There are two major problems casting a shadow over cannabis cultivation as a whole: chemical safety and sustainability. Although these problems are not exclusive to the cannabis industry, their unique impact on both the industrial and cottage markets as well as with home growers alike is noticeable.

When it comes to Cannabis, the industry as a whole is expected to be one the biggest, outperformers of our lifetime. It is the end of marijuana prohibition after-all.

Some stats: 13% of U.S. adults admit to currently smoking pot on a regular basis, while 43% say they have at least tried it, according to a Gallup poll from 2016.

I would put money on these stat figures being largely incorrect, people tend to not like admitting certain things to strangers on the phone. You could probably safely double those numbers, which sounds more realistic to me.

Online sales could be one way recreational marijuana is sold after legalization.

Canada's biggest publicly traded marijuana company is readying a new online store to hawk its wares, in a move that hints at how legal marijuana sales might soon look.

Canopy Growth Corp., which owns the Tweed, Mettrum, and Bedrocan brands of medical marijuana, will launch the Tweed Main Street store in the first half of April.

Between them, the three brands have more than 50,000 registered clients, according to Canopy. Right now, those customers have to shop for their products separately, on each brand's individual website.

Shops patronized by pot smokers have a long tradition of labeling their pipes and vaporizers “for tobacco use only.” But startups developing smoking and vaping gear are basically asking customers to put their weed in it.

Self-described cannabis product companies are raising capital in droves, while funding for startups in the e-cigarette space has all but, well, vaporized. Not a single company that mentioned tobacco, cigarettes or e-cigarettes in its Crunchbase profile raised a disclosed funding round in the past year. By contrast, at least 45 self-described marijuana and cannabis companies did.

Just because marijuana is legal in a state doesn’t mean it’s legal at a music festival; Coachella attendees are officially prohibited from bringing drugs on festival grounds, even though obtaining legal marijuana in California is as easy as walking into a store and saying, “Hey, I’d like to buy some legal marijuana.” But WeedMaps, described by Tech Crunch as “the Yelp of marijuana dispensaries,” has a plan: TMZ reports that WeedMaps and marketing firm Talent Resources are partnering up to build an “oasis” for weed smokers, located six miles from the festival.

A region of the Keystone State impoverished by industrial decline and ravaged by opioid addiction sees a future in medical cannabis.

The promise of big profits and job creation continues to draw communities to the legal marijuana industry, particularly in places where the economy has long suffered.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in southwestern Pennsylvania. City leaders in Braddock, located east of Pittsburgh, have submitted an application with the state in hopes to land a license that will allow for a new cannabis cultivation facility. The goal is for legal medical marijuana to bring back jobs lost over the past decades by the decline in the steel industry.

ZoomAway Travel Inc (CVE:ZMA) has announced that ZoomAway, Inc, its subsidiary based in Nevada has started a research on Unites States’ upcoming Cannabis Hospitality and Tourism Industry. The Cannabis Hospitality and Tourism industry in the United States is growing at a high rate following the legalization of Marijuana by several states including Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Massachusetts, Maine, Colorado, California and Alaska.

Fund will track medical marijuana companies.

Roughly two weeks before April 20, investors with a craving for marijuana exposure will have a new instrument with which to get it in their portfolios.

The first exchange-traded fund with a marijuana focus, the Horizons Medical Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, has been conditionally approved for listing by the Toronto Stock Exchange. It is scheduled to debut on April 5 under the ticker symbol HMMJ. According to Horizon ETF Management, it will be the first ETF “that offers direct exposure to North American-listed stocks that are involved with medical marijuana bioengineering and production.”

Hemp, Inc.

Chip Moore, the CEO of 4&20 Blackbirds, a cannabis delivery company, exemplifies the equity applicant Oakland’s cannabis ordinance is supposed to help. 

But Moore, who is black, hasn’t seen anything but obstacles in his effort to build a legitimate business. 

The delays in Oakland’s enactment of its permit system for pot businesses have chased away investors, Moore told me. Because the Oakland City Council can’t get its act together, he hasn’t felt comfortable purchasing a warehouse. And without a place to operate, Moore says he won’t even be eligible for an equity permit.

So this is how the council is creating equity in a multibillion-dollar industry: by making it incredibly difficult for someone like Moore to get off the ground.