When it comes to the health impacts of soon-to-be-legal marijuana, long-time smokers and those who say it greatly relieves their pain have one view of its benefits, while some health professions have raised concerns about the long-term impacts.

July 1st is the official date of marijuana legalization here in Oregon.

A future Central Oregon attraction may not be another craft brewery, but a marijuana grow site where tourists can pick up samples and see how the formerly illegal cannabis plant is cultivated.

Portland will likely be the primary destination for marijuana tourism in Oregon, but Bend and Central Oregon could also see an influx with visitors combining their trips to grow sites with other amenities the region has to offer. The ability for tour companies to operate and offer something like the Bend Ale Trail or a vineyard-style tour is contingent on rulemaking currently being considered by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission and state legislators.

The Las Vegas community bank that last year announced it was open to banking Nevada’s budding medical marijuana industry has changed its mind, telling KNPR’s State of Nevada that compliance issues made it difficult to handle these businesses.

Jason Awad, chief executive officer of First Security Bank of Nevada, said the bank will be sending letters to its customers informing them of the bank’s decision. He told KNPR’s State of Nevada these were holding accounts used by dispensary owners while they were waiting to be licensed.

“We found after several months that the cost is so prohibitive and the burden so high that it is very difficult to do what we … really wanted to do,” Awad told KNPR.

SOUTH BEND — When a judge this week sentenced Jerome Scott for growing dozens of marijuana plants in his South Bend home last year, the 18 months of probation, a relatively light penalty for a felony conviction, didn’t bother him.

Scott, 30, didn’t even contest the fact that he was growing the weed. But he and his girlfriend, 23-year-old Melanie Schmidt, see the state's marijuana laws as unjust and offered an unusual argument as they fought to have his felony reduced to a misdemeanor.

Because of Wichita’s approval of a city ordinance in April and House action last week, Kansas no longer seems like the last place you’d expect to weaken marijuana laws.

The Kansas Supreme Court’s order Wednesday in response to Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s challenge of Wichita’s new marijuana ordinance was welcome news. The September oral arguments and resulting ruling should clarify the future of the ordinance, which is caught up in legal confusion.

Canada’s bring your own marijuana vapor lounge scene is experiencing impressive growth. Originally a metropolitan city phenom, bring your pot lounges have opened in smaller Canadian communities with great success.

Until recently lounges were a Toronto thing because our politicians and police presumably had better things to do. When conservative city councilor Mark Grimes did request a report on bring your weed lounges, a City of Toronto staff investigation determined lounges were actually Medical Marihuana Inhalation Facilities that had few police problems.

Not exactly what Grimes was seeking.

Two companies ready to produce medical marijuana, but one has laid off staff.

Two major medical marijuana facilities are nearing completion in Kincardine and Hanover -- and both are waiting for the final go-ahead to start production -- but one company has now laid off staff.

In the Kincardine area, AMMCan or Advanced Medical Marijuana Canada has spent over five million dollars preparing the facility at the Bruce Energy Centre off Bruce Road 20 near Lake Huron.

However, President Peter Herburger says the company has been waiting for several months to go to the next step, which would be production of marijuana.

Because the company has been waiting so long, AMMCan has now laid off 15 workers and the executives are staying on the job without any pay.

One of Colorado’s largest chains of marijuana stores on Wednesday laid off 65 employees — or about 45 percent of the company’s total workforce, according to owner Shawn Phillips.

The pot layoffs are believed to be the largest in Colorado’s 16-month recreational era.

Phillips owns nine cannabis stores in Colorado, all of which are part of the Strainwise-branded network, and he called the cuts “drastic” but “temporary” in a letter he wrote to employees obtained by The Cannabist.

Psychotropic drugs could be making depression worse

 on 14th May 2015 @ 9.21pm

© Press Peter Gotzsche argues that the long-term affects the use of antidepressants has on us, and in particular the elderly, outweigh the benefits.

The debate over whether antidepressant drugs are safe to use has been circulating for a while now. One leading scientist has made claims that trial designs for almost all psychotropic drugs underplay the harms and overplay the benefits of them. If he is correct is there a suitable alternative out there, or were his results based on biased experiments?

SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday he's open to legalizing marijuana in Utah for medical use.

"I'm open to the idea of medical marijuana and the discussion of how it can be used as a medicine based on science, and making sure we have good, collaborative efforts so we can answer the questions that are out there," the governor said.

Herbert said during the taping of his monthly news conference on KUED Ch. 7 that the state has "a history of looking at opportunities, for medical purposes, to bring substances on board that maybe historically have not been traditional medicine."

He cited cannabis oil, approved by lawmakers a year ago, as "helping people who have had seizures, and seems to be demonstrating scientifically there is some benefit."