Counting out money for payroll at Good Meds Marijuana dispensary in Lakewood, Colo. Most marijuana businesses cannot get bank accounts, and must contend with large amounts of cash.

When Lamine Zarrad was not at his job as a federal banking regulator in recent months, he was spending a lot of time at Denver’s marijuana dispensaries.

As a federal employee, he could not partake of the pot.

He was there, instead, to pitch the shops on a start-up he has been working on in his free time and is making official this week after quitting his job as a bank examiner at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a division of the Treasury Department.

DENVER -- Colorado's legal marijuana businesses have had their struggles with the federal government and now you can add Facebook to the mix.

Many dispensaries and other marijuana related pages have been disappearing from the popular social network with little explanation beyond a violation of "community standards."

If you visit Starbuds Marijuana Dispensary on Brighton Boulevard, you'll see it's open for business, but if you try to visit their Facebook page you'll begin to wonder if they ever existed.

"Our pages started getting shut down maybe 11 days ago," said Chante Rivera, director of mareketing for Starbuds.

Rivera says all of the company's Facebook pages for their six locations were shut down within a day.

California was the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use in 1996. In 2010, Proposition 19 would have made California the first state to legalize nonmedical marijuana, but voters defeated the measure by a 53.5-46.5 margin. However, lawmakers will try again. There are two major initiatives that have a very good chance of qualifying for the November ballot due to their financial backing and political support.

Researchers at UC San Francisco (UCSF) recently released a new report that evaluates the retail marijuana legalization proposals in California from a public health standard. According to the study, recreational marijuana will likely lead to a new profit-driven industry similar to Big Tobacco that could impede public health efforts.

California farmers are known for producing some of the finest fruits, vegetables and nuts in the world. But what if the state’s big agriculture also included marijuana?

Some Central Valley growers are already eyeing that possibility, including Los Banos farmer Cannon Michael.

A few years ago Michael discovered a 1-acre illegal marijuana grow on his land.

“They had made reservoirs and they were pumping water,” Michael says. “They had buried generators. They had this whole encampment and we knew nothing about it.”

He says the forbidden plantation was worth around $19 million. That’s more than he makes on 11,000 acres of tomatoes, cotton and other crops in one year. It got him thinking.

By John Aguilar

Adams County commissioners have rejected a permit for April’s High Times Cannabis Cup, the vast outdoor marijuana fair that coincides with the 4/20 pot celebration rally in downtown Denver.

The commissioners on Tuesday unanimously denied the Denver Merchandise Mart a permit for the April 16-20 event, taking testimony from several law enforcement officials who warned that there were too many people sampling too many cannabis products openly.

“From a safety perspective, I have serious concerns about this event and this venue,” Adams County Sheriff Michael McIntosh told the commission.

Legal weed sales numbers keep getting higher and higher.  According to market research group ArcView’s recent reports sales increased to $5.4 billion for 2015 compared to 2014’s $4.6 billion. ArcView’s reports also say U.S. adult-use legal sales grew to $998 million from $351 million in sales in 2014. ArcView projects legal weed sales to top over $20 billion by 2020, which may or may not find us with Kanye for president. (Everyone already knows how he feels about rolling one up.) Late last month Facebook banned gun sales on its site and on Instagram. It’s now going after marijuana dispensaries Facebook pages. 

A proposal that would allow recreational marijuana stores to sell tax-free medical marijuana to patients sailed through a joint legislative committee Tuesday.

Senate Bill 1511 now heads to the Senate for a vote. The bill would allow businesses with recreational licenses to produce, process and sell medical marijuana products. 

The proposed legislation is one of several marijuana-related bills moving through the Legislature during its 35-day session.

On Feb 3, over 1200 women hailing from Puerto Rico to Anchorage descended upon Denver to accomplish what once seemed impossible: grow the first multibillion dollar industry led by women [and our non-binary colleagues]. Founded by Jane West and Jazmin Hupp in 2014, Women Grow is the largest network of cannabis entrepreneurs nationwide, in 44 cities and counting.

Klaus Riskær Pedersen eyes potential in Uruguay to produce the plant for the pharmaceutical industry

Danish businessman and entrepreneur Klaus Riskær Pedersen is involved in a new business venture in Uruguay in the area of medical cannabis.

Pedersen, along with six partners, has invested in Nube Serena, a company that cultivates the plants for medical purposes.

“Medical cannabis in 2016 is like 1995 and the internet,” Pedersen told DR Nyheder. “This is a breakthrough year.”

New laws opening doors 
Pedersen said the relaxation of laws around the world to make medical cannabis legal is opening the door for his latest enterprise.

“This is a freedom issue,” said Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher speaking about the social injustice of cannabis prohibition to a rousing crowd at the International Cannabis Business Conference (ICBC) in San Francisco February 13-14. One of many legitimate gatherings to be held in the rapidly maturing marijuana industry, the ICBC brought together the interdependent players of activism and business to discuss the pending future of cannabis legalization at home and abroad.