While some Canadians who use marijuana or work in the cannabis industry have been given a hard time at the U.S.-Canada border lately, the famed Edmonton-born stoner who lives in Los Angeles isn’t worried.

“I’ve got the Cheech and Chong pass,” the beloved comedy star of the Cheech & Chong drug-culture films, who is a marijuana advocate and has his own line of medicinal cannabis products, said during a recent visit to Toronto to shoot the upcoming Air Farce New Year’s Eve comedy special.

“They see us coming: ‘Oh my God, it’s you, come over here.’ I could be carrying a kilo, a ton of weed and they’d say, ‘Go on through, no problem.’ They know better, because I always have weed on me.”

In Canada’s first legalized cannabis Christmas, 12 per cent of adults in Alberta will be giving pot as a gift this month, says an online poll conducted for marketing outfit Lift & Co. that canvassed 1,512 adults across the country on Dec. 5.

The results were similar for Manitoba, which, along with Alberta, leads the country in the number of cannabis retail stores, with 16 and 65 locations licensed respectively.

Quebecers, at eight per cent, are the least likely to offer a pot present Dec. 25.

Twenty per cent of Millennials — those aged 18 to 34 — said they’d be purchasing a marijuana gift, by far the most likely demographic to do so, said the poll.

Nova Scotia's finance minister says she will be firing off another letter to Health Canada to register the province's concerns over a growing shortage of cannabis.

Karen Casey says Nova Scotia is getting only 35 to 40 per cent of the cannabis it needs to meet demand at government-run outlets and she wants to make that clear to the federal regulator after two previous letters.

Casey says one producer in Nova Scotia has been approved by Ottawa and two more are ready to go, so she's encouraging Health Canada to give them the approval they need.

She says there has been no need yet to close any of the 12 shops run by the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation because of product shortages, but the situation is being monitored.

Legal recreational marijuana is still quite new in Canada — just two months old — but of course social cannabis use has long been normal at certain gatherings.

"Cannabis has always been a very social activity," Dr. Jordan Tishler, a cannabis specialist and physician at Harvard Medical School in Boston, told HuffPost Canada in an email. "Standing around sharing a joint is a time-honoured tradition. Now that cannabis is legal [in Canada], we'll see its use in more conventional social circles emerge."

As Canada edged ever closer this year to making it legal for any adult to buy marijuana, Dr. Hance Clarke noticed a surprising phenomenon.

At his Toronto pain clinic, Clarke encountered more and more people eager for him to prescribe medical cannabis, though they could soon buy the drug without anyone’s approval. The trend has continued and today he estimates that 15 of every 20 of his patients seek pot as a treatment.

Logic suggests the newly legalized recreational weed business — which makes purchasing cannabis about as difficult as ordering a bestseller online — would render the rest of the market irrelevant.

Gingerbread men are a seasonal staple but the spiced treats made by Vanessa Labrecque this year will be special: they'll be infused with cannabis.

The avid baker says she'll be whipping up a batch of herb-spiked cookies for a special Christmas edition of her cooking-with-cannabis class in honour of Canada's first festive season post-legalization.

The popular cookie is a good candidate for such non-traditional experimentation, she says, because they are relatively easy to make and the myriad of spices help mask the flavour of weed.

Investors looking for exposure to the burgeoning U.S. cannabis sector may not have to go north much longer.

With lawmakers likely to vote to legalize hemp soon, cannabis company Vertical Cos. plans to spin off its hemp assets into a separate company called Vertical Wellness and list it on the Nasdaq. Other companies that extract cannabidiol, known as CBD, from hemp are poised to follow suit to other U.S. exchanges.

“We feel that with the farm bill passing, it opens up the pathway to a formal listing on a U.S. exchange like Nasdaq,” said Smoke Wallin, president of distribution, sales and marketing at the Agoura Hills, California-based Vertical. The company cultivates and sells cannabis products in four U.S. states.

Without warning, his baby had stopped breathing, and he frantically performed CPR while his friend James Gallagher called 911.

Years later, the men still become emotional remembering that day. Boissonneault learned that his daughter had a rare disorder that caused epilepsy, and when pharmaceutical medications failed to cure her seizures, he turned to CBD oil, a non-psychoactive substance in marijuana.

Now that marijuana has been legalized in Canada, Statistics Canada released a new report on December 7th about the job force in the country in 2018. They reported that the marijuana industry has been a positive impact on the jobs in Canada and has created thousands of new positions for Canadians. 

At the moment, you can purchase marijuana via OCS; come next October, cannabis-infused drinks including beers are expected to become legal.

Waterloo Brewing is currently preparing for that incoming legislation.

President and CEO George Croft says they're ready to take on this challenge.

"We've been mixing drinks, ready to drink ciders and beers, for an extended period of time," says Croft. "We think this is a real opportunity for our company."

The numbers for the potential revenue on this product are staggering, according to Croft.

"The belief is that it's about a $1.5 billion opportunity in Canada on an annualized basis," claims Croft. "That's just liquid infused drinks."