Διπλώματα ευρεσιτεχνίας που σχετίζονται με την κάνναβη που έχουν ανατεθεί σε μεγάλες εταιρείες καπνού εμφανίζονται όπως: Το 2003, χορηγήθηκε στην Japan Tobacco το Δίπλωμα Ευρεσιτεχνίας ΗΠΑ US6509352Β1 για έναν διαμορφωτή υποδοχέα κανναβινοειδών....
Cigarette companies around the world will want to profit from Cannabis, especially Japan Tobacco Inc.
Cigarette Companies and the Marijuana Industries
Big Tobacco’s Playbook for Investing in Marijuana – Part 1
(Photo via Pixabay)
Big tobacco it taking over cannabis! Some say it’s a rumor, some say it’s a myth. I hate to break it to you, it may be real, folks! The tobacco industry is absolutely investing in the booming cannabis sector, it’s just not exactly publicizing it.
When it comes to big tobacco and their investments in cannabis, there’s no sure bet on what to look for. The tobacco companies thrive on having deep pockets and the veil of secrecy that comes with it.
You don’t need to take our word for it though, as big tobacco companies have been leaving crumb trails for decades hinting at their playbook and intentions in the space. Part 1 of their play book is to lock up vital intellectual property. From trademarks to patents, tobacco companies are placing their bets and protecting their investments.
The Rumor
The people’s fear that big-tobacco would take over weed goes back longer than you’d think. An article in The New York Times from September 28th, 1969 centered around the rumor that big tobacco was trademarking common street names for cannabis.
People were worried that names like «Acapulco Gold» were being taken by the cigarette companies.The article concluded that:
«Under the law, no trademarks can be registered for marijuana cigarettes. If future legislation recognizes the drug as salable, probably registrations can be granted for cigarettes made of marijuana.»
For further clarity, the article mentions that «like all other marks, those for tobacco must first be used in commerce to be eligible for registration.» Essentially you can’t get a trademark for use on marijuana products because selling marijuana products is illegal.
Not Just a Rumor…
But what if tobacco companies filed for use of these marks for other, legal products? Apparently, they did. Based on passages from a 295 page reportdating to October 11, 1976, titled «A Technological Forecast of the Future Environment and its Effects on the Tobacco Industry,» big tobacco companies were doing just that.
As seen above in the passage pictured from page 56 of the report, «In fact, some firms have registered trademarks which are taken directly from marijuana street jargon. These tradenames are used currently on little known legal products, but could be switched if and when marijuana is legalized.»
Even back then, they were anticipating big tobacco’s role in the cannabis industry of tomorrow. The report talks about how big tobacco companies «have the land to grow it, the machines to roll it and package it, [and] the distribution system to market it.»
The Trademark Trend Continues
Years after that report, in November of 1993 an internal Philip Morris e-mailshows the company scrambling to defend their registration of a trademark for the name «Marley» in France. Philip Morris needed to respond to claims made by Bob Marley Music Inc. «that PM is denigrating the name of the late Bob Marley, a Jamaican reggae musician…»
The Philip Morris memo goes on to say that «coinciding with this is the fact that the issue of legalizing marijuana has once again come to the fore in Europe.»
Then comes Philip Morris’ media statement, which the e-mail says was «drafted by PMI, in conjunction with PM Trademarks.» This statement drops a few interesting hints for us:
In response to whether or not Philip Morris was preparing for legalized marijuana cigarette sales…»ABSOLUTELY NOT!» The first stage of acceptance is denial…
Don’t Forget Patents
It’s not just trademarks in the tool chest to protect intellectual property, it’s patents too!
To give you some more recent crumbs from the Philip Morris trail, look at U.S. Patent US9115366B2 assigned to Philip Morris Products SA. Filed back in 2006 but not granted until 2015, this patent protects Philip Morris protection over a «system for producing terpenoids in plants.» The patent specifically mentions its applications for cannabis:
«the glandular trichomes found among others in the Solanaceae (tomato, tobacco, potato, pepper, eggplant, etc.), Asteraceae (sunflower, etc.) and Cannabaceae (eg.Cannabis sativa) families.»
Fast forward to April of 2017, when we see modern cannabis companies like CannaRoyalty Corp. forming units to «focus on the development and sale of cannabis products with innovative terpene formulations.»
A quick search in Google Patents, and just a handful more of cannabis-related patents assigned to big tobacco companies shows up including:
In 2003, Japan Tobacco was granted U.S. patent US6509352B1for a cannabinoid receptor modulator. Το 2003, χορηγήθηκε στην Japan Tobacco το Δίπλωμα Ευρεσιτεχνίας Η.Π.Α. US6509352Β1 για έναν διαμορφωτή υποδοχέα κανναβινοειδών.
- In 2012 China Tobacco was granted Chinese patent CN202566268U for the production of a «ternary composite filter stick containing cannabis-flavored nanometer porous starch granules.»
- Then in 2014, China Tobacco was granted Chinese patent CN204362945U for the production of a «three-component compound filter stick with cannabis sativa seed extracts.»
Conclusion
To be totally clear, it’s not just big tobacco investing in marijuana. It’s an all out race to control the components of this industry before it’s too late. Biotech companies all over the world are diving into cannabinoid related research. Billionaire Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund has put million of dollars into a cannabis private equity fund, Privateer Holdings. Even Warren Buffett is investing in the booming industry.
Stay tuned for part 2 of big tobacco’s playbook for investing in the marijuana industry, where we’ll focus on their strategic acquisitions. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to one or more of our free newsletters. Also, don’t forget to connect with The Daily Marijuana Observer on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Colorado is gearing up for its big pot day debut. On January 1, 2014, marijuana can be purchased by residents legally for recreational use. Residents can purchase up to one ounce, and tourists can purchase a quarter ounce.
Many believe this will open the floodgates to the legalized recreational marijuana industry. For years, people have been illegally using pot recreationally, and now that Colorado and Washington are allowing people to use without the possibility of jail time, businesses are trying to cash in on it as much as possible.
Companies have been harvesting pot for the last year to try to meet the demands that will start on January 1st. But the industry will have to produce even more in the future, especially when more counties start to allow possession and sales.
To give customers a variety of ways to experience the effects of marijuana, companies are also trying to come up with new ways for people to use it. Open Vape extracts oil from the pot plant and uses it to manufacture something much like an electronic cigarette.
This could end up opening a whole new industry in the next few years. And as more states start to allow the recreational use of marijuana, cigarette companies will likely piggyback on the trend.
People want cannabis, but they also want convenience. If you can combine the two, it’s the making of a very successful, lucrative break in the industry.
But it’s not going to happen overnight, so don’t run out to invest in the biggest names in cigarettes just yet. With only Colorado and Washington getting ready to market marijuana recreationally, there’s still a ways to go before the market will be big enough to attract the attention of cigarette brands such as Philip Morris (NYSE: PM).
Before then, there will be entrepreneurs and marijuana companies trying to make money from the idea. Along with Open Vape, one marijuana entrepreneur by the name of Brian Laoruangroch is building his brand – Prohibition Brands. He is looking to mass produce marijuana cigarettes and cigars. His vision is to become “the marijuana version of a Marlboro cigarette.”
As an investor, it’s good to be prepared for any new business coming down the pipeline because if you get in on the ground floor, you’ll make more of a profit. This is especially true with this industry, as it’s receiving a lot of attention already.
Think about it: as marijuana becomes available recreationally, the stereotype of people sitting around with their bongs will disappear. There will be a new population of pot smokers in business suits sitting around corporate offices and coffee shops. The stigma will fade, and demand will grow.
It won’t just be tobacco companies in the United States that will try to get in on the marijuana industry. Cigarette companies around the world will want to profit from this, especially Japan Tobacco Inc. (OTC: JAPAF). The company just partnered up with Philip Morris to purchase a 20% stakes in Megapolis – a major Russian cigarette distributor.
Tobacco companies want to make money, and will chase whatever trend is arriving in the industry – a lot like investors do. That’s why it’s important to keep your eye on them as the marijuana industry picks up.
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As the demand grows to levels smaller companies can’t keep up with, the big name cigarette companies will pick up slack and end up monopolizing it. That’s when you’ll be able to make a return off them.
Some of the tobacco companies you should keep an eye on are:
- Philip Morris, Inc. (NYSE: PM)
- Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI)
Keep in mind, last year both of these companies commented to CBS News on the possibility of getting into the marijuana market. A spokesperson for Philip Morris said:
“WE HAVE A PRACTICE OF NOT COMMENTING OR SPECULATING ON FUTURE BUSINESS… TOBACCO COMPANIES ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF MANUFACTURING AND MARKETING TOBACCO PRODUCTS.”
Bryan Hatchell, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc., said:
“REYNOLDS AMERICAN HAS NO PLANS TO PRODUCE OR MARKET MARIJUANA PRODUCTS IN EITHER OF THOSE STATES. IT’S NOT PART OF OUR STRATEGY.”
But that was a year ago, and they still haven’t seen the demand that will come out of the legalization of recreational pot. They always have the right to change their minds, and they probably will…in time.
Until then, consider keeping an eye on upcoming companies such as Open Vape because they may just be a future leader in electronic marijuana cigarettes.
Big Tobacco invests in Canadian marijuana, leaving B.C.’s craft-cannabis producers uneasy
A midsize U.S. company has bought majority stakes in two Canadian businesses to prepare for the medicinal-marijuana trade, marking the entry of the tobacco industry into legal pot here
by Travis Lupick on February 28th, 2018 at 10:54 AM
Earlier this month, an unremarkable sentence appeared in a quarterly report published by Alliance One International, a tobacco company headquartered in North Carolina.
“In January, we successfully acquired majority stakes in two new joint ventures,” it reads.
Further into the document, it is announced that an Alliance One subsidiary called Canadian Cultivated Products had secured a 75-percent equity position in Canada’s Island Garden Inc. and an 80-percent stake in Goldleaf Pharm Inc.
The former is located in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and the latter just south of Hamilton, Ontario.
Island Garden and Goldleaf Pharm are medicinal-cannabis companies.
“The combined Canadian cannabis acquisitions are anticipated, subject to regulatory approvals, to have approximately 1 million square feet of production space within a three year period and with the opportunity to become a truly international cannabis company, expanding into international markets as anticipated legalization of medicinal and recreational cannabis use progresses around the world,” reads Alliance One’s quarterly report.
Alliance One’s revenue for the three months covered in the report was $477.8 million. The tobacco industry has officially taken an interest in Canada’s legal-cannabis market.
Shane MacGuill is head of tobacco research at Euromonitor International, a data-and-analysis firm with staff in more than 100 countries. He told the Straight that the move could signal the beginning of a trend but not one that will happen overnight.
“From the Alliance One point of view, they’re seeing declining demand for the tobacco leaf and another adjacent industry…where the opposite trajectory is happening,” MacGuill said on the phone from London, England. “But it is much less straightforward a question for the brand owners.”
He explained that Alliance One is a leaf merchant, a midsize company holding a specific position in the tobacco industry’s supply chain. It’s not Philip Morris International (2016 revenue: $75 billion), for example, whose considerations would be much more complex.
International corporations place a premium on certainty and make decisions on factors larger than one country with just 36 million people, MacGuill continued. “If this was a very predictable process of legalization that was going to happen worldwide, I think they would be involved in the Canadian market,” he said. “But there’s uncertainty about what’s going to happen. They could get stuck having moved into the cannabis market in Canada and then legalization elsewhere in the world doesn’t happen as fast as they had expected.
“And they’re waiting for cannabis to become a little bit more respectable, perhaps for there to be a little more scientific consensus around the harms of cannabis, and so on,” MacGuill added.
Once that happens—a situation that’s beginning to look inevitable—corporate calculations will change.
“It’s not to say that, eventually, the big tobacco companies won’t end up being involved in cannabis,” MacGuill said. “But the idea that they’ll come in and launch Marlboro Marijuana and blow everyone out of the water, I think, is farfetched.”
So what are their plans?
Alliance One did not respond to an interview request. The largest tobacco companies in Canada are Rothmans, Benson & Hedges (a subsidiary of Philip Morris International); JTI-Macdonald Corp. (a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco International); and Imperial Tobacco Canada (a subsidiary of British American Tobacco). Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and JTI-Macdonald did not respond to interview requests. A spokesperson for Imperial Tobacco declined the Straight’s request but said the company has “no plans to enter the marijuana market in Canada”.
Sarah Campbell, director of the Craft Cannabis Association of B.C. (CCABC), told the Straight that local producers have long anticipated the arrival of the tobacco industry.
“Their involvement was inevitable,” she said in a telephone interview. “It’s a hedge to protect their shareholders. Cannabis has huge potential to displace alcohol and tobacco use amongst consumers.”
Campbell said there might be a market for corporate cannabis, like there is a market for Budweiser and Labatt Blue in the beer industry. But she’s not worried.
“Craft-cannabis producers and processors are small, independent, artisanal, and sustainable,” Campbell explained. “And with the inclusion of microlicences in the Cannabis Act, we are perfectly poised to do very well in this niche market.”
Jamie Shaw, director of the B.C. Independent Cannabis Association (BCICA) and director of government relations for MMJ Canada, expressed a similar sentiment but said stigma was a concern.
“We’re already in a situation where people equate cannabis smoke with cigarette smoke, even though they are vastly different,” she said.
Shaw also noted tobacco companies are known to treat their crops heavily with herbicides and pesticides, whereas many cannabis companies strive to keep their products as natural as possible. “We would be making a huge mistake to treat cannabis [crops] like tobacco,” Shaw said.
There’s some evidence Big Tobacco’s entry into the cannabis industry has been a long time coming.
In 2014, corporate documents were unearthed to reveal that Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, and RJ Reynolds Tobacco were holding internal discussions on the issue several decades ago.
“Since at least the 1970s, tobacco companies have been interested in marijuana and marijuana legalization as both a potential and a rival product,” reads a study of the documents by the health-policy journal Milbank Quarterly. “Although the tobacco industry has not visibly supported marijuana legalization, as policymakers discussed decriminalization and potential legalization, the tobacco industry’s corporate planners took into consideration the shifting public opinion and future consumer demand.”
More recently, Ernst and Young surveyed senior executives and board members with licensed-cannabis producers across Canada. The subsequent 2017 report states that 75 percent of them believe “big players” from various industries will move into legal cannabis.
“Established industries such as tobacco, pharmaceuticals and alcohol are expected to enter this space and try to leverage existing competencies and assets,” that report reads.
Hilary Black, director of patient education and advocacy for Canopy Growth Corporation and a founder of the B.C. Compassion Club Society, put it like this: “You can’t stop money.”
She told the Straight it will therefore become increasingly important for cannabis consumers to pay attention to who they’re buying from.
“If they [tobacco companies] are going invest in publicly traded companies, you can’t prevent that,” Black said. “As cannabis enters the mainstream, I hope that there’s a consciousness around corporate social responsibility and sustainability that continues to be important to cannabis consumers.”
TRAVIS LUPICK
In a telephone interview, Jeremy Jacob, president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries (CAMCD) and co-owner and operator of the Village Dispensary, suggested that the future of Canada’s cannabis industry could largely depend on forces even more powerful than Big Tobacco.
“In an unrestricted and free-trade environment, it makes sense for the biggest corporations to buy assets in emerging industries,” he said. “How do you stop it?
“We’re the first [country to legalize], and that’s an opportunity for Canada,” Jacobs continued. “But the way that our economy operates, this is only a momentary opportunity for Canada until the right deal comes to the table from the right multinational corporation. And then it’s no longer a Canadian industry.”
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