Pot smokers have a reputation for being laid back. But in the US, the pot market is anything but mellow. Legal sales of cannabis - it is legal for medical use in 23 states and for recreational use in four - grew 75 per cent last year to reach $US2.7 billion, according to ArcView Group. ArcView expects that 14 more states will legalise recreational use in the next five years.

Native American tribes are poised to move into the lucrative legal marijuana businesses. With spreading legalization and with taxes being levied right and left, tribal tax advantages could be huge. In California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the Supreme Court ruled that in states permitting gaming, tribes can conduct gaming on Native American lands unhindered by state regulation. A year later, Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, creating a regulatory framework for gaming on Indian lands.

Marijuana use was never something to put on a job application… until now. In the first 34 weeks of legal recreational sales in Washington State, 110 pot shops have opened, a number that is expected to double by years-end. “Retail job opportunities are booming,” said David Rheins, CEO and co-founder of the Seattle-based Marijuana Business Association. Managers are looking for employees who bring retail experience and product knowledge.

Eric Gaston, owner of The Evergreen Market, is looking for a sales staff that loves cannabis for his new stores in Renton and Auburn Washington.  Employees “should be evangelists for the growers and the products,” he said at a recent Green Jobs Fair in Bellevue Washington.

ANNA — Wellness Group Pharms is ready to start construction on its new marijuana cultivation facility, just outside of the Anna city limits.

Paul Montes, manager of Wellness Group Pharms, said the first building under construction will be about 27,000 square feet. The marijuana growers have the ability to expand to 280,000 square feet depending on the success of the program.

Montes said production will be under way as soon as the building is complete.

“We will have our building and production going in six months and after that we will have our first harvest,” he said. “If everything goes according to plan, our first harvest will be about the first of 2016.”

Officials look into health claims of green smoothie

A popular fast food chain is in the gun after promising its hemp smoothies deliver a "potently healthy" hit.

Habitual Fix uses slogans such as, "Man, that's some strong stuff", "Just ask your dealer" and "Don't panic, we also do munchies" to promote the smoothies - but it's not the drug references that have landed the company in trouble.

Instore advertising claims the health benefits of hemp oil include increased energy and metabolism, improved cardiovascular health, better immunity, eased arthritis and lowered blood pressure.

After news broke that Florida’s Republican governor Rick Scott’s administration had forbid state employees from using the phrase “climate change” during official business, many conservatives claimed that people were overreacting. After all, they reasoned, Rick Scott wouldn’t seriously punish scientists for talking about climate change.

Oh yes, he would.

Source: Flickr user Mark

Just when marijuana supporters thought things couldn't get any better, last week brought incredible news.

Marijuana gets a double-dose of good news
On Tuesday, March 10, three Senate members introduced a bill that would make medical marijuana legal on a federal level and free legal medical marijuana users from the potential for federal prosecution.

The Internal Revenue Service has backed away from a policy that penalized an unbanked marijuana business in Denver for paying taxes in cash, but the federal agency will not say if the approach applies industry-wide.

In a settlement with Denver-based Allgreens, a medical-marijuana dispensary that challenged the agency over its policy, the IRS said it would abate future penalties and will refund about $25,000 of fines the business was forced to pay despite having paid its federal employment withholding on time.

KINGSTON, Jamaica—Attend any outdoor sound system party in Kingston and you are guaranteed to experience at least two things: loud, bass-thumping reggae and dancehall blasting from a gigantic stack of speakers, and clouds of marijuana smoke rising over the crowd. Like peanuts at a baseball game, the two go hand-in-hand, and it’s been that way for almost five decades.

While not everyone at the party is smoking, marijuana is usually easy to come by if you’re looking. Just stop one of the vendors who will be periodically walking through the crowd with 12-inch stalks, selling buds from the dried plant for $100 Jamaican dollars ($1).

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More lawmakers are toking — er, signing — up their names to become co-sponsors of a bill that would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes at a federal level.

Veteran Democrat Barbara Boxer, the longest-serving woman in Congress, added her name to a list of co-sponsors of the bill, according to Roll Call.