The City of Vancouver has begun cracking down on unlicensed medical marijuana shops, but owners say they're still committed to keeping their doors open.

Prominent pot activist Jodie Emery said at least two dispensaries were issued $250 fines Saturday, the first day inspectors enforced regulations that the city put into place last year.

"But the two places I've spoken with are open for business. They're not going to deny accessibility to their patients," Emery said.

The rules were developed when medical marijuana businesses began growing across Vancouver, but the city refused to grant permits to 140 dispensaries that didn't comply with rules such as being too close to schools.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson and his counterpart in Oklahoma are joining a lawsuit aimed at halting legal marijuana in Colorado.

The two states asked to be added as plaintiffs this month in a case being considered by an appeals court in Denver, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.

The appeals court in Colorado hasn't given a timeline for addressing the request, but allowed lawyers for the states to make merit-based arguments in briefs due May 23. That means Nebraska and Oklahoma can argue the issue itself as if they were already part of the case rather than restating their reasons for wanting to join as plaintiffs.

Sixty-one percent of Americans live in states that have reformed their marijuana laws by allowing medical marijuana, imposing a fine — not possible jail time — on marijuana possession, or making marijuana legally available and regulated for adults’ use.

An animated video from Denver Public Schools hopes to remind voters that the district is not as flush with cash from marijuana tax money as some might think.

In the two school years since the state legalized marijuana, the district says it has seen zero of the state tax money earmarked for schools. Says the state: Hey, the district didn’t ask.

The Controlled Substances Act is not outdated. It is a law structured in a way meant to protect science, medicine, patients and the public. It is not absolutist. It has an administrative structure built into it to control for mistakes, new scientific discoveries and even evolving public or medical understanding.

Today’s federal drug laws appear to have done a disservice to marijuana, locking it into an inappropriate schedule where it is banned outright. But in reality, negative drug policy around marijuana is not the fault of the CSA. Instead, a variety of other factors — mainly attributed to biased lawmakers — have hindered the law from working properly when it comes to the drug.

Usually Presidential candidates announce running mates after clinching their party’s nomination. According to the L.A. Times, Ted Cruz is expected to name Carly Fiorina as his would-be vice president later this afternoon, an effort to gain political momentum in his battle against Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. 

There are rumors that the federal government may soon lift its ban on marijuana, but that wouldn’t end marijuana prohibitions in the United States. This incongruity is the result of federalism: the ability of each jurisdiction — the federal government and every state — to maintain its own laws as to which drugs are illegal and which are not.

Completely legalizing marijuana in the United States would require the actions of both the federal government and every state government. If the federal government repealed its criminal prohibition of marijuana or rescheduled the drug under federal law, that would not change state laws that forbid its possession or sale. Likewise, state governments can repeal their marijuana laws, in whole or in part, but that does not change federal law.

This Friday (April 29) is the deadline for illicit marijuana dispensaries to shut their doors or risk steep city fines and other disciplinary measures.

The city estimates there are about 80 storefronts selling cannabis that will be affected by the order to close. By the Straight’s calculation, that means $10 million to $29 million could be forced back into Vancouver’s underground economy every month.

After significant controversy regarding the validity of signatures in a petition drive, officials announced on Wednesday that the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol had garnered enough signatures to place the initiative on the ballot this November. If the ballot initiative passes, Maine would become the sixth state (following Oregon, Colorado, Washington, and Alaska) to legalize marijuana for recreational use.