Have you considered adding LinkedIn to your cannabis marketing strategy lately?
If not, you’re missing out on potential cannabis brand building, networking and lead generation opportunities.

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As the cannabis industry has moved to shed the “stoner” stereotype many have held of its consumers, several marijuana businesses are rebranding themselves via name changes and other steps to try to reflect the companies they’ve become.

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Both Michigan and Illinois, which allows sales starting on Jan. 1, are officially joining nine other states that broadly allow marijuana sales. Companies are rushing to complete renovations at dispensaries, expand their growing facilities, and get staff hired and trained.

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Denver’s after-school programs have been a major beneficiary of the city’s special retail marijuana sales tax. As efforts to legalize marijuana spread, after-school leaders in dozens of cities are taking this lesson home.

Last year Denver collected about $46 million in marijuana tax, said Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock. The Denver Afterschool Alliance now receives $1.5 million yearly for after-school and summer learning programs and has expanded programs in under-resourced neighborhoods and provided more training for the program staff.

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As shoppers head out to prepare for Thanksgiving and participate in Black Friday sales, data from two firms show consumers may be upping their purchases of marijuana products as well.

Data from Seattle-based Headset reveals that 2018 sales on “Green Wednesday” – the day before Thanksgiving – increased 63% over the average Wednesday.

Though the majority of U.S. financial institutions remain hesitant to offer accounts and loans to non-plant-touching cannabis companies, there are steps those businesses can take to land a banking partner.

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Cannabis recruiting company Vangst just released its 2019 annual salary guide and as expected, as more states legalize medical or recreational cannabis sales, and nascent markets continue to mature, the cannabis job market is strong.

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In a surprising turn of events, a key Congressional committee, the House Judiciary Committee, has voted to approve the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2019, or H.R. 3884, which would effectively put an end to cannabis prohibition in the United States of America, on a federal level by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act.

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In case you hadn’t noticed, cannabis sales are soaring around the world. According to the State of the Legal Cannabis Markets report from Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics, worldwide legal weed revenue more than tripled between 2014 and 2018 to $10.9 billion, and this is really just the tip of the iceberg.

Yet the United States, the most lucrative market for marijuana in the world, remains a hostile place for cannabis, at least at the federal level. Despite growing support among the public to legalize cannabis on a national level, lawmakers have stood pat on their Schedule I classification of pot. This ensures it remains entirely illegal at the federal level.

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After a few years of prolific vaping, generous edible consumption, and the dawn of the individually packed preroll, the plastic has really piled up from the cannabis industry. Though it’s easy to point the finger at regulations for child-resistant packaging as the major culprit, limited innovation hasn’t helped. Until the fossil fuel derivative becomes fully renewable, plastic waste is the ultimate buzzkill.

The lack of sustainability in the cannabis sector has been apparent for a few years now. Developing vapes without lithium batteries and creating fully childproof packaging still isn’t universal. Real changes on a legislative and industrial level must be made or the needle won’t move much, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will continue to grow if we do nothing.

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