Tilray Inc., Acreage Holdings Inc., and Sunniva Inc. had the highest-paid executives and directors among cannabis companies, according to a new survey by Bedford Consulting Group. The report examined the compensation of 437 executives and 449 board members at 96 pot firms. The data was collected in October, when the average cannabis share price was about one-third higher than it is today. Of the 166 CEOs included in the survey, Tilray’s Brendan Kennedy had the highest total compensation at $31.8 million Canadian, of which 97 percent was shares or options. Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was the highest-paid director, receiving $13.9 million Canadian from Acreage, all of which was equity-based.
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June 1, 2020
Mexico may move to complete legalization of marijuana & hemp without THC limits by the end of the year
In October of 2018 the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the ban on consuming marijuana is unconstitutional. The court has allowed several extensions in the deadline, but the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly aggravated Mexico’s numerous other problems. Now the Congress is finally looking at not just decriminalizing personal use, but also the formal legalization of retail sales and hemp cultivation. The Mexican economy was in bad shape before the pandemic, and the drop in industrial and agricultural exports to the U.S., the loss of the hugely important tourism sector, and the drop in remittances from Mexican workers in the U.S., have been devastating.
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Wither hemp? Earlier this month, the editors of the cannabis investment news site Technical420 lamented that a predicted hemp boom had failed to materialize. "[T]he sector has not lived up to expectations," the site declared. Likewise, Hemp Industry Daily reported this week that hemp farmers found "production costs far outpaced profits" last year. Others outside the industry have also taken note of hemp's struggles. Earlier this week, Politico reported that laws passed in Washington, D.C., that were intended to propagate a domestic hemp industry have instead proven to be "a flop."
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Since the first thousands of cases of coronavirus spread across the country in March, American life as we know it has changed and entire industries have been upended. In the cannabis industry, sales increased in many of the 33 states where some form of adult-use and/or medical marijuana are legal, likely because patients and consumers didn’t know the next time they could visit a dispensary and are experiencing increased levels of anxiety and depression during the pandemic. In Florida, a record-setting 123,817 ounces of cannabis flower was sold in April 2020 — a 52% increase from January, according to the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Wednesday that it has approved hemp regulatory plans from a U.S. territory and four additional Indian tribes. The U.S. Virgin Islands is the first territory to have its proposal accepted. USDA also signed off on plans from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Chippewa Cree Tribe, Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. That brings the total number of approved plans across states, territories and tribes to 47.
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May 27, 2020
A Hidden Origin Story of the CBD Craze
Long before CBD had become a trendy wellness elixir found in juice and moisturizer and ice cream and dog treats; before corporate chains like Walgreens and Sephora had decided to sell it; and way before Kim Kardashian West had thrown a CBD-themed baby shower, a ragtag crew of activists, doctors, writers and marijuana farmers met up on an early winter evening in 2011. They sat in a circle at a house in the hills a few hours north of San Francisco — where wine country becomes weed country — to discuss the therapeutic potential of CBD, and how to get people to take it seriously.
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The Louisiana Senate approved a bill to significantly expand the state’s medical marijuana program on Wednesday, and a committee advanced separate legislation on banking access for cannabis businesses. The expansion proposal, which the House of Representatives approved last week, would allow physicians to recommend medical cannabis to patients for any debilitating condition that they deem fit instead of from the limited list of maladies that’s used under current law. The Senate Health and Welfare Committee advanced the proposal last week and now the full chamber has approved it ...
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May 27, 2020
‘Cannabis Treats COVID-19’ Rallied Weed Stocks: Cannabis Could Aid Pandemic—If Someone Pays To Find Out
Already down when the coronavirus pandemic kicked all markets, a few cannabis stocks enjoyed rallies Friday — gains connected, it would seem, to the coronavirus pandemic. Colorado’s CBD giant Charlotte’s Web, named for pediatric cannabis patient Charlotte Figi, who died last month of complications from the coronavirus, was up 24 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange. But the big gain was on NASDAQ, where shares in Canadian firm Sundial spiked 50 percent—a jump, to $0.83 a share, that’s nothing close to wiping out last year’s losses, but nonetheless a very big rally in context.
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Our nation is in the midst of the greatest crisis in generations, with the Covid-19 pandemic impacting Americans’ physical and emotional well-being, while plummeting the nation’s economy into the worst economic downturn in our lifetimes. As the country begins what is likely to be a slow climb out of economic morass, federal, state, and local governments will be looking for new sources of revenue to replenish dwindling budgets and provide jobs to millions of Americans who find themselves out of work. The situation is reminiscent of what the country faced during the Great Depression nearly 100 years ago.
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May 27, 2020
Former Attorney General, Lawmakers And Police Leaders Call For Federal Marijuana Legalization Waivers
A task force comprised of former lawmakers, federal prosecutors and reform advocates issued a series of recommendations on Wednesday about criminal justice policy changes that should be enacted, and that includes creating a waiver system to allow states to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference. The Council on Criminal Justice task force was established prior to the coronavirus pandemic, but its new report said the health crisis has “underscored the urgency” of the recommendations. While the group is far from the only criminal justice-minded organization to push for cannabis reform, it’s especially notable because of the backgrounds of its membership.
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