Ontario’s privately-run cannabis stores will no longer be permitted to deliver or offer curbside pickup once an emergency order issued by the province in response to COVID-19 expires.

“As our province carefully moves towards recovery, the (emergency order) to temporarily allow for cannabis retail curbside pickup and delivery will end when the declaration of emergency expires, along with other temporary measures that had been put in place to support people and business during the public health emergency,” said Richard Clark, communications director for Ontario's Finance Minister, in an emailed statement.

Cannabis and its derivative products are all the rage right now. State after state legalizes its recreational use and dispensaries all over the country are making loads of money. The medicinal aspects of the plant are also heavily taken advantage of by big pharmaceutical companies, with new, branded drugs being released with cannabis as their primary component. 

Organigram Holdings Inc. (TSX: OGI) is laying off 220 employees while warning of declining cannabis sales and writedowns.

On Friday, the New Brunswick-based company said with 25 per cent of its staff removed, it will move forward with a leaner workforce and production capacity that’s better aligned with current market conditions.

“These decisions are never easy to make, but we are committed to ensuring the company is appropriately sized relative to market conditions,” Organigram chief executive Greg Engel said in a statement.

Canada needs to open as many as 4,000 cannabis stores, more than triple the current number of licensed outlets, if policymakers want to eliminate the illicit market, according to the head of one of the largest marijuana retailers in the country. 

Trevor Fencott, chief executive officer of Fire and Flower Holdings Corp., said that Canada would need to mirror what other legal markets such as Colorado have done to compete directly with the illicit market, where one cannabis store would be open for every 10,000 people served. That would result in Canada needing to open about 3,500 to 4,000 cannabis stores.

Celebrity affiliations with marijuana products have come under scrutiny from Health Canada as the regulator recently warned Organigram about concerns it had with the company’s Trailer Park Buds cannabis brand. 

According to Marijuana Business Daily, Health Canada contacted Organigram regarding the brand which features packaging and label designs based off those of the popular TV show Trailer Park Boys. 

Organigram decided to change the line’s branding and logo after reviewing the issue with Health Canada.

If you’ve ever pined for a slushie after a cannabis session or wished you could grab some snacks alongside your weed, Fire & Flower and Circle K have some good news for you.

The convenience store chain, owned by Quebec-based company Alimentation Couche-Tard, is partnering with the cannabis retailer to open adjacent locations across Alberta. The first co-location is opening this week in Grand Prairie, with a second location set to open next week in Calgary.

Fire & Flower is expecting to benefit from the volume of traffic to Circle K locations while offering consumers online ordering through its Spark Perks program.

So far, marijuana stocks have had a good year due to rising sales amid the pandemic. Since cannabis has been deemed essential, sales have risen. Higher sales drove most cannabis companies’ revenue. US marijuana companies recorded some stunning revenue growth numbers last month. However, the recent amendment to Canopy Growth and Acreage Holdings’ deal led to some skepticism about the sector’s ongoing struggles. The amendment impacted marijuana stocks’ performance in June. The Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, which tracks the North American cannabis industry, declined 10.3%. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF rose 0.92% in June.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s first homegrown cannabis crop has hit dispensary shelves in the Atlantic province.

Corner Brook-based craft cannabis company BeeHighVe has sent out its first shipments after forging a sales agreement with Dominion C-Stores, a Newfoundland grocery and cannabis retailer.

Before the company received nods from Health Canada and the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corp., all licensed cannabis products for sale in the province were shipped in or derived from cannabis cultivated in other parts of the country.

A new cannabis-infused gummy producer near Edmonton is set to be the largest in the country.

Dynaleo received its production licence from Health Canada last week. The company has a 26,000-square-foot warehouse in an industrial park just south of the city. 

"The next phase of that would be getting our sales licence which we're currently very excited about," said Kristy Skwaruk, Dynaleo's director of people and culture.

The gummy product is a mixture of gelatin, sugar and cannabis oil. The company is banking on a demand for edible cannabis products.

A planting machine crawled along the 100-acre Good Farm in Brant County, Ont. on a sunny June day, dropping seeds into the soil in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Behind the wheel was an employee of 48North Cannabis Corp. one wouldn't usually expect: chief executive Charles Vennat.

"I joked with my team that I was the most expensive farmhand in southwestern Ontario," said Vennat, who professes to keeping a pair of hiking boots in his car trunk for such impromptu jaunts.

"I've always had the leadership philosophy that you should never ask anybody to do a job in your company that you would not want to do yourself."