Shaun Gindi brought a duffel bag stuffed with 1,000 twenty-dollar bills to open a checking account at his local Chase branch. He was successful. Until the branch closed the account a week later.

“I’ve gone through at least eight banks,” said Gindi, 38.

Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg’s involvement in the burgeoning marijuana business may not come as a shock, but professional athletes and a former boyband member are also getting in on a potentially lucrative endeavor

Lured by rapid growth prospects for a lifestyle product long beloved by many celebrities, many are starting to pour their money into one of the newest US industries: marijuana.

The Shell Farms & Greenhouses is an expansive 1,000-acre property in Garrard County, 37 miles south of Lexington, Kentucky. The five-generation family farm is operated by 31-year-old Giles Shell and his 60-year-old father, Gary. The two are whizzes at making ornamental flowers flourish, and like most farmers in the area, the family has grown tobacco for years.

In late June, the younger Shell stood outside one of six greenhouses on the farm and held up a yellowed tobacco plant with limp rootstock. The Shells know how to save sickly tobacco plants like this one, but they don’t want to anymore. “I’m hoping it’s our last crop,” Shell said.

The unethical greed of pharmaceutical companies has recently taken center stage in public discourse following the decision of vulture capitalist Martin Shkreli’s decision to jack up the price of a vital AIDS drug by 5,000% (which he has still failed to rescind), but the problem extends much further than the widely reviled “pharma bro.” Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has spearheaded congressional investigations into the matter, targeting Valeant Pharmaceuticals for their shameless use of similar price hikes.

Marijuana sales blazed past the $100 million mark for the first time in August, the Denver Post reported over the weekend.

According to sales data from Colorado’s Department of Revenue released Friday, sales of recreational pot topped $59.2 million for the month, while medical marijuana dispensaries pulled in $41.4 million, for a combined $100.6 million — the highest monthly total since legal recreational cannabis sales began there in January 2014.

Starting Monday, Oct. 12, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis  Board will begin accepting and processing applications for retail marijuana licenses using the priority criteria set forth in the Cannabis Patient Protection Act. Below is a step by step guide to help applicants better understand how the process works. Please visit the WSLCB Marijuana section of the website for more information. Thank you.

Retail License Application Process

Why cryptocurrency?

Marijuana is still illegal at the federal level in the United States. That means dispensaries and cannabis-related businesses operating lawfully under state laws can still have a hard time getting traditional banks to take their business.

As such, many cannabis-related businesses must operate on a cash-only basis. This is an inconvenience and it puts marijuana businesses at personal risk.

Since the industry still lacks a non-physical way to complete secure transactions, cryptocurrencies actually make a lot of sense for marijuana operators.

Detroit Councilman George Cushingberry Jr. wants to loosen certain aspects of proposed regulations for the city's medical marijuana dispensaries.

Nearly eight years after Michigan voters overwhelmingly concluded that marijuana should be available to patients whose doctors prescribe it, state lawmakers are finally addressing some of the most egregious defects in Michigan's Medical Marihuana Act.

Jessica Billingsley of MJ Freeway to Receive Award in the Company of the World’s A lot of Distinguished Females Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Influencers

DENVER, Oct. 12, 2015/ Weed Wire/– Jessica Billingsley, Co-Founder and COO of MJ Freeway Company Solutions, a Denver-based woman-owned software application business and the market leading service provider of cannabis company software application including point of sale, inventory tracking, production, and growing management, will certainly be the first female ever from the cannabis industry to allow the prominent 2015 Fortune A lot of Appealing Females Entrepreneur Award. This incredible accolade exists to 10 female founders of prospering, ingenious, revolutionary business with revenue in the $1 million-to-$25 million range.

Nearly 20 years after California jump-started a national dialogue on medicinal cannabis, the Legislature and the Governor have succeeded in negotiating a set of new bills to bring law and order to the Wild West economy of legal cannabis in California.

Should the governor sign his name to the package of bills the Legislature approved last month — AB 266, AB 243 and SB 643 — there will be profound changes in the industry; standardized licensing requirements and processes, tight restrictions on water and pesticide use, consumer safety standards, and public safety regulations that tightly control the distribution of cannabis from where it is grown to where it is sold.