CannTrust Holdings Inc. is planning to destroy approximately $77 million worth of cannabis as the beleaguered pot producer seeks to restore regulatory compliance.

In a press release issued on Thanksgiving Monday, CannTrust said it will not challenge Health Canada’s Sept. 17 decision to suspend the company’s sales and production licences. Instead, CannTrust said it “remains focused on working collaboratively and transparently with the regulator to address the company’s non-compliance matters.”

Those “non-compliance matters” first came to light in early July when CannTrust disclosed that it had run afoul of Health Canada due to unlicensed production at its Pelham, Ont. facility. 

It was the advice given many times to maiden pot users, emboldened by Canadian legalization to take their first tokes over the past year:

“Start low and go slow.”

But that urging for baptismal moderation on an individual level — particularly regarding concentrations and consumption of the plant’s psychoactive THC component — could easily pass as a description of the entire cannabis rollout.

As the country approaches the first anniversary of legal weed on Oct. 17, a look back reveals that many important elements of the deployment appeared to lurch and stagger over their first steps.

Read full article here.

About a year ago, Aurora Cannabis (NYSE:ACB) was trading as high as $12.52 a share, a sobering reminder for investors of how far the stock has fallen since then. Today, Aurora's stock is less than one-third of that price.

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It hasn't taken too long for the legal marijuana industry to transform itself into a big-money business. There's no doubt that tens of billions of dollars' worth of illicit pot sales are ongoing behind the scenes globally, but the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada last year, along with 33 U.S. states, to some varied degree, led to $10.9 billion in legal weed sales worldwide in 2018. By the end of the upcoming decade, we could be talking about $50 billion, $100 billion, or even $200 billion in annual worldwide legal sales.

The legalization of cannabis in Canada was supposed to be a catalyst — the most powerful one yet, investors and analysts alike thought — that would launch companies in the young but potent industry to new heights. Instead, nearly one year later, it has been a nightmare.

Since recreational cannabis became legal on Oct. 17, 2018, the shares of what were then the 10 largest Canadian cannabis producers by market capitalization have been bludgeoned, yielding an average negative return of more than 57 per cent for investors.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of cannabis legalization in this country, it’s important to reflect on the bumpy road we’ve encountered since making what might be considered one of the largest social policy changes in Canadian history.

Canada became the second country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis in October 2018. This year, besides the first anniversary of the historic day, Canadians will also be treated to a new set of approved products.

The new products will become permissible for sale as of October 17, 2019, though Health Canada must be notified 60-days before any product can be sold and therefore nothing will be available until after that cut off. The 60-day rule is not a time limit, and products may not be available until after the waiting period is over.

This means the earliest Canadians can expect to see the new wave of cannabis products is mid-December.