Scotts Miracle-Gro stock still surging

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Scotts Miracle-Gro remains a Wall Street darling, thanks to its recent investments in businesses and products that serve cannabis cultivators.

Scotts has watched its stock rocket about 30% this year ahead of an important election year for the marijuana industry.

The Ohio-based lawn care company’s stock first surged past $80 per share in early August and has been trading just above that since then. It reached new highs on Monday when it hit $84.19, surpassed $86 on Wednesday and broke yet another record Thursday by hitting $86.27 before…

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Prominent Travel Writer: ‘Get Ready’ for Age of MJ Tourism

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One of the most well-known travel writers in the world, Arthur Frommer, predicted recently that cannabis tourism is going to become big business after the November election, when up to five more states could legalize recreational use.

If accurate, marijuana tourism would present additional opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on the legalization of marijuana.

“The prospects seem strong that marijuana is now about to be added to beer and wine as a permissible product to order,” Frommer wrote in a column last week, the…

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The Improving MJ Investment Climate: Q&A With Al Foreman, Tuatara’s Chief Investment Officer

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Al Foreman Tuatara Capital Cropped

By Omar Sacirbey

Tuatara Capital recently made history when it raised $93 million to wager on marijuana-related businesses, a record sum for a cannabis investment firm.

Tuatara secured the money mainly from deep-pocketed individuals. But a company executive predicts big institutional investors will begin focusing on marijuana businesses in as soon as 12 months.

Al Foreman, Tuatara’s chief investment officer, expects that major investors like banks will start doing their “homework and focus on the industry from an investment standpoint”…

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Rec in Arizona Could Lead to Fewer Medical Dispensaries

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Legalization of adult-use cannabis in Arizona this fall could lead to fewer medical dispensary storefronts across the state, according to a report by the Phoenix New Times.

The main reason is simple. Medical cannabis cards in Arizona cost patients around $300 each year. And if a sizeable number of the roughly 100,000 MMJ patients decide it’s cheaper to occasionally purchase from a recreational shop, that could lead to a precipitous drop in business for dispensaries. Many could close their doors.

MJBizCrashCourseIf Arizona voters approve the recreational…

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Uruguayan Cannabis Company Betting on Hemp

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Uruguay made history nearly three years ago when it became the first modern country to legalize recreational marijuana at the federal level. But given how difficult the country’s industry rollout has been, at least one Uruguayan cannabis producer is shifting its sights to marijuana’s non-psychoactive cousin: hemp.

International Cannabis Corp., one of only two licensed marijuana producers in the country, aims to tap a global hemp market instead of just the Uruguayan marijuana market, in part because it’s far less regulated, Bloomberg…

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Report: 69% of Cannabis Consumers are Men

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Newly released data from Cannabis Market Intelligence Platform Headset has found that nearly 69% of marijuana consumers are men, while just 31.1% are women, Forbes reported Monday.

The same data set also found that the largest percentage of recreational consumers, 20.39%, are between the ages of 25 and 29. Cannabis consumers between the ages of 21 to 34 make up 51.8% of purchases.

Interested in age? The average marijuana buyer is 37.6 years old, the average woman customer is 38.2 years old, and the average man is 37.4 years old. Seniors…

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German MMJ Company Taps Canadian Grower for Imports

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The Canopy Growth Corporation in Ontario announced Monday that the Canadian and German governments have given the thumbs up to its wholly owned subsidiary Tweed Inc. to begin exporting medical cannabis for sale to German patients, according to a press release.

Tweed will export its medical cannabis to MedCann GmbH Pharma and Nutraceuticals, a privately held pharmaceutical importer and manufacturer.

The approvals mark the first time a major G7 country will be allowed to import medical marijuana from Canada.

Germans are legally allowed to…

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Medical Cannabis Legalization Blocked in Mexico

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Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, after saying in April he’s open to legalizing cannabis for medical uses, effectively stood by without comment while his own party forestalled a vote on a legalization bill.

The Mexican Senate postponed indefinitely any hearing on the legalization legislation.

“It looks like (Peña Nieto) never really wanted it,” drug policy expert Lisa Sanchez told Vice News.

She noted the president’s Institutional Revolutionary Party scuttled the MMJ reforms. “It’s either that, or the PRI now considers that…

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Harborside Canceling National Expansion Plans, Will Focus on California

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By John Schroyer

What a difference seven months make.

Since discussing plans last August to expand into nearly every market in the western United States, Steve and Andrew DeAngelo of Harborside Health Center have pulled a 180-degree-turn and decided to focus solely on solidifying and growing their foothold in California.

Along these lines, the brothers told Marijuana Business Daily that they have sold the Harborside-branded dispensary they opened last October in Portland, Oregon, which…

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Marijuana Extraction and Concentrates Trends: Q&A With Expert Matt Gaboury

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By John Schroyer

Marijuana extracts and concentrates are perhaps the most cutting-edge niche of the entire cannabis industry, with technology, practices and products that are constantly evolving.

Matt Gaboury worked in cannabis extraction for several years before starting a concentrates company, Cultibar, along with another firm, Calyx King Consulting, that helps businesses in this field.

Marijuana Business Daily sat down with Gaboury to ask about some of the newer developments on the…

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Australian MMJ Could Be a $100M Industry

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If Australian states all legalize medical cannabis, the combined industry could be valued at upwards of $100 million, according to a research paper by the University of Sydney Business School.

Though that may not seem like much – given that Colorado alone sold almost $1 billion last year – it could be a solid start, especially since Australia is home to 23 million people.

The research paper, which was reported by Business Insider Australia, was based on data from worldwide legal marijuana…

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New York: About 1,000 Patients Have Received MMJ

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Although an estimated 2,039 medical cannabis patients in New York have been ruled eligible to purchase marijuana under the state’s law, only about half of those have actually made a purchase, a department of health spokesman told Politico.

New York is one of several states, including Illinois and Minnesota, with relatively new medical marijuana programs that are suffering from low patient registries. The problem is that if something isn’t done to increase the patient pool, businesses…

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UK Research Firm Names Top US Cannabis Vendors

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London-based Technavio, a market research firm, has issued a report in which it names what it considers the top seven American marijuana vendors.

The report focuses on four markets: Arizona, California, Colorado and Washington State, as opposed to all 23 states across the country, to get a sampling of the larger market. The firms named are “the top seven leading vendors,” and the report includes 16 additional companies that are “expected to impact the market” between now and 2019,

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Product Shortage, Price Increase Predicted in CO and OR

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New testing regulations and quality control rules are going to bring about both a shortage of cannabis in Colorado and Oregon and a general price hike, according to industry estimates released on Wednesday.

The national spot price for a pound of cannabis will increase from $1,918 as of March 11 to $2,250 in August, “based both on new testing regulations and seasonal summer shortages,” according to a projection by Cannabis Benchmarks, which is a joint venture between Comprehensive Cannabis…

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Number Crunchers: Data Analytics Companies Cropping Up in Cannabis Industry

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By John Schroyer

Knowledge is power…and can lead to big profits.

That’s why businesses in mainstream industries utilize data to analyze their performance, markets and competitors.

Now, a handful of firms are providing cannabis companies with in-depth data that hasn’t been available in the past given the industry’s youth.

Think wholesale pricing figures, investment stats, point-of-sale data and benchmark information.

“The data side is going to look more like it looks in other…

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Poll: 71% of Texans Support Legalizing Medical Marijuana

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Texas could become one of the next big cannabis markets, if state lawmakers listen to their constituents and a growing number of businesspeople interested in the trade.

To bolster that possibility, a whopping 71% of Texans back expanding medical cannabis availability (it’s currently legal only for those with epilepsy) to help more patients, according to a new poll.

The soonest that could happen, however, would be 2017, since the Texas Legislature doesn’t convene in 2016. But when it does…

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Kentucky Entrepreneur Vows to Buy All the State’s Hemp

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Grow it and he will buy it.

John Roulac, the founder and CEO of a major hemp foods company, Nutiva, said he plans to buy all the organic hemp that Kentucky can produce, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

But labeling hemp as organic has been a controversial issue in recent weeks, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would grant one Colorado hemp producer with an organic certified label, but then reneged last week, saying the decision was premature.

“The USDA’s new…

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Australia Set to Legalize MMJ Nationwide

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Australia could become the latest country to fully legalize cannabis for medical purposes, and it could happen as soon as the end of next month.

A bill introduced in the Australian Parliament on Wednesday would establish a “national licensing and permit scheme to supply medical cannabis to patients… on clinical trials,” according to Reuters.

What’s not immediately clear is exactly how the cannabis would be dispensed, or if there would be many business opportunities for would-be…

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Colorado Cannabis Sales Near $1B in 2015

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The first state in the nation with retail adult use marijuana has set a new bar for cannabis revenue with nearly $1 billion in sales for the 2015 calendar year.

The state hit $996 million in sales last year between recreational and medical cannabis sales, according to calculations by the Denver Post. That’s an increase of nearly $300 million from 2014, the first full calendar year of rec sales in Colorado. That year, cannabis sales totaled just under $700 million.

The growth in sales signals…

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Lack of Outreach Undermining Minnesota’s MMJ Program

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One of Minnesota’s two medical marijuana license holders estimated recently that under the state’s current list of approved conditions, there could be some 300,000 eligible patients in the state who simply don’t know about the program because of a lack of information and outreach.

“There’s a huge chunk of patients who just don’t know this program exists,” Manny Munson-Regala, CEO of Leafline Labs, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Beginning in August, the state’s approved…

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Chart of the Week: State Rankings for Medical Marijuana Patients Per Capita

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By Becky Olson

The number of medical marijuana patients in any given state depends on myriad factors.

But certain variables are more influential than others, and analyzing them can help entrepreneurs evaluate the size and potential of a specific market.

Take the qualifying conditions list, for example. Illinois by far has the longest list of specific conditions, yet it has one of the lowest MMJ patient densities per capita at less than one per 1,000 adults. By comparison, Colorado has one of…

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Product Shortage and High Demand in Massachusetts

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The four dispensaries open to date in Massachusetts are having a hard time keeping up with demand, especially because they can’t get enough inventory to satisfy all of the registered patients clamoring for cannabis.

According to The Boston Globe, the quartet of dispensaries are all facing various problems that have caused them to fall short when it comes to delivering product. For one, it’s a supply problem. For another, an unexpected attack of mold prior to harvest forced the dispensary…

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Canadian Medical Cannabis Producer Slashes Prices

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A subsidiary of Canada’s largest medical marijuana grower announced it is lowering its MMJ prices to $5 per gram, about a third lower than the average price in the country of $7.50 per gram.

Bedrocan Canada, which is owned by Ontario-based Canopy Growth Corporation, announced the price cut as part of a new pricing structure it calls True Compassionate Pricing, and said it would apply to all six of its products. While the move will certainly please Canadian patients, it’s also an attempt…

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Chart of the Week: Cannabis Industry Attracts Highly Educated Leaders

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By Becky Olson

Cannabis industry executives holding post-high school certificates and degrees clock in at a rate 19 percentage-points higher than all U.S. professionals age 25 and older.

A recent Marijuana Business Daily survey showed 87% of cannabis professionals in executive or management roles have completed some sort of degree or certification after high school.  By comparison, 68% of those holding equivalent roles in the broader economy have attained this level of education, according…

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