Diversity, like love and peace, is a virtue widely embraced. Getting it done takes working through the grittier details, though. According to Jesce Horton, Cofounder and Vice President of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, speaking at a recent MJ Freeway Webinar on Diversity in the Cannabis Industry, “This is an opportunity not just to build another industry, but a new, different and better industry.”

This weekend, Alaska saw its first-ever job fair for careers in commercial cannabis, offering a glimpse of how the semi-legal marijuana industry is taking tentative steps towards professionalism and profits.

Theresa Collins shuffled between prospective employers and job-seekers inside the enormous, high-ceiling room that serves as the venue for Pot Luck Events, the marijuana-friendly company she runs at 420 West 3rd Avenue in downtown Anchorage. And yes, that is the actual address. Collins worked with the newly-formed Alaska Cannabis Growers Association to organize an event matching would-be workers with jobs that don’t yet exist.

By Njabulo Majola.

Don Crawford on his family's farm in Wallkill, N.Y., which is adjacent to property where a company wants to produce medical marijuana. Mr. Crawford supports the proposal.

By Anemona Hartocollis

WALLKILL, N.Y. — Don Crawford comes from a long line of Orange County farmers. Though he no longer tends dairy cows, he still cuts hay for the thriving equestrian industry, and cringes at the creep of the suburbs.

So when a stranger came to town and announced plans to grow marijuana on the fallow land next to his, Mr. Crawford was thrilled.

“It’s better than a bunch of houses,” he said.

ummer weather in downtown Anchorage was reason enough to be outside on Saturday, but atPot Luck Events (appropriately located at 420 W. 3rd Avenue), dozens of people were huddled in a low lit room filling out paperwork and, well, smoking pot.

It was the first time the municipality hosted a job fair specifically for people interested in working in the marijuana business.

The world’s scientific community seems to be re-evaluating its relationship with the plant Cannabis, popularly referred to as dagga in South Africa. Studies that range from the medicinal benefits of cannabis to the societal effect of the legalisation of cannabis have been published by internationally respected journals such as PLOS ONE and Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. The general consensus points towards a relaxation of Cannabis related legislation and a need for increased funding for further study of the field.

James Hull recently went back to his roots as a 3rd generation horticulturist after a career in high-tech engineering.  The result? Catapult, a Marijuana-infused coffee which according to Hull makes you feel blissful and energetic at the same time.

It seems only natural that Hull runs his company, Fairwinds Mfg., just a few hours south of America’s coffee capital, Seattle.

(Catapult coffee from Fairwinds Mfg should not be confused with Fairwinds coffee from The Rogers Family Company which makes traditional coffee in California)

BISMARCK -- Former MHA Nation Tribal Chairman Tex Hall has joined a company focused on producing marijuana on reservations.

Native American Organics LLC will help tribes who want to enter the marijuana products industry set up legal growing and distribution systems. The company is a partnership between Hall's Red Tipped Arrow LLC and Wright Family Organics LLC, a California-based medical marijuana research and operations company.

The company will work on regulation and compliance issues with tribes located in states where medical and recreational marijuana is legal, helping to break down barriers to entry. It will help tribes make law governing the industry on their reservations.

As a resident of Washington state, I've witnessed some big changes over the past decade -- but perhaps none bigger than the legalization of marijuana on a recreation basis.

Why legalize?
Approved by voters in the Nov. 2012 elections, Washington state joined Colorado as the first two recreation-legal states in the country. Since then, Oregon and Alaska, along with Washington D.C., have joined in legalizing marijuana for recreational, adult-use purposes.

The legalization of marijuana for recreational and medical purposes is significant for Americans for a number of reasons, but those reasons differ depending on whom you ask.

Revised recreational marijuana bill SB 1176, died in Regulated Industries Committee on May 1, 2015.

The bill was the second attempt by Miami-Dade Senator Dwight Bullard to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. His first attempt, SB 1562, was filed last February 28. That bill also died in Regulated Industries Committee (May 2, 2014)

The difference between the original bill and revised bill was the revision “strengthened the efforts to direct revenue from the excise tax on marijuana to educational and health-related issues” according to Bullard.

In simpler terms, the new bill stated that some of the profit made by the tax on recreational marijuana would go to the Department of Health and Department of Education.