For the most part, almost everything has worked in favor of the marijuana industry over the past two decades. Although you can point to medical marijuana defeats in select states (e.g., Florida's amendment to legalize medical marijuana), marijuana has done nothing but expand its influence, all while support for its legalization among the public has grown.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- One of the major investors backing a ballot issue to legalize marijuana assured future entrepreneurs there would be thousands of business opportunities available to them despite the plan's controversial limits on commercial growing.

T-shirts with marijuana slogans, cannabis-infused beverages, packaging for marijuana products are among the endless possibilities Ohioans can come up with, according to Alan Mooney, a Columbus-area investor in ResponsibleOhio's legalization campaign.

Donald Morse never imagined he’d be the owner of a marijuana business, let alone the director of a marijuana business trade association.

But Friday was just another day on a newly adopted road of entrepreneurial and civic ventures as Morse and his wife, Carolyn, set up shop at the Oregon State Fair.

They were staffing their booths for the Oregon Cannabis Business Council (OCBC), educating consumers about marijuana dispensaries, testing and product quality, edibles and concentrates. It was also the first time in more than 100 years that a cannabis-affiliated booth had a presence at the fair.

LOS ANGELES -- Founded by a doctor and a patient, MMJRecs.com is a brand-new app that enables California medical-cannabis patients to apply for and receive doctor recommendations via their mobile devices. It is staffed by a team of licensed physicians, complies with all HIPAA regulations, and employs the same cyber-security as banks, bringing the highest possible level of safety, comfort and relief to the ill. 

Patients can now receive doctor recommendations via the MMJRecs website, and the company next month will announce the launch of its app, which will enable patients to apply using their smart phones. The entire process can take as little as 20 minutes, and no office visit is required.

Patients with autism and Parkinson’s disease could use medical marijuana under a new effort to overhaul the system in Michigan.

The Michigan Responsibility Council (MRC) announced this week it will push lawmakers to make the state’s medical marijuana system safer and more accessible to qualified patients.

It announced it will include the specific illnesses in its efforts in the wake of a senior state official’s decision on Thursday to reject autism as a qualifying condition.

Marijuana has expanded like a weed across the United States, but according to our contributors these three hurdles could prove too difficult to overcome.

The marijuana industry is absolutely budding across the United States. Since 1996, 23 states having legalized medical marijuana, with four states legalizing the currently illicit drug for recreational adult use since 2012.

Marijuana's market potential is obviously enormous; but so are its risks. With that in mind, we asked three of our contributors to name what they believe is a major hurdle the marijuana industry could struggle to overcome. Here's what they had to say.  

The first cut of Colorado's excise tax on wholesale recreational marijuana has been thrown into this fiscal year's pool of cash grants for capital improvements at public schools.

Three local projects are among the 26 statewide that are receiving funding.

Another three area school districts and a charter school will get a check in the mail next week from a $2.28 million appropriation from state marijuana sales taxes to pay for behavioral health counseling and drug prevention education.

But many districts say they have little hope of seeing any of the collections.

If you have ever gone to college, or at least looked into attending college, you learn very fast that it’s not cheap. If you come from a wealthy family and you don’t have to worry about the price tag, congratulations! But for the average American like you and me, you do have to worry about the price of college. I know a lot of very, very smart and talented people that would have dominated in college, but they never got the chance because they couldn’t afford it.

As Ohioans prepare for a Nov. 3 vote on legalizing marijuana, budding entrepreneurs are looking at whether they could earn a living from it.

For some, cannabis could become a cannabiz.

This is what Troy Wade is contemplating if marijuana is legalized in Ohio.

“I have an interest in the business. I want to be an entrepreneur, start my own shop or whatever,” said Wade, 28, an East Side resident who runs table games at the Hollywood Casino on the West Side.

Wade was among the people attending a cannabis conference on Saturday at the DoubleTree Hotel in Worthington. It continues today.

Another day, another botched police sting.

A Florida family seeks justice after their son Jason Westcott, was killed by members of a SWAT team, during a “drug raid” on his house which yielded only $2.00 worth of marijuana.

An ‘internal investigation’ absolved officers of any wrongdoing though police only found .02 grams of marijuana in Westcott’s home.

“They have IA, they have internal investigations but when you police yourself, you have that veil of concern by the outsider,” said attorney T.J. Grimaldi.

On Tuesday, attorney T.J. Grimaldi, representing the family of Westcott, informed the city that family would be filing a lawsuit, after finding numerous “glaring inconsistencies” in police statements in the aftermath of the killing.