The marijuana industry produced about as bifurcated a year as investors could have imagined in 2018. By the time the curtain closed, validity had been gained like never before, but pot stocks had been absolutely leveled.

Marijuana, long snuck on to college and university campuses for use in bongs and joints, is now being grown legally at several academic institutions across the country.

Eight academic institutions have obtained licences from Health Canada to cultivate cannabis for scientific purposes, allowing them to closely study the drug that was legalized for recreational use in October.

Some received special licences a few months before legalization and will be moving to licences with fewer restrictions in the future.

The University of Guelph is one of them.

Max Jones, an assistant professor in the department of agriculture, received cannabis plants several weeks ago after the school was granted a license in September.

Canadian equity strategists may have spent New Year’s Eve eating crow, as not even the most bearish outlook foresaw what turned out to be the worst year for stocks since 2008.

That hasn’t stopped them from predicting double-digit gains for 2019.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index will end 2019 at 16,644, 16 per cent above its 2018 closing level, according to the average of eight estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the biggest increase since 2016, when stocks gained 18 per cent.

The year 2018 has come and gone. For most publicly traded companies, it was a bad year. But a handful of businesses and individuals stood out from the crowd and had great runs in the year that passed. Similar to Apple Inc during the late 2000s recession, there are always stocks that become runaway bulls in bear markets. Despite the TSX losing 15% of its value last year, there were a surprising number of stock market successes in the same 12-month period.

In this article I’ll be chronicling five of them–starting with one whose fortunes may not look rosy this year, but had a great run in the last.

In 2018, pot reached a tipping point. A clear majority of Americans now wants to see the drug made fully legal. California and Canada began selling marijuana to anyone over 21.

For those who follow the marijuana stock market, it’s clear that Canada has been leading the charge since they legalized the use of recreational cannabis. After October 17th, the day Canada began allowing sales of adult-use cannabis, many stocks were able to come to fruition.

Since that time, there have been a series of new supply agreements and international movements. All of this has helped to cement Canada’s spot at the top of the marijuana industry. Many large investments into the industry have made headlines in the past several months as billions of dollars continue to flow into the market.

Alberta ‘well ahead’ of rest of Canada in cannabis retail: Notley

Buds

The North American Marijuana Index is starting off the new year on a positive note with a few budding stocks of note.

The Index, which tracks the leading cannabis stocks in the US and Canada, was up 6.1% to 221.65.

Terra Tech Corp (OTCQX:TRTC) was one of the best-performing cannabis stocks, up about 12% to US$0.64 on Wednesday. The cannabis-focused agriculture company’s merger with Golden Leaf Holdings fell through earlier this month.

Golden Leaf Holdings Ltd (CSE:GLH) (OTCQB:GLDFF) shares jumped more than 18% to US$0.12. The Toronto-based cannabis company recently named William Kulczycki as its new CEO.

The marijuana industry has had an absolutely game-changing year in 2018. Canada became the first industrialized country in the world to green-light recreational marijuana, and a handful of U.S. states legalized cannabis in some capacity. In other words, the pot industry gained validity like never before.

According to investment bank Cowen & Co., the legal weed market could be worth as much as $75 billion by 2030. That would suggest there's plenty of opportunity for investors to make money over the long run from both direct and ancillary players. Although the legal cannabis market is still exceptionally young and unproven, here -- in no particular order -- are 12 pot-growing stocks you should be watching in 2019.

Some changes are tiny and bureaucratic. Others will fundamentally change the country.

The federal and provincial governments have announced numerous new rules for 2019. Most federal, provincial and territorial laws come into force immediately after their passage and assent.

But legislation requiring greater planning or notice is typically delayed to allow affected parties time to prepare. Here are 49 new laws that come into effect across Canada in 2019. They range from the arrival of a federal carbon-tax plan to a fee for plastic bags in Prince Edward Island.