Canadian cannabis companies could benefit from the record number of states that passed cannabis initiatives on Green Tuesday by investing in and entering into partnerships with companies that acquire new cannabis licenses, according to a Canadian Press report. One of the states that successfully passed an adult-use initiative, Maine, shares a border with Canada, while border-states North Dakota and Montana adopted or expanded medical cannabis programs.
Brendan Kennedy, CEO of Privateer Holdings, which owns Tilray, a British Columbia-based licensed medical cannabis producer, said the success of the initiatives in the U.S. provides “huge opportunities for Canadian companies” due to the “robust” regulations under which their home nation’s medical cannabis program operates.
“I think you’ll see Canadian companies jump at the opportunity to expand their operations and brands into the United States,” Kennedy said in the report. “Both governments and companies around the world are looking to Canada to provide leadership and expertise in this industry.”
Canadian firms operating in ancillary industries, such as equipment manufacturers, now have a whole new market to target and, because medical cannabis is legal under federal law, Canadian companies have a lot of experience with large-scale grows.
“We do have a lot of expertise, and we’ve learned, collectively as a sector, a lot of really important lessons about cultivation and consistent production,” Cam Battley, executive vice president of Alberta’s Aurora Cannabis, Inc., said. “I think that does give us some advantages and would bode well for partnerships when the time is right.”
In addition to the recently legalized Maine, North Dakota and Montana; Alaska, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Washington, and Pennsylvania all border Canada and allow some form of legal cannabis use.
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