Medical marijuana generated more than $4.2 billion in revenue in the U.S. in 2015, according to ArcView Market Research. And they forecast it will surpass $22 billion by 2020, as regulations continue to loosen and patient access increases.

Businesses gear up for the Texas marijuana ‘green rush’ which is slated to boom in 2017.

About 60 miles north of Dallas, amid green fields in the sleepy town of Gunter — population 1,486 — Texas Cannabis CEO Patrick Moran has optioned to buy a former cotton gin, where he plans to grow the Cannabis sativa plant, known more commonly as marijuana.

The businessman and attorney is positioning himself at the forefront of what he estimates will be a $900 million a year industry in Texas — the recently legalized market for treating intractable epilepsy with a strain of marijuana that eases seizures without getting patients high.

Bane or boon? Now that medical marijuana grow facilities are a reality in the Verde Valley, what economic impact will it have on our communities?

A quick background

Cannabis (marijuana) remains listed as a Schedule I substance under the Federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Schedule I identifies the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as having "a high potential for abuse" as well as "no established medical use."

Rachael Speegle, 34, left a full-time job as a critical care nurse last year to work at an Albuquerque medical marijuana dispensary and growing operation started by her husband.

Speegle quickly discovered that people who came to the Verdes Foundation dispensary in Albuquerque had lots of questions that called for her nursing skills.

The first seven marijuana entrepreneurs on the Kenai Peninsula received their state approvals on Thursday and Friday.

The state Marijuana Control Board gave its stamp of approval last week to four standard cultivators and five limited cultivators on the peninsula. Two licenses were issued in Kasilof, two in the Nikiski area, one in Homer, one in Sterling and one just outside Soldotna. Two growers in Seward, Stony Creek Growers and Budding Alaska, were delayed because the board members still had questions for the applicants. The board will review those two again at its July 7 meeting.

More than a decade after he retired from practicing podiatry, Dave Feller said he might be inclined to get back into the workforce due to the many employment opportunities that will open up now that medical marijuana has been legalized in the state of Pennsylvania.

“I want to see what medical conditions are allowed to be treated with medical marijuana and if podiatry is one of them,” said Dr. Feller, 65, of Butler. “If people are in pain and this law will allow treatment of medical marijuana, this is another avenue to use other than opiates and anti-inflammatories.”

The way he sees it, the medical marijuana industry could not only provide an alternative when it comes to treating patients in pain, it could be a way to supplement his retirement income.

Big-party support for a motion to legalise dope, introduced into parliament by the Greens?

Anyone convinced of that scenario a few years ago would have been accused of, well, smoking something. But that’s in effect what happened with the Narcotic Drugs Amendment Bill 2016, which opened the way for medicinal-grade cannabis to be made available to patients.

The bill, which proposes a licencing regime for both production and research — was similar to a 2014 bill introduced by Greens senator and future leader Robert Di Natale.

Travis Lane has been growing marijuana since high school, when his first pot plant swiftly withered and died in his bedroom closet. By the time he was 20, he had cultivated a small basement grow-operation.

Now in his mid-thirties, Lane owns an online dispensary and runs two 390-plant operations on Vancouver Island. He employs two growers and raises his plants without pesticides or liquid fertilizer.

"I don't want to hide what I do. I'm good at what I do. I'm proud of being good at what I do," he said. "I've been proactive my whole life in trying to move towards a time where I can openly be a cannabis professional."

For Ralf-Rainer von Albedyhll and his start-up, new rules that allow small companies to sell stock through Kickstarter - like online offerings might have been the answer to a question that has dogged him for years: How do you find investors willing to back a company in the medical marijuana business?

He’d tried to convince professional investors, including members of an Oakland marijuana investor network group Arcview Group, but to no avail. So he turned to equity crowdfunding, a newly legal practice that allows start-ups to raise up to $1 million from the general public.

Tomorrow evening, June 14 at 6:30 p.m., at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Michael Sutton will lead a discussion on whether Californians should vote “yes” on an initiative this November that would legalize the cultivation and sale of marijuana.