Just when you thought you had run out of ways to consume marijuana, in comes something newer and weirder.

CannaKorp has unveiled a new vaporizer, the CannaCloud, scheduled to hit the market early next year. While the vaporizer isn't an official Keurig, the design is similar. CannaKorp will offer legally grown marijuana, available in adorable single-use pods. 

CannaKorp's vaporizer will be sleek and white, and vaporizes the marijuana by heating it without setting it on fire. The company argues that their product combines simple design with powerful efficacy.

If you love eating bacon, you may find this interesting.

Farmers in Washington claimed that marijuana pig feeds help to make pigs grow bigger, and add more savory. While the state is about to embark on a first-of-its-kind legal market for recreational marijuana, the farmers of new cannabis growers have found alternatives to what to do with the excess stems, roots and leaves of the cannabis.

Susannah Gross, an owner of a five-acre farm north of Seattle, joined a group experimenting with a solution to make a marijuana into appetite-enhancing properties.

Four pigs were given feeds with supplemented potent plant leavings. After four months, the pigs' weight turned into 20 to 30 pounds heavier than the half-dozen other pigs.

Earlier this month, Mark Kleiman – the doyen of public health academia – shared his Transatlantic Lessons, a stark warning of the potential perils of over commercialising cannabis.  Today, we have republished what is, essentially, a bold response to Kleiman’s concerns from Troy Dayton, Co-Founder of The Arcview Group with the following ‘profit-positive’ approach to the coming commercial cannabis wave.

It's an unexpected shot in the arm for Alberta's struggling economy. And it's about as unlikely as it gets. 

Alberta's only industrial-scale grower of medical marijuana, Aurora Cannabis, just served notice that business is booming. The company now has well over 2,000 customers, beginning from a standing start in January. 

Prior to that, Aurora had to wait for the issuance of a sales licence from Health Canada. And that wasn't forthcoming until Aurora's crops had undergone extensive laboratory testing for quality control by an independent, licensed third party. 

Marijuana cultivation is estimated to use one percent of America’s electricity output. That’s enough juice to power 1.7 million average homes.

And as more states make the drug legal in some form, that power consumption is expected to soar. Northwest energy officials project cannabis grows will suck up three percent of the region’s power by 2035. 

Now, efforts are underway to get growers to reduce their energy use.

John Kagia cuts right to the chase.

“Indoor cannabis cultivation is extraordinarily energy intensive,” he flatly states.

Kagia is Director of Industry Analytics for New Frontier, a Washington DC-based cannabis industry consulting firm. For example, he says:

Nic Balzer is using his savings to start a marijuana-related business – before the drug is even legalized in Ohio.

It’s a risk Balzer and partner Robert Ryan started taking on last year, prior to a failed ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

In Colorado, it’s usually the education budget, law enforcement, and infrastructure that see the most benefit from legal marijuana tax revenue.

The state’s third largest city, Aurora, just changed that in a big way. The city will divert a third of its marijuana tax revenue to organizations that help the homeless. The city faces a growing number of displaced citizens, including a large number of families that occupy the city’s motels but can’t afford other day-to-day necessities like food or clean clothes. By comparison, the chart below will show you how the entire state of Colorado allocated their tax revenue from legal marijuana sales in the fiscal year 2014-15.

As a European, it’s been exhilarating to watch how the cannabis industry is sweeping across the U.S. The new brands, technology, science, culture, and great products are awe-inspiring. As much as I would love things to follow the same path here in Europe, I just can’t help but feel that things are not going to.

A Winding Road

This year marks the 20th anniversary of marijuana receiving its first state-level approval, when California gave cannabis the green light with Proposition 215. Since that 1996 approval, cannabis has spread like a weed, gaining legalization into other states and giving both patients and consumers hope that they would soon have access to both medical and recreational marijuana.

As we look at the marijuana industry today, a number of amazing facts and figures stand out. As objective observers, and investors, let's take a closer look at nine fast facts about marijuana, including one telling statistic.

1. 24 states have legalized medical marijuana

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board is taking steps to address high levels of pesticides found in some legal marijuana samples. But the agency does not currently require testing for pesticides. Growers say for now, it’s up to consumers to seek that information.

Last week the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis board approved the state’s first threshold levels for certain pesticides. Marijuana with higher pesticide levels could face a product recall.

Danielle Rosellison and her husband are licensed marijuana growers and processers in Bellingham.  They rely on small rooms and controlled environments to grow without pesticides, but she’s not sure customers appreciate that.