The weed industry is getting to know a time-honored tradition of the American business world: corporate fraud.

Federal prosecutors in Colorado last week charged the men behind FusionPharm, a publicly traded hydroponic marijuana farming company, with securities fraud over an alleged plot to pocket more than $12 million from the sale of phony shares.

The department identified the police officers involved as Richard Pina, Jason McFadden and Michael Carnicle. All had been on the job for less than a year, although McFadden had about 10 years' experience with the Chicago Police Department. The demoted supervisor was identified as Jeff Farrior.

Police are investigating the incident, and Pina and McFadden could face criminal charges, said police spokesman Sergeant Jonathan Howard. Carnicle was at the scene but did not participate in the incident, Howard said.

The police union could not immediately be reached for comment. It was not clear if any of the officers had lawyers.

The Cannabis Business Alliance (CBA)  has released a statement in support of Denver Ballot initiative 300, Denver’s Neighborhood-Supported Cannabis Consumption Pilot Program, which is designed to provide adults safe, supervised spaces for Cannabis consumption in traditional social environments.

A proposal to allow medical marijuana in Missouri won’t go to voters this year because of an insufficient number of valid signatures, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green’s decision backed those by St. Louis-area election authorities, who threw out thousands of petition signatures; in some cases, people signed sheets labeled for counties in which they weren’t registered to vote.

Proposed constitutional amendments must receive signatures from at least 8 percent of registered voters in six of the state’s eight congressional districts in order to go to voters. Secretary of State Jason Kander previously said the measure fell 2,242 signatures short in the 2nd District covering part of the St. Louis area.

It’s a pleasant summer evening in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. The plazas are bustling, and it seems every bit of storefront is a bar or a restaurant. But one inconspicuous door opens to a different kind of place.

The sign says “Smokers’ Club” in English. A small surveillance camera watches over the door.

Inside, artsy drawings hang on a brick wall. A hall leads to a chill-out area, where mostly young people are sitting on low couches, chatting, drinking and smoking. There are TVs, a DJ booth and a little bar in the back.

The stoner dude who refuses to put down the pipe and pick up the Pampers is an archetype that Judd Apatow has made an entire career out of mining. Internet forums and advice columns teem with queries from spouses who feel widowed by their partner’s relationship with weed.

So the announcement that Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt – and a report by TMZ that Jolie was “fed up” with Pitt’s marijuana and alcohol use – has set off a bevy of speculation that Pitt never fully left behind his 1993 role as a stoner room-mate in True Romance.

By David Brown, Lift Cannabis

We were incredibly lucky at the Vancouver Lift Cannabis Expo this past weekend to have heard from legalization and regulation task force Vice Chair Dr. Mark Ware. Dr. Ware discussed the task force’s process and experience thus far engaging Canadians on the subject of legalization, as well as presented some preliminary findings.

Massachusetts is in position to establish one of the lowest consumer tax rates on recreational marijuana in the country.

This November, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and over.

The initiative, Question 4, would assign a 3.75 percent excise tax on recreational marijuana products.

When combined with the state’s standard sales tax, the total tax rate for consumers would be just 10 percent.

This rate is extremely low compared to the 37 percent tax on all marijuana sales in Washington State and Oregon’s 25 percent tax on such products.

“Cannabis Curious?” That’s the billboard my children and I see every day on our after-school drive on Ventura Boulevard. The questions from my kids, who are 11 and 13, have come spilling out: “What is cannabis? What's curious about it? Why does it have different names? What does it look like? Why do people use it?”

If you are a parent, no matter how you plan to vote on Proposition 64 — the California initiative that would legalize marijuana for adult use — you need to be prepared to talk about marijuana with your kids. Even without legalization, access to marijuana has significantly increased over the last few years, as has its popularity with youth.

It’s no secret that yoga and cannabis often work in tandem. In Colorado, Washington and Oregon, the states where cannabis is legal (along with some medical marijuana states like California), yoga studios are ramping up ganja-friendly classes. Colorado yoga teacher and cannabis advocate Rachael Carlevale recently opened a yoga business called Ganjasana that uses yoga to tap into what she says are innate connections humans share with the cannabis plant.