You’ve heard of Big Pharma and Big Tobacco. How about Big Marijuana?

The drug’s growing legalization is raising concerns among small-scale marijuana farmers and retailers that the corporatization of weed may be right around the corner.

For example, earlier this year NASDAQ became the first major U.S. stock exchange to list shares of a marijuana production company. And in August, Corona-maker Constellation Brands shocked Wall Street by making a US$3.8 billion investment in a Canadian marijuana producer, sparking a bull market in marijuana stocks industry-wide. Even Coca-Cola is exploring opportunities to get involved.

Canada’s more than 300,000 medical cannabis patients could soon have a new ally when filling their prescriptions.

In September, Health Canada approved Shoppers Drug Mart’s application to become a licensed producer (LP) of medical cannabis under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR).

The approval paves the way for Canada’s largest drugstore chain to fill medical cannabis prescriptions through the mail. Currently under the ACMPR, all patients receive their prescription in the mail, direct from an LP.

“Medical Cannabis Is Just Like Every Other Prescription And Requires The Same Level Of Counsel From A Healthcare Professional”

– Theresa Firestone

Canadians should expect pot prices to plummet in the coming years as more companies produce legal marijuana, with demand for cannabis flower expected to surpass 1 million pounds by 2022, according to one leading cannabis analyst.

Tom Adams, managing director of industry intelligence at BDS Analytics, a cannabis industry analysis firm, said Canadian marijuana prices should tumble in line with how the legal market performed alongside black market players in other markets such as Colorado. The price of pot has declined in that state by over 50 per cent in the past five years.

There’s a shakeout coming to the Canadian cannabis industry and mid-sized companies may find it hardest to survive, according to the new president of Aphria Inc.

“There will be a group of companies at the top, the big producers, and some smaller producers at the bottom, like craft beer,” Jakob Ripshtein said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Toronto office. “I suspect there will be some in the middle who will be very challenged to stay around.”

Just days after a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate its grand opening, a medical marijuana company in Fort Erie has been purchased by a major player in the burgeoning weed market.

WeedMD Inc (TSX-V:WMD, OTCQX:WDDMF) said Tuesday that it has secured a license from Health Canada to sell cannabis cultivated at its greenhouse in Strathroy, Ontario.

The license allows the Toronto-based company to ship cannabis from the greenhouse to a nearby indoor facility in Aylmer, Ontario, for packaging and distribution to its medical and adult-use customers. The license, granted under the Cannabis Act, was originally issued under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations.

“We are thrilled to secure approval to begin selling the medical-grade cannabis that we’ve been cultivating at our production facility in Strathroy,” CEO Keith Merker said in a statement. “The company continues to meet its production milestones on schedule and on budget.”

It's more challenging for medicinal cannabis users to access the products they need now that recreational pot is legal, according to Saskatchewan patients and advocates.

"We have patients that have been using the medicinal avenue through the government since 2001 now not able to get their medication," said Kelly Csada, who is the director of Kelz Medical Services Corp. in Regina.

The shop offers educational presentations and one-on-one consultations with people about medicinal marijuana. They used to offer cannabis products in-store to people with prescriptions but stopped after police cracked down on dispensaries.

Csada said it's been a shock to some patients who rely on the medicine to manage their symptoms. 

The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) is “back on track” according to the province’s finance minister, with legal pot now expected to arrive on doorsteps within one to three business days of the order being placed.

The government-run online retail store has been plagued with problems since its launch on Oct. 17, the day marijuana was legalized in Canada. Some customers experienced long wait times for delivery and others had incorrect orders arrive at the door.

Immediately after the online store opened, it received more than 100,000 orders in 24 hours. Within days, customers were warned that deliveries would be delayed up to five days.

That means more licences for both producers and their grow areas need to be issued by Health Canada, said Allan Rewak, executive director of the Cannabis Council of Canada.

“Absolutely, we need more licensed producers, we need Health Canada to approve more production sites,” said Rewak, adding his group represents 85 per cent of the legal cultivation space in Canada.

“We’re talking to them every day.”

The pharmaceutical industry has done it for years, officially to educate doctors, unofficially to convince them to prescribe more of their medicines.

Now the practice of company-sponsored seminars by specialists known in the drug business as “key opinion leaders” — and criticized as salespeople in disguise – has come to the burgeoning world of medical cannabis.

Shoppers Drug Mart is running a series of events across the country to teach prescribers about the drug, as the 1,300-store chain prepares to become a major marijuana retailer.