'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
The head of Ontario's cannabis distributor says the "race to the bottom" happening with pot prices risks hurting the market's future.
"Once you condition consumers to certain prices, it may take a generation to change perceptions and price tolerances," David Lobo, Ontario Cannabis Store president and chief executive, said in a speech at the Lift cannabis conference in Toronto on Thursday.
"In an economy where inflation has impacted every other consumer good, we can't keep pushing lower."
His remarks come as the cannabis boom that materialized in 2018, when the substance was regulated and money poured into the sector, has since dissipated. Pot companies are taking multimillion-dollar writedowns, laying off staff and rethinking their product mixes as the industry gets a better sense of consumer demand and regulatory hurdles.
All the while, the illicit market, where weed is much cheaper and sellers operate outside restrictions imposed on the legal market, has remained mighty. The OCS estimated in Ontario alone the illicit market still made up 43 per cent of the province's cannabis market last March, down from June 2020, when it held onto 75 per cent.
To stay competitive, cannabis producers have been dropping prices. Statistics Canada said a gram of legal cannabis cost $10.29 on average in 2019, whereas the OCS had some dried flower products selling for under $4 this week.
The price compression has meant prices can also be much lower in Canada than in the U.S., said David Schewede chief executive of Heritage Cannabis, which is behind the Rad and Purefarma brands.
"In Missouri, we sell the same (product) for $70 U.S. that we sell here for $31 Canadian," he said, in a session after Lobo's speech.
"It's the same product, same terpene, same supplier, same manufacturer, same secondary package and label supplier. There's a lot more money being made down there."
Lobo maintains the OCS is doing its part in fighting the race to the bottom with a plan to lower its margins this fall, which he estimates could hand $60 million to licensed pot producers next year.
However, the OCS, which distributes cannabis from producers to stores, will not require pot companies to pass along savings from the margin to drop to consumers by lowering their prices.
Canopy Growth Corp., one of Canada's largest pot producers, has said it will hold its prices.
The Smiths Falls, Ont. cannabis company behind the Tweed, Ace Valley and 7Acres brands is not budging on its pricing because the pot market is already "highly competitive," chief executive David Klein told The Canadian Press in February.
Lobo also used his speech to warn that five years after legalization, the industry doesn't know how it would fare in some crisis times.
"We don't yet know how fragile consumer trust and social license with Canadians truly is," he said.
"What happens if we have a major recall resulting from adverse product reactions, negatively impacting the health of many Canadians?"
The integrity of the industry could be impacted by a "lapse in judgment" from a few people, he warned.
"How large of an impact can a few unfortunate events have on the moral high ground we have in positioning legal cannabis as a better alternative to illegal?
"The types of events I'm speaking of are not something I believe anyone in this industry wants to see occur and they are difficult to forecast... but the marketplace needs to be watched carefully."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 1, 2023
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Police have released video footage of a dramatic takedown of a group of teens wanted in connection with an attempted carjacking in Markham earlier this month.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
The World Health Organization is likely to issue a wider warning about contaminated Johnson and Johnson-made children's cough syrup found in Nigeria last week, it said in an email.
Tesla is recalling 3,878 of its 2024 Cybertrucks after it discovered that the accelerator pedal can become stuck, potentially causing the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally and increase the risk of a crash.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
Every good wedding has to have one teensy, tiny crisis.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.