WeedLife News Network

Washington (AFP) - Legal marijuana is becoming more and more entrenched in the United States each year, and 2016 looks to be no exception.

Bills to eliminate residency requirements for pot business ownership, give lenders legal protections and combine medical and recreational cannabis retail outlets all moved forward easily in the Oregon Legislature last week, though none have yet become law.

Adelanto, known 80 years ago for its fruit trees, is tying its star to another agricultural boom. In November, it became the second city in Southern California to permit commercial cultivation of medical marijuana.

With companies marketing drugs directly to consumers promising cures for almost anything, an increasingly destigmatized cannabis seems a likely target for the industry’s next game-changing medicine.

New start-ups have been putting together software that helps banks and dispensaries monitor and record transactions, with the long-term goal of moving transactions away from cash.

The cannabis industry is quickly becoming a magnet for female entrepreneurs.

The rapidly growing marijuana industry — legal to some degree in much of the country — is providing a still-small but potentially fertile bed of opportunity for companies in Wisconsin and other states where the drug remains outlawed.

DENVER (AP) -- Snoop Dogg has his own line of marijuana. So does Willie Nelson. Melissa Etheridge has a marijuana-infused wine. As the fast-growing marijuana industry emerges from the black market and starts looking like a mainstream industry, there's a scramble to brand and trademark pot products.

GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes drugs derived from the cannabis plant, is scaling up its manufacturing capacity ahead of an expected approval of a new treatment for children with life-threatening epilepsy.