This year's 4-20 marijuana day of protest in Vancouver cost the city more than $245,000.

The city says estimates 40,000 people were at Sunset Beach Park and the Vancouver Art Gallery during the April 20 protest.

The city says in a news release that police costs came to over $170,000, while other costs such as sanitation, and fire and rescue pushed the costs even higher.

The city refused to grant a permit to protest organizers, but the event went ahead without approval.

The release says the bill doesn't include ambulance service or hospital costs.

The city says it will bill the organizers of the Sunset Beach event to recover expenses.

Moments after receiving the email they had been awaiting for years, executives at Beleave Inc. (CSE: C.BE, 

On a busy main street in Calgary’s Beltline neighbourhood, green medical crosses are emblazoned on the windows of a shop in an upscale strip mall.

Among the cafes, restaurants, and big-name retailers, a national chain of marijuana dispensaries has opened its first location in the city.

“We didn’t want to be pushed to the shadows,” said Frederick Pels, president and CEO of The Green Room, when asked about the storefront’s location.

“We didn’t want to be in the pawn-store-liquor-shop districts of cities. We picked it deliberately because we’re fighting a stigma.”

The border guard’s question surprised Jessica Goldstein: “Have you ever used drugs?”

It was 2013, and Goldstein, a 30-year-old Canadian from the Vancouver area, was on her way to a Dave Matthews concert in Washington State, passing through the Peace Arch border crossing between the United States and Canada. She’d done this countless times before and had never been asked about her narcotics history. The inquiry seemed especially odd considering the setting: With its picnic tables and grassy fields, the Peace Arch port of entry looks more like a park than a high-security border crossing.

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DEADLINES:

Former Victoria police chief Frank Elsner, who resigned last week in the midst of a misconduct investigation, has launched a cannabis consulting business.

Elsner, who is facing six misconduct allegations, is the principal consultant for UMBRA Strategic Solutions, which will provide security consulting to marijuana businesses, according to a post on his Linked In profile.

A message signed by Elsner on the company’s website says: “After a great career in policing I started Umbra Strategic Solutions. I wanted to do something that I am passionate about while utilizing my knowledge, skills and abilities.”

Elsner writes that he has “come a long way” in his thinking about harm reduction, community wellness and the role police play.

Alberta’s newest medical marijuana operation is planting the seeds that could turn the quiet hamlet of Peers into one of the crown jewels in Canada’s cannabis kingdom.

In March, Acreage Pharma Ltd. became the second licensed pot producer in the province, opening a 630-square-metre facility near the tiny community south of the McLeod River.

But that building is just the start. Company co-founder Trevor Dixon hopes to break ground soon on a larger plant beside it, and is looking at a 23,000-square-metre third phase that would place the overall development among the country’s largest cannabis producers.

Why should investors like marijuana stocks? For some, the rationale might be the enormous market potential. For others, it could be simply that many marijuana stocks have soared over the last year or so.

There are plenty of reasons for investors to like three marijuana stocks in particular -- GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH), Insys Therapeutics (NASDAQ: INSY), and Aphria (NASDAQOTH: APHQF). In fact, there are at least 661 million reasons. That's the amount of cash in U.S. dollars that the three companies have combined. Here's why the cash stockpiles held by GW, Insys, and Apria are important.

Cronos Group Inc. (TSXV:MJN) ("Cronos" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the Company's wholly-owned licensed producer ("LP"), the Peace Naturals Project Inc. ("Peace"), breaks ground today on a 315,000 sq. ft. expansion.  The expansion includes a state-of-the-art 286,000 sq. ft. production facility (the "New Facility"), a 28,000 sq. ft. greenhouse (the "Greenhouse"), and an additional 1,200 sq. ft. extraction laboratory (the "Extraction Lab").  Upon completion, the New Facility is expected to be the largest purpose-built indoor cannabis production facility in the world.