SAN DIEGO, March 31, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Payout, Inc. (OTC Pink:GOHE), a leading provider of international electronic payment solutions, announced today that it has entered into a strategic relationship with CannaTrac™ Technology, Inc. (CannaTrac™) for the deployment of Global Payout's closed-loop marijuana industry payment platform. As announced on March 18, Global Payout has developed a closed-loop payment system that resolves the unique challenges present in the fast-growing medical cannabis and recreational cannabis industries by reducing the risks associated with cash transactions, and by solving the crucial payment and transaction execution issues currently plaguing the industry.

Medical marijuana is legal in 23 states. Nine more states—including Pennsylvania—have medical marijuana legislation pending. The legal marijuana industry is big and growing rapidly; it is projected to generate annual revenues of over $8 billion by 2019. Given this rapid growth, many entrepreneurs are exploring entering the market. These would-be marijuana growers, processors or distributors quickly learn, however, that the legal marijuana industry poses unusual challenges. Some of these challenges are discussed in this article.

Legal Marijuana is Illegal

No attention has been given to public-health education about marijuana.

A growing gap exists between how the early marijuana-legalization laws are rolling out in Washington state and what ought to be concurrent education campaigns to give marijuana consumers science-based information to make wise choices.

Initiative 502 earmarked new excise-tax revenues to the state Department of Health to pay for “medically and scientifically accurate information about the health and safety risks posed by marijuana use.”

The initiative also called for a marijuana public-health hotline. To be available statewide, the hotline is intended to provide treatment referrals, brief counseling and educational information about marijuana.

Recent legislation in the state Senate that would legalize medical marijuana has sparked conversation across Pennsylvania.

The Senate Bill 3, a medical marijuana bill, has been introduced after its equivalent counterpart, State Bill 1182 — which was overwhelmingly supported in the Senate — died in the state House of Representatives at the end of last term.

And, former Gov. Tom Corbett had said he did not support State Bill 1182. But Gov. Tom Wolf has already pledged to sign the reintroduced bill after meeting with mothers whose children suffer from severe seizures, according to an Associated Press report.

The mayor of Nanaimo says his city is rolling in the dough from a new medical marijuana facility opened by Tilray a year ago

“They are providing jobs out there that are good paying, they’re family incomes. They have hired 95 per cent of their work force [from] local, long-time people,” says Bill McKay.

“It’s just a whole new industry, and there are a lot more of those industries coming, at least we hope so, to Nanaimo.”

McKay says the city has just approved an expansion of the plant, which will let Tilray grow from 50,000 to 250,000 square feet. Currently 115 people are employed at the plant, and Tilray has plans to hire 275 more.

One of Canada's licensed medical marijuana facilities will double in size this summer, a year after Health Canada radically changed industry rules.

Aphria Medical Marijuana cultivates 17,000 marijuana plants in a 3,000-square-metre facility operating in Leamington, Ont., south of Windsor. By summer, it will be twice that size and operating in two buildings, rather than one.

The company won't start producing double the amount of pot until late fall.

Aphria has 25 full-time employees with no casual workers.

In April 2014, Health Canada moved medical pot production from a cottage industry of thousands of loosely regulated growers to a commercially competitive sector.

Sporting a pale pink helmet and flanked by her faithful German shepherd, 5-year-old Cora Vowell looks ready to hop on a tricycle, or maybe go barreling headfirst into a backyard football game.

But Cora cannot ride her bike or play sports.The helmet is part of her everyday outfit, protecting her head against the nine to 12 seizures that batter her body each day. Her German shepherd, Hulk, is a therapy dog, trained to alert Cora's parents when the seizures start.

Brought on by an accident more than a year ago, those seizures are a constant in the family's life — so frequent that her mother, Melissa Vowell, doesn't even break conversation as she swiftly reacts to one of her daughter's brief episodes, holding her close until it passes.

Last November District of Columbia citizens voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana, joining those of Colorado, Washington state, and Alaska. Since then debate continues about where and when it’s okay to ingest the weed, how to regulate and tax it, and the moral implications of approving use of a drug that is illegal under federal law.

Self-described "conservative warlord" and Coalition Senator Barry O'Sullivan has thrown his support behind a push to legalise medical cannabis, and expressed confidence Federal Parliament would support the reform.

Mr O'Sullivan, a former drug squad detective, said his "mind had opened up considerably" over the course of a Senate inquiry on proposals drafted by Greens Senator Richard Di Natale.

Senator Di Natale's bill would create an independent body of experts, the Office of Medicinal Cannabis, which would license commercial growers and determine how cannabis could be prescribed and dispensed.

Mr O'Sullivan said he had been moved by testimony from people who had sourced cannabis illegally in a bid to ease the suffering of loved ones.

A man from the NSW Central Coast near Sydney, Australia, who is illegally growing marijuana which he supplies to people with anything from cancer to epilepsy, said he will “keep going it” despite the risk he runs of prison time.

Alex Impey may be seen in the eyes of the law as a criminal for growing the controlled plant, but he is seen as a hero by hundreds of sick people, many of them children, who benefit greatly from the marijuana he supplies to them.

Alex said he gets 20 new requests per week for marijuana, he told reporters.