It's pain week here in Germany. And one of the topics being discussed is medical marijuana. Right now, only very few Germans are allowed to smoke marijuana to relieve pain. Meet Lars Scheimann, one of them...

Marijuana is proving to be contemporary culture’s most exciting frontier market. With a growing number of opportunities to enter the legal marijuana industry, the best minds have been seeking a vehicle to drive innovation and investment education.

Marijuana Investor Summit, taking place April 20-22, 2015 in Denver, Colorado, will bring together the best entrepreneurs and investors within the marijuana industry. The Summit’s speakers have their eyes on the industry and are ready to share their market knowledge.

Talk about smoking the competition.

Sisters Aurora and Eden Ray not only sold more than 100 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies on Friday, they did something maybe no other Oregon Girl Scouts have ever done: sell the organization’s famous Samoas, Thin Mints, Tagalongs and other cookies outside a medical marijuana dispensary.

“It’s actually great to sell here at this place because none of our Girl Scouts have done this before,” said Aurora, 11, standing Friday afternoon with her sister and parents, Ralph and Belinda Ray, outside the Oregon Microgrowers Guild on Cross Street in Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood.

“We’re hoping to show people that we’re just trying to make a difference and help people and stuff,” Aurora said.

Perhaps no factor has enabled the much-heralded urban renaissance more than declining crime rates. Through much of the 1970s to 1990s, inner cities were widely perceived as war zones, overwhelmed by addiction-fueled property crime and violence between drug dealers. This was not all just perception. The murder rate in now-thriving cities was much higher 20 years ago than it is today. In New York, there were 2,245 murders in 1990 versus 328 last year. Washington, D.C., went from 479 in 1991 to 105 in 2014.

With society increasingly accepting the medicinal and recreational properties of marijuana, wellness tourism experts predict explosive growth in cannabis-related spa and travel packages.

Cannabis was listed second in Spafinder Wellness' recently released Top 10 trends report, which cited the growing list of medical marijuana dispensaries around the country that are adding yoga, massage and fitness as well as pot tourism, which is being developed in Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon, where the drug is now legal.

Among some of the new offerings:

Less than one week after D.C. allowed marijuana legalization to go into effect (against the wishes of vocal Republicans in Congress), the D.C. Council unanimously passed emergency legislation Tuesday to ban marijuana use at nightclubs and other places of business, even during private events.

Customer Service Specialist
Bluebird Botanicals

Job Listing Details

The Customer Service Specialist's primary role is to be the first point of contact for potential and existing customers who wish to buy products from and learn more about Bluebird Botanicals. Specific duties include but are not limited to:

Answering telephone calls and processing orders
Replying to e-mails
Filling out return/credit log forms
Printing shipping labels and updating tracking information in our system
General production (ie bottling, labeling, etc)
Other duties as assigned

Requirements:
High School Diploma or GED
Proficient typing skills

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.”

What do tech startups and marijuana ventures have in common? An increasing number of funding platforms are on the rise with the goal of supporting both these enterprises. Many of these startups have Silicon Valley veterans at the helm. In the case of the marijuana industry, although it may still be in its infancy, the potential for growth in this sector has many investors sitting up and taking notice. Among the primary factors now attracting investors to this still fledgling industry is that there is still ample room for innovation.

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.