SALT LAKE CITY — When Malinda Heiner was 16 months old, a 53-minute seizure changed the course of her life forever.

Malinda's brain suffered so much damage that she hasn't stopped seizing since.

Now 14 years old, Malinda has 30 to 40 seizures a day. She's confined to a wheelchair, not speaking, not communicating, but seizing all the time.

Medicine has only caused more issues, says her mother, Melanie Heiner. Instead of stopping Malinda's seizures, they've only disrupted her appetite and sleep.

On Wednesday morning, Heiner, her daughter and about 30 other people stood in the Capitol rotunda and called on lawmakers to take a second look at a bill to legalize medical marijuana.

Terra Tech, an Irvine-based marijuana agriculture company, will merge with Black Oak Gallery, a retail medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland.

The merger includes Blüm Oakland’s supply chain: an on-site cultivation facility, proprietary marijuana strains and a retail store front.

Blüm Oakland, which opened in 2012, has more than 42,000 registered customers and brought in around $14 million in revenue in 2015.

Derek Peterson, chief executive of Terra Tech, said in a statement the combined companies would touch “every aspect of the cannabis life cycle – from cultivation, to extraction, to branding, and now, with the acquisition of Blüm, to retail sale.”

Colorado parents Raymond and Amelia Schwab lost custody of their kids but say they've done nothing wrong

Veteran Raymond Schwab and his wife Amelia are pictured on January 13, 2016 in Denver, Colorado. Raymond, who suffers PTSD, came to Colorado to use medical marijuana to help treat his PTSD. Because of this the state of Kansas, where he lived, took away his kids. He is fighting to get them back. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Raymond Schwab, an honorably discharged veteran, moved to Colorado last year to get treated for post-traumatic stress and chronic pain with medical marijuana.

He didn't expect Kansas would take his children in return.

The prospects of legal cannabis in 2016 have come a long way in the last two years. In 2014 the cannabis industry exploded when legal sales of cannabis for personal use began in Colorado and Washington State, the Rohrabacher amendment finally passed in the House of Representatives, and the sky did not come crashing down. It seemed like the floodgates opened as business interests began to take notice and the gains of that year (74% market growth in 2014 according to the ArcView Group) bled over into 2015. Last year Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia legalized personal use as well, and medical sales began in Minnesota and Illinois.

When we first tallied Colorado pot sales for 2014, the first full year of legal cannabis sales in the world mind you, $699,198,805 seemed like such a large number at the time.

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As mounting evidence suggests that the administration of cannabis can reduce the frequency of migraine headaches, Neutra Corp. (OTCQB:NTRR) will explore the promise of advanced cannabinoid delivery technologies to ease migraine sufferers’ pain.

“Inhalers and topical salves could provide superior options to patients suffering from migraines and debilitating issues.”

mCig Inc (OTCMKTS:MCIG) is one name that has left many investors disappointed. mCig was one of the original pot stocks that took off in 2014, only to crash and burn soon after leaving many investors with large losses. However, the company does have a lot of promise as vaporizers and the marijuana industry hold a lot of promise. But the past is the past and it’s time for investors to look forward and look at mCig objectively.

Misleading and scientifically illiterate claims notwithstanding, there's little definitive evidence marijuana makes you dumb, dense, or crazy.

Scare-mongering headlines touting the alleged adverse effects of marijuana’s impact on brain appear in the mainstream media almost daily. But a careful investigation of the relevant science reveals many of these fears to be overblown at best and illegitimate at worst.

Pot Permanently Damages the Brain

SALEM — Lawmakers on Wednesday proposed a flurry of tweaks to Oregon's legal marijuana market, including to how pot is grown and sold.

Two bills set for the upcoming legislative session would allow recreational and medical marijuana to be grown and processed in the same facility, and let medical dispensaries sell nontraditional pot products such as edibles and THC oil.

The joint committee on marijuana implementation rolled out its so-called "base bill" — a slew of procedural tweaks that lawmakers hope to tackle in the 35-day short session starting Feb. 1.

• Border agents discovered more than a ton of marijuana stuffed into fake carrots at the U.S.- Mexico border on Sunday
• The street value of the drugs is estimated at $499,000
• Police say that nearly 3,000 packages were mixed in with real carrots

Border agents say they discovered more than a ton of marijuana stuffed into fake carrots mixed in with shipment of fresh carrots at the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday.

Texas officials say they found 2,493 pounds of alleged marijuana after an imaging system flagged the truck transporting the produce for a secondary examination while it was crossing the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge along the Texas-Mexico border near the Gulf of Mexico.