D.C. On Deck

U.S. canna goes to Washington.

Daily Recap

In the coming days, members of the United States House and U.S. Senate are poised to take action on multiple important federal cannabis bills.

The House Oversight Committee will hold a markup hearing on the CURE Act on Wednesday and later this month, members of the Senate Banking Committee will markup SAFE Banking after bipartisan lawmakers evidently found a ‘sweet spot.’

A GOP committee chairman announced that he plans to scale back the CURE Act, which would remove federal marijuana employment barriers, ahead of tomorrow’s vote. Prior use would still be protected but current use would now be off the table.

[^ current use wasn’t gonna pass a GOP House and there’s an Executive Order for a drugfree workplace that’s been in place for decades/ would override the legislation]

Trade associations, advocacy groups and labor unions are pushing congress to pass SAFE Banking ‘this year’ for worker safety. “Between the targeted personnel, their friends, loved ones, and at-risk colleagues,” the organization wrote, “the impacted population numbers in the thousands.”

In other news, state cannabis regulators are urging congress to change the hemp and cannabinoid rules via the 2023 Farm Bill, FLA MMJ sales were $92M in August, New York is cracking down on illegal weed stores and New Jersey regulators are proposing permits to let dispensaries partner with research institutions.

Market Stuff

U.S. cannabis stocks finished lower for a second consecutive session in volatile trading, which has been a steady theme since the HHS news first leaked.

With bears pressing lower, math pointing higher and the real buyers sidelined sans custody, the flows were decidedly one-sided today as Canadian hedge funds tried to break the will of the only holders of these names: insiders, retail and a few funds.

The bull-bear debate is nothing new to this space and the only thing that matters on Wall Street is the bottom line. Still, given the set-up and sequence we’ve seen, we’ll continue to monitor the flows as they may prove to be instructive.

The volatility will likely continue as we weigh the seismic shifts that happened twenty days ago against the specter of a government shutdown that could prolong the federal reform process. A shutdown is the biggest fly on timing/ duration, but not destination; the federal reform train has already left the station.

It’s worth noting that at session lows today, U.S cannabis ETF was still up 66% in the last 14 trading sessions since the HHS news first hit, despite having fallen 19% since trading with a $10-handle pre-market last Friday. It remains well below the $15 level it traded on the specter of SAFE (and only SAFE) in December.

Below, we weigh the window shoppers against seasoned managers, spy the never-ending Gobstopper as he continues to buy TerrAscend, dig deeper into today’s wild flows and check-in with ATB ahead of their show.

All that and more, just scroll down…

Note: there will be no Cannabis Confidential tomorrow as I’ll be at the ATB Capital NYC Cannabis Conference.

SPY 0.00%↑ QQQ 0.00%↑ IWM 0.00%↑ MSOS 0.00%↑ PT Notional: $169M

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