You can have your pot-infused cake and eat it too, but Canada’s regulations on edibles and the new wave of cannabis products coming mid-December won’t let producers mix buds and suds.

Health Canada’s regulations for edible drinks include the stipulation that alcohol-related terms like “beer” and “wine” can’t be used to market pot drinks as officials warn alcohol and cannabis should never be consumed together.

“You’re going to have to call it a cannabis-infused yeast extract,” Darrell Dexter, executive director of the Cannabis Beverage Producers Alliance and former premier of Nova Scotia, joked in a panel discussion.

While cannabis beer won’t be allowed, the industry’s largest companies are still striking deals with breweries.

It turns out fewer people enjoyed consuming cannabis through a softgel pill or oil than Canopy Growth Corp. had first hoped.

That lack of consumer interest in those cannabis products led Canopy Growth, the world's largest cannabis company, to report $47.9 million in charges, including a $15.9 million inventory write-down, while booking a steeper-than-expected loss in its fiscal second-quarter.

The Smiths Falls, Ont.-based pot producer reported a $374.6 million net loss in the quarter, mainly attributed to a restructuring of its portfolio of cannabis softgels and oils after recording “returns, return provisions, and pricing allowances” during the period.

As Health Canada continues to piece together the jigsaw puzzle that is the domestic cannabis market, many forward-thinking companies are looking abroad to secure their global leadership positions.

The establishment of a commercial, domestic medical program in 2013, coupled with the October 2018 launch of adult-use access, ushered in a wave of zealous capital and entrepreneurship. This fervour may enable Canada to leverage its first-mover status and author the blueprint for others; however, its relatively small population simply does not offer a sizable enough addressable market to scale into the sphere of global dominance.

Cannabis growers in Alberta are about to be hit with higher taxes.

The province is changing the rules, so pot producers are no longer treated like farms, which pay zero in municipal taxes.

Municipal Affairs Minister Kaycee Madu made the announcement Wednesday at the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) convention.

“This change responds directly to the concerns of municipalities, who asked for this distinction in provincial tax regulations. While cannabis is a burgeoning industry, it is important that cannabis-production facilities, which are heavy users of municipal services, pay their share for those services.”

Cannabis company Cronos Group Inc. reported a profit in its third quarter, boosted by an $835-million gain in derivative liabilities, as revenue grew to $12.7 million.

The company says its net profit amounted to $788 million or 53 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That compared with a loss of $7.3 million or four cents per share in the same quarter last year.

Cronos says its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amoritization amounted to a loss of $23.9 million in its most recent quarter compared with a loss of $3.2 million a year ago.

Revenue was up from $3.8 million in the same quarter last year and up from $10.2 million in the second quarter of 2019.

It's a basic tenet of retailing: if you want to reach more customers, you need more locations. And according to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, that principle applies to pot just as much any other product. 

The chamber says people in this province are open to allowing a bigger role for private industry in providing convenient access to cannabis, if it helps get rid of the black market — pointing to a Nanos survey conducted online at the end of October.

The poll, released Thursday, suggests 51 per cent of Ontarians would favour allowing private-sector companies to purchase, distribute and sell cannabis, with the province's oversight. But not everyone's convinced it will get rid of the illegal market, especially heavy smokers like Abi Roach. 

Canadian securities regulators are calling on companies in the cannabis industry to strengthen their governance and disclosure practices to ensure investors are aware of potential conflicts of interest for executives and directors relating to M&A activity.

The Canadian Securities Administrators, an umbrella organization for provincial securities regulators, issued a staff notice on Tuesday saying it will monitor developments in the cannabis industry after observing a “higher-than-usual crossover” of potential conflicts of interest, such as overlapping debt and equity, in the sector’s M&A transactions over the past several years.