“Cannabis is the next great American industry,” says Troy Dayton. As CEO of Arcview Group, Dayton works with over 650 high-net-worth investors who have poured more than $100 million into cannabis-related startups since 2010.

He calls early investors in the burgeoning marijuana industry “pioneers” who are hoping to stake their claims in the Green Rush.

Revenues from the US marijuana industry are expected to mushroom from $6.7 billion in 2016 to over $21 billion by 2021, according to Arcview Group research. Dayton predicts that explosive growth will happen, whether or not President Trump cracks down on legalized marijuana.

Just because toking up is legal in some states, doesn't mean that people aren't still enjoying their booze.

When legalization started to push its way through, some people were a little worried, especially those who made their living selling alcohol. Would everyone start to smoke weed and ditch one of America's favored pastimes: getting loaded off booze? 

Given how hush-hush people have been in the past about consuming cannabis, nobody could say for sure how many would partake, and if anything would change post-legalization. Turns out, people like getting high, and they also like getting drunk. Who knew?

Glaciers carve valleys out of rock in more than 10,000 years. Santa Rosa created the first outlines of CannaCom Valley in the past year, with some two dozen cannabis-commerce startups already shaping the valley floor.

CannaCom Valley, expected to quickly attract thick growth of new business enterprise, will become a verdant source of city revenue if voters say yes to a new tax measure in June. The cannabis industry will rival wine and beer, soaring to hundreds of millions of dollars of business.

The board chairman of the McLaughlin Research Institute floated an idea by lawmakers wrestling with medical marijuana legislation this session to have the facility be part of a program to test cannabis products.

In a March 15 email to some Great Falls legislators, Randy Gray said MRI could contract with the state Department of Public Health and Human Services to test the products and research cannabis addictive properties and ways to control them.

“The result would be efficient for Montana, effective for users of medical marijuana and helpful to stabilize and expand MRI’s science staff,” Gray states in his email that includes Democratic Rep. Tom Jacobson and GOP Sens. Brian Hoven and Ed Buttrey.

Global cannabis software and point of sales solutions company Guardian Data Software (GDS) has announced a partnership with Australian medical cannabis accelerator BuddingTech that will see the organisation act as an analytical engine and business consultancy for GDS clients, while working towards new research initiatives.

BuddingTech, a Sydney-based organisation which emerged in 2015, identifies startups working with cannabis technology and research, and looks to support them towards commercialising their ideas for the Asia Pacific medical cannabis market.

Besides the accelerator, BuddingTech also offers consultation services, and holds a medical cannabis resource database filled with surveys and analytical white paper reports.

The San Jacinto City Council meeting April 4 in a public hearing on a proposed marijuana cultivation ordinance brought strong emotional debate between marijuana cultivators, those opposed and a member of the city council.

The continued public hearing on Ordinance 17-02 that is meant to regulate the establishment of commercial marijuana cultivation in the light industrial zone of the city has been an emotional issue before the council since the passage of Proposition 64. Proposition 64 allows the limited cultivation and use of recreational marijuana.

Fiery rhetoric on marijuana legalization from Attorney General Jeff Sessions is prompting some states to preemptively act to limit federal power over local pot laws.

“They could start issuing a bunch of threat letters, they could begin raiding and arresting people in various states,” Tom Angell, chairman of the Marijuana Majority, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “While those things are definitely scary and would ruin any number of people’s lives and careers, that’s not going to stop the momentum in the industry.”

Marijuana advocates are starting another push to legalize medical marijuana here in the Gem State. 

The Idaho Medical Marijuana Association has started a petition that would ask lawmakers to make it legal for some patients to use marijuana. Organizers say the proposed bill would allow patients suffering from qualifying medical conditions, including chronic diseases, to use the drug and would need the OKfrom a doctor.The president behind the groups says she's worked with people in hospice care and understands the pain they go through. 

"For me, it's all about the patent and transforming people's life's to be easy," said Tesla Heidi Gillespie of the Idaho Medical Marijuana Association. "When people transform and 

This vast and fertile valley is often called the salad bowl of the nation for the countless heads of lettuce growing across its floor. Now California’s marijuana industry is laying claim to a new slogan for the valley: America’s cannabis bucket.

After years of marijuana being cultivated in small plots out of sight from the authorities, California cannabis is going industrial.

Over the past year, dilapidated greenhouses in the Salinas Valley, which were built for cut flower businesses, have been bought up by dozens of marijuana entrepreneurs, who are growing pot among the fields of spinach, strawberries and wine grapes.