From 'cash teams' to security, marijuana business gets serious

Inside a cannabis shop's emerging business model

House Republicans advanced a budget plan Thursday that would prevent legal sales of marijuana in D.C. for more than two years.

Here’s the surprise: advocates for legalization called it a victory.

What the Republican budget does not do – at least not yet – is roll back Initiative 71, the voter-approved measure from November that legalized pot for recreational use in the nation’s capital. Since early this year, D.C. residents have been allowed to possess, grow and, in the privacy of their own homes, smoke marijuana.

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday is expected to issue a ruling on whether businesses can fire workers who use medical marijuana when off the clock.

The decision comes nine months after the state's highest court heard oral arguments in Brandon Coats' case against Dish Network.

Coats, a quadriplegic man who used marijuana off-duty to control muscle spasms, was fired in 2010 by Dish after failing a random drug test.

Three groups selected by the state to operate New Hampshire’s first medical marijuana dispensaries are still a long way from being open for business next year.

Although there is still more to come in what has been a lengthy approval process, the groups have at least preliminary clearance to move forward and work out the locations of the dispensaries and who will be working there.

“I think it’s most significant for the patients,” said Ted Rebholz, board president for Temescal Wellness Inc., one of the three winners announced by the state last week. “There are a lot of citizens of New Hampshire that have been waiting a long time for access to medical cannabis.”

More than 25 local cannabis businesses hosted a bake sale Saturday, complete with “medical” marijuana-laced munchies.

The first Get Baked Sale, held at the SOMAStreat Food Park on 11th Street, included food trucks and booths lined with all sorts of wares — including Doritos, Chilean empanadas, ice cream sandwiches, pancakes and macaroons — for holders of medical marijuana cards to sample. The event featured cooking demonstrations and food-pairings with marijuana edibles. The pointy green leaves symbolic of the plant were rife on clothing, posters and stickers.

See how Marijuana dispensaries rank in comparison to other retail industries.  How do recreational dispensaries compare to medical.  Use this for your own benchmarking.

A Vancouver, B.C., company has bought a business center at 2010 Grandview Road for $1.2 million and plans to lease space to licensed marijuana growers and processors.

Chlormet Technologies bought the 9.7-acre parcel in Ferndale through its Washington state subsidiary PacCan Industries, according to a company news release.

The seller was Excelsior Mortgage Equity Fund of Lake Oswego, Ore.

The property is zoned general business.

Cops in Santa Ana, California, donned ski masks to break and enter into a local medical marijuana dispensary, raiding it with guns drawn in a May 27 police action. They then proceeded to remove surveillance cameras and recording equipment, but they didn't remove it all. Video from a camera they didn't disable also caught the officers eating what appear to be marijuana edibles, then acting in a way to suggest they had become intoxicated, with one officer even joking that she'd love to kick a marijuana activist present at the raid, Marla James, an amputee, in the "nub."

Watch one of the videos, via Orange County Weekly, below:

One of the ongoing rationalizations for the legalization of the drug trade in the United States has been to stop the associated crime that comes with prohibition. The drug trade across the Mexican border is one of the bloodiest on a regular basis.

What is the impact so far of American legalization of the drug highway across the Tex-Mex border?