FDA hires Norman Birenbaum, former regulator in NY and RI, to advise on cannabis
This week, the FDA’s Deputy Director for Regulatory Programs, Douglas Throckmorton, sent out an email to the colleagues at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), which Cannabis Wire obtained, to announce that Norman Birenbaum is joining as a senior public health advisor “responsible for advancing our efforts related to research and regulation of cannabis.”
The FDA has been slowly but steadily expanding its cannabis-related efforts, and this choice is a big step toward that expansion.
Birenbaum was the founding president of the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA), and previously served as a cannabis regulator in New York and Rhode Island.
“With his expertise in policy analysis and legislative outreach related to cannabis and cannabis-derived products, Norman is excited about creating the high-value partnerships needed for FDA’s outreach throughout the health care community, including with patients and patient advocacy groups,” Throckmorton wrote in the email.
+ More: Cannabis Wire has been following Birenbaum’s work for years. In this Q&A from the pre-CANNRA days, back when he was just getting started in New York, you can get a sense of his priorities.
Canopy Growth divests from retail in Canada.
Canopy Growth announced on Tuesday that it “has entered into agreements to divest its retail business across Canada which includes the stores operating under the Tweed and Tokyo Smoke retail banners.”
It will, however, retain ownership of the Tweed brand, therefore all of the Tweed stores will need to be rebranded.
Canopy Growth says that it intends to “focus” on being “a premium brand-focused cannabis and consumer packaged goods (CPG) company.”
The company, once considered the world’s highest valued cannabis company, has struggled with profitability.
Is it too soon to call Illinois a cautionary tale?
Even though adult use sales began in Illinois in 2020, regulators didn’t award equity licenses until this summer due to a flurry of lawsuits last year related to the lottery process. As a result, the market has been dominated by the MSOs that already held medical licenses and expanded to adult use, like Cresco and Curaleaf.
As a result, a new report from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation paints a bleak picture when it comes to equity, especially considering that lawmakers initially set out to create a national model for equity, calling the state the “gold standard,” as Cannabis Wire reported at the time.
The upshot from the report? Illinois’ cannabis industry is still very white and male.
• 0 licenses are “majority owned by Social Equity Applicants”
• 1 license is “majority owned by women”
• 0 licenses are “majority owned by people of color”
• 0 licenses are “majority owned by persons with disabilities”
Lawmakers and the governor truly intended to create a model for equity, but it hasn’t happened. Could that change in the years to come, through a licensing push? Perhaps. But big players already have a hold on the market, and if supply has met the demand, then these equity operators will have nowhere to go.
