Health Canada has recently updated its licenced producers web page with additional licensee information and a newly-designed map. Interestingly the map very clearly and graphically highlights the much higher number of licensed cannabis producers in Ontario. In fact, Ontario has more licensed producers than all other provinces combined. Below is an up-to-date listing of all the licencees, which shows the breakdown, as well as information on the licence type (cultivator, seller, or both) and when they were approved.

Number of licensed producers by province or territory

The first police seizure of marijuana candies in Sarnia got a man fined $800 in Sarnia court.

Vencel Ronald Petrany, 20, of Sarnia pleaded guilty Wednesday to the Jan. 8 possession of tetrahydrocannabinol for trafficking.

A police officer confronted Petrany who had been drifting – the controlled sliding of a vehicle – in a high school parking lot. The officer asked for Petrany's driver's licence. Petrany opened the centre console to get his licence and the officer saw a bag with numerous smaller bags inside that contained what appeared to be red candies.

Petrany said he had been given the candies and they might be the hallucinogenic stimulant ecstasy.

Tests showed the candies were tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana.

TORONTO — Doctors and clinics are receiving fees of as much as $350 per patient from medical-marijuana producers eager to snag customer referrals, despite professional rules in some provinces that explicitly outlaw such payments, producers say.

Physicians working under federal law do not prescribe a specific brand of cannabis, but some try to steer patients toward particular cannabis suppliers – and expect reimbursement, industry members report.

Doctors sometimes tell companies the money is to subsidize the cost of verifying patient information, or providing marijuana-related services to patients not covered by medicare.

The governing council of the Rural Municipality of Wilton has an interesting proposal on their plate, following a public hearing that was held by the council on Thursday.

The topic of the hearing was an application by representatives of Agro Greens Natural Products Ltd, who are seeking the approval of a development application for a medical marijuana facility.

According to Glen Dow, reeve of the RM, the owners of the business approached council six months earlier, and asked about the council’s possible reaction to the business proposal.

“They stopped in and said ‘we’re considering this, does council have any absolute prohibitions to say get out of here, don’t ever come back?’”

“Council said no,” said Dow.

The shuttered marijuana vapour lounge in Vanier vows to reopen as early as this week after the city slapped it with a cease-and-desist order and a hefty fine last Friday.

On its Facebook page, BuzzOn says it is “optimistic” it can reopen its doors to the public by Friday after speaking with a lawyer about rezoning the building.

City officials visited the Montreal Road lounge to serve a notice that BuzzOn is in violation of the building code and must be rezoned as a place of assembly.

Owner Wayne Robillard accused the city of using a “strong-arm tactic” to shut the place down for good.

The city said in a statement the cease-and-desist papers were issued from a safety perspective to keep the business in line with building code requirements.

The president of the University of Ottawa says he is not involved in a medical marijuana operation that his wife and one of their children are setting up.

Allan Rock issued a statement Wednesday contradicting a published report that suggested he has a role in a company looking to call itself RockGarden Medicinals.

“I have no involvement with this application nor the proposed business venture that is being planned,” Rock said in a statement to the Citizen. “I am not a director, shareholder, officer, employee or advisor of the company they have incorporated to carry on their business should they be granted a licence. I do not attend meetings, provide counsel, or participate in any other way in the proposed venture.”

TORONTO — Medical marijuana is currently legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia. On a regular basis, studies are released supporting the use of cannabis for the use in the treatment of psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Despite the growing calls to expand the use of marijuana for a host of medical conditions, psychiatrists should be hesitant as much of the data out there is inconclusive and marijuana use, even for supposed medicinal purposes, can lead to addiction in some cases, according to Kevin P. Hill, MD, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

Aphria’s current 22,000 sq ft of greenhouse space sits inside CF Greenhouse’s 450,000 sq ft. commercial greenhouse facility on the edges of Leamington, Ontario, surrounded by similar greenhouses in all directions. Located snugly in southern Ontario’s banana belt just south of Detroit and north of Lake Erie, Leamington boasts the highest concentration of greenhouses in North America, with them dotting the landscape in all directions, growing tomatoes, peppers, flowers and much more.

It had been a bad day for Tuan Anh Nguyen when, bruised and bleeding, he picked up his phone and dialed 911.

Little did he realize his day was about to get much worse.

Nguyen, 46, had a small marijuana grow operation in the basement of his McKay Avenue home. Police found it when they responded to his 911 call.

The man quickly went from being considered the victim of a violent crime, to being a criminal himself.

Two companies ready to produce medical marijuana, but one has laid off staff.

Two major medical marijuana facilities are nearing completion in Kincardine and Hanover -- and both are waiting for the final go-ahead to start production -- but one company has now laid off staff.

In the Kincardine area, AMMCan or Advanced Medical Marijuana Canada has spent over five million dollars preparing the facility at the Bruce Energy Centre off Bruce Road 20 near Lake Huron.

However, President Peter Herburger says the company has been waiting for several months to go to the next step, which would be production of marijuana.

Because the company has been waiting so long, AMMCan has now laid off 15 workers and the executives are staying on the job without any pay.