Senate passes marijuana bill with 46 amendments.

The legalization of cannabis will not result in a dramatic increase in usage, says P.E.I. Senator Diane Griffin.

Griffin made the comments after Bill C-45 passed the Senate on Thursday night with 46 amendments.

"Anyone who thinks all of a sudden the gates are going to be wide open to marijuana use is daydreaming," Griffin said on CBC's Island Morning.

"A lot of people have been using it for many years, especially young people, and they were being criminalized for it."

Griffin and fellow Island senator Percy Downe voted in favour of the cannabis bill, while Mike Duffy did not register a vote.

Campgrounds will have to decide what rules to adopt once marijuana becomes legal.

As camping season kicks off on P.E.I., campground operators are expecting another busy season. And this year, in addition to regular preparations, owners and campers may have cannabis legalization to deal with.

Currently, recreational cannabis use is illegal in Canada, but campground owners are keeping a close eye on federal plans for legalization later this year.

Getting ready for legal pot

No campground CBC spoke with has put a policy in place specifically for the drug yet, except to say they will allow medical cannabis as long as users are following the province's Smoke-Free Act.

The pay gap between future provincial cannabis store workers and existing early childhood workers shows misplaced priorities, says an opposition MLA.

Clerks at P.E.I.’s four cannabis stores will be paid more than early childhood educators in Early Years Centers (EYC), an issue that Rustico-Emerald MLA Brad Trivers took the province to task over during Wednesday’s question period.

Job postings for P.E.I.’s cannabis stores advertise hourly wages ranging from $18.70 to $20.35 for clerks, $22.44 to $25.49 for senior clerks and $25.91 to $36.23 for managers.

Trivers said early childhood educators in the EYCs are paid less than that, making between $15.30 and $17.22 an hour last year while directors were paid around $21.42.

Facility plans to produce 25 to 30 times more cannabis, create up to 200 jobs.

Canada's Island Garden in Charlottetown is growing its business by more than it originally planned. The P.E.I. marijuana grower is building a new greenhouse and warehouse, at a cost of $35 million.

"It's a very exciting day for me today," said Edwin Jewell, the company's president and CEO.

"I'm very pleased and very proud to think that what started out as an idea just a few years ago has turned into a successful company."

New capital

'We did a lot of creative testing and audience testing'.

As the P.E.I. government launches its campaign to educate Islanders about marijuana, it might want to look to Colorado, which has been running a campaign to educate its citizens for three and a half years.

The province announced Wednesday it had issued a request for proposals for an education campaign to teach Islanders about marijuana use.

According to Tara Dunn, marijuana communications specialist for the Colorado Department of Public Health, its program has had a lot of success but is also in the midst of a major relaunch.

Government hopes to have some materials ready by the end of June.

The P.E.I. government is looking for a company to create a cannabis education campaign.

The province has put out a request for proposals and hopes to hire a company within the next few weeks. Finance Minister Heath MacDonald said the province is looking for education materials that focus on health and safety awareness.

"We want to ensure that we're taking the steps in the right direction to ensure that people are aware, especially our youth, of the effects of cannabis. Positively, negatively, regards to whether it's medicinal or recreational," said MacDonald.

Original plan included 10,000-square-foot mall.

What was going to be a strip mall in western P.E.I. is going to be a standalone store for the sale of marijuana.

The location for the store, on Main Street in O'Leary, was announced last month and has not changed.

"Our initial plan was we were pursuing constructing a mall in the town, a 10,000-square-foot mall," said Coun. Blake Adams, chair of the town council's development committee.

"We were planning on having the cannabis store as one of the tenants in that mall, which was a three-unit mall."

Significant economic impact

The event was part of an effort by the chamber of commerce to educate members about impacts of legal marijuana.

Employers from the Charlottetown business community came together Wednesday to talk about pot — and what it could mean for businesses once it's legal.

A panel of experts told business owners they had to educate themselves about cannabis laws now,  before legal marijuana makes it's way into the workplace. That includes consulting with legal professionals and physicians to establish policies that protect employees and employers and follow the law.

"You can't deal with a problem if you don't understand it so you need education about it," said Karen Campbell, a partner at Cox & Palmer who sat on the panel.

Users should be aware of cannabis risks, says pharmacists' association. Pharmacists on P.E.I. are reminding Islanders that just because marijuana will become legal doesn't mean there are no health risks. Erin MacKenzie, executive director of the PEI Pharmacists Association, said there are medications that can be problematic when combined with cannabis. "Certainly compounding drowsiness or the ability to make good judgments, those types of things would be compounded with other medications that have those risks as well," she said. Cannabis consumption can be particularly harmful for people under the age of 25 because it can interfere with their brain development, MacKenzie said.

P.E.I.'s medicinal marijuana company is adding cannabis oil to its product lines.

Edwin Jewell, president of Canada's Island Garden, said not everyone who uses medicinal marijuana wants to smoke or vape it.

Cannabis oil allows them to put it in their food or drink.

'There's still a stigma attached, I think, in many parts of Canada with people who smoke cannabis.' - Edwin Jewell

"I think the benefit to oils is people can then take their medicinal cannabis in a way that is a little more discreet," Jewell said.

"There's still a stigma attached, I think, in many parts of Canada with people who smoke cannabis."