PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) -

As the cannabis industry grows, competition for customers is fierce.

An Ashland-based company says their technology can help set products apart.

N2 Packaging LLC seals and preserves marijuana in cans using nitrogen, claiming the product has a longer shelf life.

“They know it's going to be good for as long as they keep it in their dresser, or the cabinet or wherever. It's not going to go stale or dry on them,” said Luke Olsen, the company’s retail sales manager.

Olsen and a partner have their own product line called The Factory.

N2 Packaging received a patent to hermetically seal controlled substances in an altered environment last October.

A downtown marijuana dispensary is fighting City Hall's efforts to shut it down. Toluca Lake Collective opened in 2006 and registered with the city in 2007 before a December deadline to do so, says owner and well-known weed activist Frank Sheftel. The problem with the city arose, he said, because he filed to obtain a Business Tax Registration Certificate at City Hall's Van Nuys annex instead of at City Halldowntown. 

At issue is whether  Toluca Lake Collective, which Sheftel originally opened on Riverside Drive but moved downtown to comply with city regulations, is one of Los Angeles' original pot shops. In 2007 the city enacted a moratorium on collectives, allowing only about 188 that existed to stay open.

Rolling out the green carpet? Just in case they don’t have enough to do, journalists attending the third Republican debate in Boulder, Colorado on Wednesday have been invited by the thriving local marijuana industry to pay a call on select retailers.

“Coming to the GOP Debate? Meet cannabis industry leaders and go behind the scenes at a local marijuana retail store,” advises the National Cannabis Industry Association which has organized an afternoon tour and meet-and-greet at a local dispensary which sells legal recreational and medicinal pot with such names as Permafrost, Trainwreck and Chunk Diesel.

I am a big fan of Missouri marijuana reform efforts, which if you read this blog often, than you probably know that already. I have always felt that if Missouri can reform its marijuana laws, recreational and/or medical, that it would speed up reform nationwide. I am from Oregon, born and raised, and when Oregon legalized recreational marijuana most news reports had the ‘duh, isn’t this overdue?’ vibe. Very few were shocked, and opponents in other states just chalked it up to ‘well, it’s Oregon, they are very liberal out there, especially in the Portland area, but our state is obviously way different.’

PIERRE, S.D. — The Flandreau Santee Sioux's plans to sell marijuana in a lounge on tribal land will likely thrust the issue before legislators in the upcoming session, the head of the State-Tribal Relations Committee said Monday.

The committee discussed the tribe's marijuana operation, which is scheduled to open New Year's Eve. Democratic Sen. Troy Heinert, the committee chairman, said he hopes the Santee Sioux and nontribal authorities can find common ground.

Republican Sen. Craig Tieszen said the situation is a "jurisdictional and enforcement nightmare" since marijuana is illegal under state law, and Attorney General Marty Jackley has said any changes in tribal laws won't affect any non-Indians or any nontribal lands.

A cannabis candy contractor who was sued last week by his former employer for allegedly stealing trade secrets and trademarks has fired back in court.

After being slapped with a court-ordered injunction preventing him from selling his brand of marijuana gummies, Scott Bergin is suing his former employer, Green Cross Colorado, for allegedly engaging in unfair business practices.

“Make no mistake, we will defend our business and our employees who work very hard to make our business a success,” Bergin said in an email to BusinessDen.

Usage of marijuana has been doubled over the past years as laws and attitudes toward the drug dramatically transformed.  Entrepreneurs of marijuana will choose their ambassadors to be users to relate the benefits of their products to customers.

Marijuana consumption increased among all groups studied, but researchers noted certain rise in women, Black or Hispanic individuals living in the South.  These people are older or in their middle ages, according to CBS News.

DENVER, Colorado, (WDTN) – In one week, Ohio decides on whether to legalize marijuana and many questions remain.

One of those questions, how legalizing the drug and putting it and other pot products on store shelves would affect young people. 2 NEWS Investigates traveled to Colorado, where marijuana is legal, to find out how they dealt with it.

Marijuana is not just in plant form anymore. You can find pot cookies, marijuana chips and hard candy with THC in it. For stores, it’s more variety for their customers, but for some parents it’s a drug targeting kids.

Pueblo’s city council on Monday voted 5-1 to extend nearly $8 million in incentives from the city’s half-cent economic development sales tax fund to help CBD Biosciences get its hemp-oil processing plant off the ground.