Coca-Cola Says It Doesn’t Have Plans to Enter Cannabis Market

© Bloomberg Bottles of Coca-Cola Co. brand soda sit ready for shipment at the Swire Coca-Cola bottling plant in West Valley City, Utah, U.S., on Friday, April 19, 2019.

(Bloomberg) — Coca-Cola Co. is dousing speculation that it’s getting into the cannabis business.

Speculation surged after a video posted to YouTube — since deleted — by a user with the screen name “Gabor the Blind Guy” showed a Coca-Cola can with a childproof lid. The man in the video says that his father is a head engineer for a company that “produces bottling and capping machines for many major pharmaceutical and food companies.”

He then says that Coca-Cola is planning on debuting a new line of its classic drink in Canada that will feature CBD extract, the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that treats pain but doesn’t get you high.

“These rumors are untrue,“ Coca-Cola said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg News. “As we have stated many times, we have no plans to enter the CBD market.”

A saved copy of the video was posted on Reddit Inc.’s WallStreetBets forum.

Coca-Cola said in 2018 that it was looking at the cannabis drinks market. The news fueled stock gains for companies like Aurora Cannabis Inc. The Atlanta-based soft drinks maker was in talks with Canadian marijuana producer Aurora Cannabis to develop the beverages, according to a report at the time from BNN Bloomberg Television.

Aurora did not respond to inquiries from Bloomberg News on Thursday about a possible partnership with Coca-Cola.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brandon Kochkodin in New York at bkochkodin@bloomberg.net;Deena Shanker in New York at dshanker@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sally Bakewell at sbakewell1@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder

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