The Canadian cannabis industry had a promising beginning, but the “Green Rush” has significantly slowed in recent months. Now, the industry is facing a long list of challenges: Lacklustre sales, a slow rollout of retail outlets, competition from the illicit market and waning enthusiasm among investors, to name a few.

But bad behaviour on the part of licensed cannabis cultivators has generated more interest across the country than any other problem. Some industry observers attribute contraventions of the Cannabis Act (which replaced the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations in 2018) and securities infractions to increasing pressure from consumers and investors. But some balk at that notion.

The cannabis industry may be having growing pains, but that’s not stopping job-seekers from searching for their place.

Indeed Canada, a website that aggregates job openings, shared its most clicked-on jobs with The GrowthOp. The job search engine evaluated data from Jan. 20, 2019 to Jan. 20, 2020, and looked at titles that involved “cannabis,” “budtender” and “marijuana” as the search terms.

Dr Dani Gordon, double board-certified medical doctor speaks to Health Europa Quarterly about her journey in the medical cannabis industry and how it fits into integrative medicine.

The discussion on the legal status of cannabis is one that has been thrown back and forth for decades but has only really started to become a credible debate in recent years. In 2013, Uruguay became the first country to fully legalize recreational cannabis, followed by Canada in 2018. Eleven US states have also legalized recreational cannabis, but it is the medicinal market making the most headway globally, presenting major opportunities for well-established cannabis companies in legal territories to capitalize on nascent markets in Asia, Europe, and beyond.

Weed’s got a lot to do with this selection on Amazon Prime.

Not missing out on the green buzz that took hold of Canada on Oct. 17, 2018, the video-on-demand subscription service has a host of Canadian weed centric documentaries. Here are some that might make for a movie marathon.

Doobious Business (2019)

Duration: 1h 27m

“I hope from this documentary they’ll [society] see a hard working family man.” Amazon Prime

Aurora Cannabis Inc. plans to cut its workforce by about 10 per cent, the latest cannabis company to slash jobs in an effort to move toward profitability, according to a person directly familiar with the matter.

The company, which has approximately 3,400 staff across more than 20 countries around the world, is expected to announce the job cuts in the next few days, the person said. A significant amount of the job cuts will be earmarked for consultants that the company has hired on a contract basis, according to the person who declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

“This is more of a lean out campaign after scaling up the company over the past few years,” the person said.

Licensed producer Tilray Inc. announced late Tuesday afternoon that it will be laying off 10 per cent of its staff, in an effort to cut costs.

“By reducing headcount and cost, Tilray will be better positioned to achieve profitability,” CEO Brendan Kennedy said in a statement released by the company.

Tilray employs 1,443 people globally, with a majority of them in Canada and Portugal, according to company spokesperson Chrissy Roebuck. She declined to specify which departments of the company will be affected by the layoffs.

“The tough decision to eliminate roles has not been taken lightly. We’re extremely grateful to our past and current employees for their contributions,” Kennedy said.

Marijuana stocks in Canada enjoyed strong revenue growth in 2019. Prior-year results were easy to compare to because the government hadn't legalized pot until October 2018.

In 2020, the edible and ingestible market will continue to help pad the sales of Canadian pot stocks. The problem, however, is that while the revenue numbers may be up from last year, they may not be as strong as what investors are hoping for.

Restrictions on edibles pose a problem

Edibles are an exciting new segment of the cannabis industry. From beverages to food products, there are many new products that companies can develop. In September, industry leader Canopy Growth said it was working on 50 new edible products.

Dow do you like them apples?

In just over one year, legal cannabis sales in Massachusetts — a state with the population of 6.9 million — reached more than half of legal sales for the entire country of Canada, according to a U.S. national cannabis law firm.

All financial amounts in this story are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.

Cannabis retailers in the northeastern state sold around US$509 million ($677 million) worth of legal weed from November 2018 to the end of January 2020, Vicente Sederberg LLP data analysis calculated.