‘Doing it in a year sounds ... too quick’

Continued from FP1

But Kennedy believes market exuberance is causing investors to run ahead on their bets.

“Investors sort of have these expectations baked in that are unrealistic,” he said. “I think January 1, 2019 would be optimistic … even 2020, when all (is) said and done.”

There are many moving parts involved in a process that would upend centuries of prohibition — including writing and approving legislation, and drafting a swath of regulations from minimum wage restrictions to defining retail outlets, followed by province-by province implementation.

Task force leader and former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan has said it is critical the government goes slow on reforming the laws, while the Canadian Medical Association has urged a phased-in approach with potential pilot projects in certain regions.

Expecting implementation within one year of legalization seems overly optimistic, said Guillermo Delmonte, CEO of International Cannabis Corp., which became the first international marijuana company to list on a Canadian stock exchange this week.

“One year sounds like, wow – a dream,” he said.

His company witnessed firsthand Uruguay’s bumpy road to become the first country in the world to legalize marijuana sales.

The company decided to list in Canada to give investors feeling overexposed to uncertainty in the Canadian market a chance to diversify into a market where recreational use is already legal. Its stock shot up 360 per cent on its first day of trading on the TSX Venture Exchange.

“In Uruguay, since they started discussions on how they would choose to implement and get approval from both chambers (of government), it took more than five years,” he said.

“So doing it in a year sounds like it’s too quick for this important issue.”

Uruguay announced plans to legalize marijuana in 2012. The country’s House of Representatives and Senate passed the bill in 2013, making it technically legal.

But President Jose Mujica announced in mid-2014 that legal cannabis sales would be postponed until 2015 due to “practical difficulties” as the government worked out how to set it up.

About a dozen countries have recently loosened marijuana laws or are in the process of doing so.

That’s one of the reasons why Kennedy, also the president of Tilray, a licensed medical marijuana producer in Nanaimo, B.C., isn’t in any rush to position his company for the recreational market in Canada.

The company is focused on being an international export hub for countries where medical marijuana — backed by high-level research — is in demand. In its latest announcement, Tilray said it will support a clinical trial at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto to test the medical uses to treat epilepsy.

Kennedy said Tilray is taking a wait-and-see approach on whether the government allows companies to overtly brand their products.

“Our fundamental hypothesis is that branding is what allows the legal market to wipe out the illicit market,” he said.

Think of it as the difference between Grey Goose and moonshine.

“Giving a consumer a choice between a wellbranded tested quality product versus a product produced in the illicit market, everyone’s going to choose the branded product.”

At the same time, Canada has the eyes of the world on its successes and failures, said Kennedy, adding he has been to 15 countries in the past year, all of whom are eager to see how Canada rolls out a recreational market.

“Just as the task force went to Washington and Colorado to see what recreational cannabis looks like in the U.S., other countries are looking to see what does Canada’s recreational market look like at a national level.”