FALMOUTH — The leader of a Colorado drug-prohibition enforcement program warned Mainers on Tuesday about the implications of recreational marijuana legalization, including increases in use among youth and problems with edible marijuana products.

Thomas Gorman, a former undercover drug agent and current director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, spoke at a forum in Falmouth about the impact of marijuana legalization in Colorado, marijuana commercialization, and public health and safety issues connected to legal pot use.

Like the industry itself, employment and investment in cannabis businesses are rising. Yet, it remains true that special risks apply to cannabis enterprises beyond what is seen with “conventional” businesses.

By Julia Wright

You're almost finished a half-marathon. Pulse pounding in your ears. Knees aching. Running isn't for quitters.

But today is unusually easy: you're focused on the cool breeze on your arms, the golden late-September sun reflecting off the lake, and the ice-cold beer you're going to enjoy. Forget the chaos that's happening in your body.

Runner's high? Yes, totally. But the reason you feel so fantastic today is also due, at least in part, to the cannabis you consumed an hour before lacing up. 

The case study in how a business can exist outside of the embrace of traditional banking — as, in this case, traditional banking is afraid of being done for money laundering, since the product in question is still illegal on a Federal level — continues.

A new study of marijuana drug use in Colorado found increases in marijuana-related traffic deaths, hospital visits, school suspensions, lab explosions, and pet poisonings. The study was conducted by a federal government program.

The 166-page report released this month analyzed the effects of legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use in Colorado spanning the time period from 2006 to the present. Along with the state of Washington, Colorado is considered as something of laboratory in which the effects of legalizing marijuana use can be studied.

History was made in Colorado, guys: Tax revenue from marijuana sales was higher than revenue brought in by alcohol. 

The state raised about $70 million from weed in fiscal year 2014-2015, compared to the less than $42 million from alcohol sales, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. Last Wednesday, Colorado celebrated a "marijuana tax holiday," where the state suspended marijuana sales for a day. And I guess it was a well deserved break. 

More than prior elections, pot is becoming a prime time topic in the 2016 presidential race

Republican presidential candidates, from left, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former New York Gov. George Pataki, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, businessman Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie take the stage during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, in Simi Valley, Calif. (Chris Carlson, Associated Press)

WYOMING-COLORADO BORDER – The Rev. Brandon Baker held in his hands two cannabis plants, one industrial hemp and the other marijuana.

They looked similar to the untrained eye, but Baker said the easiest way to spot the difference are the sparkly crystals in the marijuana plant. Industrial hemp doesn’t have them.

Most of the tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana, is in the crystals, he said.

Owners of two Denver marijuana growing facilities on Friday said they were voluntarily recalling their products after city health officials learned tests found unapproved pesticides.

The recall of an undisclosed amount of plants and edible products is the second issued by the Denver Department of Environmental Health in just over a week, underscoring the city’s enforcement efforts on companies allegedly using disallowed chemicals.

Department officials said retailers should either destroy the recalled products or return them to the manufacturer. Consumers who have the products should return them to the store of purchase or dispose of them.

Marijuana, weed, bud, herb, spliffs, ganja, wacky tobaccy — whatever you call your friendly neighborhood cannabis, it's actually got a stranger and longer history than you likely knew.