The Canadian government has released the November 2016 report that was filed in Ottawa by the Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation.  This report contains the findings and official recommendations of the task force for establishing legal cannabis across Canada.

In total the document contains 112 pages and covers issues from cultivation licenses, to processing, and distribution to taxation and home growing. Everyone interested in cannabis as an industry or as a medicine should read this document.

For growers I have summarized the main points that the Task Force recommends:

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Say what you will about his methods, but Canada’s self-proclaimed “Prince of Pot” knows how to make an entrance.

Throngs of admirers stood in the snow Thursday and cheered Marc Emery on as he rolled up to the opening of an illegal marijuana dispensary on Mont-Royal Ave. He held court in the shop for half an hour as he made an impassioned case for the legalization of pot — leaning on logic-based arguments honed over a career of marijuana advocacy.

Then he reached into a jar full of weed nuggets, held one up for the crowd to see and shouted “Who wants a free nug?” The audience hollered in approval.

Yes, the unveiling of an illegal dispensary actually ended in a massive weed giveaway.

About a year ago, I visited Seattle to see how pot legalization was going. Not well, as it turned out.

A few years earlier, Washington State became one of the first U.S. jurisdictions to vote in favour of legalizing and regulating the sale of marijuana for recreational use. In 2014, the system designed to manage the commercialization process was operational – and it didn’t take long for some early grumbling to become a nascent revolt.

A medical marijuana company says it is expanding production with a massive new grow facility at the Edmonton International Airport.

Aurora Cannabis says the airport is close to customs for importing the supplies and equipment it needs and the location will make it easier to export pot to its customers in Canada and eventually to other countries where marijuana is legal.

The company says the 74,000-square-metre facility, called Aurora Sky, will be larger than 16 football fields and will be capable of producing more than 100,000 kilograms of cannabis per year.

Aurora vice-president Cam Battley said the new operation will help meet growing demand for medical marijuana and position it to supply recreational pot once it is legalized by the federal government.

Ohio's medical-marijuana program is coming into focus with rules now proposed for cultivators who grow it, doctors who recommend it for patients, and dispensaries that sell it.

The latest development came Thursday when the Ohio Board of Pharmacy recommended that 40 dispensaries be scattered around the state to sell medical marijuana to qualifying patients. That number is far fewer than the 1,150 dispensaries proposed in a medical-marijuana ballot issue defeated by Ohio voters in 2015.

A second set of state rules rolled out Thursday details how Ohio physicians can recommend but not prescribe medical marijuana for patients.

Premier Kathleen Wynne is keeping an open mind about what — if any — role the Liquor Control Board of Ontario will have in the recreational marijuana business.

In her first public statement since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal task force on legalization released its recommendations Tuesday, Wynne was noncommittal when asked about the LCBO’s involvement in cannabis sales.

Who knew Liberal governance would descend so quickly into high farce?

There was the righteous online mockery of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s woefully miscalibrated (and/or entirely sincere) statement mourning Fidel Castro’s passing.

There was Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef’s jaw-dropping attack on the electoral reform committee for not fulfilling its mandate, which it had; her apology for the attack; and then her flailing, incoherent ongoing attempts to portray the Liberals’ promise to ditch first-past-the-post elections as anything better than an insincere election promise gone to seed.

John Stewart was at the helm of Purdue Pharma in 2013. He was in the business of making Oxycontin, a prescription opioid painkiller that has addicted an estimated 1.9 million Americans and led to countless overdose deaths. In fact, between 1999 and 2012, accidental overdoses from prescription painkillers quadrupled. In 2015, a gut-wrenching 55,403 lethal drug overdoses were reported.

“There is a lot of anti-opioid sentiment,” says John Stewart. “And certainly based on the social disruption that we’ve seen it’s understandable.”

A little three-page document published this week in the U.S. Federal Register sent some fairly big shock waves through the cannabis industry.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration filed a final rule notice to establish a Controlled Substances Code Number for “marihuana extract,” and subsequently maintaining marijuana, hemp and their derivatives as Schedule I substances. According to the notice:

This code number will allow DEA and DEA-registered entities to track quantities of this material separately from quantities of marihuana. This, in turn, will aid in complying with relevant treaty provisions.