“RELAX. Unwind. Centre. Enhance.” These hippy-dippy blandishments will appear in big bright letters on government-owned shops in Nova Scotia, a province in Canada’s north-east.

They will add colour to outlets that otherwise resemble post offices. Business will begin on October 17th, when the sale of recreational cannabis will become legal across Canada. In the western province of Alberta, Tokyo Smoke, a private-sector firm, plans to open pot shops that are more like hipster cafés.

In British Columbia illegal outlets have long masqueraded as “dispensaries”. Newly legal, some plan to kit themselves out like upmarket pharmacies.

After years of debate, hundreds of pages in legislation, and several last-minute policy changes, Canadians will at last be able to legally blaze up starting Oct. 17, after the Senate approved recreational use of the drug in June.

In advance of the fall date, we pored through government websites, read the fine print of provincial regulations, and consulted expert studies to answer some questions you might have about cannabis.

Canada’s smallest province will open only four cannabis stores once legalization takes place later this year, but interested consumers should expect not to see any product on the store shelves. 

Instead, consumers will have to make their purchase decision by speaking with a store clerk about a strain that aligns with their preference or by using a tablet to browse and learn more about in-stock items.  

“Customers won’t be able to actually touch the physical product. They’ll come in and they’ll have the option to go through a bit of a consultative retail experience with one of our highly trained cannabis store clerks,” said Zach Currie of the P.E.I. Liquor Control Commission (LCC).

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in Canada hit CA$93 billion in the first half of 2018 primarily due to a surge in deals in the cannabis, energy, and real estate sectors, according to PwC Canada's recent 2018 M&A mid-year review and outlook report. Despite turbulent Canada-US trade talks and uncertainty around tariffs, sound underlying market dynamics such as available capital are likely to continue to stoke strong deal activity in the second half of the year.

A marijuana chain is looking to open up shop in the City of Windsor.

Starbuds Canada say it's secured two retail locations in the province, as it looks to set up recreational pot shops in Ontario. 

The decision to expand in the region comes after it was reported the Ontario government will allow private stores to sell marijuana, once recreational cannabis becomes legal on Oct. 17.

"Our goal is to make this a higher-end shopping experience, and something that targets different demographics than maybe the expectation would be, so your soccer moms, your professionals, people of that nature," said Dave Martyn, president of Starbuds.

There’s Yelp for restaurants and TripAdvisor for hotels. So it was only a matter of time before cannabis got its own user-generated database of reviews. 

Just in time for legalization this fall, Lift & Co., “Canada’s medical marijuana marketplace and community,” is launching Cannabis Concierge, an online platform to help consumers find strains and products that are right for them. 

Part of that means tapping into “the world’s largest review platform of federally legal cannabis products” – namely, the Toronto-based cannabis-tech company’s database of more than 1,000 cannabis strains and products and more than 60,000 user reviews.

An American hemp oil manufacturer that was previously caught selling its product illegally in Canada is once again putting its Canadian market plans on hold after telling its sellers to partner with a B.C. company that isn't licensed by Health Canada and is run by a man with a criminal record.

Legal recreational marijuana goes on sale across the country on October 17, but Canada’s airline industry says it has not yet been given any directive from the federal government about how to deal with the effects of legalization on its pilots and crews.

As universities and colleges across Canada scramble to create policies ahead of legalized cannabis, two in London are taking a hard line against the drug by restricting its possession, or banning it outright, on campus.

Fanshawe College, one of Ontario’s largest community colleges, is banning marijuana — its use and consumption – from its campus, while Western University has adopted the same approach for its student residence buildings.

Schools are free to adopt the get-tough or zero-tolerance approach to what will become a legal substance in small amounts this fall, but some student groups and activists are raising the alarm, saying such crackdowns will only further stigmatize pot and lead to more problems for users.

Molson Coors is the next major beer company in line to develop a non-alcoholic, cannabis-infused beer.

The brewing company announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Quebec-based cannabis company Hexo to create the beverages.

The Hydropothecary medical marijuana company recently renamed itself Hexo but will go by the Hydropothecary moniker for its already established medical line of products. Hexo will be used for their recreational products.

The yet to be named joint venture between the two organizations will operate as a standalone company with its own board of directors and management. According to a press release, Molson Coors will control 57.5 per cent of the company while Hexo will own the rest.