Company says 14 positions will be affected, but if operations had started they were expected to create 145 jobs

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Canopy Growth is announcing it will not be opening its production facility in St. John’s.
Fourteen jobs will be “impacted,” according to the Canopy vice-president of communications Jordan Sinclair.

In a news release, Sinclair described the decision as "difficult," but apparently it is not one that came about suddenly. He also said it was made as part of a strategic business review that began earlier this year.

St. John's is not alone in being affected by the move. The company is also closing facilities in Fredericton, N.B.; Bowmanville, Ont, and Edmonton, as well as its outdoor production sites in Saskatchewan.

The almost four-week-old Dominion strike is turning into a major buzzkill for cannabis enthusiasts in central Newfoundland, who have been left with no retail outlets for miles.

Dominion was granted the only two initial retail licenses for cannabis sales in the central part of the province, and the store's contract dispute with Unifor Local 597 has led to the closure of both establishments — as well as eight others across the province.

"It's just a big bummer all around, really," said Jennifer Warren, a resident of Gambo. "You gotta order stuff online — and with COVID, too, the mail thing slows everything down."

Warren says cannabis is part of her daily routine with her boyfriend, but ordering by mail is just not the same.

In a first for Canada’s nascent legal cannabis industry, recent labour action by Dominion grocery store workers has shuttered over a third of Newfoundland and Labrador’s brick-and-mortar cannabis stores.

An assistant professor of pharmacy in St. John’s hopes a survey she’s conducting on cannabis usage in Newfoundland and Labrador will shine a light on what influences the choices purchasers make when they buy product.

And a Newfoundland-born professor in Virginia says he already has a good idea what factors are keeping the black market afloat in Canada.

Memorial University’s Jennifer Donnan is leading the survey, which is backed by the Canadian Institute for Health Research, and says they’ve already received a great deal of information since starting interviews a month ago.

With the pandemic pinching off the supply of illicit drugs, the sale of legalized cannabis products in Newfoundland and Labrador appears to be filling some of the gap.

"Business is booming," said Thomas Clarke, owner of a licensed cannabis retail store in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's.

"I would say I have a 35 per cent increase daily, so my business is doing far better than it was before."

Data compiled by the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation, which regulates the sale and distribution of non-medical cannabis in the province, shows that sales were up 14 per cent in March, April and May compared to the same time frame last year.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s first homegrown cannabis crop has hit dispensary shelves in the Atlantic province.

Corner Brook-based craft cannabis company BeeHighVe has sent out its first shipments after forging a sales agreement with Dominion C-Stores, a Newfoundland grocery and cannabis retailer.

Before the company received nods from Health Canada and the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corp., all licensed cannabis products for sale in the province were shipped in or derived from cannabis cultivated in other parts of the country.

Canadians are clearly in love with cannabis, but not all provinces were created equal when it comes to permitting pot. While the historic Cannabis Act applies to all provinces, the rules around distribution and consumption fall to the provinces — and municipalities have some say on it, too.

That’s why for Canada Day, The GrowthOp takes a look at the growing industry from coast-to-coast — crunching the data on price, consumption habits, number of stores, public consumption options and the ability to grow at home — to find out which provinces are rolling out the red carpet for weed and which are still warming up to the country’s second favourite leaf.

Here are our findings.

Researchers say the minimum legal age to buy and consume recreational cannabis should be 19 years old.

For years, marijuana stocks were virtually unstoppable. The prospect of $50 billion or more in annual worldwide sales by 2030 sent North American cannabis stock valuations into the stratosphere. But over the past 13 months, most pot stocks have seen their valuations retrace anywhere from 50% to 95%. It's been ugly, with a capital "U."

Approximately 4,000 times these past two weeks, I’ve thanked my lucky stars cannabis was legalized before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe and sent us all cowering in our bong dens.