The Canadian cannabis industry is still reeling from sky-high demand in the second week of legalization, with growers expressing frustration at the length of time it’s taking to get licensed as shelves sit empty.

“We’re biting our nails and I think our shareholders are biting their nails too,” said Anthony Durkacz, director at FSD Pharma Inc., an Ontario-based producer that received its cultivation license a year ago and is still waiting for its sales license. “We want to be supplying.”

The executive director of the NHL Alumni Association says he’s “all-in” when it comes to finding out if cannabis will be able to one day replace opioid-based painkillers.

Speaking at an event earlier this week, Glenn Healy said he’s spent the past 10 months investigating whether marijuana, which became legal in Canada on Oct. 17, can help former players.

But Healy cautioned the alumni association isn’t there yet.

Legalization Day in Canada has come and gone in a pretty Canadian manner – polite, cheerful cannabis enthusiasts forming orderly lines at retail outlets (or online), with none of the widely-predicted reefer madness or workplace apotcalypses.

But while recreational consumers in many provinces enjoyed the novelty of going to the weed store or smoking in the street with impunity, medical users are facing the onset of a new budgetary challenge.

Just as the legal cannabis industry has exploded in recent years, so too has a sector that revolves around the plant's non-psychoactive cousin: hemp-based cannabidiol (CBD). Hemp-derived CBD products continue to dominate the cannabis market as less legal restrictions allow for companies to expand new products to previously untapped consumer segments. The demand for hemp-based cannabidiol has skyrocketed, especially since a 2013 CNN report about the success in Colorado of Charlotte's Web, a CBD product that helped a young epileptic girl control her seizures. CBD is expected to become a billion dollar industry itself and could potentially eclipse the entire traditional cannabis market, according to analysts.

Darius Cain, 19, inhales a large amount of smoke from the cannabis concentrate "shatter" at a Weeds shop in Vancouver. The hit leaves him a little glassy-eyed and very cheerful.

Last Wednesday — when cannabis became legal across the country — was Cain's first visit to the dispensary. He's been back every day or two since.

On Monday, he wasn't buying anything to take home, just enjoying the shatter — what's known as "dabs." "Just dabs and that's it, then I go back home and have a nap, wake back up and that's it," said Cain. "Just a simple life." Cain is finding what he's looking for in the Vancouver dispensary market, but it's outside the bounds of the new laws, and for many in Vancouver, legalization has actually made cannabis harder to get. 

Legal recreational cannabis in Canada is less than a week into its tenure and already dispensaries across the country are emptying their shelves.

In Quebec, only a few dozens products are still in stock according to the SQDC website. SQDC stores, too, appear to be running out of cannabis.

There's no telling when the demand for cannabis and the government-controlled supply chain will balance.

But in the meantime, enthusiastic Canadians have grabbed up a massive quantity of marijuana.

Now, consumers are taking to the internet to review and rank products from across the country.

The cannabis internet culture has always existed, but now legalization has pulled it out of its shadowy depths to the forefront of public conversation about the drug.

A new, state-of-the-art cannabis cultivation and extraction facility has opened in Halifax. GrowForce, a Canadian-based company that operates a complete seed-to-sale cannabis platform under Health Canada’s Cannabis Act, and Halifax-based AtlantiCann Medical Inc. (AMI), a licensed producer and member of the BANC group of companies, announced the opening of their newly built, 48,000 sq ft facility at the official ribbon cutting ceremony.

 Eve & Co Inc. (TSXV:EVE), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Natural Medco Ltd., is a Licensed Producer and seller of dried cannabis and cannabis plants under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations. Natural Medco is Canada’s first female-founded Licensed Producer and received its cultivation license from Health Canada in 2016 followed by its sales license in June 2018. Eve & Co commenced trading on TSX Venture Exchange on July 4, 2018.

Since last week, many Canadian citizens are rejoicing as the Cannabis Act went into effect.

Canada becomes just the second country in the world to fully legalize recreational marijuana.

But how does this impact the nation’s most popular pastime? What does this mean for the NHL?

What is it?

The two main components of cannabis plants are cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Both have many similar medical benefits but aren’t the same. The former is the nonpsychoactive ingredient whereas the latter is the chemical that gives users the high that is typically associated with marijuana. Athletes tend to use CBD products more so for that reason.

The Cannabis Act has officially come into force, meaning Canadians can now legally possess and consume recreational cannabis (with some restrictions, of course).

Travelling cannasseurs can now rejoice at not having to search through every bit of luggage before hopping over to a domestic destination (border crossing with weed is still illegal).

Here are the most common modes of transportation and how to stay compliant when you travel with cannabis.

Domestic flights

According to a statement from Transport Canada, “after October 17, 2018, passengers will be permitted to have a legal amount of cannabis, which is 30 grams, in either their carry on or checked bag, if they are flying to a domestic destination.”