After years of waiting, the big day has finally arrived for North American cannabis stocks. In 2021, more than half a dozen pot stocks are expected to push into the black. This will definitively demonstrate that the legal weed industry is legitimate and can be a serious moneymaker.

After (pardon the pun) weeding through dozens of marijuana stocks, I found seven that Wall Street forecasts will be profitable in the upcoming year. Here they are, in no particular order.

COVID-19 restrictions have caused surges in cannabis sales and changed consumer habits across Ontario, including in Ottawa, Statistics Canada says and at least one health expert is advising people to be mindful of increasing their use of pot. 

Data from Statistics Canada show that retailers in Ontario sold the most cannabis of any province in the first year following legalization on Oct. 17, 2018. That amounted to $217 million in sales.

Canadian cannabis producers are likely to scale back their investments in Europe as they come under pressure to cut costs and deliver profit, two industry consultants said in a report released on Tuesday.

Depending on the pace of legalization, the market for European cannabis could grow at a compound annual rate of 52% for the next five years, hitting US$3.1 billion in sales by 2025, research firm Brightfield Group and consultancy Hanway Associates said.

They, however, projected the current market at just a tenth of that value and said some Canadian companies may choose to follow two of the sector's big players - Aurora Cannabis Inc and Canopy Growth Corp - in trimming spending outside North America.

There was something in the air — yeah, it was probably what you think, but also a sense of excitement and maybe even a little history — when the first retail weed was legally sold in Canada. 

News cameras were there in October 2018 to catch the lineup at the Tweed store on Water Street — not the type of retailer that the downtown St. John's merchants of decades past would have predicted, but times had changed. 

Right after midnight on Oct. 17, time zones made it possible for Tweed and its local competitors to be the first in Canada to start ringing in sales. 

Soon after, a ceremonial sod-turning happened in another part of St. John's, as Canopy Growth — Tweed is Canopy's retail arm — showed it was at the forefront of a newly legal industry. 

U.S. Cannabis Stocks Keep Looking Bullish

By 2025, the U.S. CBD market could be a $16.8 billion business, a massive jump from the projected $4.7 billion earnings in 2020. To meet rising consumer demand, CBD sellers have been diversifying their sales channels, including eCommerce, dropshipping, and retail channels.

The executive in charge of Canopy Growth Corp.'s global beverage unit is leaving less than a year after he joined the company, a high-level departure that comes as the pot giant looks to ramp up sales of cannabis-infused drinks to the Canadian recreational market. 

Andrew Rapsey joined Canopy in January and took on the role of global head of beverages in August. He announced in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday he is leaving the company and plans to return to Alphabet Inc.'s Google in 2021. 

"As I gear up for 2021, I have decided to head back to Google Canada for some unfinished business with a marketing team I adore," Rapsey said in the post. 

Getting a cannabis license and building a brand in the industry can be incredibly complex and daunting – which has many producers utilizing a practice known as white labeling.

White labeling, or white-label branding, is a common practice in mainstream industries in which a company removes their own brand and logo from the end product and uses another company’s brand, usually a more established one with a wider client base. This is common with many well-known brands such as 365 brand from Whole Foods Market, Costco’s Kirkland brand, and Walmart’s Great Value products – all of which are manufactured by numerous other smaller companies.

The cost of cannabis flower has fluctuated throughout the years. 

For many decades the standard cannabis flower that was available in most parts of the world originated in third-world countries, was compressed into bricks, and then distributed to various markets.

The cannabis flower was often low-quality and not that potent, and it was priced accordingly. 

Cannabis was more expensive than other crops due to the illegalities involved, but for the most part it was affordable for many consumers.