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Photo by Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

Instead, they’re turning to countries like Germany, Australia, Colombia and Israel to establish regional beachheads from which to sell medical marijuana. This option isn’t open to U.S. players, which can’t move cannabis across state lines, much less export it internationally.

“Using Canada as a lily pad from which to leap to the rest of the world can lead to a lot of success,” said Sean McNulty, co-founder and adviser at Canopy Rivers Inc., the venture capital arm of Canopy Growth. “There will be a handful of companies that emerge from Canada that are global champions.”

We're not as aggressive and competitive and capitalistic as the folks down south of the border Afzal Hasan, Origin House president

The risk for Canadian pot producers is that they become nothing more than farmers, producing a low-margin commodity while their American cousins reap the financial benefits — including higher profit margins — of selling recognized brands. The laws in Canada prevent most marketing and branding, a hurdle for companies trying to connect with consumers.

“If you look at Corn Flakes, you don’t know where the corn comes from, you don’t know the name of the farmer,” said Rob Cheney, chief executive officer of C21 Investments Inc., a U.S.-focused cannabis company.

Origin’s Hasan sums it up like this: “We’re not as aggressive and competitive and capitalistic as the folks down south of the border.”

U.S.

The most valuable pot companies operating in the U.S. are what’s known as “multi-state operators” — companies that have acquired licenses to grow, distribute and sell weed in the various states around the U.S. that have legalized some form of pot. This includes Acreage Holdings Inc. and Curaleaf Holdings Inc., which raised more than US$700 million combined in recent weeks through private placements as they went public in Canada.