The interactions and memories between a customer and a company form a conceptual model in the customer’s mind. This is the brand.

Branding is not specifically the “attractiveness” of a product. A brand is a mark that represents experiences, trust, and the values of the company and their products. “Attractiveness” is subjective. One brand will be attractive to some and repulsive to others. Some prefer Tesla, and some prefer Chevrolet.

The Canadian Cannabis Legalization Task Force released its report to a collective sigh of relief from many industry members. The Task Force did their homework, and have made recommendations using research and reason, and overall, it’s well done.

Despite new figures that show Colorado’s marijuana sales topped $1 billion for the first time ever last year, there is some concern in the state over what could happen to the burgeoning business under new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Sessions is on record in the past saying that “Good people don’t smoke marijuana” and that “marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized” and that it is “a very real danger.”

You won’t have to worry about unclear labels on any pot-infused sweets in Washington state after Valentine’s Day. A rule to help keep children from getting more than just a sugar high goes into full effect Tuesday.

Jasmine Hargrove, a shop manager in Olympia, said she’s already seen some items with the new label.

“We’ve been getting in products for the past couple of months that are coming with the new ‘not for kids’ sticker,” Hargrove said. “It’s a bright red stop hand and it says ‘NOT FOR KIDS’ on it. And I believe it has the poison control number on it as well.”

Many edible pot products look strikingly similar to candy, cookies, and other tempting treats you might find at the grocery store.

The marijuana industry is scorching hot right now, and it's no wonder that investors are seemingly champing at the bit to get their hands on a company, or series of companies, with strong double-digit growth potential.

According to cannabis research firm ArcView, the legal marijuana market could grow by roughly 30% per year through the end of the decade. Investment firm Cowen & Co. shares a somewhat similar sentiment, forecasting growth from $6 billion in legal pot sales in 2016 to $50 billion by 2026. That's good for a compound annual growth rate of better than 23%. You'd struggle as an investor to find an industry that could consistently grow its sales for an average of 23%+plus each year for a decade.

The tide is shifting on cannabis

In the Andean hills of Antioquia, Colombia, greenhouses covered with white tarpaulin sheets dot the countryside. For now they are all used for growing flowers — but the soil here is being prepared for a more contentious crop.

“The medical marijuana industry can become bigger than coffee, bigger than flowers,” said a smiling Patricio Stocker, chief executive of PharmaCielo, the first company licensed to roll out production of medical marijuana in Colombia. “Our aim is to help the most [troubled] regions in the country.”

You could have made plenty of money investing in the right marijuana stocks last year. Most, however, are small companies without much of a track record. Investing in these stocks is highly speculative, to say the least.

A few of these companies, though, have grown large enough to reach market caps of $1 billion or more. GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: GWPH) claims a market cap of nearly $3 billion, while Canopy Growth Corporation 's(NASDAQOTH: TWMJF) stands right at $1 billion. Here's why these two billion-dollar marijuana stocks could soar even higher in 2017.

Enthusiastic about Epidiolex

It was probably inevitable, especially on the cannabis-loving West Coast.

A Christian church has been turned into a marijuana dispensary.

The quaint building that used to house Shawnigan United Church on Vancouver Island has now been “re-christened” the Green Tree Medicinal Dispensary.

There is symbolic power in the transformation. And, depending on your tastes, the metaphorical shift is positive or negative.

The anti-religious might cheer that a church, which many stereotype as a bastion of supernaturalism and conservative social morality, has finally joined the live-and-let-live West Coast zeitgest.

As Massachusetts’ marijuana market is poised to move from street corners to store fronts, investors are starting to see green — and it’s not just the plants.

The Bay State will be the first on the East Coast to tap into the legal weed market and industry experts predict big payoffs. By 2020, marijuana sales in the state will top $1.1 billion and it will be a $21 billion market nationwide, according to market research data by New Frontier.

Long a hub for the tech and medical industries, Troy Dayton, CEO of the Arcview Group, which analyzes the marijuana markets, predicts Boston could soon become a hub for marijuana too.

The legal marijuana industry has been growing in leaps and bounds over the last several years (as of the November election, 26 states and Washington D.C. have legalized weed in some way), which means there are plenty of jobs and tons of money to be made from working in cannabis.

Canopy Growth makes big score with last week’s acquisition of marijuana rival Mettrum Health.

Before it became “medical or adult-use cannabis,” it was weed, an illegal plant grown in basements and sold in back alleys. Now it’s a publicly traded commodity that’s expanding on a global scale.

One company that’s been growing almost faster than the rest of the industry is Canopy Growth Corporation, and on February 1 it got permission for a significant growth spurt.