The Mayor of Vancouver says he is frustrated the federal government has dealt the cards, but not finished the game when it comes to regulating medical marijuana.

Gregor Robertson says Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose is off base.

“She must be misinformed.”

She fired off a letter to the city saying Vancouver doesn’t have the authority to legitimize pot and it’s concerned with its proposal to regulate dispensaries.

“It is frustrating when there are comments made or letters from the federal government when this is the arena that they are responsible for setting policy on, and dealing with that the courts say, which people do have a right to access to their medicines, we are not seeing constructive steps coming out of Ottawa on this yet.”

The faded sign off a West Quebec road still points to an old garden centre.

But the greenhouses at the end of the peninsula in the Masson-Angers neighbourhood of Gatineau no longer grows the types of plants your average gardener buys in spring.

The former Botanix-Aux Jardins de La Pointe now houses the Hydropothecary, a small-but-growing medical marijuana production plant. It’s the first of its kind in Quebec.

``We get at least two or three cars showing up a day, saying, where do we get our flowers?” said Adam Miron, who co-founded the company with his brother-in-law Sébastien St-Louis.

Ottawa is unequivocal in its stance on pot.

A generation after Canada’s first medical cannabis dispensary opened in Vancouver in 1997, city council and police are scrambling to regulate the business as if taken by surprise.

City Manager Penny Ballem says Ottawa has created “greyness and confusion,” sounding incredulous that there is a pot precinct downtown and more cannabis cafés on corners than Tim Hortons.

Where has she been?

The federal government has never been clearer about the demonized weed and has used the plant to draw a hardline for the fall election between it and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Medical marijuana use continues to grow in Canada which has led to questions about whether it's appropriate to take it at work.

"There's still a lot of stigmatization out there," said employment lawyer David Whitten.  

"A lot of people are basing their thoughts and ideas on movies that came out in the '80s. We've come a long way since then and it's recognized just like any other medication," Whitten told CBC Radio.

Although Whitten said employers need to be more flexible when it comes to allowing workers to use weed at work, he does acknowledge there are occasions when an employer can ask a worker not to take their medicine.

Two young entrepreneurs are confident their business plan for a medical marijuana facility, set to launch within weeks in Masson, Que. will bring them success, and more importantly, relief to sufferers across the country.

Sebastien St-Louis and Adam Miron, both 31, are brothers-in-law and co-founders of the Hydropothecary -- a facility that will soon distribute medical marijuana throughout Canada.

"Like all good Canadian companies, this was an idea that was born around a campfire at a cottage," Miron told the Sun.

The concept has come a long way since it was first envisioned in July 2013, between the pair and childhood friend, Max Cyr who now serves as customer service manager for the company.

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 23, 2015) -

NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR THROUGH UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES

PharmaCan Capital Corp. (TSX VENTURE:MJN) ("PharmaCan") is pleased to announce today that its wholly-owned subsidiary, In The Zone Produce Ltd. ("In The Zone"), has entered into a strategic partnership with NWC Inc. to expedite the development and expand the scope of its operations at its 14 acre parcel of land in the Okanagan Valley, BC.

With states legalizing marijuana by popular vote, some politicians, including Boston mayor Marty Walsh and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, are still calling marijuana a gateway drug.

Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose has reiterated her concern over the City of Vancouver's proposal to regulate retail marijuana stores, calling on the mayor to instead close the operators down.

"Storefront dispensaries are not part of the Health Canada regime in any way," Ambrose said Friday. "What they are is commercial entities selling pot on street corners.

From left, Surrey teens Jordan Smith with twins Connor and Duncan Fesenmaier at the Vancouver Art Gallery on April 20. The high school students were protesting the use and legalization or marijuana. Photograph by: Amy Reid , Surrey Now

VANCOUVER — There was a new voice at the annual 4/20 pot protest at the Vancouver Art Gallery this year: Three Surrey high school students who weren’t there to light up.

Wearing anti-pot T-shirts and sporting gas masks, twins Duncan and Connor Fesenmaier and Jordan Smith from Princess Margaret Secondary took the trek to Vancouver to protest the use of marijuana and spread their anti-legalization message.

As one man quite accurately dubbed them, they’re the “bud busters.”

Lawyers will go before a Federal Court judge in Halifax in June to ask the court to certify a proposed class action on behalf of 40,000 medical marijuana users whose privacy was breached by Health Canada in 2013.

There are 2,105 Nova Scotia class members in the case.

A confidentiality order protects the real names of the two lead plaintiffs, a Nova Scotia man who works as a health-care professional and an Ottawa woman who works in the legal field. In court documents, they are identified under the pseudonyms Joe Doe and Suzie Jones.

June 11 and 12 have been set aside for the certification hearing.