A California company filed a Form D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 22 stating that the firm, Tradiv, is raising $1 million in funding. The company offers business-to-business (B2B) services to companies involved in the legal marijuana sector.

According to the filing, the firm has raised $650,000 as of the filing date, including $20,000 from a cannabis accelerator firm, Boulder, Colo.-based, CanopyBoulder. Venture capital website VentureBeat notes that Tradiv had to give CanopyBoulder an equity stake of 9.5% in exchange. That is a very large piece of a potentially very large pie.

Here is a rundown on other stories related to marijuana that made news this week.

ResponsibleOhio Investor Defends Marijuana Legalization Plan

One of the major investors backing a ballot issue to legalize marijuana assured future entrepreneurs there would be thousands of business opportunities available to them despite the plan’s controversial limits on commercial growing.

T-shirts with marijuana slogans, cannabis-infused beverages, packaging for marijuana products are among the endless possibilities Ohioans can come up with, according to Alan Mooney, a Columbus-area investor in ResponsibleOhio’s legalization campaign.

“Ohio is going to dominate in this world — you guys are going to do that,” Mooney told attendees at a marijuana business conference held here. “You’re not just going to be in Ohio — this is just maybe where you’re getting started. You’re going to end up with an opportunity because the whole world is going to watch what we’re doing.”

Read more at the Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch.

Tony Stewart Blames Kevin Ward Dean on Driver’s Parents, Marijuana

The family of Kevin Ward, the driver who died last year as a result of being hit by Tony Stewart’s car in New York, filed suit against the NASCAR star earlier this month. In a report by the Associated Press, Stewart and his attorney Brian Gwitt are adamant that the death is “100 percent an accident.”

According to court papers filed on Friday, Stewart is claiming that Ward’s death was the result of smoking marijuana fives hour prior to his death, impairing the driver, and negligence stemming from getting out of his car.

Read more at SBNation.
Marijuana Use May Lower Sperm Counts ‘Quite a Lot’

Smoking marijuana more than once a week may lower men’s sperm counts by about a third, according to a new study.

Researchers found that the men in the study who smoked marijuana more than once a week had sperm counts that were 29 percent lower, on average, than those who did not smoke marijuana, or used the drug less frequently.

The researchers thought that amount of reduction in sperm count “was quite a lot,” said study author Tina Kold Jensen, of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Read more at Livescience.

Kevlar for the Mind: Marijuana for PTSD Needs More Study

Advances in treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder have been slow. That’s unfortunate, considering that we’ve been at war for well over a decade. And it’s even more troubling since PTSD is one of the signature injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

Although progress in alleviating the stress of war has not kept pace with the number of newly diagnosed cases of PTSD, progress has occurred. Cognitive, behavioral and interpersonal talk therapies have been refined for veterans. Medications for PTSD continue to be studied and we know how to better control nightmares, sleep and agitation.

The lack of progress in more traditional approaches to treating PTSD arguably has led to experimental and questionable intervention methods. A prime example is MDMA. Better known as Ecstasy and Molly, this synthetic drug is being studied as a treatment for PTSD. Due to regulatory challenges and safety concerns, progress has been slow, but initial research indicates it may be helpful when combined with psychotherapy.

Marijuana also is being studied for the treatment of PTSD. In fact, some states have put medical marijuana on the approved list for PTSD.

Read more at Military Times.

Pioneer Pot States Have Collected More Than $200 Million in Marijuana Taxes

The first two states to legalize recreational marijuana have collectively raked in at least $200 million in marijuana tax revenue, according to the latest tax data — and they’re putting those dollars to good use.

In Colorado, after about a year and a half of legal recreational marijuana sales, the state has collected more than $117 million in excise taxes from both the recreational and medical marijuana markets, according to the most recent data from the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Washington state got a slower start. Its retail shops didn’t begin selling recreational marijuana until July of last year, but they are keeping pace with Colorado’s. About $83 million in excise taxes have already been collected in the year since sales first began, according to the most recent tax data from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board.

Read more at the Huffington Post.

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