Organic produce has come a long way from farmers in hemp clothes peddling ugly vegetables to the big business it is today, available in nearly every grocery store in North America.

It’s easy to see how it got that far. Consumers liked it and demanded it. And successful conventional produce grower-shippers found a way to grow and deliver high quality organic fruits and vegetables.

Even before the mainstreaming of organic produce, greenhouse produce went through a similar lifecycle. The North American consumer could get exotic greenhouse tomatoes or peppers from Holland grown under glass. It was high-quality and different than domestic field grown.

Montreal’s executive-committee member responsible for economic development, Robert Beaudry, announced Monday that the four locations for the first cannabis outlets have been chosen. The locations will be managed by the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ).

The exact addresses have not yet been announced but they will be located near Berri-UQÀM, Radisson, Jean-Talon and Lionel-Groulx métro stations. These shops will be the first to open once the country confirms the legalization date. Four more outlets will be added in Montreal following the initial launch date according to Beaudry.

Some Canadian marijuana sector companies are getting pushback against their marketing efforts from social media platforms and government officials as legalization of recreational pot looms and regulations are not yet final.

Lift & Co, which hosts industry events and offers cannabis education, has had its YouTube account suspended and Facebook ad account deactivated, with both companies citing a policy violation.

Lift CEO Matei Olaru said he believes its accounts were targeted in connection with the U.S. tech giants’ policies barring promotion of the sale of illegal, prescription or recreational drugs, even though medical marijuana is legal in Canada and recreational pot will soon follow suit.

The first quarter and beyond saw marijuana stocks rocked off of the high perch they reached near the end of last year. Price run-ups, likely caused by the synchronized excitement of legalization efforts between California and Canada kept pot stock investors giddily wondering to what heights the sector would reach.

When marijuana legalization is enacted across Canada, it will create arguably the biggest legal cannabis economy in the world.

That change is the genesis of a conference entitled Legalizing Marijuana in Canada: Policy Challenges being held April 26 and 27, by the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy (IHSP), at the Moot Court in the McGill Faculty of Law. Tickets are $25 for students and $100 for members of the general public.

Daniel Weinstock, the head of the IHSP and the lead organizer of the conference, says legalization raises a wide range of thorny policy issues.

Alimentation Couche-Tard is expressing interest in selling cannabis in its Quebec convenience stores.

The company has hired a lobbyist to work on ensuring it has a place in the cannabis-distribution system Quebec will eventually set up.

The province's official registry of lobbyists shows Marie-Eve Bedard began working on behalf of Couche-Tard (TSX:ATD.B) last month and will continue doing so until next May.

She will earn less than $10,000 for her work.

Bedard is a former chief of staff to ex-Quebec health minister Yves Bolduc.

Couche-Tard operates more than 2,000 stores in Canada but it is not clear whether the chain wants to sell cannabis outside of Quebec.

One would think the province known for its joie de vivre and laissez-faire attitudes would have the most lenient stance toward the legalization of pot. But a recent survey shows the opposite is true.

Quebecers are far less optimistic about the legalization of marijuana than their counterparts in the rest of Canada, a CROP poll conducted on behalf of CBC's French-language network, Radio-Canada, shows.

For nearly every promised benefit of legalization, from the reduction of the black market to less stress on the justice system, people in Quebec were more skeptical than their counterparts elsewhere in the country.

The results even surprised CROP president Alain Giguère, a veteran pollster.

Sales of most medical marijuana products from Hydropothecary Corp. will resume after the Gatineau medical marijuana grower announced that it had recalled products affected by the discovery of trace amounts of an unapproved pesticide.

Hydropothecary announced the recall Tuesday morning, saying it was still searching for the source of the contamination at its facility in Masson-Angers, about 40 kilometres northeast of Ottawa.

The company voluntarily stopped all sales two weeks ago after a Health Canada spot check found the pesticide myclobutanil on plant samples.

Groupe DJB and Neptune Technologies & Bioressources (NASDAQ:NEPT)(TSX:NEPT), in collaboration with the Université de Sherbrooke, are proud to announce the creation of the Sherbrooke-based Green Valley Consortium, a strategic partnership that combines the strengths and expertise of three industry stakeholders to carry out medical cannabis production and research and development activities: an industry first. 

Sherbrooke Innopole, the region's economic development agency, and the city of Sherbrooke have both been highly active in the establishment of the Green Valley consortium, consistent with their mandate to foster a vibrant economic and academic environment in the region.

Quebec’s Hydropothecary Corp. became the latest medical marijuana company Tuesday to open its business to investors eager to cash in on the burgeoning marijuana sector.

The company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange by way of a reverse takeover; shares opened trading Tuesday at $1.82 before settling to close at $1.55 apiece.

Nearly 3.6 million shares changed hands as many investors seek opportunities to pour into the hot marijuana market ahead of an expected recreational legalization announcement by the federal government this spring.

The company had been toying with the idea of going public for some time but had a couple “false starts” said CEO Sebastien St. Louis.