Buying Local Cannabis a Challenge
Simcoe County, Ont. Producers Finding Ways to Help Residents Buying Local Cannabis – LPC
The “buy local” movement has been growing across Canada, especially during COVID, but buying local cannabis remains a challenge. That’s especially true in provinces like Ontario, which has a centralized government regulating agency for cannabis. The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) controls all cannabis sales, first purchasing from licensed producers (LPs) and then selling to provincial retailers.
The system, which is similar to the province’s Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), is meant at least in part to reduce the chances of cannabis being diverted to the illegal cannabis market. However, it ties the hands of local producers – and the residents who want to be buying local cannabis.
“We technically aren’t able to sell directly to a company like Star Buds, for instance,” said Dustin Laren, co-founder of the craft cannabis LP Carmel Cannabis. Star Buds is the largest chain in the Barrie, Ont. and Simcoe County area. “Star Buds goes to the province and requests our products.”
That close relationship isn’t just about sales – it’s also about building community.
“Supporting Simcoe County is a huge thing for us,” Laren said. “We want to help out in terms of in-store activations. If a flow-through model ever happens, we’d like to do rare, limited drops with local retail stores.”
That “flow-through model” essentially means being able to sell locally grown cannabis directly to stores. And that’s something that likely won’t ever happen under the current OCS model.
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There are clear advantages – at least from a health and safety perspective – of centralizing cannabis sales through the OCS. However, there are also clear disadvantages for the cannabis industry and consumers. Buying local cannabis is one of them. We see in systems like farmers’ markets how advantageous it is for farmers to sell directly to consumers. It works in other areas as well including bookstores that sell local authors and retail outlets that make local deals with food producers and craftspeople.
The current regulations in Ontario are such that it makes it impossible for local residents to go to a local cannabis store buying local cannabis. But Laren isn’t giving up hope on the system just yet.
“We would love to have a retail store on our property some day,” he said. “That’s something we’re working with the township on doing. Just like a winery, people would get a tour, get educated and when they leave they pick up some of the product they just saw being grown.”
There are some signs that change in that direction is possible. Farm-gate cannabis sales opened up in Ontario earlier this year. In May, Thrive Cannabis opened its first seed-to-sale cannabis location, allowing the retailer to sell direct to consumer.
So although there could be a time that Carmel can sell to consumers – likely without the cannabis café portion – it will be difficult to get the political will to sell to retailers.
Craft cannabis in particular is suffering from overbearing marketing laws – not to mention OCS shelf space. A push towards buying local cannabis might help craft cannabis in all these areas and still be politically palatable.
Read the Full Story at BarrieToday
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