DENVER — While federal law makes their entire industry illegal, many marijuana store owners, growers and retailers fear something completely different: Big Tobacco.

Today, most legal recreational marijuana operations are small, limited to a single state and barred from ever getting large by regulators who want to keep a close eye on the fast-growing industry. But those small operators struggle to get bank loans for expansion, often produce an inconsistent product and sometimes have no idea how to balance supply and demand for their crops.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - The Washington state House moved forward Friday on an effort to reconcile the state's medical and recreational marijuana markets.

The chamber first passed a Senate measure addressing the medical side before moving on to a House bill dealing with the recreational law. Because the Senate bill was amended in the House, it will head back to the full Senate for a final concurrence vote, while the House bill will go next to a Senate committee for consideration.

Senate Bill 5052 passed on a bipartisan 60-36 vote after a long debate over several amendments, including over whether patients should have to sign up on a registry.

Don’t accuse Denver City Council at-large candidate Kayvan Khalatbari of getting lost in the crowd. If there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s stand out — this time, on a pizza box.

Khalatbari, 31, has been harnessing the natural delivery system of one of several businesses he co-owns — Sexy Pizza, which has three locations in central Denver neighborhoods — by affixing campaign fliers to pizza boxes before they’re sent out to customers.

Khalatbari says he printed 5,000 campaign fliers for the pizza boxes, enough to last about two weeks at the pizza shops. The piece pictures Khalatbari under the words “I’m a real person.”

The Uber of medical cannabis delivery has arrived, and the venerable accelerator Y Combinator has given its rubber stamp of approval. Meadow, a San Francisco-based startup, allows card-holding medical marijuana patients to browse different types of cannabis from nearby dispensaries and place an order, and within an hour the goods will be delivered to the patient's door.

If you don't have a medical marijuana card, you can schedule an in-home consultation with one of the doctors Meadow has partnered with and get a recommendation to use medical cannabis.

A Gatineau-based company is the newest player in Canada's medical marijuana market. Hydropothecary is licensed to grow the plants; now it's hoping within weeks to get the green light from Health Canada to start selling it. The facility is on an 80-acre farm along the Outaouais River in Gatineau.  For decades, the owner of the farm in rural Gatineau has been growing potted plants on his 80-acre farm.  Now, Louis Gagnon is focusing just on "pot". Gagnon has teamed up with two brothers-in-law, Sébastien St-Louis and Adam Miron.  Their company Hydropothecary has purchased his land to build a massive 35-thousand square foot greenhouse for medical marijuana.

AURORA, COLORADO -- Sweet Leaf, a marijuana store in this Denver suburb, doesn't look like much from, the outside. Windows are blocked. A sign on the door announces that only people 21 and older can come in.

Inside, visitors are greeted with crisp, white walls splashed with cheery magenta polka dots. Jay Z provides the soundtrack. The shop hums from the time it opens at 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. when employees turn away customers still waiting to get in. On a recent afternoon, each of the dozen or so chairs in the waiting room was taken.

Sweet Leaf is a chain of five marijuana shops in the Denver area. The company includes a large scale marijuana grow operation and a mix of recreational and medical marijuana outlets.

LANSING, MI -- An activist-led group seeking to put a marijuana legalization proposal on Michigan's 2016 ballot wants to tax retail sales at 10 percent and allow residents to grow up to 12 plants at home.

The Michigan Comprehensive Cannabis Law Reform Committee -- one of three unaffiliated groups considering a possible petition drive -- on Friday released draft language of its ballot proposal.

The 'green rush' appears to be over, but local medical marijuana producer taking a slow, steady approach to growth

The bloom may be off the bud from the so-called dot.bong era when there was a rush of investment dollars into the licensed medical marijuana market last spring and summer.

But Bill and John Arbuthnot -- the father and son who founded Winnipeg's only licensed medical marijuana producer, Delta 9 Bio-Tech Inc. -- believe there is plenty of time for patient investors to make solid returns.

One of the first group of 13 producers licensed by Health Canada in April 2014 -- there are now 17, plus an additional eight licensed for cultivation only -- Delta 9 has been working the kinks out as it grows.

WAIMANALO, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) -A land dispute in Waimanalo could disrupt the University of Hawaii's plans for a new industrial hemp study.

After the blessing for the research project, a Waimanalo family contacted Hawaii News Now saying that land is theirs.

"They're planning on growing hemp on our land and we don't have any problems with it. We would just like some cooperation and some coordination with us, as the owners of course," says the family spokesman Austin Lorenzo.

On Friday, state leaders attended the seed planting ceremony.

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 10, 2015) -

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. PERSONS.

Nutritional High International Inc. (the "Company" or "Nutritional High") (CSE:NHL) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a binding letter of intent ("LOI") dated April 8, 2015, to acquire a 51% equity interest (the "Transaction") in Zephyr Management Inc. ("Zephyr"), an exclusive management company being established to provide management and real estate services to Sacred Garden ("Sacred Garden"), an entity licensed to produce medical cannabis in New Mexico.