British American Tobacco said it will buy a nearly 20% stake in Canada-based cannabis producer Organigram for about 126 million pounds ($175.8 million) as it seeks to expand beyond its main tobacco business. Big tobacco and liquor companies in North America have already made large investments in the nascent industry, with cannabis seen as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes. With top Democratic lawmakers in the United States also promising to decriminalise marijuana use, analysts and experts predict record investment in the industry this year. The deal will give BAT access to R&D technologies, product innovation and cannabis expertise, it said in a statement, with an initial focus on natural remedy cannabidiol (CBD).

Canopy Growth Corp. led another mass selloff in the Canadian cannabis space after an earnings miss had investors once again looking for a bottom in the battered sector. Both retail and institutional investors have called the bottom on the cannabis industry multiple times through an eight-month-long bear market that has seen the North American Marijuana Index shed almost 60 per cent of its value. Finding a bottom in cannabis stocks has proven to be challenging, given the constant cycle of bad news, including a lack of profitability, significant writedowns and dwindling cash reserves and withdrawn guidance. (See also: Sliding pot prices are leaving cannabis producers vulnerable to writedowns | Canopy Growth, Aurora post steep losses, revenue declines as legal cannabis sector falters)

The Ganja Growers Producers Association Jamaica (GGPAJ) says it is strongly opposed to the Government's embrace of hemp cultivation and has made a number of demands designed to protect the local cannabis industry from what they see as a threat. The GGPAJ's position is outlined in a letter sent to Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) CEO Lincoln Allen as a battle appears to be brewing between the association and its stakeholder groupings on one hand, and “some big corporate interests on the other hand”, regarding the large-scale cultivation of hemp in Jamaica. The association is asking that indisputable scientific evidence be provided about the non-threat or threat to the local ganja industry. (See also: Ganja industry could go up in smoke | Gov't says no plan for industrial hemp industry)

Canada’s medical cannabis industry is making a push in the Senate to ban large-scale outdoor cannabis cultivation. Allan Rewak, the executive director of the Cannabis Canada Council, an industry association that represents licensed producers of medical marijuana, urged senators Wednesday to prohibit large-scale outdoor cultivation in the government’s pot legalization legislation. But others have made the push for the government to open up outdoor pot cultivation to reduce the carbon footprint of growing weed indoors. “There are significant environmental costs to indoor production, including electricity usage,” he said. “Outdoor production can mitigate some of these problems and should be considered an option.”

The BMJ has uncovered links between companies, campaign groups and individuals lobbying for wider patient access to cannabis for medical use and a parallel campaign to create a lucrative recreational market for the drug in the UK. The article focuses on the links between commercial organisations that are seeking new markets for recreational cannabis and patient groups and researchers. Some suggest that the debate is being fuelled by a growing breed of new companies, ranging from large scale cannabis growers and distributors in Canada to UK and international investment groups, which are manoeuvring to take advantage of a widely anticipated shift in the UK’s cannabis regulatory landscape.

Ohioans rejected a very unusual marijuana legalization proposal. Beyond legalizing pot, the ballot initiative would have given campaign donors direct rights to the state's 10 pot farms as an explicit gift for their support. Even legalization advocates argued it was a flagrant display of would-be members of the pot industry trying to cash in on a movement motivated primarily by social justice issues. Some legalization backers are increasingly concerned that the interests of the pot industry, which will grow more and more as legalization spreads, will take priority over the public's best interests.

Earlier this month, an unremarkable sentence appeared in a quarterly report published by Alliance One International, a tobacco company headquartered in North Carolina. “In January, we successfully acquired majority stakes in two new joint ventures,” it reads. Further into the document, it is announced that an Alliance One subsidiary called Canadian Cultivated Products had secured a 75-percent equity position in Canada’s Island Garden Inc. and an 80-percent stake in Goldleaf Pharm Inc. Island Garden and Goldleaf Pharm are medicinal-cannabis companies. (See also: Big US tobacco company buys stakes in Canadian cannabis growers, American hemp firm)

Big Tobacco has been planning for this moment for decades. A 1983 industry list titled New Product Ideas, made public as part of a court settlement, reveals that tobacco companies even then were anticipating the opportunity to blend marijuana into cigarettes if the government legalized cannabis. Now tobacco behemoths are pouring billions of dollars into the new legal marijuana industry. We don’t have to let them. Announcing a comprehensive bill to legalize marijuana, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said, “We don’t want the big tobacco companies and the big liquor companies to swoop in and take over.” Tobacco companies are convicted racketeers who knowingly misled the public with false claims about their products for decades.

A publicly traded U.S. tobacco company has bought controlling stakes in two Canadian marijuana producers and invested in a North Carolina hemp grower, making what is believed to be the first foray by a significant tobacco business into the cannabis industry. Alliance One International, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol AOI, said it acquired a 75% equity position in Canada’s Island Garden and an 80% stake in Goldleaf Pharm. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed. The moves were first reported by New Cannabis Ventures.

Since the Netherlands decriminalized marijuana in 1976, Amsterdam’s “coffee shops” have become a destination for weed lovers from around the globe. But pot has never been fully legalized in the country: You won’t get busted for smoking or selling small quantities, but producing or selling it in bulk remains a legal gray zone. And that’s proving to be a handicap for the Dutch marijuana industry as full legalization speeds ahead elsewhere. Dutch seeds are considered the gold standard worldwide, and people with ties to the Netherlands are a big part of the global business. Many of the country’s growers say the future lies across the Atlantic, where Canada and 11 U.S. states now allow recreational pot use, and many more states permit medicinal consumption.

A policy brief by the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation and the University of Toronto looked at c-suite level executives, parent companies and licensed producers in Canada. The research reveals that two years after legalization, 84 per cent of cannabis industry leaders are white and 86 per cent are men; only 2 per cent of industry leaders are Indigenous, and just 1 per cent are Black. Lead author Akwasi Owusu-Bempah says the lack of Black and Indigenous leadership in the industry goes beyond just an issue of representation or diversity: "Black and Indigenous people that we found to be underrepresented in leadership in cannabis were the two groups that were most targeted by prohibition. So they were the groups that were most criminalized, for example, for minor possession."

Senior operating staff working at CannTrust Holdings Inc.’s Pelham, Ont. facility late last year brought cannabis seeds from the black market into production rooms, leading to some illicitly-grown pot flowing into the legal market. In an apparent effort to conceal the black market cannabis seeds from regulatory inspections and other staff members, some CannTrust employees changed the names of as many as 20 strains to those which the company was licensed to sell in the legal medical and recreational markets. Adding cannabis seeds obtained through the black market would have allowed CannTrust to significantly bolster its production at a time when it had overcommitted itself with supply contracts with provinces and other licensed marijuana producers.

Bombay Hemp Company (BOHECO), is a first mover in the industrial hemp and medicinal cannabis’ space in India. Boheco slowly started making inroads in a space that had not been spoken about as openly before in the Indian context. And the results have been heartening for them and the industry as a whole. “Prior to 2013, hemp was rarely mentioned or raised as an interesting opportunity for new industrial and medicinal development horizons, primarily due to the pre-conceived stigma surrounding the recreational use of Cannabis combined with the fear of industrial and medicinal cannabis being misused and re-directed to the illicit cannabis market,” says Jahan Peston Jamas. (See also: Ratan Tata, Rajan Anandan back cannabis research firm)

The surprise ousting of the chief executive officer of Canada’s foremost cannabis company is a sign of things to come, some observers warned, as the young industry grapples with investor impatience in the face of what has so far been disappointing financial results. Canopy Growth Corp. announced that Bruce Linton, who founded and grew the firm into the world’s most valuable cannabis company, was “stepping down” from both his role as co-CEO and as a member of the board. But in multiple media interviews, Linton said he had effectively been terminated by the company’s board of directors — a majority of whom had been appointed by Canopy’s largest investor, the U.S.-based alcohol giant Constellation Brands. (See also: How will history judge Canopy Growth’s founder as a dealmaker?)

Not too long ago, Ehud Olmert was trying to lead Israel to a historic peace agreement. These days, the former Israeli prime minister is pushing a different message: Legalize marijuana. Olmert is among a group of former Israeli leaders and security chiefs who have found new careers in the country’s tightly controlled medical cannabis industry. They hope not only to cash in on the local market, but also to clear the way for the country’s major marijuana producers to export. “Everything will change dramatically overnight if there will be legalization,” Olmert, an adviser to the startup Univo, said. In Israel alone, he said, “the market would be unlimited. It would be huge.” Israel is one of the world leaders in medical cannabis consumption and marijuana possession is decriminalized.

The fight to legalize marijuana has never been easy, as evidenced by the recent collapse of months-long efforts in New Jersey and New York. A key issue in both is how to ensure that legalized cannabis doesn’t just create another privatized, corporate monopoly, but instead repairs the harm that has been done by the war on drugs. Legalizing cannabis, repairing the economy. Our guests say, reparations and restorative justice for workers in the budding cannabis industry need to be a part of the conversation. Featuring: Drug Policy Alliance‘s NY State Director Kassandra Frederique, Greenworker Cooperatives‘ Communications Director Raybblin Vargas, and Cannaclusive‘s Founder and CEO Mary Pryor.

Hace cuatro meses, en el Senado de un país donde la guerra contra el narcotráfico ha dejado más de 250.000 muertos en poco más de una década, un empresario canadiense dedicado al negocio del cannabis dijo ante los congresistas: "Su localización en el mundo es perfecta, sus costos laborales son perfectos, su clima es perfecto (...) Dejen que las empresas privadas expandan sus negocios, que hagan lo que saben hacer". Los ojos de los grandes nombres en el negocio del cannabis están puestos en el Senado mexicano. Algunas empresas tienen cabilderos que recorren los pasillos de la Cámara alta con la esperanza de quedarse con una tajada de un negocio multimillonario.

El 17 de octubre de 2018 Canadá se convirtió en el segundo país en el mundo -después de Uruguay- en legalizar el uso recreativo de la marihuana. En ese momento, el optimismo se esparció entre los habitantes y vendedores de cannabis, generando una especie de "fiebre verde". Sin embargo, a más de un año de la puesta en marcha de la ley se han evidenciado una serie de deficiencias en cadena para adquirir y vender la hierba. Una de las principales preocupaciones es que el mercado negro de cannabis no ha desaparecido precisamente. Los impuestos especiales de un dólar por gramo y los costos de operar en una industria altamente regulada, generan que el cannabis legal aumente su precio esto hace que los consumidores prefieran comprar de manera ilegal.

Mark Rendell, a business journalists  for Canada's second-largest daily, The Globe and Mail, says the decision to legalize cannabis has led to a gold rush mentality within the emerging industry. He saw even sober-minded investors get "high" on cannabis stocks. He is skeptical in view of the many broken promises made by a lot of companies about their production targets so far. "Companies had to drive their story forward, they had to come out with press release after press release... saying we are going to build this and sell this because they were talking to a retail investor audience. So there was a real shock, how much they underperformed." (See also: Establishing territorial footprint has been what the race in Europe has been all about since mid 2016 for the Canadian LPs so far)

Canadian weed companies have their eye on a massive prize: the lucrative medical and adult cannabis markets that are emerging around the world. Much of the hype around corporate cannabis is linked to the acquisition of lands and smaller growing operations internationally. The selling point is that cannabis can be grown overseas and exported to meet demand in Canada (and eventually the US), but also that Canadian companies position themselves as suppliers in emerging local markets. Lobbying to impact national legislation, supporting criminalization of traditional producers, and moving into remote territories with plans to implement plantation style economies are just some of the critiqued practices of Canada’s emerging cannabis sector.