In June, Microsoft became the first tech giant to take the leap into legal weed.

The 41-year-old company, based in the pot-friendly city of Seattle, managed to do so without stirring up trouble or controversy. It partnered with a marijuana-tracking software startup.

"We're not the sexy company, but we're the smart company," said David Dinenberg, founder and CEO of Kind Financial, who orchestrated the deal. "We're providing infrastructure."

Amsterdam's oldest coffee shop has been shut down by the Dutch government leaving tourists and locals alike wondering if this spells the demise of the city's famous cannabis culture.

Mellow Yellow, a cannabis cafe that's been open since 1967, will shut up shop on January 1 by order of the mayor.

The shop set a precedent and led the way for countless coffee shops to pop up all over the city.

Owner Johnny Petram fears it means the end of the coffee shop culture in Amsterdam.

Electricity-intensive cannabis production has a big carbon footprint, but with legalization, some eco-conscious growers want to make pot a shining model of sustainability.

After a flood of pro-pot ballot measures in November, recreational marijuana use will soon be legal in eight U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, and medical marijuana will be legal in 29 states. Barring a federal clampdown from the incoming Trump administration, analysts expect legal cannabis to be a boom industry, particularly in California, the world's sixth largest economy.

Donald Trump’s selection of anti-drug hardliner Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III for his attorney general nominee has entrepreneurs in the legal marijuana industry worried. While there is cautious optimism stemming from Mr. Trump's statements both in favor of medical marijuana and states' rights in this area, Senator Sessions has voiced anti-legalization sentiments for years and could instruct the department of justice to prosecute those in the marijuana industry.

Is it possible to put cannabis on the blockchain?

With one company, that’s exactly what’s taking place. Motherboard reports that Medicinal Genomics is creating a registered list of all cannabis genomes to be stored on the bitcoin blockchain. The purpose is to take any confusion out of marijuana purchases; MG wants to make sure every customer receives the strain they’ve set out to purchase, as each type can have varying effects on patients.

Australia’s largest medicinal cannabis grower, which is backed by finance sector identities Barry Lambert and Chris Cuffe, has decided to stop production here and move to the US where it says the legal framework is much more favourable.

Ecofibre recently completed a $12 million capital raising with cash from Mr Lambert and Mr Cuffe. But it will close a business that has grown cannabis on 340 acres in the Hunter Valley in NSW – used for medical experiments on rats at the University of Sydney during the past year – and move to Kentucky in the US.

In April 2015, Carrie Tice was despairing over her 80-year-old mother’s advancing Alzheimer’s when a caregiver at her senior center in California recommended giving her a topical dose of marijuana. Many other drugs had failed, but the marijuana made her feel better immediately. She was more alert, more active and looked younger. By October last year, she had moved out of the senior center, and this year she moved in with her daughter in Mill Valley.

“The change in my mom was so remarkable that I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops,” Tice said. “She seemed 10 years younger after 20 minutes, and was happy.”

Walk into any licensed cannabis grow op in Colorado and one of the first things you’ll notice are the barcodes.

California Treasurer John Chiang has appealed to President-elect Donald Trump for guidance on how the state’s projected $7-billion marijuana industry can participate in the nation’s banking system while cannabis remains illegal under U.S. law.

California voters last month approved Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana, beginning in 2018. Largely at issue is how the state will collect an estimated $1-billion in annual taxes from legal pot sales and cultivation, when cannabis businesses can face obstacles opening bank accounts, getting loans or obtaining insurance.

Want to combine your stoner proclivities with the dating app you love to hate, or maybe hate to love? Well, you can now have the satisfaction of judging weed products like people from the comfort of your own home with Budbo, the “Tinder for weed.”

Budbo users swipe left or right on local marijuana products and strains. Once you’re done swiping, you can tap on your right-swiped items for directions to a nearby dispensary carrying the product.