In states where marijuana is legal, a new wedding trend is popping up: open weed bars. How do we get invited? 


Twenty-eight years after Bob Marley romanticized marijuana, the drug has earned top billing in the ultimate love-fest: weddings. 

In Washington, Colorado, Alaska, and Oregon—the four states where it’s recreationally legal —“weed weddings” have gone from a fun idea to a lucrative reality. Through sites like Cannabride.com and LoveandMarij.com ganja-loving bridges and grooms can find everything from 420-focused caterers to kush-pushing florists.

Partners plan to grow, process recreational marijuana in Tumalo

TUMALO —  On land where goats once grazed to make award-winning artisan cheese, a new venture is taking shape. 

The former Tumalo Farms, 84 acres off U.S. Highway 20, is now the site of a proposed marijuana growing and processing plant, a plan by  Oregrown Industries Inc., a business partnership that operates a dispensary near downtown Bend. The four partners in Oregrown, all 31 years old, envision a business they say will become a huge presence in Central Oregon. 

For awhile now Oregon’s Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) has had a distinction that no other state’s medical marijuana program has – it allows non-Oregon residents to become a patient or grower in the program. There are multiple states that recognize out of state medical marijuana cards, but Oregon will allow you to become a patient in Oregon (but has never recognized out of state medical marijuana cards). There are not a lot of out of state patients in the OMMP, but there are some nonetheless. Per Oregon Live:

Donald Morse never imagined he’d be the owner of a marijuana business, let alone the director of a marijuana business trade association.

But Friday was just another day on a newly adopted road of entrepreneurial and civic ventures as Morse and his wife, Carolyn, set up shop at the Oregon State Fair.

They were staffing their booths for the Oregon Cannabis Business Council (OCBC), educating consumers about marijuana dispensaries, testing and product quality, edibles and concentrates. It was also the first time in more than 100 years that a cannabis-affiliated booth had a presence at the fair.

The three medical marijuana bills left standing in Sacramento must now pass through the gauntlet of state Legislature scrutiny and recommended changes by Gov. Jerry Brown’s office after clearing a final round of committee hearings this week.

North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, called the discussions on the bills a “team effort.”

“Both the Senate and Assembly appropriations (committees) passed each bill out and each bill is dependent on the other, which means we are all working together to pass the first medical cannabis legislation in 20 years,” he said.

The day when recreational marijuana will be available for purchase in Oregon is fast approaching. At the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, jobs are being created to get ready for implementing recreational marijuana policies.

Some context: On Oct. 1, medical marijuana dispensaries in most areas will begin selling some kinds of marijuana products to consumers. On Jan. 4, the state will begin accepting permit applications for marijuana businesses. Oregonians voted to legalize recreational marijuana through Measure 91, which passed in 2014.

Company opening manufacturing facilities in Nevada, Oregon

By Shay Castle

Boulder-based Wana Brands, maker of marijuana-infused edibles, is expanding out of state, fueled in part by strong sales of their extended-release cannabis capsules.

The company is planning to open manufacturing facilities in Oregon and Nevada by the end of the year, founder Nancy Whiteman said Wednesday.

Wana is also growing locally. With the addition of some new hires later this week, they will employ around 70 people in their Boulder facility, where a range of products for recreational and medical use are manufactured and sent to 400 dispensaries statewide.

A team of researchers at Phylos Bioscience launched the Cannabis Evolution Project last year in an effort to map the genetic structure of marijuana, effectively protecting the biodiversity of cannabis from corporate interests, such as Monsanto, which might be tempted to capitalize on legal weed by securing exclusive patents on select strains.

The day when recreational marijuana will be available for purchase in Oregon is fast approaching. At the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, jobs are being created to get ready for implementing recreational marijuana policies.

Some context: On Oct. 1, medical marijuana dispensaries in most areas will begin selling some kinds of marijuana products to consumers. On Jan. 4, the state will begin accepting permit applications for marijuana businesses. Oregonians voted to legalize recreational marijuana through Measure 91, which passed in 2014.

Scientists are working to map the complete DNA structure of the cannabis plant in order to prevent major agricultural seed companies, like Monsanto, from securing exclusive patents on specific strains.

Late last week, Mowgli Holmes, Chief Scientific Officer of Phylos Bioscience, the company overseeing the Cannabis Genome Project, explained to those in attendance of TechFestNW in Portland, Oregon that cannabis should be viewed comparatively to another major American cash crop: Corn. 

He said that both of these commodities were domesticated by humans around 10,000 years ago, and that, like corn, cannabis was spread “to every corner of the world,” pushing the scope of its biological reach “to a point in the evolutionary landscape that it never would’ve gotten on its own.”