Republican and Democratic senators on Wednesday renewed their drive to make banking easier for marijuana-based businesses in those U.S. states where the drug is legal, undeterred by signals from the Trump administration about maintaining tough marijuana restrictions nationally.

The eight senators, who spanned the political spectrum from libertarian-leaning Republican Rand Paul to liberal Democrat Cory Booker, introduced the bill to block federal banking regulators from somehow pushing a financial institution to stop serving a state-sanctioned marijuana business or the businesses’ landlords or lawyers.

The government would also not be allowed to give banks incentives to cut off the businesses.

There's a crowd of a few dozen people mingling about the Capitol grounds in dark suits, striped ties, power dresses and sunglasses on a summer-like spring day in the nation's steamy capital. They look like they're ready for a Republican fundraiser, but they're actually marijuana business owners – everything from edible bakers to dispensary owners – from 20 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There are no Birkenstocks or marijuana leaves in sight, well except one old hippy draped in a marijuana flag and one U.S. Congressman, Democrat Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, rocking a bowtie polka dotted with cannabis leaves.

A federal appeals court has sidestepped making a ruling on whether U.S. prison officials can hold people who were convicted of marijuana offences that were legal under state medical marijuana laws.

In a decision Wednesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals focused instead on a narrower issue.

The court was considering a legal challenge by prisoner Matthew Davies, who was convicted of federal marijuana charges. Davies said he ran medical marijuana dispensaries that complied with California law.

He argued that the Bureau of Prisons could not hold him because of a federal regulation that restricted interference by U.S. officials in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.

The California Legislature has yet to establish limits concerning cannabis consumption, following voters’ approval in November 2016 of Proposition 64, which allows recreational marijuana use.

Unlike alcohol, measuring marijuana intoxication in a reliable way that can lead to admissible evidence in court has proven difficult. Although tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) − the chemical component of marijuana that causes a “high” − can be detected in a person’s blood or urine for up to 30 days after use, the inebriating effects last only a few hours. Numerous variables may distort the results, such as the user’s age, gender and race; method of consumption; frequency of use; and even the strain of the drug.

When Terry Booth’s business partner approached him in the summer of 2013 with a relative’s plea for money to launch a medical marijuana business, he knew nothing about the industry.

Booth, an electrician who built a construction permitting business in Edmonton with partner Steve Dobler, declined to give the loan, concluding the relative lacked sufficient business acumen to ensure the venture’s success.

Instead, Booth and Dobler took the idea for a legal pot grow-op and ran with it, rewarding the “visionaries” who had the initial spark with positions in the startup.

Nearly four years later, Aurora Cannabis is Canada’s second-largest publicly traded marijuana company, worth $832.7 million on the stock market.

Tax revenues generated by legalized marijuana, plus shedding the huge costs of arresting and jailing nonviolent offenders, are powerfully appealing to fiscally beleagured states.

As always, nothing breeds success quite like success.

Out West, where states first made medical and recreational marijuana legal, the resulting tax money has been a boon for the state and local governments.

Earlier today, Governor Jay Inslee signed that big "omnibus bill" of pot laws that cleared the Washington legislature last month. The omnibus bill combined more than a dozen different legal changes to cannabis law in our state, including forward progress on legalizing growing pot at home and creating the country’s first state-run organic certification program for weed.

Recreational marijuana sales and taxes were included in Oregon’s quarterly Economic and Revenue Forecast for the first time. The report came out Tuesday and projects an upward trend for marijuana revenue.  

Even though voters passed the measure legalizing recreational marijuana in 2014, sales didn’t actually begin until October of the following year. With a limited amount of data, the Office of Economic Analysis drew on numbers from states that legalized recreational marijuana before Oregon did.

California voters may have spoken on recreational marijuana in November, but rather than settling the issue, that vote has set the stage for several local battles over whether to allow marijuana operations.

Because Proposition 64 passed last fall, state licensing to marijuana businesses is slated to begin Jan. 1, 2018 — though local jurisdictions have the power to forbid them in their boundaries.

That has teed up a new set of pot-related efforts, from a group seeking to overturn the County Board of Supervisors’ ban to cities softening their stances on marijuana in the face of voter petition drives.

Surna, Inc., a manufacturer of a proprietary line of optimized lighting, environmental control and air sanitation systems for state-regulated cannabis cultivation facilities as well as traditional indoor agricultural facilities ("Surna" or the "Company") (OTCQB: SRNA), announced today operating and financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2017.  The Company will not be hosting a conference call following the release of its financial results.

Results of Operations