I scream, you scream, we all scream for – marijuana? The recreational ganja business is booming, so much so, that its demand as surpassed that of ice cream in the United States. In fact, the total demand for marijuana in 2017 is estimated to reach $45-50 billion.

Wana Brands and AltMed Enterprises announce the completion of licensing deals to bring Wana Brands’ top selling edibles to the Arizona market and AME’s award winning MüV line of medical cannabis infused products to the Colorado market. Wana Brands’ entry into the Arizona market will be through a licensing deal between its affiliate, Mountain High Infused Products, LLC and AltMed Arizona, an affiliate of AltMed Enterprises.  A licensing agreement between NuTrae, LLC doing business as MüV (a subsidiary of AltMed Enterprises) and Wana Brands opens the door to MüV products becoming available in Colorado.

Sales of most medical marijuana products from Hydropothecary Corp. will resume after the Gatineau medical marijuana grower announced that it had recalled products affected by the discovery of trace amounts of an unapproved pesticide.

Hydropothecary announced the recall Tuesday morning, saying it was still searching for the source of the contamination at its facility in Masson-Angers, about 40 kilometres northeast of Ottawa.

The company voluntarily stopped all sales two weeks ago after a Health Canada spot check found the pesticide myclobutanil on plant samples.

Republican and Democratic senators on Wednesday renewed their drive to make banking easier for marijuana-based businesses in those U.S. states where the drug is legal, undeterred by signals from the Trump administration about maintaining tough marijuana restrictions nationally.

The eight senators, who spanned the political spectrum from libertarian-leaning Republican Rand Paul to liberal Democrat Cory Booker, introduced the bill to block federal banking regulators from somehow pushing a financial institution to stop serving a state-sanctioned marijuana business or the businesses’ landlords or lawyers.

The government would also not be allowed to give banks incentives to cut off the businesses.

Workers at a medical marijuana dispensary in Toronto’s east end have joined Unifor, the country’s largest private-sector union.

Forty workers — including reception, production, supervisors and packaging and retail staff — at the Broadview Avenue location of Canna Clinic are now represented by the union.

Unifor says it’s believed to be the first time that marijuana dispensary workers in Canada have unionized.

Marijuana dispensaries are currently illegal in Canada. The only legal way for Canadian patients to purchase medical marijuana is directly from Health-Canada licensed producers, who ship it via mail.

Unifor president Jerry Dias said all workers have a right to unionize, regardless of an industry’s status.

There's a crowd of a few dozen people mingling about the Capitol grounds in dark suits, striped ties, power dresses and sunglasses on a summer-like spring day in the nation's steamy capital. They look like they're ready for a Republican fundraiser, but they're actually marijuana business owners – everything from edible bakers to dispensary owners – from 20 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There are no Birkenstocks or marijuana leaves in sight, well except one old hippy draped in a marijuana flag and one U.S. Congressman, Democrat Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, rocking a bowtie polka dotted with cannabis leaves.

The State Department of Health sent a cease and desist order to the owners of the North Florida based Trulieve, one of seven licensed marijuana growers in the state.

The letter demands they stop selling their “Entourage” product, which contains smokable marijuana in a mesh container. The leaf product is sold for use in vaporizers, which are legal under current law, but can be removed and smoked.

Confusion over what voters approved and current law has some saying lawmakers need to head back to the Capitol for a special session.

The Medical Marijuana Business Association says if legislators had passed guidelines for marijuana this session there would be less confusion for growers and the public.

Legalizing cannabis would raise £1bn in tax revenues, according to the Liberal Democrat manifesto, which backs a regulated market for the drug.

The document calls the war on drugs “a catastrophic failure” in which billions were flowing into organised crime rather than the Treasury’s coffers.

The Lib Dems said a legal, regulated market for cannabis would bring in £1bn for the government, based on Treasury figures commissioned by Nick Clegg while he was deputy prime minister.

Cannabis can be used as part of harm reduction techniques for treating severe addiction to other drugs. Thus, a coke or a heroin addict can be healed over time using marijuana. Harm reduction is a strategy wherein addicts are treated with acceptance rather than abstinence. The strategy involves a friendlier and a less disciplined approach to reduce drug use in people who are simply unwilling to quit.

When Terry Booth’s business partner approached him in the summer of 2013 with a relative’s plea for money to launch a medical marijuana business, he knew nothing about the industry.

Booth, an electrician who built a construction permitting business in Edmonton with partner Steve Dobler, declined to give the loan, concluding the relative lacked sufficient business acumen to ensure the venture’s success.

Instead, Booth and Dobler took the idea for a legal pot grow-op and ran with it, rewarding the “visionaries” who had the initial spark with positions in the startup.

Nearly four years later, Aurora Cannabis is Canada’s second-largest publicly traded marijuana company, worth $832.7 million on the stock market.