A group of lawmakers want to make it easier for banks to just say yes to the booming business for legalized marijuana.

Four Democratic U.S. senators from Washington, Colorado and Oregon, asked a group of regulators Thursday to clarify how lenders can help finance the industry and still comply with the law so that companies in states that permit pot sales don’t have to run their businesses solely on cash.

State officials say the move to provide data online was in the works before The Denver Post began asking for the information months ago.

The Colorado agency charged with policing the cannabis industry is about to get more user-friendly.

One of the most common arguments for marijuana legalization is getting a little more complicated.

A new preliminary report by Mike Males at YouthFacts found that the marijuana arrest rate dramatically dropped — by 76 percent between 2008 and 2014 — in five states after they legalized or decriminalized the drug, as one would expect. In comparison, marijuana arrest rates in all other states fell by just 15 percent in the same time period.

Ever wonder how your state stands up to the others in terms of marijuana tolerance? We don't mean how much your state can smoke, but how tolerant the locals are toward cannabis. The real-estate website Estately has the answer. 

Using specialized metrics, they put together rankings for all 50 states in their "Marijuana Enthusiasm Index." The criteria are: the percentage of monthly marijuana users, the average price of cannabis, the average number of marijuana-related Google searches, the legal status of marijuana and expressions of public interest (based on Facebook user data). 

Here are five interesting findings.

Matthew Kahl, one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs. A video and more below.

Last July, as we reported, the Colorado Board of Health declined to add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of conditions legally treatable by medical marijuana following a meeting that left many advocates frustrated.

Marijuana sales in the United States reached a record high in 2015. Legal in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia, a whopping $3.4 billion of the green stuff was sold last year. The best way to give that figure some kind of perspective is by comparing it to the sales of well-known and established brands.

Some experts, meanwhile, hope Kindman will share the results of its Colorado Open Records Act request with the legal marijuana industry’s scientific community.

In the wake of a dispute over legal marijuana testing procedures and an announced recall, the founder of Denver-based Kindman cannabis is calling for greater transparency and collaboration between industry stakeholders and the state of Colorado regarding its testing protocols for marijuana products.

Last week the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) said cannabis samples from Denver-based Kindman came back positive for trace amounts of a banned insecticide.

When Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, drug policy advocates and pot consumers believed racial drug arrests would drop dramatically. That logic inspired voters in Washington, D.C., Oregon, and Alaska to hit the polls two years later in favor of less restrictive pot laws. 

But it turns out that advocates and consumers were only half right. Drug arrests have plummeted overall, yet black people are still disproportionately arrested. 

According to new data published in the 2016 Marijuana Business Factbook, profit margins for concentrates and infused products in the cannabis sector hover around 32% - significantly higher than those typically realized by alcohol, soft drinks, and cigarettes.

"Demand for these forms of cannabis are booming, and consumers are often willing to pay a pretty penny for them," according to the Marijuana Business Daily. "Edibles in particular are growing in popularity, particularly in recreational marijuana markets, as are concentrates used in vape pens."