Global Ganja Report

Canada is about to make history, with passage of its cannabis legalization bill imminent. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  is the man of the hour, shepherding the first Western industrialized country along a course that was nearly unthinkable a generation ago. But it was activist efforts that really brought Canada to this point—and advocates are still fighting to keep a place for small growers and vendors in the new system.

Amid the controversies over how Canada's federal government and provinces will divide regulatory oversight as well as the tax revenues from legal cannabis, a largely overlooked question is the role of the country's First Nations. With passage of the Canadian Cannabis Act now imminent, indigenous groups agree they want more involvement in the process. But First Nations are divided between those hoping for a windfall from legal sales and those actually calling for passage of the Cannabis Act to be put off because native peoples were not properly consulted.

With Canada on a final one-month countdown to legal cannabis, the country's provinces are adopting widely varying regulation regimes, creating a "crazy quilt" policy patchwork. While Ontario and Quebec are opting for provincial government monopolies on retail sales, Alberta and Saskatchewan have embraced a private model, sparking a flood of canna-capital into these western provinces.

With US stock exchanges still almost entirely closed to cannabis businesses, the stateside industry is increasingly seeking access to the Canadian exchanges in order to secure investment. Taking over publicly traded Canadian firms through reverse mergers has emerged as the critical tactic in this endeavor.

New Mexico is the latest state to announce that it will play host to the biggest legal cannabis grow operation in the United States. But other claims to that title over the past years have still not panned out, and a facility in Arizona now occupies the number one slot. And as various states vie for the honor, Canada is far in the lead of its southern neighbor.

With foreign capital pouring into Colombia's newly legalized cannabis sector, industry leaders foresee the country becoming the world leader in production and exports—a new "Saudi Arabia of cannabis." However, traditional peasant producers fear they will not have access to the legal market—but will continue to face repression and eradication. The newly formed National Coordinator of Coca, Poppy and Marijuana Cultivators is demanding a place for campesino producers in the new legal cannabis economy, and a halt to forced eradication efforts.

A British Columbia firm which is one of Canada's leading licensed producers of medical marijuana has entered a partnership with the national subsidiary of Sandoz, a global leader in the pharmaceutical industry. The deal is being hailed as a milestone that signals the arrival of cannabis in the corporate economy.

Another dispensary is raided by police in Toronto—the latest in a string of such busts in the city over the past months, with some outlets even shut down. It's an irony that this crackdown comes as Canada is in its final countdown to legalization, and opens questions about whether there will be a place for independent dispensaries and small growers under the imminent new regulation regime.