We’ve all heard that “expensive doesn’t always mean better” and no doubt can give examples of less expensive products that are superior to more expensive brands.
Take wine, for example. I’ve found some superb wines in the $10-to-$15 range that “taste like $30 wines,” as one person put it when recommending one to me a while back. He was right. The $10 wine he suggested has become one of my favourites.
Of course, it’s a matter of personal taste when it comes to products like wine.
But one can be somewhat more objective with other products — like cannabis, for example. The goal for most cannabis consumers is to reach a comfortable “high” or a certain level of mellowness, whereas a wine drinker is focusing more on taste and mouthfeel etc.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is a lot of legal cannabis for sale in Canada these days. The government outlets that sell it in Quebec have some 200 products. This week, I received an investor’s update from the CEO of a Canadian cannabis company that talked about the oversupply in the Canadian market and mentioned that there are some 600 producers in Canada. It’s great news for consumers, I guess, but it is a bit of a minefield for investors.
I’m both an investor and consumer. I have stock in some 14 cannabis companies, and I have been sampling some of their products. The results of my survey, which is pretty much done now: The best pot I’ve found for my personal taste — a sativa — is among the least expensive on the market, coming in at $5.29 a gram. Contrast that with other products being sold for more than $13 a gram that are not as potent as the cheaper one from the other company.
Ditto for hashish prices, some of which are outrageously expensive. I sampled a few and found that the best for quality is also the best for price, coming in at $16 a gram while products from other companies are priced as high as $30 a gram.
So, the less expensive cannabis and hashish is more potent and produces a finer high (or mellowness) than the more expensive products — at least, subjectively for me.
It’s a given in investment circles that there will be a major shakeout among cannabis companies in Canada. Not all of the companies can possibly survive because there is just too much legal pot on the market. Ultimately, consumers will discover what I did — that there are some excellent products at the lower end of the price ranges and will gravitate to them.
So, I expect to see cannabis prices fall as the competition heats up. And I think some of the companies I invested in will fail. But I bought stocks in them at ridiculous lows as pot stocks fell out of favour in the last year or so. They’re all showing profit for me now. But most won’t hit pre-legalization levels — unless the Reddit crowd (God bless them) drives them up.
The game is afoot. There is money to be made in pot stocks, but timing is everything. Hang on too long and one risks losing their investment.
And that’s always the case with investing, isn’t it.
Best buy in cannabis in Quebec
Aphria’s Jean Guy strain (Good Supply), a sativa with strong THC content at $5.29 a gram (tax included).
Best buy in hashish in Quebec
Laurentian Organic’s product at $56 (tax included) for 3.5 grams, or about $16 a gram.
— Jillian
Jillian Page 
I don’t do much pot these days. I’m not really into the high like I was when I was young. Maybe CBD would help with arthritis pain but there is a degree of inertia preventing me from trying it. Pot is legal in California and none of the dire consequences that were predicted have so far come about.
There are pot shops all over the place, always in low income areas. Ironically they – and guns shops – were declared critical businesses allow to stay open during the deepest parts of the pandemic. Go figure.
OTOH my alcohol intake has increased. A drink or two in the evening seems to help me sleep better. The house brands of wines, vodka and Irish cream liqueur at Costco are, IMHO, are better than much more expensive options.
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Wow. They deemed gun shops as essential businesses . . . They deemed cannabis outlets as essential businesses here,too, during the lockdowns so far. No guns, though.
As for pot, an indica might help you. They are good for rest, while sativas can give you energy.
And, yes, I have stocks in two Canadian pot companies operating in California. One is doing really well, the other is struggling.
I love Irish cream, by the way. Yummy!
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The distributors here are all small time. While the state has legalized it, the Feds have not. Technically it is still a violation of Federal tax law to possess pot without having paid the tax on it. The Feds do not have a constitutional power to prohibit pot, just like they didn’t have the authority to prohibit alcohol without amending the constitution. Levying a tax is something they CAN do. By simply refusing to collect the tax, pot was effectively been made illegal. The states were forced to cooperate or lose all their federal funding. As long as all the states made pot illegal as well, this thin excuse for federal control didn’t matter.
As soon as one state legalized, this Federal tax became an issue. Rather than explode a big state’s rights battle over it, the Feds have decided to look the other way.
But the Federal law is still on the books. Because marijuana’s Federal tax status is suspect, no pot enterprise can use the banking system or credit cards. So all of them operate on a strictly cash basis. It is impossible to grow a business of any size that way.
Interesting article on this:
https://public.findlaw.com/cannabis-law/starting-a-cannabis-business/can-marijuana-dispensaries-use-traditional-banks-.html
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I think the Biden administration will legalize it at the federal level. At least, that hope seems to be fuelling the rise in pot stocks these days.
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