Governments across Canada will unveil an internal-trade agreement Friday designed to not only knock down domestic business barriers, but also lay the groundwork for talks to eventually establish a cross-country marijuana market.

Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains says the long-awaited deal, meant to boost economic growth, will also establish a clear process to help provinces and territories regulate the trade of recreational pot.

Those discussions can only come, of course, once the federal government legalizes marijuana with legislation that government insiders have said would be introduced next week.

With legalization imminent, pot's reigning power couple looks more and more like a liability.

“I’d still like to be the Starbucks of weed,” says Jodie Emery, fresh from her first strip-search jail stint. After an arrest in Toronto, she’s back in Vancouver, sipping a latte inside a busy West Hastings Street cafe. Across the street is her grungy Cannabis Culture headquarters. Which, because of certain Ontario court bail conditions laid down in March, she cannot visit.

A major B.C. study has found that a high proportion of young adults who consume marijuana admit they either drive while stoned or get into vehicles with drivers who’ve used marijuana.

Horizons Medical Marijuana Life Sciences ETF Begins Trading on the TSX 

Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. ("Horizons ETFs") is pleased to announce the launch of the Horizons Medical Marijuana Life Sciences ETF ("HMMJ"). Units of the exchange traded fund ("ETF") begin trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") today under the ticker symbol HMMJ. 

HMMJ is the first ETF in the world that offers direct exposure to North American-listed stocks that are involved with medical marijuana bioengineering and production. 

Florida

There’s a lot going on in Tallahassee as Sunshine State legislators forge the regulatory framework for Florida’s medical marijuana program.

Senators appear poised to advance legislation (SB 406) to welcome five new cannabis dispensaries to Florida by October. At least one would be minority-owned. Friday’s measure also requires four additional dispensaries within “six months after each instance of the registration of 75,000 qualifying patients with the compassionate use registry.”

That 75,000 figure is dramatically less than the previous threshold of 250,000.

Food and drug giant's coverage for 45,000 employees has some limitations.

At first glance, the news was "actually pretty stunning."

Joan Weir, director of health and disability policy with the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, was surprised to see that Canadian retail giant Loblaw Companies had started covering medical marijuana for employees through their health benefit plans back on March 28.​

Stigma of medical marijuana gradually being overcome.

Although doctors were federally authorized by Health Canada in the spring of 2014 to write prescriptions for cannabis if they so choose - following guidelines and a protocol established by the Canadian Medical Association - not all choose to do so.

They can’t just walk into the office and ask for cannabis.

Dr. Roland Muise on prescribing medical marijuana

A strong negative stigma remains, even among some physicians.

Dr. Roland Muise is one of several exceptions in the region. He graduated medical school in 1976 and has about 4,000 patients.

'High costs currently push many patients to seek alternative options through illegal avenues'.

Conventional pills did little to ease Jill Grindle's PTSD and sleep disorder, but within months of turning to medical marijuana the Calgary mother says she was sleeping through the night.

Now she has another worry.

"It's costing a pretty penny," she said. "So what I do is I under-medicate greatly. I scrimp and I save and I only use it very sparingly."

Like most Canadians, Grindle's standard insurance plan doesn't cover legally prescribed cannabis. For Grindle that adds up to $1,200 a month if she were to use her full four-gram daily allowance, so she gets by on one gram a day.

One of the most common criticisms of legalizing marijuana is that it will negatively impact Canadian youth.

The annual worldwide celebration of marijuana smoking, a.k.a. 4/20, has always struck me as a little bit awkward. This is because the day on which it falls and from which it gets its name — April 20 —{+ }also happens to be the birthday of Adolf Hitler, a man whose memory (for most) does not inspire the kind of good vibes one hopes to achieve at a weed festival. Hitler, as a 4/20 reveller might put it, was not a chill dude. 

The federal Liberal party, on the other hand, is doing its best to prove that it’s packed full of chill dudes and of course, dudettes. (It’s 2017, after all.)

Dana Larsen has shipped millions of cannabis seeds across Canada in an effort to 'normalize the cultivation' of the plant ahead of marijuana legalization.

The man who’s helped ship millions of cannabis seeds across the country for the last couple years is visiting Winnipeg Monday to drop off tens of thousands more.

B.C.-based cannabis advocate Dana Larsen, 45, is touring cross-country with his group Overgrow Canada, which aims to hand out five million cannabis seeds this year.

In 2016, they spread 2.5 million seeds, encouraging Canadians to plant cannabis in public places like parks to "normalize the cultivation" of the plant, Larsen said in an interview Monday.