while the two cannabis fugitives are believed in Nova Scotia.
   CBC Calgary
2. The Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis said Alberta Cannabis Micro License Association president Kieley Beaudry was "mistakenly provided with inaccurate information" an AGLC rep told her in December, "individuals with Micro Cultivation/Processing Licenses do not produce enough product for AGLC." The AGLC said they will "consider procuring product from Micro Cultivation/Processing licensees that have a valid recreational sales licence from Health Canada."
   Twitter—AGLC