Constellation Brands, American distributor of Corona, acquires a stake in Canopy Growth

The significance of the news may be hard to fathom from our side of the prohibition wall, but it's an announcement that validates both the strength of the North American cannabis industry and the Canada's leading position.

Constellation Brands, producer and distributor of wines and beers (including Corona) in the United States, has announced the acquisition of a 9.9% stake in the company. Canopy Growth, one of Canada's largest producers of medical cannabis.

Canopy Growth is now the world's largest publicly-traded cannabis company, with a market value of C$2.2 billion as of December 31, 2009. Toronto Stock Exchange. Constellation's US$191 million equity investment (0.5% of its market value) gives it a clear advantage in an industry it hopes to see legalized throughout the United States in the coming years.

Constellation will work with Canopy to create cannabis-infused non-alcoholic beverages, to be distributed in Canada only for the time being. from July 2019.

The growing popularity of cannabis in the U.S. has prompted alcohol manufacturers to question the future of their products. «I think cannabis and beer stand in this gray area, both substitutes and complements.» analysis Michael Uhrich, economist at Beer Institute, at a conference in July.

«Wine and spirits won't stand still, and cannabis is about to be legalized in several states,» said Ronald den Elzen, CEO of Heineken USA. «We need to act now, and we need to act together.

Constellation is the first to enter the cannabis industry, and hopes to capitalize on its «first come, first served» advantage.

For Canopy Growth, it's just the latest in a long series of announcements, following its arrival in Germany, in Spain, at Denmark and in Jamaica.