Silicon Valley’s technology and venture capital firms are starting to make big bets on legal cannabis. Whether it’s Y Combinator, Tao Capital, or TechCrunch Disrupt, pot is hot. 

More than a thousand CEOs, VCs, founders, and journalists will gather over the weekend of November 20 for the first-ever New West Summit, the cannabis industry’s first conference devoted to tech, money, and media, with a full two-day lineup featuring 20 panels, 60 panelists, and 36 exhibitors.

New York based LeafLink, a wholesale B2B marketplace for cannabis professionals, are aiming to launch their site by the end of the year after raising $750k in funding. You can learn more about LeafLink in their Q&A with CEO and Co-founder Ryan Smith below.

While industrial hemp comes from the same plant (cannabis sativa) as marijuana, it contains only trace amounts of THC — the chemical that creates the “high” when hemp is smoked or ingested. Instead, industrial hemp can be grown for a variety of uses, including textiles and clothing, paper, paints, clothing, plastics, cosmetics, and many, many other products. 

In addition to the advocacy movement for legalizing weed, there is a movement to legalize industrial hemp — a crop that has the potential to have a serious positive impact on the U.S. economy. 

FunkSac CEO Garett Fortune will be on a plane from Cleveland tonight, probably landing in Denver around the time that Ohio counts up its votes and decides whether to legalize marijuana.

When he touches down, the king of high-tech marijuana bags will have a new round of venture capital funding in his bank account, a new partner in the form of rapper Snoop Dogg, and possibly a new state to conquer.

In fact, if Ohio’s legalization effort succeeds, Fortune will already be able to celebrate, if he chooses. Pot is already legal in Colorado, which is also a major market for Fortune’s business of selling child-proof and odor-proof bags.

Not that he’s sure about how he wants things to turn out in Ohio.

updated Nov. 3, 2015 at 4:29 p.m.

The latest developments in Ohio’s general election as voters decide issues including whether to legalize marijuana (all times EST):

Ballot details

Issue 3: The proposed constitutional amendment would allow adults 21 and older to grow, possess and use pot while making it available for medical use. Home-growers would be limited to four flowering marijuana plants and 8 ounces of usable marijuana at a given time for personal use. Pot sold commercially would have to come from 10 authorized growing sites that are already spoken for.

Englewood's City Council postponed its decision on marijuana consumption clubs Monday night as it gathers more information and waits for the results of tonight's local election, in which four new council seats will be assigned.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The only cannabis legalization-related question on any state ballot this year is in Ohio, where voters were deciding Tuesday whether to legalize marijuana for recreational and medical use in a single stroke.

If it passes, Ohio would become the fifth state to legalize recreational marijuana and would hand over exclusive rights in the state’s cannabis-growing business to a limited circle of private investors that include some famous names.

The proposed constitutional amendment, known as Issue 3, would allow adults 21 and older to grow, possess and use pot while making it available for medical use. Ohioans would be able to buy marijuana, pot-infused candies and other related products from potentially 1,100-plus retail stores.

Ahh, Nick Lachey. What has he been up to since his 98 Degrees days? Well, aside from a spot of presenting, some one-off gigs and a new marriage to model/actress/singer Vanessa Minnillo, it seems Lachey has got a bit of a side-project going on. The former US boyband star now owns one of 10 farms that could be allowed to control all large-scale marijuana cultivation in the state of Ohio. Well, that’s if residents vote to legalise marijuana later today.

Nick Lachey: weed kingpin?

SASKATOON – Computer equipment, doughnuts and cash are among the donations going to an unlicensed medical marijuana dispensary in Saskatoon after it was raided last week, according to its owner. The Saskatchewan Compassion Club re-opened its doors Monday morning after being shut-down by police last Thursday.

Mark Hauk, the dispensary’s owner, said a number of people have donated items to him after police seized his operational equipment.

“We needed some computer equipment,” said Hauk, who opened the club roughly two months ago and was arrested in the raid.

“It’s all been taken from us, so we’ve had a handful of computers come through the door,” he added.

"We will legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana” – Liberal Party of Canada.

Of the dozens of promises that make up the Liberal Party election platform, this one could have the greatest lasting impact on Justin Trudeau’s administration – and the country as a whole, according to industry experts who are eyeing a potentially sizzling new market.

In part, it’s a matter of scale. If the Liberals succeed in legalizing marijuana, an estimated 1.2 million Canadians could eventually use legal variants of the drug daily – and perhaps another 2.5 million will consume them occasionally. This assumes Canadians will embrace new rules as people have in Colorado, which legalized marijuana for recreational use following a 2012 referendum.