AHalifax marijuana activist says NSLC’s plan to purchase roughly 15 million grams of cannabis from vendors outside Nova Scotia is an insult to local growers and will continue to boost the black market.
“We have thousands of craft growers in this province that have been supplying both medical patients and recreational patients for decades and who have established a unique set of strains and production techniques that are really empowering Nova Scotians to provide for their families,” said Chris Enns, owner of Halifax dispensary Farm Assists Cannabis Resource Centre.
“But taking that entire industry and quashing it and outsourcing the production of every single gram of cannabis that will be sold through NSLC to outside the province, we’re really sort of flying in the face of the buy Nova Scotia ideal that we hold on to so strongly in this province.”
The Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. placed its first order of cannabis totalling 3.74 million grams this week, to be stocked in 12 stores in preparation for legalization on Oct 17. The Crown corporation anticipates it will order in the range of 15 million grams in the first year. The NSLC decline to reveal how much it cost to acquire the cannabis.
The order includes 78 strains of cannabis from 14 different vendors. Eleven of the vendors are located in Ontario, while only two operators are located in Atlantic Canada, both being in New Brunswick. All the strains will be available online for purchase.
A NSLC news release said memorandums of understanding have been signed with the vendors, giving it flexibility to adjust the products it carries based on customer preference. It also said Nova Scotia products will be added as soon as local producers have licences from Health Canada to both produce and sell recreational cannabis.
NSLC spokeswoman Beverly Ware said the corporation decided on specific strains and amounts of cannabis after conducting a variety of research, including relevant sales data from the Canadian and U.S. medical markets, the U.S. recreational market and the Canadian illicit market.
“We have also considered available data on the population of Nova Scotia, the percentage who are of legal age to purchase, the percentage who say they use recreational cannabis and the frequency of use,” said Ware.
She said cannabis will be sold in three price points — value, core and premium — which range from $8 a gram to $14 a gram, including HST.
But Enns said even as Nova Scotia vendors become Health Canada licensed he’s not convinced NSLC has a plan to bring them on board. He said he knows of many vendors who have waited more than three years for permitting but have been held up by needless red tape. Meanwhile, the 14 vendors selected by NSLC have been given unfair access to the market, he said.
“If there’s not a plan to onboard those who are part of the industry in order to make them part of the legitimate industry, then you’re going to continue to have a thriving black market. When you’ve been working in an industry for decades that’s your speciality, that’s your craft and you’re not going to all of a sudden change course simply because there’s a flood of product coming from other provinces that quite frankly is going to be higher priced.”
With the first purchase orders, the NSLC will carry 282 cannabis products and 21 accessories. Recreational cannabis for recreational use will come in five formats: flower, seeds, pre-rolls, oil and gel caps.
