When Oregon voters approved medical marijuana almost two decades ago, supporters assumed there’d be more research into it’s health benefits. 

But, it’s mainly into growing more marijuana cheaper- not finding the next FDA approved marijuana drug.

Let me take you on a short flight-of-fancy. Imagine, you’re starting your own pot farm.  First you get land and water rights. And then, you’ve got to find the right strain of cannabis.  

“Well so there’s a lot of legend and laws. So in general it’s like, my friend Billy gave me this. And he told me that he got it from this guy. And ….. this is the original thing. This is the lost cut of Panama Red from so and so in 1978,” Mowgli Holmes, chief scientific officer at Phylos Bioscienc,  said.   

It’s hard to imagine an analytical test without lab work, but that’s just what dry labbing means. In some cases—increasingly few—samples of cannabis get certified, as if they were tested, when nothing was really done, no wet-lab science was performed. Instead, these samples get labeled with characteristics that no one really measured. Put very bluntly, dry labbing is lying—making up data about what’s in a product rather than testing it. For medical use, dry labbing is dangerous, because someone could get a higher dose than expected or not enough of the medicine they rely on. On top of that, it’s fraud for both medical and recreational cannabis products.

In a first for the legal marijuana industry, a prominent venture capital firm has made moves to cash in.

On May 23, Hound Labs, an Oakland-based startup that makes a breathalyzer for marijuana, announced a new $8.1 million round of funding led by Benchmark Capital. In the past, the Silicon Valley venture firm made early bets on Uber, Snap, Dropbox, and WeWork, among other technology giants.

Founded in 2014, Hound Labs is on a mission to make a reliable breathalyzer that detects and measures THC — a chemical compound responsible for marijuana's psychoactive effects. The device is moving into clinical trials and is expected to launch by the end of the year.

As cannabis expands into medical and various recreational products, manufacturers apply a variety of methods to extract the essential components. Cannabinoids make up the key active components, and cannabis contains about 80 of them. The most well-known cannabinoids are cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is the main psychoactive component, and CBD could be useful for a range of medicinal applications. To prepare the various products—from edibles and liquids to smokables and lotions—the crucial chemical components must first be obtained from the plants.

Pot. Reefer. Grass. Mary Jane. No matter what people call it, they can now sell it, find it, review it, and share its attributes like never before. More than a map, new social marketplace Weedable goes beyond providing an online dispensary directory to connect cannabis enthusiasts to stores, strains, products – and for the first time – each other. A social marketplace like no other, Weedable provides a dynamic and informative meeting place for those engaged in the legalized medical and recreational marijuana industries.

Although the cannabis industry is the fastest growing industry in the world, investors need to be selective and conduct thorough due diligence before investing.

When it comes to the cannabis industry, it all starts with the management team and it is important than ever to know who you are investing in. The emergence of the cannabis industry has led to an influx in the number of publicly traded companies focused on this incredible growth sector.

Although some of these companies may wow you with exciting investor presentations, attractive business model and remarkable high growth estimates; don’t believe everything you read!

Terra Tech Corp (OTCMKTS:TRTC) has 

Whatever your view of cannabis, it’s been with us for a long, long time — as far back as the third millennium BC. And for much of that time, attitudes to its use were — no pun intended — pretty relaxed.

The California Legislature has yet to establish limits concerning cannabis consumption, following voters’ approval in November 2016 of Proposition 64, which allows recreational marijuana use.

Unlike alcohol, measuring marijuana intoxication in a reliable way that can lead to admissible evidence in court has proven difficult. Although tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) − the chemical component of marijuana that causes a “high” − can be detected in a person’s blood or urine for up to 30 days after use, the inebriating effects last only a few hours. Numerous variables may distort the results, such as the user’s age, gender and race; method of consumption; frequency of use; and even the strain of the drug.

BudTrader.com, the largest online medical marijuana marketplace, announces today that they have over 750,000 registered users on their platform. The site allows users to post ads for medical marijuana products, services, delivery, dispensaries and storefronts, employment opportunities, real estate listings, and more.