Investors in Australian medical cannabis have been riding a rollercoaster this month. Stocks across the board took heavy hits at the beginning of last week, with shares of some industry upstarts, like small-cap Stemcell United (ASX: SCU), falling as much as 20%. By the close of trading on Friday afternoon, however, a few cannabis companies had turned it around in a big way.

What’s behind the volatility? It may come down to cultivation and manufacturing licenses—specifically, who has them and who doesn’t.

Australia's health ministers have approved the sale of hemp foods nationwide.

The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation gave approval for hemp seeds to be sold in Australia, at a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Adelaide on Friday. It comes after Food Standards Australia and New Zealand approved hemp food in March.

"Ministers supported the draft standard that will allow low-THC hemp seeds to be sold as a food," read a communique released after the meeting.

AusCann, whose chairman is former WA Federal Liberal MP Mal Washer, will announce today that it has approval for a secure outdoor cultivation facility in WA, and hopes to have its first locally grown product ready next year.

The licence was granted by the Office of Drug Control and makes AusCann one of only a few companies to be given approval in Australia.

The global medicinal cannabis market is rapidly growing.

Lifespot Health (ASX:LSH) and Seng Vital Germany will form a 50:50 joint venture in Australia to integrate the Seng Vital Cannamed vaporizer into Lifespot’s BodyTel platform.

The Cannamed vaporizer is used for the controlled delivery of cannabis to users.

Lifespot will use its BodyTel medical diagnostic and monitoring technology to assist in the administration and monitoring of cannabis use.

The first two commercial shipments of medicinal cannabis products to be legally imported to Australia have arrived in Melbourne and Perth.

It means that if you already have approval to use medicinal cannabis, you no longer have to wait for the product you need to be imported. Until now, medicinal cannabis was imported into Australia on a case-by-case basis. Each bottle of the drug was destined for a specific patient. Now pharmacists are able to stockpile the drug for anyone with a prescription. 

But actually getting that prescription can be a slow process, and sometimes take months, depending on the state where you apply. 

This report, prepared by the foreign law specialists and analysts of the Law Library of Congress, provides a review of laws adopted in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, and Uruguay with regard to decriminalization of narcotics, and touches specifically on cannabis and legalization.

An organic tea tree farm in New South Wales has received a $1.49 million investment to help develop medical cannabis honey.

Jenbrook supplies raw tea tree oil and honey products to the US through Naturally Aust Product. Next month, it’s expected to hit $1.6m annualised monthly revenue, a 100% increase from June 2016. 

The company has also been exploring a medical hemp honey, produced by bees pollinating on the nectar of medicinal cannabis plants. It’s working with Southern Cross University on research into its health benefits. EVE Investments has kicked in the $1.49 million to help get the product to market.

In return, EVE – an ASX-listed technology investment company – will acquire a 50% interest in Jenbrook.

After facing criticism from patient rights advocates earlier this year, the South Australian state government announced earlier this week that it will create an Office of Medicinal Cannabis and Industrial Hemp to “support the establishment of medicinal cannabis and industrial hemp industries.” The office, which will oversee production of industrial hemp, was announced in tandem with an updated medical cannabis patient access scheme.

It is stretching the truth for the South Australian Government to suggest medicinal cannabis products can now be easily prescribed for patients in the state, doctors have said.

SA doctors are allowed to prescribe medicinal cannabis for periods of up to two months without having to get government approval, but a longer-term prescription still needs that formal approval.

The chair of the SA branch of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Daniel Byrne, said there were no approved medicinal cannabis products in Australia which doctors could readily prescribe.

Some big news has come out of North America and it has nothing to do with Trump. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has introduced legislation that will legalise and regulate cannabis use in Canada. This would make Canada the second country the world (after Uruguay) to legalise adult use of cannabis.