The hunt is on for a new location for Vancouver’s 4/20 marijuana rally, starting in 2018.

Vancouver Councillor Adriane Carr is expected to introduce a motion Wednesday asking staff to find an appropriate non-residential site for the city’s largest cannabis rally, which draws more than 10,000 people annually and cost taxpayers $148,000 last year.

“The event is not going away,” said Carr. “For public safety and to ensure taxpayers aren’t burdened with costs of this event, it needs to be permitted, and it looks like the city has to take the lead.”

When it comes to Cannabis, the industry as a whole is expected to be one the biggest, outperformers of our lifetime. It is the end of marijuana prohibition after-all.

Some stats: 13% of U.S. adults admit to currently smoking pot on a regular basis, while 43% say they have at least tried it, according to a Gallup poll from 2016.

I would put money on these stat figures being largely incorrect, people tend to not like admitting certain things to strangers on the phone. You could probably safely double those numbers, which sounds more realistic to me.

Syndros, a liquid marijuana substitute that contains a synthetic version of the marijuana ingredient that makes users feel high (THC), has been assigned a less restrictive drug category than real weed.

The liquid is developed by Arizona-based pharmaceutical company InSys Therapeutics, the company behind synthetic opioid Fentanyl, which is around 100 times more powerful than morphine.

“Battling the opioid epidemic will require a multi-pronged approach and a good deal of creativity.”

In states that legalized medical marijuana, U.S. hospitals failed to see a predicted influx of pot smokers, but in an unexpected twist, they treated far fewer opioid users, a new study shows.

Hospitalization rates for opioid painkiller dependence and abuse dropped on average 23 percent in states after marijuana was permitted for medicinal purposes, the analysis found. Hospitalization rates for opioid overdoses dropped 13 percent on average.

At the same time, fears that legalization of medical marijuana would lead to an uptick in cannabis-related hospitalizations proved unfounded, according to the report in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Colorado’s excise tax set to raise millions of dollars to support college access.

Two US communities are giving new meaning to the term “higher education”.

Pueblo and Adams counties in Colorado – one of the growing number of states that have legalised the sale of recreational marijuana – are putting proceeds from taxes on weed into what appear to be the world’s first cannabis-supported university scholarships.

After all, said Sal Pace, the commissioner of Pueblo County, other scholarships in the US are already underwritten by taxes on alcohol sales and proceeds from long-odds government-sanctioned lotteries.

Unlike with a lottery ticket, Pace said, “At least with cannabis, you get what you pay for.”

Recreational marijuana is going to be big business in this state. Pot-infused chocolates. “Canna-tourism.” Estimates put annual sales at $1 billion once the industry gets going. And with so much money blowing around, and significant health and safety issues at stake, it is vital that the state get regulation right.

That’s why lawmakers should approve a bill that would expand the size of the commission that will oversee the marijuana trade, broaden its expertise, and make it less susceptible to influence, or “capture,” by the industry.

A Las Vegas Democrat is seeking to start recreational marijuana sales in Nevada at least a few weeks earlier than planned - in case something extends the state’s current timeline, he said at a hearing last Friday.

Sen. Tick Segerblom wants pot sales to begin by mid-June.

State regulators are already working toward a July 1 launch, which would be six months ahead of a voter-mandated deadline.

The state will be ready by then to license medical marijuana dispensaries to ring up the state’s first sales of pot bought for fun - not treatment, Department of Taxation Director Deonne Contine said.

Chip Moore, the CEO of 4&20 Blackbirds, a cannabis delivery company, exemplifies the equity applicant Oakland’s cannabis ordinance is supposed to help. 

But Moore, who is black, hasn’t seen anything but obstacles in his effort to build a legitimate business. 

The delays in Oakland’s enactment of its permit system for pot businesses have chased away investors, Moore told me. Because the Oakland City Council can’t get its act together, he hasn’t felt comfortable purchasing a warehouse. And without a place to operate, Moore says he won’t even be eligible for an equity permit.

So this is how the council is creating equity in a multibillion-dollar industry: by making it incredibly difficult for someone like Moore to get off the ground. 

Ganja lobbyist and director of the Cannabis Licensing Authority, Delano Seiveright, has expressed suspicion over the latest data provided by the National Council on Drug Abuse about a 50 per cent increase in children seeking medical treatment after using the weed over the past two years.

"The Ministry of Health has bought into the propaganda data which has gone against data showing global trends which do not support findings in Jamaica.

Government to announce marijuana will be legal by July 1, 2018.

Federal government ministers are keeping mum on the details of the Liberals' marijuana legalization plan, as provinces consider the legislative and regulatory burden that will fall to them when pot is legalized.

As CBC News first reported Sunday night, the Liberal government will announce legislation next month that will legalize marijuana in Canada by July 1, 2018.