While the Colorado-based Fourth Corner Credit Union aimed to serve the cannabis industry, another idea was brewing – an application that could ultimately be the saving grace for similar financial institutions. A software platform, called Hypur, was being developed as a compliance tool to assist cash-intensive businesses. Its original intent was to service payday lenders and check cashing businesses.

“Back in day one, we weren't talking about cannabis at all. So there was no discussion, we didn't build it for cannabis,” Andre G. Herrera, executive vice president of banking and compliance for Hypur, said.

A Maricopa County nonprofit that makes much of its money off low-level marijuana offenders would take a big financial hit if Arizona voters legalize marijuana in November.

The Treatment Assessment Screening Center, better known as TASC, contracts with the county to provide six months of mandatory drug-treatment services for first- or second-time offenders who get busted for possession of illegal drugs. TASC participants, with exceptions for low-income offenders, pay their own way for the program

House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, addresses legislators in the House of Representatives on the first day of the Utah Legislature at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Monday, Jan. 25, 2016.

The Utah Legislature is considering a push for medical marijuana in 2016. A new bill may open the doors for edible marijuana products containing THC, though smoking marijuana would remain illegal. This bill, sponsored by Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Saratoga Springs, has garnered support from Salt Lake County District Attorney Sam Gill, as well as the Libertas Institute, a libertarian nonprofit think tank in Lehi.

Mom says those horrible raging episodes her daughter used to suffer from are now gone and she hasn't had to restrain her daughter since she started her on the medical marijuana back in October.

ATLANTA — The mother of an autistic child went before Georgia lawmakers Monday, admitting she broke the law to get relief for her daughter.

Channel 2’s Lori Geary sat in on the first hearing of Georgia’s new medical marijuana bill that would allow the growing of medical marijuana in Georgia and expand the number of conditions patients need to qualify, including Alzheimer’s disease and autism.

Jennifer Conforti testified that she gets marijuana on the black market and turns it into cannabis oil for her 5-year-old daughter.

COLLINSVILLE • Metro East’s first marijuana dispensary looks like a spa.

After signing the paperwork and before choosing which marijuana flower, someone with a medical permit can enjoy complimentary bottled water, Keurig coffee and granola bars in the clean and bright waiting room at HCI Alternatives. The point, said chief executive Chris Stone, is to make patients feel comfortable, and to counter perceptions some might have that dispensaries are sketchy, unsafe places.

“It’s not Colorado, it’s not California. It’s Illinois,” Stone said.

Although commercial cultivation of medical marijuana is prohibited in Newark under an ordinance unanimously approved Jan. 14 by the City Council, qualified patients and their primary caregivers will still be allowed to grow their own plants.

The city specifically banned medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011. However, the city's zoning ordinance did not specifically address whether commercial cultivation of medical marijuana is a permitted use or a conditionally permitted use in any zoning district. The new ordinance is meant to clearly prohibit commercial cultivation.

All but two parts of Alaska’s rules governing commercial marijuana were approved by the state government Friday, with one section addressing criminal background checks and another providing exceptions to marijuana testing for growers in rural areas struck down by the state Department of Law.

Instagram users who post pictures of themselves smoking marijuana could unknowingly be getting themselves into a lot of trouble.

In an utterly predictable ruling, a federal judge recently dismissed a lawsuit that sought approval for the establishment of a credit union for marijuana businesses in Colorado.

Much as we favor such a credit union, why would anyone expect any other outcome?

Judges, after all, look at issues through the lens of the law. And while marijuana continues to gain footholds as a legal drug on the state level, at the federal level it remains an illegal substance. What else was the judge to do?

U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson expressed sympathy for pot businesses struggling under the current system, but in his order he said the courts simply could not “look the other way.”

DENVER — When Lauren Gibbs gets married in rural Colorado this July, she'll wear a traditional white dress in front of about a hundred guests. She and her fiance will exchange vows, then celebrate into the night. 

A big, countryside ranch will host. The Colorado River cuts through the property. Surrounded by Rocky Mountain nature, alpine forests collide with blue sky where friends and family will toast the bride and groom. 

"It will be the picturesque, classic Colorado wedding," Gibbs tells me. 

It will also be a fantastic place to get high. 

She is detailing all the ways guests will be able to get stoned at her nuptial.