Good morning. Welcome to another holiday edition of The Greenfields. Todays newsletter is a bit of a toothpick. We'll be back to rolling our usual three-paper newsletter next week.

What've we got for you today?

• Medlab clinical in the Grinder

• Victoria Bitter about drug driving

• Photos of People (or Cats) Surrounded by Cannabis

Medlab Clinical in the Grinder

Medlab Clinical (ASX:MDC) have hired external consultants to help them restructure the company’s finances. Two directors have bailed from the board and 78% of their workers have been laid off.

This is a big change from mid-Jan when their CEO and director of medical research were spinning their interim phase 3 results for NanoBis. Their CEO was quoted in their announcement:

77 patients out of 1,172 opted to continue treatment. In addition over 400 patients did not continue with the study. It’s not something to get excited about.

Since then it’s been a wild ride. On the 20th of January they announced their planned public float on the NASDAQ would not be going ahead. They blamed bad market conditions in the US.

Their accounts also revealed they only had about a quarters worth of funding to sustain themselves as of December 2022 and would need to seek additional funding. You can probably see where this is going already…

On Feb 1st they announced they were seeking equity or debt funding. By the end of Feb the shares had been placed into a trading halt, then suspended by the ASX, and now they’ve laid off most of their workforce, placed the company into caretaker mode and are trying to sell off what is left.

So we can only assume the fund raising failed. The results from the Phase 3 trial probably didn’t look good enough for investors to want to put up more cash to keep the whole thing going.

It’s going to be a tough year for medicinal cannabis companies. Many investors will be tightening their belts and we’ll start to see more cannabis companies that aren't generating revenue get the chop.

There’s going to be a lot of consolidation in the industry for cannabis companies that are not generating revenue to cover further clinical trials. This means companies that are developing novel cannabis treatments, rather than selling raw materials like flowers, oils, or edibles are likely to struggle.

Victoria Bitter about Drug Driving

Victorian politicians all agree the states drug driving laws unfairly target users of medicinal cannabis while people impaired by other prescription drugs get away with it. But in the short term they aren’t going to do anything about it even though they totally could.

The Victorian Labor government has committed to addressing the issue in the next couple of months after the introduction of a bill from Legalize Cannabis MPs.

Labor MP Harriet Shing said:

“distinction between presence [of THC] and impairment” was a “significant priority”

The Labor government has been doing research into this area since 2021. Most of it is focused on working out what impairment on medicinal cannabis means and how it can be tested for.

We don’t really agree with the holdup. Medicinal cannabis is still being treated differently to other prescription drugs that have significant risks of impairment but aren’t detected in roadside testing. There should be an exemption for medicinal cannabis patients to drive until this is worked out.

And if anyone is concerned about road safety there are plenty of perfectly reliable ways to detect for impairment that don’t need studies:

Dr. Lenny's Lab

Got a question about cannabis you'd like answered by an actual scientist?

Dr. Lenny is a plant and brain scientist that can answer your questions about cannabis, plants, brains, research, medicine, and biology.

Reply to this email with your questions and the best one will get an answer in an upcoming newsletter.

Photos of People (or Cats) Surrounded by Cannabis

One of our favourite cannabis-related twitter accounts is micro-cultivator Smoker Farms. They tweet regularly about growing their Master Kush Ultra strain and we love the enthusiasm and care of Sheri and Jeff Aubin for growing cannabis.

Pictured above is Jeff talking growing and defoliation techniques. Good for you Jeff.

If you'd like to see your photo in Photos of People (or cats) Surrounded by Cannabis share it with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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That’s your walk through The Greenfields of the cannabis industry today. We hope you've enjoyed it. 

We'll be back from holidays next Tuesday with a regular sized newsletter, but if you want more follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn where we post cannabis business news daily.

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is not financial advice. It is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell anything or to make any financial decisions. Please do your own research and do not buy anything dodgy.