Bruce Linton is not going gently into that good night.

Usually, executives who get fired will go quiet for a while, taking time to repair the damage to their ego and work out what they want to do next. But no one who knows the former co-chief executive officer of Canopy Growth Corp.was surprised to see him making the TV news rounds within hours of his announced termination on Wednesday pontificating on the future of the industry.

U.S. CBD Market a Huge Opportunity for Pot Stocks

There’s no doubt a lot of hype surrounding the future of the marijuana industry in the U.S. But sometimes that hype can blind people to the progress being made right now, and with that progress comes lucrative opportunities for the savvy investor. The U.S. cannabidiol (CBD) market is fresh and growing, and we’re only beginning to see what that will mean for marijuana stocks.

While I’ve been covering this prospect for a while now—ever since the U.S. legalized CBD, so in 2019, for all intents and purposes—but we’re starting to see some real movement on this front.

ParcelPal Technology Inc. (CSE:PKG) (OTC:PTNYF), an online delivery service, is partnering with Shopify to improve the way people shop for cannabis online. ParcelPal will be integrating their delivery app with Shopify’s platform over the coming weeks. When it launches, Canadian LPs already on Shopify will be able to use the new app to deliver both medical and recreational cannabis across the territories.

According to a new statistical study featured in the American Medical Association’s online journal, there has been an increase in the number of pregnant women consuming cannabis as compared to previous years. The study shows that the number of women choosing to use cannabis during their gestation period between 2016 and 2017 increased by 7 %. This study’s results vary significantly with the results of a previous study conducted between 2002 and 2003. According to the previous study, which used the same parameters, only 3% of women during this period opted to use cannabis.

It's probably not much of an exaggeration to state that most investors' eyes are "on the green." Marijuana is arguably the hottest investment idea of this generation, with global legal sales potentially growing to between $50 billion and $75 billion by 2029/2030, up from around $12 billion in 2018. Given that most cannabis sales are still tied up in the black market, there's ample opportunity for legalizations in the U.S. and around the world to push a steady stream of these illicit transactions into legal channels.

But within the cannabis industry lies perhaps the most exciting trend of all: the rise of cannabidiol (CBD).

Right now, few industries offer greater long-term growth potential than the legal marijuana industry. On Wall Street, peak sales projections for the cannabis industry have come in as high as $166 billion. The analyst behind this lofty forecast, Bank of America's Christopher Carey, also suggests that marijuana could disrupt industries that today combine for $2.6 trillion in annual sales.

Canadian cannabis producer CannTrust (CTST) on Wednesday said it planned to enter the U.S. hemp-derived CBD market via a joint venture that will focus on production in California, an announcement that sent CannTrust stock racing higher. Other marijuana stocks also rose.

Dive Brief:

• Canada will allow some cannabis-infused products — edibles, beverages, topicals and extracts — to be sold in stores in December, according to the Associated Press. Health Canada issued regulatory details June 14, including packaging and labeling requirements. These will take effect Oct. 17, the CBC reported. Canada legalized recreational marijuana nationwide last October.

An alliance of large marijuana businesses has a message for the public: We’re good corporate citizens.

The 45-member Global Cannabis Partnership that includes Canopy Growth Corp. and other major companies issued guidelines Tuesday aimed at minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting ethical conduct and responsible pot use.

Executive Director Kim Wilson says the emerging legal industry is “in a unique position to set a new bar for socially responsible practices.”

As the once-illegal marijuana economy evolves into a multibillion-dollar industry, the guidelines appear aimed at assuring consumers that those companies are operating with their interests in mind, not just focused on the corporate bottom line.

Water quality, marijuana laws and the opioid crisis will be topics of discussion among legislators gathering in Sioux Falls this week. 

Legislators from the Dakotas, Minnesota and Manitoba are meeting this week to hear from experts and discuss cross-border policy issues during the annual International Legislators Forum, which is being held in Sioux Falls this year. The forum, in which eight legislators from each jurisdiction meet, grew out of the 1997 Red River flood and is facilitated by the Consensus Committee, a public policy nonprofit based in Bismark, N.D.

"It's a way of trying to solve problems and try to minimize partisan politics," said Sen. Reynold Nesiba, D-Sioux Falls, who helped organize this year's forum.