Larry Schaeffer has grown marijuana in Sonoma County for more than a decade.

His Cherry Kola Farms outside Penngrove supplies award-winning strains of pungent pot to one of Sonoma County’s largest medical cannabis collectives, as well as discerning dispensaries around the state.

But after years of operating in a quasi-legal status as a nonprofit collective, Schaeffer is ready to go legit. He wants to be an above-board business, in an approved location with proper permits, and pay taxes like any other legitimate enterprise.

And he plans to do it in Santa Rosa.

“Santa Rosa wants this industry here,” Schaeffer said. “I think this is probably going to be the New Age Amsterdam.”

Opinion: Redmond's partnership with 'seed-to-sales' software purveyor Kind is bound to bring more legitimacy to an already-thriving business.

The last two months have been busy ones for the marijuana community. Most recently, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) declined to loosen restrictions on medical marijuana, and kept the drug classified in the same 'Schedule 1' category as LSD and heroin.

On September 2, 2016, scientists, politicians and pioneers in the cannabis industry will gather in Montego Bay Convention Centre in Montego Bay, Jamaica for the Cannabis Business Conference and Symposium hosted by CanEx. Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett and Minister of Transport and Mining Mike Henry will attend as well as Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) board member Delano Seivwright.

Japan More and more voices are being raised in Japan, calling for an end to the zero-tolerance policy on cannabis. One political party wants to see the ban on research on the cannabis plant lifted, thereby legalising medicinal cannabis. Interest in industrial hemp applications has also been growing. Might we tentatively be able to speak of a cannabis comeback?

People flocked to Oregon's first-ever marijuana growers' fair on Saturday where a competition for best cannabis plants was being held, with the winners to be displayed at the Oregon State Fair.

The inaugural two-day Oregon Cannabis Growers' Fair underscores how the once-illicit marijuana industry is starting to go mainstream in Oregon, one of four states to have legalized recreational cannabis use, along with Washington, D.C.

Taking your cannabis business to international markets can yield huge profits. After all, cannabis is completely legal in places like Canada, Jamaica, Colombia and Italy, and they don’t face the same tax, research and patenting issues as countries like the United States.

While going international with your cannabis brand might seem like a great idea, doing so within legal guidelines is not always straightforward and easy to do.

A new non-profit medical marijuana dispensary has opened in Regina and owner Kelly Csada says she plans to donate a chunk of her profits to charity.

“There’s a lot of mental health and different things that I want to give back to so that’s why I decided to go the non-profit way.”

The business venture was a natural choice for Csada.

“I have Crohn’s disease and that’s what brought me here in the first place,” she said.

Come with me. Red dirt/bauxite is to aluminium as ganja/cannabis is to cannabis medicinals? Jamaica has a clear choice in the development of the cannabis industry.

Is Jamaica on a course to actively leverage the ganja industry to raise the developmental capabilities of the country, or will the decisions made now perpetuate the economic situation, where the majority of people are left out of the value-added industry and only those with capital truly benefit?

The state has awarded preliminary licenses to more than 20 companies to grow and process marijuana in Maryland, a major step forward in the effort to make medical cannabis available to patients in Maryland.

Licenses were awarded Monday to companies across the state, from Washington County in Western Maryland to Worcester County on the Eastern Shore. They plan to grow marijuana plants and turn them into pills, oils, extracts and other products for patients suffering from a range of illnesses.

Several of the winning applicants have political connections.

Two consultants who helped a Native American tribe plan the nation's first marijuana resort entered opposing pleas Monday to drug offenses, with the attorney for the man who pleaded not guilty arguing outside of court that South Dakota's top prosecutor is proceeding under a "legal fiction."