A unique support centre for military veterans and first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) opened in south Edmonton Saturday.

Marijuana for Trauma is hoping to help heal emotional wounds suffered by soldiers, paramedics and police officers by helping them access medical-grade cannabis.

“This is special,” Fabian Henry, Marijuana for Trauma CEO and co-founder, said. “We’re bringing in the people who are lost and putting a soul back in their body.”

Henry said his own personal experience with PTSD and struggling to get treatment makes him a firm believer his stores are addressing a need and also why they won’t be charging veterans for product.

Canada’s medical marijuana space, due to the country’s first mover advantage over many other nations, has attracted international attention. The sector has not disappointed, delivering solid, sometimes spectacular, returns to investors at home and abroad.

As Canada moves forward with its plan to legalize marijuana, government officials have at least one international conundrum to sort out: what to do about the global treaties Canada has signed that prohibit making pot legal?

A senior government official said there are essentially two options available.

On the one hand, Canada could take a "principled stand" in favour of the international legalization of pot.

The other, quieter approach, would be to withdraw from the treaties and attempt to re-enter with a special exemption for legalized marijuana.

It's the second option, causing the "least international turbulence," that the federal government favours, said the source.

When it comes to crafting Canada's plans to legalize marijuana, there's one group that seems to have a lot to say: young men who use pot.

That's who responded to the government's online consultation in droves, according to the vice-chair of Canada's marijuana task force, Dr. Mark Ware.

He broke down the numbers as part of his talk at the Vancouver Lift Cannabis Expo earlier this month, noting that particularly when it comes to age, the response was "interesting because this is not typically a group that is heavily engaged politically."

From a fiscal perspective, legalizing pot seems like a win-win scenario for cities. In theory, marijuana sales tax revenue can fill gaps in the budget, while police and prosecutors spend less time and money going after residents for marijuana possession.

But Toronto city council might want to hold off on planning a spending spree — because legal marijuana costs money, too.

In Denver, the capital of a state where recreational pot sales have been legal for almost three years, much of the tax revenue from marijuana gets spent regulating the very industry that generated it.

A British Columbia man says Health Canada has handed out so many medical marijuana licences, it's cutting into his profit.

"This is how I make my living," said the man we're calling "Jack." "I grow it and sell it. Money is good — well, not as good as it used to be" 

Jack is not his real name. He asked that we conceal his identity so that he could speak candidly about the medical marijuana black market, which he says is saturated with patients producing more than they need and selling off the rest.

"So many people do it now," Jack said. "I can go down a street in the neighbourhood and pick out probably 20-30 houses ... out of 50."

Ottawa's mayor says until the federal government comes out with new legislation to legalize marijuana, Ottawa police should be cracking down on illegal dispensaries.

At Wednesday's city council meeting, Coun. Mathieu Fleury asked staff to look into what the city's by-law and planning departments are doing to shut down illegal marijuana dispensaries, and to consider what other cities are doing about it.

Residents are concerned about the growing number of shops in Ottawa, Fleury said.

Mayor Jim Watson is interested in Fleury's inquiry, because he said, "It is very much a grey area.

Although the legal cannabis industry is in the first inning of what will prove to be a multi-decade growth cycle investors must conduct ample due diligence before investing.

From the United Kingdom to Canada, the legal cannabis industry has made significant strides over the last year, a trend that we expect to not only continue but to accelerate as new markets open and existing ones develop.

Capital Markets Become More Receptive to Cannabis

Capital markets have become more receptive to cannabis businesses over the last year and this is especially true for licensed medical cannabis producers in Canada.

29-year-old the lead agronomist for a Whistler marijuana company.

As a 14-year-old loading soil at a Quebec poinsettia greenhouse, David Bernard-Perron never would have expected he'd grow up to be the lead agronomist for a marijuana company in Whistler. 

But at 29, that's exactly what he's doing, and the company he works for is at the forefront of quickly growing industry.

Bernard-Perron says the poinsettia job can be credited with getting him interested in plant sciences, but even as a student working on a masters degree in organic agriculture at McGill University, he wasn't especially interested in cannabis. He barely had any experience working with it, and he didn't count himself as a recreational user.

The Liberal government says it plans to introduce legislation later this fall to regulate vaping.

Health Canada offered few other details Tuesday beyond saying it would both protect young people from nicotine and allow adult smokers to use vaping as a quit-smoking aid or as a potentially less harmful alternative to tobacco.

In a statement, the department said it is also renewing the federal tobacco control strategy for one year, giving the government time to develop a new long-term plan. The strategy was introduced in 2001 and last renewed four years ago.

Health Minister Jane Philpott will host a national forum early next year to discuss the future of tobacco control.