The amount of outdoor-grown cannabis will make up a small portion of the market this year — less than 10 per cent of the cultivation licenses granted in Canada are for outdoors — but many more are in the pipeline after the Canadian government changed its rules last year to allow pot farms. Growing outdoors eliminates the need for costly lighting, heating and cooling systems. WeedMD CEO Keith Merker said it can grow for about 20 cents at its farm versus $1 a gram in a greenhouse and $2 a gram for a typical indoor site. (See also: Cannabis can be grown outdoors for pennies on the dollar. So why is hardly anyone doing it?)

As cannabis producers add to their harvest as Canada prepares to legalize recreational use starting Oct. 17, some companies are already exploring novel ways to dramatically reduce the cost of growing pot. While most cannabis companies build massive indoor facilities and greenhouses to meet the expected demand that Canadians will have for legal pot, the cost needed to operate these modern grow-operations is also climbing with the average cost of producing marijuana hovering at about $1 a gram. Now, producers are turning to old-school methods such as outdoor production as well as new technological innovations in an effort to reduce the cost of growing a gram to pennies on the dollar. (See also: Retail investors in Canadian cannabis are 'buying air,' analyst says)

The federal Cannabis Act specifies that each household can cultivate up to four plants — either indoors or out. Manitoba and Quebec have opted to prohibit homegrown cannabis, but there's already evidence Canadians in other provinces are set to take advantage of the herb's newly legal status. "For the price-conscious consumer, if you're paying around $10 a gram for the varieties at the store, you might be only paying 50 cents per gram or less for a variety you grow yourself at home," says Alex Rea of Toronto-based Homegrown Hydroponics. It's difficult to know yet just how many Canadians are taking advantage of the new opportunity to grow recreational cannabis at home. But demand is already outstripping supply, since a number of provincial authorities are reporting seed shortages.

A growing number of drug policy experts, users and advocates argue that dramatically expanding access to pharmaceutical-grade heroin is the only meaningful way to save lives. At a press conference this week announcing the latest deaths, those calls grew louder. Flanked by the province’s top doctor and its chief coroner, longtime harm reduction advocate Guy Felicella pleaded for the government to create a legal, regulated safe supply of heroin, and possibly even powdered fentanyl in controlled doses. “With the [fentanyl] concentration levels here in BC, we have this contaminated drug market that can kill you in one hit. That’s why we need a regulated drug market,” Felicella said. (See also: Expand safe supply options for people who use drugs, Ontario advocates say)

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. 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.

Cannabis industry insiders are bracing for a slew of bankruptcies in the coming year as small and medium-sized companies low on cash struggle to raise funds in the downtrodden sector. “We have had a busy few years, but next year we’re going to be busy for a different reason — we expect a few million dollars in legal fees from insolvencies and consolidation,” said Ranjeev Dhillon, a partner at McCarthy Tetrault LLP and the firm’s cannabis group lead. Dhillon says that his team is already seeing companies that are heading down that path. “Companies that cannot distinguish their brands and don’t have the money to keep up operations on existing facilities will not be able to carry forward.” (See also: Aurora Cannabis lists greenhouse for sale in move that 'implies massive writedowns': analyst)

Mike Babins and Maria Petrucci cleared grey-market cannabis from the shelves of their dispensary last year on the eve of federal legalization, uncertain what the new market would bring. A year later, sales of recreational pot have been brisk and longtime customers have remained loyal following the Evergreen Cannabis Store’s months-long transition from a “grey market” municipal licence to a provincial licence under the new system. “I’m so happy to see how many of those people come back and say, ‘Wow, this weed is so much better.’” Black-market cannabis still accounts for about two-thirds of the cannabis bought in Canada, so B.C.’s 85 licensed private retailers and seven government stores may be competing more with illicit operators than with each other.

British Columbia used to supply half of Canada’s marijuana, export it to the United States by the hockey bag, and bring home a bong-full of blue ribbons for its exotic “B.C. bud” strains from international Cannabis Cup competitions in Amsterdam. Premier John Horgan argues that this history is the main reason why legal marijuana has fizzled so far in B.C., a year into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bold legalization experiment. Horgan’s government is moving to take over the “economic development” part of legal cannabis from Ottawa, because its ponderous Health Canada licence system for growers is working great for mass-market producers in Ontario and Quebec. And it’s killing B.C. bud. (See also: British Columbia chamber lobbies province over craft cannabis cultivation)

This time, at least 175 people died. The victims include a soccer goalie who had just celebrated his 26th birthday, a cheerful young volunteer at an overdose prevention site, and a college graduate who aspired to become an addictions worker to help others through their struggles. June’s illicit drug overdose death toll set yet another B.C. record, surpassing May’s tally by four. “Extreme” fentanyl concentrations were detected in 15 per cent of deaths from April to June, compared with 8 per cent from January, 2019, to March, 2020, according to data released by the BC Coroners Service. At least 5,731 people have died since 2016, the year British Columbia declared a public-health emergency because of overdose deaths.

B.C.’s top doctor says the province’s two public health emergencies — the overdose crisis and COVID-19 pandemic — continue to intersect in ways that are proving increasingly deadly. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry called for better access to a safe supply of drugs as the closure of international borders due to COVID-19 has led to an illicit drug supply that is increasingly toxic. On Sept. 16, Henry signed an order that gave more health professionals the ability to prescribe safer pharmaceutical alternatives. Physical-distancing measures due to the pandemic have contributed to a higher frequency of people using drugs alone at home. To date, more than 1,000 people in B.C. have died of an overdose in 2020.

Bold changes and a dramatic expansion are coming to safe supply efforts in B.C. in response to an increasingly toxic drug supply and the deadly overdose crisis. Eligibility for safe supply — prescribed untainted drugs or alternatives — will expand to nearly all people who access the street drug supply, even intermittently, under a policy directive from the B.C. Centre on Substance Use being finalized with the province. And registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses will soon be able to prescribe controlled substances under a public health order from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry. Previously, only doctors and some pharmacists were allowed to prescribe safer alternatives to illicit drugs.

In 2018 Canada became the second country, after Uruguay, to legalise recreational use. By catching the green wave, Canopy Growth’s co-chief executive, Bruce Linton, has built, in under six years, a company valued by the stock market at £11.5bn, positioned to be the number one global player. Though Canopy has yet to make a profit, revenues reached C$225m last year. More than half comes from its recreational cannabis brand Tweed, even though legalisation only took hold halfway through the year. But breaking America is the biggest prize in the near future. Canopy recently signed a C$4.5bn deal giving it an option to buy the US cannabis firm Acreage, putting it in pole position to grab a slice of the US if it opens up further.

Después del auge en la industria relacionada al consumo de cannabis, varias empresas de este sector podrían quebrar antes del final del año. Dos compañías canadienses ya declararon bancarrota el mes pasado. Y otras también están buscando una puerta de salida, esperando ser compradas por sus competidores. Ciertos productores, que buscan fondos líquidos, tratan de vender sus equipamientos y sus invernaderos. Por Rishi Malkani, asociado responsable del sector del cannabis en la empresa Deloitte Canadá, estima que más de una docena de compañías no tendrán suficiente dinero en los próximos seis y doce meses. Según él, las auditorias contables subjetivas y el despliegue mediático de ciertas empresas de la industria han disuadido muchos inversionistas.

When Canada legalized the use of cannabis in October 2018 after decades of prohibition, the goals were to improve safety and public health as well as to reduce access by youth, crime and the illegal market. Five years later, public health experts say legalization hasn't created any health benefits — but it has been linked to some serious concerns. The Canadian Medical Association Journal includes a commentary taking stock on what's happened with the legalization of non-medical cannabis. More than a quarter of Canadian adults — 27 per cent — say they use cannabis, up from 22 per cent in 2017. The CMAJ paper notes the important social justice benefits from substantial reductions in criminal arrests and charges, along with the associated stigma.

Uruguay paved the way when it legalised cannabis in 2013. But it is the reform in Canada, a G7 member, that has done most to heighten international tension over cannabis’s legal status. Last year it fully legalised the drug. Part of its rationale was that a regulated legal trade would curb the black market and protect young people, who were buying it there. Canada’s change has caused fierce fights within the UN in Vienna, according to Martin Jelsma of the Transnational Institute, a think-tank. A possibility that intrigues international-policy wonks is for Canada and other law-breakers to form an “inter se” (between themselves) agreement, allowing them to modify existing drug-treaty provisions. For this to be an option, Canada will probably want to wait until the club of outlaws is bigger.

The article reviews the status of khat, the most recent plant based psychoactive substance to reach a global market, and considers policy making processes in general and the framework of drug control in particular. The risk assessment and classification of psychoactive drugs is a contested arena where political, economic and moral agendas collide, leaving countries that have banned khat, with significant social costs. To best manage the risks arising from the increasing availability of khat it is therefore suggested to draft a regulatory framework with clear objectives and guiding principles.

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Marijuana may be an issue of easy agreement in the ongoing coalition talks between Germany's leading parties. Despite numerous points of contention, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens can find themselves aligned when it comes to cannabis legalization. The FDP emphasizes the revenue that the state could earn from taxing prerolled joints, cannabis flower and edibles. The Greens say legalization would put an end to illegal sales and reduce organized crime. Social Democrat health expert Karl Lauterbach urged the next government to legalize cannabis. Here is a look at countries that have already loosened their policies.

It’s been five years since the Canadian government legalized and regulated non-medical cannabis cultivation, commerce, and consumption. California is ahead of us by two years, having followed a similar experiment in 2016 when it legalized recreational cannabis. Today, California and Canada are facing similar challenges though they have adopted vastly different regulations. The two jurisdictions offer an interesting contrast in how regulatory frameworks can support or undermine a nascent legal cannabis industry. Evidence from the past five years suggests that the regulations have failed to provide equitable access to the industry and develop balanced tax structures. Legalization in Canada and California also remains hampered by the legacy of global cannabis prohibition.

As one public health emergency sees policymakers around the world turn to the best available science to stem its tide, another deadly crisis rages on while science remains noticeably absent. In Canada and many other countries, the rapid scaling up of evidence-based responses to the outbreak of coronavirus has seen politicians standing alongside public health officials to deliver the latest updates on how governments are responding to limit the spread of the virus and minimize its harms. Contrast that to the ongoing opioid overdose crisis, where it seems politicians are too often seen standing next to the critics of those same public health officials. This is a concerning reality given that approximately 12 Canadians die every day of an opioid overdose.

Se ha cumplido un año de la legalización canadiense del cannabis recreativo. Canadá fue el segundo país –después de Uruguay- en insertar en el marco legal la mariguana con fines lúdicos, pero ha sido hasta el momento el único miembro del G20 en llevar a cabo una medida de ese calado en todo su territorio. “El escenario negativo tan publicitado simplemente no ocurrió. Se temía un aumento del consumo y consecuencias en la esfera laboral. También se imaginaban salas de urgencias saturadas. La legalización entró en vigor, va avanzando y refleja que es mejor que la prohibición. Por supuesto que está el tema del mercado negro. Aún es muy grande, pero tomará tiempo para que se reduzca significativamente”, comenta Jean-Sébastien Fallu, profesor en la Universidad de Montreal