Canadian cannabis behemoths are setting their sights on the US.
An executive at Canadian marijuana producer Aurora Cannabis said on Thursday that the recently signed Farm Bill, which legalizes hemp, provides a "pathway" to enter the lucrative US market.
"We've long envisioned the future and the enormous value of the US market," Cam Battley, Aurora's Chief Corporate Officer told Business Insider in an interview. "There's now a pathway for a rational approach and expansion."
The key, said Battley, is whether the Toronto Stock Exchange and The New York Stock Exchange — where Aurora is listed — would approve a US expansion.
Battley added that Aurora has already made moves to get exposure to the US market through Australis Capital, an independent US-based company spun out of Aurora.
Australis is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange which allows marijuana companies with US operations to list.
'My lips are wet, my mouth is watering to get a piece of that'
On Aurora's earnings call in November, Battley said Aurora would be ready to move into the US as soon as federal laws around cannabis changed.
"My lips are wet, my mouth is watering to get a piece of that," said Battley.
President Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill into law on Thursday afternoon. The bill legalized hemp — a variety of the cannabis plant that doesn't contain THC, the psychoactive compound that gets you high — by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act.
Though the legal status of CBD, an active compound in the cannabis plant, is hazy, some in the industry say the Farm Bill provides a framework to distribute CBD-infused products in the US — if the CBD is derived from hemp.
Canopy Growth, another Canadian marijuana producer, on Thursday released a statement that his company would "participate in the American market," following the Farm Bill's signing.
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