Aurora Cannabis Inc.’s stock tumbled nearly 12% Tuesday, after the Canadian company said it’s recording up to C$1.8 billion ($1.4 billion) of goodwill impairment charges on some of its past acquisitions.
You might not know it by looking at the poor performance of most cannabis stocks over the past 17 months, but marijuana is projected to be one of the fastest-growing industries this decade. With tens of billions of dollars in North American pot sales conducted in the black market each year, Canada's legalization of adult-use weed in Oct. 2018 and a steady stream of state-level legalizations in the U.S. has rolled out the green carpet for illicit users to become legal-channel consumers.
There are other ways to buy legitimate marijuana without making it mega cheap.
The Illegal cannabis market continues to be one of the biggest threats to legal marijuana industry, whether through diverting revenue from licensed businesses or stunting the growth of legal MJ companies across the United States.
Though industry advocates persist in their pitches that legalization – either through new states coming on board or a federal mandate – would put an end to the illicit market, their argument has not come to fruition.
Full disclosure doesn't come easily to a once illicit industry emerging from the shadows.
Shifting the focus of an industry from allowing no information to escape to requiring absolute transparency is a monumental task. Even with tools to provide excellent data consistently, openness and accurate bookkeeping are yet to be normalized in the cannabis insurance world.
Until recently, cannabis operated in the margins of culture and was often dismissed as a fringe industry.
While most businesses closed in the name of public safety amid the Covid-19 crises, a select few were deemed essential businesses and allowed to stay open. That list included health care providers, law enforcement agencies, grocery stores, pharmacies and cannabis dispensaries.
Despite being a nascent and still federally illegal operation, most states deemed cannabis companies and ancillary services as essential businesses when COVID-19 hit the U.S. Since that time, consumer demand has sustained – if not grown – and patients have been able to continue getting their medicine. Now, the legal cannabis industry is looking towards the future and “new normal” with expanding, legitimized workforces that have kept the industry alive during a national economic downturn.
Start by understanding what works and what doesn't work.
The cannabis industry has a testing problem — and it may not be going away anytime soon. Why? Inexperienced technicians, unscrupulous labs, outdated testing regulations, and inferior testing equipment all factor into the inconsistencies and false results that plague the business.
A Congressional report quantifies what we all suspected was happening: Drug cartels are taking a hit as the legal cannabis market expands.
Legal marijuana entrepreneurs are finally starting to win the battle against a long-time enemy—the illicit market. For years, black market operators have undercut cannabis prices and taken away part of the cannabis market share.
As of Wednesday, the universe of cannabis-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has grown by one. The AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF (NYSEARCA: MSOS) began trading on September 2 at a per-share price of $25.00 and 100,000 shares outstanding.
As the West Coast matures from the early Green Rush and Midwest markets like Michigan and Illinois hit their stride with recent legalization, all eyes are on the Northeast as the sleeping giant that will radically change the national cannabis landscape for 2021 and beyond.
