3-day hearing underway to determine whether class action can go ahead.

New Brunswick's largest licensed supplier of medical marijuana is trying to fend off a class-action lawsuit at a three-day hearing that started Tuesday in Halifax.

Organigram, which employs some 300 people in Moncton, is accused of making customers sick by supplying them with cannabis that was tainted with unapproved pesticides in 2016.

"One of the things we want for people who purchased contaminated products is to get their money back," said the plaintiff's lawyer, Ray Wagner.

"The second thing is that we're also looking for punitive damages to punish Organigram for what they did, we say, knowingly or recklessly, using banned pesticides to improve commercial value of their product."

As Canada comes close to legalizing recreational marijuana, cannabis stocks have witnessed a sudden surge in their valuation. Despite the vast upside opportunity for pot stocks, the opening up of the recreational marijuana market may be faced with regulatory hardships, just like the tobacco industry.

It could still be several years before Health Canada lets companies make health claims for marijuana products but industry is getting ready.

Three months after announcing a deal with cannabis grower Tilray Inc., generic drug major Sandoz Canada Inc. has signed off on the use of its name for marijuana products.

On Tuesday, the company, a subsidiary of Novartis International AG, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, announced that eight of Tilray’s non-combustible products, already sold under Canada’s mail-order medical marijuana system, would start carrying Sandoz branding.     

Canadian shareholders will receive 1 share in new company for every 20 Aurora shares they own.

Canada's second largest cannabis company plans to place its U.S. assets into a new separate company that will focus on investing in the cannabis and real estate sector there.

TSX-listed Aurora Cannabis said Wednesday it plans to distribute units of its subsidiary Australis Capital Inc. to shareholders in the near future.

In a major move towards cannabis reform, it was announced last summer that two universities in Fredericton, New Brunswick, would be adding Cannabis Health Research Chairs to their respective campuses. But, the industry's infant status has presented challenges for both St. Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick (UNB) as they continue to search for the perfect candidates, writes Brandon Hicks.

More than half (52 per cent) of Canadian employers said they’re concerned or very concerned about the implications of legalized marijuana on the workplace, according to a report by the Conference Board of Canada.

A third (33 per cent) of respondents said they’re slightly concerned and 15 per cent said they aren’t concerned at all. Among those concerned, 57 per cent cited workplace safety, followed by impairment or intoxication at work (39 per cent); increased use of the drug in and out of the workplace (21 per cent); testing for impairment (20 per cent); managing needs related to accommodation and disclosure (15 per cent); and the cost, including covering medical marijuana and other financial affects on the organization (15 per cent).

As recreational marijuana legalization approaches, even the most committed narc might be getting a little…curious. We cornered activist, writer and decade-long cannabis smoker Sarah Hanlon for a no-judgment, ask-me-anything session on the subject—a little clearing of the smoke, if you will.

How will it all work when recreational marijuana use is legal in Canada? Will you just go to the store in the same way you’d go to the LCBO to buy wine?

“Yes, actually. It’s all regulated provincially, but in Ontario, for example, you’ll go to the Ontario Cannabis Store or you can still get it online. If you’re going on the day they open, I’d say plan to get in line because I think they’re going to be very busy.”

Investors looking to leverage the marijuana industry can soon do so, with three new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) set to launch later this summer.

Horizons ETF Management Canada Inc. filed preliminary documents with regulators last week to launch three new ETFs on the Toronto Stock Exchange that will focus on leveraging the cannabis sector.

Leveraged ETFs – also known as “double ETFs” – typically aim to deliver two or three times the return on their stated index, and carry a higher risk rating than typical ETFs.

Canada is to become the second country in the world to fully legalise marijuana, after the senate approved legislation paving the way for recreational cannabis to be legally bought and sold within the next two or three months. 

“We’ve just witnessed a very historic vote that ends 90 years of prohibition,” senator Tony Dean told reporters on Tuesday after the vote to pass the Cannabis Act.

“It ends 90 years of needless criminalisation, it ends a prohibition model that inhibited and discouraged public health and community health in favour of just-say-no approaches that simply failed young people miserably.”

Canada is the first G-7 nation to legalize recreational marijuana after the upper house of parliament voted 52-29 in favor of a revised bill to legalize recreational marijuana. This is a major milestone and cannabis investors need to be monitor how the market responds to this vote.

Canada’s recreational marijuana market is expected to open in the next 8 to 12 weeks and this is a significant development that should drive the cannabis sector higher. Yesterday, Canadian cannabis stocks rallied off their lows and were a bright spot in a market that traded lower on average.