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“There was a huge supply shortage in dried flower two years ago,” he reports. “This has been followed by bottlenecks in obtaining oils and, most recently, capsules,” Dr. Verbora adds.

“Legalization appears to have caused more shortages as the demand has increased for particular product lines. It is going to take time for the market to react and correct itself,” he suggests.

“Oils and capsules are more recent bottlenecks. The reason is Health Canada is slow to approve new licences to extract and new products. There are many products we need still but Health Canada has some odd rules,” Dr. Verbora said when asked about the bottlenecks.

While there have always been challenges in the cannabis supply chain, “these have been compounded by recent regulatory changes—related to logistics, packaging and reporting—that producers have had to meet,” says Allan Rewak, executive director of the Cannabis Council of Canada, the national organization of Canada’s licensed cannabis producers.

The Cannabis Act, which came into force Mar. 31, 2018, required excise stamping and changed the prescribed packaging standards. With the launch of recreational cannabis sales two months ago, “producers have pretty much overcome these challenges,” Rewak says.

Producers working 24/7 to meet medical need

“Some SKUs—or stock keeping unit, alpha and numeric characters that identify a product—strains or product lines may sell out and may be temporarily unavailable from a particular supplier until they are restocked,” Rewak explains. “However, it’s much easier these days for patients to migrate from one licensed producer (LP) to another and find a lateral product that meets their medical needs.”