The loosening of marijuana laws across much of the United States has increased competition from growers north of the border, apparently enough to drive down prices paid to Mexican farmers.

Like many commuters in Denver’s city core, Marty Otañez can’t assist but smell the pot smoke as he rides to work along the Cherry Creek bike course downtown.

“A couple years ago it was just under the bridge at Colfax and Speer,” Otañez stated of the clouds emanating from public tokers. “Now it’s practically every 100 meters.”

Increased pot smoke swirling around city streets and parks is among the most recognizable effects of Modification 64– which legislated the leisure use and sale of marijuana in Colorado– specifically since public consumption remains illegal.

California Assemblyman Rob Bonta played a critical function in pressing through policies on the state’s medical marijuana industry, which will significantly change the nation’s biggest MMJ market.

Bonta was a main sponsor of Assembly Costs 266, among three procedures known jointly as the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Security Act (MMRSA).

As a regular segment on my live weekday marijuana news/talk-radio program on CannabisRadio.com, I dig deep into the Drug War Data Mines to find the surveys, polls, studies, and statistics to help you make the case to end adult marijuana prohibition nationwide. Here are the ten most important marijuana data topics I’ve covered in 2015:

1 in 5 Coloradoans Tried Legal Marijuana Last Year [2015-02-24 Tue] – 2015 marked the first year we could see a full year’s worth of data coming in from the first two states to legalize marijuana. Figures from Colorado show that despite almost 1 out of 5 Coloradoans having tried legal pot, the sky did not fall.

DENVER – Snoop Dogg has his own line of marijuana. So does Willie Nelson. Melissa Etheridge has a marijuana-infused wine.

As the fast-growing marijuana industry emerges from the black market and starts looking like a mainstream industry, there’s a scramble to brand and trademark pot products.

The celebrity endorsements are just the latest attempt to add cachet to a line of weed. Snoop Dogg calls his eight strains of weed “Dank From the Doggfather Himself.” Nelson’s yet-to-be-released line says the pot is “born of the awed memories of musicians who visited Willie’s bus after a show.”

Some small-scale Mexican marijuana farmers say a loosening of marijuana laws across the U.S. has increased competition from grows in the states and could put them out of business. The farmers used to earn $100 per kilogram for their illegal crops, but that has fallen to $30 per kilogram in the last four years, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

"I've always liked this business, producing marijuana," one 50-year-old farmer from the Mexican state of Sinaloa told the LA Times. This season’s crop will be his last, he said.

DENVER (AP) — The booming marijuana industry went to a federal judge Monday seeking an answer to the problem that has vexed business owners trying to emerge from the black market: Now that pot is legal and taxed in some states, why can't they put the proceeds in a bank?

A Colorado credit union designed to serve the pot industry — Fourth Corner Credit Union — was challenging a decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to keep the pot bank from accessing the nation's financial system. The feds' rejection earlier this year means that the pot bank can't take deposits or issue credit — leaving many marijuana businesses operating on a cash-only basis.

A new model must meet the government’s objectives of keeping it out of kids’ hands, preventing organized crime from profiting while providing reasonable access to adult consumers

The past few weeks have seen an abundance of media coverage addressing possible models for the retail sale of cannabis, with varying parties jockeying for position.  We still don’t know what Canada’s recreational cannabis regime will look like…and there are several options.

Open-container laws have always targeted the poor and marginalized. States and cities need to permit marijuana use in public.

Marijuana producers in the southern region of Brabant have an annual turnover of around €1bn, according to police and justice ministry estimates.

They say the region has between 5,500 and 8,800 plantations, producing over 340 tonnes of the plant a year, local broadcaster Omroep Brabant reports.

‘Locals don’t smoke that much, so most of it is exported,’ a police spokesman said.

The figures were revealed in a special broadcast to highlight the region’s drugs industry.