A year in the weeds: Why the cannabis industry didn't take off the way everyone planned
There is no shortage of answers to the question of what went wrong, but one thing seems certain: there is plenty of blame to go around
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Dozens of legal cannabis producers, backed by billions in investor capital, were expected to put the black market on its heels, launching Canada to the forefront of an expanding global industry with the promise of mass-produced, high-quality, heavily regulated marijuana. But scandals, sluggish earnings and executive shakeups have replaced the soaring expectations of a year ago. Government data show that the legal market has only supplanted 14 per cent of the black market since legalization on Oct. 17, 2018, and some are concerned that further inroads may be difficult to come by. One of the biggest problems was that the industry’s early focus on scale — something that was largely a symptom of the push to raise capital ahead of legalization — distracted it from other important considerations.
