Look out dot.com era! Here comes the pot.com era!

With a medical and recreational marijuana industry about to fly, there’s a whole lot of buzz going on. Globally-competitive, lucrative sectors and commercial opportunities are predicted to grow like a weed!

Cannabusiness is set to be smoking – forecasts of the medical marijuana market predict US$31 billion in annual sales by 2021. A Deloitte study suggests recreational marijuana sales alone in Canada could be as high as $8.7 billion per year.

Colorado allergist sees worst symptoms reported by industry workers handling plants.

Soon-to-be-legal cannabis may have some Canadians sniffling and sneezing.

As more people try cannabis for the first time, or the first time in years, a rare but real allergy may appear with symptoms such as sniffles or hives, similar to those that come from a seasonal allergy to pollen.

"Suddenly nose running, eyes itchy, sneezing — that's probably a minor reaction to cannabis and marijuana, and you probably want to avoid that kind of setting in the future," said Dr. Eddy Lang, who oversees emergency rooms in four Calgary-area adult hospitals.

Marijuana businesses are growing in size and scope as Canada moves toward legalization of recreational pot, creating an increasingly daunting job for those tasked with enforcing the rules.

In Vancouver's bustling downtown, sleek, modern posters with fashionable fonts and simple images are plastered on lamp posts. It's not until you take a closer look that you spot the rolled joints inside a sandwich or buds among a plate of broccoli.

"Weed delivery. Simplified," the posters read.

Once an underground industry, marijuana delivery services are now advertising publicly, joining unlicensed retail stores and online shops as cannabis businesses openly skirting the existing law.

Cierra Sieben-Chuback says permit offer is like 'my birthday on steroids'.

Saskatoon business school student Cierra Sieben-Chuback has beaten out more more than 150 other candidates for one of seven highly sought-after permits to operate a cannabis retail store in the city.

Sieben-Chuback, 23, has never run her own business before, but that's about to change very quickly.

"I convocate on Wednesday," she said of her impending graduation from the University of Saskatchewan's Edwards School of Business.

"It's like my birthday on steroids. This is quite surreal, I'm not going to lie."

'All by myself'

'The clothing you wear and the skis and everything you do ... is performance enhancing'.

The world's top agency fighting doping in sport considers cannabis to be a performance-enhancing drug — but it's Canadian affiliate, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports (CCES), does not agree.

On Tuesday, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will hold its first global athlete's forum in Calgary to discuss developments in anti-doping.

Discussions around a charter to protect clean athletes, doping rules and the list of banned substances will be prominent, especially with Canada set to legalize recreational cannabis.

"The CCES, to be completely frank, has always argued that marijuana should not be on the list," the organization's president, Paul Melia, said.

This Thursday, Canadian Senators will make the final vote on the Cannabis Act. If passed, recreational cannabis will become a legal substance across the country soon after, or it could face even more delays, writes Calvin Hughes.

Campgrounds will have to decide what rules to adopt once marijuana becomes legal.

As camping season kicks off on P.E.I., campground operators are expecting another busy season. And this year, in addition to regular preparations, owners and campers may have cannabis legalization to deal with.

Currently, recreational cannabis use is illegal in Canada, but campground owners are keeping a close eye on federal plans for legalization later this year.

Getting ready for legal pot

No campground CBC spoke with has put a policy in place specifically for the drug yet, except to say they will allow medical cannabis as long as users are following the province's Smoke-Free Act.

It would apply only in limited circumstances, says MP Bill Blair.

The Trudeau government has been looking into making drug testing mandatory in selected workplaces in connection with its cannabis legislation.

MP Bill Blair, the government's point person on the file, told CBC Radio's The House on Thursday that people in safety-sensitive jobs — like pilots — could be subjected to mandatory testing in the future.

"We examined very closely what we could do as far as testing when there was a bona fide safety requirement," he told host Chris Hall.

"In those very limited circumstances, it's possible."

The Senate has once again amended Bill C-45, which will legalize cannabis for recreational use, setting up a potential showdown with the House of Commons over key provisions in the proposed legislation.

A Senate committee adopted 40 amendments to the bill this week, including a contentious one that would allow provinces such as Quebec and Manitoba to prohibit the home cultivation of cannabis.

On Friday, the Senate voted to prohibit any promotional material that is branded by cannabis producers, such as t-shirts and hats. The amendment was proposed by Conservative senator Judith Seidman, and it passed 34-28 with the support of 10 independent and unaffiliated senators.

We all know what a landscape is, and “soundscape” is self-explanatory, but what about the complex of smells particular to our environment? We don’t even have a word for it.

Nameless or not, the olfactory profile of Canadian cities is about to change – or rather, is changing now, in anticipation of the end of the prohibition on using cannabis for fun. That became obvious to me earlier this week, as I stepped out of a museum in downtown Montreal and caught a pungent whiff of someone’s weed.

Smelling that aroma at a music festival, or on a warm evening in my residential neighbourhood in Verdun, has been normal for a long time. What’s new is that that scent is creeping into unspoken off-limits areas.