On Tuesday, Canopy Growth Corp. (TSX: WEED) said four products from its new Martha Stewart CBD for Pet brand — a collaboration between Stewart and the Canadian producer teased in 2019 — were available on select e-commerce platforms in the U.S.

Developed by Canopy Animal Health, a division of Canopy Growth that’s conducted 32 studies examining the role of cannabinoids in pet health, has developed an initial product portfolio of oil drops and soft-baked chews in three formulations: Wellness, Calm and Mobility.

In a statement, the company said the products are designed to reduce the effects of everyday stress, as well as maintain joint health and mobility by harnessing the power of cannabidiol and other ingredients.

Read more: Canopy launches Martha Stewart CBD line in cluttered US market

With an increasing number of cannabinoid-infused pet products available to consumers, the effects of cannabis in animals is an area of growing interest, and concern, for discerning pet owners and veterinarians. While more research is required, initial findings suggest cannabinoids in controlled doses are safe for pets, and produce minimal negative side effects in some cases.

Stewart says her treats were inspired by the benefits of incorporating CBD into her own routine, and wanting to pass them to her beloved pups.

“My dogs are not only my companions, but they are part of my family, and I prioritize their emotional and physical well-being as I do my own,” Stewart said in the statement.

“Just as CBD can support human wellness, it’s been shown to improve the quality of life for pets as well. With the help of the scientists and veterinarians at Canopy Animal Health, I’ve created CBD oil drops and savory soft-baked chews designed to support the health of dogs of all ages, sizes and breeds in delicious gourmet flavors that your canines won’t be able to resist,” she says.

As one of the world’s most influential lifestyle figures, the product launch and related her statements lend considerable credibility to CBD and its benefits for animals. And while research shows promising potential for cannabinoids in human health, less is known about if and how those benefits extend to our pets.

So, based on what we know now, exactly how effective is cannabis for dogs?

At launch, Canopy and Stewarts line includes Soft-Baked Chews for Calm (chicken and cranberry flavour), Soft-Baked Chews for Mobility (chicken and blueberry flavour), Soft-Baked Chews for Wellness (chicken, blueberry and anise flavour and Wellness Drops (chicken flavour, 600 milligrams of CBD per bottle). Press photo

Does cannabis work for pets?

Apart from insects, all animals including dogs have an endocannabinoid system — an ancient biological network that plays a key role in the body’s response to stress. This means that cannabis interacts with them on physiological level, but researchers are still figuring out how and in what doses.

Despite the lack of research, people are widely using cannabis to treat their pets for a number of reasons.

A 2016 survey from Colorado State University showed that nearly 60 per cent of respondents used hemp products for their dogs. Pet owners reported positive impacts on pain, sleep and anxiety. In addition to anecdotal surveys, some clinical studies show benefits from CBD in dogs with osteoarthritis and epilepsy.

Read more: Giving dogs daily CBD improves arthritis symptoms: study

Read more: CBD substantially reduces eczema in dogs: company study

Read more: Stoner rat study first to closely mimic THC affinity in humans

“There are still many important questions about CBD for dogs and cats, and our research team is continually working to find answers,” says Dr. Bob Menardi, director of veterinary technical and educational services at Canopy Animal Health.

According to Mendari, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work when it comes to dosing CBD in pets: efficacy depends on variables like weight and size. Martha Stewart for Pet was designed to be customizable to the size of each dog, ensuring the right dose for each furry friend, Menardi explained in an email.

The product descriptions offer a recommended serving based on weight: small breeds get 7–11 milligrams of CBD per dose, and large breeds get 19–32 milligrams.

“All of our pet products are designed to be given daily with precise recommended amounts based on the dog’s weight included on the packaging,” Menardi said. However, he didn’t elaborate on how they determined what dose of CBD was effective for each size of dog.

Are weed products safe for our furry friends?

When it comes to cannabis, veterinary medicine hasn’t had the same research and development as human medicine.

Even Canopy Animal Health’s website states that this is a new area of research and pet owners should consult with their veterinarian prior to starting any kind of cannabis treatment.

In terms of published clinical studies, there are two notable discoveries regarding the safety of cannabis use in dogs. A 2020 study appearing in Frontiers Veterinary Science found that healthy dogs tolerated escalating doses of CBD — with mild side effects — significantly better than THC oils.

Early research suggests dogs can share many of the same benefits from cannabis as humans. Deposit photos

And a 2018 study looked into adverse effects of cannabidiol, finding that diarrhea, sedation and serum alkaline phosphatase elevations were recorded in dogs receiving 10–20 milligrams per kilogram per day.

“To date, our work has focused mainly on demonstrating the safety of CBD and how it behaves in the pet’s body and on gaining an understanding of the impact of differing formulations and interactions with other cannabinoids,” Menardi says.

“In addition to our internal safety measures, Martha Stewart CBD pet products carry the NASC quality seal, which denotes strict adherence to manufacturing, labeling, testing, and marketing guidelines to guarantee a consistent and high-quality product for discerning pet owners,” he says regarding the products’ safety.

However the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved health claims for CBD, and Martha Stewart for Pet products carry fine print stating this: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any diseases.”

Martha Stewart for Pet is only available for sale in the U.S. with no specified plans to expand to Canada.

Top image: wellness maven Martha Stewart and her dogs (clockwise from top left) Crème Brûlée, Bête Noir, Emperor Han and Empress Qin. Press Photo

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These are the words of Zack, a participant in a study conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the BC Centre on Substance Use, published in the journal PLOS One. The less-common qualitative research was based on interviews with youth experiencing street entrenchment in Vancouver, B.C., who use cannabis.

The study involved 78 semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted from March 2017 to August 2019 with 56 young people between the ages of 16 and 26. Youth were recruited from the At-Risk Youth Study, a prospective cohort of over 1,000 street entrenched young people who use drugs. It also included 13 interviews with 12 youth-focused care providers including family physicians, nurses and social workers.

The authors noted that in Canada it’s estimated there are between 35,000 and 45,000 young people living without a stable or safe residence. In Greater Vancouver, a recent homeless count revealed that there are nearly 700 youth aged 13 to 24 living on the streets. Youth experiencing street entrenchment are defined as those experiencing homelessness or without stable housing, frequently in the context of other kinds of overlapping exclusion along axes of race, class, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Read more: Vancouver harm reduction project finds a home

Neil Magnuson is co-founder of the Cannabis Substitution Project, an initiative that provides low-cost, low-barrier access to cannabis as an alternative to dangerous street drugs. Photo by Michelle Gamage

Over the past year, British Columbia has seen record overdose deaths, repeated calls from lauded health officials for harm-reduction approaches to drug enforcement and a mounting body of vetted evidence that cannabis can mitigate the use of deadly street drugs. In the meantime, the province has upped enforcement of the unregulated cannabis industry and handed off the recommended move to decriminalize illicit drug use to the federal government.

Given the significant barriers preventing at-risk youth from accessing treatment — which include the reluctance of service providers to provide opiate agonist therapy, the location of services in heavy drug-using neighbourhoods as well as the undesirable outcomes associated with particular programs — many youth conclude that an independent route is the only one available to treat their physical and mental health, researchers say.

Read more: Multiple barriers exist for people trying to access weed as a harm-reduction tool: study

To address this fundamental distrust of state-sanctioned resources, the study’s authors say research approaches that combine “qualitative methods and implementation science are urgently needed to better adapt and design substance use and mental health services that are accessible, acceptable, appropriate and effective for young people experiencing street entrenchment.”

The researchers call for interventions that are responsive to the lived experiences of youth experiencing street entrenchment, addressing their marginalization and rebuilding their trust in “the system.”

“Service design and provider education and training must incorporate consideration of the current evidence regarding both the potential risks and benefits of cannabis use among this population, including the role that cannabis can play in intermittently or more permanently reducing or eliminating more harmful forms of substance use and mediating mental and physical health issues,” they say.

The reverse gateway drug hypothesis

Zack is one of several subjects who framed cannabis explicitly as a form of treatment, describing it as a way to carefully taper use of more harmful substances over the course of several weeks or months. They say weed reduced the severity of withdrawal symptoms while preventing relapse by satisfying cravings. Zack explained that using a combination of methadone and cannabis eliminated his daily injections. The researchers said it was notable that cannabis is used not only to transition away from subject viewed as more harmful substances, like fentanyl and heroin, but also away from more harmful methods of administration — from injection to smoking.

Read more: Daily cannabis use could help battle overdose crisis: study

Results like these, researchers say, challenge some of the assumptions built into the longstanding gateway drug hypothesis — that weed leads to use of harder drugs — and in fact suggest the exact opposite.

“While our findings do not speak to the chronological progression of young people’s substance use trajectories (e.g., from initiating cannabis use to experimenting with ‘harder’ substances such as opioids and meth),” the study reads, “They do demonstrate what could be referred to as a ‘reverse gateway effect’ among some street entrenched young people, whereby cannabis use was associated with the intermittent reduction, elimination or prevention of more harmful forms of drug use such as meth and opioid use.”

This reverse gateway effect is particularly significant in the context of the current overdose crisis, which has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 young people in the province since 2016, the study’s authors said.

Read more: Cannabis is the overdose prevention tool we don’t use: symposium

Unlike Zack, who described how cannabis and methodone “connected together” to eliminate cravings, a number of others said how weed was far more effective than conventional opiate agonist therapy (OAT) for the treatment of substance use disorders. A number of the subjects, including one called Carla, said they used cannabis to wean themselves off of OAT.

“Like, I always believed, like, when I was in treatment — they should dispense pot to people here, you know? Like, people can’t just suddenly not have anything,” Carla said. “You still need something to just kind of fucking just take the edge off and calm your nerves. And, like, it — there’s no harm in pot.”

Several youth argued that cannabis should be an official part of the substance use treatment system.

On the other hand, while the majority of respondents had a positive experience, the researchers stressed that cannabis isn’t for everyone. Some respondents opened up about their struggles with cannabis use, and even the stigma they faced when trying to seek treatment for it.

“People treated me like total crap when I was [in residential treatment] for pot,” said a 24-year old named Mason. “I mean, like, total shit. It was like, oh, well, that’s not a drug. You don’t need to be in treatment. And when I went there for morphine and shit they were just kind of like, whoa [i.e., that’s a ‘real’ addiction].”

But overall — and building on cannabis substitution research like a 2016 U.S. study that painkiller prescriptions fell sharply in states with medical cannabis laws — the researchers said Canadian officials must acknowledge weed as a harm reduction tool.

“Particularly in the context of the recent legalization of non-medical cannabis use in Canada and amid ongoing overdose and housing crises, it is imperative that future policy and programming interventions and provider education and training be responsive to the ways in which youth in our setting are actively using cannabis to navigate their everyday lives and healthcare needs.”

Top image: Volunteers of Vancouver’s Cannabis Substitution Project give out care packages with cannabis to people living in the city’s Downtown Eastside. Submitted photo

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On Tuesday, the FDA released a seven-page draft that describes the agency’s “current thinking” on several topics surrounding the science of developing drugs containing cannabis and hemp-derived compounds.

But the anticipated guidelines didn’t live up to the hemp sector’s expectations. The industry has watched chaos in the White House, FDA leadership changes, and the Covid-19 pandemic combine to further slow down CBD regulations for food and supplement products creating a murky scenario for consumers and their safety.

When the 2018 Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp in America, it opened the door for a massive new market for hemp plants with 0.3 per cent THC or less, as well as all other cannabinoids, like CBD, that can be extracted from the plant. It also took the hemp plant and derived products out of the purview of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and into the hands of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA.

To date, however, the only regulated CBD product that’s been approved by the FDA is the drug Epidiolex, which is used to treat seizures caused by two rare forms of childhood epilepsy.

The federal agency’s draft guidelines aim to help companies have better access to regulated hemp supply so they can easier conduct clinical research to develop new drugs derived from hemp. The draft also focuses on topics such as pharmaceutical quality and chemistry, controls, testing and manufacturing. The FDA said the guidelines aren’t legally binding and should be considered only as recommendations for now. Public comment is open for 60 days.

Image via Deposit Photos

Although the guidance swings open the door open further to increase hemp production for research, it still is a letdown for the industry.

Vermont Cannabis Solutions lawyer Timothy Fair calls the FDA’s move a “baby step” in at least acknowledging that hemp and CBD have potential medical benefits.

But Fair, who works with CBD companies in Vermont’s thriving hemp industry, says the agency has been dragging its feet for too long in creating a regulatory pathway for all CBD products.

The U.S. hemp industry has been pushing the FDA to treat CBD like any other vitamin supplement for almost two years so that the touted wellness extract can be legally added into food, drinks and pet products.

Fair said the FDA’s ultra-conservative approach has delayed the rules for CBD despite millions of Americans using the extract every day without any harm or injury recorded to date.

Read more: FDA’s update on CBD regulations is ‘frankly absurd’

“It’s beyond absurd. We’ve passed the point of ludicrous on this,” he said in a phone interview. “CBD is safe, especially in low doses — let’s not cut around this.”

Wild West CBD market leaves consumers unprotected

The cannabis lawyer says while the FDA is supposed to keep Americans safe, the lack of CBD regulations is putting people at risk.

When CBD was legalized nationally at the end of 2018, states could create their own hemp and CBD laws. But the lack of federal regulations has created a Wild West market.

Currently, there are over 2,700 CBD brands on the market with infused products like gummies, lotions, teas and even clothing. These products are sold in gas stations, beauty salons and malls across the country. Last year, a Gallup poll found that one-in-seven Americans have used the extract in some form. And a more recent industry survey by SingleCare shows that 33 per cent of Americans have now tried CBD.

Read more: CBD more popular online than Beyonce and veganism online

While marketing CBD in food, drinks and pet products remains illegal in the U.S., the FDA has only enforced prohibition by issuing warning letters to companies advertising unsubstantiated health claims.

In the health and wellness space, CBD is purported to treat numerous ailments from acne to cancer due to the apparent anti-inflammatory properties in the non-intoxicating compound.

But CBD science is only beginning to catch up with the claims and could be doing so even faster with an explosion of new studies now being conducted to see if the extract can even treat Covid-19. After a few preliminary studies showed that CBD could effectively treat chronic pain and anxiety, some solid new research has showed that CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties can slow the sometimes lethal immune response in the lungs of hosts infected with the novel coronavirus.

Read more: CBD can treat physical and mental Covid-19 symptoms: study

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company said in May 2019 they would launch a CBD-infused product once the US FDA legalizes the cannabinoid for food and drink. Press photo

New York-based cannabis researcher Dr. Lynn Parodneck says without regulations, the contents of products are unknown and consumers aren’t protected.

“There is no screening or lab testing required,” she said in an email to Mugglehead. “As a result, pesticides, mold, and heavy metals can be present, and yet there still may not be any CBD present.”

Dr. Parodneck said CBD is legal and here to stay in America, so consumers are entitled to protection from buying products that can cause damage and whose contents should be transparent.

Last week, the FDA published a product recall notice for dozens of hemp-based CBD products produced by one company that contained lead. While the hemp oil itself wasn’t contaminated, the lead was found in the graduated droppers that MHR Brands said they purchased from a third-party manufacturer.

Fair said it’s only a matter of time for bad actors to tarnish the whole industry’s reputation for getting someone sick or worse.

His firm helps CBD extractors and manufacturers with regulatory compliance issues in Vermont, but Fair says it’s unfair if not everyone in the space plays by the rules.

Because his clients want to keep their customers safe, he says they’ve been reluctant to offer more products for human and animal consumption until the FDA provides regulations.

U.S. cannabis market research firm Brightfield Group reported that CBD sales reached US$5 billion last year, but the market is expected to burst wide open if the FDA gives the industry the green light to treat CBD like a supplement.

Read more: U.S. CBD sales to surge above US$23 billion by 2023: Brightfield

US federal government ‘a train wreck of epic proportions’

The FDA began evaluating how to regulate CBD products early in 2019, and has stated multiple times that it needs to gather enough research, data, as well as other safety and public health input before it can make its decision.

The agency said in a March statement it would continue collecting comments from all sides of the issue in an online public forum that remains open today.

“We recognize that there is substantial public interest in marketing and accessing CBD for a variety of products,” an FDA spokesperson said in an email. “We are working toward a goal of providing additional guidance, and have made substantial progress. There are many questions to explore regarding the science, safety, effectiveness and quality of products containing CBD, and we need to do our due diligence.”

The FDA told Mugglehead it submitted a new report to Congress this week that highlights its plan to conduct a sampling study of the U.S. CBD market to determine which products are mislabeled or adulterated. The report says the results will help the FDA gain insight on the market and the agency will report again to Congress within 180 days of beginning the study.

Meanwhile, Washington DC-based cannabis lawyer Jonathan Havens revealed this week on LinkedIn that the FDA submitted a “Cannabidiol Enforcement Policy” draft guidance to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

“Clarity could finally be coming to the CBD space. It’s hard to believe that the Agency will back off completely from its ‘ingestibles aren’t permitted’ stance. Perhaps the enforcement policy will be claims focused,” he wrote. “Details forthcoming.”

Washington DC Capitol Building. Image via Deposit Photos

Despite the glimmers of hope for progress, Fair suspects if the Covid-19 pandemic hadn’t occurred, more would have been done by now.

However, he also alleges corruption and incompetency within President Donald Trump’s administration has also hurt federal agencies like the FDA.

“I think it might be a little difficult to understand for people outside the U.S. how dysfunctional our federal government has really been,” he said. “It is a train wreck of epic proportions.”

Fair says the chaos surrounding Trump’s Oval Office, alongside steep budget cuts, has caused instability for federal institutions like the FDA, resulting in leadership changes.

Late last year, Trump nominated oncology doctor Stephen Hahn as the new Commissioner of the FDA. Reuters reported how experts had highlighted Hahn’s status as an outsider likely played a role in his nomination by the President.

Fair said this abrupt change at the top has created internal conflict within the FDA, especially during the pandemic as the agency scrambles to fast-track Covid-19 treatments.

‘Common sense regulations’ for CBD will come … eventually

Fair expects America’s ongoing health crisis will continue for months with the lack of political leadership at the national level. As of this week, the U.S. leads the world with with over 4 million confirmed cases of Covid-19.

And with the pandemic raging on, Fair said FDA likely won’t prioritize CBD regulations until the situation stabilizes.

But if the Democratic Party takes power of the U.S. Senate in the Nov. 3 election, he said that could help catalyze CBD policy as well as federal cannabis legalization.

In a presentation last month, Canadian weed mega-company Canopy Growth Corp. (TSX: WEED) noted that it has been talking to lawmakers on Capitol Hill who could veto the FDA and provide a legislative solution for CBD through its classification as a dietary supplement.

Last year, a bill was introduced by in the House that would amend the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to reclassify CBD as a supplement, Canopy noted.

The company plans to introduce a CBD brand backed by lifestyle guru Martha Stewart in the U.S. this fall, and have 40 products launched in total by the end of this year under a total of four brands.

Read more: Canopy to launch Martha Stewart CBD brand this fall

For Fair, its only a matter of time for “common sense regulations” to prevail.

He compares the ban on CBD food and drinks to alcohol prohibition in the U.S. 100 years ago. It took people getting poisoned with bad batches of illicit booze before a regulated market was established to keep people safe.

Toronto-based cannabis company Cronos Group reported in an SEC filing on July 20, 2020, that CEO Robert Rosenheck of its Lord Jones luxury CBD brand is departing after posting slow sales growth in the U.S. due in part to a lack of federal CBD regulations. Press photo

The FDA’s main concerns for potential harms caused by CBD include potential liver injury and how the compound interacts with other prescription drugs.

“By competing with CBD in the liver, the efficacy of prescription medications may change, thus harming patients,” Dr. Parodneck explains.

But industry leader Charlotte’s Web (TSX: CWEB) helped launch a clinical trial last month to test CBD’s effect on the liver in an effort to provide the FDA with more robust science.

Read more: Charlotte’s Web backs study on health outcomes of CBD

This week, the Colorado-based company teamed up with famed street artist Shepard Fairey to raise awareness of the need for improved and equal access to hemp-derived CBD products in all 50 states. Fairey’s “Trust The Earth” art installation of a raised fist clutching a cannabis leaf was mown into 76 acres in a Kansas wheat field and has made international headlines.

Fair said CBD awareness and use is only continuing to climb at an exponential rate, which is why he’s confident that regulations will eventually push through.

“It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when,” he says.

Top image of Charlotte’s Web’s third art installation by renowned street artist Shepard Fairey ‘Trust The Earth’ is part of the company’s pro-hemp access campaign and was grown and mown into 76 acres — the equivalent of 57 football fields — on a farm in Kansas. Press photo

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On Thursday Numinus Wellness Inc. (TSX-V: NUMI), a Vancouver-based company working towards developing psychedelic-assisted therapy, was granted a licence amendment by Health Canada to produce and extract psilocybin, a compound in magic mushrooms.

Numinus is the first publicly-traded company to be licensed by Health Canada to conduct psilocybin research, CEO Payton Nyquvest says. The company will create a proprietary method for extracting psilocybin, which will then be used to extract the drug for research across the country, as well as at Numinus, Nyquvest said. 

In Canada, most research on the benefits of psilocybin is done using a synthetic form of the drug, according to Numinus COO Michael Tan. Numinus could help lower research costs by reducing the cost of production for psilocybin, he says, because extracting the drug from mushrooms should be cheaper than creating the synthetic compound.

COO Michael Tan says extracting psilocybin from organic material should be cheaper than creating a synthetic compound

“Cost is definitely a big factor,” Tan said. “The production of synthetic compounds can be quite an elaborate process given the complexity and the need to ensure safe manufacturing practices.”

Tan wouldn’t reveal an estimate on how much synthetic psilocybin cost, or how much cheaper psilocybin extracted from mushrooms would be. 

Working with just a small amount of the organic material would use less resources and produce enough psilocybin to meet today’s research demands, he says. 

Numinus’s business model is based on the eventuality that Canada will regulate the therapeutic use of psychedelics and three core pillars: Furthering psychedelic research, offering eventual psychedelic therapy, as well as testing and selling psychedelics, which is what Thursday’s licence amendment supports. 

Read more: Canada could regulate psychedelic therapy within few years, bets company

‘We see psilocybin and a bunch of these other psychedelics as having great applications for a number of different mental health issues,’ Numinus CEO Payton Nyquvest said

While Nyquvest wouldn’t elaborate on what research Numinus will be doing on psilocybin, he did say they’re very interested in furthering research on how the psychedelic drug could be used to treat different addictions, and how it’s used to ease end-of-life anxiety. The company will also work to support ongoing research in the psychedelic field.

“We see psilocybin and a bunch of these other psychedelics as having great applications for a number of different mental health issues,” Nyquvest said. Research done by Johns Hopkins University, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and Compass helped build a solid research base for the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, he said. 

“There’s a real ability to build off of that research that a lot of those groups have done. Not only to support research but also to start providing infrastructure for if and when those trials open up a regulated access for these different therapies.”

Numinus can possess and test psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, mescaline and MDMA at its lab in Nanaimo, B.C. 

Working with the real thing makes a more ‘pure’ compound

The production, extraction and research of psilocybin will take place at Numinus’s 7,000 square foot research facility in Nanaimo, British Columbia. 

One of the facility’s senior research scientists, Kristina Grotzinger, says working with the organic mushrooms will produce a purer compound. 

Creating synthetic compounds increases the risk of contamination, Grotzinger said in a company statement. Working with the mushroom reduces these risks as well as the cost of extraction, she said.

Numinus will get to work right away on setting up their Nanaimo lab to grow mushrooms, which Tan says is not a terribly complex process. Additionally, cultivation won’t take up much space because the company doesn’t need to produce massive quantities of magic mushrooms to begin research, he added. 

The company is also set up to handle additional psychedelic compounds. 

“Right now we have the ability to possess and test psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, mescaline and MDMA at the lab. Our amendment allows us to produce and conduct research on psilocybin,” Tan said. “It’s our intent to apply for further amendments so we can conduct research on the other substances, and in all likelihood our next amendment will be an application for MDMA research.”

All images via Numinus

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But because thinner wallets demand thrifty choices and weed gets you more intoxication for your buck, it has the potential to further cut into alcohol sales in the coming months.

That’s according to co-founder and CEO of BDS Analytics, Roy Bingham, whose 65-person team is all busily working from home.

The most recent numbers from one of the cannabis industry’s leading data firms show  sales in Canada and the U.S. are continuing to surge, approximately 20 per cent above average, past the initial spending spikes on the second full weekend in March.

Those initial waves, Bingham said, were medical and heavy consumers — bearing in mind that 65 per cent of cannabis consumers consume on a daily basis.

Read more: COVID-19 could be a boon for cannabis retail

Read more: Companies and consumers embrace cannabis retail rush before expected mass shutdown

According to BDS consumer data, medical users typically visit dispensaries several times a week and so they felt the need to stock up at first in case supply was cut off by the COVID-19 lockdown. Heavy users exhibited similar buying behaviours, followed by a wide spectrum of customers without a chronic medical need.

“Then what I’ve also heard from numerous people is because you have the product on the shelf at home, you tend to consume more which is just a fact of life for any product,” Bingham told Mugglehead. “So people consumed more in that first week that they were mainly staying at home, and then they said, ‘Okay, well, I better purchase more.’”

So the question really is, he says: Is this a recession-resistant product?

And ultimately, where is the recession at large driving people in terms of the types of products that they’re consuming?

“We’ve certainly seen in prior recessions that, for example, with alcohol or tobacco or cosmetics, while they may have been recession resistant, people have on the whole gravitated towards cheaper products,” Bingham said.

Bang for your bong

As bang for your buck increasingly becomes consumers’ top priority, Bingham expects to see even more demand for low-cost, high-potency cannabis products.

“When you think about it, if it comes to a financial choice between alcohol and cannabis as a relaxing example, as a way to feel better about things while you’re stuck at home, cannabis typically will be the low-cost option now, I would imagine,” he said.

Such a trend would further cut into alcohol sales.

“It’s speculation, but it has that potential,” Bingham said. “We know that there is a younger generation of consumer who is not consuming much alcohol, who has not been attracted to alcohol in the same way — the cohort of people under 30 and 25 years of age — and that group in many cases have consumed cannabis and say, ‘Now I’m not really going to touch alcohol or I’m going to minimize it.’”

Read more: Canadian retailers applaud provinces for calling cannabis ‘essential’

Another relevant consideration for companies is the fact that, according to BDS, in the fully legal U.S. states 57 per cent of weed users have a household income of less than $60,000 and 32 per cent make less than $35,000. Bingham said those numbers have close parallels in Canada.

People in the lowest income brackets suffer the most in a recessionary environment, which could cut into their ability to buy cannabis products at all. Although that may be offset by government support, Bingham said.

Top image via Deposit Photos. All other images courtesy of BDS Analytics

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The initial report, released March 3, provided a lengthy case as to how the Canadian-headquartered company had roots in an auto-enrichment scheme and had misled its investors on several occasions about the status of its production assets.

While PharmaCielo refuted the claims from the outset, its share price sank after the report was made public.

Read more: Allegations against PharmaCielo could tarnish promising Colombian industry

The credibility of Hindenburg’s allegations was perhaps lent by previous reports outlining similar alleged schemes that led to executives walking away from Aphria Inc. (TSE: APHA).

In a lengthy response Monday, PharaCielo detailed the results of an audit that has investigated Hindenburg’s claims.

“After nearly three weeks of exhaustive review, the Independent Review found that the conclusions drawn by Hindenburg Research have almost no basis in fact,” reads a section penned by audit committee chair Douglas H. Bache. “The report is salacious, and the analysis underpinning Hindenburg’s conclusions is careless and therefore nearly wholly inaccurate.”

“A thorough review of the facts demonstrates that the authors of this report were clearly more focused on hastily discrediting PharmaCielo in order to profit from their short position in PharmaCielo’s stock, than on conducting accurate analysis in good faith to reach reliable and solid conclusions,” the section reads.

The company’s response continues by examining the Hindenburg report on a claim-by-claim basis. Notably, the review board showed evidence that the initial land sale for PharmaCielo’s major operations facility was legitimate and did not include any side deals.

In addition to responding to the short-seller claims, the cannabis producer went so far as to invite the writers of the Hindenburg report to inspect its facilities once the global coronavirus pandemic has calmed.

PharmaCielo says its in-house counsel and external legal team are “looking into this matter and assessing the various legal remedies that are available.”

Hindenburg Research did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Top image via Deposit Photos

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The release of a damning short-seller report from Hindenburg Research against the country’s biggest cannabis company, PharmaCielo, holds the potential to damage reputations of operators across what, until now, has been an promising sector in the global weed economy.

In recent years, the end of the majority of open conflict in Colombia has attracted waves of tourists for the same reason the country was avoided for decades: A fascination with its storied history of drug trafficking and bloodshed, and the notorious criminal at the centre of it all.

Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín cartel, used to reign over the sprawling city with both real and imagined terror. But today, the valley-nestled metropolis has a world-class metro system and a thriving expat community.

In 1995, famed Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s bronze statue “The Bird” was loaded with 22 pounds of explosives and detonated during an outdoor concert in downtown Medellín. The bombing killed 30 people and guerrilla group FARC claimed responsibility for the attack. Botero insisted on not removing exploded statue, and donated a second “Bird of Peace” to sit beside it. Photo by Nick Laba

There, the majority of residents want you to remember Escobar as a man who caused irreparable harm to a nation and its people, not one deserving of the glorified cult of personality portrayed on Netflix.

Relative peace in the South American country has opened it back up to licit international markets. In particular, Colombia’s policy change to allow for commercial production of medical cannabis in 2015 sent a fledgling industry surging forward.

Backed by bags of foreign capital, numerous cultivators have quickly set up operations in one of the most ideal places to grow on the planet.

‘Brilliant’ or ‘bullshit?’

Ryerson University cannabis business professor, Brad Poulos, says there are two things in the value chain that make PharmaCielo’s strategy brilliant.

One is cultivation on the equator. There’s no better place to cultivate weed unless you’re going to grow it inside. Poulos said this keeps the cost of input down as low as possible. The company’s main operations are in Rionegro, a city just 680 kilometres north of the equator and an hour’s drive from Medellín.

A coffee farm near the city of Manizales. Colombia’s humid climate and topography make it an ideal place to grow many prized crops. Photo by Nick Laba

The second piece is doing most of the refinement in-country, and then shipping the more developed, downstream product internationally as pharmaceutical inputs or however they end up being used.

“I just thought that’s where this industry is going to go,” Poulos said. “There are going to be a lot of players that are going to do both of those things, and it’s interesting that they’ve put both of them together.”

For these reasons, he said, “I’ll be super disappointed if I found out it’s all built on bullshit.”

‘Si Pharmacielo no tiene qué esconder, debería contestar las preguntas’

Last Saturday, the headline “‘Si Pharmacielo no tiene qué esconder, debería contestar las preguntas’: director de Hindenburg Research” — or “‘If PharmaCielo has nothing to hide, it should answer the questions’: director of Hindenburg Research” — appeared in El Espectador, a major Colombian newspaper.

The article and Q&A detailed multiple accusations that, if true, would leave the company’s credibility in shambles and lead to criminal charges.

However, the producer’s parent company PharmaCielo Ltd. (TSXV: PCLO and OTCQX: PCLOF) issued a statement on March 3 — the day after the Hindenburg report — saying “this report represents a malicious attempt to manipulate PharmaCielo’s common shares by spreading false, distorted and misleading statements about the company,” and indicating it would be taking legal action against Hindenburg’s “libelous” claims.

Shares in the company have tumbled 57 per cent since the release of the report, to $0.83 a share.

At the top of the list of accusations is a self-enrichment scheme involving at least two of the company’s co-founders.

“Unbeknownst to investors, PharmaCielo’s key operating property in Rionegro, Colombia, was purchased through a bankrupt company co-founder (Federico Cock-Correa) via a Panamanian entity linked to Anthony Wile. It was then sold to PharmaCielo at a massive markup, allowing insiders to enrich themselves by an estimated $5.35 million by stepping in the middle,” the report reads.

Hindenburg claims Wile co-founded PharmaCielo just prior to the end of serving a five-year ban from being the director or officer in a public company, a penalty he consented to in 2010 as part of a settlement stemming from SEC charges of securities fraud, stock promotion and market manipulation.

The alleged scheme bears a stark resemblance to the real-estate fraud outlined in another Hindenburg report against Aphria in December, 2018, which led to a mass exodus of its senior management.

In its response, PharmaCielo didn’t mention the scheme nor Cock-Correa directly, but it did say Wile has not been an officer, director or consultant of PharmaCielo since December 2018.

Mugglehead reached out to PharmaCielo for a more detailed response to the claims. While no additional information was provided, a spokesperson reiterated that a comprehensive reply “dispelling the myths and false claims” is on the way.

“Let’s not forget that the report was issued by a NY-based short-seller who is looking to manipulate the stock price and generate millions of dollars in profit at the expense of honest shareholders,” Gal Wilder of communications agency Cohn & Wolfe said in an email.

To which Hindenburg founder Nathan Anderson replied: “We have a long track record of identifying malfeasance at public and private companies. PharmaCielo has a growing track record of being wholly unable to address our well-vetted allegations of malfeasance.”

PharmaCielo and its promise to Colombia

The short-selling world is full of unscrupulous folks who have no interest in creating value for anyone other than themselves, professor Poulos says, but he’s also a firm believer in the truth.

“So if it takes activist shareholders or activist short-sellers for us to find out the truth then I guess that’s the price of us learning it,” he said.

Read more: Cannabics Pharmaceuticals tests Colombian cannabis for anti-cancer properties

Regardless of who turns out to be right in the end, Poulous said the claims should be divided into two groups.

Some of the allegations involve self-dealing early on in the company. If any of that turned out to be true, Poulos said management who was around at the time should be terminated.

There is a separate set of allegations, including a fraudulent distribution deal involving PharmaCielo’s previous COO, dealing with current operations.

Many other companies, like Cannabis in Colombia whose founder is shown above, have moved to market following the liberalization of its weed laws. Photo by Melaniev5 via Wikimedia Commons

If only the first set of claims turns out to be true, there’s a company that could still do very well on executing its promising corporate strategy, Poulos says. However, if the operational accusations are found to be true, then PharmaCielo will likely be on the line for criminal misrepresentation.

Given corporate cannabis’s race to the gutter and COVID-19’s crippling effect on capital markets, the Hindenburg report couldn’t come at a worse time for PharmaCielo.

According to Poulos, more is riding on the validity of this report than you might at first think.

“Because they’re Canadian-domiciled — they have no operations here, but they’re domiciled here and they trade here — I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a little bit of a ripple effect to the rest of the industry,” he said.

But if PharmaCielo comes toppling down, it could hurt the progress of a promising new cannabis economy at home.

“I think it’s likely to tarnish [other Colombian operators] for some time,” Poulos said.

Top image: A vendor pushing a cart with a cannabis plant through the streets of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city. Even though recreational use is still technically illegal, enforcement is generally relaxed. Photo by Nick Laba

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That rise has some doctors worried because many pharmaceutical drugs have not yet been tested to see if they negatively interact with cannabis — despite one commonly prescribed anti-blood clotting medication already shown to be ineffective when combined with weed.

In the study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and found cannabis use in adults aged 65 and older went up to 4.2 per cent in 2018, from 2.4 per cent in 2015. 

That’s a 75 per cent increase. 

In the national survey, research participants were asked if they smoked or ingested “marijuana, hashish, pot, grass or hash oil,” but were not asked if they vaped cannabis. 

Read more: Seniors are Canada’s fastest growing demographic of cannabis users: StatsCan

Read more: Boomers make up 30 % of cannabis market: BDS Analytics 

The rise in seniors smoking cannabis is concerning because many risks still aren’t understood, the study says.

“As more older adults use cannabis, whether for therapeutic or recreational purposes, it is important for health care providers to counsel their participants despite the very limited evidence base on the benefits and harms of cannabis use among older adults,” the study’s lead author Benjamin Han said in a statement. 

The study’s senior author Joseph Palamar also called for more research into cannabis use among seniors, and noted that because the study did not include vaping, overall use could have been underestimated.

Seniors run increased risk of negative drug interaction

A man uses cannabis ointment. Photo by Sonya Yruel via Drug Policy Alliance

Seniors have different health considerations to take into account when using cannabis than younger consumers. Research on drug interactions has been severely limited due to cannabis prohibition, despite Canada and 11 states plus Washington, DC, recreationally legalizing it.

Some research suggests weed can seriously alter the effects of pharmaceutical drugs. Warfarin (sold under brand names coumadin and jantoven) is the world’s most commonly used anticoagulant prescribed to prevent blood clots, and has been shown to have its dosage thrown off when mixed with cannabis. That’s not something you want to do when the medication is preventing things like a heart attack, stroke, deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism. 

Mixing some pain killers such as morphine or tramadol with cannabis can also lead to dangerous drug interactions that run the risk of causing people to stop breathing, warns drugs.com. 

Canadian flower power generation increasing cannabis consumption

Cannabis use isn’t just up for the American flower power generation. 

In Canada daily cannabis use rose by 10.7 per cent from 2015 to 2018 for people aged 45 to 64-years-old according to Statistics Canada. Between those years, overall cannabis use rose 10.68 per cent for the same age group, compared to a rise of 10.88 per cent in the overall population. 

The Silent Generation, or ages 75 and up, remain quiet as Stats Can has not collected data on their cannabis consumption. 

In the study, researchers noted past-year use more than doubled for people living with diabetes and people who have received mental health treatment. 

Read more: Cannabis could alleviate major depression and suicidal thoughts in PTSD sufferers, study shows

Read more: Canadian doctor says Tide Pods pose greater health threat than cannabis edibles

In the survey, Americans who reported having a drink sometime in the past year were also more likely to have used cannabis in the past year, compared to teetotallers, or people who never drink alcohol.

As stigma against cannabis use fades, the rate of cannabis use in certain socioeconomic groups is changing. People with a college degree, people who are married and people with a higher income reported upping their cannabis use. 

Top photo by Sonya Yruel via the Drug Policy Alliance

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Researchers gave study participants around 21 milligrams of THC and then had them answer memory-testing questions. They found the high participants were more susceptible to falling for trick questions and having their memories confused. 

The effects cannabis had on memory faded by the time researchers followed up with participants one week later. In fact, study participants who were given THC could answer questions more accurately one week later than their placebo-receiving counterparts.

Judicial system should consider intoxicated people vulnerable witnesses

So what does this all mean? 

Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, the study’s findings could help the judicial system better understand people who are intoxicated by cannabis as vulnerable witnesses, similar to children or seniors. 

This is unlikely to change how any judge or jury listens to evidence in a court room, as most courts in Canada already understand being intoxicated can muddle eyewitness accounts, criminal lawyer Paul Doroshenko told Mugglehead. 

“It’s no surprise that people’s memory will be impacted by cannabis or any other drug,” Doroshenko said.

Memories are fickle and fluid things that are already mostly unreliable, he said. It’s something he says can be so unreliable he finds it sort of disturbing people can be convicted on eyewitness accounts alone.

“You can have two or three people side by side as sober adults witnessing a car accident and two or three people will describe it differently, and may have a clear memory about it or not,” he said. 

However, having an understanding of how weed can muddle memories could be helpful outside of the courts. 

“The fact that there’s a study confirming it is useful, probably, to instruct police for when they’re conducting these investigations,” he said.

Read more: BC couple receive micro-cultivation license for $15K

Read more: Threat of vaping-related illness hasn’t passed, says Oregon doctor

Study participants were given THC and asked to play out two different scenarios in VR. In one they witnessed a fight at a train station. In another they were told they were a broke college student who had to steal a purse at a bar. According to the study, the VR world even had interactive characters. Photo via Deposit Photos.

Getting paid to get stoned and play with VR headsets for science 

Sixty-four healthy, willing participants signed up for the study at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and at the University of Sydney in Australia. The subjects were paid AUS$200.

Participants were either given a placebo or 0.3 milligrams of THC per kilogram of their bodyweight, which comes out to around 21 milligrams for the average person.

They then had to memorize lists of words or wear a virtual reality headset where they would watch a fight at a train station or have to steal a purse at a bar.

Researchers would then ask participants questions designed to test for spontaneous memories or misinformation memories — two types of error-causing phenomenon — which aren’t nearly as mind control as they sound. 

Cannabis can muddle memories

Spontaneous memories are often added into other similar memories, according to the study, like while grocery shopping and buying oranges when the grocery list only called for limes and lemons. 

The study tested this phenomenon by having people memorize lists of associated words and then testing if people added in new words that weren’t on the list when answering questions. 

Misinformation memories come from being exposed to misleading or false information. In the study this was introduced by asking participants questions like, “It was a black purse, right?” rather than asking people to describe the purse. 

Introducing misinformation is something cops have to careful of when interviewing witnesses, Doroshenko said. It’s good policing practice to first ask broad questions about what happened and later going back for specific details — but not every cop is perfect, he said. 

It’s also often his job as a lawyer to try and create misinformation memories in court. 

“When I’m cross-examining a witness I do my best sometimes to place my version of events into their brain, and to get them thinking about it. There’s no doubt you can throw somebody and they can start questioning their own recollection. Which is kind of what you want,” he said. 

The study suggested follow-up research could explore how confident stoned people were when answering questions incorrectly. 

Top photo by Darrin Harris Frisby via the Drug Policy Alliance. 

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For example, patient investors that held onto Amazon stock after the dot-com meltdown of 2000 are currently sitting on returns of up to 36,000 per cent.

And similar tales will undoubtedly be told about the cannabis crash of 2019 with the savviest of investors reaping the biggest rewards, says Tom Adams, managing director at BDS Analytics.

Tom Adams, managing director of BDS Analytics, predicts cannabis stocks will rebound while the global industry grows rapidly. Submitted photo

“The fundamentals are still strong and the growth prospects of an industry like this are so strong that investors will be back,” he said. “The stock collapse is just that a stock collapse and the overall cannabis market will recover because of those strong fundamentals.”

While pot stocks on average have tumbled 66 per cent since 2019 highs, global consumer spending on legal cannabis increased by 46 per cent last year, according to a new report by cannabis data firms BDS Analytics and Arcview Market Research.

Total sales reached US$14.9 billion in 2019, and that number is expected to almost triple to US$42.7 billion by 2024, according to the report.

“While valuations of public cannabis stocks may indeed have gotten ahead of themselves in the wake of Canada making history in October 2018 by legitimizing legal cannabis on the world stage, the subsequent sell-off looks extreme from the mid–point of a two-year period in which a US$10.2 billion 2018 market appears on track to more than double to US$20.7 billion in 2020,” the report reads.

Cannabis stocks in 2019 fall in line with declines suffered by Amazon shares in 2000. Data courtesy of New Cannabis Ventures and BDS Analytics

Despite his bullish outlook, Adams warned that pot companies still have to cut back expansion plans and staff this year in an effort to hoard cash while they wait for financial markets to recover, something they’ll need to again raise more money.

“There were dozens of public internet companies that simply died from the 2000 crash and unfortunately that’s going to be the case for some cannabis companies too,” he said. “But you can’t predict which ones will make it just like you couldn’t predict the survivors of the 2000 dot-com crash.”

U.S. makes up lion’s share of global cannabis sales

But today’s cannabis players should keep their eyes on the prize, Adams says.

Much of the expected growth in the next five years will be due to the more rapid takeover of the US$60 billion North American illicit market by the legal market — especially in the U.S., according to Adams.

The 2020 Update to The State of Legal Cannabis Markets report projects compound annual growth rates for worldwide legal cannabis sales of 27 per cent through to 2024. And the U.S. will still account for roughly three-quarters of the total US$42.7 billion global market by then.

American legal cannabis sales will make up more than 75 per cent of global sales, according to BDS Analytics. Data courtesy of BDS Analytics

The 55-page report says new markets in Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts will be key drivers to future growth.

“The lines forming on the streets of a freezing Chicago in the early weeks of adult-use legalization there had sparked a modest recovery on Wall Street,” it reads.

Recreational pot shops in Illinois sold almost US$40 million worth of legal weed in January, according to state officials.

“There’s finally these states other than the western block that are fully legal for adults to consume, and that’s just going to have a major impact in the next five years,” said Adams.

But the cannabis analyst says medical-only markets in Florida — and Oklahoma in particular, which has taken a very liberal approach to licensing — are also booming.

Adams said BDS doesn’t like to make political guesses, but when the firm does its modelling it has to make some assumptions.

One of those guesses is that the State of New York will start generating legal adult-use sales in 2022.

While the fourth-most populous state is planning on legalizing this year, Adams explained that most U.S. states take up to two years to implement their legalization programs.

By 2024, BDS projects total legal cannabis sales will reach US$1.7 billion in the Empire State.

Adams said that number would be higher, but New York’s illicit market is so strong and will remain resilient to the high taxes proposed by state legislators.

Canada’s legal weed sales will grow to US$6.2 billion, according to BDS Analytics. Photo courtesy of Organigram (TSX: OGI)

Canada will boast the world’s second largest legal pot market

Despite red tape and high taxes, California will remain the world’s largest legal market with sales predicted to jump from US$3.1 billion in 2019 to US$7.2 billion in 2024, according to BDS.

The data firm predicts the Canadian market will also endure similar headwinds and come in second with US$6.2 billion in consumer spending by 2024.

Because cannabis has been treated like heroin by both American and Canadian law for most of the 20th century, regulators have taken a very cautious approach “to prevent the legalization of cannabis from ruining society,” Adams says.

But a drop in prices similar to what was experienced in Colorado’s more mature cannabis market several years ago will bring more consumers to the legal side, he said — even more than relaxing of laws would help.

Illicit pot market now 44% cheaper than legal industry: StatsCan

While Statistics Canada estimates the country’s total illicit cannabis market is worth $3.7 billion in Canadian dollars, Adams says that estimate is “ridiculously low.”

Instead, he believes Canada’s underground market is closer to California’s US$9 billion illicit market ($12 billion Canadian) considering both jurisdictions share similar populations.

“When you see up to 20 per cent of the total Canadian population consuming cannabis in some form compared to the couple hundred thousand patients there were in 2018, you’re going to get massive, massive growth,” Adams said.

The Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral sits nearby the country’s supreme court, which ordered the legislative branch to approve legalizing recreational cannabis. Photo by Jared Gnam

Germany, Mexico will lead international growth

Internationally, legal sales will grow from US$517 million in 2018 to US$5.4 billion by 2024 — driven by Germany’s expanding medical-only market and Mexico legalizing adult use this year, according to BDS.

Mexico is expected to be the first country to legalize cannabis via a judicially mandated process in 2020, which differs from the more traditional model of voter initiatives and political pressures forcing legislators to legalize, the report explains.

Adams says the world is watching legalization efforts in Canada and especially the U.S. states that have legalized for more than five years.

“Basically, the U.S. and Canada are running five or 10 years ahead of the world on this issue, depending on which part of the world you are talking about,” he said.

“The sky did not fall because cannabis was legalized and that has got the attention of regulators around the world,” he added. “In 10 to 15 years we expect to see the rest of the world to be fully medically legal and a significant portion of it be legal for adult use.”

Just another reason why his cannabis data firm expects pot stocks to eventually be running with the bulls in the years to come.

Top image courtesy of Tilray Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRY)

Read more: CBD beauty market worth nearly US$1 billion by 2024: report

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