Features
From the editor: The inaugural Buyers Guide

This issue we feature the talented team at Safari Flower located in Ontario’s Niagara Region. In conjunction with Women’s History Month in March, we’re showcasing industry excellence embodied by award-winning master grower Stacie Hollingworth, and CEO Brigitte Simons, a C-45 board member, chemistry PhD, and expert in quality, data collection and laboratory services. 

We also hosted our first quarterly event this month and were fortunate to have Safari’s director of QA and compliance, Beatrix Csemer, moderate our Focus On: Labs & Cannabis Testing event panel.

We look forward to the next virtual summit, Focus On: Extraction, happening May 31. 

In this issue of Grow Opportunity, seasoned journalist Treena Hein addresses analytical testing. A complex topic it proved to be as the green industry grapples with lack of standardization and the notion of statistically improbable potency results and its repercussions. In her feature, Hein identifies solutions proposed by C-45 chair Tom Ulanowski, C3 president George Smitherman, and Deloitte Canada’s risk advisory director Brenna Boonstra. 

Regulatory consultant and former government regulator Denis Gertler joins us this issue, providing a cautionary tale through the Vantage Point column. Gertler detects possible research agenda threats opposing the cannabis sector in the realms of respiratory illness and aggravated mental health for those predisposed. He calls out the “resurgent prohibitionist ethos alive in medical research,” and suggests additional vigilance to an already hypervigilant industry, one whose mandate is always to remain a few steps ahead.  

As we wrap up the end of March, our friends at Marigold PR host their Tether B-Week, or Budtender Appreciation Week, from the 20th to the 26th. In correspondence, Grow Opportunity launched a new budtender column “Behind the Counter,” revealing the workings of our regulated cannabis gatekeepers.

Finally, our Under the Lights Q&A guest this issue is Nick Sosiak, aka Niko Dank, CFO of high-performance Quebec LP, Cannara Biotech.

Sosiak discloses the upcoming genetic he’s most excited to launch, talks Tribal brand specifics, and recognizes budtenders as his salespeople – happy to answer any questions they have for producers.

Sosiak also returns as our next podcast guest, episode dropping March 31, sponsored by Anton Paar. 

As we close out the first quarter of 2023, PRs flood the web with topics of note including Canada’s interest in the international cannabis marketplace and expansion into psychedelics.

As we’ve heard, some Canadian companies, especially those on the West Coast, seek to amend their Controlled Drug and Substances Dealer’s License to include psychoactive substances such as ketamine and MDMA for trials and treatment of mental health disorders, as well as, and I hope, taking a step towards destigmatization and harm reduction in response to the drug crisis in British Columbia. 

Oak Bay Marina, Victoria. Photo: Haley Nagasaki

As we find our footing in the long game, how might we in the corporate cannabis landscape develop models to better assist those in need?

By that I mean how might we find ways to subsidize medical treatment and better support communities, many of whom have roots in the legacy market off whose genetics and style we piggyback. What are the parallels between the collapse of industry and that of mental health, and where is the point of mutual reconciliation? 

Welcome to the inaugural Buyers Guide issue of Grow Opportunity. Our publication continues to evolve with this dynamic marketplace, and we thank those who have come along for the ride. Thank you to our contributors, sponsors, and readers. Continue to connect with us, amongst yourselves, and enjoy the five-page spread of our first Buyers Guide.  

To brighter days ahead!