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Major Canadian pharmacy Shoppers Drug Mart exits medical cannabis

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Major Canadian pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart is offloading its 4-year-old medical cannabis distribution business to another company, marking its exit from the marijuana industry.

Shoppers, a division of Canada’s biggest grocer Loblaw Cos., said Tuesday it was “transitioning” its Medical Cannabis by Shoppers business to biopharmaceutical operator Avicanna.

Financial terms of that deal were not disclosed.

Shoppers launched the MMJ distribution business in January 2019.

“As we move away from medical cannabis distribution, we remain firm in our belief that this medication should be dispensed in pharmacies like all others and will continue our advocacy to that end,” Shoppers President Jeff Leger said in a news release.

The release did not explicitly state why Shoppers decided to pull the plug on its medical cannabis operations.

MJBizDaily asked Loblaw to comment on the reasons behind the move.

“Medical cannabis is the only medication that is not dispensed in pharmacy,” Loblaw’s public relations team wrote in response.

“As a pharmacy retail chain, we remain committed to supporting our patients and focusing on our core business, where we can make the biggest impact.”

Although Shoppers boasts nearly 1,350 locations across Canada, it was never allowed to dispense medical marijuana from those brick-and-mortar stores.

Canada’s federally regulated medical cannabis program revolves around mail-order sales to registered patients, with Shoppers offering an online platform to its MMJ clients to facilitate that process.

Shoppers did not cultivate cannabis, instead signing supply deals with growers.

Parent company Loblaw did not specify the value of Shoppers’ medical marijuana business in recent financial filings.

Shoppers’ exit from the cannabis sector came as no surprise to Mitchell Osak, president of Toronto-based Quanta Consulting, who consults for the cannabis industry.

Osak believes Shoppers’ medical cannabis business was “floundering,” considering the overall decline of Canada’s regulated MMJ market in terms of both revenue and patients.

“When (Shoppers) got into the medical cannabis industry in 2019, I believe there was a hope that they would be able to influence the government, or the government would change the regulations, which would allow medical cannabis to be prescribed in their pharmacies, by pharmacists,” he told MJBizDaily.

“That never happened.”

Osak added that Shoppers’ move out of cannabis “is a blow to the credibility of the industry,” noting that the company was involved in medical cannabis research.

“They were important players in medical cannabis, and their exit obviously doesn’t help the entire industry.”

Medical cannabis spending in Canada has declined as the legal adult-use market has grown.

Health Canada reported 247,548 medical cannabis registrations as of March 2022, down from a peak of 377,024 in September 2020. (Patients can be registered with more than one MMJ provider.)

Meanwhile, some licensed producers have refocused on medical cannabis as a higher-margin category than adult-use marijuana, looking in particular to patients whose MMJ spending is covered by employee health benefits plans.

Loblaw isn’t the only North American company to turn away from cannabis this year, illustrating the challenges of operating in the sector.

Technology company Forian recently left the cannabis space, selling off its BioTrack seed-to-sale tracking software.

Another tech company, Akerna, also sold its cannabis software assets earlier this year.

Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/major-canadian-pharmacy-shoppers-drug-mart-exits-medical-cannabis/

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New Mexico cannabis operator fined, loses license for alleged BioTrack fraud

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New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.

The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.

Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.

The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.

The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.

Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.

After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.

In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.

The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.

At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.

Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.

Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.

The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:

Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.

Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/

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Marijuana companies suing US attorney general in federal prohibition challenge

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Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.

According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”

Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.

The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”

The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.

They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.

The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.

Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.

One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.

In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.

In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.

Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.

“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.

“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”

Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”

While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.

“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”

Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-companies-suing-us-attorney-general-to-overturn-federal-prohibition/

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Alabama to make another attempt Dec. 1 to award medical cannabis licenses

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Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.

The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).

Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.

Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.

That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.

Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.

Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.

A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.

Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/

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