Media Central Corporation Inc. announced it has closed its acquisition of Vancouver Free Press Corp., owner and operator of the Georgia Straight, Vancouver's 53 year old alternative urban media publisher. A binding letter of intent was previously announced on January 6, 2020. The Straight is established as the most important source for news, lifestyle, and entertainment in Vancouver and is an integral part of the active urban West Coast lifestyle.

It’s not that startup companies trying to hype up their valuations are dumb. But if they aren’t foolish or deluded, unicorns, in both the weed and the normie world, are deliberately misleading.

Blue Apron, the cook-it-yourself meal-by-delivery startup, floated itself to an obscene only-in-Silicon Valley valuation of $3 billion on the promise that it could ship meals to “99 percent of would-be home cooks.” Spoiler, but blanketing the continent in boxes of food didn’t quite pan out.

Just a few steps into the Tweed retail cannabis shop in Osborne Village, potential customers pass by a prominent sign that boasts of THC and CBD-infused drinks, as well as a tall — and currently empty — fridge designed to keep the fizzy offerings cool.

It isn't clear when the high-inducing carbonated beverages will be available at this store, or others.

"The one thing that we didn't quite get right was managing expectations," said Jordan Sinclair, vice-president of communications with Canopy Growth, which owns Tweed and Tokyo Smoke retail stores.

Despite the fact that these drinks have been legal for 2½ months, Canopy-owned companies aren't the only ones without cannabis-infused beverages on store shelves.

Cannabis edibles and drinkables are already leading Canada’s legal cannabis market in 2020.

It has now been more than a year since cannabis was legalised in Canada, and while 2019 sales fell short of most expectations, 2020 is in a much better position to succeed. In October 2019, cannabis edibles were made available to patients and the public.

Pot stocks are highly subject to market fluctuations caused by world events. Because of this, anytime a big news story breaks, it could have either a positive or negative effect on which marijuana stocks to buy. Currently, the outbreak of the Coronavirus in several new countries has resulted in world markets tumbling by significant amounts.

One year ago, marijuana stocks were about the hottest investment on Wall Street. Today, they're considered an investment that some wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

The expectation had long been that Canadian pot sales would skyrocket as soon adult-use weed received the green light in licensed dispensaries. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, with persistent supply issues keeping product off retail shelves, thereby allowing the black market to thrive.

The velvet rope was in place, red carpet rolled out and balloons were even blowing in the wind along with banners announcing the opening of Tokyo Smoke's latest storefront Monday.

But unlike the province's first legal cannabis outlet openings nearly a year ago, which were met with crowds of customers lineup up out the door, the response to Stoney Creek's first shop was significantly more subdued.

Inside the spotless store, black-sweatered staff members eager to share their knowledge mingled with the people who trickled in about half an hour after it first opened its doors.

Andrea Dobbs wasn’t much of a cannabis consumer until her late 40s, when she started experiencing symptoms of perimenopause like depression, sleep issues, and loss of libido. Before legalization, the Vancouverite visited a dispensary to try cannabis edibles. She remembers those early experiences to be lacking: Stores were poorly lit. There were unsealed jars of cannabis, filled with products with what she laughingly calls “a robust terpene experience” — and the almost always male staff didn’t know much about how she might use cannabis to ease her symptoms.

Israel wants to be a little more like Canada.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tweeted on Sunday that he will be expunging the criminal records of vast amounts of Israelis who had been caught with cannabis and modelling its budding industry after Canada’s, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“I examined the matter and decided to advance the erasure of criminal records of tens of thousands of Israelis for personal use and possession (of cannabis), something that causes unnecessary suffering to many and is a burden on the courts,” he wrote on the social media site.