On a busy main street in Calgary’s Beltline neighbourhood, green medical crosses are emblazoned on the windows of a shop in an upscale strip mall.

Among the cafes, restaurants, and big-name retailers, a national chain of marijuana dispensaries has opened its first location in the city.

“We didn’t want to be pushed to the shadows,” said Frederick Pels, president and CEO of The Green Room, when asked about the storefront’s location.

“We didn’t want to be in the pawn-store-liquor-shop districts of cities. We picked it deliberately because we’re fighting a stigma.”

While President Trump continues to lean on traditional industry to bring jobs back to the United States — vowing to create somewhere in the vicinity of 25 million new jobs within the next 10 years — he has failed to consider how a nationwide cannabis industry could help accomplish his objective and bring some much need financial recovery back to a wounded blue collar workers.

In California, seniors are getting together to sample weed-laced lip balms, topical ointments, and tinctures in Mary Kay-style parties at their retirement communities.

Baby boomers make up one of the fastest growing age groups to embrace marijuana. One study found a 71% increase in marijuana use among adults aged 50 and older in the last decade.

A San Francisco-based startup is capturing their interest with direct-sales events inspired by the cosmetics companies that have done the same for decades.

The opioid epidemic in Europe and North America should be old news.

Even the U.S. government is starting to pay attention and act on the flood of overdose deaths brought on by over-prescription of the highly addictive painkillers – synthetic drugs similar to morphine such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet and Suboxone – and more deadly black market substitutes.

It is not particularly reassuring, however, that the Trump administration supports new healthcare legislation that would remove the requirement that all insurers cover drug addiction treatments.

More Drugs

A Canadian-backed firm will take over management of Chestnut Hill Tree Farm, one of Florida's seven medical marijuana operators, the companies announced Wednesday.

The deal involving Aphria Inc., a marijuana grower and processor based in Ontario, and Chestnut Hill comes on the verge of a massive expansion of Florida's medical-marijuana market, sparked by a November constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical pot.

Under the agreement, DFMMJ Investment LLC —- an entity wholly owned by Liberty Health Sciences, whose major investor is Aphria —- will “exclusively manage and operate Chestnut's cultivation, processing and dispensing of medical cannabis to patients” throughout Florida, according to an announcement released by the companies Wednesday.

Fashion has never been one to shy away from scenes considered edgy or fringe, which could make it the perfect partner for the growing cannabis industry.

The legal marijuana industry brought in upwards of $4 billion in sales in 2016, according to a new report from the Marijuana Business Daily. And small-town America is riding the high.

In the eight US states where recreational marijuana is legal, the marijuana "green rush" has breathed new life into the rural communities that welcome it. Cultivation facilities, dispensaries, and infused products companies create jobs and tax revenue for the cities and states, which then supports public infrastructure and community efforts.

Here are five towns that came back from the brink thanks to legal weed.

Phoenix Life Sciences is pleased to announce that it has signed a strategic alliance agreement with Australia-based medicinal cannabis company Canndeo Ltd (100%-owned subsidiary of The Hydroponics Company ASX:THC) to cooperatively research, develop, manufacture, distribute and sell medicinal cannabis products in Australia and internationally.

New Mexico’s medical cannabis program is an ongoing experiment. Long-standing federal limits on research into the plant’s medical uses have forced patients, doctors and dispensary owners to improvise their ways to wellness; meanwhile state regulations keep a lid on unbounded growth the industry might otherwise see.

Number of medical cannabis card holders in Santa Fe County in 2015: 1,934 
2016: 3,151

Combined First quarter income for NM Dispensaries, 2017: 
$19 Million

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