Marijuana, long snuck on to college and university campuses for use in bongs and joints, is now being grown legally at several academic institutions across the country.

Eight academic institutions have obtained licences from Health Canada to cultivate cannabis for scientific purposes, allowing them to closely study the drug that was legalized for recreational use in October.

Some received special licences a few months before legalization and will be moving to licences with fewer restrictions in the future. The University of Guelph is one of them. Max Jones, an assistant professor in the department of agriculture, received cannabis plants several weeks ago after the school was granted a license in September.

On October 17, 2018, Canada became the first G7 nation to fully legalize recreational cannabis. Cue the speculators. As a massive, formerly black market transforms into an above-board one, companies from around the globe in a range of disparate industries—agriculture, yes, but also tobacco, beer, software, and even fashion and design—aim to cash in.

But no one knows exactly how large this market will be. Both immediately and in the coming years, attitudes about marijuana in Canada inevitably will change. Meanwhile, the unknowns are impacting everything from share prices to government policies. As jurisdictions in the U.S. and around the world ponder changing their own cannabis laws, they’re watching to see how the numbers shake down in Canada.

Now that cannabis has been legalized in Canada, we need to shift our conversation from the theoretical to reality. At CAA South Central Ontario, what we're focused on, day in and day out, is how to keep our roads and road users safe.

We recently commissioned a study conducted by Ipsos that found Ontario drivers are concerned that the legalization of cannabis may impact their safety behind the wheel. Sixty-eight per cent believe there will be more cannabis-impaired drivers on the road following the legalization. In fact, the study revealed that 1.9 million Ontarians have driven under the influence of cannabis. Among current cannabis users, over half feel that they drive worse than a sober driver when under the influence of cannabis.

Seven per cent of Haligonians have purchased legal pot since Oct. 17 and another 20 per cent intend to soon, a new poll shows.

The survey, conducted by Corporate Research Associates as part of a quarterly look at the Atlantic region’s four largest cities, found that actual trends mostly matched expectations.

Last fall, results from a CRA poll suggested that 9 per cent of adult New Brunswickers and 10 per cent of adult Nova Scotians intended to buy marijuana from a legal vendor after the legalization date.

The latest poll, released Wednesday, found that that 10 per cent of Moncton and Fredericton residents, 9 per cent of Saint John residents, and 7 per cent of Halifax residents have purchased cannabis legally since stores opened last month.

If one looks to industries like beer, wine or even coffee—each has its own exams and series of certifications to test one’s own sensory realms. Those who clear these high hurdles are called things like sommeliers, cicerone or Q-graders.

In order to run some of the leading cannabis firms in the world, it seems reasonable that one of the prerequisites of the job would be to have an extensive history of using marijuana from back when it was still considered an outlaw substance. But that is not necessarily the case, according to a recent surveyfrom BNN Bloomberg.

It seems that a small percentage of CEOs responsible for the day-to-day operations of cannabis companies in the U.S. and Canada do not use marijuana, while many others will not admit whether they do or not.

Desperate times call for desperate measures in Canada’s supply-constrained pot industry.

National Access Cannabis Corp., the country’s largest private marijuana retailer with 17 stores, has a team of five people watching 24/7 for new inventory from Alberta’s provincial regulator, which controls wholesale pot distribution. “At 3:30 in the morning all of a sudden $4,000 worth of inventory is made available yet in seven minutes it’s drawn down, meaning that other big competitors are doing the same thing,” Mark Goliger, chief executive officer of Ottawa-based NAC, said in a phone interview Friday.

Marijuana for adult-use is now legal in Canada, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that employers all across the country are all of sudden on board with weed in the same way they are with alcohol.

Unfortunately, science has yet to catch up with the legalization movement, making it difficult for companies to tell the difference between workers who got stoned last night and the ones that are high on the job.

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.