Wall Street Cannabis Projections, Curaleaf Pulled From CVS, and Botched State Software

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Aug. 12, 2019 - PRLog -- On the domestic front, a new bill is introduced in the Senate which would protect insurance companies that cover cannabis-related businesses in state legal markets from being penalized by federal regulators. The CLAIM, or Clarifying Law Around Insurance of Marijuana Act, aims to expand access to insurance for cannabis companies and has bipartisan support.

In Michigan, regulators launch a social equity program in 19 cities deemed most impacted by the war on drugs, such as Detroit and Flint. Licensing fees for applicants within those areas will be reduced by twenty five percent, and an additional twenty five percent for those with marijuana-related convictions. State regulators hope to lead the nation with the expansive program.

In Washington, a botched software release by the state's traceability system causes outages of the program, resulting in supply issues and thousands of dollars in lost sales for producers, processors, and retailers. The system has been plagued with problems since 2017, leaving many industry players blaming regulators for awarding the software company, MJ Freeway, with the state contract.

Denver and Toronto-based cannabis producer MJardin announces the successful license transfer of a 30,000 square foot cultivation facility in Las Vegas from GreenMart of Nevada. The space will be MJardin's first wholly owned and operated grow facility in the state, and is expected to yield 5,700 kilograms of cannabis per year by 2020.

In finance, U.S. cannabis producer Curaleaf's stocks fell after CVS announced it will pull their CBD products from shelves after the company received a warning from the FDA for violating regulations by selling unapproved drugs across state lines. With minimal research on the therapeutic effects of CBD, claims the FDA takes issue with, many question how any company would be able to obtain approval without significantly changing product branding. Is it a Catch-22? Let us know your thoughts online at Cannabis Broadcast Station.

In Canada, legal recreational cannabis sales aren't measuring up to Wall Streets initial projections. Since adult-use legalization in October, sales have totalled 376.7 million dollars, which, according to expert predictions, could amount to 688 million for the year, a far cry from the original 5 to 10 billion dollar estimates. Many factors contributed to the market's slow start, including lagging license processing, supply shortages and limited retail store locations.

In Europe, the Netherlands is set to increase medical cannabis exports to Germany by a thousand kilograms per year, in response to growing demand by MMJ patients in the country. Since Germany won't begin domestic cultivation until 2021, they've been importing half of their supply from Bedrocan, the only commercial grower in the Netherlands, and the other half from Canada.

Written by: Jacqui Verdura

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