Joint agreement: Delta 9 to grow pot for Canada's largest marijuana producer

Winnipeg's Delta 9 has teamed up with Canada's largestpublicly traded marijuana producer as the country gets closer to legalizing marijuana.

Canopy Growth Corp., based out of Ontario, has entered into a distribution agreement with Delta 9 to sell cannabis products online.

"Our company is excited to further our growing partnership with Canopy Growth," Delta 9 CEO John Arbuthnotsaid in a news release on Tuesday.

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The Winnipeg company, which was founded in 2012, was the fourth fully licensed producer of medical cannabis in the country.

"This project brings Delta 9's craft-grown cannabis products to a wider national audience through Canopy's well-established CraftGrow network."

Gearing up for the emerging marijuana market, Delta 9 became a publicly traded company on the TSX Venture stock exchange, and Arbuthnothas said the company plans to drastically expand its production space.

The two companies are already working on a plan to serve the growing market in Manitoba, the news release said.

Earlier this month, Manitoba unveiled its hybrid model for selling pot in the province when weed becomes legal next July.

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Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries will secure the supply of marijuana and track it in Manitoba, but private retail stores will be in charge of selling it.

"Manitoba intends to select up to four proposals, and intends to enter into at least one retailer agreement for each of the four proposals it selects," says the request for proposals released at the time of the announcement.

Arbuthnot has said he would like to see Delta 9 storefronts sellrecreational cannabis.

Delta 9 is the ninth company to offerits products through the CraftGrow line in an online store, where a gram of marijuana is shipped on average every four seconds, the news release said.

"We are particularly excited to see one of the earliest established producers in our sector come on board," Mark Zekulin, president of Canopy Growth, said in the news release.