Tilray is buying Manitoba Harvest, the world’s largest hemp foods manufacturer, for $317 million from Compass Diversified Holdings, eyeing the growing CBD food and drink market in the U.S.

The acquisition, announced Wednesday, gives Tilray access to the U.S. CBD market — and traditional retail spaces — starting with a line of CBD tinctures, sprays and soft gel caps, expected to launch this summer.

Tilray will issue another $37 million (C$49 million) in shares to Manitoba Harvest based on certain financial milestones in 2019.

It is more than four months since Canada legalized recreational cannabis but entrepreneurs acting within the law in that sector continue to face hurdles and discrimination when looking for a financial institution.

“It’s very frustrating,” said aspiring cannabis-sector entrepreneur and Phytron Technologies Inc. CEO Bob Potter. “How can companies attract outside money if they can’t deposit it in a secure financial institution? Do they keep the cash in a shoebox under the bed?”

Potter plans to become a licensed cannabis grower, and he is developing software aimed at optimizing growing conditions inside cannabis grow rooms.

Canada’s big banks all turned Potter down when he asked them if he could open a business account. So did major credit unions.

Marijuana stocks have been on fire so far in 2019, and investors are flocking to the space in hopes of capturing some huge investment gains. Among the top players in the budding cannabis industry, Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB) has built a reputation for fast growth and rapid expansion in production capacity.

Following the legalization of recreational marijuana, a growing number of Canadians are looking to experiment with cannabis for its medicinal properties. But with some doctors unwilling to prescribe the once-illicit drug, many patients are seeking clarity in the hazy world of weed by turning to nurses.

Like thousands of other Canadians, Gordon Bennett was prescribed opioids to ease his arthritis pain. But the problem, the 96-year-old says, was that they just didn’t work.

“I could hardly get out of bed,” Bennett told CTV News from his Ottawa home. “It was hell… I had pain in my back, I had pain in my neck, I had pain in my legs -- every part of my body suffered.”

It may have taken a lot longer than industry enthusiasts and investors would have liked, but the marijuana industry is now a legitimate business model. In a relatively short time frame, we saw Canada legalize recreational weed, Mexico green-light medical marijuana, and additional U.S. states legalize cannabis in some capacity. Today, two-thirds of all states have OK'd its use in some form.

Canopy Growth, a Smith Falls-based marijuana producer, is teaming up with Quebec’s Couche-Tard, the operator of 15,000 variety stores worldwide under the Circle K and other banners, to enter a licence agreement with an Ontario pot lottery winner planning to open an outlet near White Oaks Mall.

“The council there voted overwhelmingly in favour of retail cannabis locations,” Shega Youngson, Canopy’s community engagement manager, said of council’s 13-1 vote Dec. 18 to allow brick-and-mortar stores.

“It’s exciting to be starting our retail footprint in a community that has been open and welcoming to our new industry.”

You hear about Canadian marijuana stocks all the time. But what about the stocks that do business day in and day out in the biggest marijuana market in the world? If you're wondering, that's the United States. 

While Canada's legal recreational marijuana market has received a lot of attention, and deservedly so, nearly 80% of all worldwide marijuana sales this year will be made in the good old USA. And there are some intriguing marijuana stocks that operate in the U.S. market.

Since last year, when Canada legalized recreational pot in full, the nation became a kind of country-sized lab for how that new business would play out. That market could reach as much as $5.1 billion in annual sales by 2020, according to one estimate – though some predictions are higher, especially ones that include spending on accessories and growing supplies.

The owner of a proposed aquaponics farm in St. Stephen is hoping to start growing medical cannabis this year.

The business was announced in 2016, but at the time, Tanner Stewart had planned to grow "leafy green produce," along with farming fish.

As the demand for medical cannabis increased, so did Stewart's vision for his business.

He said he saw a need for organically grown, sustainable cannabis.

"So I pivoted into a cannabis crop," Stewart said.

How the farm works

Stewart's aquaponics farm has a system that sees fish tanks and plants being farmed in the same facility.

Stewart will be farming tilapia but use the water from the tanks to water the cannabis.

The president of Crosby's Molasses has confirmed he's launching a separate company to get into the cannabis edibles business.

James Crosby says the company, EYG Consumables, has applied for a licence with Health Canada and purchased a property in the McAllister Industrial Park in Saint John.

"We are looking to take our extensive food manufacturing experience into the cannabis-infused food space," Crosby said Wednesday in a statement to CBC. "This will be a separate facility at a separate location."

Crosby is the son of Jim Crosby, the owner and chair of Crosby's Molasses.

The new company is not part of Crosby's Molasses.