Stock prices for Canada's cannabis companies have been struggling since marijuana was made fully legal there last year.

The province will ban ads promoting vaping products in Ontario convenience stores and gas stations beginning in January.

In a release from the Ministry of Health on Friday morning, the province says the new rules will mean that vapes and vape accessories can only be promoted inside specialty vape stores and cannabis retail stores — both of which are only open to people who are 19 and older.

"Restricting the promotion of vapour products will help prevent youth from being exposed and influenced by promotion in retail settings," Health Minister Christine Elliott said in the release.

Roughly one year ago, the Canadian pot industry could do no wrong. Marijuana stocks in our neighbor to the north were near their all-time highs, and investors were content in the fact that Canada had just become the first industrialized country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis. Sales officially began on Oct. 17, 2018.

On October 18, research firm Stifel Financial Corp identified its new top cannabis pick. Stifel’s new report, titled “Crowning a New King of the North,” believes that this pot stock has the greatest ability to invest in the emerging $200 billion global cannabis opportunity.

That’s a huge advantage given that most cannabis ETFs are down more than 50% from their 2019 highs. Those that can continue to invest can capitalize on industry-wide pain.

XPhyto Therapeutics has entered into an exclusive two-year European consulting agreement with Canadian cannabis expert Stephen Schroeder to work on the design, renovation, and commissioning of XPhyto’s state-of-the-art hydroponics and extraction facility in Germany.

A science-based cannabis company, XPhyto is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, and it is focused on formulation, clinical validation, and emerging European markets. Its German subsidiary, Bunker Pflanzenextrakte GmbH, holds a cannabis cultivation and extraction licence for scientific purposes granted by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) in July 2019.

One full year into Canada’s bold marijuana legalization experiment, and the overwhelming consensus is it’s been a dud. High prices, inferior quality, supply issues and a slow legal store rollout have all contributed to a persistent cannabis black market.

A year after the legalization of recreational cannabis, Nunavut is still struggling to make a dent in its black market.

Territorial finance minister George Hickes told the legislative assembly this week that online sales are not doing the trick and a retail option is needed to compete with illegal sales. Cannabis users can only legally obtain the drug through Tweed and Vertical Cannabis.

The east and west coasts are reaping some of the largest gains in Canadian retail cannabis sales according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada.

B.C. sales nearly doubled from July 2019 to August 2019, leaping from $5.9 million in sales to $11.9 million.

On the other side of Canada, New Brunswick recorded a near 60 per cent gain in the same time period, earning $5.3 million in August 2019 compared to $3.3 million the month before. Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia also saw double-digit growth.

Licensed cannabis producers are optimistic that the introduction of legal edibles will help displace the black market, but analysts say it will take time to displace illegal sales. 

Edmonton-based cannabis producer Aurora is launching a line of edibles that include chocolates, gummies and vaping products. 

The company has submitted its products to Health Canada for approval and could begin selling them as of mid-December.

Canadians are purchasing edibles from the black market because they're interested in alternative ways of getting high, said Aurora chief corporate officer Cam Battley.

He thinks many of those consumers will migrate to the legal market in search of safer products that are properly dosed. 

With innovation leading the charge for a brighter marijuana stock market, it seems as though only a few select companies have been able to compete for the top spot. These pot stocks are working to completely reshape the industry so that it continues to grow into the coming years. With so many different marijuana stocks to watch, it seems as though the choice of finding one with value can at times be difficult.