The shops in the ByWard Market, Centretown and Wellington West Village are among only a handful that will open across the province.

The province had wanted 25 cannabis stores to open by April 1, but many won’t be ready on time.

Ontario residents have been able to buy online at the Ontario Cannabis Store since Canada legalized recreational marijuana on Oct. 17. But bricks-and-mortar shops will bring the still-novel experience of legally purchasing weed to another level.

Expect lineups.

The proprietors of Superette on Wellington Street West have promised a staffer will monitor whether customers are blocking the entrances of neighbouring businesses or parking illegally on adjoining streets.

The “POTio” will be created in an outdoor area normally reserved for cigarette smokers at the provincially-owned Ontario Place.

The lounge is billed as a place where festival goers can “come down” from the beer and explore the world of cannabis while being educated about how to consume it responsibly.

The POTio might be a first, but organizers of other festivals and events across Ontario are grappling with how to handle the first summer of legal recreational pot.

Some events already ban smoking. But others are faced with the new reality in Ontario: people are generally allowed to smoke pot wherever tobacco smoking is allowed.

Festivals are taking different approaches.

As the global pet care market continues it seemingly never-ending rise, year after year all things point to the fact that CBD infused products will be among the winners in the race to revenues. Given the sheer size of this industry, it's no wonder cannabis companies are expecting CBD-for-pets to garner a large share of the market. Here are some background projection numbers for the overall pet care market: Statista.com presents a forecast in pet store revenue in the United States from 2018 to 2023. It is projected that U.S. pet store sales will grow from around 19.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2018 to approximately 22.39 billion U.S.

Legal pot shops in Ontario should average more than $1.25 million in sales a month once they open, a Brock University business expert estimates.

"That's a very rough ballpark figure," said Michael Armstrong, an associate professor at the Goodman School of Business.

Among the variables Armstrong considered was Quebec's legal market, where stores average almost $900,000 a month in sales and charge $7.27 a gram including taxes.

The data indicates that the overall Canadian cannabis market will grow by 50 percent to reach C$11 billion in 2025.

EY projects that the supply of cannabis will top demand within the next five years.

According to the firm, if this prediction comes true, the average cost of wholesale dried flower will decrease to between C$4 and C$5.

In February, The GrowthOp reported on the average price of dried marijuana for each province in Canada.

Cannabis is a family of plants with two primary classifications, Indica and Sativa. Despite the two falling under one cannabis family, they are widely different in their biological makeup and effects. Although marijuana can fall into either family, marijuana is linked to having psychoactive effects on the user because of its tetrahydrocannabinol or THC component-heavy makeup. On the other hand, hemp does not provide psychoactive effects because of its main component, cannabidiol or CBD and while marijuana can contain anywhere from 15% to 40% of THC concentration, hemp normally contains less than 0.3%. In fact, it is the heavy THC concentration within marijuana which caused international organizations to put restrictions on the plant, making it one of the most enforced drugs worldwide.

 Although often overshadowed by the importance of marijuana retail and branding, cannabis extraction is a vital component of any vertically integrated cannabis company. Not only do in-house extraction operations allow cannabis companies to avoid outsourcing costs, but it also enables the potential for additional revenue streams and more rapid product ideation. With cannabis edibles, extracts, and topicals expected to be legal in the Canadian market later this year, we examine some of the marijuana industry’s largest cannabis extractors.

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all rule when it comes to where people can smoke cannabis and where they can’t in Canada. To be on the right side of the law, it’s best to get familiar with the rules of the particular locale.

Where smoking or vaping cannabis is allowed in Canada varies depending on the province or territory, and also the city. With plenty of similarities and differences among the many jurisdictions, that means there’s no blanket answer that applies to all Canadians looking to consuming legal cannabis. So what may be fine and dandy for your friend living in, say, Hamilton, Ont., might not be the case for you in Canmore, Alta.

One of the new frontiers for cannabis investing may not be the frothy windfall that some companies are expecting, a new report suggests.

The opportunity for cannabidiol – the cannabis compound du jour that’s better known as CBD – in Europe is forecast to grow at a heady clip over the next several years, but the continent is rife with a complex regulatory patchwork that could make the sector difficult to navigate, according to Bethany Gomez, managing director at Brightfield Group, which released a report Tuesday analyzing Europe's legal CBD market. 

"Europe is a very nascent cannabis market," Gomez said in a phone interview with BNN Bloomberg. "It’s just starting to take off but tailwinds are there."

Investorideas.com, a leading investor news resource covering hemp and cannabis stocks releases a snapshot looking at the CBD and cannabis infused beverage sector and how companies are preparing to enter this new market segment.

In recent news, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said his agency has plans to regulate CBD edibles and will start holding public hearings on the matter as early as April.