KINGSTON, Jamaica — Small ganja farmers across the island are being encouraged to make use of the opportunities that will be available in the medicinal ganja industry.

Speaking in Douglas Castle, St Ann, on March 18, Science, Technology, Energy and Mining Minister, Phillip Paulwell, said the “small man” must ensure that he becomes a major player in the new industry.

The minister said efforts will be made to ensure that the small ganja farmers who have been in the system a long time are not squeezed out by persons with wealth.

Prominent North American legal marijuana industry lobbyist Michael Sautman will be in Sydney early next month to start making his case to regulators after being appointed chief executive of a yet-to-be-named cannabis group that is poised to float on the Australian sharemarket.

Mr Sautman is hopeful that in the future Australians will be able to legally tuck into pot-flavoured cereal for breakfast, eat a hemp-based faux steak for dinner, and smoke a joint in the evening. And he wants to be able to sell them all of those products and more through a suite of cannabis businesses being assembled in a reverse takeover of failing ASX-listed mining hopeful Capital Mining. 

In order to make good use of the current market conditions, Hemp Inc (OTCMKTS:HEMP) has decided to launch a new flagship Nutraceutical product Green Smoothie Hemp Protein in the market. As per the reports, the announcement was made during the 1st Annual Ascent Expo that took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center recently.

What’s Next:

• Tobacco stocks stand to benefit better than any other big business from the highest potential growth industry in America, that of hemp.

• From production and packaging to marketing, Big Tobacco is already equipped to own and operate the promising and swiftly legalizing cannabis industry.

• Hemp is the largest opportunity because hemp has historically been the lifeblood of the world economy, including America from its colonial days to 1937 and then during WW II.

• Legislation filed in both houses of Congress would exclude hemp from the legal definition of marijuana.

The first government-run recreational marijuana store in the country opened this month in Washington State. Revenues from the pot shop will benefit the small town of North Bonneville, in the Columbia River Gorge.

Community leaders there say their town could really use the cash. The economy in that part of the state has been slow to recover since the timber industry collapsed more than two decades ago.

“There is one gas station. There is one restaurant. There is a golf course. And there is the Bonneville Hot Springs Hotel,” said John Spencer, the former city administrator turned consultant.

With a few exceptions he’s just described most of the town’s economy.

MEXICO CITY – The growing legalization of cannabis in the United States is forcing Mexico’s drug cartels to rethink their illicit business model, turning to opium poppy plantations and domestic pot consumption, experts say.

Americans have been legally allowed to light up joints in the U.S. capital since late last month, joining Washington state and Alaska, while Oregon will follow suit in July.

A total of 23 U.S. states have legalized the drug for medical use, and opinion polls show that a slim majority of Americans favor legalization.

The changes in the world’s biggest drug market appear to have prompted the criminal organizations producing narcotics in Mexico to switch strategies.

As a result of policy changes introduced by the Conservative government, corporations are taking over medicinal cannabis, concentrating business in the hands of people with ties to Big Pharma.

One morning in February, Nanaimo councillors and business leaders met in an industrial area about 20 minutes from the city’s downtown.

The building they stood before is nondescript. But, recounted Sasha Angus, CEO of the Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation, “It’s like a vault wrapped by Fort Knox wrapped in a castle.

“Cameras, vibration sensors, and a lot of time and effort,” he continued, describing the facility’s security measures. “There’s a vault that’s two feet thick with more vibration sensors. It’s about one level below a nuclear-missile silo.”

Tomorrow is the day.

The RCMP told Bryan Raiser that he had to close his medical marijuana dispensary by Thursday, March 19.

Tuesday night he won, symbolically anyway, the support of district of Squamish council.

Raiser appeared before council Tuesday night and asked that they pass a motion in support of access to medical marijuana derivatives. The motion was similar to that passed in January by city council in Grand Forks, which is also an RCMP jurisdiction.

The motion stated that council will request that the federal government include marijuana derivatives, such as cannabis oils, be included in the legal marijuana program and that government further review legislation and options for greater local access.

STARKVILLE – Let's take a little trip down memory lane as it relates to casino gaming in Mississippi.

Casino gaming was legalized in Mississippi in 1990 and was by 1992 open for business on the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River.

But Mississippi's gaming landscape – tied to the shores of the Gulf or the banks of the Mississippi by legislative intent – changed in 1992 when then-Gov. Kirk Fordice gave permission for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians to develop a gaming enterprise under a gaming compact. The Silver Star Casino opened in 1994 and the Golden Moon Casino followed in 2002. By 2010, the MBCI had opened the Bok Homa Casino near Sandersville in Jones County.