Grasslands Taber Cooperative CEO Lindsay Blackett, a former Alberta PC government cabinet minister will start the country's first cannabis cooperative ready to take root in Taber on Thursday, November 14, 2019. Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia

As grain elevators tumble to time, a terminal accepting cannabis shipments could soon be a replacement on the southern Alberta prairie.

That’s the goal of a group behind what they say is the country’s first craft cannabis collective, one that’ll host growers, processors, researchers and other links in the pot production and supply chain on 25 hectares of land in Taber.

One year ago, it looked as if the cannabis industry would not be stopped. Canada had just become the first industrialized country in the modern era to legalize recreational marijuana, derivative products were expected to be launched by no later than October 2019, and a number of states in the U.S. were newly legalizing marijuana in some capacity.

You can have your pot-infused cake and eat it too, but Canada’s regulations on edibles and the new wave of cannabis products coming mid-December won’t let producers mix buds and suds.

Health Canada’s regulations for edible drinks include the stipulation that alcohol-related terms like “beer” and “wine” can’t be used to market pot drinks as officials warn alcohol and cannabis should never be consumed together.

“You’re going to have to call it a cannabis-infused yeast extract,” Darrell Dexter, executive director of the Cannabis Beverage Producers Alliance and former premier of Nova Scotia, joked in a panel discussion.

While cannabis beer won’t be allowed, the industry’s largest companies are still striking deals with breweries.

A majority of Canadians support a temporary ban on e-cigarettes following a rise in serious lung damage, a new poll suggests.

The Research Co. survey found 74 per cent of those polled would agree with their province implementing a temporary ban on vaping products like a controversial one that has been implemented in Massachusetts.

Health agencies in North America are investigating the potential harms caused by vaping following a mysterious lung illness related to e-cigarettes.

As Health Canada continues to piece together the jigsaw puzzle that is the domestic cannabis market, many forward-thinking companies are looking abroad to secure their global leadership positions.

The establishment of a commercial, domestic medical program in 2013, coupled with the October 2018 launch of adult-use access, ushered in a wave of zealous capital and entrepreneurship. This fervour may enable Canada to leverage its first-mover status and author the blueprint for others; however, its relatively small population simply does not offer a sizable enough addressable market to scale into the sphere of global dominance.

Canadian securities regulators are calling on companies in the cannabis industry to strengthen their governance and disclosure practices to ensure investors are aware of potential conflicts of interest for executives and directors relating to M&A activity.

The Canadian Securities Administrators, an umbrella organization for provincial securities regulators, issued a staff notice on Tuesday saying it will monitor developments in the cannabis industry after observing a “higher-than-usual crossover” of potential conflicts of interest, such as overlapping debt and equity, in the sector’s M&A transactions over the past several years.

Cannabis producer Tilray (TLRY) expects its international medical business to balance out risks in Canada’s year-old recreational market. 

Speaking on a conference call following the company’s fiscal third quarter earnings release, chief financial officer Mark Castaneda said the company will achieve positive EBITDA by the fourth quarter of 2020, bolstered by strong medical sales.

“International medical is by far the highest margin part of the mix, and we expect significant increases in that business to offset any kind of risk on the Canadian adult-use side,” he told analysts after markets closed on Tuesday. “Having that extra leg of growth at high margin is a good hedge.”

Cannabis NB’s retail plan for the green stuff is in the red, with $3.5 million lost this year.

Michael Armstrong, an associate professor at Brock University’s Goodman School of Business in St. Catharines, Ont., isn’t surprised.

He told CBC News the introduction of edibles, tropicals and extracts will only work if the Crown corporation in New Brunswick can “get their price down and product quality up.”

“You’ve got to have the products available, which they are now that the shortages are largely gone,” he said, adding that he didn’t take early sales projections seriously because of the lack of product.

Canopy Growth (TSX:WEED)(NYSE:CGC) stock may have bottomed. It rallied 12.7% soon after the company announced that it was partnering with Canadian rapper, Aubrey Drake Graham, to launch the More Life Growth Company, a fully licensed Toronto-based cannabis producer.