Cannabis testing labs across the United States are signing up for the Fall 2016 Emerald Test Inter-lab Comparison and Proficiency Test (ILC/PT), in an effort to advance quality assurance in the industry. Labs interested in joining the contest have until September 21 to register through the Emerald Test website.

“The Emerald Scientific PT ensures that the cannabis testing labs are performing their function to the best of their ability,” said Reggie Gaudino Ph.D., Vice President of Science, Genetics and Intellectual Property at Steep Hill Labs. “Any lab that isn't participating and exceeding the minimal passing requirements should be viewed as suspect. It's that important.”

Canadian schools and grads are in a position to capitalize on pot.

Brendan Kennedy first caught a whiff of opportunity six years ago. The former software entrepreneur—newly armed with an M.B.A. from Yale—was working at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm when he spotted something unusual amid the thousands of dossiers on tech, software and biotech firms: a start-up focused on medical marijuana.

As California edges closer toward cannabis legalization for adult recreational use in November, a marijuana-focused business accelerator program has announced a new Berkeley-based boot camp for entrepreneurs.

Based out of the WeWork building on University, the accelerator called Canopy has agreed to invest a total of $180,000 investment in nine startups — though none of them are tied directly to the cultivation, refining, or sale of the drug. The 16-week program aims to refine the businesses, and ultimately help fledgling organizations raise additional capital, according to Canopy CEO Patrick Rea.

Cannabis stocks continue to rally and with the presidential election right around the corner, we do not expect this trend to end anytime soon.

That being said, we do not recommend diving head first into the industry as the market is nothing like it was in early 2014 when you could just throw a dart at a dartboard and most likely profit off of any cannabis stock it landed on. 

2014 Was Just the Beginning

Marijuana dispensaries need to monitor a lot of information, meaning that software designed for them can do a lot to streamline the most tedious and time-consuming parts of their operations. However, it is important to note that different software come with different features, meaning that marijuana dispensaries need to choose the right software if they want the results that they deserve.

What Are the Advantages of Cloud-Based Software?

The news that Monsanto is being bought by Bayer probably won’t be well received in the cannabis sector. The deal brings together two research powerhouses that, reportedly, have long eyed cannabis as a possible new business. The worry is that the combined firm will have the financial and political influence to do to cannabis what it has already done to corn, tobacco, and other cash crops—namely, use pricy patented cannabis seeds (Roundup Ready Blue Dream, anyone?) that favor large-scale operators and rigidly control how all cannabis farmers farm. The merger, in other words, could be the first step toward Big Cannabis.

In the crowded world of on-demand apps, there are three criteria that matter, according to Eaze CEO Keith McCarty:

1. Consumers use the product a lot.
2. Suppliers can be agile.
3. The product is naturally social.

All three of those criteria are met and exceeded by cannabis, the product delivered by McCarty’s company. Eaze partners with medical marijuana dispensaries to bring the drug to nearly 100 cities and towns in California, and he joined Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode on the latest Too Embarrassed to Ask to talk about what’s next.

Need some medical marijuana? There's an app for that.

An Alberta-based pot producer has launched a mobile app to make it easier for patients with a prescription to purchase federally-regulated medicinal weed.

Cam Battley, of Aurora Cannabis, said the idea was to give customers the same service as giant online retailers such as Amazon.

"As far as we know, it is the first legal app for Android and Apple for federally-approved legal medical cannabis," Battley said.

"The fact is that people live on their phones and tablets. They use them to shop for everything from consumer products and health products to medicine. It is an acknowledgment of the reality of how people operate today."

The Wild West of weed is on fire with entrepreneurial opportunities. Potpreneurs across America are legally growing, curing and cooking the skunky stuff in record numbers. As those who cultivate and sell the plant grow, so do the offshoot businesses sprouting up around them.

Law enforcement officials in California for the first time have field-tested a pioneering marijuana breathalyzer, which also has been touted as the first device of its kind to detect edible pot products on drivers' breath.

The announcement was made on Tuesday by Hound Labs Inc, an Oakland-based scientific-device company that was founded in 2014 by Dr Mike Lynn, and emergency room doctor and reserve deputy sheriff with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

The company's marijuana detector, dubbed The Hound, promises to give law enforcement immediate measurements for the few hours that tetrahydrocannabinol - the principal ingredient in marijuana - is present in a person's breath.