34 points to help you decide if entering this expanding market is right for your business.

Friday, June 5 was the deadline for medical marijuana grower-dispensary hopefuls in New York State to file their applications with the State Department of Health. Early that morning, Kurt Van de Wetering and his team at THC Health Inc. hand-delivered their application, which filled two, 5-inch-thick binders with well over 1,000 pages. THC Health was one of 43 applicants (according to Buffalo Business First) vying for just five licenses being awarded by the state. Now they wait.

Denver's Dixie Elixirs, which makes marijuana-based carbonated drinks and candies, is prettying itself up so it can be acquired by Big Alcohol.

America's legal cannabis industry has been clawing its way back to where it was before it became illegal in 1937--a legitimate, hugely profitable provider of clothes, paper, and medicine, and a safe respite from everyday stress. The process of legalization and social acceptance has been slow, starting in 1996 in California. Today, medical marijuana is legal in 23 states (as well as Washington, D.C.) and recreational pot is legal in four.

COLUMBUS, OH – ResponsibleOhio today delivered petition signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office to qualify for the November 2015 ballot.

The Marijuana Legalization Amendment would allow adults 21 and over to buy marijuana and establish a network of 10 authorized growing locations around the state.

ResponsbileOhio says that they have 695,273 signatures on their petitions. They needed about 306,000 to qualify for November’s ballot. Secretary of State Jon Husted makes the final determination as to the validity of the signatures.

I’ll begin this story with a disclaimer: I rarely smoke weed. Aside from the few times that I’ve tried it recreationally, marijuana has never really appealed to me as it does to the millions of Americans who light up for medical purposes or just for fun.

Oaksterdam University is not an accredited institution, but you might have been fooled if you went to the Capital Hilton here this past weekend.

More than 100 students took part in a 10-session seminar, part of the cannabis college’s focus on education in regions with recently loosened marijuana laws. During one session on Sunday, an instructor flipped through PowerPoint slides about cannabis-extraction methods and wove organic chemistry into one presentation. Meanwhile, attendees — clad in Oaksterdam sweatshirts, tie-dyed T-shirts advertising the marijuana newspaper High Times, and marijuana-leaf tie-clips — dutifully took notes.

DENVER — Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul is courting donors from the marijuana business in a groundbreaking event in Denver.

The Kentucky senator is holding a fundraiser Tuesday at the Cannabis Business Summit.

Paul becomes the first major-party presidential candidate to publicly court donations from the pot industry. Though legal weed business owners have been active political donors for years, presidential candidates have shied away from holding fundraisers made up entirely of marijuana-related business owners.

Paul has joined Democrats in the Senate to sponsor a bill to end the federal prohibition of marijuana for medical reasons. The senator also backs a federal drug-sentencing overhaul.

Tickets to the pot fundraiser start at $2,700.

In a city with dispensaries as common as coffee shops, Denver is undoubtedly the epicenter of the legal marijuana movement. And if you're in the business of bud, it's a good place to be: Colorado accounted for a third of the country's 2.7 billion dollar marijuana market last year.

But with being America's fastest growing industry, comes growing pains. Marijuana is still illegal on the federal level, which has led to conflicting state laws, restrictive regulations, and endless problems for cash-only marijuana business owners and operators.

VICE News meets the investors cashing in on the green rush and finds out how fractured marijuana laws are causing the American market to miss out.

Not only are people free to smoke weed—the weed is free.

As of July 1, new Oregon laws go into effect making it legal for adults ages 21 and up to possess and use recreational marijuana. It’s legal to grow marijuana in the state—up to four plants per residence, out of public view—and share it with other of-age adults too.

Applications for large-scale growers and retailers aren’t being accepted until early 2016, and no Oregon stores are expected to have marijuana for sale until the fall of 2016. For the time being, then, while recreational marijuana use is legal, people aren’t allowed to buy or sell it.

As dispensaries grow the rise in bud tending jobs also increase, and with that considerable rise comes more people interested in how to become a budtender. Joining the cannabis industry is easier than you think, in fact if you want to become a budtender in a dispensary than this is the article for you, herein is a brief guide on how to get started!

Get Your Medical Card

MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / June 29, 2015 / The newly formed team of Cheryl Shuman, MarijuanaStocks.com, and Wolf of Weed Street (the Team) are excited to announce the official launch of their first branded product, the ‘WolfShot.’ The Team has partnered with FBEC Worldwide Inc. (FBEC) to bring to market this hemp based energy shot that not only tastes great but also has all the added benefits of hemp packed into an easy to carry 2 ounce bottle. The WolfShot’s proprietary blend boasts FDA approved and CFR-21 tested ingredients that no other energy drink on the market currently has.