A South Sound man could potentially spend the next 40 years in prison after he was convicted Friday of illegally growing and selling marijuana.

Prosecutors say 37-year-old Lance Edward Gloor and his business partner opened four illegal marijuana dispensaries throughout Puget Sound. The men claimed the shops were non-profit medical dispensaries, but in reality Gloor was making millions of dollars and breaking state laws, according to prosecutors.

Prior to opening the shops, Gloor was arrested in 2010 when police searched his home and found more than 70 pot plants and a firearm.

DANVILLE -- Following the lead of other area cities, the Danville Town Council this week voted to prohibit the cultivation, processing or delivery of medical marijuana, though some council members said they would like to revisit the delivery question later on.

Tuesday's unanimous council vote in Danville follows those in Livermore, San Ramon, Brentwood, Oakley, Antioch and Alameda, among other places, to pass local ordinances before March 1 either prohibiting or regulating marijuana cultivation, processing or sale. As called for in state Assembly Bill 266, cities that don't enact their own ordinances by then will come under state regulation.

ResponsibleOhio, the group that pushed to legalize marijuana in Ohio, has disbanded. 

The organization's announcement comes with a big shift in the fight to make pot legal. The group gathered more than 30,000 signatures to get its initiative to legalize medical marijuana and recreational pot use. Last November, voters decided against the plan.

After more than a $20 million effort, co-founder Jimmy Gould of ResponsibleOhio announced he is backing down.

I spent 25 years in the New Jersey State Police, 22 of them as a narcotics officer, and I support legalizing marijuana.

I have seen firsthand that marijuana sold on the street can be adulterated with all kinds of additives including opium, PCP and formaldehyde. I have seen street dealers, some as young as 12, selling other drugs along with marijuana. Once, during a street operation in Hoboken, I witnessed a 16 year-old male sell drugs to a 10 year-old girl.

Legalizing and regulating marijuana will put street dealers out of business and prevent many of these scenarios in the future.

Rome (AFP) - Italy eased up slightly on cannabis growers Friday, decriminalising those who violate agreed terms on cultivating the plants for therapeutic purposes.

"This does not decriminalise those growing weed on their terrace," warned Justice Minister Andrea Orlando. Under the new bill, people who abuse their permission to cultivate cannabis will be slapped with a fine rather than a prison sentence.

Those caught growing their own personal crop without a license still face up to a year in jail and a four-million euro fine.

The aim is to help ease Italy's notoriously congested justice system and "make sanctions more effective", Orlando said.

The Canadian marijuana industry can be an ironic landscape where different names edge in from the perimeter. This month irony raised the bar a little bit higher, yet again, when Justin Trudeau announced his choice for Federal Pot Czar: MP Bill Blair. Toronto's former Chief of Police is the name raising eyebrows and turning heads.

MOUNT KISCO - Shortly after New York’s first medical marijuana dispensaries started dispensing, one Westchester village began looking to place limits on where the new businesses are allowed to open their well-secured doors.

There is no dispensary planned for Mount Kisco, but Mayor J. Michael Cindrich said officials are looking to tweak the village zoning code and considering requiring a special permit for any applicants looking for a marijuana-related use.

“My opinion is that the use can be regulated, but it can’t be banned in its entirety,” he said.

Vermont’s Governor Peter Shumlin put out the following message and video on YouTube today:

The War on Drugs has failed when it comes to America’s marijuana laws. Almost one in seven Vermonters reported smoking marijuana last year, and twice as many teens report trying marijuana than cigarettes. Under the system we have now, the 80,000 Vermonters who use marijuana buy it from illegal drug dealers who don’t care about your age, what’s in their product or what else they sell you, let alone making a contribution to Vermont’s economy. Marijuana prohibition has failed. Governor Peter Shumlin wants to take a smarter approach.

Ohio state representative Kirk Shuring introduced this task force, and will lead it.

He said he is not 100 percent sure of what the task force may find.

“If I started to suggest what the outcome might be, I think it would be a violation of the process and again, I’m going to be an open and objective facilitator of the process so everyone can speak their piece,” he said.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP/WCMH)–The leader of the Ohio House is organizing a task force to review the issue of medical marijuana in the Buckeye State.

“We might hear something we’ve never heard before, so I’m not going to get into what the outcome will be at this point.”