A continuing studies course at Kwantlen that began as a joke has attracted over 500 students who see medical marijuana as a growing industry.

A continuing studies course that began as a joke two years ago has attracted over 500 students who see medical marijuana as a growing job opportunity.

“With 2,000 producers waiting for their licences, there are huge employment possibilities within the industry,” said Laura Armstrong, who has a masters in horticulture science and experience working in cut flower greenhouses. She’s currently completing Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Cannabis Professional Series online course.

“There are only eight licensed producers in B.C. compared to 22 in Ontario.”

With more Canadians than ever having legal access to medical marijuana and with the legalization of recreational use promised this spring, Radical Gardens is positioning itself to take advantage of the market for THC-laced edibles.

Late next month, the local market and restaurant will be offering cooking classes to teach medical marijuana prescription holders how to cook their own edibles; from the stereotypical pot brownie to much more complicated recipes such as candies. Co-owner of Radical Gardens, Brianna Humphrey, said that locals have already been coming to her business asking for advice on how to prepare their medical marijuana.

Since passage of Proposition 64 in California last November, my firm has been getting calls nearly non-stop about what it takes to secure a license to operate a marijuana business in the City of Los Angeles. Some are asking me about “buying” a Proposition D-compliant dispensary now to secure a California retail cannabis license from the state in the future.

The booming medical marijuana business is desperate to expand, so Canada’s cannabis growers are moving into spaces deserted by shrinking industries such as oil and gas and manufacturing.

In June of 2013, Mark Zekulin, president of Tweed Inc. (a subsidiary of publicly traded Canopy Growth Corp., Canada’s largest marijuana producer), walked into Dennis Staples’s office with a business proposition: to turn a 470,000-square-foot former chocolate factory into the future home for millions of dollars in marijuana plants.

It took just half an hour to convince Mr. Staples, then the mayor of Smiths Falls, Ont., to convert the town’s abandoned Hershey chocolate factory into a medical marijuana grow-op.

While some people still depend on local peddlers to score weed or ganja, this 35-year-old neurologist from Hyderabad took the ‘scoring’ game to a whole new level by putting the social media to use for buying and selling of marijuana. Identified as Mohd Sujath Ali Khan, this doctor was arrested for allegedly selling marijuana-infused chocolates on the internet for the past two years. Wow, either he is a pure genius or we are too naïve to not have any knowledge of this online market. The inspector of the special operations team, handling this case, K Narsing Rao said, “He was making chocolates mixed with marijuana and selling them to his customers online through his Instagram account.” If we look at the past instances, Hyderabad seems to have a deep connection with marijuana.

The world’s largest cannabis directory, POTDRIVE™, is set to release 1st Quarter 2017 to an industry only too willing to connect and grow: The global cannabis community. POTDRIVE™, is the newest concept and product from Mr. Bardia Rahimzadeh (‘Rahim’ for short). POTDRIVE™ is an App representing the world’s largest search engine and B2B utility platform firmly focused on the cannabis community’s growing world market. “The POTDRIVE™ App is the ‘Google® -meets Yelp®- meets Uber®’ application that will support and enhance the explosion of cannabis B2B entities as well as their resulting consumer base. It’s the largest, valid representation of the entire global cannabis marketplace at your fingertips,” says Bardia Rahim founder and creator of the POTDRIVE™ App. 

A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory revealed that legal indoor marijuana-growing operations are highly energy intensive, and are responsible for an alarming percentage of the nation's total energy use. In California, the top-producing state, indoor cultivation uses about 3% of all electricity use.

A single cannabis cigarette represents 1.5 kg (3 pounds) of CO2 emissions, an amount equal to driving a fuel efficient hybrid car 22 miles, or keeping a 100-watt light bulb on 24-hours a day.

This energy use can account for as much as 50% of a grower's total overhead, and is detrimental to the environment – taking the "green" out of the growing marijuana industry.

The way Charles Jones sees it, when cannabis consumers choose a strain, what they’re really choosing is a mood. 

He’s simply fine-tuning that process – and supposedly offering a lack of negative side effects to boot. 

Jones is the founder of LucidMood, a start-up in Boulder, Colorado that specializes in cannabis products featuring a range of “mood-enhancing terpenes” and, perhaps most intriguingly, zero “strong negative side effects.”

The company’s flagship products are “sippers”, which are disposable vape pens filled with 1:1 ratios of CBD and THC. Each sipper features specific terpenes and aromatherapy-based natural ingredients to promote feelings of ‘Energy’, ‘Bliss’, ‘Relax’ or ‘Focus’ in the consumer.

In late 2016, we reported on Canopy Growth’s (CGC.TO: TSX) (TWMJF: OTC) announced acquisition of medical cannabis producer Mettrum Health (MT.V: TSX Venture) (MQTRF: OTC).

Last week, the companies’ shareholders approved the all-stock acquisition valued at $430 million. Now, the deal needs to be approved by an Ontario Supreme Court Justice and it is likely to come into effect on January 31st.

With the November 2016 passage of Proposition 64, the marijuana industry found validation from the largest state in the nation. Now, the state is scrambling to create regulations for the $7 billion industry as the January 1, 2018, deadline approaches.

“We’re building the airplane while it’s being flown,” state Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat representing Healdsburg, said, notes the San Francisco Chronicle. “I believe some departments will be fully operational by January 2018 but, if we’re being honest, it’s going to be difficult to get everything done by then.”