VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Officials in US states that have legalized pot are offering their advice to prime minister designate Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau promised on the campaign trail to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana. One Colorado official warns the process will be more costly and time-consuming than Trudeau thinks.

Lewis Koski of the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division says his state has collected $142-million in taxes since storefront sales began in January 2014. But he says a portion of the sales tax earmarked for school construction projects hasn’t yet met a goal of $40-million.

The state has also grappled with two suicides and a murder committed by people who consumed edible pot products such as brownies and cookies.

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VANCOUVER — A Colorado official has some sobering words of advice for Justin Trudeau if he fulfils his promise to legalize pot in Canada.

“It’s going to be a lot harder to implement than you think. It’s going to take a lot longer to do it. And it’s going to cost more than you think,” said Lewis Koski, director of the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division.

Colorado is one of four U.S. states to fully legalize recreational bud. Their challenges — including how to regulate edibles like brownies and cookies and a rise in drug-impaired driving — could be instructive for Canada’s incoming prime minister.

Among the questions Trudeau’s government could grapple with are whether to allow people to grow pot at home or buy it in stores, and how much sales tax to charge.

Now that the Liberals are in power, Canadians want to know if prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau will keep his word and legalize marijuana or if his promise will simply go up in smoke.

According to the party’s campaign platform, Canada’s prohibition approach doesn’t work.

“It does not prevent young people from using marijuana and too many Canadians end up with criminal records for possessing small amounts of the drug,” the Liberals say.

“To ensure that we keep marijuana out of the hands of children, and the profits out of the hands of criminals, we will legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana.”

But even the soon-to-be sworn-in prime minister doesn’t know when that might happen.

"Program could well become the standard in an industry that needs cohesion and consistency"

DENVER, Oct. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- CannaScore (www.canna-score.com), the developers of the world's first real-time compliance software for the marijuana industry, announced that its unique cannabis compliance auditing system has been awarded "Top New Technology in the Cannabis Industry."

The award was announced by CannaNews.buzz, a leading online publication covering the marijuana industry.

GREELEY, Colo. — Parents at a private school in Greeley are upset with the response by administrators to reports of the use and sale of marijuana by students and they are demanding a meeting with school officials.

According to records obtained by the Greeley Tribune, parents sent emails to administrators at University Schools complaining about what they called interrogation-style interviews and the search of student cellphones at the K-12 public charter school located in Greeley School District 6.

The University Schools Board of Governors will hold a special meeting Monday to determine if policy changes need to be made.

Administrators said the searches are necessary to keep the school safe.

Smart Colorado, dedicated to protecting youth from marijuana, is launching a billboard campaign in Denver asking the question: “Is today’s Pot a hard drug?” The organization is helping parents and policymakers address that critical question by providing resources at its website, smartcolorado.org, and prompting a social media conversation with the hashtag #KnowPot.

This year has been an exciting one for proponents of both recreational and medicinal marijuana legalization efforts. Two states began to allow medicinal use, while two more states and Washington, D.C. have started to permit recreational use. Let’s take a look at the latest in these territories and how laws, regulations and rules have been developed around these measures.

Recreational Use

Oregon

Only amid the 420-friendly crunch of Boulder, Colo., will you find a luncheon celebrating the release of a new marijuana cookbook — with infused samples from one of the book’s recipes being handed out to attendees.

Colorado's attempt to create a bank to service its marijuana industry has suffered another setback by the federal government and could be facing an impossible dilemma.

The Federal Reserve — the guardian of the U.S. banking system — said in a court filing Wednesday that it doesn't intend to accept a penny connected to the sale of pot because the drug remains illegal under federal law.

The stance appears to mark a shift in the position of the federal government. Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department issued rules for how banks can accept pot money.