Town council to debate proposed bylaw at meeting next month

One northern Ontario town is looking for a way to make smelly cannabis plants illegal.

West Nipissing council wants to draft a bylaw to regulate the odour from the four marijuana plants each Ontario resident is legally now allowed to grow.

Cannabis retail stores are coming to Nunavut, the territorial government announced on Tuesday. 

They will begin accepting retail applications on June 1. 

The territory that nearly 40,000 people call home passed its Cannabis Act in June 2018, but only two companies — Canopy Growth and AgMedica Bioscience Inc — have been permitted to sell their products since then, with customers ordering online or over the phone.  

What’s the best country in the world when it comes to cannabis friendliness?

Canadians won’t need to travel the world to find out — and given current travel restrictions, that’s probably a good thing — we only have to look at our own front doors.

Among the very first countries to legalize medicinal marijuana and the second to green light recreational cannabis, Canada’s progressive views on weed have led to the No. 1 spot in new rankings issued by The Weed Blog.

P.E.I. will reopen its four cannabis stores May 22, Steven Myers announced Thursday at a media briefing on COVID-19. 

The province shut down the pot stores along with provincially-owned liquor stores March 19. 

Liquor stores began to gradually reopen but pot stores remained delivery-only. Government waived the shipping costs and set up a phone-in option to make ordering easier.

In announcing which public services would reopen under Phase 2 of the province's ease-back from coronavirus restrictions, Myers said all P.E.I. Cannabis stores will reopen May 22, with what he called limited access.

It seems likely that cannabis will end up like alcohol, only monitored for actual abuse with corresponding treatment options and monetary fines depending on number of offenses.

Anyone who knows me knows that I really enjoy sports of all kinds. I was a college soccer player and played competitive club soccer in Florida before that from the age of 7 onward (and I now play in an adult co-ed league in Los Angeles). Unfortunately, COVID-19 has put the damper on watching live professional sports on TV, and clearly no one can attend any sporting events right now or likely anytime soon. Pro athletes have time on their hands now to train and/or rest up accordingly, which got me to thinking about our pro leagues’ treatment of cannabis and how it has evolved over recent years.

The cannabis industry is a dynamic industry that is used to operating in times of uncertainty. Over the past decade, a widespread stigma around cannabis and regulatory limitations have slowly eased to produce a growing industry that is expected to hit nearly $74 billion by 2027. Despite what appeared to be an unstoppable run in recent months, the cannabis industry has not been immune from the economic impacts of the COVID19 crisis. 

The snail-like pace of cannabis retail rollout in Canada’s largest province is just one reason the country as a whole has been unable to stub out the fiery illicit market and realize higher sales.

Retail stores accounted for about $200 million of Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) total recreational sales, which amounted to just shy of $300 million in 2019, chief commercial officer Cheri Mara told the Toronto Star. “I wouldn’t be honest with you if I said we were happy with that number… when our mandate is to eradicate the illicit market,” Mara said, noting the estimated Ontario market is $2.9 billion.

One of the biggest criticisms of Canada’s legalization of cannabis is that its cumbersome rules and limited retail options can’t compete with the black market. What would help? Allowing cannabis home deliveries from retailers to continue after the pandemic.

Canada’s black market of pot is still riding rampant over licensed retailers, a year into what many say continues to be a slow rollout of brick-and-mortar stores in Ontario and regulatory challenges.

Retail stores in Ontario sold approximately $200 million in recreational pot last year, accounting for the lion’s share of just under $300 million in estimated Ontario Cannabis Store recreational sales, said Cheri Mara, chief commercial officer for the OCS. That’s far below the estimated $2.9-billion provincial market value.

“I wouldn’t be honest with you if I said we were happy with that number … when our mandate is to eradicate the illicit market,” she said.

For years, marijuana stocks were virtually unstoppable. The prospect of $50 billion or more in annual worldwide sales by 2030 sent North American cannabis stock valuations into the stratosphere. But over the past 13 months, most pot stocks have seen their valuations retrace anywhere from 50% to 95%. It's been ugly, with a capital "U."