The growth of the medical marijuana movement presents a unique opportunity for advocacy groups to work hand-in-hand with the business community in order to bring about positive social change. Historically, advocates for important social reforms like the 40-hour week and safer working conditions had an understandably anti-business orientation. But when we're talking about providing greater access to medical marijuana, such an attitude is less than helpful. In fact, it's counter-productive. I believe if that fact were merely recognized and accepted by both medical marijuana activists and the business community, we would be much closer to establishing national acceptance than we are today.

LANSING, MI -- Michigan marijuana advocates have confirmed plans to launch a petition drive later this year and hope to put a legalization proposal on the statewide ballot in 2016.

As MLive first reported last month, the Michigan Comprehensive Cannabis Law Reform Initiative Committee is one of two marijuana-related groups eyeing the 2016 ballot.

Board members officially announced the effort on Thursday, indicating that they want to strengthen the state's medical marijuana program, create a regulated system for taxable sales to adults over 21 and facilitate industrial hemp farming.

Committee Chair Jeffrey Hank, a Lansing attorney, said the group is fine-tuning draft language before submitting petitions to the Board of State Canvassers for review.

Moncton company is 1 of only 16 in the country that makes and sells medical marijuana

Moncton company OrganiGram is mixing marijuana and jobs.

The legal marijuana grower has created 30 jobs since setting up shop and it says another 25 are on the way in April.

OrganiGram is one of only 16 companies in the country that makes and sells medical marijuana.

The company mailed out its first major shipment of marijuana just a few weeks ago and it has eight different strains currently in production.

The plants grow in the sterile facility with the help of controlled heat, lights and humidity, while staff trim the plants. The buds produced are then dried, sold to patients and shipped through Canada Post.

AmeriCann, Inc. (OTCQX Markets: ACAN), a company that designs, develops and owns advanced medical cannabis facilities, announced that it has expanded the scope of its partnership in Illinois. The Company’s partner, Wellness Group Pharms (WGP), recently received one of the eighteen highly coveted medical cannabis cultivation and processing licenses from the State of Illinois.

The amended agreement calls for AmeriCann to serve as the developer of a new facility to be called the Illinois Medical Cannabis Center (“IMCC”). WGP plans to utilize the IMCC facilities to cultivate, process and distribute medical cannabis to many of the state’s 52 newly licensed medical dispensaries.

Written by Greg Engle

I have dedicated my entire career to the health care industry because it's important to me to spend my life doing something that helps people. Now, after more than 25 years, I have decided to leave behind the big pharma establishment in order to embark on a new journey on the cutting edge of health care, as the first CEO of Tilray, Canada's leading licensed producer of medical cannabis.

Here are the top five reasons why:

Like the California Gold Rush of the 19th century, the legalized marijuana trade is attracting industry hopefuls nationwide with great expectations for working in this booming nascent sector.

If federal legalization takes place, U.S. retail marijuana sales revenues could reach $35 billion by 2020, surpassing the NFL, according to a report by GreenWave Advisors. Alternatively, if federal legalization doesn’t take place by 2020, GreenWave Advisors predicts revenue to climb to $21 billion.

420careers.com Launches New Advertising Specials in March and April in Anticipation of 4/20 | Marijuana Business Press Releases | Cannabis News

Phoenix, AZ (MJbizwire) March 10, 2015

April 20th is near and 420careers.com, the world’s leading marijuana industry job website, is offering advertising specials throughout March and April in order to help companies promote their products and services during the marijuana industry’s busiest months.

420careers.com’s visitor demographic consists of marijuana consumers, enthusiasts and business owners, making it the ideal website to advertise marijuana-related products and services.

A pioneer of Colorado’s medical marijuana industry is leaving the state for greener pastures – in New York.

Josh Stanley, who helped get legislation passed to legalize marijuana and opened the Peace in Medicine Center, Denver’s first medical marijuana dispensary, said he’ll completely relocate to New York.

He plans on opening four medical marijuana clinics and two marijuana farms there.

“I got tired of looking in the paper and seeing ads for joints,” Stanley said. “You see companies getting in on the ‘Green Rush’ … They’re peddling dope.”

Stanley said he wants to focus on cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.

Imagine for a second, the pain an NFL player feels after a brutal Sunday afternoon game. A game in which men weighing in upwards of 300 pounds crash into each other at high speeds. Then, imagine the amount of painkillers those same players must take just to get out of bed the next day.

At a recent conference, former Broncos tight end Nate Jackson talked about his use of marijuana as a painkiller during his six-year NFL career.

“It kept my brain clean,” Jackson said Wednesday during the Cannabis Business Executives Breakfast that kicked off a three-day conference titled “Sports, Meds and Money.”

Hemp is a plant that has been cultivated in parts of the world for 10-12,000 years – possibly longer – and is estimated to have between 25,000 to 50,000 uses, with 5,000 uses in the textiles industry alone. Hemp has had a bad rap in the United States, supposedly thanks to the protectionist policies of a powerful few people in government and industry who had investments in key industries including pulp and paper. Hemp was lumped together marijuana usage, and used to pass the Marijuana Tax Act, partially by misinforming Congress and leveraging racial politics of the 1930s.