A comedy about Canada’s upcoming cannabis legalization is headed for the big screen.

Canadian company We’ll Be Over Here Productions Inc., says production has begun in Toronto on the feature film “Canadian Strain.”

Written and directed by Geordie Sabbagh, the film stars Jessica Salgueiro as a boutique weed dealer who has been put out of business by the legalization of cannabis.

Salgueiro hails from Winnipeg and is being featured at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival as a Rising Star.

Colin Mochrie plays her dad and Naomi Snieckus plays her uptight retail co-worker.

The cast also includes Natalie Brown, Benjamin Ayres, Dion Johnstone, Hannah Spear, and Nelu Handa.

What do alcohol, tobacco and gambling have in common?

On the one hand, they have been viewed as “sinful” activities, perhaps bringing immediate pleasure to the partaker but health and social costs in the long run. Governments look to prohibit or limit such scurrilous consumption.

On the other hand, these sinful activities are also common favourites for taxation. In Gulliver’s Travels, a Lagado island professor argues for “effectual ways and means of raising money without grieving the subject,” which, of course, would be to justly tax “vices and folly.”

With marijuana set to be legalized in Canada on October 17, the provincial government recently announced a policy change that would allow recreational pot to be sold in retail stores while the province handles online sales.

Under the province’s new retail model, Ontario residents 19 years of age and older will be able to buy legal cannabis through a government-run website before the ‘private retail model’ is launched in 2019.

Members of many First Nations attended a conference in North Battleford Thursday to find out more about the benefits of getting involved in niche markets such as medical marijuana production and how it could create more economic opportunites for Indigenous people

The event, called "The Indigenous Forum Emphasizing Indigenous Control - Food Sovereignty, Hemp & Medical Cannabis," was held at the Tropical Inn Wednesday and Thursday in North Battleford. Guest speakers discussed the benefits for First Nations producing organic food as well as going into the business of hemp production. By pursuing new opportunities for economic development, organizers said Indigenous communities may also become more self-sustaining.  

Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. is pleased to announce that Health Canada has approved its protocol for a clinical trial investigating its PPP001 drug as an alternative to the opioid fentanyl in the management of breakthrough cancer pain.

Tetra Bio-Pharma is a leader in cannabinoid-based drug discovery and development.

The clinical trial will be conducted by Montreal-based Sante Cannabis, a medical clinic and contract research organization specialized in clinical research for cannabis- based therapies.

At times, self-interested rational economic persons do generate some positive externalities while working for their private benefit, and those positive economic gains may go on to benefit the whole community.

The latest high value deal announcement from leading marijuana giant Canopy Growth Corp (TSX:WEED)(NYSE:CGC) is one such deal that, among another bullish Ontario cannabis policy review news pieces, has lifted the stock prices for the whole cannabis  sector and had its waves felt on the TSX, the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, the CSE and the TSXV.

What does a beer company do to hedge against slowing growth in its main business? In the case of the parent company of Corona, the answer is to invest heavily in the marijuana industry.

U.S. marijuana retailer and producer MedMen on Thursday said that preliminary retail sales for its most recent quarter came in at $19.2 million, already far more than it did all of last year, thanks in large part to an influx of customers following California's recreational legalization. Meanwhile, marijuana stocks Canopy Growth (CGC) and Tilray (TLRY) formed their first bases since their debuts on U.S. exchanges earlier this year.

In a shade over two months, on Oct. 17, history will be made. After months of debate in Parliament, and years of promises from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, recreational marijuana will become officially legal in Canada and go on sale in private and government-owned dispensaries.

Jasper's municipal council says it won't put any limits on the number of cannabis retailers allowed within the mountain resort community.

Council voted Tuesday to make a series of recommendations on commercial regulation.

Under the proposed bylaws, pot stores would be allowed to operate until midnight, and there would be no limit on the number of stores in town, or how close pot retailers can be to each other within the commercial district.

"We're not in the business of passing moral judgment," Mayor Richard Ireland said in an interview.

"We've never restricted any other business before, so why would we suddenly restrict this one?