You can legally use marijuana in the state of Washington, and soon you likely will be able to use marijuana across the entire country of Canada.

And yet, if you are traveling from Canada into Washington and you admit to a border officer that you have smoked marijuana in the past, you can get blocked from coming into the U.S. And not just for now, but forever.

Welcome to the latest contradiction between local, state and federal policy when it comes to marijuana. It’s such a mess that only one area of the economy seems certain to benefit.

“I’m expecting my business to boom,” immigration attorney Len Saunders told The Sacramento Bee.

Moral Turpitude

A modest group of federal lawmakers assembled this week in the nation’s capital to generate some additional interest in a proposal that would drag the United States out of the pits of marijuana prohibition. 

Representative Thomas Garrett of Virginia introduced a bill earlier this year called the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act,” which essentially would eliminate the cannabis plant from the confines of the Controlled Substances Act and allow weed to be taxed and regulated all across the nation in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco. 

I scream, you scream, we all scream for – marijuana? The recreational ganja business is booming, so much so, that its demand as surpassed that of ice cream in the United States. In fact, the total demand for marijuana in 2017 is estimated to reach $45-50 billion.

A driver who crashed his car into pedestrians on the sidewalk in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday morning tested positive for synthetic marijuana, multiple outlets are reporting.

Richard Rojas, 26, lost control of his vehicle just before noon on Thursday. His vehicle hopped the curb, killing one, 18-year-old Alyssa Elsman, and injuring 22, the New York City Police Department confirmed. 

Rojas reportedly tested positive for synthetic marijuana, otherwise known as spice or K2, after he was brought into police custody. 

NYPD officials declined to confirm the report to Business Insider, and would only say their “investigation is ongoing.”

The city of Portland has joined with cannabis businesses in lobbying for a bill that would allow consumption of cannabis at licensed lounges akin to tobacco smoking patios.

“The same way as Oregon and our city celebrate our craft beer and wine industry, Portland welcomes and wants to provide opportunities for our emerging craft cannabis industry,” Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who oversees the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, the city’s cannabis regulatory body, said in testimony submitted to the Joint Committee on Marijuana Regulation this week.

There's a crowd of a few dozen people mingling about the Capitol grounds in dark suits, striped ties, power dresses and sunglasses on a summer-like spring day in the nation's steamy capital. They look like they're ready for a Republican fundraiser, but they're actually marijuana business owners – everything from edible bakers to dispensary owners – from 20 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There are no Birkenstocks or marijuana leaves in sight, well except one old hippy draped in a marijuana flag and one U.S. Congressman, Democrat Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, rocking a bowtie polka dotted with cannabis leaves.

Legalizing cannabis would raise £1bn in tax revenues, according to the Liberal Democrat manifesto, which backs a regulated market for the drug.

The document calls the war on drugs “a catastrophic failure” in which billions were flowing into organised crime rather than the Treasury’s coffers.

The Lib Dems said a legal, regulated market for cannabis would bring in £1bn for the government, based on Treasury figures commissioned by Nick Clegg while he was deputy prime minister.

Todd Veri envisions a network of 12 or more farms working together to grow marijuana outdoors.

An organic farmer in Nelson is hoping to create a marijuana farm co-op.

Organic farmer Todd Veri was inspired by the federal marijuana task force's report which said there will be a space for small to medium operations and organic product.

"I was expecting that we were going to get boxed out here in the Kootenays and then it was going to be all large agro-companies traded on the TSX and that such," he said.

Earlier today, Governor Jay Inslee signed that big "omnibus bill" of pot laws that cleared the Washington legislature last month. The omnibus bill combined more than a dozen different legal changes to cannabis law in our state, including forward progress on legalizing growing pot at home and creating the country’s first state-run organic certification program for weed.