Cannabis growers in the B.C. are getting some help to transition out of the black market as part of a newly announced program that could see participants qualify for loans of up to $500,000.

B.C.’s Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction has set aside $675,000 to help an estimated 2,500 small growers join the legal cannabis industry. The money will be disbursed through the Community Futures Central Kootenay, a non-profit organization focused on economic development.

Members of the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club are banding together in protest as a result of club’s Thursday raid — and subsequent shut-down — by B.C.’s Community Safety Unit.

The non-profit compassion club, which was founded nearly 25 years ago, has operated an unlicensed dispensary in Victoria for the past 18 years to provide affordable medical cannabis to patients in need.

Buyers Club president and founder, Ted Smith says that authorities seized most of the product in the store and ordered it to be shut down. Although many were surprised by the search and seizure, Smith told CBC’s All Points West that he was not.

Cannabis-related tourism, or canna-tourism, is a niche in the cannabis sector that has a way to go to take shape as the legal cannabis industry evolves.

After Canada legalized cannabis in October 2018, many businesses started to realize that cannabis culture’s social element, similar to that of alcohol, makes the drug a natural counterpart for tourism ventures.

That upped efforts to encourage the province to change laws to allow consumption lounges and farm-gate sales at production facilities to create attractions that would draw a new demographic of tourists to B.C.

A Vancouver-bound Air Canada flight forced to land at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport due to mechanical issues has sparked a discussion about what domestic air passengers should know if they happen to land on U.S. soil without advance warning.

What was supposed to be a five-hour domestic flight from Toronto to Vancouver last Sunday turned into a 13-hour international ordeal for passengers.

But once the plane landed in Seattle, one passenger wondered aloud about the consequences for anyone carrying cannabis products.

A motion being brought before Vancouver city council on Tuesday will look at regulations on the sale and advertisement of vaping and vape-related products.

Currently, the City of Vancouver does not impose restrictions on where vape retail shops can be located in the same way that it does with liquor stores or cannabis shops. There is also no license category for retailers selling vape products.

B.C. Cancer is still awaiting approval for a national clinical trial that aims to find out if cannabis extracts offer symptom relief.

It’s been 10 months since B.C. Cancer announced the trial to explore whether cannabis properties reduce cancer-related symptoms including pain, sleep disturbance, anxiety and nausea. But regulatory and other issues have stalled it.

Recruiting of 150 patients in Vancouver, Abbotsford, Prince George, Victoria, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Kingston, and Toronto for the 48-day trial is expected to begin, “in the best-case scenario,” by the end of the year.

Marijuana legalization was supposed to give Canada's cannabis fanciers access to above board and reliable drug sources while providing tax revenue for the government. But one year in, large numbers of Canadian cannabis users continue to rely on underground dealers. Like with U.S. states that have grudgingly legalized marijuana for recreational use, the black market goes on thriving and generating profits because politicians and regulators have hobbled legal businesses and inconvenienced consumers through high taxes and excessive rules.

As a result, Canada's legal market is largely uncompetitive with the long-established black market there.

Be careful what you wish for, especially when placing an order for weed online. Returning it can be a challenge, with policies varying from province to province.

Here’s what the shipping and return policies look like across the country.

British Columbia 

Bought a product that’s defective, shipped in error or recalled? The BC Cannabis Stores will take them back, but returns must be initiated within 15 days of the purchase.

XPhyto Therapeutics has entered into an exclusive two-year European consulting agreement with Canadian cannabis expert Stephen Schroeder to work on the design, renovation, and commissioning of XPhyto’s state-of-the-art hydroponics and extraction facility in Germany.

A science-based cannabis company, XPhyto is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, and it is focused on formulation, clinical validation, and emerging European markets. Its German subsidiary, Bunker Pflanzenextrakte GmbH, holds a cannabis cultivation and extraction licence for scientific purposes granted by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) in July 2019.

The east and west coasts are reaping some of the largest gains in Canadian retail cannabis sales according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada.

B.C. sales nearly doubled from July 2019 to August 2019, leaping from $5.9 million in sales to $11.9 million.

On the other side of Canada, New Brunswick recorded a near 60 per cent gain in the same time period, earning $5.3 million in August 2019 compared to $3.3 million the month before. Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia also saw double-digit growth.