DENVER, CO - April 25, 2016: A customer walks in to LivWell in Denver's 5 Points neighborhood. The marijuana dispensary chain is one of the largest in the state, with 14 stores catering to medical marijuana patients, recreational users, or a hybrid of both customer bases. (Photo by Vince Chandler / The Denver Post)

Cannabist Show: He’s a marijuana mogul; He protects the industry

Featured guests: LivWell Enlightened Health owner John Lord and Blueline Protection Group chief compliance and operations officer Ricky Bennett.

LOTS TO TALK ABOUT

•  How some Colorado shops can afford to sell $99 ounces of recreational marijuana.

•  Could the death of Colorado pot shop security guard Travis Mason have been prevented?

•  How is the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeting the cannabis industry?

TOP MARIJUANA NEWS

Fact checking the outrageous: No, Kentucky Fried Chicken locations in Colorado are not selling marijuana. And that federal study that claimed to pay you $3,000 per week to smoke weed? It’s fake – always was. And while Bill Maher did openly smoke weed on the set of his HBO show “Real Time,” he wasn’t fined $1.7 million dollars by the Federal Communications Commission. If you clicked on any of those stories, you contributed to this nonsense. So please, friends, let’s hold ourselves to a higher standard in the cannabis journalism we support. –More silly stories on The Cannabist

Colorado teen marijuana use isn’t spiking in legal era: One out of every five Colorado teens say they have used marijuana in the last month, but that rate has not increased since pot was legalized in the state and is in line with the national average, according to a new report from the state Health Department. Among the other findings of the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, released Monday:

• The large majority of Colorado middle and high school students — 62 percent — say they have never used marijuana.
• Alcohol is the drug of choice among Colorado teens, with 30 percent of kids surveyed saying they drank within the previous month.
• Cigarette use among teens is at an all-time low, with fewer than one in 10 kids saying they smoke them regularly. But more than a quarter of Colorado teens say they have used an e-cigarette or other vapor product in the last month.
• Nearly 14 percent of Colorado teens said they have used pharmaceuticals without a prescription, below the national average. But the percent of Colorado teens who have ever used cocaine or ecstasy — both at around 6 percent — is slightly higher than the national average. –Report by The Denver Post’s John Ingold

Willie Nelson is hiring! It’s not a bad day of job-hunting when you can tell your friends, “Today I applied for a job working at Willie Nelson’s weed company.” Sure enough, the country music legend’s cannabis business Willie’s Reserve is nearing its launch in Colorado — and the marijuana company is currently hiring for five positions, a spokesperson confirmed to The Cannabist. –Report by The Cannabist’s Ricardo Baca

POT QUIZ

Test your current-events knowledge about alcohol use among teens, Southern states going medical, Congress and more.

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