Tara Sue Sharp dotes over a skillet of mushrooms. She sips a cannabis oil-infused mocktail as she readies a meal for a small group of guests. Even though Sharpe has cooked these farm-to-table mushroom tostadas dozens of times before, she’s extra careful now as she adds the key ingredient: a tablespoon of homemade cannabis oil slowly drizzled over over the already-simmering vegetables.

The US added 64,389 full-time legal cannabis jobs in 2018, according to a new report.

That outpaces growth in other sectors in the job market. Job openings in the cannabis industry have also surged.

Forget the energy industry. Marijuana appears to be the fastest-growing job sector in the US.

The US added 64,389 full-time legal cannabis jobs in 2018, according to a new report from the cannabis website Leafly and the consultancy Whitney Economics. That represented a 44% increase in total positions, which rose to 211,000.

It’s been a bumpy first few months for cannabis retailers in Canada, with product shortages and regulatory uncertainty dominating public discussion. As Ontario’s first wave of bricks-and-mortar stores get ready to open on April 1, the Financial Post’s Vanmala Subramaniam spoke to four people on the front lines about what’s working, what isn’t and the biggest lessons they’ve learned so far. The following interviews have been edited and condensed.

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Krystian Wetulani, a former grey market operator, is the owner of City Cannabis Co. and runs two licensed cannabis stores in Vancouver.

Alabama has approved applications from 180 farmers who want to grow hemp, and the first crop will be planted by April, said Alabama Department of Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate.

“The people who have applied are serious farmers,” Pate said. “These are not people who have been growing marijuana.”

A couple of applications that didn’t include the $100 application fee, or were not from qualified farmers, may have been rejected, Pate said.

“There may been one or two who wanted to grow it in their backyard,” Pate said. “That’s not the intent.”

Otherwise, no real farmers were turned down. The deadline to apply was by the start of March.

“We approved all the legitimate applications,” Pate said. “Those notifications are going out this week.”

No one predicts pot brownies for sale in every grocery store if recreational adult use of cannabis is approved by the Illinois legislature.

But experts and industry insiders anticipate plenty of opportunities for businesses to get involved in what could be a new legal market for an already popular product.

The man who aims to become one of the Northwest Territories' first players in Canada's fledgling cannabis industry hopes to break ground on his new facility this summer.

Jordan Harker wants to grow and make cannabis products, such as oil and edibles, in Yellowknife's Engle Business District.

To do this, he needs a cultivation licence and a processing licence from Health Canada, security clearance from the RCMP and development permits from the City of Yellowknife.

Harker, who has not settled on a name for his company, passed what he calls an "important milestone" this week, when he received warm reception about his plans from Yellowknife city council.​

In an example of the opportunity that legal cannabis can offer economically depressed communities, a former meatpacking plant in Michigan that has sat idle for almost 25 years will soon be reopened as a medical marijuana facility. OrganiLife, located in Saginaw County in Chesaning, Michigan, will begin operations later this month at its cultivation and processing facility in a 30,000 square foot building growing 4,500 plants. The site also has 16 additional buildings that could eventually house 500,000 plants if business conditions warrant the expansion, according to property owner Beau Parmenter.

Licensed producers (LPs), retailers and others already in the Canadian or U.S. cannabis industry—or looking to take the plunge—should be thinking about how they will distinguish their businesses, products and services from others. In what is quickly becoming a crowded and competitive marketplace, intellectual property (IP) could prove key and IP protection available under Canadian and U.S. laws should be an important part of any strategy moving forward.

Illinois’ marijuana industry is flourishing. More residents are buying the drug for medicinal use, and the state is on the brink of legalizing recreational use of cannabis, potentially creating opportunities for a new wave of entrepreneurs.

But right now, businesses in line to reap the financial rewards are overwhelmingly male and mostly white.

There are 17 companies that own licenses to grow and process marijuana in Illinois. The majority have CEOs or executive directors who are white, but exact ownership information is unknown.

The state denied a Freedom of Information Act request for data on individuals with ownership stakes in dispensaries and cultivation centers, saying it was confidential.