Lacking the brick-and-mortar store density of mature recreational cannabis markets like Colorado, online shopping is an essential channel for legal pot sales in large swaths of Canada. Unfortunately, out-of-stock rates are on the rise, according to a new analysis of e-commerce platforms by Cowen.

Analyst Vivien Azer looked at 1,485 products with 3,032 SKUs from online stores in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador—a sample covering 65 per cent of Canada’s population. The results show the stockout rate has reached 59 per cent, up from 56 per cent on Sept. 2.

Square Inc. has become one of the first U.S. payments platforms doing business with CBD providers, just as the industry is booming.

The company this week started allowing U.S. businesses to sell cannabidiol products on its platform while keeping track of payment and inventory management. CBD derived from hemp was legalized last year, while the intoxicating THC compound remains illegal at the federal level.

“We saw this as an opportunity to make our tools available to sellers” in the industry, Square said in a statement.

Canopy Growth Corp. is acquiring a majority stake in BioSteel Sports Nutrition Inc., as the pot giant aims to quench the thirst of prospective consumers with a line of cannabis-infused sports drinks.

The deal, which sees Canopy acquiring a 72 per cent stake in the Toronto-based sports drink maker, represents the company's bet that aside from being a major cannabis producer, it can also be a big player in the US$50-billion global sports nutrition market. Financial terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

FluroTech may have found something promising.

The Calgary-based company is developing biotracker technology that it believes will be a useful tool in determining whether a cannabis strain came from a legal or illegal source. It reports an initial test of the technology on a batch of hemp plants, grown and harvested outdoors, revealed that the roots absorbed and spread the trackers throughout the entire plant.

From cannabis-infused sparkling water that contains only five calories to pot beer that doesn’t taste disgusting (no seriously, the taste has been compared to dish soap and even urine), these Canadian companies are thinking outside of the box when it comes to drinkable weed.

Sweet Reason: Hemp CBD-infused sparkling water

There’s no reason why obsessions can’t be healthy. If pitched to the right audience, obsessions can lead to a sweet million-dollar deal—just ask Hilary McCain.

Big-name brands, such as Nike and Louis Vutton, are constantly counterfeited, but none have spurned a crisis quite like counterfeit vape cartridges. 

In the 55 years since he first isolated D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (better known today as THC) with colleagues Dr. Yehiel Gaoni and Dr. Haviv Edery at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, Dr. Raphael Mechoulam has been the absolute leader in the science of cannabis. He basically started that science from scratch with 5 kilos of Lebanese hash the police donated to his research after Mechoulam’s boss put in the request.

Even all these years later, when Mechoulam talks pot, the cannabis world stops with its ears wide open. This latest announcement from the legendary scientist was no different.

A new study says that ingesting foods containing high amounts of fat might boost the therapeutic effects of CBD.

Most things in life can be improved with a slice of pizza and a greasy burger. Thanks to some science, we can now add CBD to this list.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota discovered that consuming foods with high amounts of fat before ingesting CBD improved the cannabinoid’s absorption rate by a large margin, allowing for more therapeutic effects.

Researchers at Western University are demonstrating how cannabidiol (CBD) can help diminish the negative psychiatric side effects from tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) during cannabis consumption in rats.

Although researchers were previously aware that high-THC cannabis cultivars could cause such symptoms, the mechanism behind the symptoms was not fully understood.