CBD-craze drives Canadian cannabis producers to hop on hemp bandwagon (National Post).
Hemp-derived CBD is having a moment as a cure-all, but there is a ‘dramatic’ lack of legal CBD products in Canada.
Khurram Malik believes there is a “dramatic” lack of legal CBD products in Canada.
The CEO of Biome Grow ($ BIOIF ), a cannabis holding company with licensed pot operations in a number of Atlantic provinces, says his ongoing conversations with various provincial liquor control boards, specifically in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador always ends up circling back to one topic — the complete dearth of cannabis products high in CBD content, versus the large demand for it.
“When recreational legalization was going to happen, I think many of the licensed producers focused too much on the THC side of the sector. Now we’re seeing there’s actually a huge demand for CBD,” Malik said.
- CBD is not addictive and does not get you high — yet in Canada it’s treated like a psychoactive drug
- Canopy Growth captured nearly a third of Canada’s recreational pot market last year
- Edibles draft rules garner mixed reaction from pot industry
CBD is a molecular component contained in both the hemp and cannabis plants, which is frequently touted as a cure-all that has become a craze in industries as varied as pet food, cosmetics and bottled water. It’s medicinal properties are still largely anecdotal, but its reputation gained a huge boost just this past December when the U.S. Farm Bill was passed, officially making hemp-derived CBD legal.
Canadian cannabis producers, observing the CBD-rush, have started developing their own strategies to tap the drug’s potential. Just recently, Canopy Growth Corp. announced it would spend $150 million to set up a hemp facility in New York state, where hemp-derived CBD would be extracted and sold to consumers there.
Canopy’s CEO Bruce Linton says his company’s New York hemp venture is just a replica of a project they have been pursuing in Saskatchewan.
“We have been quiet about this, but we’ve been experimenting with hemp-derived CBD out in our hemp facility in Saskatchewan. We’ve developed a processing and extraction technique and we’re going to take that to New York,” Linton told the Financial Post.
