Affinor Growers Ltd. (“Affinor Growers”) (CSE:AFI) (OTC:RSSFF) (Frankfurt:1AF) is pleased to announce it has signed a definitive license agreement , with a later stage Licensed Producer Applicant in British Columbia. The license represents royalties of 3% of all products grown using the patented technology and gives the exclusive rights for Vancouver Island for Fruits, Vegetables and Marijuana once the Health Canada license is achieved, to grow, process, import and export Marijuana.

'Welcome to the industry. It’s not going anywhere.' – Meris Kott, chief executive officer, Redfund Capital Corporation.

It’s a common story thread: women entrepreneurs blazing the way for cannabis, taking over the sector and inserting themselves into a market that is booming, complicated and fast-evolving.

Stop. Back it up. Wait a moment. This is not one of those stories.

It’s an easy – perhaps a bit lazy – trend to latch onto, one that weaves itself through the cannabis daily news cycle. “Women in weed: charting change for male-dominated cannabis culture,” blared a CBC headline earlier this year.

Some Alberta cannabis cultivators will be fuelling winter Olympic bobsleds instead of bongs.

Industrial hemp fibre, processed in Calgary from cannabis plants grown in southern Alberta, will help pave the way for safe, stable bobsled and luge runs at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.

Last week, the first 163-kilogram shipment of Canadian Greenfield Technologies’ NForce-Fiber left its southeast Calgary plant for China to reinforce concrete used in the construction of the Xiaohaituo track near Beijing.

The company’s one-of-a-kind product has already been used to shore up concrete in numerous swimming pools and skateboard parks throughout North America.

But the Beijing contract is a marquee one, said general manager Stephen Christensen.

Whether it’s a delicious terpene-rich IPA or a THC-oil Belgian ale boasting no hangover, cannabis-friendly states like California and Colorado are leading the way when it comes to weed-infused beer.

It’s a Canadian company, however, that plans on launching the world’s first beer brewed entirely from the cannabis plant.

“First people thought we were crazy. Then they asked us how we were doing it,” Dooma Wendschuh told the Straight by phone. Wendschuh is the CEO of Province Brands of Canada (PBC), a premium beer and spirits company recently awarded with $300,000 in funding from the Government of Ontario.

From niche sector to burgeoning industry, the list of marijuana stocks has veritably skyrocketed.

When it comes to cannabis, we’ve come a long way since former President Bill Clinton denied ever inhaling. With the previous presidential administration’s frankness on the matter, marijuana has become more blasé. Naturally, marijuana stocks have also increased in popularity, where we have more choices today than was previously thought possible.

Telemedicine is revolutionizing the cannabis industry and as a result, companies like NamasteMD can provide patients more accessibility to medical cannabis than ever before. (123rf)

The marijuana market

Who’d have thought, in around 1972 when some of your school acquaintances may have been getting busted, that in 2018 we’d be talking about the outlook for EBITDA among producers and sellers of legal marijuana.

Even those who later ventured into financial services and accounting probably didn’t think they’d see the day when they were analyzing pot stocks and projecting earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization.

(Just the word amortization might have made them giggle.)

But here we are, decades later, with Canada’s Liberal government aiming for legalization this summer, with a strong outlook for a new marijuana industry.

CO2 GRO Inc. (“GROW”) (TSX-V:GROW) is pleased to announce progress to having its patented CO2 Foliar Spray technology approved for use by Canadian Licensed Producer (“LP”) cannabis companies. Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency StR Decision was that GROW’s dissolved CO2 foliar spray water on cannabis in greenhouses and/or outdoors does not meet the definition of a pesticide as per Section 2 of the Pest Control Products Act.

One stock that has been in bounce mode in recent action is MYM NUTRACEUTICALS ORD (OTCMKTS:MYMMF). The jump comes in the wake of the stock’s break down through a key support level last week. This is a very interesting pre-revenue player in the Canadian cannabis patch. The company is working with a strong balance sheet and looking to establish larger scale operations, meaning that the essential work here is as much about regulatory issues as anything else.

66 out of 371 companies currently listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange have cannabis-related businesses.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE), an alternative stock exchange in Canada, has partnered with New York-headquartered the OTC (over-the-counter) Markets Group to offer early-stage companies a new initial public offering program in North America, and they are setting their cap at Israeli startups.