If you're hoping to buy a next-generation cannabis product — like infused beer or gummy bears — as a gift for the holiday season, you may be out of luck.

It will be legal to buy derivative cannabis products — often referred to in the industry as "cannabis 2.0" — on Tuesday, but three of Canada's largest provinces won't have a single one available until January.

That's because the long-awaited expansion of sales for cannabis derivatives have gone through a gauntlet of regulatory checkpoints and cumbersome logistics, dashing hopes of last-minute gift purchases with its late arrival.

Ottawa Police Services released their overnight  R.I.D.E. Program results from the Ottawa region Saturday evening into Sunday morning.

They report that officers from the OPS stopped 375 vehicles for assessment of drivers impaired by alcohol and/or drugs.

During this R.I.D.E. program:

• One Provincial Offence Notice given for open liquor under the Liquor Licence Act (LLA)
• One Provincial Offence Notice given for unlicensed driver under the Highway Traffic Act (HTA)
• One warning given for having cannabis within reach of the driver under the Cannabis Act
• Four warnings given for burnt out headlights

Picking up a last-minute gift of booze or deciding to top up one’s holiday merriment has just been made easier.

Liquor stores and cannabis shops have been given the green light to do business on Christmas Day, the provincial regulator of those products announced Monday.

“Lifting the restrictions to allow these liquor and cannabis licensees to stay open on December 25 is another opportunity to reduce red tape and support licensees in making business decisions that best support their operational needs,” says a statement from Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC).

Opening on that day will be optional for retailers, though an AGLC spokeswoman said it’s impossible to know how many will use the opportunity.

Police continue to search for two suspects after a west-end cannabis store was hit by an armed robbery Thursday night, police said Friday.

The suspects entered Cannamart near 101 Avenue and 175 Street around 9 p.m. with a weapon and stole a variety of merchandise before fleeing the scene in a vehicle stolen outside the business.

Police responded soon after and canvassed the neighbourhood for the suspects.

No one was injured in the incident, including store staff and the driver of the vehicle stolen by the suspects, which was recovered by police shortly after.

In a statement, AGLC spokeswoman Heather Holmen said this is believed to be the first reported cannabis store robbery in the province.

The federal government will allow the sale of cannabis vaping products starting next week despite not having tested the health effects of inhaling substances emitted from such devices. At least one cannabis company has preemptively pulled its product over health and safety concerns, CBC News has learned.

Cannabis vapes are among a series of new products — including edibles, extracts and topicals such as lotions — that can be legally sold in Canada as of Tuesday. 

Officials at London City Hall said they expect a spike in new pot shops after Ontario moved to scrap its cannabis retail lottery system in favour of an open market. 

The province made the announcement Thursday, saying the new rules would come into effect in January of 2020, promising that the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario would likely issue dozens of new retail licenses across Ontario this spring.

It's a stark contrast to the first year of legal cannabis in Ontario, where the availability of private retail stores in cities province-wide was hamstrung by low supplies of cannabis coupled with a limited number of available licenses. 

The provincial government says that it is scrapping the lottery system for cannabis shop permits and will begin issuing dozens of new retail permits in the spring as part of efforts to open up the weed market.

In its recent fiscal update, the province said that it would move to do away with the lottery system, which has faced criticism.

On Thursday, the province unveiled a timeline for issuing new retail cannabis permits, saying that applications for prospective owners will open on Jan. 6, with the first new licenses to be distributed in April.

Speaking with CP24 Thursday evening, Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey said the government wanted to go to an open market model from the start, but needed time to manage the changes and ensure adequate supply.  

Residents in Ontario lived further from a cannabis retail store than their counterparts in other provinces, newly released federal figures suggest.

The population-weighted average distance between Canadians and the nearest legal pot shop was 34 kilometres in July, down from 66 km four months earlier, said a report published Wednesday by Statistics Canada.

With just 24 cannabis shops open across the province in July, Ontarians were living, on average, 43 km from the nearest pot store. Only residents of the territories lived farther away, on average.

P.E.I. residents lived closest to pot stores, averaging just 12 km away, the report said. Alberta, with 176 retailers up and running by July, was second at 13 km.