Somatik is seeking funding for its cannabis-infused beverage business; the company has already partnered with Ritual, a San Francisco coffee business.

With recreational marijuana legal in eight states and medicinal use approved in 20 more, investors are seeing the potential to produce a different kind of green.

Growth industry: The cannabis economy is seen as the fastest growing big business in America, increasing 30 percent last year to $6.7 billion, according to ArcView. 

Horizons Medical Marijuana Life Sciences ETF Begins Trading on the TSX 

Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. ("Horizons ETFs") is pleased to announce the launch of the Horizons Medical Marijuana Life Sciences ETF ("HMMJ"). Units of the exchange traded fund ("ETF") begin trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") today under the ticker symbol HMMJ. 

HMMJ is the first ETF in the world that offers direct exposure to North American-listed stocks that are involved with medical marijuana bioengineering and production. 

The Hawaii Department of Health has deployed a live seed-to-sale cannabis tracking system in a cloud  environment authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. 

The state is using BioTrackTHC's State Traceability System in Amazon Web Services’ GovCloud for its state medical marijuana program. While FedRAMP is a federal program, the authorization gives Hawaii's cannabis regulators the highest level of data security available and is also expected to increase the speed of the state's Traceability System, company officials said.

More than three years ago, Noah Stokes was running a security company in Oregon when a nervous medical marijuana grower approached him. "Hey, you guys do security, right," the grower asked Stokes. The man's grow had been robbed. Someone had cut a hole in the ceiling, opened a door and loaded a truck with the harvest of several thousand square feet of grow space.

The “Amazon” for Dispensaries secured funding from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Casa Verde Capital and others.

Country has seen 500 companies apply to join ‘green rush’ in cannabis products after more than 100 studies in pharmaceutical use.

In a small pharmaceutical lab in Jerusalem, a complex construction of rubber tubes, pumps and a brass pipe sits on a worktop. A prototype device, its purpose is to “smoke” cannabis to remove its active constituents and turn them into powder, with the hope that the resulting product can be used for pain relief in young cancer patients.

The Izun lab offers a glimpse of the ambition by Israeli researchers to corner the rapidly burgeoning new global market in medical marijuana, a market its proponents argue soon could be worth almost $20bn (£16bn) annually by 2020 in the US alone.

The biotech sector will be one of the greatest beneficiaries of the global cannabis movement and investors can find a lot of opportunities within this industry.

Although firms focused on developing cannabis-based treatments are some of the highest quality opportunities, several have recently been under pressure.

Israeli Biotech Firm Falls from Highs

In late March, Therapix Biosciences Ltd. (TRPX: Nasdaq) commenced trading on the Nasdaq exchange and the shares rallied almost 50% during its first day of trading. Since then, the shares have fallen more than 20% and we think this is a stock investors should be watching.

- Grew revenue 20% and 72%, compared to Q4 2015 and Q3 2016, respectively
- Strengthened balance sheet by more than $5.5 million reflecting debt conversion and equity raise concluded in March 2017

Surna Inc. (OTCQB: SRNA) reported its financial results for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2016.

Consumers can trust what varieties of wine taste like regardless of the store they buy it from, and they could soon have similar expectations for strains of marijuana, say researchers at the University of British Columbia.

Prof. Jorg Bohlmann and a team of researchers have found 30 genes within the cannabis genome that determine the aroma and flavour of the plant.

The findings, published in the journal Plos One, are the first step toward creating flavour standards that can be replicated.

Bohlmann said with the legalization of marijuana on the horizon, there is a real need for standardization of the product when it comes to flavours and the strength of psychoactive compounds.

Too many founders fail to pay attention to these crucial issues at the beginning, leading to huge costs later on.

A mistake at the startup stage can cost you a lot of money when it comes time to raise funds or sell your business. Take it from Jamie Firsten, a partner at the business law group at Toronto’s Cassels Brock, who works with early-stage companies and venture capital firms in the growing Canadian technology sector.