As the troubles stack-up for the main cannabis companies in Canada, an industry insider believes they’ll never be able to address one key issue – a lack of ‘good quality weed’.

James A. Smith, Chief Revenue Officer in Canada at emerging cannabis 4C Labs, says: “I do not know anyone who buys their cannabis on the legal market, it’s horrible quality.”

Recent figures show the ‘black’ and ‘grey’ markets continue to cater for the needs of the majority of Canada’s cannabis consumer users, with many leading companies blaming this on a lack of retail outlets. While acknowledging this has some merit, Mr Smith believes it is being used as a smokescreen for a litany of inadequacies.

After opting in to retail cannabis stores this year, Collingwood, Ont., will have its first legal pot shop by Christmas.

Louis Laskovski, who won the licence during the previous government lottery, teamed up with Sessions Cannabis to open the store.

“After an intensive government approval process, we strive to become a reliable and trusted source of information about cannabis along with being a leading retailer of the product,” Laskovski said in a press release.

“We know there is demand in Collingwood and the surrounding area. In our experience, customers are becoming more sophisticated and want an alternative to the black market.”

A Sudbury-based cannabis company that announced plans to set up shop in Espanola last summer has hit a funding snag that's delaying the project's development.

Jeff Scharf, president and CEO of GaiaCann Inc., said plans for the construction of a first-phase cannabis cultivation and extraction facility in northeastern Ontario have been deferred.

Locals from the northeastern Ontario paper mill town about 40 minutes west of Sudbury recently took to Facebook to express confusion. 

Playing the role of sativa Santa this year would have been a merry prospect, said Calgary candy-maker Brad Churchill.

But federal regulator Health Canada’s meticulously measured approach in approving production of licensed cannabis snacks and other derivatives has put those edible elves on hold.

“It’s disappointing in the standpoint of not having it in the stores for the holiday season,” said Churchill, owner of Choklat.

“(Federal approvals are) taking longer than it really should but, at the end of the day, the wheels of progress are grinding.”

In one way, the gradual rollout of the next generating of legal cannabis products — which were officially legalized Oct. 17 — comes as a relief, said Churchill.

At this time last year, investor hopes for the cannabis industry were pretty high. Canada had just become the first industrialized country in the modern era to legalize recreational marijuana in October 2018, derivative pot products looked to be less than a year from hitting dispensary shelves in Canada, and multiple U.S. states were in the process of greenlighting medical cannabis or recreational pot.

However, over the past year, marijuana companies and investors alike have seen their hopes and dreams for the pot industry go up in smoke.

In the past year or so, we have seen that marijuana stocks have started to shift. With so many new updates to the cannabis industry, it can at times be difficult to keep up with where the market is headed. Most investors tend to look at the companies at the top of the pot stock market. This is usually a good place to start, but it does deny a large amount of the potential with small to mid-cap pot stocks.

In October 2018, Canada became the first industrialized western nation to legalize recreational use of marijuana. This event -- likely still the most important for the marijuana industry to date -- was well received by investors, who saw a golden opportunity to cash in on the projected growth of sales of marijuana products by investing in cannabis stocks.

Unfortunately, once the initial honeymoon phase was over, a slate of issues got in the way of Canadian pot companies, which haven't performed nearly as well as expected. Let's review two of those issues and whether, in light of these developments, it might be worth removing all Canadian pot stocks from your buy list. 

The deadline for Saint John cannabis dispensaries to shut down their operations was Thursday, and most seem to have gotten the message.

Giggles Gaming Cafe on Union Street, the Green Room on Rothesay Road and King Canna on Germain Street have all stopped selling THC products. 

The businesses got letters from the Saint John Police Force saying the properties they were operating out of were "an instrument of unlawful activity," because police believe they were selling cannabis illegally.

The letters said the places had two weeks to stop selling cannabis or their properties would be seized using the Civil Forfeiture Act.

Laura Newman, an employee at King Canna, said the store has stopped selling all THC products, and customers are "not pleased."

Celebrities are just like us. They brush their teeth each morning and before they go to sleep. They put their pants on one leg at a time. They are interested in this whole CBD and cannabis space, too, wondering what the effects are from the variety of products on the market -- as well as the return on investment from being part of a CBD brand.

When it comes to the CBD craze, many celebrities aren't just using the products, but they're putting their money where their interest is, becoming investors, spokespeople and advocates for an industry that's ripe for the taking. Many of us may not be able to do that, but celebs can be a different breed when it comes to these types of opportunities.

Canadian cannabis stocks are going through a rough patch, as investors are frustrated by the slowdown in pot sales growth, and the companies have largely blamed a slower-than-necessary retail store rollout to directly compete with the well-established underground marijuana market for customers.

Per-gram prices are falling, while market leader Canopy Growth made a $32.7 million provision for restructuring charges, product returns, and price adjustments after struggling to push its oils and capsules, as demand has proven to be much lower than previously anticipated.

Actually, OrganiGram Holdings is facing a similar challenge with its cannabis extracts too and prices are plummeting and channel inventory volumes are spiking, as demand lags supply in the provinces