Someday this will be a case study in business schools: the creation of a marijuana franchise starting with a lone store in a cute Victorian house on Main Street in Breckenridge. For viewers beyond Colorado, “High Profits” on CNN, an eight-part docu-series premiering April 19, may seem an outrageous curiosity. For locals accustomed to media scrutiny of the state’s legalized recreational weed industry, it’s just one more reality TV effort, hyped for suspense.

The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States (CARERS) Act seems to be moving forward in congress as more and more lawmakers respond to the public's growing support for marijuana legalization.

On Tuesday, the CARERS Act gained supporters from both sides of the isle in congress as several new cosponsors signed on.

Growing Support

Representatives Steve Cohen and Don Young introduced the bill to the house last week to what Cohen says was a positive reception.

On Tuesday, Cohen issued a statement saying that both parties are in agreement that federal marijuana legislation needs reform.

So far, the bill has garnered support from six Republicans and six Democrats in the Senate.

Reclassifying Marijuana

Arrests for possessing, growing and distributing pot have dropped significantly in Colorado since the state legalized marijuana in 2012, but black Coloradans are still far more likely to be arrested for such charges than whites. Although the number of overall marijuana arrests has plunged by 95 percent since 2010, the rate of arrests for blacks in the state remains 2.4 times higher than for whites, according to a study released last week by the New York City-based Drug Policy Alliance.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The state has refused to loosen up its stringent medical marijuana rules that prohibit the drug from being smoked and only allow it to be used to treat 10 medical conditions.

The state Health Department has issued final regulations after receiving hundreds of comments from the public. The state expects to get its medical marijuana program off the ground next year.

"Expanding the initial set of regulations would have subjected the State to unnecessary scrutiny and jeopardized the program's ability to move forward in any meaningful manner," the health department said.

Robert Grandt worked in the grow room at 3D Cannabis Center in Denver last month. Hefty taxes on recreational marijuana have generated millions in state revenue. 

DENVER — In the State Capitol, they are calling it Refund Madness.

A year after Colorado became the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales, millions of tax dollars are rolling in, dedicated to funding school construction, marijuana education campaigns and armies of marijuana inspectors and regulators. But a legal snarl may force the state to hand that money back to marijuana consumers, growers and the public — and lawmakers do not want to.

In the days and days and days of testimony at the Aaron Hernandez murder trial, there have been moments that presumably fit into the prosecution or defense somehow, but are interesting on their own.

Like the revelation on Wednesday that Hernandez "chain smoked" marijuana, sometimes up to an ounce a day. That is a lot of pot.

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — It appears that the DEA will stop at nothing to slow down and frustrate medical marijuana reform. That said, the latest "health warning" from the agency, this time in Utah, borders on the bizarre.

Special Agent Matt Fairbanks, a member of Utah's DEA marijuana eradication team, told a state panel of lawmakers in early March that stoned bunnies pose a major threat to public safety and as a result, should impede the current cannabis legalization initiative now the table in the state authorizing medical use for specific conditions.

A year after the federal government approved a study for the use of marijuana by veterans in treating post-traumatic stress disorder the work may at last get underway.

The National Institute of Drug Abuse on Wednesday informed the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies that it is ready to supply researchers with marijuana needed for the study, Brad Burge, spokesman for MAPS, told Military.com.

The study will mark the first federally approved study in which the subjects will be able to ingest the marijuana by smoking it, he said. It will also be "the first whole-plant marijuana study," meaning the marijuana will not simply be an extract of the cannabis in a manufactured delivery system, such as a pill.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The fact that there's money to be made in the marijuana business is nothing new, but the idea that it can be made legally is a novel concept.

At an undisclosed location on the city's West Side, criminal attorney Matthew Herman is looking to cash in on the growing tolerance of marijuana, legally and socially. And he plans to do it without ever growing a plant.

Herman admits that calling it the "Fort Knox for pot" may be a little over the top, but it coveys the general idea.

A report shows that medical marijuana usage is low over the first 25 months of the program.(Photo: Courier-Post file)

New Jersey is preparing to consider adding conditions that qualify patients for using medical marijuana, Health Commissioner Mary O'Dowd said Wednesday.

She said she will assemble a panel of medical experts to make recommendations.

Under state regulations, the process can start following the release Tuesday of the state's second annual report on its medical cannabis program.