In four states (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington State), retail sales of marijuana are both legal and taxable.  Of these states, Colorado was the first to implement sales and excise taxes on legal marijuana and now has over two years’ experience collecting those taxes.  The state is collecting roughly $90 million in marijuana excise taxes alone each year—an amount short of the $162 million it collects from cigarette taxes, but that far exceeds the $42 million it receives from taxes on alcohol.  When state-level sales taxes, license fees, and application fees are added to the picture, Colorado’s haul from marijuana taxes rises to roughly $130 million per year, with millions more flowing directly to local governments via their own sales taxes on marijuana.

Mieko Leads the Charge for Autism Treatment Advocacy as CBIS Initiates Cannabinoid Efficacy Testing to Spotlight Successful Treatments

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- Cannabis Science, Inc. (OTC PINK: CBIS), a U.S. company specializing in the development of cannabis-based medicines, today announced its next critical ailment target is autism and brings Mieko Hester-Perez on its Scientific Advisory Board to lead this charge. Mieko gained significant recognition for bringing her son's success with medical cannabis to the public and birthing the significant "Joey's Strain." The Company has begun preliminary protocols to initiate formal studies with Mieko on autism in adults and children spotlighting successful treatments using cannabinoids.

"People are getting educated about this plant," Stephen Marley told us at party celebrating new family venture

"This is Bob's night," Stephen Marley shouted to a crowded living room high up in the Hollywood Hills. Saturday was Bob Marley's birthday, and his son — bearded with dreads past his shoulders, an acoustic guitar across one knee — paid tribute to the late reggae icon with a performance of Marley classics, from "Jammin'" to "Three Little Birds," as the family name was being celebrated for a new venture.

he Shinnecock Indian Nation will grow and process medical marijuana, as well as build a dispensary on reservation land by the end of the year, pending approval from the state, tribal officials said this week.

The tribe’s general council on Saturday passed a measure that allows the tribe to pursue state designation as a medical marijuana provider, and also construct both a cultivation facility and a dispensary on the reservation.

The vote was approved 71 percent to 29 percent.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Almost a year has passed since it became legal to smoke, but not sell, marijuana in Washington, D.C., and pot enthusiasts and opponents alike are chafing under a compromise that leaves smokers in a haze over how to obtain their weed.

Sales of equipment to grow the plants indoors are booming, bartenders are getting joints as tips and the city council is deliberating whether to license cannabis clubs.

Both smokers and police complain that the city's ban on sales, imposed by congressional conservatives, are leaving residents to bump up against legal limits around the drug.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Mormon church has come out against a Utah bill that would allow the medical use of edible pot products, a position that could be a serious blow to one of two medical marijuana proposals before state lawmakers.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said leaders are worried about the unintended consequences of the measure proposed by Republican Sen. Mark Madsen of Eagle Mountain. A majority of Utah lawmakers are members of the Salt Lake City-based faith, and the church's position on an issue can be decisive.

The church doesn't object to another, more restrictive medical marijuana bill that would allow access to a marijuana-infused oil, church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement.

A bill introduced to the state legislature in January would create a certification program for commercial marijuana growers to label their products "pesticide-free."

The marijuana business is booming in the US, with projected legal sales expected to be up more than a billion dollars in 2016 compared to 2015, when the legal market was worth $6.7 billion in sales.

What’s more, over half of Americans now say they support the legalisation of cannabis, according to a Pew Research Center study.

Marijuana is authorised, in one form or another, across 38 states and the District of Columbia. That means 86 percent of Americans now live in a state where the use of legal marijuana is permitted to some degree.

Only 23 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized marijuana in the United States, as per Mic. While some have legalized cannabis for medical purposes, some have embraced marijuana for recreational use, specifically in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia.

With this legalization comes the proliferation of marijuana cafes across the country. With social media being a useful marketing tool for business, it wasn't unlikely that these business and groups would take to social media to promote their products and lifestyle.

The International Cannabis Business Conference isn’t the largest or flashiest marijuana-minded event on the calendar, but it is among the most respected.

What started as the Oregon Marijuana Business Conference in 2013 is now a larger, more inclusive annual gathering held in San Francisco each winter. The 2016 edition will take over the Hyatt Regency in the Embarcadero on Feb. 13-14 with speakers Tommy Chong, former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, U.S. Congressmen Dana Rohrabacher and Earl Blumenauer, Oaksterdam University executive chancellor Dale Sky Jones and others.