Expanding the Cannabis Consumer Base

The prohibition of cannabis is lifting around the world, and millions of consumers are pushing the market to exceed $75 billion by 2025, from $13 billion in 2019.

As awareness grows, more information about the health benefits of cannabis drives consumer interest, but there’s one problem. The smell of cannabis products—particularly when smoking flower—deters both current and potential cannabis consumers.

Today’s graphic from CannabCo explores the social stigma that clouds the cannabis industry and introduces a new technology that could provide a disruptive solution.

The Pressures of Social Stigma

The lingering stigma that surrounds cannabis consumption has existed for decades, limiting the number of recreational and medical users.

Although numerous dimensions of this stigma exists, two of them are particularly prominent and damaging to consumers:

• Cannabis is addictive: Being negatively labelled as a drug addict, stoner, or “pothead”, personas which are associated with criminal activity.
• Cannabis is an identity: Smokers have difficulty concealing their consumption, as the smell can cling to the user and become part of their identity.

This intrusive and long-lasting odour is a distinctive and often unwanted aspect of smoking cannabis. Despite great strides being made to change perceptions about the industry, the odour continues to fuel the stigma.

Where Does the Smell Come From?

The odour comes from chemicals found in the plant, known as terpenes. They produce aromatic oils that give cannabis strains a unique scent—such as lemon, pine, or even coffee—and have been used for thousands of years in traditional herb-based medicine.

Terpenes and cannabinoids work together to multiply the plant’s medicinal properties, in a process known as the entourage effect. Of course, this is a double-edged sword, as new users are attracted to the medicinal benefits of cannabis, but are deterred by the smell, harsh burn, headaches, and coughing that comes with inhaling it.

The Path to a Cleaner Cannabis

Aside from the pain points that arise from smoking, there is also a need to combat the smell of cannabis products when they are stored. Therefore, an odourless cannabis could potentially reach an entirely new group of consumers who are deterred by the smell, and provide peace of mind for existing consumers.

CannabCo has developed a breakthrough technology, called PURECANN™, which creates a purer form of cannabis by eliminating the smell and harshness. It also creates a wealth of associated benefits:

• Virtually undetectable odour of stored dry product.
• Undetectable odour while smoking in public.
• No third-party gadgets or devices required by the user.
• Less residual “day-after effect” associated with smoking cannabis.

The unique technology removes the plant’s aroma, without compromising any of its medical properties. Moreover, it also benefits non-smokers who do not want to smell second-hand smoke.

Opening the Floodgates

While smoking cannabis is not something to be ashamed of, the PURECANN™ technology can provide users with the option of smoking more discreetly.

CannabCo dedicates itself to using new technologies to enhance the way people consume cannabis, and its most recent creation has enormous potential.

By providing a cleaner product, the cannabis experience could become more tolerable and accessible. As a result, the heavily stigmatized industry could drastically transform—and convince millions of new consumers to take notice.

Gold in the Abitibi: Cartier Resources Chimo Mine Project

Cartier Resources (TSX-V: ECR) is deploying the right strategy in the right region, with the right backers to find gold faster at a lower cost.

Proven Endowment: The Abitibi Greenstone Belt

There are many prolific past-producing gold districts in Canada, but the Abitibi is one of the largest and best understood gold-bearing regions with readily available exploration infrastructure.

This region extends from Wawa in Northwestern Ontario to the east near Val-d’Or Quebec – a landscape that hosts some of the most productive gold mines in Canada.

The company’s Chimo gold mine project located in the historic Abitibi Greenstone belt of Quebec builds on a legacy of gold production with a project ready for investors.

Exploration Strategy

The best place to find gold is where companies discovered and mined it in the past. Between 1964 and 1997, three companies produced 379,012 ounces of gold at the Chimo Mine property.

This type of strategy is known as brownfield exploration. Brownfield exploration looks for gold in areas known to host gold mineralization. It offers investors less risk, reducing the amount of uncertainties a company faces.

Ounces in the Ground: 2019 Resource Estimate

The company delivered within three years its first-ever resource estimate and proved the value its Chimo Mine Project. In November 2019, Cartier published its first mineral resource estimate of the central gold corridor on the Chimo mine property:

Measured Resources: 481,280 ounces of gold
Inferred Resources: 417,250 ounces of gold

Cartier has proven a resource in one third of the Chimo property, and there is the north and south gold corridor which it is currently drilling.

Why Chimo?

Cartier Resources has built on the foundations of a proven past producer with a new resource estimate, to put the Chimo Mine project back on the Abitibi gold map.