Rotorua businesses have raised their hands to help fundraise for medicinal cannabis.

Medical Cannabis Awareness New Zealand (MCANZ) is currently doing a fundraising campaign called #MC410 for legal cannabis treatments for people in a similar situation to Zoe Jefferies, a young Rotorua girl who is responding well to Sativex for her epilepsy.

Sativex is a Ministry of Health-approved cannabis oil-based mouth spray.

MCANZ co-ordinator Shane Le Brun said Rotorua was a great place to fundraise as local businesses often came forward to help.

"Most businesses think we are all a bunch of hippies, but we are quite the opposite."

Canna-Beer – Dad & Dudes Breweria’s marijuana-infused beer – may soon be available in more than just Colorado. The adult beverage brand, which officially rolled out the first line of Drew's Brews packaged cannabis-infused beers back in 2015, recently announced plans to sell their General Washington’s Secret Stash in stores across the United States.

As the tally of states that have legalized adult or medical cannabis use increases, it's becoming easier than ever for consumers – particularly the law-abiding kind – to get their ganja. Still, an ounce of bud can set you back a pretty penny in some areas: D.C.'s $538.92 average price is more than 260% Oregon's, for example. To get a clearer picture of how prices vary across the country, we've put together a reference using Price of Weed data, which compiles anonymous submissions from buyers:

For This Cannabis Entrepreneur, Opening Up Close to Home Isn't About the Commute. It's About Community.

Seattle's recreational cannabis stores don't often have much in the way of ambience. At worst, they feel like a sterile strip-mall dental office or a dimly lit Walmart.

But Maryam Mirnateghi wants to change that. Her new store, Canna West Seattle, set to open in October, is housed in a 1920s Craftsman-style house on California Avenue Southwest and will be worlds away from those impersonal pot shops.

"It's going to be clean and classy, but it's not going to be pretentious," Mirnateghi says. "It's going to be really cozy and very different from the other stores we have in the city."

At Meadow, technologists and cannabis enthusiasts are building the future of weed (and the industry to support it).

Mention the name "Meadow" to anyone in San Francisco's startup community and the conversation is instantly hijacked to a long discussion about America's first boom industry in the last three decades.

Everyone wants to know where "the industry" is heading, and how they can get into it. (Oh, and by the way, what exactly is the difference between a sativa hybrid and CBD?). The technologists and entrepreneurs at Meadow are leading that discussion.

THE WAREHOUSE 

Former Hawthorne California mayor Chris Brown plays matchmaker between small cities looking for new tax revenue and cannabis companies that want to do business there. With recreational marijuana legalization looming on California’s November ballot, those opportunities are about to increase significantly.

The burgeoning cannabis industry continues to face challenges accessing banks, experts said last month during the 23rd annual Hemp Industries Association (HIA) conference in Colorado—the U.S. birthplace of legal recreational marijuana.

Academic Sciences of Puerto Rico (ASPR) stressed the importance of broadening the knowledge about and functions of medicinal cannabis to treat chronic health symptoms and diseases while it promoted the beginning of registration to purchase and use the plant on the island. Distribution of licenses and regulation by the Health Department for legal access to medicinal cannabis will take place starting Nov. 15.

Here are three landscaping and garden supply companies that stand to benefit big time from legal weed.

Some experts say that if you can growth a healthy rosebush, you can grow a healthy marijuana plant. But it'll be a long time before 1-800-Flowers (FLWS) starts delivering marijuana to your front door.

Canada’s medical marijuana space, due to the country’s first mover advantage over many other nations, has attracted international attention. The sector has not disappointed, delivering solid, sometimes spectacular, returns to investors at home and abroad.