A Regina man has turned the cultivation of personal cannabis into a business, offering classes to people who wish to learn how to grow it at home.

Jeremy Drummond, the co-owner of The Grow Room, opened his shop on Oct. 17, the same day that the recreational use of marijuana was legalized in Canada.

“This has always been sort of underground, and now that it is out in the open, we feel that it needs to be supported in a safe way,” Drummond told CTV Saskatchewan. “Doing that with educational classes is a really great place to start.”

High quality branding is a powerful thing. The look, feel and associations that a company uses to support its product can be every bit as important as the product itself in determining its success or failure. Marketers have spent decades perfecting the social sciences used to make the world’s most iconic brands successful.

A new product category is emerging in the form of Canada’s legal adult-use recreational cannabis market. Thousands of cannabis companies across the country have invested millions into building what will become the best known brands in the cannabis space.

Following a sharp increase in cannabis poisoning among young people, Canadian health professionals are calling for tighter controls to keep edible marijuana products away from minors.

Canopy Growth Corp., one of the world’s biggest medical cannabis companies, is planning a major investment in Europe.

The marijuana grower will spend more than 100 million euros ($115 million) to expand production in the EU over the next two years, according to Pierre Debs, managing director at Canopy’s Spectrum Cannabis Europe division. The weed giant -- valued at about $9.8 billion -- is planning to build two new production facilities to grow hundreds of kilos of cannabis for use in treatment.

Steam Whistle Brewing Inc., maker of the popular green-bottled pilsner lager distributed across the country, is pivoting to cannabis.

Andy Burgess, president of the craft brewery, told BNN Bloomberg he is engaged in active discussions with several cannabis producers for a possible investment or joint venture with the company.

"This is about reinforcing the brand and how to build shareholder value for the long term," he said in an interview this week.

Discussions have included the possibility of producing cannabis-infused beverages and launching a Steam Whistle brand of cannabis, he added.

"The bottom line is that our brand and the building, our distribution, and the popularity of our beer is of interest to the cannabis space."

Aphria Inc. ("Aphria" or the "Company") (TSX: APHA and NYSE:APHA) today announced its proposed acquisition of CC Pharma GmbH ("CC Pharma"), a leading distributor of pharmaceutical products to more than 13,000 pharmacies in Germany. The transaction, when closed, will strengthen the Company's end-to-end medical cannabis operations and infrastructure in Germany, a key market in Aphria's international expansion. It is anticipated that the transaction will close in January 2019.

One of John Lem’s first hints that the technology behind his DNA-testing company Spartan Bioscience could be a hit with cannabis users came years ago when an executive asked him if genetics could have caused a bad reaction to pot.

The question intrigued Mr. Lem so much that he eventually applied Spartan’s technology to a new Toronto-based venture called Lobo Genetics.

Value is not exactly synonymous with the cannabis sector, but if there was a value play in pot, then Quebec’s HEXO (TSX:HEXO) would be it. As of writing, HEXO continues to lag its peers in terms of its valuation, trading at just eight times forward earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) compared to 15 times EBITDA for mid-cap cannabis plays and 40 times EBITDA for the large-cap names.

But before we tackle the reasons why HEXO is trading the way it is, let’s quickly recap some of HEXO’s attractive properties.

Province Brands filed the provisional patent for the “world’s first beers brewed from the cannabis plant” in July 2017, further stoking interest from the drinks industry in the burgeoning cannabis industry since Constellation bought a 10% stake in Canadian marijuana company Canopy Growth Corp for £141 million with plans to make cannabis-infused drinks.

Although Canada’s lawmakers legalised recreational use of cannabis earlier this year, the country’s edibles industry has yet to become legal, causing a number of false-starts for small businesses and leading many manufacturers to sell their products illegally online.

NanoSphere Health Sciences, Inc. (CSE: NSHS) (OTC: NSHSF) (“NanoSphere” or “the Company”), is taking its cannabis business global with the formation of a wholly owned subsidiary, NanoSphere Cannabis International (“NCI”).

We’re going global: Nanosphere launches subsidiary to handle its worldwide cannabis business!