Fewer crimes, more revenue as medical marijuana industry stabilizes in Colorado Springs

Data from the city of Colorado Springs, its police department and the Colorado Department of Revenue show interesting trends as the marijuana industry matures amid growing pains that have attracted national attention, including the cash-only nature of the business.

SEATTLE — Washington launched its second-in-the-nation legal marijuana market with just a handful of stores selling high-priced pot to long lines of customers. A year later, the state has about 160 shops open, pot tax revenues have soared past expectations and sales top $1.4 million per day.

And who knows — the industry might even start making some money.

Washington pot farmers, processors and retailers have complained all year that heavy state and federal tax burdens, along with competition from an unregulated medical marijuana market, have made it difficult for them to do business.

As the Conservative government’s champion in the war on pot, Health Minister Rona Ambrose has taken some heavy blows and faces the prospect of more.

Ms. Ambrose was “outraged” in early June when the Supreme Court ruled that legal medical-marijuana users would be permitted to eat the drug as well as smoke it. She was “deeply disappointed” last week when Vancouver said it would regulate marijuana dispensaries, most of which obtain their supply from unauthorized sources.

Her government’s efforts a year ago to end the right of medical-pot users to legally grow cannabis in their homes have been temporarily thwarted by a court challenge and could ultimately be struck down as a violation of civil rights.

The "enormous demand" for medical marijuana, which only figures to grow as the population ages, sets the stage for a new multimillion-dollar industry in Maryland that will create hundreds of jobs, according to a leading regional economist.

"This will create a mix of private and public positions, and also make people feel better," said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive officer of Sage Policy Group, a Baltimore economic and policy consulting firm. "From an economist perspective, none of this sounds troubling."

The marijuana industry’s shady past and current illegal status at the federal level have kept most insurance companies from offering policies to the new industry. “Few and far between,” is the way Paul Warshaw CEO ofGreenRush in California describes the options. His technology company works with more than fifty medical marijuana dispensaries and he says many of them do not have all the coverage they need.

MARKHAM, Ont. – From the outside, MedReleaf’s production facility in Markham, Ont., doesn’t look like much. It’s a large rectangular building about three stories tall, shorter but wider than a football field, and camouflaged by an unassuming white exterior with few windows. There are no signs or company logos to tempt inquiring minds or mischief-minded passers-by.

That’s partly by design, CEO Neil Closner said.

“We’re very low-key,” he said. “We don’t want people knowing who we are, what we do, where we do it.

“The product we have inside the building is quite valuable.”

The product: Medical marijuana.

Utica (WSYR-TV) - We have at least six months before medical marijuana will be legally dispensed in New York, but dozens of business owners are throwing their hats in the ring.

Earlier today, Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente took a tour of Brightwaters Farms in Utica.

It is one of the businesses hoping to get one of five state licenses, which will allow the farm to legally grow medical marijuana.

"When you look at what this can do for people in need, for people with medical issues, why wouldn't you support it?" says Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente.

Brightwaters is one of the largest greenhouse operations in the northeast, with 60 acres of land that includes one million feet of greenhouse space.

Neutra Corp. (NTRR) and Surface to Air Solutions (S2O2) could soon take their partnership international as talks opened this week to bring the joint venture’s pesticide-free growing solutions to cannabis growers in Canada.

Kris Lewandowski had survived tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine, but he feared the side effects of the dozen pills prescribed by a doctor would kill him.

That’s when the 33-year-old father of two began growing marijuana in his backyard to treat his PTSD symptoms, his wife, Whitney Lewandowski, told BuzzFeed News.

The couple and their two young sons were living outside Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in June 2014 as his honorable discharge from the Marines processed. Finding the best mix of medication for his mental health was a process of trial and error, Whitney Lewandowski said, and one Sunday night, there was an “issue.”

“We called for help,” she said.

A study of Southern California middle school students found that those who see ads, billboards, or signs for medical marijuana were more likely to think about or smoke pot than those who see no advertising, researchers said Monday.

Surveys from more than 8,214 students who attended 16 Southern California middle schools during 2010 and 2011 were analyzed by researchers with the RAND corporation. The youths were asked in 2010, then again in 2011 about their exposure to medical marijuana advertising, use and their intentions about whether to use it in the future.