Weed week: America says no to munchies

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A new forecast for US cannabis sales to hit $US80 billion ($112bn) by 2030 could have an impact on global pot stocks.

Cowen managing director Vivien Azer increased her estimate from $US75bn — but it’s entirely based on the US fully legalising pot federally.

“Our increased confidence reflects the bigger than expected increases that we continue to see for reported cannabis incidence among adults,” Azer wrote in a research note Tuesday.

It was a weird story, but it appears the powerful Food and Drug Administration might be raiding shops in the US which claim cannabidiol is a cure-all.

The background is that the 2018 Farm Bill, signed into law at the end of the year, legalised hemp cannabidiol (CBD) in the US.

Hemp contains only trace amounts of THC.

But the FDA is cracking down: just like with any other medical advertising, you can’t make claims that aren’t backed with proof. Also, they’re not allowed to sell CBD food and supplements.

Now the FDA has been given the federal go-ahead to police the CBD sector, they appear to be getting right into the swing of it.

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Across the Pacific, Thailand joined the medical marijuana club on Christmas Day.

They have some of the toughest drugs laws in the world (although Australians prosecuted have been dealing much harder chemicals — heroin and methamphetamine), but the main controversy, according to news reports, was not those laws.

It was how to deal with patent demands by foreign firms that could make it more difficult for Thai patients and researchers to access medical marijuana.

KEEPING UP WITH THE COMPANIES

Since we last checked in with Aussie pot stocks, one hit the big time.

THC Global (ASX:THC) got their growing licence, making them the fourth confirmed licensed grower in Australia.

Esense-Lab (ASX:ESE) has lost another director, making that five exits in 2018. Kobi Zecharia, the latest, only joined in May.

Medlab Clinical (ASX:MDC) is also plugging away at their marijuana mouth spray, which they’ve found makes a popular cholesterol pill work twice as fast when taken together.

Althea (ASX:AGH) received enough pot products from major shareholder Aphria to keep it going until April, but they’re still in talks to get their hands on enough goodies to tide them through until early 2020 when they expect to be making their own gear.

As usual it was all quiet on the Cann Group (ASX:CAN) front, although director Philip Jacobsen got a couple of buys in before Christmas, picking up almost $60,000 of stock on market.

The only other director to buy stock in Cann last year was Melbourne millionaire Geoff Pearce, who was on something of a buying spree in all of the companies he directed at earlier in the year.

Elixinol (ASX:EXL) was super excited about the hemp legislation in the US, to the point where we received a text on New Year’s Eve saying if we were in New York (we weren’t) to check out their big ad in Times Square.

Things are hotting up so much there that CFO Ron Dufficy has relocated to the US. He’ll also not be in New York, being based in Colorado where their main US operations are.

Queensland Bauxite (ASX:QBL) has the letter from the ASX saying it’s allowed to relist as Cann Global, and they’re promising that this time January 31 is the magic date.

They were originally supposed to be back on the bourse on October 30, 2018.

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