Bedrocan Canada lowers prices to 5$ per gram

Canadian producer of medical cannabis Bedrocan has announced that it is lowering the price of 6 of its cannabis varieties from 7.50$ to 5$ per gram, in a bid to enable patients to treat themselves without putting a hole in their wallets.

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Bedrocan Canada president Marc Wayne says the growers who work for him will still be able to turn a profit, even after this 33% price cut. «We're very good at producing low-cost cannabis,» says Wayne. «After spending the last 6 months perfecting our production techniques in Canada with the help of our partners in the Netherlands, we now have the ability to reduce our costs.».

Bedrocan Canada is a subsidiary of Canopy Growth Corp. a conglomerate created through the merger with Tweed Marijuana Inc. also a medical cannabis producer, and which owns a plantation in Ontario. The company, which produces 25% of Canada's medical cannabis, has also launched a letter-writing campaign addressed to the Canada Revenue Agency and the Minister of Finance, asking them to remove the 13% tax applied to the sale of medical cannabis, but not to other medicines.

Bruce Linton, CEO of Canopy Growth Corp, believes that sales taxes and the fact that health insurance does not cover medical cannabis can make access to treatment expensive for patients. A patient's annual consumption of 0.5g per day at 7.50$ per gram is estimated at 1400$.

«It's medicine and should be treated as such,» says Linton. «That means there should be no sales tax that you don't pay on other medical products.».

Khurram Malik, cannabic referent at Jacob Capital Management, an investment fund, says that most cannabis producers have at least one cannabis variety that costs 5$ per gram or less, but doesn't know of any that can apply this price to all their varieties.

The fact that the majority of patients have to pay out-of-pocket for their therapeutic cannabis, rather than being reimbursed by their insurance, makes them more price-sensitive. «The lower you go, the more you sell,» says Malik.

Bedrocan's tactic is doubly strategic: lowering the price per gram of cannabis will attract more patients, but also sends a message to regulators to modify insurance coverage clauses and implement accessibility measures.