A couple of recent developments have focused attention on the newly legal marijuana industry in several states and the potential for those new businesses to have an enormous impact on the shape of legal marijuana as it is rolled out in several new states. There is a lot of money involved in the industry, and money always plays a role in politics.

Money Has Always Been a Factor

The group supporting the measure says the bill would allow the possession of up to three ounces of marijuana for about a dozen conditions. A 3.75 percent state excise tax on retail marijuana sales would be imposed on top of the state's 6.25 percent sales tax.

A group of members of Congress is demanding the U.S. Postal Service explain a memo it recently issued warning newspapers not to mail any publications containing advertisements for marijuana.

“It appears a clarification of USPS policy is needed for state-legal marijuana businesses who seek to mail advertisements, as well as newspapers or periodicals that may run ads from marijuana businesses and who rely on the Postal Service to distribute their publications,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter on Thursday.

More than 900 marijuana plants were uprooted in an early morning raid in one of the villages in Yale, Kadavu over the weekend. This was confirmed by the Police Chief of Operation Rusiate Tudravu. “Well I can confirm that our police officers are currently in operation sasamaki in the island of Kadavu have uprooted almost 9 hundred plus plants in their early morning raids in one of the villagers in the tikina of Yale so they’ll be concerntrating in the islands of Kadavu in the next few weeks in our effort to combat illegal cultivation of drugs in all areas in our 4 division” Tudravu says Operation Sasamaki has also been underway in Tukavesi in the last 3 weeks covering Buca Bay and Natewa and are now down at Savusavu.

Legislation to allow medicinal cannabis to be grown and manufactured in Victoria will be introduced into State Parliament today, and children with epilepsy are expected to be given first access.

The Andrews Government said during the 2014 election campaign that it wanted make cannabis legal and available to those with ill health in exceptional circumstances.

A report by the Victorian Law Reform Commission handed down in October advised the Government on how to prescribe and regulate the drug.

Curaleaf said it can provide New York with medical marijuana 'tomorrow'

(KUTV) Utah's legislative session begins on January 25 and ends on March 11. Two Utah lawmakers will introduce competing bills to legalize medicial marijuana.

One bill, sponsored by Sen. Mark Madsen (R, Saratoga Springs), proposes to legalize the use of edible cannabis and another form to be vaporized and consumed. Madsen says he will not propose smoking pot, because there are other side effects associated with that method. His bill will allow for the marijuana to be destributed only to those with certain medical ailments and in a very regulated and controlled environment.

Madsen believes nearly 100,000 Utahns could potentially benefit with this bills passage.

Images from the Police Foundation report entitled "Colorado Legalizatino of Marijuana and teh Impact on Public Safety: A Practical Guide for Law Enforcement." Additional images and more below.

Is Colorado's experiment with marijuana legalization a success story or an abject failure? Depends on who you ask.

Rob Kampia thinks so, and he’s a very well-placed observer. As head of the Marijuana Policy Project, Kampia has his finger on the pulse of pot politics as well as anyone, and he made a pretty startling prediction at the International Drug Reform Conference in suburban Washington last weekend.

At a panel on “Marijuana Reform in Congress,” Kampia suggested that a handful of state-level marijuana legalization victories next year is going to set in motion a congressional debate on legalization that could see an end to federal marijuana prohibition before the end of the decade.

This new study out of London may shift the benefits-versus-risk profile of marijuana in the wrong direction.

For all intents and purposes marijuana legalization has been a practically unstoppable force for the better part of two decades.

Marijuana's tug of war with Congress
Although we've witnessed a couple of rare defeats -- such as Florida's failed medical marijuana amendment in 2014, which missed out on a passing vote by just 2%, and Ohio's Issue 3, which was steamrolled in last month's elections -- marijuana's influence and the public's perception of the drug have grown at a remarkable pace.