California's most valuable cash crop, marijuana, is taking a heavy toll on some of the state's most sensitive ecosystems, with the effects ranging from erosion, contamination, threats to wildlife, and heavy water use at a time of severe drought. 

The situation is prompting ecologists and wildlife managers to urge greater focus on bringing marijuana plots under tighter environmental scrutiny.

• The FDA designates GW Pharmaceuticals' (NASDAQ:GWPH) intravenous cannabidiol for Fast Track review for the treatment of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (NHIE). The European Medicines Agency also designates it an Orphan Drug for NHIE, a status granted earlier by the FDA.

Nine years ago, Alex Rogers, co-owner of Marijuana Politics, was released from a German prison, where he had finished serving a six-month sentence for cannabis related offenses. He was 35 years old and completely broke. He had been living in Europe for seven years and upon his release from prison, decided to move back to the United States, to, as he puts it, “get my shit together”. And, get his shit together he did. A year and a half after returning to the states, Rogers graduated magna cum laude in Political Science from Southern Oregon University.

SUMMARY: Germany is the fifth largest B2C ecommerce market in the world. If you want to expand your business into this large and growing market, what do you need to know about the preferences of German shoppers? 

Watch our interview with Nadine Späth, Manager of Consumer Markets and Ecommerce, Germany Trade & Invest, to learn more about how German financial and cultural preferences differ from those of American consumers.

In January 2015, BEVH, the German Ecommerce and Distance Selling Trade Association, conducted an online survey with Creditreform Boniversum asking a representative sample of 1,054 German shoppers, 18 to 69 years old, about their online payment habits. 
 

Aug 05, 2015 (ACCESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- SEATTLE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / August 5, 2015 / The U.S. cannabis industry could reach $35 billion in size by 2020, according to GreenWave Advisors, if all 50 states legalize the substance and the federal government ends prohibition. Within the rapidly growing industry, investors have a number of different options when deploying capital, ranging from hands-on plays like Latteno Food Corp.'s LATF, +0.00% stake in Los Angeles dispensaries to hands-off plays like CannLabs Inc.'s CANL, -0.01% testing facilities.

Glenn Price, whose medical marijuana shop was raided by Winnipeg police, has been charged with drug trafficking.

"It was determined that the owner was operating an illegal drug trafficking business which was held out to be a medical marijuana dispensary," police said in a news release.

Several police units searched Price's shop, Your Medical Cannabis Headquarters, as well as a suite in the same Main Street building on Tuesday morning.

The sign is taken down at Your Medical Cannabis Headquarters on Tuesday, following the police raid. (Erin Brohman/CBC)

Police seized a kilogram of marijuana as well as drug paraphernalia from the store, and about two ounces of pot from the suite.

Less than a week after New York state granted five companies licenses to manufacture and sell medical marijuana in the state, not everyone in the industry is impressed. The issue: New York's approach just doesn't do enough to bring the green that counts into the hands of the license holders.

At least two cannabis investors are skeptical about the margins on a national scale, this in spite of a recent forecast that the dispensaries could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue as soon as next year.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is warning marijuana growers to stop using illegal pesticides, while the state scrambles to put together a list of acceptable chemicals.

The federal government puts pesticides through tests that determine in what context a chemical may be used in agriculture and how much may be used. Those accepted uses are then listed on the label of the pesticide.

However, because cannabis is an illegal substance according to federal laws, there are no approved pesticides to use in marijuana cultivation. So, while many growers use pesticides, the application is technically against the law.

Maxim Zavet is hoping to soon begin production of medical marijuana in a converted chicken processing plant in Paris.

The Toronto lawyer and businessman, who began work on the project just over two years ago, is awaiting the results of a Health Canada inspection completed a couple of weeks ago.

"We're waiting with bated breath, hoping to hear something soon," Zavet said in a telephone interview.

Zavet is the co-founder and CEO of Kindcann, the company that is behind the medical marijuana operation that is being set up in an industrial area of Paris.

Executives from those companies that won licenses and that will set up manufacturing and dispensary operations shared their strategies to succeed: starting small, diversifying into related products and leveraging experience in other states.

New York state will set the prices marijuana products can be sold at, register patients and train and authorize physicians who can recommend the treatment. Torrens said the small number of patients who are likely eligible, between 120,000 and 125,000 people, will make it difficult for the companies to succeed.