Shareholders of Organigram Holdings (NASDAQOTH:OGRMF) and CannTrust Holdings (NYSE:CTST)have to be pretty happy with how the stocks are performing so far in 2019. Organigram is up more than 80% year to date while CannTrust stock has jumped nearly 50%.

The two Canadian marijuana producers share similar growth opportunities. But which of these two stocks is the better pick for investors? Here's how Organigram and CannTrust stack up against each other.

Lately, Stephen Verbeek's life is one of chaos, sawdust, and weed.

Verbeek is the CEO of Hello Cannabis, which is acting as a consultant for the opening of a legal storefront dispensary at 51 Cootes Drive in Dundas alongside owner Santino Coppolino. It's right next door to Verbeek's medicinal marijuana business of the same name.

There were hopes the shop would be open by this Saturday, but standing in the shell of the building amid the sound of saw blades slicing, Verbeek says that was impossible. Counters aren't yet installed, wires are hanging from the ceiling, and the air inside the building still smells like fresh cut wood.

"I had a full head of hair when we started," he said with a smile.

Wednesday marks six months since the province of Ontario became our first legal pot dealer.

Recreational marijuana use became legal in Canada on Oct 17, and the online Ontario Cannabis Store opened for business the same day, not always to glowing reviews.

It would be another five and a half months before Ottawa's first licensed bricks-and-mortar pot shops opened their doors.

Gatineau's first store is expected to open at the Centre La Gappe in late spring or early summer.

British Columbians are satisfied with how the province has managed its part in the legalization of cannabis in the six months since the laws changed, but feel it can go one step further with drug testing at work, according to a new poll.

The poll, administered by Vancouver-based Research Co., suggests most people in B.C. (79 per cent) were satisfied with the government’s decision to establish 19 years as the legal age to purchase, sell or consume marijuana and restrict smoking to areas where tobacco is allowed.

Sixty per cent of respondents said employers should now be able to administer drug testing to any employee. Residents over the age of 55 strongly supported this idea (68 per cent).

Wednesday marks six months since cannabis was legalized in Canada. At least one entrepreneur in the Northwest Territories hoped to be selling cannabis in a retail location by now, but he's not.

"April 17th, they were supposed to start handing out licences, we thought — or we hoped — in the city [Yellowknife], but nobody seems to know," said Luke Wood, president of Releaf NT.

"It could be months away yet."

Releaf NT is a cannabis accessory shop that opened last weekend in Yellowknife. Wood said the company has applied to sell cannabis and filed an expression of interest to do so with the territorial government, but they are still waiting to hear what their next step will be.

Ancillary industries and sectors are primed to benefit from cannabis’ rise to prominence. Some examples include banking, packaging solutions, and real estate. One industry that is often overlooked but could play a huge role in the cannabis industry is energy. The U.S. cannabis industry is currently eating up more than 1% of all electricity each year. Keep in mind that it’s not even legal at the federal level, so you can imagine how much electricity the industry would be using and what demand would be placed on electric grids, if marijuana were legalized across the country. The need to reduce greenhouse emissions created by the weed industry, as well as lower electric load and expenditures, makes the energy sector a clear beneficiary of a budding cannabis industry.

Campers making use of Yukon territorial parks could be smelling something different around their campfires this summer — marijuana.

The Department of Environment says campers will be allowed to smoke cannabis on their individual sites.

"We're following the same approach as we do to liquor," said Mike Etches, director of Yukon Parks. 

"So, you can consume liquor on your campsite, you can consume cannabis on your campsite." 

But he says marijuana can't be consumed in public areas in the territory's 42 campgrounds.

Etches also says that complaints about marijuana use will be handled the same way parks staff deal with alcohol-related complaints, such as excessive noise, underage users and use in prohibited areas.

The month of April has seen its fair share of ups and downs throughout the stock market, not just pertaining to cannabis. Despite only being halfway through the month, it seems as though the market is finding some sense of stability. Much of the early days of cannabis were plagued by large amounts of volatility due to the infancy of the industry, but some of this has slowed down as the market has been given time to mature. Many companies do remain quite volatile, but there are some choices that could be a solid alternative to the high fluctuations we have seen in the past few weeks.

Like many marijuana entrepreneurs across the province, John Thomas's biggest concern when he opened his first store was supply.

Thomas is the co-founder of Jimmy's Cannabis Shop, which has locations in Battleford, Estevan and Martensville with another opening in Moosomin this Saturday. He said the stores initially struggled to get enough marijuana to reliably operate.

He was forced to close the Martensville location just days after opening due to running out of product.

Now, six months after legalization, supply is becoming much less of an issue. Thomas said the province's laissez-faire approach to the supply issue is part of the reason.

The marijuana industry has come an incredibly long way in relatively short amount of time. What had been considered a taboo topic is no longer. Following the passage of the Cannabis Act in Canada last year, our neighbor to the north became the first industrialized country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana. We also witnessed the highest approval for legalizing cannabis in the U.S., according to Gallup, in its nearly 50 years of polling.

This transformation all translates into one thing: big money for opportunistic marijuana stocks.