When Mackenzie Mroz was a teenager, she dealt with constant back pain and lockjaw. The pain was so severe she started taking Advil to the point she'd faint after playing hockey while her stomach bled.

"I was so focused on trying to excel in hockey that I was ruining and deteriorating my health," she said.

Mroz, now 23, started searching for a remedy she could use to get rid of the pain that would allow her to go on to play college hockey. It didn't take long to find the medicine she was looking for. Her solution was cannabis.

So impressed by the medicinal benefits, Mroz decided to start sketching out plans for a marijuana business with her business partner and boyfriend Kolten Sinkovits in 2015.

The marijuana industry has taken the stock market by storm in 2018 -- and for good reason.

A little more than a month ago, Canada became the first industrialized country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis, which paves the way for Canadian pot stocks to grab their piece of what might be a $5-billion-plus pie.

Mind you, this sales estimate from Wall Street doesn't take into account the potential for Canadian-based marijuana stocks to find new overseas sales channels, so it's likely conservative.

Poor Aurora Cannabis (NYSE:ACB) and Canopy Growth(NYSE:CGC). They're the two biggest marijuana producers in the world in terms of capacity. They've both built major operations in Canada, Europe, and across the world. But neither of the companies can do business in the biggest marijuana market of all -- the U.S.

CBD Oil has become very popular in the market due to its various health benefits. This is a chemical extracted from the cannabis plant. CBD stands for cannabidiol and has all the benefits of cannabis extract minus the high.

The University of British Columbia is creating a new professorship to study the potential role of marijuana to treat opioid addiction, a move that faculty members say will begin to fill a cannabis research gap.

Epidemiologist and research scientist M-J Milloy has been appointed as the Canopy Growth professor of cannabis science at the university.

"Dr. M-J Milloy will be Western Canada's first cannabis science professor at the University of British Columbia and the first professor in Canada focused on researching the role cannabis can play in the overdose crisis," Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy said at the announcement Friday.

Between January and September, more than 1,100 people died from suspected opioid overdoses, according to the ministry.

Canada currently finds itself at the intersection of two historic social phenomena with massive implications for public health.

First, after decades of restricting public access to marijuana, on Oct. 17, Canada became the first major industrial nation to fully legalize cannabis for both medicinal and recreational usage.

Second, we find ourselves in the throes of a worsening opioid addiction crisis that has already caused the deaths of thousands of Canadians, young and old.

The interactions between opioids and cannabis have been explored at the clinical and pharmacological levels for decades. But the potential of cannabis to modulate the addictive effects of a much harder opioid class drug such as heroin or fentanyl is just beginning to be explored.

Environmental activists are working closely with marijuana activists who want to legalize popular marijuana products. They believe that green leaving and cannabis legalization are closely intertwined. This is because cannabis is natural and better for the environment than pharmaceuticals and other drugs.

Unfortunately, they faced a little bit of a setback in Canada. The Canadian government isn’t legalizing a couple popular products. What does this mean long-term?

The marijuana industry has seemingly been breaking down barriers at every turn in 2018Opens a New Window.. Just to provide a quick overview, investors have thus far witnessed:

Earlier this year, three major cannabis producers introduced another innovative product to the market: cannabis capsules.

Weed has only been legalized in Canada for one month, and weed supply has already become a major issue. In Alberta, the province has had to completely halt any new applications to open marijuana retail stores. They've even begun to give refunds to hopeful weed stores owners who applied to open a store all because of marijuana shortages.