Fort Collins' budding marijuana industry started the year with two new retail stores.

Kind Care of Colorado and Natural Alternatives for Health both recently expanded beyond medical marijuana. The stores bring the number of retail pot shops in Fort Collins to eight.

The number of licensed marijuana retailers operating in the city doubled during the second half of 2015.

Natural Alternatives started selling marijuana for recreational use on Dec. 29 after submitting an application for a retail license in May. The company hopes an expansion of its 1,500-square-foot growing facility will follow.

Members of a Massachusetts Senate panel plan to visit Colorado next week to learn more about that state’s experience with the legalized use of recreational marijuana.

The Senate Special Committee on Marijuana was created last year in response to a likely 2016 ballot question that — if approved by voters — would allow pot to be used recreationally in Massachusetts.

A draft itinerary for the four-day trip starting Monday includes meetings and discussions with Colorado state regulators, legislators and law enforcement officials.

LivWell Enlightened Health opened its 11^th retail location in the state yesterday. The new dispensary in Trinidad, Colo. is LivWell Enlightened Health’s third in southern Colorado, and will offer a wide range of cannabis products to recreational customers (adults 21+).

“We are excited to add a new location to our Colorado lineup,” said John Lord, CEO and owner of LivWell Enlightened Health. “Combined with our locations in Cortez and Mancos, it allows us to better service customers in southern Colorado. We look forward to providing our Trinidad neighbors with a cannabis shopping experience that is second to none, and to contributing to this vibrant community.”

Just before the new year, one of the Colorado RICO lawsuits filed with such fanfare in February of 2015 was quietly and voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs. While this might seem like good news for the cannabis industry, it is actually anything but.

The use of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in lawsuits against marijuana businesses poses a significant threat not just to those licensed marijuana businesses sued, but to anyone who does business with them, from bankers to accountants, from lawyers to builders.

A marketing campaign called Faces of Nimbin has just been launched with the aim of debunking the stereotypical image of the village as a drug-takers' haven.

Lismore City Council's tourism services coordinator Andrew Walker said the concept was created by the Nimbin Marketing Campaign Focus Group, set up to boost tourism after the 2014 fires that destroyed several local businesses, including the Nimbin Museum.

"Nimbin is a melting pot of dynamic individuals and the reason it's so special is because it celebrates its diversity and individuality," Mr Walker said.

Richard Haines has suffered from Crohn’s disease since he was 15-years-old. In all he has been through 33 gastrointestinal surgeries. In just the last 3 months, he has spent 6 weeks in the hospital. Haines was on the cusp of running out of options to help with his Crohn’s.

Haines’ doctor had suggested that he try a cannabis suppository. Living in Denver, Colorado, you would think that would be an easy task. But Haines had a lot of trouble finding a dispensary or caregiver that made a medical grade suppository.

Denver officials just noticed a troubling pattern in the location of the city’s marijuana businesses.

A Jan. 3 analysis by the Denver Post found that companies with pot licenses in the city, where cannabis use has been legal since 2014, are mostly in low-income neighborhoods with high proportions of ethnic minorities. Just three of those neighborhoods account for about a quarter of local marijuana-related facilities.

Residents of those areas complain about the smell that wafts out of the grows, and say they worry about a rise in crime and youth drug use.

More than three years have passed since Colorado residents voted to legalize marijuana, which immediately allowed adults to possess and cultivate limited amounts of marijuana. This past New Year’s Day marked the two-year anniversary of adults being able to legally buy marijuana in Colorado. The policy is still in its formative stage, but the first year after marijuana sales started in Colorado went very well and we continue to see the good shape of things to come.

TOPEKA — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced Monday that he has launched a project to collect information from local law enforcement agencies about how marijuana purchased in Colorado is entering Kansas and how it's affecting the state.

“There are numerous and persistent anecdotal accounts of marijuana acquired in Colorado and illegally transported into Kansas causing harm here,” Schmidt said. “But because of technology limits, the confirming data is elusive. Since Colorado’s experiment with legalization is affecting Kansas, we need to know more about what is actually happening here so policymakers can make informed decisions.”

A district judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a credit union against the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City that sought to provide banking services to the legal marijuana industry. The judge denied Fourth Corner Credit Union access to the country’s financial system saying that cannabis still remained illegal under federal law.

The credit union, authorized by Colorado in 2014, does not have permission to take deposits or issue credit, forcing most marijuana businesses to operate on a cash-only basis, raising robbery concerns. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012.