Last month, Sports Authority and Aeropostale became the latest major retailers to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announce store closures.

“Gardening is one of the single biggest acts of protest for consumerism.” – Dragonfly Earth Medicine

As the marijuana movement gains momentum nationwide, more stories in the media are drawing attention to the fact that our precious greens are in reality, not so green.

Dragonfly Earth Medicine (DEM) is here to set the standard for sustainability with their Pure Certification, and the standard is being set sky-high.

Leslie and Mark Olson are law partners, entrepreneurs, and as of 2014, founders and owners of Quincy Green, a cannabis farm in a picturesque part of Eastern Washington state that gets 300 days of sun per year. Mark is also a third generation farm owner, so the business fit may sound ideal, but the couple is using every skill they have to steer around the pitfalls and falling prices of their nascent industry.

Marijuana sales in Washington continue to rise nearly two years after recreational marijuana became legal in the state.

Sales just passed $1 billion in May and retailers do not expect sales to slow down.

"It's about a revolution,” Salesman Devon Swanson said. “It's about taking it to that next level."

Swanson was not surprised when he heard about how high marijuana sales have gotten. He said more and more people are trying pot now that it is legal and it customer base keeps growing.

"They see as something that they can learn more about and it's fun for them," Swanson said.

More sales also means more competition. There have been at least six new retail stores that have been opened since Fall 2015.

A University of Washington study concluded about 30 football fields worth of marijuana are needed to serve the medical marijuana market in Washington. That translates to about two million square feet of canopy.

Currently, more than 12 million square feet are approved for production.

The study was commissioned by the state’s Liquor and Cannabis Board and released Thursday showed there’s plenty of marijuana growing in Washington state to serve both recreational users and medical patients. And the state is not accepting license applications for any more producers.

The marijuana industry stormed Capitol Hill Thursday in a push for legalization, and they're continuing their efforts today.

The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) is demanding marijuana legalization, tax cuts and banking access as part of a fly-in lobbying day with some 150 pot business owners.

The pot business owners will speak with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in an effort to build momentum for marijuana-related amendments in government spending bills.

Through a new licensing agreement between two Washington-based companies, cannabis-infused sugar and salt can make its way to the state's recreational retail marijuana market.

Seattle-based DeepCell Industries developed a technology to fuse THC from marijuana with crystals, like salt and sugar. Now, Green Labs, a licensed producer/processor in Raymond, have inked a deal to manufacture and distribute DeepCell's brands.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

On May 6, 2016, the Washington State Department of Health announced that it had reviewed and approved two programs for medical marijuana consultant training, with both programs ready to register students.

NGR Enterprises, based in Seattle, is offering in-person training for its Washington Medical Marijuana Certification Program, which is a 20-hour program with a course fee of $379.00

Cannabis consumers are turning to more discreet concentrates and oils.

Smoking pot will soon be as retro as smoking a cigar or enjoying a fine wine.

As the legal market for marijuana expands, product offerings have diversified from the standard dried flowers and cannabis-infused edible items like cookies and gummy bears to vaporizable oils and concentrates. They have become a major portion of legal marijuana sales, allowing consumers more potent and less overt forms of consumption. “Patients don’t want to be stigmatized or ostracized, they don’t want to be obvious,” says Rob Hunt, a general partner at cannabis-focused private-equity firm Tuatara Capital. “It’s important for people to have alternative forms of consumption, to consume in a way that’s anonymous.”

Six states that allow marijuana use legal tests to determine driving while impaired by the drug that have no scientific basis, according to a study by the nation's largest automobile club that calls for scrapping those laws.

The study commissioned by AAA's safety foundation said it's not possible to set a blood-test threshold for THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high, that can reliably determine impairment.

Yet the laws in five of the six states automatically presume a driver guilty if that person tests higher than the limit, and not guilty if it's lower.

As a result, drivers who are unsafe may be going free while others may be wrongly convicted, the foundation said.