Just days after a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate its grand opening, a medical marijuana company in Fort Erie has been purchased by a major player in the burgeoning weed market.

The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) is “back on track” according to the province’s finance minister, with legal pot now expected to arrive on doorsteps within one to three business days of the order being placed.

The government-run online retail store has been plagued with problems since its launch on Oct. 17, the day marijuana was legalized in Canada. Some customers experienced long wait times for delivery and others had incorrect orders arrive at the door.

Immediately after the online store opened, it received more than 100,000 orders in 24 hours. Within days, customers were warned that deliveries would be delayed up to five days.

Now that recreational cannabis is legal in Canada, producers are looking forward to what they're calling the "second wave" of legalization — edibles, drinks and vaping products expected to become legal starting next year. 

Bruce Linton, the founder and co-CEO of Canopy Growth, said new products developed by Tweed — the cannabis brand owned by Canopy and based in Smiths Falls — represent the next big opportunity.

"I think if you're not preparing things two years in advance, you're never ready," he said. 

"Right now, none of the chocolate or gummy bears or beverages can be prepared or sold, but we're doing experiments on how to make them."

Drink companies and other investors have begun making moves to profit from the cannabis industry through a series of M&A deals. In Canada, the recent legislation of use of recreational cannabis use has given a boost to the adoption of the industry in North America, as well as the US midtermswhich saw Attorney General Jeff Sessions (opposed to legalization of cannabis) step down.

That means more licences for both producers and their grow areas need to be issued by Health Canada, said Allan Rewak, executive director of the Cannabis Council of Canada.

“Absolutely, we need more licensed producers, we need Health Canada to approve more production sites,” said Rewak, adding his group represents 85 per cent of the legal cultivation space in Canada.

“We’re talking to them every day.”

On April 1 last year, Sylvain Karpunski's vegan food company alerted its social media followers to a new creation: the "red eye," a meatless sausage made with organic cannabis.

It was an April Fool's joke, of course, but his customers were clearly intrigued. The post went "crazy," recalled Karpunski, founder and CEO of Gusta Foods.

"It got hundreds of shares."

Karpunski was among more than 100 entrepreneurs, marketers, bakers and chocolatiers who crammed into a Montreal hotel conference room late last month to learn how to cash in on what many view as the next golden opportunity in cannabis: edibles.

"We know there is enormous potential," he said.

The day cannabis became legal in Canada, media coverage included jokes about grocery stores selling out of Doritos and tales about a plucky Girl Guideselling out of cookies outside of a dispensary. Amusing though they may be, wisecracks about the munchies obscured a much bigger and surprising public health note: Weed might actually help people lose weight.

Scotiabank began coverage on shares of Aphria (OTCMKTS:APHQF) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, October 17th. The brokerage issued a buy rating on the stock. Separately, Cann initiated coverage on shares of Aphria in a report on Friday, October 12th. They set a sell rating and a $19.00 price target for the company.

Shares of OTCMKTS:APHQF traded down $0.30 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $12.31. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,299,881 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,530,405. Aphria has a fifty-two week low of $5.86 and a fifty-two week high of $19.87.

Some illegal cannabis seed vendors are reporting big spikes in sales since recreational cannabis was legalized last month, driven by the lack of legal seed supply outside the medical marijuana system.

Among the legal changes that took place on Oct. 17, adults across Canada, with the exception of those in Manitoba and Quebec, are now permitted to grow up to four cannabis plants per household.

The sales jump during a normally sluggish season – when seedlings are not planted outdoors – comes as several provinces confirm seeds are not yet being offered for sale by licensed vendors. In the absence of legal supply, business has been booming for unlicensed producers mopping up some of that demand.

A Regina man has turned the cultivation of personal cannabis into a business, offering classes to people who wish to learn how to grow it at home.

Jeremy Drummond, the co-owner of The Grow Room, opened his shop on Oct. 17, the same day that the recreational use of marijuana was legalized in Canada.

“This has always been sort of underground, and now that it is out in the open, we feel that it needs to be supported in a safe way,” Drummond told CTV Saskatchewan. “Doing that with educational classes is a really great place to start.”