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SMITHS FALLS, Ont. — The place pot put on the map, weed capital of Canada, the little town that marijuana saved — folks in Smiths Falls have many ways of describing their community’s transformation, but all of them stick to a common theme.

The Ontario community, home to fewer than 9,000 people, had become all too familiar with the pain of economic hardship over the years.

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It now finds itself in an envious position: at the leading edge of the global, multibillion-dollar cannabis industry.

The area, about an hour’s drive southwest of Ottawa, is home to the headquarters for Tweed Inc. and parent company Canopy Growth Corp., which make up one of the world’s largest licensed cannabis companies.

Along with its wider international expansion, around Smiths Falls the producer has been growing like a weed.

The company has created about 800 direct jobs in the community since it started gradually taking over a shuttered Hershey chocolate factory about five years ago. As its local footprint gets bigger, Tweed has also bought and begun to revitalize other buildings around town — some of which had been boarded up for more than a decade.