Under-pressure Canadian producer Hexo has launched a new budget range of cannabis flower products as prices look set to crash.

Hexo, which recently downgraded its revenue projections and laid off 200 staff, says its  value brand – Original Stash – will retail at around $3.40 per gram – around half the average Canadian selling price.

Blame Mom and Pop.

That’s the increasingly common refrain from publicly traded cannabis companies and professional investors who have watched stock prices crater over the past several months.

With large institutions still reluctant to invest in pot, Canadian retail investors continue to dominate the public floats of many cannabis companies, especially those that operate in the U.S. where marijuana remains federally illegal.

Even with cannabis 2.0 easing into the rear view mirror, it’s worth paying attention to several new and noteworthy cannabis products.

Among the more innovative products to gain traction recently are the zero-waste carbon filters from the Toronto-based startup Blade Filters. Carbon filters are often used in grow rooms to eliminate odours and harmful organic compounds.

The three founders—Giancarlo Sessa, Aedan Fida and Joseph Fida—all recent graduates, have developed replaceable carbon cartridges for grow rooms as opposed to the current solution of replacing the entire filter.

CannTrust Holdings Inc. has submitted a remediation plan to Health Canada as part of its efforts to regain the regulator’s trust and return to compliance.

The embattled cannabis producer says it’s aiming to complete all of the activities detailed within the plan by the end of the first quarter of next year, according to a release late Thursday.

Health Canada suspended the company’s sales and production licences in September after a number of regulatory missteps came to light, starting in July.

The plan includes “an expanded internal training program, a strengthened governance and operations framework, infrastructure enhancements, and prescribed accountabilities and timelines for a variety of specified tasks,” the company said.

During a year in which pot stocks have cratered, the outlook for earnings has become hazier than almost any other sector.

The average spread between the highest and lowest analyst estimate for full-year earnings per share is $1.15 (US$0.88) for the 10 largest cannabis stocks, wider than any other sector on the S&P/TSX Composite Index excluding financials, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

For example, full-year adjusted EPS estimates for Canopy Growth Corp., the largest pot company by market value, range from a loss of $5.47 to a loss of 44 cents. Cronos Group Inc.’s estimates range from a loss of $1.40 to a profit of $2.14.

By comparison, the average spread for consumer staples is 27 cents and the average spread for energy is 79 cents.

The past few months in the pot stock market have been less than kind for investors. Well, pot stocks do seem to be a fast-paced market, volatility seems to strike at certain times. This is due to a variety of factors including speculation and the infancy of the market overall. One of the key positives to note is that the industry is shifting toward reaching a higher level of maturity overall. With this maturity level should come some stabilization of the rapid price action we have seen.

Bringing legalized marijuana to market has proven costly for Alberta, with no sign it will turn a profit anytime soon.

The UCP budget, tabled Thursday, projects cannabis income will remain negative over the next four years, despite previous estimates it would make the province money come 2020.

Following a revenue loss of $34 million in 2018-19, further shortfalls are expected in each of the next four fiscal years: $31 million in 2019-20; $34 million in 2020-21; $24 million in 2021-22 and $25 million in 2022-23.

The net income projections include retailer fees and sales revenue, minus administration and inventory costs, according to budget documents.

Canopy Growth (CGC) (WEED) is one of the prominent players in the cannabis industry. The markets expected that the company could reach 1 billion Canadian dollars in sales for fiscal 2020. Due to headwinds in the cannabis industry, can we still expect the company to deliver such high sales?