Although the development of cannabis retail in Ontario has been less than ideal, the chapter of bottlenecks appears to be behind us following the announcement to double the speed at which the province will process new retail store authorizations.

Legalization was supposed to open up opportunities for Canadian farmers, but barriers to entry and billions of dollars in foreign investment have cut them out of the big picture.

Cheap land may be driving a proliferation of grow-ops in rural eastern Ontario, one that's seen Ontario Provincial Police charge dozens of people and seize tens of millions of dollars of illegal cannabis in just over two months.

In that time, the region's seen 18 drug busts that have led to 126 people arrested on charges that they illegally grew cannabis.

Nearly 59,000 plants were seized in the busts — an approximate street value of at least $70 million — along with hundreds of kilograms of processed cannabis, guns, cash and production equipment.

Police estimate each plant is worth between $1,200 and $1,400. The raids took place between July 29 and Oct. 2, at mostly rural addresses within a few hundred kilometres of Ottawa.

The cannabis business is a sprawling, unfriendly hydra, destroyer of serious men with good intentions.

It all sounded so promising.  

Medicine Man Technologies, one of the more highly respected dispensary and cultivation operations in Denver, run by a well-respected cannabis business executive considered a pioneer in the industry, President and Co-Founder Andy Williams, rebranded the name of its subsidiary in mid-April to perhaps capture the whimsy of an industry built on getting people high. 

How This Election Will Shift the Cannabis Industry For the Better

The stock market can be the best place to create wealth because of the endless opportunities it offers to grow your money -- you can back anything from value plays to rule-breaking mavericks. Whatever your style, you'll want to put your cash behind companies that can grow their revenue. Some of the most promising can be found in the cannabis sector.

Cannabis is one of the fastest-growing industries across the world. In the U.S. in particular, the sector is expanding at a rapid pace; 11 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana completely, while 33 states and D.C. have done so for medical purposes. Voters in five other states are voting on some form of legalization in November.

Will Pot Stocks Continue Recent Downtrends?

Here we are, in the month of October, and marijuana stocks are showing downward pressure because of COVID again. With recent concerns over president Donald Trump contracting the Coronavirus the market is feeling the effect. On top of that, you have a miss in September job growth that suggests the recovery is slowing up. Once again, the reality and graveness of this pandemic is brought to the forefront of market stability.

Home cannabis cultivation has been legal for adult use since 2018, and for medical use for years before federal legalization came into force.

But Brighton, Ontario’s medical cannabis users who grow their own medicine may soon find themselves in a difficult position, thanks to their neighbours’ complaints.

Even before the legalization of marijuana in Canada in 2018, cannabis companies were busy investing billions of dollars in facilities to meet implausible demand projections, as well as acquiring their competitors at inflated prices. Looking back, the entire series of events placed the foundation for a catastrophe in the sector. Indeed, the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (TSX:HMMJ), an index that tracks the performance of sector constituents, is now down nearly 80% from all-time highs. 

The legal cannabis industry continued to make inroads against its illicit counterparts, as one-quarter of all sales took place among regulated players in the first quarter of the year, according to new data from the Ontario Cannabis Store.

The provincial pot distributor's quarterly review showed that the province controlled a 25.1-per-cent share of the cannabis market in the fiscal first quarter of 2020, a slight uptick from the 24.7 per cent share observed in the previous quarter. The number lagged behind the national share for the legal market, according to OCS and Statistics Canada calculations.