Jeb Bush goes heavy on the pot propaganda at GOP town hall.

Thursday during CNN’s GOP town hall, Jeb Bush decided it was a good time to claim his place as the new reefer madness candidate — now that Chris Christie is out of the Republican primary and all.

Bush railed into “the devastating nature of marijuana,” and the “impacts it has on productivity … and brain damage.”

“The potency of this generation’s marijuana … it has serious neurological impacts,” he said. “And yet it’s laughed off because culturally, that’s an obsolete problem. Well, it’s not.”

Iowa State University administrators are appealing a federal judge's ruling that they violated the free speech rights of student members of a pro-marijuana group by barring them from using the university logos on T-shirts.

Attorneys for ISU President Steven Leath, Senior Vice President Warren Madden and two other administrators notified the court Wednesday of their appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. District Judge James Gritzner had issued an order on Jan. 22 granting members of the ISU chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws a permanent injunction blocking university administrators from using a trademark policy to prevent the group from printing shirts depicting the school mascot and a marijuana leaf.

A law passed in the ’80s to prevent drug dealers from getting tax breaks is now taking a huge chomp out of legitimate outfits in Colorado and Washington.

Legal marijuana sales in Colorado and Washington have grossed billions, but legal dealers will see little of that thanks to a draconian federal law meant to punish street pushers.

Last April, Raymond Schwab and his wife Amelia planned to relocate their family to Colorado. A Gulf War veteran who has struggled with chronic pain and PTSD since his honorable discharge, Schwab wanted to move so he could legally obtain medical marijuana, the only effective remedy he'd found for his symptoms. As a Veterans Administration (VA) employee, Schwab was able to take his job with him to Denver, and all seemed good to go.

There has been quite an uptick in the discussion of BitCoin as an alternative to fill the banking need for cannabis.

I do not believe it is even a temporary solution to the problem.

Since Colorado created a “for profit” model for cannabis distribution, every aspect of this industry has been subject to invasive government oversight. “Seed-to-Sale tracking,” which I helped to develop, created a paradigm that uses technology to cover every movement of the plant on its way to market.

To add an alternate currency at the end of the transaction further muddles the legitimate sale of cannabis.

When it comes to setting up a pot business in Anchorage, the way its distance is measured from a school can make a big difference in whether the business is allowed or not.

At its most recent meeting, amid a flurry of amendments to land use regulations, the Anchorage Assembly passed conflicting rules for the measurement method. One amendment, from Assemblymembers Amy Demboski and Bill Starr, specified that distances would be measured "as the crow flies" -- from the edge of a marijuana business to the lot line of a protected area -- instead of by pedestrian routes, which could be more circuitous.

Related: 

Counting out money for payroll at Good Meds Marijuana dispensary in Lakewood, Colo. Most marijuana businesses cannot get bank accounts, and must contend with large amounts of cash.

When Lamine Zarrad was not at his job as a federal banking regulator in recent months, he was spending a lot of time at Denver’s marijuana dispensaries.

As a federal employee, he could not partake of the pot.

He was there, instead, to pitch the shops on a start-up he has been working on in his free time and is making official this week after quitting his job as a bank examiner at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a division of the Treasury Department.

It appears we’re witnessing the marijuana industry’s transition out of the experimental phase. With only a few actual, accessible legal markets in the United States, marijuana – though attractive and promising – has been viewed with a high level of skepticism by both lawmakers and investors. There’s room for explosive growth, but also the possibility that the whole industry could be shut down overnight. But booming sales, coupled with little or no trace of negative externalities, is leading states to loosen up a bit, and let the hidden hand work its magic.

I have never hidden the fact that I have a man crush on United States Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). He has served my home state proudly, and I have always been honored to tell people that he is from Oregon. He is not my Congressman, as I don’t live in his district, but I have always supported him and will continue to do so until he retires someday. He’s always been at the head of the pack leading the charge for federal reform since he’s been in Congress.

I recently received an e-mail from his office listing his top priorities for 2016. In addition to improving infrastructure and improving agriculture policy, Earl Blumenauer listed ‘Ending the Failed Federal Prohibition of Marijuana’ as one of his top three priorities for 2016. Below is what he had to say: