This niche product is probably more important than you realize to marijuana stocks.

Few industries have investors seeing green quite like legal marijuana. According to cannabis research firm ArcView, in partnership with BDS Analytics, the North American legal weed market grew by 33% in 2017 to $9.7 billion. A decade from now, we could be looking at more than $47 billion in annual North American sales.

Get ready to go green. In the coming months, Canada will make history by becoming the very first major industrialized nation to legalize marijuana for recreational use nationwide. If everything goes the way experts are expecting, this September, Canadian lawmakers will be fully decriminalizing the sticky stuff for millions of happy customers in one of the biggest cannabis-consuming nations in the world. Mentioned in today's commentary includes: Canopy Growth Corp. (OTC: TWMJF) (TSX: WEED), Aurora Cannabis Inc. (OTC: ACBFF) (TSX: ACB), Emerald Health Therapeutics Inc. (OTC: EMHTF) (TSX-V: EMH), Cronos Group Inc. (NYSE: CRON) (TSX-V: CRON).

Aphria Inc. ("Aphria" or the "Company") (TSX: APH and US OTC: APHQF) and Great North Distributors, Inc. ("Great North Distributors"), a wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary of Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits ("Southern Glazer's") dedicated to the representation of cannabis products, are pleased to announce today that they have signed an agreement for Great North Distributors to serve as exclusive manufacturer's representative for Aphria's adult-use cannabis products throughout Canada, following the legalization of recreational cannabis for adult-use anticipated later this year.

Government hopes to have some materials ready by the end of June.

The P.E.I. government is looking for a company to create a cannabis education campaign.

The province has put out a request for proposals and hopes to hire a company within the next few weeks. Finance Minister Heath MacDonald said the province is looking for education materials that focus on health and safety awareness.

"We want to ensure that we're taking the steps in the right direction to ensure that people are aware, especially our youth, of the effects of cannabis. Positively, negatively, regards to whether it's medicinal or recreational," said MacDonald.

Medical marijuana CEO clears the air on modes of cannabis consumption.

To vape, smoke or bake? Shekhar Parmar, the CEO of Harvest Medicine, a medical marijuana producer, spoke to The Homestretch Wednesday as part of its ongoing Pot 101 series, to help clear the air around cannabis consumption techniques.

Q: What do you recommend between smoking or eating, when it comes to consuming cannabis?

“Canadian youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are among the highest users of cannabis in all developed countries.”

Whether making headlines, sprinkled throughout Senate hearings, or tossed around in idle chatter, it’s the one line that is dominating the dialogue on the effect of recreational-cannabis legalization on young Canadians.

Those opposed to Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act, relentlessly abuse the factoid to conjure images of brain-dead teenagers hovering around piles of “high potency” bud, moving on to heroin when the weed fix won’t cut it.

Proponents of legalization, on the other hand, are using it as a cry for help, blowing the whistle on a system that is “clearly not working”.

'Welcome to the industry. It’s not going anywhere.' – Meris Kott, chief executive officer, Redfund Capital Corporation.

It’s a common story thread: women entrepreneurs blazing the way for cannabis, taking over the sector and inserting themselves into a market that is booming, complicated and fast-evolving.

Stop. Back it up. Wait a moment. This is not one of those stories.

It’s an easy – perhaps a bit lazy – trend to latch onto, one that weaves itself through the cannabis daily news cycle. “Women in weed: charting change for male-dominated cannabis culture,” blared a CBC headline earlier this year.

The Yukon minister in charge of marijuana says the government hopes to displace more of the illegal market by setting the base price for pot at $8 per gram.

John Streicker, the minister responsible for Yukon Liquor Corp., says in a news release that the government has secured its sole retail location and entered into a second supply agreement. 

Streicker says those actions will ensure Yukon residents have access to cannabis when it becomes legal.

When Canada's finance ministers met last December, they pegged the cost of marijuana at about $10 per gram and the federal government agreed to give provinces and territories 75 per cent of the tax revenues.

Greenhouse grower Village Farms International (TSX:VFF) may not be a cannabis space household name like Canopy Growth and Aurora Cannabis, but the BC-based company should be getting more respect based on its proven crop-growing chops, says Russell Stanley of Echelon Wealth Partners.

In a research report on Tuesday, the analyst maintained his “Speculative Buy” rating and C$13.00 target price for VFF, representing a projected return of 123 per cent.

Sault College’s plan to deal with legalized marijuana on campus remains in the budding stage, says the school’s director of student services.

Matt Trainor says the post-secondary institution has, for the last six to eight months, looked for provincial direction for forging firm local policy, as well as explored “whatever we can create” to ensure students use pot “safely” in accordance to Sault College policy.
“It’s a relevant issue for us, that’s for sure,” Trainor told The Sault Star in an interview.

Sault College has a smoking and tobacco use policy, with designated smoking areas pegged.