Hyperventilation syndrome is heavy breathing brought about by the decrease in carbon dioxide levels in the blood. It occurs when the rate and quantity of alveolar ventilation of carbon dioxide exceeds the body’s production of carbon dioxide making our brains and bodies short of oxygen. Some of the causes can be exercise, fever, shivering, and other disorders which lead to excess production of carbon dioxide than normal.

One billion dollars.

If current trends keep up, that will be the value of marijuana retail and producer/processor sales in Washington state on a yearly basis. With few exceptions, state marijuana sales have risen every month since the first recreational stores opened two years ago, bringing millions in state taxes and thousands of jobs.

That’s the good news.

“The picture thus far is a curate’s egg — good in parts,” writes University of Washington professor emeritus Roger Roffman. “No policy change of this magnitude will go precisely according to plan.”

So what still needs fixing?

The best of Oregon’s crops and cows will make their way to the state capital at the end of this month for the Oregon State Fair. As with most state fairs, there will be plenty of cotton candy, rickety carnival rides, and foods that probably shouldn’t be deep fried. In Oregon, though there will be one unique exhibition no other state can claim: a legal display of award-winning marijuana plants.

Fairgoers over the age of 21 can see the plants at the Oregon Cannabis Business Council’s booth in an exhibition hall. “You can’t display plants out in the open,” says Don Morse, head of the council, “because there are kids around. So the plants will be in a greenhouse, manned by security guards.”

With nearly 3,000 caregivers, competition has ramped up as operations get larger and businesses look for a niche.

Brett Messer and Stephanie Caron operate Brigid Farm in a nondescript building in Saco’s industrial zone. There are no signs that hint at what takes place behind the building’s locked doors.

In Unity, Dawson Julia operates a 14,000-square-foot warehouse on a main road through town, with a sign that indicates the former dairy building is the home of East Coast CBDs.

And up in Fort Kent, Steve Rusnack runs his businesses, Full Bloom Head Shop and Full Bloom Cannabis, out of a storefront on Main Street.

In the three years since Silk Road 1.0 was closed – and Ross Ulbricht given a life sentence – drug sales have tripled.

Drug sales on the dark web have tripled since the closure of the high-profile Silk Road marketplace in 2013 and life imprisonment of its owner, Ross Ulbricht.

Revenues have doubled in the same period, as the threat of FBI arrest and a lifetime in prison has done little to stop the sale of drugs like cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy online. Dark web marketplaces are hidden from search engines like Google and can only be visited through anonymising browsers like The Onion Router (Tor).

Making edibles can be an ordeal. Even basic recipes tend to use cannabutter or oil, which takes time, and lots of product, to create. Given the choice between labour-intensive kitchen science, and busting out the vaporizer, most of us choose the latter.

Hipsters, hippies, and young families love farmer's markets: after all, what's not to love? Sampling new things. Eschewing factory-farmed, environmentally unsustainable produce in favour of organic goodies grown by a farmer you've actually met and conversed with. Best of all? What you're buying is not only awesome and delicious, but also grown without scary pesticides and exploitative, factory farming techniques. 

What’s worse than having stinky breath? Being completely oblivious to the fact that you have stinky breath. We can all admit at some time or another we’ve had questionable breath, and we’ve also encountered someone whose breath reminded us far too much of our first visit to the zoo. But can smoking cannabis give you bad breath?  If so, what are some ways to combat foul breath after hitting a joint or bong?

According to a Wikileaks DNC email dump, the alcohol industry pressured and bribed officials in Congress to destroy the reputation of cannabis.

According to cannabis industry website Marijuana.com, officials in some of the top alcohol companies in America spent money on persuading members of Congress to pay attention to the alleged problem of “marijuana-impaired driving”.

Hightimes.com reports:

In 1992, Amir Varick Amma was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on drug charges. Convicted of two nonviolent drug felonies, he was unfortunate to be sentenced under the Rockefeller drug laws – resulting in a harsh sentence typically reserved for murderers.

After drug law reforms were passed in New York in 2004 and 2009, a judge reduced Amma’s sentence. He was released after spending 19 years behind bars.