Legal pot shops in Ontario should average more than $1.25 million in sales a month once they open, a Brock University business expert estimates.

"That's a very rough ballpark figure," said Michael Armstrong, an associate professor at the Goodman School of Business.

Among the variables Armstrong considered was Quebec's legal market, where stores average almost $900,000 a month in sales and charge $7.27 a gram including taxes.

There's a brick building on the southeast edge of Windsor run by someone who never dreamt she would help people consume cannabis.

Twenty years ago, Lisa Hogan started at Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH), where she worked her way into management at the family birthing centre.

"It was an amazing, very fulfilling career," said Hogan, marking it as a career goal.

But then Hogan's life changed. Her father was diagnosed with cancer and he made a decision that changed her life.

"My father used cannabis at the end of his life, and that's what changed my image and my view on the product," she said, sitting inside the education centre of the Natural Health Services (NHS) medical cannabis clinic that she runs.

Ontario's first legal cannabis retail shops are set to open their doors next week, but some of the 25 licence holders are still wading through the lengthy approval process and might not be ready for business.

Ontario is the last province in the country to open brick-and-mortar cannabis stores since Canada legalized recreational marijuana on Oct. 17, 2018. Currently, pot can only be legally purchased at Ontario's government-run online store. 

In Toronto, only one of the five shops set to open in the city have been issued their retail store authorization from the province as of Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the The Hunny Pot, at 202 Queen St. W., confirmed to CBC Toronto that it will be open for business on April 1 at 9 a.m.

McMaster University has launched a new "science of cannabis" program — which the school says is one of the first post-secondary programs in Canada that focuses on the science of pot, alongside its benefits, risks and harms.

It's a three-course program offered entirely online through McMaster continuing education, and is available to people working in the health, education, public service, and social and community services sectors across the country. These are people who will deal with marijuana on the front lines, but also be responsible for forging policy change about it.

Newstrike Brands Ltd. (TSX-V:HIP) (“Newstrike” or the “Company”), is pleased to announce that Up Cannabis Inc. (“Up Cannabis”), its wholly-owned subsidiary, has entered into an agreement with Cannabis NB as a licensed producer to supply cannabis.

“We are very excited to announce this partnership with Cannabis NB,” said Jay Wilgar, CEO of both Newstrike and Up Cannabis.

With higher prices and relatively few locations, Ontario's first batch of licensed cannabis stores may have a hard time luring customers away from the province's thriving black market.

Industry experts are warning of those growing pains with just a week to go before Ontario's first brick-and-mortar pot shops open their doors to the public.

"Cannabis customers are like people who purchase any other good, if they think they can get a cheaper deal, more conveniently, they're going to go with the illegal seller," said Rod Elliott, the vice president of Global Public Affairs, which provides consulting services to companies in the cannabis industry.

Provinces are waiting for the federal regulations on legal edibles to come into place no later than Oct. 17.

We spoke with Avery Bruenjes, the Retail Council of Canada’s policy analyst for government relations and regulatory affairs, who’s scheduled to address the Retail Cannabis Forum on Monday at the Toronto Congress Centre in Etobicoke, Ont.

Q. How do you define an edible?

A. Loosely, it’s a product that contains cannabis that is intended to be consumed as a food product or drink would be.

Q. Why did the government not deal with edibles last October when recreational weed became legal?

With 10 days left until Ontarians will be allowed to purchase cannabis at one of 25 retail stores in the province, many of the license holders are struggling to get their shops ready to open on time.

The winners of the cannabis retail license lottery in Ontario have had just over two months to get their stores ready by the April 1 deadline.

Felicia Snyder works with Tokyo Smoke, a cannabis company that has licensed its brand to one of the five lottery winners in Toronto. Crews are working around the clock converting an old HMV building near Yonge Street and Dundas Avenue into a two-story cannabis store.

Right now, northern Ontario's first cannabis store is part high end retail outlet, part construction site.

Crews are busy getting the Highlife on Marcus Drive in Sudbury ready to open to customers on April 1. Company spokesperson Eddie Grinberg says they expect to hire as many as 30 people, with a few extra for the first few weeks when long lines are expected.

Highlife already has 17 stores in southern Ontario, but this New Sudbury location in an old shoe store near the Silver City movie theatres will be the first licensed to sell cannabis, rather than just smoking accessories.

"We never thought it would be in Sudbury," Grinberg says.

Highlife put its name into the cannabis license lottery held in January, but it didn't get pulled.

The hiring spree at Indiva is reflective of the situation playing out at cannabis companies across the country, says the head of the largest marijuana industry association.

“This is a massively growing industry,” said Allan Rewak of the Cannabis Council of Canada, an umbrella group representing some of the country’s largest marijuana companies.

Canada’s cannabis sector employed 11,000 people in December, according to the most recent statistics available, with some projecting that number could hit 150,000 within the next decade, Rewak said.