Medical pot users facing shortages, price hikes
Producers deny issues are linked to legalization of recreational use
For patients who have been legally using medical cannabis, the legalization of recreational pot appears to have come with some unpleasant side effects — shortages of product and the realization that prices are lower for recreational consumers.
Individuals who have a doctor’s authorization can buy cannabis directly from licensed producers through a federally regulated system, but some of those producers are now running out of stock.
On Friday evening, Nanaimo, B.C.-based Tilray only had a single type of THC oil available for medical patients, while MedReleaf, a subsidiary of Aurora Cannabis was sold out of eight of the 18 strains it offers through the medical system. Other producers were also out of some strains.
“We were very shocked because a lot of the information coming out from the licensed producers prior to legalization was that they were committed to maintaining and preserving stock for medical patients in the medical program,” said Erin Prosk, the president of Santé Cannabis, a specialized medical clinic in Montreal. “They have thousands of patients that they ’re responsible to provide for, so that is an absolute catastrophe.”
The shortages come as the recreational cannabis market is also experiencing product shortages. Most, if not all, licensed producers sell to both markets. Both Tilray and MedReleaf are suppliers to the Société québécoise du cannabis.
Prosk said she thinks the legalization of recreational cannabis is related to the shortages of medical cannabis.
“The requirements to service their patient population have been established,” she said. Producers should have been able to predict how much stock they needed for existing patients. “The growth in the medical program has been steady, we’re not seeing a huge increase in the month of October that has pushed these stock shortages.”
However, producers deny that there’s a connection between shortages in the medical market and the legalization of recreational cannabis.
“There always are, in that system, challenges at times as products sell out and are restocked,” said Allan Rewak, the executive director of the Cannabis Council of Canada, an industry association. “I do not believe that we’re seeing in any case the introduction of adult consumer-use cannabis putting pressure on medicinal cannabis. I think what we’re seeing is normal challenges within that system.”
Companies “have made it a key priority to prioritize medicinal patients over adult consumer use and that’s because the need is greater and we have a sense of moral and, to be frank, also economic obligations to those consumers,” he added.
Describing it as a “temporary supply interruption,” Tilray spokesperson Chrissy Roebuck said the company has had “an unusually high volume of orders” for medical cannabis this month and that when it informed patients it might run out of whole flower products, that “resulted in an additional high volume of orders on oil and capsule varieties.”
Health Canada said it is monitoring the supply and production of medical cannabis, but doesn’t require producers to set cannabis aside for the medical market.
“While there is no regulatory requirement to do so, it is expected that licensed producers will prioritize sales to individuals who require cannabis for medical purposes over non-medical sales. In fact, a number of existing licensed producers have committed publicly to doing so,” said André Gagnon, a spokesperson for the federal government.
Santé Cannabis has also found that many varieties of cannabis sold at the SQDC are cheaper than similar products sold to medical patients.
“The government has no involvement, no responsibility, on price setting for the medical program, so those prices are set by the producer and we do see a very large variation between different products and different producers. However, when we look at the prices on offer at the SQDC, these prices are the result of the buying power of the SAQ and the fact that they’ve been doing this very aggressive negotiating with the licensed producers,” Prosk said.
“Now my question is, why are we not using that same kind of aggressive negotiating tactic on behalf of patients.”
While many products are sold under different names in the medical and recreational systems, making direct comparisons difficult, some products that appear to be identical have different prices.
A 30-millilitre bottle of CBD Drops sold by Aurora Cannabis costs $82.30 at the SQDC, while the same size bottle of what appears to be the same CBD Drops costs $95.00 on the company’s online store for medical patients.
“Provincial retailers determine the retail price of the product. We have been made aware of price discrepancies on some of our products and have taken the step of reviewing all product pricing across all brands in all channels. We want to ensure that pricing on medical products remains accessible for patients, and have begun working with our retail partners to ensure pricing is aligned,” Heather MacGregor, the director of Corporate Communications at Aurora, wrote in an email.