It’s becoming clear cannabis edibles, extracts and topicals probably won’t be a part of holiday shopping this year as provincial regulators can only order products as of Dec. 16.

While storeowners were hoping to bank off the bud and customers were hoping to get high this season, the anticipation for new products will have to spill into January 2020.

But how much will that sting?

Jon Kamin, chief revenue officer at Lift & Co., says it’s a hard question to answer.

“It might have been a good revenue bump for the market as a whole,” he said in a phone interview.

“But it’s such a cluttered media landscape right now … it might’ve actually been very difficult to introduce a new brand given the noise.”

Of the many things we have learned from almost 100 years of drug prohibition, it is obvious to all but the most ideological that public health education and the cultivation of norms for responsible use of potentially toxic substances are more effective tools for the management of complex policy problems — particularly those that involve human appetites — than the hammer of law enforcement, courts and prisons.

The legalization of cannabis has shown Canadians that public policy can trade a big problem — the mass criminalization of racialized and inner-city youth — for the slightly smaller, more manageable ones that concern safe and responsible consumption of a regulated substance.

Cannabis 2.0 likely won’t come in time for Christmas after all.

Reps in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec all say they expect the first sales of edibles, extracts and topicals to come no sooner than January 2020.

And if anything does come before then it will be a “very limited supply.”

Dec. 16, 2019, is the earliest date that notified products in the new classes could be made available for sale to authorized distributors and sellers in provinces and territories.

And the battle begins in earnest.

With the introduction of edible, beverage, vape and other new products over the coming months, the country’s legal pot industry will finally bring both passive fists to the fight with its shadowy, illicit counterpart, experts say.

And the range of confections, booze alternatives and vaping products that will increasingly pack the shelves of pot stores — with the first wave expected to hit in January — is likely to attract vast numbers of new users to the pleasures and pitfalls of cannabis.

Jeff Weaver has been jumping through the legal hoops required to set up Jimmy's Cannabis shop in Cranbrook, B.C., but now an image of a famous Mountie Weaver used to cover one of the shop's windows has caught the attention of law enforcement.

Cannabis stores in B.C. are required to cover their windows so the interior can't be seen from the street.

Many shops use plain, frosted white coverings, but Weaver opted for a collection of black and white historical images representative of the Cranbrook area.

One of the windows depicts Sam Steele, known as the man who helped bring law and order to the west in the late 19th century.

Cannabis stocks have had a tough year. Since the summer, most marijuana ETFs have been cut in half. Yet the long-term promise remains clear. Many analysts expect global sales to hit $100 billion by 2030, representing 1,000% growth.

If you want to invest in cannabis stocks, it pays to have a multi-year vision. Still, short-term market gyrations can make some companies a bargain, and it’s important to capitalize before prices revert.

Canopy Growth Corporation (“Canopy Growth” or the “Company”) (TSX: WEED) (NYSE: CGC) is pleased to announce that effective January 14, 2020, David Klein has been appointed as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer.

With the rollout of its First & Free brand, Canopy Growth (TSX:WEED)