Coca-Cola is not the first company to take this initiative. From Corona to Diageo there are plans to capitalize the lucrative marijuana market

According to a BNN Bloomberg Television report, Coca-Cola seems close to entering the cannabis market. Kent Landers, company spokesperson, said this week that he was interested in beverages with CBD, a component of marijuana that does not produce psychoactive effects, but it is used to treat pain and is sold legally in states where Medical and recreational marijuana is decriminalized.

Leer en español: ¿Se tomaría una Coca-Cola con canabis?

The supplier would be the Canadian cannabis producer Aurora Cannabis, the third largest cannabis company in the country with a market value of $ 8.7 billion Canadian dollars, according to the newspaper El Espectador, and whose actions have skyrocketed as a result of the process in which Canada is found to be the first G7 country to legalize marijuana.

According to a statement from the company, cited in Forbes magazine, Coca-Cola is interested in marijuana as a product, but considering this incursion with the purpose of developing beverages 'for functional well-being' using the CBD as an active component.

In addition, according to a study by BDS Analytics, also cited in Forbes magazine, this strategy for Coca-Cola can be very lucrative, since it reveals that sales of cannabis infused beverages reached $ 35.6 million dollars in the United States..

Other companies are also interested

However, Coca-Cola is not the first company to venture IGNORE INTO this business. According to El Espectador, the Corona Constellation Brands brewery announced an investment of $ 3.8 billion USD last month to increase its stake in Canopy Growth, another Canadian marijuana producer with more than $ 10 billion worth of marijuana.

You may also be interested: The economic impacts of the legalization of marijuana in Uruguay

Likewise, the Canadian brewery Molson Coors is in the process of creating a joint venture with Hydropothecary of Quebec for the production of cannabis beverages in Canada. Likewise, according to BNN Bloomberg, the producer of beer and other spirits Diageo is in talks with three Canadian marijuana producers, and the newspaper El Espectador states that "the artisanal processing unit Lagunitas de Heineken launched a brand specialized in non-alcoholic beverages. Alcoholics with THC, active ingredient in marijuana".

Legality implies distribution problems

Regarding the legality of the product, the case is somewhat ambiguous, because marijuana remains illegal in the US (with the exception of some states such as Colorado) despite the use of CBD for the treatment of diseases such as anxiety or sclerosis.

In addition, Katherine Pfaff, spokesperson for the DEA in the United States, claims that it is increasingly common to find products with CBD oil in stores, because the DEA has stopped fighting against the sale of these products to focus on large-scale drug trafficking, leaving these issues in charge of the local police.

Likewise, El Espectador reports that "the first medical treatment from a marijuana plant will soon reach the country's market, after the regulators approved in June a treatment against GW Pharmaceuticals epilepsy."

LatinAmerican Post | Sofía Carreño
Translated from “Coca-Cola podría incursionar en el mercado del cannabis: pero no es la única”