Changing marijuana laws aren’t necessarily making weed more welcome in the workplace.

For now, many employers appear to be sticking with their drug testing and personal conduct policies, even in states where recreational marijuana use is now permitted. Others are keeping a close eye on the still evolving legal, regulatory and political environment.

Voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted Nov. 8 to approve the use of recreational marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, where it had previously been legalized. (A recount of Maine’s close result is scheduled.) More than two dozen states have medical marijuana programs.

But the drug is still against federal law.

As more states legalize marijuana,  a growing number of companies are looking to capitalize on the trend.

AXIM Biotech (AXIM), a world leader in hemp cannabinoid research and development, is one of those companies. It recently received patent approval for the use of all cannabinoids – chemical compounds found in marijuana plants – in its controlled-release chewing gum.

Maryland moved another step closer to making medical marijuana available to patients with the announcement Friday of preliminary licenses for 102 dispensaries across the state.

The companies picked to run the dispensaries now must undergo additional review by the state and pass inspections before opening. They'll also have to wait for Maryland's growers and processors to produce medical cannabis products, a process that has been complicated by litigation and political wrangling.

Maryland's medical marijuana program — already off to a slow start — might still be a year or more away.

"Patients probably won't be served until late 2017 or early 2018," said Darrell Carrington, executive director of the Maryland Cannabis Industry Association. "That's the reality."

The dispensaries, which operate illegally, sell to anyone over the age of 19.

Come this Thursday recreational marijuana users in Montreal will be able to walk into a store, browse for their favourite strains and walk away with a few grams of cannabis — all in defiance of federal drug laws.  

That's because a Canadian chain of recreational marijuana dispensaries is planning to open multiple locations in the city. But how long they'll stay open is another question. 

Cannabis Culture, which operates dispensaries in 12 locations across British Columbia and Ontario, said it will announce the new Montreal locations on Dec. 14. They will open their doors to the public the next day.

Two years after legalizing the use of marijuana in the state, Colorado’s cannabis shops hit a new milestone. In the first 10 months of 2016, weed stores in the state have reached $1 billion in legal, regulated sales of the drug.

According to the October data from the Colorado’s Department of Revenue, the state, which was the first in the country to have legalized cannabis use, has sold nearly $1.1 billion worth of marijuana and marijuana-related products.

Three years ago, Justin Adamcyk and his friend moved from Chicago to L.A. in the hopes of breaking into the cannabis industry. Their idea was to build a business shipping edibles to patients with medical marijuana licenses. They threw down some money to get the ball rolling and then they began looking for investors. But they soon realized that they had very little idea about the regulations they were up against. 

“We were just outsiders looking in,” said Adamcyk. “I think the one big take away was to focus on building a team, especially in this industry.”

They don’t call the Emerald Cup “the Oscars of weed” for nothing. This one-of-a-kind cannabis competition is a magnet for strain celebrities, attracting all star entries from the upper echelon of cultivation. Cannabis Now Staff Writer, Jimi Devine, goes behind the scenes of this stoney, star-studded celebration for a green carpet roundup of the big names from this year’s cup. 

Some of the newest stars in cannabis are shining a little brighter after this year’s Emerald Cup, and the old dogs once again proved they don’t need any new tricks. 

It’s no secret that cannabis has a cash problem. Even though pot is now legal in 28 states plus DC, banks and credit card companies are still wary of working with cannabusinesses since they traffic in wares that are illegal on a federal level. This means that nearly all cannabis-related businesses are cash only and must find alternative ways to store this cash if they’re unable to open up a bank account. But when you’re a $6.7 billion dollar industry, all that marijuana money isn’t exactly going to fit under a mattress.

Every once in awhile, a product comes along that sets a standard for its industry and becomes a benchmark that everyone else wants to copy. Yofumo has created such a product. Their boxes offers a technological breakthrough in cannabis storage and processing that redefines the entire harvest-to-consumption model. 

Not only do Yofumo devices cure cannabis flowers far better than glass jars ever could, they provide dispensary owners and retail locations with a level of inventory control that has never been seen before. Their products improve drying, yeast and mold treatment, security, specialty processing and curing, as well as long and short-term storage. As a result, businesses save both time and money.

Amid the euphoria of this weekend’s famed Emerald Cup weed fest, there was this creeping buzzkill: the glacial rollout of legalization.

Right when it seems like “The Great Pot Moment” is upon us, it turns out there are a lot of really tough regulatory issues to resolve first, according to government and industry experts who sketched out all the thorny challenges at the two-day conference, competition and harvest celebration at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

And implementation of commercialization could be delayed a year until 2019, said insiders.