Canada’s first medical marijuana ETF is one week away from hitting the Toronto Stock Exchange, and the company backing the fund believes it will hold appeal beyond users of the drug.

“Marijuana is extremely topical and this is an area that investors want to invest in,” Horizons ETFs President and co-CEO Steve Hawkins told BNN on Wednesday.

“We don’t believe that this is an institutional-based product. This is very topical. This is a high-discussion industry and there are a lot of individual investors out there that really want to see the growth in the industry. They may be users, they may not be users.”

The Horizons Medical Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, will begin trading under the ticker HMMJ on the Toronto Stock Exchange on April 5.

The ETF will attempt to mirror Solactive’s North American Medical marijuana Index, and will include 11 Canadian companies alongside four from the U.S. The index will not only track marijuana stocks, but will also include life science companies as well as fertilizer companies.

“It was very important for us to build something that was representative of the marijuana industry and that’s all the companies that have business activities in the marijuana landscape. That includes companies that are doing hydroponics and fertilizers and that,” Hawkins said.

“Now we know that there are enough companies in the universe, enough companies for us invest in to give us exposure to a high growth, high energy sector.”

As for the fund’s ability to reflect the changing medical and recreational marijuana landscape, Hawkins said Horizons will follow the legislative lead as far as future inclusions go.

“To the extent that the legislation evolves – either Canadian or U.S. – and it opens up a different market for the different securities, our index will evolve to invest in those companies and so will we as a fund.”