Green Relief is betting that aquaponics is the best method for growing medical cannabis that is healthy for both your body and the environment.

Inside a concrete bunker jutting out of a grassy hillside, magenta lights cast a neon glow above rows of plants. The glassy eyes of tilapia peer out of the windows of fish tanks the size of above-ground swimming pools. There’s the peaceful sound of bubbles surfacing. Then there’s the sweet, sharp scent of cannabis plants flowering, their branches slumping with orangish-purple buds.

Every day, as regular as clockwork but with increasing regularity, they come: the kids in their late teens who feel about weed the same way I do about a glass of Fat Bastard; the baby boomers who stopped sparking up because they “grew up:” the octogenarians luxuriating in having the social licence to indulge once again.

The other day Jack Fanning, Halifax Seed Co.’s indoor horticultural specialist and resident cannabis expert, had a call from a woman who introduced herself as a member of the St. Margarets Bay Gardening Association, wondering if he would come out to the bay some day and do a little seminar for the membership, which is mostly over 80 and entirely female.

With the impending legalization of marijuana, Renfrew County councillors continue to have questions about enforcement at least as it pertains to public consumption of pot.

With the Trudeau government pushing legalization through the Senate to the committee stage, it's anticipated recreational marijuana will be lawfully permitted across Canada by late summer. While local law enforcement are training officers to investigate roadside impairment by marijuana, municipal councils may have to implement their own bylaws to control where cannabis can be consumed.

As discussed at our April A.M. Pension webinar, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal recently released its decision in Canadian Elevator Industry Welfare Trust Fund v. Skinner. In that decision, the Court of Appeal overturned the earlier decision of a Human Rights Board of Inquiry (the “Board”), in which the Board found that the benefit plan administrator’s decision to deny coverage for a plan member’s medical marijuana was discrimination on the basis of disability in violation of the Human Right Act (Nova Scotia)(the “Act”). In this blog post, we review the decision and its potential implications.

Board Decision

Recent investments, partnerships and acquisitions in the Canadian cannabis industry highlight the importance of recreational branding as the country transitions focus from medical marijuana to adult-use, recreational cannabis. The marketing of recreational products to a mass audience differs significantly from the marketing of medical products to a narrower audience, and an examination of investments in the space can serve to put a perceived value on brands that are focused on the mass market.

Recreational cannabis will be sold in retail stores across the country. In some of Canada's provinces, retail will be run by the government, and in others, by private companies. The provinces who have announced private retail, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, have also announced unique application processes to ultimately lockdown a coveted retail license.

Canada’s unloved energy stocks have switched places with its much-hyped pot stocks.

The energy index was the worst-performing sector in the S&P/TSX Composite Index in 2017, falling 10 per cent and winning the dubious distinction of being the only sector to end the year lower than it started.

Meanwhile, cannabis stocks led the health-care index to a gain of 33 per cent, making it by far the best-performing sector of 2017.That performance was upended in April, when the energy sector gained 9 per cent and health-care stocks slipped 0.1 per cent.

Marijuana is becoming big business, but how that business works won’t be truly tested until pot becomes legal in the months to come.

As the clock ticks down to legalization of recreational marijuana, the Financial Post’s Mark Rendell spoke to the CEOs of Canada’s four largest publicly traded licensed producers about how they’re preparing their businesses for the new regime. The following interviews happened in March and have been edited for space.

Vic Neufeld, CEO of Aphria.

1. VIC NEUFELD – APHRIA INC. — APPROX. MARKET CAP.: $2.1 BILLION

The opportunities aren’t only in alcohol-like products. You only have to look to states where cannabis is legal in the U.S. to see a range of products, from CBD-infused energy drinks to THC tea.

Picture yourself enjoying a bottle of cannabis beer after a long day, as you rub THC cream into your sore muscles and your spouse dozes off thanks to a marijuana-derived sleep aid.

It’s a vision of the future of legal cannabis consumption that may be closer to reality than many expect.

The Canadian government plans to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the next few months and that will mean changes for police forces across the country.

Currently, police are not very much interested in arresting people for possession of small quantities of cannabis, says Michael Kempa, director of criminology at the University of Ottawa. However, he says officers do use suspected possession to obtain search warrants when they want to investigate more serious crimes, and they will soon not be able to do that.