At an industry conference in Canada, some of North America\u2019s leading cannabis companies announced the formation of a new body to establish \u201csocial responsibility\u201d standards and mechanisms for the burgeoning economic sector. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Global Cannabis Partnership<\/a>, prominently including Ontario licensed producer\u00a0Canopy Growth<\/a>, was formally unveiled\u00a0at the second annual\u00a0World Cannabis Congress<\/a> last week in Saint John, New Brunswick.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re building an industry for the future,\u201d said the GCP\u2019s executive director Kim Wilson in a\u00a0press release<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to have a legal license to operate; earning and keeping a social license is another story. We have a long road ahead of us, but today\u2019s announcement is an important step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n The GCP\u2019s goal is to promote a\u00a0Responsible Cannabis Framework<\/a>\u00a0to positively influence the industry\u2019s social and environmental impacts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe RCF was developed through extensive research and consultation with a variety of stakeholders,\u201d said Rick Petersen of\u00a0Blu Advisory<\/a>, an expert in corporate responsibility and author of the Framework. \u201cWe knew that we could rely on the experience of other industries, while at the same time coming up with the right steps to meet the challenges in our specific sector.\u201d<\/p>\n All members of the GCP will be required to sign the RCF, thus committing to four principles outlined in the document. They will then have up to one year to complete any work necessary to bring their operations into compliance and apply for certification by the Partnership\u2019s Independent Evaluation Panel.\u00a0<\/p>\n First among these four principles is responsibility \u2014 the \u201cresponsible development, production, distribution and consumption of cannabis where it is legally sanctioned.\u201d <\/p>\n Second is collaboration, emphasizing \u201cthe value of collaborating with the full range of stakeholders who have an interest in, and are impacted by, the legal cannabis industry.\u201d <\/p>\n Next comes transparency, with performance subject \u201cto a review by our stakeholders (limited only by competitive considerations).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Continuous improvement is the final principle: \u201cRecognizing the challenges inherent in implementing a world-class standard for responsibility in a nascent industry, Members will seek out and apply best practices appropriate to their business developed by organizations both inside and outside the cannabis sector.\u201d<\/p>\n Some have detected a whiff of damage-control in the formation of the partnership.\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/a>, in its account of the announcement, noted several recent scandals that have been an awkward reality for the legal cannabis industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n The most high-profile of these concerned Ontario\u2019s\u00a0Aphria Inc<\/a>., which was accused by short-sellers of paying inflated prices for \u201clargely worthless\u201d\u00a0assets owned by insiders. A special committee established by private auditors found the company paid an \u201cacceptable\u201d amount for the assets, but also found that certain directors had conflicting interests in the deals that were not fully disclosed to the board. Aphria is currently reconstituting its board and management team under interim CEO Irwin Simon. A report on\u00a0Barron\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0notes that the assets included small or undeveloped properties in Jamaica, Colombia and Argentina that had been \u201ctrumpeted as its entries into those national markets.\u201d<\/p>\n Also named by Al Jazeera is\u00a0Beleave Inc<\/a>, which recently settled with regulators in British Columbia after admitting to having paid $7.5 million to consultants who didn\u2019t actually do any work for the company. Then there\u2019s the BC-based\u00a0Ascent Industries<\/a>, which filed for bankruptcy in May after a rash of irregularities resulted in its license being suspended by the Canadian government for \u201cunauthorized activities with cannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, Toronto\u2019s\u00a0Namaste Technologies<\/a>\u00a0fired its CEO in February for \u201cbreaches of fiduciary duty\u201d and \u201cevidence of self-dealing.\u201d Namaste also found \u201cirregular online advertising\u201d on its Brazilian website, leading it to suspend sales of all products in the South American country.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera finds all this predictable for an industry that just recently emerged from the shadows of illegality. Quoted is Dan Daviau, CEO of Canada\u2019s top cannabis investment firm,\u00a0Canaccord Genuity Group<\/a>. \u00a0\u201cThe industry is maturing incredibly quickly,\u201d Daviau said, on an optimistic note. \u201cI\u2019m not saying you still won\u2019t see the odd company step on a rake and hit their nose, but the propensity for that to happen has slowed down a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Some activists at the grassroots level are putting forth a more fundamental critique of the industry and advancing one principle not named by the Partnership. In a piece for progressive website\u00a0TruthOut<\/a>\u00a0last month, journalist Laura Flanders interviewed a group of legalization advocates who are asserting that the cannabis industry owes \u201creparations\u201d to those who have been criminalized by the War on Drugs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prominently quoted was Kassandra Frederique, New York state director of the\u00a0Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>, who was then pushing for this principle to be enshrined in the legalization bill that has since\u00a0failed to pass<\/a>\u00a0in the statehouse in Albany. In her view, it is not only the behavior but the very constitution of the cannabis industry that must be addressed.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what you are seeing right now is that it\u2019s actually been advocates in communities of color telling their legislators this is what we need for this to move forward,\u201d Frederique said. \u201cWe can\u2019t go to a place where we legalize recreational or adult use of marijuana, and then get to a place where communities that have been the most impacted don\u2019t have access to being a part of the business. We have to get to a place where, if everyone\u2019s acknowledging that marijuana criminalization was bad for communities, then they need to reinvest in those same communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Frederique stressed that legalization should be but the first demand in crafting a more just cannabis order.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the conversation is a big one,\u201d Frederique summed up.\u00a0\u201cHow do we want to create an economy? The thing is, it\u2019s really important to say that legalizing cannabis is not going to cure the ills of capitalism. Legalizing cannabis is not going to end racism. This is one way to reduce the harms of structures that are harming communities. But we can\u2019t put on huge ideas on this substance and think that it will save all societal ills. It means that we have more space to be innovative to do different things.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, what standards should the cannabis industry follow?<\/p>\n The post Global Cannabis Partnership Unveils \u2018Social Responsibility\u2019 Standards<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
At an industry conference in Canada, some of North America\u2019s leading cannabis companies announced the formation of a new body to establish \u201csocial responsibility\u201d standards and mechanisms for the burgeoning economic sector. \u00a0 The\u00a0Global Cannabis Partnership, prominently including Ontario licensed producer\u00a0Canopy Growth, was formally unveiled\u00a0at the second annual\u00a0World Cannabis CongressContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,50,79,592,170,10405,122,10505,6968,97,10506],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36451,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36450\/revisions\/36451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Four Principles Behind the Social Responsibility Standards<\/h4>\n
Prompted by Scandal \u2014 Probably<\/h4>\n
A Place for Equity in the \u2018Social Responsibility\u2019 Standards?<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Global Cannabis Partnership Unveils \u2018Social Responsibility\u2019 Standards<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"