The recount began yesterday morning, which will probably take months and cost taxpayers a half million dollars.

On Election Day in Maine, voters were heavily divided on Question 1, a ballot initiative that would legalize recreational cannabis. Voters passed the initiative, but with a very narrow margin, according to a WGME article.

Recreational marijuana users who worked hard to elect Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now feel “cheated” by his support of a police crackdown on storefront dispensaries, a cannabis industry spokesperson says.

Abi Roach, a director with the Cannabis Friendly Business Association, said marijuana consumers helped the federal Liberals gain a majority government based on an expectation that he would allow small businesses to sell weed legally to recreational users.

Trudeau has promised to introduce legislation designed to legalize pot in the spring.

The crackdown that has occurred under Trudeau has been stricter than under any previous government, including that of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, she said.

State Sen. Jose Menendez plans to file a bill Tuesday morning that would expand the use of medical marijuana in Texas.

Twenty-eight states have already approved the use of medical marijuana, including many conservative states.

In 2015, Texas state lawmakers legalized the use of medical marijuana in Texas (SB 339), but the scope was limited.

So limited, that only those suffering from intractable epilepsy, otherwise known as uncontrolled epilepsy, are allowed to get a prescription for cannabis oil.

“We (elected officials) aren't doctors,” said Menendez. “Doctors know what's best and we should let doctors and patients decide what medicines they should use.”

Menendez’s bill would allow patients with cancer or other illnesses to gain access to cannabis.

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr made waves over the weekend when he said, during a CSN Bay Area Podcast on Friday, that he has consumed medical marijuana for back pain he experienced over the past two years.

“I guess maybe I could even get in some trouble for this, but I’ve actually tried [marijuana] twice during the last year and a half when I’ve been going through this pain, this chronic pain that I’ve been dealing with,” Kerr told host Monte Poole.

Medical marijuana may soon be available for patients in Ireland after the minority government approved Thusday a new amendment allowing use of the plant. The bill, drafted by Ireland’s People Before Profit group, still has another round of approval by the government before it can become law.

President-elect Donald Trump just added yet another cannabis prohibitionist to cabinet. Yesterday, Trump announced that he's picked former neurosurgeon Ben Carson as his candidate for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

"I am thrilled to nominate Dr. Ben Carson as our next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development," Trump said of his former rival for the Republican presidential nomination. 

California Treasurer John Chiang has appealed to President-elect Donald Trump for guidance on how the state’s projected $7-billion marijuana industry can participate in the nation’s banking system while cannabis remains illegal under U.S. law.

California voters last month approved Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana, beginning in 2018. Largely at issue is how the state will collect an estimated $1-billion in annual taxes from legal pot sales and cultivation, when cannabis businesses can face obstacles opening bank accounts, getting loans or obtaining insurance.

Claiming the state is hoarding funds, two medical marijuana users want a judge to reduce the annual charge for the legally required registration cards.

In legal papers filed here, the attorney for Yolanda Daniels and Lisa Becker points out the Department of Health Services collected $2.6 million more in fees last year from patients, caregivers and dispensaries than it actually took to run the program. And Sean Berberian noted the balance in the account as of the end of 2015 was nearly $11.5 million.

Yet the health department still charges patients $150 a year for identification card they need to legally buy the drug and escape prosecution if they are found in possession. And caregivers who tend to patients must pay $200 a year.

Since passage of the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act in California (“MCRSA”), our California marijuana business attorneys have been getting calls nearly non-stop regarding what folks can do now to have a medical marijuana business later in the Golden State.

Somebody's got to be the first state to free the weed through the legislature.

Four states, including California, the nation’s most populous, voted to legalize marijuana on November 8. That doubles the number of legal states to eight, and more than quadruples the number of people living in legal marijuana states, bringing the number to something around 64 million.

Every one of those states legalized marijuana through the initiative process, but we’re not going to see anymore initiatives on state ballots until 2018, and perhaps 2020. That means that if we are to make more progress on spreading marijuana legalization in the next couple of years, it’s going to have to come at the state house instead of the ballot box.