Fully Automated "Plug 'n Play" Grow Platform Designed to Increase Productivity & Profit

Saint Petersburg, FL, Oct. 27, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HempTech Corp., a technology company catering to the cultivators of industrial hemp and cannabis market, is excited to announce the launch of "grow.droid", an all-inclusive, fully automated "plug 'n play" grow platform designed with premium commercial agriculture components for marijuana growers and cooperatives. The grow.droid product will be launched at the 4th annual Marijuana Business Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, November 11th - 13th. This unique grow platform is available with a monthly lease option making growing affordable for small to medium sized grow facilities.

SEATTLE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / October 27, 2015 / The quantified self movement has been rapidly expanding over the past several years, as consumers embrace its "if you can measure it, you can change it" principles. According to IHS, the global market for wearables and sensors will rise to 210 million units shipped and $30 billion in revenue by 2018, while companies like FitBit Inc. FIT, +7.91% and Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.85% are already making millions of dollars each quarter selling early-stage technology.

Legalized marijuana in the U.S. has led to a windfall for government and business.

WASHINGTON—The sale of marijuana for recreational use became legal in Colorado and the state of Washington last year, Oregon this year. (Alaska and Washington, D.C. now allow the use of marijuana, but selling marijuana is still illegal.) While it’s still too soon to draw firm conclusions about the impact of U.S. legalization, here’s what has happened so far.

Highs 

No boom in teen use: What about the children? Legalization opponents claimed youth marijuana use would skyrocket if the law stopped treating weed as a demon to be feared by adults. That has not happened so far. 

On Wednesday, GOP candidates will take the stage in Colorado, which has embraced legal cannabis. But several of those presidential hopefuls have marijuana industry worried: ‘I go to work every day and violate federal law’

Since Colorado became the first state in the nation to allow sale of recreational marijuana, Tim Cullen has opened four dispensaries in the Denver area.

He employs almost 100 people. He has a three-year-old son. And he is all too aware that, unless Congress were to change federal law, the next president could take his livelihood and his freedom away.

The Pennsylvania Medical Society, while still opposed to the broad-based legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, has “updated” its position on the issue.

This weekend, at the Medical Society’s annual House of Delegates meeting, the state’s largest physician organization voted overwhelmingly to ask the state to fund research on the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

With Halloween just around the corner, it’s time for scary news reports that begin, “With Halloween just around the corner…” This genre of yellow journalism often features warnings about tainted trick-or-treat candy, a mythical menace that in recent years has gained credibility thanks to the popularity of  marijuana edibles in states where such products are legal.

ALBANY— With roughly three months left until the state’s medical marijuana program is supposed to be fully operational, several companies awarded a license to grow and distribute the drug aren’t sure where they will locate some of their dispensaries, calling into question whether the program will be up and running by January, as Governor Andrew Cuomo promised.

Five of the 20 dispensary locations, which the state sanctioned, have not been finalized yet by the local governing body, meaning that patients in large areas of the state could be left without access to the drug.

The apparent lack of readiness alarmed patient advocates, who were already concerned that the state's program was too limited to provide statewide access.

Mike Ray got the call one afternoon in mid-September, while he was in San Francisco working at Bloom Farms, the medical marijuana company he founded. The Butte Fire, which has been burning in Calaveras County northeast of the Bay Area for over a week, was moving toward his family’s 300-acre farm. The operation, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, had been Ray’s home as a teenager and had a 99-plant marijuana grow that was the main source of his company’s high-cannabidiol (CBD) cannabis oil. There had been close calls with wildfires in the area, but the blazes had always changed directions before reaching the farm.

This one, however, didn’t look like it was going to shift.

Weedmaps founder CEO Justin Hartfield does not think Bitcoin will help to grow the legal marijuana industry, a claim contrary to what many in the Bitcoin space claim.

Weedmaps, the online legal marijuana community, allows users to review and discuss cannabis strains and local dispensaries. The website garners two million monthly visitors with annual revenue of approximately $18 million. Widely considered the industry leading website, Weedmaps founder CEO Justin Hartfield has a unique point of view on the industry. Hartfield recently told CCN that he does not believe Bitcoin will help the cannabis industry.

Portland’s recreational marijuana market is off to a quick start—the industry reported more than $11 million in sales during the first week alone. With that increase in Portlanders toking up comes renewed concerns about the health risks, and benefits, associated with the cannabis plant.

Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, told GoLocal that while there are serious health risks that arise when the cannabis plant is smoked, there are also medicinal benefits to using marijuana in other forms.