America's neighbor to the north is fast moving toward legalizing recreational marijuana nationwide, which would make Canada the second country in the world to do so. And the impact of having weed legalized on such a big scale, so close to home, may affect the future of pot in the United States.

A Helena legislator introduced a bill Thursday that would create a committee to study the effects of legalizing recreational marijuana in Montana for presentation to the 2019 Legislature.

House Joint Resolution 35, introduced by Rep. Mary Dunwell, D-Helena, would request the legislative committee which oversees interim committees to form one to “examine the legalization, regulation, taxation, and public health and safety aspects of recreational marijuana in Montana.”

Marijuana use won’t be banned while people await trial in Colorado. That’s according to a new law signed Thursday.

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a measure forbidding a court from saying that criminal defendants who are marijuana patients must abstain from pot as a condition of bond.

Colorado has already decided that marijuana use shouldn’t be off-limits for people on probation.

A fiscal analysis prepared for lawmakers says the bond measure won’t cost any money. That’s because pot abstention isn’t usually a condition of bond in this state.

Two bills proposing differing methods for how Nevada should spend recreational marijuana tax revenue were heard Thursday by the Senate Revenue and Economic Development Committee.

Senate Bill 508 comes from Gov. Brian Sandoval’s office and lays out the proposed 10 percent special sales tax all recreational marijuana retail sales, which Sandoval hopes will generate nearly $70 million for his proposed two-year budget.

Sandoval’s proposal calls for all of the revenue from the special marijuana tax to go to the Distributive School Account, the state’s education fund.

Senate Bill 487, from the education committee and its chair, Sen. Julia Ratti, D-Sparks, calls for the same 10 percent tax, but divvies that revenue up beyond education funding.

Uruguay will begin selling cannabis in pharmacies from July, the final stage in the country's pioneering regularisation of the drug.

The South American country will be the first in the world to legally sell the drug over the counter for recreational use.

The move was set in motion in 2013 with a law that fully legalised the cannabis trade.

However, it has been a slow process to put the law into practice.

"Cannabis will be dispensed in pharmacies starting in the month of July," presidential aide Juan Andres Roballo told a press conference.

The law requires buyers to sign up to a national registry, which Mr Roballo said would be up and running by 2 May. The price will be US$1.30 (£1) per gram.

Denver's Social Consumption Advisory Committee will hold its final meeting this morning. The previous meetings have all focused on different areas related to the passage of Initiative 300 last November, including the sticky issue of the locations where marijuana can be consumed legally under the ordinance. At today's meeting, committee members — who represent a variety of constituencies, including city government, businesses, and both proponents and opponents of I-300 — will review the proposed rules and regulations and discuss any recommended changes. The results will move on to the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, which will issue any social consumption permits.

In a rare show of bipartisanship, both the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate unanimously approved a bill that reduces the residential medical marijuana growing limit from 99 plants per household to 12 plants per household.

If patients and caregivers register with the state, they would be allowed to grow up to 24 plants due to an exemption to the 12-plant limit.

The Liberal government's point man on pot says Canada Day 2018 should not be about legalizing marijuana but about recognizing the country's history.

Bill Blair, the parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, said Wednesday he's a proud Canadian who believes July 1 is a day to celebrate the country's birth "for that reason and that reason alone."

"I believe that ... a reasonable goal is to have all this work done by the beginning of July, but by that date and on that date are very different things," Blair said in an interview.

"I don't think that's an appropriate date. That's my opinion."

Gov. Jerry Brown has made his wishes clear: He wants the conflicts between California's medical and recreational cannabis laws resolved by the end of the year.

On Tuesday night his office published a 92-page document offering up recommendations for how to settle key differences in laws regulating both segments of the industry, with the governor choosing sides on everything from how many licenses marijuana business owners can hold to how weed should be distributed statewide.

The proposals were included in a trailer bill to Brown's 2017-18 budget. The Legislature will vote on whether those proposals become law, before they ultimately head back to Brown for final approval.

Alaska marijuana regulators will resume the on-again, off-again debate over onsite pot consumption in retail stores Wednesday amid a rejection of the concept from the state's top medical officer.

The Alaska Marijuana Control Board began mulling — and preparing for — onsite use of marijuana in 2015, following voter approval of recreational use of pot by those 21 and older.

Members peppered regulations with references to onsite use and worked on rules for how that would be carried out. The board veered away from the visions some had of Amsterdam-style cannabis cafes, instead proposing that retail stores cordon off separate rooms for onsite use.