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New developments spur new stories as we enter the second month of legalization. We continue to sift through all the articles and select those that are most likely to impact you, as a Canadian investor.

1. Ontario will effectively hold cannabis producers to just under a 10% stake in any marijuana retail outlet.

The announcement came Thursday and just weeks before the province begins accepting  pot retail applications from businesses looking to become private sellers through bricks-and-mortar locations.

Under the Ontario framework, a retail licence will not be issued to a corporation if more than 9.9 per cent of it is owned or controlled by one or more licensed marijuana producers or an affiliate. That restriction applies whether the marijuana producer’s stake in the business is direct or indirect.

The regulations may upset partnerships that have already been struck as former operators of illegal marijuana clinics offer suppliers exclusive shelf space in exchange for their capital investment.

2. Some of Ontario’s illegal cannabis dispensaries remain open and busy more than a month after the legalization of pot for recreational use.

Little has changed for many of those businesses, although most have taken down their more-obvious signage.

Many also are reporting an increase in traffic and sales. They point to the Oct. 17, 2018, legalization of pot as the major driver, but also the Ontario government’s decision to restrict sales to its website until April 1, 2019. That’s when bricks-and-mortar retailers will be licensed to begin their own operations.

Some patrons of illicit stores are also pointing to privacy concerns about sharing their personal banking information to make online purchases. Delivery delays stemming from the rotating postal strike may also have spurred sales for illegal dispensaries.

3. Sales and marketing costs for Canada’s top five publicly-traded pot producers climbed in the latest quarter as they sought to distinguish their offerings from competitors just ahead of legalization.

Collectively, those leading companies spent $74 million in the quarter, tripling the amount of money they earmarked for marketing a year earlier. Those efforts include billboards, sponsorship deals and other marketing initiatives. One producer even booked a strip club to hawk its cannabis brands.

Industry experts say it’s too early to tell how well spent that money was.

The first month after legalization has been marked by supply challenges in key markets. That lack of choice may have limited the amount of attention consumers paid to brand names.

The federal government’s restrictions on the marketing efforts of cannabis producers also curtails their use of more-proven advertising methods.

4. A new poll of Canadian cannabis users sets out the challenge ahead for alcohol producers and sellers in this country but also those in the growing number of legal cannabis markets worldwide.

According to the recent Ipsos survey, conducted on behalf of Global News, 45% of cannabis users say they will drink less alcohol now that marijuana is legal.

Their thinking may mirror what one U.S. study found when it looked at alcohol sales in counties where marijuana was legalized. That research suggests alcohol sales tend to fall once the prohibition on pot ends.

However, a 2016 review of studies on the subject found evidence that while some consumers swap alcohol with marijuana, many others simply add cannabis on to their existing alcohol use.

That suggests Canadians’ use of both substances may ultimately fail to align with their own expectations.

“There’s differences between what we think we’re going to do and what we’re actually going to do,” Jennifer McLeod Macey, Ipsos’s VP of Public Affairs, told Global News.

5. Canada’s first academic researcher focused exclusively on cannabis aims to uncover the medicinal impact of the plant’s lesser-known chemical compounds.

Yang Qu, recently hired as the cannabis health research chair and assistant professor at the University of New Brunswick, will also look at synthetically reproducing the plant’s naturally occurring compounds.

THC, responsible for the euphoria associated with pot use, and CBD—the non-psychoactive compound used to treat anxiety and pain—are already well-known. They’ve also been studied, says Qu, a former cancer researcher. But a deeper look is needed.

“The information about other cannabinoids that also accumulate in the plant are very scarce,” Qu told the CBC, “so this is an area that we need to study.”

Qu begins his five-year term at UNB on Jan. 1, 2019.