As states legalize marijuana, more marijuana businesses are opening across the country. An obscure 1982 brainchild of Bob Dole’s Senate Finance Committee, section 280E of the federal tax code, is hitting state-legal marijuana sellers in the pocketbook—right now. 280E, which says taxpayers cannot deduct costs of selling federally illegal drugs, is not just helping fund the federal government. It’s also hampering marijuana advertising and marketing—to the satisfaction of nervous parents, and to the consternation of profit-seeking marijuana promoters.

The possession of small amounts of marijuana becomes legal starting Friday in Delaware, which joins 18 other states that have removed criminal penalties for carrying the drug. With four states and the District of Columbia having legalized recreational possession of cannabis in the last two years, reformers hope smaller steps like Delaware's will pave the way for the defeat of prohibition nationwide. 

The Delaware state legislature in June passed a bill removing harsh criminal penalties for simple possession of up to an ounce of the drug, which had previously been punishable with three months in jail. It now becomes a civil violation with a fine, much like a traffic ticket. 

AUBURN — The School Committee approved the first reading of a new policy Wednesday night that would allow students to have medical marijuana administered in school under a physician's orders and under certain conditions.

Any medical marijuana would have to be approved by a physician, and it would have to be administered in school by a parent or guardian, Assistant Superintendent Michelle McClellan said. Because medical marijuana is allowed under a certificate from a physician but not a prescription, nurses may not administer the drug.

Marijuana doses would have to be in a nonsmoking form, such as being edible.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde listen to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau respond to a question from the media following a on Parliament Hill in Ottawa Wednesday December 16, 2015.

OTTAWA - The prime minister says there's potential for a bit of revenue from legalizing marijuana, but the federal government isn't looking for a financial windfall.

Justin Trudeau says any money that flows to public coffers through taxation of pot should go towards addiction treatment, mental health support and education programs -- not general revenues.

In a roundtable interview with The Canadian Press, Trudeau said that for his party legalization of marijuana has always been about public health and safety, not about making money.

When Americans go to the polls in November, they'll be voting for a new president, many crucial Senate races and the future of legalized marijuana. It appears that at least five states, including California, will be voting on whether the pot industry should be regulated like alcohol, with products available to all adults. Several more states, including some of the most reliably conservative, will vote on allowing medical weed.

Over the past several decades, opponents of marijuana legalization have fretted that legally allowing weed for recreational purposes will lead to more pot use among teens. But a new survey suggests that's not happening so far: Despite the recent enactment of legalization in four states and Washington, DC, the 2015 Monitoring the Future survey found teen marijuana use held steady in the past year.

It’s good to hear that despite the federal ban on cannabis, the current government under Barack Obama is supporting States that have legalized cannabis on their own.

The Obama administration has recently weighed-in on the legal complaints levied by prohibitionist States that border States where cannabis is legal medically or for recreation.

Their position is, surprisingly, one that defends the State’s right to their own jurisdiction.

The Obama administration says Nebraska and Oklahoma have not described a genuine controversy with Colorado.

In a brief filed on Wednesday, the Obama administration urges the Supreme Court not to hear Oklahoma and Nebraska's challenge to marijuana legalization in Colorado. "Entertaining the type of dispute at issue here— essentially that one state's laws make it more likely that third parties will violate federal and state law in another state—would represent a substantial and unwarranted expansion of this court's original jurisdiction," Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. writes. 

The Solicitor General of the United Sates says that recreational marijuana is Colorado’s business and there is no need for the U.S. Supreme Court to review claims from Nebraska and Oklahoma that they are owed something because the legal weed is being trafficked beyond the Centennial State’s borders.