Budtenders are half bartender, half pharmacist, offering recommendations for cannabis products to suit each customer.​

When she was 14, Sandra Andrade first learned about marijuana from her brother who had an outdoor garden. Today, the 36-year-old works at downtown L.A. dispensary Kushmart, where she helms the point-of-sale contact for those who want to purchase cannabis products. In weed industry terms, she's a budtender.

Why should investors like marijuana stocks? For some, the rationale might be the enormous market potential. For others, it could be simply that many marijuana stocks have soared over the last year or so.

There are plenty of reasons for investors to like three marijuana stocks in particular -- GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH), Insys Therapeutics (NASDAQ: INSY), and Aphria (NASDAQOTH: APHQF). In fact, there are at least 661 million reasons. That's the amount of cash in U.S. dollars that the three companies have combined. Here's why the cash stockpiles held by GW, Insys, and Apria are important.

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.

Lost to most in the flurry of legislation at the end of the South Carolina General Assembly’s session earlier this month was a bill legalizing the growth of industrial hemp. Not pot, but hemp.

Industrial hemp is different from its cousin marijuana in that it contains 0.3 percent or less of the psychoactive chemical that will get you high. Marijuana, a separate variety of Cannabis sativa, can contain up to 40 percent.

Hemp is used for myriad purposes, from food to clothing to composites for car and airplane parts to oils for dietary supplements. Soon, perhaps this summer, the S.C. Department of Agriculture and the State Law Enforcement Division will issue 20 licenses to grow crops on up to 20 acres as a pilot program.

Cronos Group Inc. (TSXV:MJN) ("Cronos" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the Company's wholly-owned licensed producer ("LP"), the Peace Naturals Project Inc. ("Peace"), breaks ground today on a 315,000 sq. ft. expansion.  The expansion includes a state-of-the-art 286,000 sq. ft. production facility (the "New Facility"), a 28,000 sq. ft. greenhouse (the "Greenhouse"), and an additional 1,200 sq. ft. extraction laboratory (the "Extraction Lab").  Upon completion, the New Facility is expected to be the largest purpose-built indoor cannabis production facility in the world. 

In response to Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling marijuana ‘slightly less awful’ than heroin, country legend Willie Nelson suggest he try it, to see if it were true.

Don’t Knock It Until You Try It

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Nelson responded to questions about Session’s stance on marijuana, the Trump presidency and the time he almost ran for office.

84-year old Nelson is an outspoken supporter of marijuana legalization. He has served on NORML’s advisory board, led celebrity fundraisers and has even been arrested for marijuana possession. His opinion of Session’s comment was straightforward and friendly, referring to Sessions as ‘Jeff’:

A new industry is about to take root in Kelowna. Valens Agritech has just received approval from the federal government to grow commercial quantities of medical marijuana at its 17,000 square foot facility.

The company expects to soon start growing about 4,800 plants to produce about 2,000 kilograms of pot annually.

“As soon as we can assure everyone we’re 100 per cent ready to go we’ll start,” said CEO Tyler Robson. “So it’s almost imminent at this point.”

The company will first produce medical marijuana products and then move into the recreational market when marijuana is legalized, likely later this year.

The marijuana industry, and marijuana stocks for that matter, have been expanding by leaps and bounds over the past two decades. What was once a completely taboo industry has become a thriving source of legal growth, at least in some states.

According to a Gallup poll from the mid-1990s, just 25% of respondents were in favor of seeing recreational weed legalized nationally. Mind you, this was during the height of the War on Drugs campaign in America. As of 2016, an all-time high of 60% of respondents wanted to see cannabis legalized for adult use across the country, per Gallup. An even larger figure, 93%, wants medical cannabis legalized nationally, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

Tampa Bay is home to a new revolution. Gardening without soil. Not even sand, gravel or liquid.

We’re talking about growing plants out of thin air.

It’s called Aeroponics. Yes, it been around for a long time, but a local company in St. Petersburg has mastered growing cannibals using the technique.

“Growing the plants 10 percent faster,” says Doug Fyvolent with Solaridy.

The company uses a 10-foot-tall “CropTower”, which allows you to grow up, not out.

They got the idea from NASA and made It better. Better to grow cannabis that is.

Doug Fyvolent is one of the masterminds of Solaridy. He's been researching the cannabis industry for a while and found that space was a big issue for growers.