This past spring, ZipRecruiter’s CEO, Ian Siegel, revealed that cannabis is the fastest growing job category in the United States. With 445 percent year-over-year growth in job listings, cannabis is far outpacing tech and healthcare career growth (245 and 70 percent, respectively). Data released by Mordor Intelligence suggested that the country’s market value could reach $65 billion by 2023. Potential supporting evidence comes from cannabis staffing agency Vangst which reported a 690 percent jump in job listings since 2017.

INTERVIEW: Gerónimo Caro Díaz & Romina Fernández, Cannabis & Hemp Studies Center, Uruguay

Canopy Growth Corporation  (TSX: WEED) (NYSE: CGC) announced a key milestone in establishing its Hemp Industrial Park in the Southern Tier region of New York State. It has secured a 308,000 sq. ft. facility on a 48-acre property in Kirkwood, NY.

The company said that design development would begin immediately with construction expected to start this summer. Canopy said in a statement that its vision for the property is to build the infrastructure necessary to support hemp-derived cannabinoid extraction and related manufacturing together with providing an opportunity for participation by other businesses in the hemp industry.

A letter has been issued by a bipartisan group of Congress members demanding protections for educational institutes who want to study marijuana, writes Calvin Hughes.

As it stands, universities and colleges can't work with cannabis in any capacity without fear of losing their federal funding. This stipulation has long been one of the many reasons that research on cannabis has historically been lacking. However, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) and a bipartisan group of 25 other congressional lawmakers hope that will soon change.

This story has been edited for brevity and clarity and translated from Spanish.

Once hidden underground, it isn’t hard to find marijuana businesses in Nevada these days — they’re the sophisticated buildings in busy strip malls with bold green letters proclaiming “cannabis.”

Marijuana has risen from ignominy to prominence in the state since lawmakers authorized recreational sales in July 2017. And the plant has also taken a prominent role in the life of Priscilla Vilchis, founder of Premium Produce, a company that grows marijuana not too far from the Las Vegas Strip.

Latin America is a global example in the deregulation of cannabis. Companies across the Americas are investing in states where legalization is at the forefront. Countries are courting investors and building communities to design and further deregulation initiatives.

Cannabis is a historical and cultural medicine for many communities across Latin America, and some governments, like Colombia, are seeking to elevate those communities and include them in the new booming economy.

U.S. immigration authorities blocked two immigrants’ applications for citizenship because of their work in Colorado’s marijuana industry, their attorneys and Denver officials said, accusing the Trump administration of quietly targeting immigrants seeking jobs in the growing field.

Oswaldo Barrientos said he began working in the marijuana industry in 2014, inspired by the research he had done into medical products after his mother’s skin cancer diagnosis. He was brought to the U.S. from El Salvador as an infant and was granted a green card when he was 13.

Since weed was legalized last fall, many Canadians may fancy themselves as cannabis connoisseurs. As of Monday, Edmonton’s Amanda Bladon can put the title on a business card.

Bladon was one of eight Canadians hired by Toronto-based company AHLOT to sample and evaluate different strains of cannabis and get paid to do so.

“I’m kind of in dream-job land right now,” Bladon said Monday, her first day of a year-long contract as a cannabis connoisseur. “I just thought the opportunity sounded a little bit too good to be true and I’m a bit of a risk taker so I figured why not throw my name in the pile and let’s see what happens.”

College student Grace DeNoya is used to people laughing when they learn what she is studying. Her degree centers on the marijuana plant -- an intoxicating drug that is illegal in many parts of the world.

“I say, ‘No, it’s a serious degree, a chemistry degree first and foremost. It’s hard work. Organic chemistry is a bear,” the 27 year old told the Associated Press.

DeNoya is one of the first students in a new four-year degree program in medicinal plant chemistry at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. The school, known as NMU, is one of an increasing number of colleges and universities that are preparing graduates for careers growing, researching and selling the plants.