August has been a rocky month for the international business community. Global markets have been whipped into a strange frenzy in the dog days of summer. First it was over concerns that Greece might default on its sovereign debt and leave the Eurozone. Then the strange ping pong drama of the meltdown of the Chinese stock market and the devaluation of the yuan gripped the financial world. The global economic temperature this month is absolutely “hot.”

Far from sight, floating like some foul human excrement in the midst of our virgin blue ocean, a nightmarish conglomeration of plastic crap is growing at an exponential rate; water bottles, fast food toys, ice chests, used prophylactics, grocery store bags, disposable diapers and the occasional random appliance, offer a testament to human ignorance.

Eco-friendly Industrial Hemp and The Great Garbage Patch

Yes, you read that headline correctly, and while this may seem like a rhetorical question with an obvious answer, the query has been popping up on forums, in dispensaries, and across specialty natural products stores within the cannabis industry and various media platforms. Let’s take a closer look at CBD types in an effort to try and glean some insight.

Hemp vs. Cannabis-Derived CBD

In today’s American cannabis culture that celebrates and idolizes youth in an industry with a historical demographic of young 20-something millennials, talking about marijuana and the inevitable mortality associated with end-of-life and palliative care issues may seem like a polar opposite. However, cannabis is far more than a party drug and a growing number of cannabis converts are discovering that marijuana is a unique and diverse plant and there is space for discussion of its properties along a broad spectrum of both recreational and medicinal topics.

Reefer Madness is alive and well among the anti-marijuana movement.

A slew of anti-marijuana arguments just went up in smoke, according to one group of researchers.

Researchers from the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) studied some of the more common anti-marijuana arguments and discovered that most of them are scientifically unfounded. The researchers worked to shed some light on the subject to stop the misguided information from negatively influencing public opinion, and in turn national policy.

In situations where transplanted organs may not be a perfect match, marijuana may be used to delay rejection of an incompatible organ, new research has found.

The findings suggest that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, might prove to be a useful anti-rejection therapy.

"We are excited to demonstrate for the first time that cannabinoid receptors play an important role in the prolongation of rejection of a foreign graft by suppressing immune response in the recipient," said one of the researchers Mitzi Nagarkatti from University of South Carolina School of Medicine in the US. 

"This opens up a new area of research that would lead to better approaches to prevent transplant rejection as well as to treat other inflammatory diseases," Nagarkatti noted.

It’s a busy afternoon at Longview’s Freedom Market as customers stream in to pick up their evening weed. Within 15 minutes, more than 10 customers peruse an array of pot varieties such as “Animal Cookie” and “Sour Diesel.” Every one of them hands over cash.

Pot is predominantly a cash-only business because federal regulations make it difficult for banks to handle money from marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law. That leaves customers unable to use debit or credit cards. And it burdens businesses with high security costs, such as using armored vehicles and security guards.

But customers at Freedom Market now have another option, thanks to a new service called PayQwik that offers a cash-free alternative for marijuana businesses and customers.

City health officials say they are holding marijuana products that show pesticides state says cannot be used on cannabis.

Denver health officials Tuesday began inspecting and quarantining hundreds of marijuana products because their labels listed pesticides not approved for use on cannabis.

The move comes about six months after the city quarantined 100,000 plants at 11 grow facilities over concerns about pesticides.

Although pesticides are widely used on crops, their use on cannabis remains problematic because no safety standards exist. Marijuana is illegal under federal law, so the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticides, has never established any limits.

Though attitudes toward marijuana legalization are undoubtedly shifting, there are still a lot of Americans who can’t let go of the myths purporting the ‘dangers’ of cannabis. And those attitudes are still being pandered to, in large part from conservatives — most notably Republican presidential candidate and governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.

Nearly half of all states in the U.S. have some form of cannabis legalization on the books, but that has not been enough to protect businesses from prosecution by both local and federal authorities. Broad and undefined state laws have allowed the industry to grow very quickly in many parts of the country, but have left businesses with little-to-no direction as to standards for legal compliance. This has left them out in the open with insufficient legal protection. While the freedom of broad laws allows a large amount of expansion and innovation, only comprehensive regulation provides legal protections for companies in the cannabis space.