The House and Senate budget proposals would divert marijuana taxes to the general fund instead of to non-profit community health centers that serve the uninsured.

A key part of Washington state's recreational marijuana initiative I-502 is a tax on legal marijuana. Five percent of that tax was meant to fund the state's cash-strapped community health centers.

But neither the Senate Republicans nor House Democrats have called for that in their budgets, which were revealed at the end of March.

AUGUSTA — In a first for Maine’s medical marijuana industry, the state has hired an outside group to inspect growing operations, a move criticized by advocates who say the process hasn’t been well-outlined.

In March, the Maine Department of Human Services signed a one-year, $167,000 contract with the Maine Sheriffs’ Association to inspect growing operations across the state. David Sorensen, a DHHS spokesman, said it’s primarily for “caregivers,” allowed under state law to grow marijuana for up to five patients who have gotten recommendations from doctors to use the drug.

Advocating for cannabis reform is energy consuming business.  I’m tired and I’m not alone.

When I became involved in late 2010, I fed off the intense enthusiasm and passion of the cannabis community.  There was a huge push to get an medical marijuana bill passed and via a miracle, SB5073 passed both the House and Senate in April 2011 and went to the Governor’s office where it was gutted and we have been fighting to regain ground ever since.

If you build it, who will come?

Verabis (www.verabis.net), a primary research firm that focuses on the cannabis industry, can help you get to the bottom of this question and more. And they’ve got some data about the industry to share.

Did you know that 70% of cannabis enthusiasts use cannabis product once or more a week? And four out of five of these people consume cannabis at least once per day. Verabis has seen significant differences in product preferences when it comes to the gender split. For example, women are more drawn to mint and gum than men. Men are more likely to trust vaporizers. Moreover, one in four say their use of cannabis will increase in the coming year. Are you ready?

Every industry is only as strong as the connection between the capital needed to grow and maintain it, and the companies themselves, who allocate that capital to expand new markets, lower costs, add services and improve product offerings. In most industries, this flow has had decades to form distinct, reliable channels. Not so in cannabis, which is still forced to fumble its way through muddy waters in this stage of its life cycle. Companies that touch the plant cannot get corporate bank accounts, let alone pitch themselves to the mainline Wall Street set.

High Times magazine’s New York-rooted editor-in-chief Dan Skye has spent plenty of time in Colorado researching and photographing the state’s medical and recreational systems, but his current, pre-Cannabis Cup trip to the state has been uncommonly eye-opening.

“The Colorado cannabis industry is an economic miracle,” Skye said Monday from a stop in Pueblo, where he’s meeting cannabis business owners and reporting on the state’s first-of-its-kind legalization. “Everyone in the United States is following Colorado’s lead.”

MBank, the small Oregon-based financial institution that has serviced the cannabis industry since last year, told Marijuana Business Daily that it will close all of its accounts with marijuana companies in the next two months.

Jef Baker, the CEO and president of MBank, said the cost and time spent on compliance is too much for the Gresham, Oregon-based community bank to handle. The company – which quickly became one of the largest banks serving the marijuana industry – has about 70 to 75 accounts with cannabis businesses, Baker said. Most of them are in Oregon, though a few are in Washington State.

EUGENE, Ore. - With just days left to file income taxes, Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer and Senator Ron Wyden introduced legislation that would allow marijuana businesses to take deductions as long as they are following state laws.

Wyden has also proposed a tax reform plan that would make filing taxes easier and create incentives for local businesses.

“We really have a one page form, just over 30 lines long and if we go to something like that - Oregonians are going to be able to get their April back," Wyden said.

He said these changes would reflect the will of Oregon voters and provide some certainty for small businesses.

He hopes to move forward with these tax changes in the upcoming months.

In 2011, the only place you could buy a pound of pot online was Silk Road, an illegal marketplace labeled by the media as the “Amazon of drugs.”

In 2015, there’s a website run by veteran commodity traders where Colorado growers and retailers can trade cannabis online – legally.

The Denver-based company Amercanex launched its online marketplace last summer, and it has plans to expand outside of Colorado by the end of 2015.

Retired Silicon Valley engineer Angelo Mallol, 56, turned out Sunday for a seminar on how to start a small business – in the pot trade.

He asked questions as instructor Gerry Bedore of the Cannabis Career Institute spoke about emerging opportunities for entrepreneurs wanting to enter California’s medical marijuana market and cash in on a likely 2016 state ballot initiative to legalize recreational pot use.

The Cannabis Career Institute, founded by a Los Angeles marijuana activist and pot deliveryman known as “The Cannabis Warrior,” held a daylong Sacramento program on how to open cannabis businesses, from niche bakeries and organic gardens to marijuana distribution services.