A California based firm run by Evangelical Special Forces veterans has partnered with an Israeli bio-tech company to develop cannabis-based solutions for a wide range of health concerns.

Zytecur, based in Hollister California, joined forces with Ilan Bio, an agro-biotechnology company located in Givat Chen in central Israel. Six of the founding members of Zycatur are ex-Special Forces in the U.S. military, a number of whom saw combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and were wounded.

Colorado was set Monday to outlaw marijuana growing co-ops soon after the state Senate unanimously approved a bill making it a crime to for people to cultivate adult-use cannabis for other people.

The bill supported by the office Gov. John Hickenlooper passed 35-0 but it was unclear when he would sign it.

There are no state estimates on how many collective recreational marijuana growing operations exist in Colorado, though they are popular among users who share the cost of electricity, water and fertilizer to grow their cannabis.

Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, but it has a nagging black-market problem. Law enforcement and state lawmakers attribute the black-market problem in part to weak restrictions on who can grow pot.

Since 1987, only one new class of antibiotic has been found. This is a frightening fact, as bacteria are some of the fastest evolving organisms on the planet. Already, several common strains of bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics, putting patients at risk of dying from once treatable diseases like staph infection and tuberculosis.

It won't be as obvious as when the pizza person shows up, but customers of Columbia Care’s dispensary in Rochester can get medical marijuana delivered to their door.

For the past several weeks, the company has been testing a program to deliver the tinctures, vaporization oils or capsules to patients in western New York.

Columbia Care is one of five medical marijuana manufacturers licensed by New York, and it operates four dispensaries in various regions. The company also has dispensaries in Manhattan, Long Island and Plattsburgh. It chose to run its pilot delivery program from the dispensary at Eastman Business Park out of convenience to patients and relative ease of getting around the region.

Some say the controversial industry in Lansing is booming…others believe it should be banned but that depends on who you ask.

For Lansing City Pulse Editor Publisher Berl Schwartz, the positives of medical marijuana far outweigh the negatives.

“Lansing should be embracing it, this is a huge, huge economic opportunity for the city,” said Schwartz.

Schwartz says “the ordinance Lansing City Council is considering will kill the medical marijuana business in the city through the use of highly restrictive zoning.”

This is one reason he’s using his newspaper and social media to raise funds for Michigan State University to conduct a study to find out what kind of impact dispensaries have in the Capital City.

The Ohio Department of Commerce announced Friday that medical marijuana growers can start applying for Ohio licenses as early as June.

The application and the license both come at a hefty price — but a Boardman native believes it’s a business venture worth exploring.

Brian Kessler lives in Los Angeles, but is from Boardman.

His company, SBL Venture Capital, invests in marijuana and has been advocating to bring medical marijuana to Ohio for years.

“I’m very excited,” Kessler said. “The fact is that we’re now moving down the path. They chose the process where they’re looking for 12 small growers and 12 large growers.”

Kessler said the medical marijuana market is extremely competitive.

He wants Youngstown to have a stake in the business.

This past Tuesday, voters in Kansas City went to the polls and approved a marijuana decriminalization measure with 74% of the vote. Previously, possession of up to 35 grams in the city was punishable by up to 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine. That infraction will now result in a $25 fine, with no arrest and nothing being placed on your criminal record.

Although it has been said that Indiana would be one of the last states to put any kind of marijuana law on the books, both chambers of the State Legislature took action this week on a bill aimed at allowing a specific group of patients to have access to non-intoxicating cannabis oil.

On Thursday, both the House and Senate put their seal of approval on proposals designed to give epilepsy patients the freedom to use cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabis derivative that has been shown to decrease the frequency of seizures. The medical marijuana approved by Indiana lawmakers would be devoid of THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis.

As marijuana becomes legal in more and more places, it’s becoming bigger and bigger business. As something that generates tens of millions in tax revenue, it makes sense that a university would eventually offer a course on the weed business. That’s just what Professor Paul Seaborn at the University of Denver has done. Last week, he launched what KGUN is reporting is the first-ever college course on the economics of marijuana.

Appropriately called “The Business of Marijuana,” the class makes the University of Denver the first AACB-accredited business school in the country to offer a marijuana course. Seaborn first pitched the idea to the university last year.

Bipartisan legislation proposed in the House on Thursday would make marijuana a Schedule 3 drug, removing cannabis from its current standing as a Schedule 1 substance alongside deadly contraband including ecstasy and heroin.

By reclassifying weed in the same category as anabolic steroids, Congress would “make it easier for ill-patients and scientific and medical researchers to obtain marijuana,” the bill’s authors said in a statement Thursday.