Only medical marijuana is legal in the country

BILLINGS, Mont. – Gone are the flashing green neon lights on street corners advertising $200 ounces of marijuana in Billings and Butte and beyond. Gone are the traveling cannabis caravans of doctors infamous for signing up hundreds of medical marijuana hopefuls in a single day.

The vast majority of the nearly 30,000 patients and 4,900 providers that once flooded this state of just more than 1 million people have been driven out of Montana’s medical marijuana program, which was first legalized in 2004.

If you were ever thinking about growing and selling marijuana, Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia may have the course for you.

This fall, the university will offer a course called Introduction to Professional Management of Marijuana for Medical Purposes in Canada, believed to be the first of its kind, which will teach students how to operate a marijuana business under new government regulations.

Countless users of cannabis have profited from a cannabis high. Charles Baudelaire, William Butler Yeats, Walter Benjamin, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Diego Rivera, The Beatles, Bob Marley, Carl Sagan, and many others used cannabis to change their perception, to gain deep insights, to create, write, compose, and perform.[1]

*Some names have been changed to protect the sources’ identity.

Many of us hardly stop to think about where our weed comes from. Beyond the standard plastic bag exchange, marijuana’s origins generally remain a mystery. So, when I connected with a handful of cannabis farmers to better understand their lives I hardly knew what to expect. My mind flashed between media headlines – ‘marijuana grow disguised as furniture store,’ or ‘cannabis farm fronts as cherry factory.’ Yet, I stumbled onto an entirely different culture – one comprised of spiritual folks and avid farmers working with everything from indoor rooms to acres of sun-kissed land.

So, here’s a chance to get to know five different cannabis farmers, some of which may have grown the greens you last toked.

Want a job in cannabis?  David Murét ofViridian Staffing joins show host Shango Los to discuss where the jobs are in this exploding market and how you can get one. Viridian Staffing is a recruiting agency in Washington that connects employers with job-seekers in the legal cannabis industry. Companies in Washington have hired Viridian to find and place candidates in job roles ranging from entry-level to executive, in every sector and niche of the marijuana market.

Cannabis tourism is booming. Excited by the end of prohibition many travelers are choosing to spend their vacation dollars to experience cannabis where it’s legal and have fun while doing it. Entrepreneurs are popping up to serve that need. One of those entrepreneurs is with us today, Sean Roby of Bud and Breakfast. Welcome to CannaInsider Sean.

Sean: Hey Matt thanks for having me.

Matthew: Sure thing. Sean to give listeners a sense of geography, can you tell us where you’re located in the world today?

Sean: Sure, I live in Boulder, Colorado. Our website is international though. So I could be anywhere on the planet and still function pretty good.

The first stocked medical marijuana dispensary in Las Vegas is preparing to open its doors.

Releaf Dispensary on Monday interviewed potential employees. About a thousand people applied for 40 available positions.

Applicant Thomas Orton admitted that he sold illegally for most of his life. Now he wants to do things the right way.

“I’ve been an advocate of its abilities and properties from probably my early 20s,” Orton said.

Orton chose to move with his wife from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas.

“We kind of moved here so I could be here. It’s just that we moved here a year and a half ago and we thought that the process would be pretty close to where it is now,” he said.

e first time Brian Rogers took a bong hit at a party with his Havre de Grace High School friends, he said marijuana had no effect on him.

Now Rogers co-owns a multimillion-dollar marijuana company in Colorado at the center of the CNN docu-series, "High Profits," and he's no longer ambivalent.

"It's changed my life," the 34-year-old Harford County native said.

While recreational marijuana is illegal in 46 states — including Maryland — Colorado has been at the forefront of the legalization movement. And Rogers has been at the forefront of capitalizing on it.

In our latest interview, Ganjapreneur heard from Chloe Villano, a serial entrepreneur from Colorado and founder of the nation’s first state-licensed cannabis university, Clover Leaf University. Chloe’s cannabis business expertise goes well beyond that, however: she’s also a widely-recognized and acclaimed marijuana business consultant with Clover Leaf Consulting and the founder of the Cannabis Business Awards. Through her consulting, Chloe has been working around the nation to establish leading compliance measures that have been recognized throughout the U.S.