On April 1 last year, Sylvain Karpunski's vegan food company alerted its social media followers to a new creation: the "red eye," a meatless sausage made with organic cannabis.

It was an April Fool's joke, of course, but his customers were clearly intrigued. The post went "crazy," recalled Karpunski, founder and CEO of Gusta Foods.

"It got hundreds of shares."

Karpunski was among more than 100 entrepreneurs, marketers, bakers and chocolatiers who crammed into a Montreal hotel conference room late last month to learn how to cash in on what many view as the next golden opportunity in cannabis: edibles.

"We know there is enormous potential," he said.

The day cannabis became legal in Canada, media coverage included jokes about grocery stores selling out of Doritos and tales about a plucky Girl Guideselling out of cookies outside of a dispensary. Amusing though they may be, wisecracks about the munchies obscured a much bigger and surprising public health note: Weed might actually help people lose weight.

Investors interested in marijuana stocks are breathing sighs of relief that October is over. Most marijuana stocks took a beating during the month. The biggest marijuana stock winner so far this year, Tilray (NASDAQ:TLRY), saw its share price plunge 34% during October. Not every marijuana stock suffered, though. MariMed (NASDAQOTH:MRMD), for example, gained nearly 19% -- the second best performance among marijuana stocks in the month.

Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week:

Pot earnings

Cannabis producers Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth, Tilray and Chronos will report their final pre-legalization financial results next week. The rollout of legal pot has been uneven across the country, with significant supply and delivery problems reported in Ontario and Quebec.

TransCanada talk

TransCanada Corp. will host its annual investor day in Tuesday. The company said on Friday it remains committed to the Keystone XL crude pipeline project despite a Montana judge’s ruling that it must pass a further environmental review.

When most investors think about marijuana stocks, one like Canopy Growth Corporation (NYSE:CGC) probably comes to mind. The company cultivates and produces cannabis products, including flower and oils. But while The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (NYSE:SMG) is still best known for its consumer lawn and garden products, it too has become a marijuana stock by emerging as the leading supplier to the U.S. cannabis industry. There's no contest between these two stocks when it comes to year-to-date performance. Canopy Growth is up close to 80%. Scotts is down more than 25%. But which of these stocks is the better choice for long-term investors?

One of John Lem’s first hints that the technology behind his DNA testing company Spartan Bioscience could be a hit with cannabis users came years ago when an executive asked him if genetics could have caused a bad reaction to pot. The question intrigued Lem so much that he eventually applied Spartan’s technology to a new Toronto-based venture called Lobo Genetics. Through Lobo, he created a genetic testing device that fits in the palm of a hand and uses cells obtained through a cheek swab to measure a person’s ability to metabolize THC — the main psychoactive component in cannabis — and determine someone’s predisposition to short- and long-term side effects.

Scotiabank began coverage on shares of Aphria (OTCMKTS:APHQF) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, October 17th. The brokerage issued a buy rating on the stock. Separately, Cann initiated coverage on shares of Aphria in a report on Friday, October 12th. They set a sell rating and a $19.00 price target for the company.

Shares of OTCMKTS:APHQF traded down $0.30 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $12.31. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,299,881 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,530,405. Aphria has a fifty-two week low of $5.86 and a fifty-two week high of $19.87.

Some illegal cannabis seed vendors are reporting big spikes in sales since recreational cannabis was legalized last month, driven by the lack of legal seed supply outside the medical marijuana system.

Among the legal changes that took place on Oct. 17, adults across Canada, with the exception of those in Manitoba and Quebec, are now permitted to grow up to four cannabis plants per household.

The sales jump during a normally sluggish season – when seedlings are not planted outdoors – comes as several provinces confirm seeds are not yet being offered for sale by licensed vendors. In the absence of legal supply, business has been booming for unlicensed producers mopping up some of that demand.

For those who only recently started watching the cannabis space, the complexities involving the Namaste Technologies Inc (OTCMKTS:NXTTF) story are daunting to say the least. The main point to appreciate is that this is a former momentum play with tremendous potential, some genuine risk on the credibility side, and a ton of built-in skepticism.

For the Mohawk territory of Kahnawake, cannabis legalization is an opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past regarding tobacco.

Smoke shacks selling tax-free cigarettes are pervasive in the community across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal, and their owners have no obligation to give money back to citizens, says Joe Delaronde, spokesman for the Mohawk Council.

The federal government was part of the problem, he explained, “giving tobacco licences willy-nilly.”

“People became very frustrated with that over time,” Delaronde added. “And even though some people gave back — some just pocketed (all the revenue).”

But while lucrative tobacco shops abound in Kahnawake, selling, distributing or manufacturing cannabis on the territory remains illegal.