Uber Eats enters the cannabis market.
Yesterday, Uber Eats began delivery of cannabis products in Toronto, Canada. They partnered with Leafly (LFLY) to become the first major third-party platform to deliver cannabis products. Uber Eats isn't new to the cannabis industry entirely, back in 4Q21 the company allowed Tokyo Smokes on the platform on a pick-up only basis, meaning this is the first time cannabis will be delivered on their platform. “We are partnering with industry leaders like Leafly to help retailers offer safe, convenient options for people in Toronto to purchase legal cannabis for delivery to their homes, which will help combat the illegal market and help reduce impaired driving,” said Lola Kassim, general manager of Uber Eats Canada, reported GlobalNewsCa.
More of the same in Washington.
Washington, and the Senate in particular, has been saying words like "possibility" or "soon" for years when it comes to the possibility of passing any type of cannabis-related reform bills. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Senator, said in an interview released yesterday, “It’s very likely that during the lame duck—before the new Congress—we’re going to see a really good bipartisan attempt to move it,” Booker said. “Maybe it’s not the [legalization] bill I wrote with Schumer and [Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR)], but an effort to tie in restorative justice and some fair banking provisions.” “I think it has a good chance because our Republican allies also understand that if one of the houses of Congress shifts to Republican, it will be very hard to do anything on marijuana,” he said. “We’ve got a good shot. I wouldn’t say it’s a great shot, but it’s on a good path.” Later in the interview, he made several nice comments about some of the recent cannabis-related moves that President Biden has made. We did get some movement from the White House less than two weeks ago so maybe there is more to these comments than in the past, but if history is your guiding light, then these words shouldn't mean much to you. We will wait for action as opposed to gaining hope on commentary. The actions by the White House did allow for Senators like Booker to think more favorability at passing a bill like SAFE, which has bipartisan support, and not have to add social justice language to the bill, due to the fact that in the Senators eyes, the social justice component of cannabis reform this Congressional cycle has already happened through President Biden, which would cause for some of the votes needed to pass be lost.
Testing Issues in Florida.
Many states are having issues regulating testing facilities during this tough time in the cannabis industry. Recently, Florida regulators had to crack down on several licensed medical cannabis testing labs. These issues tend to be around the labs inflating THC potency results because dispensaries can charge more for products that have higher levels of THC, which leads to struggling labs inflating their numbers, which leads to dispensaries shopping around for which labs will inflate their product numbers the most, which leads to inaccurate products being sold, which ultimately leads to public mistrust around the cannabis industry. As you can see by my run-on sentence, this has a domino effect starting with struggling labs and ending with the public view of the industry. The state has already fined two testing facilities $20k each and sent out a letter to all testing facilities in late August saying they must only use approved methods when testing cannabis products. The two labs fined have sighted that the issue wasn't about their testing method but rather just a clerical issue. If you want to believe that, you are a better person than me.
