New York moves one step closer to legalizing cannabis

New York outlined its plans to legalize cannabis on Tuesdaywith Governor Andrew Cuomo signaling that legalizing recreational use of the drug will be one of his top priorities in his admiration’s first 100 days. The governor’s proposal sets a minimum age of 21 for cannabis sales in the state, three new proposed taxes as well as calling on the legislature to pass the Cannabis Regulation and Taxation Act. Taxes on legal pot should generate at least US$83 million in revenue for the state annually.

Organigram partners with Canada’s Smartest Kitchen to sell chocolate edibles

Moncton, N.B.-based Organigram announced Wednesday it has partnered with Canada's Smartest Kitchen in an R&D deal to develop edible cannabis products for the Canadian market. Organigram and CSK will initially develop premium chocolate products when edibles will be available later this year. CSK’s work will include a detailed look at current Canadian food flavour, colour and texture trends as well as consumers' preferred product functions, formats, applications, and product profiles.

Majority of Trulieve shareholders enter lockup agreement

Florida cannabis operator Trulieve Cannabis said its founders have agreed to enter a voluntary lockup agreement representing 68.6 per cent of the company’s shares. The voluntary lockup states that the shareholders will not offer to sell, contract to sell or otherwise dispose of the company’s shares or enter into any transaction until after July 25. This comes a week after Origin House made a similar move, in which 26 per cent of the company's shareholders entered an agreement to shield against takeovers following unsolicited offers from several unnamed cannabis companies.

Despite storage issues, Canadian pot producers still have some cannabis stocked away

With so much rhetoric about Canada’s pot supply shortage, how much cannabis remains in storage waiting to be sold? As of November, there’s 93,254 kilograms of unfinished dried cannabis in the warehouses of the country’s licensed producers, waiting to be labelled and packaged, according to Health Canada. For finished inventory – ie. dried cannabis ready for sale – the amount held in storage equated to the equivalent of two months' supply. Meanwhile, total sales of dried cannabis in November increased by 22 per cent compared to October. On an annualized basis, however, sales of recreational cannabis fell 27 per cent in November from the last 14 days of October.