Skip to main content

Cannabis Watch: Cannabis Stocks Mostly Higher After FDA Head Promises April Talks On CBD Regulation

Cannabis stocks were mostly higher Thursday, as investors digested the latest earnings reports from the sector and comments from the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on plans for regulation of CBD.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said public meetings will be held sometime in April to hear from relevant parties on how best to regulate CBD derived from hemp, which was legalized in December in the 2018 Farm Bill. The FDA is now responsible for regulating CBD, a non-psychoactive ingredient in cannabis that was not included in hemp legalization because of a lack of research into its longer-term effects on human health.

CBD is widely held to have wellness properties and many cannabis companies are planning to launch food, drinks and cosmetics that contain it, but the FDA has said they cannot do so without its prior approval. Gottlieb told a hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee that the FDA will form a working group of experts to inform him on regulatory options for the substance, as reported by Marijuana Moment, a website that works with activists, industry representatives and policy makers on trends affecting cannabis.

In case you missed it: Marijuana IPOs in 2019: These companies could be the next hot pot stocks

“I understand Congress wants there to be a pathway for CBD to be available,” he said, although he added that it was “not a straightforward issue.” The FDA has already approved a CBD medication aimed at treating a very severe type of childhood epilepsy, but that was based on traditional clinical trials, a lengthy and expensive process that companies would prefer to avoid.

Gottlieb posited that the FDA could devise a model under which CBD in high concentration would remain a pharmaceutical product, while CBD in a smaller concentration could potentially be added to food or used as a dietary supplement. That separation is needed because “we want to preserve the incentive to study CBD as a pharmaceutical product,” Gottlieb said.

For all of MarketWatch’s coverage of cannabis companies, click here.

The commissioner conceded that the federal ban on cannabis is sending medical cannabis research overseas. The epilepsy drug, epediolex, was developed by U.K. company GW Pharma, which has the ability to use its government license to grow cannabis specifically for drug research and development.

Also on Thursday, the Marijuana Justice Act was reintroduced in Congress, allowing lawmakers to consider policy reform that would end the current federal ban on cannabis and eliminate federal criminal penalties for possession, cultivation, manufacture, import and export of cannabis.

Read: Flow Kana is a weed middleman that expects to make billions as the Sunkist of pot

“Hopefully this legislation will get the serious consideration it deserves,” said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, in a statement. “The country is ready and eager to move past prohibition, start addressing the impact it has had on marginalized communities, and explore the economic potential of replacing criminal markets with regulated small businesses.”

Among individual stocks, MedMen Enterprises Inc. shares MMNFF, -5.49%  were down 2.7%, after the company’s second-quarter loss widened from the year-earlier. Revenue rose to $29.9 million from $3 million in the year-ago period. On its earnings call, new Chief Financial Officer Michael Kramer said he had imposed a corporate spending freeze a few weeks ago, a move welcomed by analysts.

Canopy Growth Corp. shares CGC, +3.60% WEED, +4.11%  rose 4.6%. The company said it has signed up a new partner in homemaking guru Martha Stewart, who will act as adviser to develop a new line of CBD-related products. Stewart already has a TV cooking show with cannabis advocate and rapper Snoop Dogg.

Canopy has committed to investing $100 million to $150 million in a hemp industrial park in New York state that aims to be the first such facility in the U.S.

Elsewhere in the sector, Cronos Group Inc. shares CRON, +1.83% CRON, +2.25%  rose 2.6%, Aphria Inc. APHA, +2.17% was up 3.1%, Tilray Inc. TLRY, +2.96%  gained 2.6% and Hexo Corp. HEXO, +0.89%  rose 1.2%.

Aurora Cannabis Inc. ACB, -0.20% ACB, +0.30%  was up 0.9%.

The ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJ, +0.19%  was up 0.3% and the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF HMMJ, +1.23%  was up 1.4%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.16%  and the S&P 500 SPX, -0.15%  were down about 0.1%.

See now: Marijuana stocks to watch: CannTrust makes its case as a major pot operator

Original Article Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B6A66DE20-3B73-11E9-83C1-0BC0024172A5%7D&siteid=rss&rss=1

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feds Hire Hazmat Firm For Marijuana Eradication Training

An ambitious campaign to decriminalize psychedelics in Washington, D.C., is one step closer to placing their measure on the November ballot with the formal submission of tens of thousands of voter signatures. Organizers have been scrambling for weeks to collect enough signatures from D.C. voters by Monday’s deadline amid historically difficult circumstances: a global pandemic, months of stay-at-home orders and protests over racism and police violence that filled the streets of the nation’s capital. But with the help of innovative signature-gathering techniques and allies flown in from across the country, advocates said they had successfully submitted upwards of 35,000 signatures—more than enough to qualify the initiative. If approved by voters, Initiative 81 would make enforcement of laws against plant- and fungus-based psychedelics among the “lowest law enforcement priorities” for the Metropolitan Police Department. It would not, however, legalize or reduce penalties for the substa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Crime Rates Drop After Marijuana Dispensaries Open Nearby, Study Finds

Whether you’re partnered up or riding solo, marijuana can enhance the longevity, frequency and quality of sexual pleasure, reports a new survey out on Tuesday. Though a number of recent scientific studies have found consuming cannabis can improve bedroom activities for men and women , a report from Lioness, the makers of the world’s first smart vibrator, and cannabis delivery service Eaze offers a more in-depth look at how the substance can affect people’s sex lives. “Cannabis can enhance your orgasms no matter who you are,” the report states. “While a satisfying sex life is the result of many variables, cannabis can increase the length, frequency of, and quality of your orgasms and pleasure sessions whether you’re single or married, solo or with a partner, young adult or silver fox.” The report is the result of an online survey shared with 432 Lioness newsletter subscribers in North America between June 23 and July 1. Researchers also included perspective from 19 Lioness users who...
Post a Comment
Read more

All 50 State Banking Associations Urge Congress To Pass Marijuana Financial Services Bill

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced on Thursday that he’s running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. While the mayor was initially opposed to legalization, he made several attempts to reduce cannabis-related arrests in the city, but the policy changes never ended up achieving a key desired outcome of reducing racial disparities in marijuana enforcement. De Blasio finally came out in support of legalization in 2018, just days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) reversed his own longtime opposition. Here’s a detailed look at where de Blasio stands on marijuana. Legislation And Policy Actions One of the first actions de Blasio took to change the city’s marijuana policies was to instruct the New York Police Department (NYPD) to issue summons for individuals caught possessing 25 grams or less of cannabis in lieu of making arrests, with certain exceptions. That policy took effect in November 2014. He campaigned on the reform promise, stating that marijuana convictio...
Post a Comment
Read more