Nevada's fledgling recreational marijuana program finally has some money to get off the ground.

The state's Interim Finance Committee on Thursday approved a seed loan of approximately $871,000 for the startup of the new program under the Department of Taxation.

"We just want to make sure that we are meeting our responsibility and getting this all done by the deadline," said Stephanie Klapstein, spokeswoman for the department.

The program will be regulating and taxing the recreational marijuana industry since Nevadans voted in November to legalize the substance as of Jan. 1.

If Breathalyzers and walking a straight line don’t work, maybe brain games will help determine if drivers are too stoned to operate their vehicle.

Drunk driving is pretty easy to spot. If someone is swerving or driving at dangerously high speed, a cop or highway patrol officer can easily ask a driver to blow into a breathalyz or ask them to stand on one leg, touch their nose and count backwards. Testimony from officers who witnessed failed sobriety tests has influenced countless DUI convictions. But what do officers do if they suspect a driver is stoned? Can the same tests determine if a driver is high?

The new and flourishing business of cannabis is drawing large numbers of women execs. Why does marijuana draw a higher percentage of women than many other industries?

Of all the industries that attract American women to their senior ranks, the marijuana business may not immediately spring to mind as a likely magnet. 

Permanently disabled from a car crash that injured her back, Morris, 53, moved from Florida to Colorado after voters here rejected a medical marijuana referendum in 2012. She left her children and grandchildren with a hunch that access to medical cannabis in Colorado would work better than the opiates that had turned her into a "zombie."

"From that day on, my quality of life changed," she said. "I started doing walks around the park. I started feeling better about life. I'm able to talk and be alert and do things and even go back to school to earn my bachelor's."

Now Morris is back in Florida, where medical marijuana recently became legal. On Thursday, the Port Richey resident was one of the first patients in Hillsborough County's second medical marijuana dispensary.

Once again, though, state law enforcement is fighting the legislation..

Earlier this week, our website reported on disingenuous efforts by leading South Carolina law enforcement figures aimed at blocking medical marijuana legalization in the Palmetto State.

To read our exclusive report on this unfortunate brand of taxpayer-funded lobbying, click here.

As we’ve stated repeatedly, whatever you think of legalizing pot for recreational purposes (most people are for it) – legalizing medical marijuana is a moral imperative.

First, let’s make this clear: Apple may want to make a vaporizer for industrial purposes.

But let’s say this, too: With marijuana legalized for recreational and/or medical use in 28 states and counting, there’s a giant market opportunity for tech companies to produce devices related to pot consumption.

And we know that Apple likes money — so much, in fact, that it parks hundreds of billions of dollars in cash outside the country so it can go on holiday to roll around in it while keeping Uncle Sam’s filthy, tax-grabbing mitts off it.

Visit a dispensary in one of the 28 states that legally sell marijuana and you’re likely to find products with monikers like God’s Green Crack, Super Lemon Haze or Skywalker. That’s all about to change as a new breed of ganjapreneurs swoop into the fledgling industry. In a classic consumer-marketing move, they’re getting rid of stoner slang and replacing it with supermarket-friendly names that purport to help customers live better.

Their message: Weed is no longer just for getting high. It’s to help you through your stress, ease you into sleep and get you in the mood for love. In other words, these marketers want to transform the image of marijuana so that it competes with scores of products already in liquor stores, markets and pharmacies.

A wedding is an occasion of many firsts: the first look, the first kiss, the first dance.

But what about the first toke?

For a growing number of couples in states that have recently legalized recreational marijuana use, the “first married hit together” is becoming part of their wedding vows. Like lighting a unity candle, a ceremonial toke — sometimes from a custom-designed, two-mouthpiece “unity bowl” — signifies the blending of two lives in matrimony.

Cannabis Science, Inc. (otc pink:CBIS), a U.S. company specializing in the development of cannabis-based medicines, announces its California distributors have sold out of Cannabis Science's recently released CBIS Metered Dose Inhalers (MDI) in an initial test market run in the State of California. Cannabis Science is excited to report it has increased production of the inhalers to meet this new consumer demand.

Investing in cannabis stocks is being called the "gold rush" of the 21st century. That's because legal marijuana sales in North America climbed to $6.7 billion in 2016.

As impressive as that sounds, sales are only expected to climb…
By 2021, legal marijuana sales in North America are expected to reach $20.2 billion. That's a sales increase of 201% in just four years.

While investing in marijuana stocks can be profitable, it's important to understand they are speculative investments right now.
That's because marijuana is still illegal under U.S. federal law.

However, with 28 states having some type of marijuana legalization law in place, medical legalization will become the norm.