Growing

Taking a serious fall during May, the ever-popular Gorilla Glue fell 9 spots on our monthly “Top 25 Most Popular Marijuana Strains” list. With an average listed price per 1/8 of $41.00, Gorilla Glue slid to the 15th spot last month.
Also experiencing a sudden decrease in popularity, OG Kush failed to attract the eyeballs of online shoppers.

In states with recreational or medical legalization, legal weed has made life a whole lot easier for patients with debilitating ailments, responsible adults who like to partake every once and awhile and full-blown stoners.

The first company in Australia to receive a cannabis cultivation license has been given the official go-ahead to start growing the country’s first major domestic crop of medicine.
Cann Group Australia was granted a permit by the Office of Drug Control in February to grow medical marijuana at an undisclosed location in Melbourne. The company has been on a high for a few months since being issued the official papers, as well as listing on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) earlier this month.
The ASX listing came after Cann Group successfully raised $13.5 million in capital.

In a move that further legitimizes the cannabis industry in Canada, it was reported in the Edmonton Sun that the first staffing agency for the pot business has been created.
Alison McMahon started Cannabis at Work in 2015, and at the time, the company was an advisor to corporations on issues linked to the use of marijuana as medicine in the workplace.
Most recently, Cannabis at Work has expanded to help businesses in the marijuana industry find employees ahead of the adult use legalization boom. “We really saw an opportunity.

The current state of legalized marijuana varies from country to country. Possession of the weed is illegal in most countries and has been since the beginning of widespread cannabis prohibition in the late 1930s. However, its possession has been decriminalized in many countries and sub-national entities in several parts of the world.Yet decriminalization alone does not tackle the harms of prohibition of weed– such as high levels of crime, illegitimate markets, and the harmful health consequences of drugs produced in the absence of regulatory oversight.

Police officers in North Carolina got a little more than they bargained for this week, when they tracked down what they thought was a rural cannabis cultivation site, but instead uncovered a half-acre field full of poppy plants ready to be turned into opium, the base form of heroin.

According to CNN, Catawba County Sheriffs went to the rural home of 37 year-old Cody Xiong, who they suspected of growing marijuana.

As a long-standing grow shop employee, I have had to look at disappointed faces from behind the counter time and time again, as ambitious home growers have only managed to produce a few sorry buds instead of the giant harvest they had been expecting. Usually, these failed harvests were caused by a combination of inexperience and avoidable mistakes. However, despite an abundance of books, blogs, and video tutorials, many a home grower wishes to find their “own” way – whatever that may be – to grow cannabis at home.

The billion-dollar cannabis industry is a rising tide with no horizon in sight. And according to MJ Biz Daily’s recent Factbook report, that tide is only growing stronger.
In 2016, combined adult-use and medical marijuana sales garnered $4-4.5 billion in sales — or over one billion more than Americans spent on Viagra and Cialis or Paid Music Streaming Services.
Factoring in the regulated and black markets, the cannabis industry’s estimated demand in the United States checks in at a cool $45-50 billion.

Jeffrey’s War Veteran with PTSD Story — “I’m a human being again.”
A patient story excerpt from Cannabis Revealed: How the World’s Most Misunderstood Plant is Healing Everything from Chronic Pain to Epilepsy
One of the last to be drafted to fight in Vietnam, Jeffrey served and got out in April of 1975 during the fall of Saigon. He went immediately from the war into law enforcement, a thrill-seeker who was cited for bravery numerous times and commended for his work. “You couldn’t kill me with a bullet,” he told me.

Growing medical cannabis. Credit: Tilray
Although cannabis had been used for many centuries for treatment of seizure disorders, medical use became prohibited in the 20th century. However, with the loosening of laws regarding medical marijuana, research and clinical use of marijuana-derived substances are increasing. This has prompted the editors of Epilepsy & Behavior to produce a special issue that presents an in-depth assessment of the potential of cannabinoids for the effective treatment of epilepsy.