With Canada on the cusp of legalizing recreational marijuana, the country’s already-legal medical pot producers are positioning themselves to take advantage of what could prove to be a major new retail market. The latest move comes from Ontario-based Canopy Growth, which is listed as “WEED” on the Toronto Stock Exchange and bills itself as the world’s largest legal marijuana grower. The company announced Wednesday it is launching an online store where its 50,000 licensed marijuana customers can browse and compare strains from all three marijuana brands owned by Canopy — Bedrocan, Mettrum Health and Tweed.

An employee checks nearly matured medical marijuana plants in a climate controlled growing room at the Tweed Inc. facility in Smith Falls, Ont. in 2015. (Photo: James MacDonald/Bloomberg via Getty Images) "We look at this as a transformative shift in the market," Canopy Growth president Mark Zekulin said in a statement. “Bringing the sector's three leading producers into a single online marketplace is the most important thing we can do to serve our clients." The new online store will be dubbed Tweed Main Street and will launch in early April, the company said. Canopy Growth became Canada’s first “marijuana unicorn” last fall — a term that refers to startup companies that reach US$1 billion in value. That happened in November, after voters in four U.S. states legalized marijuana for recreational purposes.