SALT LAKE CITY – Leaders from various faiths gathered at the Utah State Capitol this week, where they called on members of the legislature to pass a law allowing patients to use medical marijuana.

Anna Zumwalt, a Soto-Zen Buddhist Priest from Salt Lake City, was among those who attended.

“We hope that the legislature will act with compassion, and not put government between the sacrosanct doctor-patient relationship,” Zumwalt said.

Rev. Patty C. Willis of the South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society was also present.

“As faith leaders, we must be the voices of those who are quietly suffering,” Willis said.

PORTLAND — The owner of the World Famous Cannabis Cafe announced she will close her doors next week after another warning by public health officials that the establishment violates indoor air rules.

The cafe will host its final Stoner Bingo session March 7, said Madeline Martinez, a longtime marijuana legalization advocate and owner of the business, which offers people 21 and older a place to socialize and use cannabis.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va (WVIR) -

A cash crop banned in Virginia for decades will soon be legally grown in the commonwealth, thanks to some new legislation.

Governor Terry McAuliffe signed a bill this week that will let people legally manufacture industrial hemp products. That law goes into effect July first this year.

The Virginia Industrial Hemp Coalition (VIHC) calls it a historic milestone after years of lobbying for legalization.

It’s not every day that Richard Branson invites you to his private island.

Especially after you were almost kicked out of an emerging tech competition for promoting your new “Facebook of Cannabis.” When cannabis companies weren’t even allowed in part of the competition.

Meet Isaac Dietrich and Stewart Fortier, two mid-20-something entrepreneurs that set out to change the world through tech–one pot smoker at a time.  The pair met in high school and rejoined after Fortier finished college, where he majored in economics and religious studies. Dietrich skipped college while honing his skills on political campaigns, such as Virginia state Senator Jeff McWaters and Congressman Scott Rigell, and tech startups in the Hampton Roads, Virginia area.

On February 8, 2016, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote a well publicized letter to Dr. Thomas Friedan, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In her letter she expressed her concern about the current epidemic of deaths by overdoses of opiate pain medications. Among her recommendations was taking steps to broaden our understanding of how marijuana might both help relieve pain as well as reduce the number of deaths by opioid overdose. She was quite correct in her effort.

Heliospectra AB recently announced that it has hired Caroline Nordahl Wells as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Heliospectra’s North American operations.

As a co-founder and former executive of LumiGrow, Nordahl Wells was responsible for recruiting and leading a successful sales organization. She is widely credited with advancing the LED grow light category and accelerating market adoption of LED lighting for commercial horticultural applications.

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Chicago-based travel agent and mother-of-four Lynn Farrell represents a kind of worst-case scenario for Colorado’s ski towns and resorts.

“Who really wants to ski where everybody’s stoned?,” asks Farrell, president of Windy City Travel. “It is a concern.”

Chapter 9. Conclusions

Legal or not, the business of selling weed in the U.S. is as wacky as ever.

The tangle of rules and regulations that govern whether and how it can be grown, bought and sold create complexity and ambiguity that cause major headaches for marijuana businesses — and enticing opportunities for those who want to exploit it.

"It's a gray market industry, that's just how it is," says Kayvan Khalatbari, who owns a marijuana dispensary and a chain of pizza restaurants in Denver.

Legal marijuana may be doing at least one thing that a decades-long drug war couldn't: taking a bite out of Mexican drug cartels' profits.

The latest data from the U.S. Border Patrol shows that last year, marijuana seizures along the southwest border tumbled to their lowest level in at least a decade. Agents snagged roughly 1.5 million pounds of marijuana at the border, down from a peak of nearly 4 million pounds in 2009.