Tweed Marijuana lights up in first day of trading

Tweed Marijuana (TSXV:TWD) is among Canada’s most actively traded issuers in its first day of trading today. At press time, more than eight-million shares of the Ontario-based company have changed hands.

Tweed is one of twelve companies that earned a license to grow medical marijuana through Health Canada. The company raised $30-million through an RTO in March.

Tweed plans to spend the proceeds of its private placement to open a 150,000 square-foot medical marijuana facility in a former Hershey’s plant in Smiths Falls, Ontario. The company says it will charge between $5 and $12 a gram, depending on the strain of cannabis it delivers.

A current report from research firm ArcView Market Research says the legal market for cannabis in the United States could grow 64% in 2014 to (U.S.)$2.34-billion and reach $10.2-billion in five years. In a recent interview, Western University economist and professor Mike Moffatt said the legalization of marijuana in Canada could generate as much as a billion a year in tax revenue.

“We would tax marijuana, get it out of the hands of organized crime and have that revenue go to the government instead,” he said.

At press time, Tweed Marijuana was trading at $2.70, after trading as high as $5.10 earlier in the day.