West Vancouver residents are being encouraged to speak out on greening out.

Cannabis regulations for the District of West Vancouver are heading to a public hearing, following a unanimous vote from council June 25.

At the meeting, council got a first look at district staff’s proposed cannabis regulations bylaw, which seeks to prohibit the production and sale of retail cannabis in West Vancouver.

The sale and consumption of recreational marijuana becomes legal across Canada on Oct. 17. But while federal legislation will make non-medical cannabis legal across the country, it is being left up to provincial and local governments to determine how it will be distributed and retailed.

Canada is poised to be the second country in the world to legalize cannabis after Uruguay legalized marijuana's production, sale, and consumption in December 2013. There, the state controls all aspects of the marijuana market, which will be much like Canada’s upcoming plan.

The marijuana laws of these two countries will be even more liberal than the Netherlands, where recreational drugs are illegal, but a policy of tolerance is intact.

Second Cup Ltd. is discovering that the stock market’s madness for marijuana comes with a downside.

The Mississauga-based coffee chain, which has suffered from declining sales in recent years as it battles multinational behemoths such as Starbucks Corp. and McDonalds Corp., struck a deal in the spring to convert some of its cafés into cannabis dispensaries.

Its stock price quickly shot up to their highest point in years. Within days, the shares had gone up nearly 50 per cent, to more than $4, a level they had not seen since early 2015.

And since then? Investors have lost all of those gains, amid a volatile ride for the entire cannabis sector as the country edges toward legalization of the drug in October.

The anti-drug ads of the ‘80s were not, as David Hammond notes, terribly honest.

In one iconic (and, many critics say, moronic) TV spot, an actor stands in a kitchen, arms crossed, and asks, “Is there anyone out there who still isn’t clear about what doing drugs does?” He cracks an egg into a sizzling cast iron frying pan (it reportedly took several dozen eggs before actor John Roselius landed one in the middle without splitting the yolk). “This is your brain on drugs,” he said.

Hammond, a professor in the school of public health at the University of Waterloo, is among those who say the egg metaphor didn’t quite go over as planned. In addition to being mercilessly parodied, “it wasn’t really successful in discouraging young people in using the way it was intended.”

Canada listed cannabis firm Canopy Growth Corp (TSE:WEED) certainly seems to be a growth driver at Corona beer owner Constellation Brands Inc (NYSE:STZ).

The firm, which also owns Svedka vodka, said it had recognized gains of more than US$700mln since it invested in the weed giant in  October 2017.

A couple of years ago, a slick group of strangers showed up in the office of Edward Garcia, mayor of this sleepy town in a lush agricultural valley in central Colombia. They wanted to talk about marijuana.

National Access Cannabis Corp. ("NAC" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: META) today announced that the government of Manitoba has awarded the Company permission to operate ten privately owned retail cannabis stores, as well as an e-commerce platform, in the Province.

The initial ten recreational cannabis retail stores are planned to operate under NAC's retail brand Meta Cannabis Supply Co.™ ("META") and are expected to be located throughout the Province, including a planned four in Winnipeg, one in Brandon and five in smaller Manitoba municipalities. These premium stores will be built around a model of customer education, immersive retail environments, technology and quality cannabis and cannabis-related product offerings, with a balanced range of pricing and product lines.

New provincial rules have outlawed cannabis lounges designed for medical users as of July 1, but one owner in Windsor, Ont. refuses to shut down.

Higher Limits Cannabis Lounge, which calls itself the largest in Canada, has been open in the downtown area for two-and-a-half years and said they've seen more than 85,000 people come through the doors.

'I'm not shutting down'

I think we're going down a very slippery slope here where we start to discriminate against medical users.- Jon Liedtke, owner of Higher Limits

The new Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which came into effect on Canada Day, clearly states medical cannabis users cannot smoke or vape in enclosed public spaces. And that includes lounges designed specifically for that purpose.

Deep inside Simon Fraser University's halls, in the Morris J Wosk Centre for dialogue, a lecture was taking place.

There were students filling the seats, an eclectic crowd of young and old from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. At the front, an instructor was teaching using a PowerPoint presentation.

Standard university fare.

Except in front of the teacher, lining a table, were several marijuana products, from dry bud, to balms, to concentrated tinctures. 

It was a two-day recreational retail course for the so-called "budtenders" of the future.

Marijuana retailers in Squamish are thrilled that their product will soon be legal, though some details around how it will roll out depend on feedback from a public hearing on the subject.

The District will hold a hearing on proposed changes to bylaws around marijuana production and sales on July 17 – three months to the day before pot becomes legal across Canada.

This is part of a nationwide process sparked by the federal government's announcement that marijuana will become legal in Canada as of Oct. 17. The provincial government has outlined the processes for distribution, which fall along lines similar to alcohol sales. But it is for local governments to determine appropriate locations for pot shops, as well as licensing and business operations regulations.