Last week Microsoft announced a software partnership to help states track marijuana sales and MedMen launched its private equity Opportunity Fund

It may not be your cup of tea, but marijuana could become a potent alternative for certain high-net-worth investors looking for an industry with strong growth potential.

Last week Microsoft announced a software partnership to help state governments track marijuana sales, and, come Election Day, at least four states, including California, will host ballot initiatives to legalize recreational use of marijuana. Four states already have — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington — and those states plus some 21 more have legalized cannabis use for medical purposes.

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ parent company is locked in a legal battle with rapper Snoop Dogg over his bid to trademark Leafs By Snoop, the musician’s new line of marijuana products.

Snoop, whose given name is Calvin Broadus Jr., filed a trademark application for Leafs By Snoop, with the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office in November. His logo features the slogan in white lettering over top of a seven-leaf green plant, according to his trademark application, which was obtained by TSN.

Snoop said he planned to use the logo on products such as cigarette lighters.

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment filed an opposition to Snoop’s logo on June 8, asking the Alexandria, Va.-based trademark office for more time to detail its opposition.

Less than a month after a bill legalizing medical marijuana in Ohio was signed into law, nearly 30 cannabis-related trade names are registered to one name and address in Athens County.

Names like The Ohio State Cannabis Company, Capital Cannabis Company and Columbus Cannabis Collective, among others, are all registered to a 54-year-old man named Thomas Jackson, an aspiring legal medical cannabis producer who wants to make sure he won’t have to pay anyone for the name he wants on his operation.

That’s despite legal medicinal cannabis production in Ohio being more than a year away, Jackson said. He doesn’t expect the rules for Ohio producers to be fleshed out until at least May of 2017.

Medical marijuana is already approved in over half of the U.S. and 5 more states will be voting on it in 2016. Todd Hagopian says we will soon see a tipping point in which medical marijuana companies like Insys Therapeutics (INSY) will be transformed from fringe enterprises trading at a discount into mainstream biotech companies with premium valuations.

Instead of waiting as long as three months for access to medical marijuana dispensaries, prospective Nevada patients can now be approved on the same day thanks to a new Las Vegas-based Division of Public and Behavioral Health office. For medical marijuana officials, that's a step in the right direction to establishing a healthy and safe medical marijuana industry.

The office opened last week on 2300 W. Sahara Ave in partnership with the Nevada Dispensary Association — a group of over 60 dispensary owners in Nevada — and allows up to 25 patients to apply in-person for their medical marijuana cards daily instead of sending their applications to Carson City.

Any entrepreneur that is looking for a valuable but low cost investment to make in 2016 has probably investigated the opportunities within the blossoming cannabis industry.

There are currently 4 states offering legal recreational cannabis, one of which is Colorado. Colorado has reported astronomical tax revenue which has led to Republicans and Democrats actually agreeing on cannabis legalization & decriminalization in an election year. This has led to a surge of people who were once put off by the legality that are now interested in investing and strategizing about new ventures relating to cannabis.

Walking into a cannabis show in New York City is a perfect metaphor for how mainstream America approaches weed culture right now. The Cannabis World Congress expo floor at the Javits Center was overloaded with booths sporting flea market-style displays of edibles, extracts, and oils, plenty of shiny new tech, and piles of giveaway swag in different shades of green. There were also businesses hocking every kind of service imaginable, trying to capitalize on our buzziest new billion dollar industry. Cannabis consultants, lawyers, security companies, weed universities — pick a profession and tint it leaf-green.

They say good fences make good neighbors. Then there's the fences that enclose the growing number of Josephine County's marijuana grow sites.

There are a lot of them. And they are often ugly, especially when topped by a couple feet of plastic.

Among those who are unhappy with the proliferation of Visqueen view blockers is Chris Locke, a Murphy landscape nursery owner who endures the sight of a neighbor's fenced marijuana grow.

Locke, co-owner of Murphy Country Nursery, says the fences are ruining Josephine County's rural landscape. They're tall and typically made of wood, or wood topped with plastic. Many are easy to spot.

Wednesday, a well-known cannabis extraction company, Care By Design was raided in Sonoma County. A company spokesperson insists the business was in the process of being permitted. The DEA and Santa Rosa police raided it just as the city was developing an ordinance which will allow some types of cannabis extraction. Law enforcement, however, seized assets and put one man in jail. According to the Press Democrat, Narcotics Sgt. Rich Celli of the Santa Rosa Police stated, “Many people believe the law is in flux — it’s not, don’t do it.”

From the start, Lalit Chordia wants this to be clear: His manufacturing outfit in O'Hara is not a medical marijuana company.

It just happens that a high-pressure extraction method long mastered by Thar Process Inc. works wonders in producing treatments from the plant — namely pills, Chordia said.

Now that Pennsylvania has approved medical marijuana in limited forms — including those pills — he wants his business to stake a prime spot in the state's emerging production market for the drug. The company president figures Western Pennsylvania suppliers for his extraction systems could add a couple of dozen workers to meet new demand, not including positions that Thar Process might add to its own payroll of about 30 workers.