Rules written last year by the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Marijuana Enforcement Division for retail marijuana advertising are unconstitutional and have been ripe for a court challenge, which came last week when the publishers of High Times and Westword filed suit in federal court.
A federal judge has initially rejected a plea from High Times and Westword magazines to block state rules that prevent recreational marijuana businesses from advertising in most publications. But Chief U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger said she would let the magazines amend their lawsuit to keep the case alive.
The federal government has identified a dozen people in the ongoing investigation stemming from November raids on Colorado medical marijuana businesses. All but one is connected to a chain of five medical marijuana dispensaries and about a half-dozen marijuana grows controlled by Gerardo Uribe, his relatives or associates, records show.
From the Americas to Europe to North Africa and beyond, the marijuana-legalization movement is gaining unprecedented traction — a nod to successful efforts in Colorado, Washington state and the small South American nation of Uruguay, which in December became the first country to approve nationwide pot legalization.
The U.S. Department of Justice in August 2013 issued the Cole Memo in which it offers guidance to prosecutors and law enforcement on where to focus its marijuana efforts.
Though the historic step brings marijuana businesses closer to legitimacy in states where pot is already legal, it falls short of the legislative action many banks want to see before doing business with marijuana operators.
The Pitkin Board of County Commissioners approved an ordinance adopting recreational marijuana licensing regulations for Pitkin County and may have cleared the way for Silverpeak Apothecary to begin selling recreational marijuana in Aspen.
University of Colorado Student Government 4/20 Commission survey:click here University of Colorado student leaders say they’re attempting to “repurpose” the annual marijuana smoke-out known as 4/20 by hosting an academic cannabis conference this spring.
The bill codifies tax practices for greenhouses and nurseries, which are considered agricultural property and not commercial property in most cases. That makes them eligible for lower property taxes.
The Canary’s Song in Nederland became Boulder County’s first dispensary to obtain all required licenses for recreational marijuana sales, but it is still closed, and depending on its opening date, it could lose the distinction of being the first recreational pot shop in the county.
The publisher of marijuana magazine High Times has sued the state of Colorado in federal court over the state’s rules preventing recreational cannabis businesses from advertising in most publications.
More than half of Coloradans say marijuana legalization has been bad for the state’s image, even though a majority also continue to support the new laws, according to a poll released Monday.
This year, powerful GOP lawmakers in Georgia and Alabama are putting their weight behind bills that would allow for the limited use of cannabis oil by those with specific medical conditions. The key to swaying the hearts of conservative lawmakers has been the stories of children suffering up to 100 seizures a day whose parents say they could benefit from access to cannabidiol (CBD), which would be administered orally in a liquid form.
There is currently no comprehensive way to track instances of marijuana-impaired driving in Colorado. Such cases are charged in court under the same law as alcohol-impaired driving cases, meaning the two can’t be separated in judicial data.
Marijuana farmers and agricultural tax breaks are the next wrinkle facing the states that have legal weed . Some lawmakers in both Colorado and Washington say marijuana growers shouldn’t be eligible for any taxation perks afforded to farmers that grow conventional crops. Others say that marijuana while it’s growing should be treated like the hops and barley that go on to become highly taxed alcohol.
Among a vast collection of seeds housed in a nondescript industrial building on the outskirts of Lafayette resides what could be the key to the deepest and most detailed understanding yet of cannabis — information that may unleash nearly limitless potential for a plant that spans the worlds of medicine, textiles, food, fuel and fun.
Bankers have been increasingly wary of offering services to marijuana businesses. “The only real solution is an act of Congress, which isn’t likely in the near future, though needed,” Colorado Bankers Association president and CEO Don Childears writes in an opinion piece submitted to The Denver Post.
Longmont resident Ashley Weber learned on Thursday that she won’t lose her home because she uses medical marijuana to treat pain and spasticity she suffers as a quadriplegic. Under a new policy, Longmont Housing Authority officials will look at individual cases regarding both medical and recreational marijuana.
The Canary’s Song, the Nederland medical marijuana dispensary that last month received its local business license, is expected to become Boulder County’s first recreational pot outlet some time next week.
The door to recreational pot sales in Lafayette was opened Tuesday night after the city council approved on first reading an ordinance that would allow the only medical marijuana dispensary in the city to convert to a recreational license.
Northglenn will not be the only city in Adams County with any kind of marijuana store for long. The Commerce City City Council approved a conditional-use permit, submitted by iVita Wellness, for its first medical marijuana facility.
Editorial: Legalization is an experiment that needs monitoring so it doesn’t boost drug use. And that means no flaunting of pot near kids at the Denver County Fair.
When the Denver Broncos square off against the Seattle Seahawks in Sunday’s Super Bowl, fans will huddle around TV screens, eat buffalo wings — and smoke marijuana? Win or lose, Colorado fans don’t mind if the team rolls up some pot and smokes out. Seventy-one percent of Coloradans don’t mind if the team smokes weed after the game.
Stores that kept both recreational and medical marijuana sides faced a problem. Recreational pot shops can sell only to people 21 and over. But dispensaries can serve younger customers. If a store wants to keep selling to under-21 medical marijuana patients, state law requires it to build a wall between the two sides and give them separate entrances.
Five Boulder medical marijuana dispensaries either have received local licenses allowing them to sell to the broader recreational market or on track to do so pending city building inspections. None of those businesses can open to public until they receive state licenses, which could take another month or more.
Pueblo Bank & Trust, one of the nation’s major bank sponsors for privately owned ATMs, has told providers it will not allow machines to be placed in or near marijuana-selling businesses.
That prohibition is likely to continue, the bank’s president said, even if the federal government changes or softens rules prohibiting banks from doing business with the marijuana industry.
A Super Bowl party means junk food, TVs with the volume turned to 11, plenty of adult beverages and, given the states from which this year’s Super Bowl teams hail, perhaps also a nod to the newly-legalized recreational cannabis that gives new meaning to the phrase “super bowl.”
Two months after the largest federal raids ever on the Colorado medical-marijuana industry, many of the operators involved are back in business on a smaller scale and one has been denied his attempt to enter the state’s recreational marijuana industry.
An increasing number of families, many of whom have not seen improvements in their children from pharmaceuticals, are flocking to Boulder County and across Colorado to use cannabis for medical reasons.
Colorado’s most mischievous marijuana messenger has a super-sized new platform. Mason Tvert, the spokesman for the national Marijuana Policy Project announced Tuesday that his group is putting up five billboards in northern New Jersey near MetLife Stadium, the site of this year’s Super Bowl.
Ricardo Baca, recently named marijuana editor for The Denver Post’s website The Cannabist, chatted with Barbara Walters and the gang on ABC’s syndicated daytime show, “The View,” on Tuesday.
Hemp — marijuana’s non-intoxicating cousin that’s used to make everything from clothing to cooking oil — could soon be cultivated in 10 states — including Colorado — under a federal farm bill agreement reached late Monday.
A proposed constitutional amendment to allow the medical use of marijuana will go before Florida voters in November after the state Supreme Court narrowly approved the ballot language Monday.
In a move that could have major impacts for how employers treat marijuana use by workers, the Colorado Supreme Court will review the case of Brandon Coats, a fired medical marijuana patient.
Pot at the county fair? Why not? Colorado’s Denver County is adding cannabis-themed contests to its 2014 summer fair. It’s the first time pot plants will stand alongside tomato plants and homemade jam in competition for a blue ribbon.
Fountain police have arrested the owner of a Kwik Way Store for allegedly distributing “Spice,” containing illegal synthetic cannabinoids that mimic the effect of marijuana.
Restrictive federal banking regulations that have forced most legal marijuana dispensaries to run as cash-only businesses have opened the door to another enterprise — automated teller machines. The overriding worry is criminal enterprises could launder cash through ATMs serving the fledgling, cash-reliant business.
Coloradans who live in the nearly 300 federally subsidized housing projects in the state are blocked by federal regulations from using marijuana in their homes in spite of state legalization — but that could be changing at some point.
One tourist flying out of Aspen packed a bunch of edibles for the trip home. You can’t take the drugs outside of Colorado, but it still caused confusion.
Attorney General Eric Holder says the Obama administration is planning to roll out regulations soon that would allow banks to do business with legal marijuana sellers.
The legal-marijuana industry in the United States could mint multiple billionaires in the next decade, a Colorado cannabis business mogul has predicted.
In what may be music to the ears of Boulder County cannabis fans, the Nederland Board of Trustees approved the business license for Canary’s Song, a dispensary that will soon also become the county’s first recreational pot shop.
The owners and operators of Paymon’s Mini Market in Aurora were accused by the Colorado attorney general on Tuesday of selling synthetic marijuana, known as “spice,” which is illegal in Colorado.
Advanced Cannabis Solutions, whose stock has soared 447 percent this year, has obtained as much as $30 million in credit to help acquire properties that it will lease to marijuana growers.
Everybody’s doing it — confessing their youthful, pot-smoking ways — so here goes: I don’t remember. Kidding, kidding. Anyone over 30 recognizes the old adage: If you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.
In another inch forward for Barack Obama’s stance on marijuana, the U.S. president revealed in a new interview that he finds the drug no more dangerous than alcohol.
Nine relatives from three generations work behind the bulletproof glass at Medicine Man, which opened in 2010, grew into one of the state’s largest medical marijuana dispensaries and has aspirations of becoming a national brand if pot legalization continues its march.
In more ways than one, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is a smooth customer.
Denver’s auditor says the city has made significant strides in its management of medical marijuana licensing, which in July was the subject of a scathing audit from his office. The original audit found the city’s oversight of medical marijuana dispensaries had been “ineffective” and “inefficient,” creating “significant risks to the city.”
A one-month supply of marijuana edibles, gone in the first three days of January — that’s what the area’s largest supplier is saying about the incredible demand for the product since recreational sales were legalized in Colorado on Jan. 1.
