Publicly traded medical marijuana companies got a bounce Monday after news reports provided clarity on the federal government’s plan for marijuana, suggesting it will be legal for pot smokers in time to celebrate Canada Day next year.

Ottawa plans to introduce marijuana legalization legislation in mid-April, fulfilling the Liberals’ promise to do so this spring. That will be enough time to enact legalization by Canada Day 2018, CBC reported Sunday night.

Marijuana is big — and it’s only getting bigger. Four states voted to legalize marijuana on Nov. 8, 2016, raising the total number of states to green-light marijuana use to 28. With marijuana no longer the domain of alleged hippies and stoners (at least not exclusively), legalization has created unprecedented opportunities for tech companies looking to enter the market.

The Liberal government will announce legislation next month that will legalize marijuana in Canada by July 1, 2018.

CBC News has learned that the legislation will be announced during the week of April 10 and will broadly follow the recommendation of a federally appointed task force that was chaired by former liberal Justice Minister Anne McLellan.

Bill Blair, the former Toronto police chief who has been stickhandling the marijuana file for the government, briefed the Liberal caucus on the roll-out plan and the legislation during caucus meetings this weekend.

Provinces to control sales

The federal government will be in charge of making sure the country's marijuana supply is safe and secure and Ottawa will license producers.

Dana Larsen’s “quiet revolution” envisions more and more Canadians growing pot until the laws prohibiting it are unenforceable.

The Vancouver cannabis activist and author will be in Bedford at the Legion Hall (1772 Bedford Highway) on Monday from 7-9 p.m. to dispense advice, solutions to the crisis of fentanyl and other opioids — and maybe even a few cannabis seeds. Larsen is the founder of the Overgrow Canada campaign and distributed more than 2.3 million cannabis seeds in spring 2016. He’s doing a larger seed giveaway now, which started in January.

“We don’t want to overthrow the government, we want to ‘overgrow’ the the government,” he said in a phone interview from his St. John’s stop on a trans-Canada tour.

Around a dozen people met on the stairs of the Manitoba Legislature on Saturday to protest a new bill proposed by the provincial government that would change the rules on cannabis.

Bill 25, the Cannabis Harm Prevention Act, was introduced on Monday. It would put restrictions on cannabis similar to those on alcohol, banning people from consuming it in a vehicle and giving police the right to suspend a driver's licence for 24 hours if they thought the person was under the influence of the drug.

Canada's Chocolate Town starts manufacturing legal weed? Sounds like the pilot for a sitcom — or a match made in marketing heaven.

Tidal Health Solutions, a medical marijuana company based in St. Stephen, tells CBC News that in addition to current openings for an assistant grower and lab technician, the company also plans to hire "between 30 and 40 workers" in the coming months, according to partner and spokesperson Kent Hovey-Smith.

A former Liberal cabinet minister who recently chaired a panel guiding Ottawa’s push to legalize cannabis says police everywhere should enforce the existing prohibition of marijuana, despite several communities in British Columbia choosing to regulate – not raid – illegal pot shops.

Anne McLellan, head of an official task force that submitted recommendations to Ottawa on how best to legalize cannabis, said Thursday that Vancouver crafted Canada’s first municipal marijuana bylaw in response to what was a “growing difficult situation for them.”

A group of University of Alberta students want the province to roll any tax revenue raised from the legal sale of marijuana into mental health and addiction programs.

Student Advocates for Public Health say these programs are badly underfunded at a time when substance abuse is costing Alberta's health-care system about $1 billion per year.

The group says once the federal government follows through with its plan to legalize pot, Alberta should direct any provincial taxes raised from sales into bolstering services.

Toronto police have raided two more Cannabis Culture medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, almost two weeks after search warrants were executed at several of Marc and Jodie Emery’s locations in Ontario and B.C.

Canada's biggest licensed producer of medical marijuana launched its first collection of feminized seeds for sale last week. 

In response to a federal court ruling, Health Canada reintroduced "provisions for individuals to produce a limited amount of cannabis for their own medical purposes or to designate someone to produce it for them" as part of the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) last August.

But even through ACMPR, growing your own medicine may be way more challenging than the three or four clicks required to shop online for your weed.