The Ontario Cannabis Retail Corp. (OCRC) posted a tender call last week for couriers so that they can offer same-day delivery.

According to the OCRC, the program is supposed to launch in early March and will be focused on the Greater Toronto Area to start.

“As OCRC’S marketplace evolves, the ability for the organization to provide a variety of delivery options to meet customers’ expectations is imperative to the growth of its e-commerce business. Accordingly, the OCRC is looking to add expedited/same-day home delivery service,” says the tender call that was posted online.

But in wake of the announcement, some are concerned that this could prove to be a difficult undertaking.

Canadians in Atlantic Provinces are purchasing a lot more legal cannabis per capita than the rest of the country, according to numbers released by Statistics Canada last week.

Statistics Canada released sales numbers for each province from legalization in October up until December 1. Industry expert Deepak Anand said that Atlantic Provinces are doing well because they were well-prepared ahead of legalization and as a result are seeing the benefits.

According to the numbers, Prince Edward Island is the highest on the list with people spending $13.83 on average for every purchase. Nova Scotia followed closely at $11.34.

Newfoundland and Labrador had a provincial average of $8.17 and New Brunswick was fourth with an average of $6.87.

CBS has made it clear that any advertisements for cannabis will not be featured during Super Bowl LIII, despite the growing support for the plant.

Acreage Holdings, a British Columbia-based cannabis company with operations in the United States submitted storyboards for a medical cannabis advertisement to CBS with hopes of being featured during the Super Bowl, but the ad was swiftly rejected.

The company received an email from CBS that said, “CBS will not be accepting any ads for medical marijuana at this time.”

Regardless of the fact that 33 states and counting have legalized or voted to legalize cannabis in some capacity, Acreage president George Allen believes this is an issue of the stigma that still surrounds cannabis use.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia released a report earlier this week that states that as many as one-third of pregnant women think it is safe to consume marijuana while pregnant.

The lead author of the report and assistant professor in the department of family practice at UBC, Hamideh Bayrampour, said that this study will hopefully help create an understanding for public health officials about some of the perceptions surrounding cannabis use since it’s become legal in Canada.

The study was published in the journal Preventive Medicine and included data from six U.S. studies. One of the most important findings is that a lot of women have thought cannabis was safe during pregnancy because their healthcare providers did not tell them otherwise.  

Votes in municipalities across Ontario have taken place to decide whether or not to allow recreational cannabis stores in their cities and more than half of the province’s eligible municipalities have said yes to hosting shops.  

 The province set a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday for cities to let the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario know if they are choosing to opt in or out.

The province has a total of 444 municipalities but of those, 414 were making decisions on pot shops. Finance Minister Vic Fedeli told sources that giving municipalities the choice was the right thing to do.

“I recall when the Liberal government forces on municipalities wine turbines – you had no choice, they were in your community,” he said.

One of marijuana’s most touted medical benefits has been its ability to help those with opioid addictions and reducing the number of opioid overdoses. Illinois is the latest state to put this knowledge into practice with plans to launch a pilot program at the end of the month that will give patients the option to choose medical cannabis as an alternative to opioids.

In the meantime, medical dispensaries across Illinois are preparing for the likely influx in customers they’ll be seeing once the program takes effect.

General manager of Mission South Shore dispensary Rick Armstrong says that they have increased their parking space and their staff to prepare for the program.

Medical marijuana patients in Florida will soon be allowed to buy smokeable cannabis products according to recent remarks made by state governor Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis announced last week that if the state legislature does not repeal the smoking ban from Florida’s medical cannabis statute within the first two weeks of March that he will drop an appeal to keep it in the law.

Earlier in 2018, a Florida judge rules that the ban on smoking cannabis violates Amendment 2, the measure passed in 2016 by 71 percent of voters that legalized marijuana in Florida. DeSantis has also said that the ban does not align with the will of the voters.

Ohio’s medical marijuana program are finally up and running after a long waiting period. The first four medical cannabis dispensaries that opened on Wednesday sold through $75,000 of dried cannabis product on the first day.

That number accounts for nearly 8.7 pounds and works out to being approximately $538 per ounce. The Shops did not sell out on the first day.

The four dispensaries that opened Wednesday are:

• CY+ Dispensary, 180 Main St. in Wintersville
• The Forest Sandusky, 1671 Tiffin Ave. in Sandusky
• Ohio Valley Natural Relief, 840 Canton Rd. in Wintersville
• The Botanist, 3840 Greentree Ave.. SW in Canton

Ohio plans to eventually have close to 60 medical marijuana shops with seven in Greater Cincinnati.

Oakville and Brantford have added themselves to the list of Ontario municipalities to opt out of hosting cannabis stores which is likely to add to the difficulty in rolling out a successful recreational market in the province.

Ontario reportedly has had 52 municipalities aside from Oakville and Brantford who have informed the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario as of Wednesday of this week that they will not be allowing retail pot shops in their city for at least the time being.

Many of the municipalities have held town hall meeting where residents can voice their opinion and in many cases, they just don’t feel they’re ready and aren’t confident in the proposed system.

Rhode Island may be the next state in New England to make recreational marijuana a reality following Governor Gina Raimondo’s announcement that she will call for legalization in her budget proposal for 2019.

Raimondo spoke with sources earlier in the week and said that her decision to include provisions for legalization is met with reluctance but that it’s the most realistic way forward as more states choose to legalize.

“I have resisted this for the four years I’ve been governor,” Raimondo told the Providence Journal. “Now, however, things have changed, mainly because all of our neighbors are moving forward [with marijuana legalization].”