Canada Bins 80% of Its Cannabis

Just reviewing an article in High Times "Up In Smoke: The Astonishingly Low Percentage

of Canadian Cannabis Actually Sold" which states:

“According to Marijuana Business Daily, the amount of destroyed cannabis in Canada has been growing steadily since the fall of 2018—or the start of the Canadian [adult-use] market.

• Between October and December of that year, in fact, Canadian producers destroyed just over 11 tons of cannabis.

• In 2019, a full 15 percent was destroyed.

• In 2020, that amount rose again to 20 percent of all dried cannabis produced for the market…”

"Indeed, according to MJBiz, Canadian cannabis producers have sold less than 20 percent of their output since the beginning of adult use legalization in the fall of 2018.

Think about that for a second: 80% of Canadian cannabis grown and tracked in their legal system has NOT been sold since 2018.

THE DEEP DIVE

The Author asks (rhetorically): “Is Large-scale Destroying of Canadian Cannabis Really a Surprise?

"On the unsurprising side—

• a great deal of legally grown cannabis had to be destroyed because of contaminants—both from mould and aphid infestation. This has everything to do with the stability of the seeds being used as well as production techniques

  • [… and my own editorial comment, perhaps because most of it is grown in a way the earth did not intend… in greenhouses in a cold climate?]

• “Indeed, such issues were also seen on the European side of the conversation, leading to the mandatory radiation of all cannabis brought in from both Canada and Holland.

  • ... with deleterious effects on terpenes, flavonoids, and esthers that can be important for health.

The article makes a surprising statement: “Beyond this, of course, the reality is that the legal cannabis market’s biggest competitor has been and continues to be patient and nonprofit grows. The ability of patients to grow their own has been a constitutionally guaranteed part of the discussion since the turn of the century. Indeed, it is what the legal industry itself was birthed by and from.”

HOW'S THAT AGAIN?

At first reading, this dig against home grows and non-profit grows sounds like an indictment, but on second thought, I think it is a huge props for small farmers.

To think that home grow and non-profit-patient grows could compete with, and have more successful outcomes, than massive grows that cost billions of dollars to establish... shows that cannabis ain’t corn, and the strategy of massive grows by massive companies seeking massive profits is doomed to fail on quantity, and certainly on the issue of quality.

Stay tuned on Canada – Federal legalization happened early there, but all the troubles in the Canadian experiment should be cautionary tales for other markets with dollar signs in their eyes.