Good morning.
We’ll see you at 9 AM Pacific/Noon Eastern for This Week in Cannabis Live. There is loads going on, so it should be a good one with our friends at High Spirits and Cannabis Musings.
Let’s get to it.
-JB, JR
Today’s newsletter is 1,147 words or about a 9.5-minute read.
Today’s newsletter made possible by:
CULTIVATED CALENDAR
October 22 » The Highrise → Check out the second in our NYC series and apply to attend. Event details coming!
November 12 » Pot Policy and Politics → The second installation of the Midwest Cannabis Forum, this time in St. Louis. Ticket discounts through October 12.
COMING EVENTS → Las Vegas & Buffalo
Stay tuned for more Fall 2026 events coming soon!
What’s the big deal?
AURORA & CURALEAF
Aurora takes Curaleaf’s hostile bid to regulator
What happened: Aurora Cannabis filed an application Wednesday evening asking the Alberta Securities Commission to order Curaleaf to fix what it calls deficiencies in its hostile bid circular.
Aurora wants three things corrected. The company says Curaleaf left out pro forma financials for the combined company, failed to publish a legally required French-language notice of the bid in Québec, and set the bid to close before the full 105-day minimum deposit period.
Aurora also argues the deposit period problem means the offer isn't a "permitted bid" under its shareholder rights plan, so the poison pill would trigger if Curaleaf acquires more than 20% of its shares.
Curaleaf hit back Thursday morning, saying it will move the expiration by seven hours, that pro forma financials aren't required but it could provide them if Aurora opens its books for due diligence, and already ran the notice in both English and French.
"Détendez-vous!" the company said on X.
What they're saying: "$ACB shareholders should be outraged. Rather than address $CURA's premium offer, $ACB management is begging for relief from regulators because the bid expires after 105 days at 5:00 p.m. instead of 11:59 p.m.," Curaleaf Chairman and CEO Boris Jordan said in a post on X.
"These are not technicalities. They are shareholder protection requirements, and they matter," Aurora Executive Chairman and CEO Miguel Martin said in an earlier statement.
Why it matters: Aurora has taken a more offensive posture on Curaleaf after its board advised shareholders to reject the bid.
Aurora is asking the ASC to make sure shareholders get the full 105-day deposit period only after the other deficiencies are fixed, which would effectively restart the timeline on Curaleaf's bid.
The pro forma fight isn't trivial either.
Curaleaf is offering 0.3463 of its shares plus US$0.75 cash for each Aurora share, an implied $4.00 capped at $5.00, so most of the payout is Curaleaf stock and Aurora holders would be buying into the combined company.
It's also the second time this month the fight has landed in front of the Alberta regulator, after Curaleaf challenged Aurora's at-the-market share sales there.
Nobody here is really arguing about a French newspaper ad, but that’s a sign of how personal the battle has become.
What’s next: The ASC now has to decide whether any of this merits an order.
Aurora's board is still telling shareholders to reject the $4-per-share bid and withdraw any shares already tendered.
The bid is set to expire Dec. 1, which Curaleaf says it will extend to 11:59 p.m. to settle the timing dispute.
Read more: Curaleaf’s hostile bid for Aurora is official.
-JB
Quotable
“I sort of assumed that when things were being legalized, there would be this uptick and the research has not supported that,” The University of Minnesota’s Dr. Marla Eisenberg, the author of a study on teen cannabis use in the state, told MPR News.
The study found that teens are using cannabis at a lower rate than a decade ago, even following Minnesota’s introduction of legal cannabis sales. The study tracks with recent federal data that shows across the board, teens are using less cannabis overall, even with nearly half of states allowing sales.
Quick hits
New House bill would treat cannabis as a "high-risk" ad category
A bipartisan anti-scam bill would require online platforms to put cannabis advertisers, along with tobacco and alcohol brands, through enhanced identity and business verification with periodic re-checks. The SAFE Platforms Act, from Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC) and Del. James Moylan (R-Guam), covers platforms with at least 100,000 monthly users or more than $25 million in annual revenue.
Delaware bars and restaurants must stop serving THC drinks Oct. 21
Delaware's new THC beverage law takes effect Oct. 21, limiting sales of hemp-derived THC drinks to liquor stores and licensed cannabis retailers for off-premises consumption, which cuts out bars, restaurants, CBD shops and smoke shops. Cans are capped at 10 milligrams of THC and will carry a 50-cent tax starting Feb. 1, 2027.
Florida adds 22 medical cannabis licenses as their value sinks
Florida granted 22 new medical cannabis licenses on Sept. 11, taking the state from 27 operators to 49 more than three years after applications closed. The value of a license has collapsed in the meantime, with one bare license that fetched $55 million in 2021 reselling for $9 million in 2024.
Owners of nearly 100 VIP Smoke Shops plead guilty in Ohio
The brothers behind the chain across Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky pleaded guilty to felony trafficking and organized crime charges over THC oils and vapes the state classified as hashish, plus products containing a psilocin analog. Under the deal they must close or sell every store before Dec. 1 sentencing and forfeit more than $338,000 in cash.
Cultivated Live
Along with our partners at Lit Alerts, yesterday we hosted a webinar titled: Metrc Is Here. Now What? We heard from the Director of RetailI D at Metrc, as well as operators helping cannabis businesses in New York thive within the Metrc system.
Science & research
Cannabis stress relief matched placebo in controlled trial
In a double-blind trial of 120 regular cannabis users, those who vaped 20 or 40 milligrams of THC reported stress drops no bigger than the placebo group, Washington State University researchers found in Neuropsychopharmacology. THC did dampen some physical stress markers like skin conductance but raised heart rate at the high dose, which the authors say complicates cannabis's reputation as a coping tool.
One in five NYC seniors surveyed used cannabis in the past year
Of 315 New Yorkers aged 65 and older surveyed in parks and outside senior centers, 22.2% said they used cannabis in the past year and 11.1% in the past day, NYU researchers reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. About 80% of those users said their use was purely recreational, and nearly a third met criteria for cannabis use disorder, mostly mild.