Legal cannabis was supposed to mean jobs and tax revenue as an enormous illicit market slowly gave way to regulated cultivation and sales.

That may yet happen, but so far, both sales and the accompanying tax haul have been lower than promised. And with companies missing sales and revenue goals, that means layoffs for the worker.

Multiple major brands in cannabis have announced cutting more than 10% of their workforces this fall. Joining software delivery platform Eaze and ad-platform Weedmaps, both of whom announced workforce cuts around  20% last month, are California brands Flow Kana, Cannacraft, and would-be national power player MedMen.

Relief may finally be coming for cannabis producers that have been stymied by the lack of legal retail stores in the country’s most populous province. 

The Ontario government is considering a plan that would abandon the maligned lottery process that has left it with only two-dozen legal pot shops, and instead pivot as early as January to a system that could lay the groundwork for up to a thousand stores in the province, according to a person directly familiar with the matter.

Work is currently underway at an as-yet undisclosed location in Winnipeg that is designed to become one of the largest cannabis edibles manufacturing facilities in North America.

Vancouver-based AgraFlora International Inc. has partnered with a Winnipeg confectionery company in an 80-20 joint venture called Edibles & Infusion that is retrofitting a 51,000-square-foot building that will create significant production capacity for the upcoming edibles market.

Brandon Boddy, chairman and CEO of AgraFlora, said capacity at the plant will be large enough that Edibles & Infusions will supply to other cannabis licensed producers. He said arrangements with other licensed producers are currently being negotiated.

It’s been just over a year since Canada legalized recreational marijuana as the U.S. government continues to deliberate over federal legalization. The market in both countries continues to present challenges and opportunities for government representatives, legal producers, consumers and the promo industry.

While the past few months have not been especially kind to marijuana stocks, it seems as though companies are beginning to find their stride once again. The past week or so has seen some big gains come back into the pot stock market, but many are wondering if they are only short term. One of the key things to note about pot stocks is that the market is very heavily based in volatility. This is due to how infants the industry is overall in addition to other factors.

It’s been just over a year since Canada legalized recreational marijuana as the U.S. government continues to deliberate over federal legalization. The market in both countries continues to present challenges and opportunities for government representatives, legal producers, consumers and the promo industry.

A surge in the number of cannabis producers coupled with a large number of site-amendment requests in preparation for Cannabis 2.0 have left Health Canada “overwhelmed” over the past year, and increasingly dependent upon information supplied “in good faith” by producers, according to former Health Canada inspectors and industry participants.

The department has been overwhelmed for quite some time, but it is not necessarily their fault

Ontario’s former Assembly of First Nations regional chief said the government should legalize cannabis sales in Indigenous communities — and he’s willing to help it create the framework.

Isadore Day, now the CEO of a consulting group named Bimaadzwin, said Ottawa never discussed legalization with First Nations communities.

Day said the move prompted the group to set up its own shops on reserves. “We’re not the black market,” he told CBC. “We just haven’t been legitimized by Canada’s cannabis framework as of yet.”

Ontario plans to allow the private sector to handle distributing cannabis from producers to retailers, a sign that the provincial government is beginning to reduce its legal pot exposure.

According to an email sent by an Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) executive to Canadian licensed producers late Tuesday that was obtained by BNN Bloomberg, the new measure to allow for a “third-party centralized distribution” system comes following feedback the government-run agency solicited last month after it engaged with the industry to determine whether it should get out of its wholesale cannabis business. It is unclear when the OCS plans to let a privately-run company handle product distribution.

Canada’s black market drug dealers are now the world’s fourth largest exporters of cannabis, according to Public Safety Canada.

Citing a Public Safety Canada report — Patterns In Cannabis Cryptomarkets In Canada In 2018 — a Blacklock’s Reporter article says 2.5 tons of cannabis is now sold and shipped annually from Canada.

Dealers using cryptomarkets or black market websites for illegal sales now rank fourth behind their counterparts in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, says the Public Safety Canada report.

“Prior to legalization Canada ranked eighth for cannabis revenues,” added the report.

After Parliament legalized pot in 2018, Public Safety Canada says “sophisticated criminal entrepreneurs” used the law to wildly increase black market Internet sales.