Illegal pot sales are turning into a high earner for governments.

Don Briere’s national chain of renegade retail shops remitted $688,449 in GST/HST collected from December to May on exploding sales of unlicensed marijuana, hashish and cannabis-laced edibles to relieve aches and pains.

Briere remitted $286,452 more in federal payroll taxes and employer contributions to Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan for 2015. Then there’s personal income tax, corporate tax, store property taxes, workers’ compensation and more.

His illegal business rivals are expected to generate oodles more for government.

A loophole allowed applicants with no background in medical marijuana to be treated as if they were law-abiding, taxpaying veterans of the industry.

On July 1, when the Cannabis Patient Protection Act (SB 5052) took effect, all dispensaries without an I-502 license were forced to shut down, sending many of the state's medical marijuana patients into a panic. Patients worry that the recreational market doesn't have enough medicinal cannabis for their needs and that what is available is not affordable. Many point to the fact that the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) issued only 222 new retail licenses to replace more than 1,500 medical marijuana dispensaries.

The marijuana legalization initiative that will be on the November ballot in California is a disappointment to many in the cannabis decriminalization movement. California NORML, the granddaddy of political pot groups, has not fully endorsed it.

These critics say that Proposition 64, which will allow Californians 21 and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, is about as conservative as it could be without defeating the very purpose of legalization, which is allowing folks to enjoy weed without fear of arrest.

"It's 60 percent legalization," Ellen Komp, deputy director of California NORML, told us earlier this year.

Presidential frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don’t agree on much, but when it comes to legalizing the use of medicinal marijuana, they’re both pro pot.

Medicinal marijuana advocates hope that reality is enough to eventually get a federal bill passed legalizing the use of medical marijuana in all 50 states. Currently the CARERS Act (Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respects), a bill sponsored by Senate Democrats in March of 2015 that would change marijuana from a schedule I to a schedule II drug and make it legal for medical use, is being stalled in the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee by ranking Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

In a bold and commendable move, Portland is proposing to use their revenue from legal cannabis taxes to support drug treatment programs and expunge convictions from when cannabis was illegal.

According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, Oregon has decided to drop the state cannabis tax to 17 percent starting in 2017. Cities will have the option to add their own additional three percent in taxes if they choose to. If Portland decides to allow this tax, Commissioner Amanda Fritz has a proposal that will put local tax to good use.

Bavaria and Texas have a lot in common: distinctive local patriotism, unique dialects, a strong sense of tradition, and a whole lot of cows and cattle. The cannabis policy of both regions has remarkable parallels, too — much to the disappointment of cannabis consumers in München, Houston, Austin, or Nürnberg alike.

Bavaria’s strict stance is also feared by neighbors in Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, and neighboring states, as the police harass even recognized cannabis patients. Many foreign visitors are surprised that the Bavarian police perform drug checks at train stations and on motorway parking areas without probable cause, often ending in a humiliating body search. 

The growth of the cannabis industry is encouraging to anyone who supports legalization. Recent reports have found that the sale of legal cannabis this year alone will bring in a whopping $7.1-billion – representing a 25 percent increase from the year before - while other forecasts indicate that cannabis sales could yield as much as $23 billion by the year 2020.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled this morning that the smell of growing cannabis constitutes probable cause for a search warrant. The court’s decision overturned a lower appeals court ruling, which held that Arizona’s medical marijuana law legally negated the so-called “plain smell doctrine.” 

In the short term, this is bad news for Ronald James Sisco, the 45-year-old Tucson man who was arrested in 2013 for an illegal cannabis grow inside a rented storage unit. At his original trial, Sisco was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison, which he will now serve. 

A group of Northland retirees who have never taken illegal drugs have started a petition to legalise marijuana.

The Otamatea chapter of Grey Power unanimously voted in May in favour of legalising the drug.

They have now started a petition, which they sent out to all the other 32 Grey Power chapters around the country.

Otamatea Grey Power president Beverley Aldridge said the drug had been used medically for over 10,000 years and it was only since 1961 when many governments made it illegal.

"None of our [members] actually takes it yet, but we want to be able to take it. We've seen our loved ones - you know, family and friends - dying in extreme pain and we don't want to go through that."

With around four months to go ahead of the November elections, observers of America’s marijuana legalization movement are closely watching the legal and political maneuvering underway on both the state and national level.

Voters in about a half-dozen states are expected to decide on cannabis legalization measures this election; and several of those states might join Alaska, Oregon, Washington State and Colorado in allowing the legalization of recreational marijuana use for adults.

But despite the apparent momentum for marijuana legalization the regulatory landscape still remains quite unsettled, notes Sam Kamin, the Vicente Sederberg Professor of Marijuana Law and Policy at the University of Denver.