Canadian Bakin

- Brett Popplewell

IN THE DARK OF A FRIGID February morning on the outskirts of Ottawa, Canada, a convoy of trucks pulled up to the loading docks of a refurbished Hershey’s factory that’s now the headquarters of the world’s largest marijuana company—Canopy Growth Corp. Horticulturists in Tyvek suits began loading the vehicles with unmarked boxes, each the size of four refrigerators. The boxes were filled with 100,000 baby cannabis plants that had been packaged for transport to a 1.3 million-square-foot former bell pepper greenhouse in British Columbia, just miles from the US border. By the time the plants were flown cross-country and transplanted into their new home, it was dark again—and the greenhouse had temporarily claimed the coveted title of world’s largest grow op.

The plants could yield as much as 88,000 pounds of bud when they mature this June. That’s only a fraction of what is predicted to be the biggest legal marijuana harvest in history—as much as 1.1 million pounds—just in time for Canada to corner the international weed market.

It has been three years since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected on a platform that included lifting restrictions on recreational cannabis use. This summer, Canada will do what only Uruguay has done before: legalize recreational marijuana on a national scale. The scope of the pending rollout is unprecedented, even compared with what’s transpired in California, which has 4 million more inhabitants than Canada. It will create a nationwide system in which weed is treated less like a narcotic and more like booze, taxed and sold mostly in state-run stores where any adult can