The number of Canadians authorized to use medical marijuana has skyrocketed, even as medical experts warn that not enough is known about its risks and benefits. Now some are calling for researchers to tap into that growing pool of users to help answer some of those questions.

In 2002, a year after the government first permitted access to therapeutic cannabis through Health Canada regulations, 500 patients had registered. Today, there are more than 50,000.

This has happened despite the official position of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) which says that, "there is insufficient scientific evidence available to support the use of marijuana for clinical purposes."

There has been one constant since the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down the prohibition against possession of marijuana for medical reasons in 2000: the subsequent rules imposed by the federal government have been subject to repeated court challenges. Litigation around medical marijuana has heated up ever since the government changed the rules aound who can produce and supply it. Photo: Gordon Swanson/Shutterstock The courts have found the regulations that govern medical marijuana to be invalid on more than one occasion and there are two current proceedings before the courts that could again require the federal government to go back to the drawing board.

The number of Canadians authorized to use medical marijuana has been skyrocketing. In 2002 – a year after the government first permitted access through Health Canada regulations – 500 patients had registered. Today, there are more than 50,000.

        This has happened despite the official position of the Canadian Medical Association that “there is insufficient scientific evidence available to support the use of marijuana for clinical purposes.” The CMA also believes we don’t know enough about its risks and benefits, about the interactions between marijuana and other medications or how to prescribe an appropriate dosage. It advises doctors they are not obligated to write cannabis prescriptions for patients.

Ontario-based RedeCan Pharm was announced as the newest, fully licensed to sell producer under the MMPR on March 25th. The family-run operation, located in the Niagara region, is approximately 15,000 square feet of “primarily hydroponic” greenhouse production space and has 30 years of agricultural experience.

RedeCan becomes the 17th Licensed Producer fully-authorized to sell medical marijuana in Canada under the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulation after being approved to produce (grow) in June 2014.

The first publicly-traded medical marijuana producer in Canada has found other ways to generate publicity

Medical marijuana producers in Canada are typically branded like pharmaceutical companies—clinical, staid and boring. Tweed is their hip counterpart. The company’s personality is more akin to that of a craft brewery.

“They have a really easy name to remember,” says Daniel Pearlstein, a life sciences analyst with M Partners, which covers the company. “It sounds like what people call it on the street.”

As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors. They’re presenting their research, which a Canadian start-up company is working on scaling up, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.

Although hemp (cannabis sativa) and marijuana (cannabis sativa var. indica) come from a similar species of plant, they are very different and confusion has been caused by deliberate misinformation with far reaching effects on socioeconomics as well as on environmental matters.

New regulations in Canada designed to improve access to higher quality medical cannabis have shaken up the market.

The rules have left some patients with few options to purchase and consume their medication, leading to several lawsuits. Meanwhile, the licensed cultivators and sellers who are now responsible for supplying safe, tested cannabis are laying down expansion plans amid optimistic growth forecasts.

Canada legalized medical marijuana on a federal level 15 years ago, and last year put in place new regulations that have smoothed the road for marijuana entrepreneurs. The path, however, has been a bumpy one, and further uncertainty looms on the horizon.

New Regulations Gives Boost to Licensed Operators

CEN Biotech, a company that soared to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars last year on claims that it was being licensed to build the world’s largest medical marijuana facility in Canada, is under investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission.

The regulator said Wednesday it is looking into the company and its parent firm, but did not provide further details, such as how long the investigation has been going on or if regulators in the United States are involved.

“The OSC has an active investigation into this matter,” Carolyn Shaw-Rimmington, spokeswoman for the OSC, said in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail.

The stock is a daytrade superstar, but also consistently moving up in price as speculators who see the potential for a big payday when the American listing hits (reportedly within four weeks) load up, and long holders who feel the edibles market is a big undeveloped MMJ play join in.
 
Nutritional High, right now anyway, is the perfect storm.
 
Will it deliver big revenues in two years? Don’t know. And, frankly, right now I don’t care. What I care about a lot is, is the thing likely to be higher tomorrow than it is today? And will it ramp up for the next month while it’s still a private Canadian investor club?
 

SMITHS FALLS, ON , March 25, 2015 /CNW/ - Tweed Marijuana Inc. ("Tweed") (TWD.V), is pleased to announce that the underwriters of Tweed's bought deal offering that closed on March 17, 2015 (the "Offering") have exercised their over-allotment option in part to purchase an additional 795,360 common shares of Tweed ("Common Shares") at a price of $2.15 per Common Share for gross proceeds to Tweed of $1,710,024 (the "Over-Allotment Offering"). The partial exercise of the over-allotment option closed today.