With the increasing number of states allowing the use of marijuana -- medically and recreationally -- the allure of marijuana stocks is understandable. It's a lot easier to make money in growing industries.

But before investors buy marijuana stocks, they should know what they're getting themselves into.

With a 5-0 vote at their Feb. 21 meeting, town councilors approved moving forward with an ordinance aimed at welcoming entrepreneurs interested in growing and selling marijuana for recreational use.

“This town has been struggling for years,” Councilor Sue Waite-York said. “We’re not in a position to let this opportunity slip by.”

 Bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate to legalized marijuana for medicinal use in West Virginia.

SB 386 and House Bill 2071 would authorize the use of pharmaceutical cannabis to treat certain medical conditions. In the Senate, Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, is one of 12 senators sponsoring the bill. In the House, three delegates have sponsored the bill.

The bill in the House states medicinal marijuana would be an appropriate medical treatment for a person diagnosed with cancer or a disease, disorder or condition in which use of the cannabis based pharmaceutical product alleviates symptoms such as seizures, severe and persistent muscle spasm, and no other satisfactory alternative treatment option exists for the patient.

Small town America is disappearing. Less people are living in small towns and more people are flocking to urban areas and suburban areas where jobs are more common. It’s something that has been going on for decades. Small towns have fragile economies, often revolving around one or two major businesses. When those business, or the industries they are in, go under the towns usually go with them.

Brightly lit and bustling, Harborside Health Center serves as something of a model for the medical marijuana industry — even as California’s freewheeling approach to cannabis is seen as an example of how not to do things.

As dozens of customers at Harborside pick their products, chatty budtenders talk knowledgeably about the selection, which includes cannabis for smoking, eating and vaporizing.

Business is booming: Between this store in Oakland and another location in San Jose, Harborside’s sales total $35 million a year. Sales are so strong that Harborside offers free yoga, tai chi and acupuncture to its customers, who must have a doctor’s permission to enter the store.

Fake news is unfortunately rampant in our age of mass communication, and the marijuana industry is not immune. There are sites reporting that the Trump Administration is planning on raiding legal dispensaries in various states, and after investigating these reports, 420 Intel concludes that these claims are unfounded. We cannot find any evidence to support them, and we are warning cannabis busineses to be wary of speculative articles like this one (note the clickbaity title):

Trump's administration intend to raid legal marijuana dispensaries

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, no stranger to shocking the political establishment, has set his sights on cannabis legalization, recently penning the book, Jesse Ventura’s Marijuana Manifesto.

When Proposition 64 passed in California, legalizing recreational marijuana use, many people imagined that UC Davis might get into the pot business. With the No. 1 agricultural school in the nation, as well as a top plant biology program, UCD seems poised to become a cannabis research leader.

Not so fast, says Chief Campus Counsel Jacob Appelsmith.

“Under federal law, (marijuana) is a Schedule 1 drug,” Appelsmith said, as are heroin and LSD. Even as states are legalizing cannabis for both medical and recreational uses, the feds are not moving forward at the same pace.