Recreational and medical marijuana sales showed strong growth in February, the latest month for which the Colorado Department of Revenue has released tax data for the state’s most newsworthy industry.

A beefed-up odor-control ordinance that would require marijuana grow houses to reduce the smells they emit won approval Tuesday from a Denver City Council committee.

The proposal fits into a larger council discussion about ways to limit the industry’s impact on neighborhoods that are saturated with marijuana businesses. About 1 a.m. Tuesday, the full council deadlocked 6-6 on a proposal to set location caps for pot shops and cultivation facilities. That licensing measure could be reintroduced for more discussion next Monday.

While council members have struggled to find consensus on licensing, the odor measure was advanced easily at the afternoon Safety & Well-being Committee meeting.

DENVER — A first-of-its-kind license for marijuana couriers is nearing approval in Colorado.

The state House gave preliminary approval Tuesday to creating a new "marijuana transporter" license under the pot-regulating agency.

Colorado already has 12 marijuana courier companies, which fill out shipping manifests to move pot from growing warehouses to store shelves. The couriers are currently classified as marijuana "vendors," a broad category which includes other ancillary services.

The new license would give those couriers additional powers, such as temporarily storing pot if an unexpected snowstorm closes a highway. Currently the pot couriers must return to the site of origin if they cannot deliver the marijuana within a designated window.

ENVER — Colorado schools would be forced to allow students to use medical cannabis under a bill that cleared its first hurdle Monday at the state Legislature.

The bill updates a new law that gives school districts the power to permit medical marijuana treatments for students under certain conditions. Patient advocates call the law useless because none of Colorado's 178 school districts currently allows such use.

"This is not about two kids smoking a joint between cars in a parking lot," said Jennie Stormes, mother of a teenage boy suspended from school last year for having yogurt mixed with cannabis pills to treat a disease that gives him seizures.

Many of my firm’s cannabis clients are raising money right now. Out-of-state investors looking for a place to deploy capital are looking hard at Oregon (which recently abolished residency requirements to participate in its cannabis industry), and some are already starting to lay the groundwork for pending recreational legalization in Nevada and California. Even more established markets, like Washington and Colorado, are seeing an uptick in corporate entities trying to bring in new money.

Lawmakers have narrowly struck down the recently proposal by Colorado Representative Kathleen Conti to prohibit Colorado stores from selling marijuana products with a potency of more than 15 percent THC.

But that doesn't mean the fight to limit the amount of THC in legal cannabis is over. 

A Colorado lawmaker is trying to outlaw marijuana-laced gummy candies that resemble children's treats, the latest effort by a U.S. state to address the complexities and unintended consequences of pot legalization.

In 2014, Colorado became the first state to allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use, and it has grown to be a billion dollar industry in the state.

The measure by State Representative Dan Pabon [D-Denver] would prohibit edible marijuana to be sold in the form of an animal, human or fruit, common shapes for gummy candies favored by young children.

"Right now in Colorado, there are no distinguishing characteristics between the gummy bear that contains marijuana and one that does not," Pabon said.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, during a stop in Colorado, said that the legalization of recreational marijuana is a matter that "we should leave to the states," adding that he hasn't made up his mind about expanding banking services to marijuana businesses.

Proposed amendments to measure setting caps on pot shops and grow houses could target pending applications

When the Denver City Council introduces a proposal Monday that would cap the number of locations of pot shops and grow houses, Truman Bradley will be among dozens of investors waiting nervously.

DENVER -- A new Colorado law allowing medical marijuana use at public schools is getting a second look Monday in a House committee.

The current law allows students who need medical marijuana to use edible pot at public schools - as long as the school districts agree.

No school districts currently does, so patient advocates are pushing the bill to make Colorado the second state to require schools to allow nurses or parents to administer medical pot. New Jersey made the change last year.

"They need to make reasonable accommodations so that children who need medical marijuana can go to school," said Stacey Linn, a Lakewood mother of a 15-year-old with cerebral palsy who is not allowed to wear a skin patch delivering a cannabis-derived treatment to school.