Canada’s market for recreational cannabis is worth an estimated $4 to 7 billion annually, depending on who you ask.

That makes the question of who controls and profits from the industry one many people are watching closely.

Even as opinion stands divided on the economic and social gains on legalising cannabis, cannabis advocates are pointing to the gains made in the tourism sector by Colorado as a case study for all countries thinking of liberalizing cannabis laws.

According to a report commissioned by the Colorado Tourism Office, half of all the tourists visiting Colorado are influenced by the liberal cannabis laws. More than 20 percent of visitors also attest that Colorado's laws were "extremely influential."

AT A former Hershey’s chocolate factory just outside Ottawa a company called Tweed now produces a rather different confection: marijuana for Canada’s tightly regulated medical market. Under the gaze of surveillance cameras, scientists in lab coats concoct new cannabis-based blends in near-sterile conditions. A repurposed candy mixer does the blending. Only in the growing rooms does the spirit of Cheech and Chong, a stoned comedy duo, seem to preside: the plants have names like Black Widow, Deep Purple, Chem Dawg and Bubba Kush.

Illegal pot dispensaries, and the politicians who refuse to crack down on them, will make it very difficult for Ottawa to impose order on the industry.

On Monday Premier Kathleen Wynne declared that, should the new federal government make good on its promise to legalize marijuana, it “makes sense” for the LCBO to be the distribution mechanism for the sale of non-medical cannabis.

While the merits of that idea are open to debate, the conversation may be irrelevant as the federal government’s window of opportunity to properly regulate non-medical cannabis is rapidly closing.

Dan shines a light on the dark and dirty traditions of cannabis cultivation and argues that a sun-grown future is the only sustainable pathway for a burgeoning new industry. Recorded at TEDxVancouver at Rogers Arena on November 14, 2015.

YouTube tags: marijuana, grow op, cannabis, cannabis cultivation, sun-grown TED, TEDxVancouver, TEDxVancouver 2015, Vancouver, TEDx, Rogers Arena, Vancouver speakers, Vancouver conference, ideas worth spreading, great idea,

Center is biggest recent private investment in medical research, according to minister

Prague, (ČTK) — The International Cannabis and Cannaboids Institute (ICCI) was opened in Prague today with U.S. and Canadian investors contributing half a billion crowns, which Health Minister Svatopluk Němeček said is the biggest private investment in Czech medical research in the past years.

The institute, for which Professor Lumir Hanus, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will also work, wants to contribute to the use of cannabis in the treatment of various diseases based on research evidence and the patients´ experience.

ICCI managing director Pavel Kubů said the research is to contribute to the tailor-made treatment of patients.

Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed he will press ahead with marijuana legalization, liquor stores across the land have been queuing up to ask for a piece of the action.

First, it was British Columbia’s private liquor retailers teaming up with the union representing workers in the province’s public system to call for weed in both types of liquor outlet. Next, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger signalled his‎ interest in getting the drug into government-run Liquor Marts in his fief.

OK, I’ll say it: What was she smoking?

Except that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s vision of a state-run monopoly on the fragrant weed, courtesy of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, is quite plausible, given the logic of imminent legalization. What becomes readily apparent, as the federal Liberals continue to find their footing, is that the idea of legalization of marijuana has never been deeply examined.

Legalization was a terrific attention-getter in 2013, and a powerful emblem of change. That worked for Justin Trudeau two years ago. It highlighted his youth and cool. It made Stephen Harper and his sternly anti-pot front bench look like fussy old bores — Sister Matilda, waggling a disapproving finger at the rambunctious kids at the back of the bus.

Imagine if a liquor store clerk had to cap each customer's purchases based on the total alcohol content. That could be 16 bottles of beer, six bottles of wine, or two bottles of scotch. It gets even trickier if a customer buys a bit of each, and the clerk has to make sure they don't exceed the legal limit.

Now imagine it was important for the clerk be knowledgeable about the different effects of each type of alcoholic drink. For example, tequila energizes the body, or gin stimulates the brain, while whiskey does a bit of both.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said the provincial liquor control board is the best way to sell pot. Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger made the same comment three weeks earlier. Ontario and B.C.’s government employees union have also called for it to be sold through existing liquor retailers.

Some may ask what they’ve been smoking, but based on why we got these boards in the first place, the premiers have a good case. Are liquor boards the best way to distribute cannabis? Yes, and here’s why: Liquor control boards were created so provinces could manage the legalization of another recreational drug, alcohol.