PA CANNABIS SALES.
The Pennsylvania cannabis market continues to see pressure in terms of industry sales, which has been a drag on the market for some time. We have written about this before and will continue to write about it, pricing destruction is the main topic. When states legalize cannabis there aren’t a ton of products in the market at that point and you see elevated pressures. Once a market has been around for a couple of years, the product and brand trends accelerate, and thus there are more inventories at retail shops which leads to pricing pressure. Pennsylvania saw a 2% decline on a MoM basis and a YoY decline of 8%. Trends aren’t getting worse in P.A., but they surely aren’t getting better. Many companies are commenting that these prices will elevate again but we believe that it more likely that these trends show a movement to price normalization.
IL to simplify regulation
There is no doubt that in many states, when cannabis legalization occurs, the legislators have a thousand great ideas which leads to complex oversight. This is no different in Illinois, which spent the last two years figuring out how to distribute its social equity licenses. As it is right now, entrepreneurs in the adult-use and the medical cannabis industry in Illinois have multiple state agencies they have to work through to get licensed and regulated. Application fees can be expensive and meeting various other requirements like being a social equity applicant can add more burdens. They announced at the end of last week that they are going to merge all cannabis regulators into one commission. “You just have too many agencies with small responsibilities that just confuse stakeholders on who they’re supposed to talk to,” Althoff (Cannabis Business Associations of IL Executive Director) said. After a botched attempt with their social equity program, the state is finally starting to deliver those licenses and simplifying the regulative environment is a move in the right direction to get some of these small businesses open. marijuanamoment.net
KENYA looking into cannabis
George Wajackoyah is a candidate for Kenya's presidential election and he is running on a platform of legalizing cannabis to tackle the country's debt problem. In 10 years, the national debt has gone from 2 trillion shillings ($16.8bn), or 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), to 9 trillion shillings ($75.5bn), or 67 percent of GDP, and analysts say the next president faces a tall order in reviving Kenya’s economic fortunes. “The growing of marijuana … will enable this country to pay its outstanding debts, and ensure Kenyans have enough money wherever they are so that we can sustain and arrest the [debt] situation,” Wajackoyah said. He believes that legalization of cannabis farming and medical use cannabis will bring in $77.2bn a year. aljazeera.com
