TORONTO — Shares of Canadian and U.S. marijuana producers fell Friday after the Trump administration suggested a crackdown on recreational marijuana may be in the works. Most of Canada’s publicly traded pot growers ended Friday lower after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer predicted the Justice Department will be looking more closely at the issue. “I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement of it,” Spicer said at a White House briefing. Spicer said “there is a big difference” between medical marijuana, which Congress has in effect condoned, and “recreational use, which is something the Department of Justice I think will be further looking into.”

Ontario-based Canopy Growth Corp. (stock ticker symbol WEED), which bills itself as the world's largest cannabis company, tumbled 4.64 per cent on open Friday. Canopy became Canada’s first marijuana “unicorn” last fall, with a market value of $1 billion or more, after voters in four U.S. states — California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada — voted to legalize recreational pot. More than a fifth of the U.S. population now lives in a state where recreational weed is legal, and many more live in states where marijuana has been legalized for medical purposes.