Amid the recent volatility in pot stocks, there is one group that appears to be capitalizing on the cannabis industry: the banks advising on a flourishing deal market for these companies.

About $582 million has been raised for cannabis companies through initial public offerings to date, while nearly $8 billion in mergers and acquisitions have been inked, according to data provided by Dealogic. An even greater number of deals have been done through less-traditional methods, such as reverse mergers and private placements.

Canada’s largest province is set to unveil a new law this week that will shape the future of cannabis legalization in Ontario, sources told MarketWatch on Tuesday, addressing the open question about how the substance will be sold in retail shops in the country’s most populous province.

Ontario has not yet created guidelines for how cannabis will be sold in brick-and-mortar retail shops, unlike the other Canadian provinces. The new law is set to define who can enter the market and where they will be allowed to sell cannabis in the country’s largest city, Toronto, and the rest of the region, according to people in Ontario who are familiar with the cannabis legislation.

A Toronto-based marijuana community platform has launched a rewards program for pot users that offers points in exchange for product reviews.

Starting on Oct. 17 when the sale of recreational marijuana is legalized in Canada, Lift & Co. Corp. will reward cannabis users who share their experiences on the platform in the form of product reviews.

The points can then be redeemed for discounts on cannabis products or gift cards from retailers that include Starbucks Corp., Amazon Inc., Apple Inc.’s iTunes and Indigo Books & Music Inc.

Some Canadian police forces are hesitant to use a federally approved roadside marijuana test, raising questions about the Liberal government's decision to give the devices the green light.

Vancouver's police department is among those that won't use the Drager DrugTest 5000 when pot is legalized next month because it says the device doesn't work in sub-zero temperatures, is bulky and takes too long to produce a sample.

"We're just not comfortable moving forward with this machine and we're looking at other options," said Sgt. Jason Robillard.

Police in Delta, B.C., say their officers won't use the device this year but the department hasn't made a decision about 2019, while Edmonton police and B.C.'s provincial RCMP say no decisions have been made yet.

Nine new cannabis stocks have been added to Canada’s largest marijuana-focused exchange-traded fund, giving investors access to a broader basket of stocks in the fast-growing market.

The ETF adjusts its fund holdings on a quarterly basis, although the weightings of individual stocks can fluctuate more frequently.

Last Friday, Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. confirmed it had expanded the holdings of Toronto-listed Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF (HMMJ) to include Tilray Inc., one of the most volatile marijuana stocks the industry has seen. Tilray holds the largest weighting of the new additions, at 6.6 per cent, as of Sept 24. That’s up from 3.68 per cent on Friday, when the company was first added to the ETF.

Legal marijuana sales will kick off in Canada on Oct. 17, and a shocking amount of early money will potentially flow into the country.

From Oct. 17 until the end of the year, Statistics Canada expects the country's legal cannabis sales to soar as high as $1.02 billion.

And that's just the start of how much money will be spent on cannabis in Canada.

Canadians spent $4.8 billion on illegal marijuana purchases in Q2, according to High Times. As more dispensaries open and more legal marijuana is sold, money in the black market will flood into the legal market.

So even though $1.02 billion is an impressive number, this early look at sales could be too conservative of an estimate…

A cannabis company backed by the retail fortune of Ohio’s Schottenstein family has raised about US$65 million as it prepares to be publicly traded in Canada.

Green Growth Brands, which is run by former Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle Outfitters Inc. executive Peter Horvath, has purchased an existing marijuana operation in the Las Vegas area and is looking to get licenses to operate in Massachusetts, Florida and New Jersey. The new funding round included investments from the Schottensteins and Horvath, and precedes a stock listing in Canada in coming weeks through a reverse takeover.

With less than a month for the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada to take effect, investors continue to closely watch the pot stocks in the country. Namaste Technologies, (CVE:N), a leading online cannabis retailer, is one of the many cannabis stocks that have witnessed a surge in its stock price over the last one year in the anticipation of the revolutionary move. The company, which currently sells only vaporizers and other accessories for consumption of medical cannabis, plans to enter the recreational cannabis space through its partnerships with various Licensed Producers (LPs) in Canada and abroad. However, some of the key provinces in Canada have recently chosen Shopify as their partner to facilitate online and in-store sales of recreational cannabis.

The Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index (TSX:HMMJ) is an Exchange Traded Fund that is designed to provide investors with diversified exposure to North American publicly-listed companies with specific emphasis on companies involved in the cannabis industry. HMMJ includes 50 stocks, with Aurora Cannabis (TSX:ACB), Canopy Growth (TSX:WEED), and Aphria Inc.

Aurora Cannabis, the second-largest marijuana producer by market cap, reported a surprise profit on Tuesday as the company eyes a US stock listing.

For its fiscal fourth quarter, Aurora earned 0.40 Canadian dollars, easily beating the 0.03 Canadian dollars loss that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting. Revenue more than doubled from the same quarter last year, coming in at 19.1 million Canadian dollars, missing the 23 million Canadian dollars that was expected. Aurora, which trades in Toronto and is tracked via an over-the-counter (OTC) ticker in the US, rose more than 9% in trading Tuesday following the release.