“Have you ever taken a bribe before?”

Legal weed sales numbers keep getting higher and higher.  According to market research group ArcView’s recent reports sales increased to $5.4 billion for 2015 compared to 2014’s $4.6 billion. ArcView’s reports also say U.S. adult-use legal sales grew to $998 million from $351 million in sales in 2014. ArcView projects legal weed sales to top over $20 billion by 2020, which may or may not find us with Kanye for president. (Everyone already knows how he feels about rolling one up.) Late last month Facebook banned gun sales on its site and on Instagram. It’s now going after marijuana dispensaries Facebook pages. 

GW Pharmaceuticals hopes that its big-time spending on medical marijuana research could finally prove worthwhile.

Marijuana drug developer GW Pharmaceuticals plc (NASDAQ:GWPH) is plowing tens of millions of dollars into marijuana research and development every quarter, but trial failures in cancer pain and schizophrenia last year are increasing worry that its efforts will prove futile.

This year, GW Pharmaceuticals expects to report data from a slate of trials evaluating its marijuana drug Epidiolex in epilepsy patients. Can these trials get the company back on track? Read on to find out what's at stake. 

YAKIMA, Wash.--The next move on Yakima's ban on marijuana sales will be addressed by the City Council.

It will be a major topic for the Council as they voted in favor of a resolution to lift the ban a few weeks ago.

Councilwoman Kathy Coffey made the motion to make a new resolution on the ban.

This meeting will also review the City's 2015 strategic priorities year-end report and recognize the service of some longtime firefighters.

The meeting will take place Tuesday at 6 p.m. inside City Hall.

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Db3, a popular cannabis edibles manufacturer in Washington state, is expanding its Zoots brand to Colorado.

Through a partnership with Bronner Corp., based in Denver, Db3 will sell its line of ZootRocks, ZootBlasts, ZootBites and Zootdrops – along with a new medical High Strength line in the Rocky Mountain state.

More than three years after our state’s voters approved the initiative allowing recreational-marijuana stores, West Seattle is finally about to get its first.

The state Liquor and Cannabis Board has just approved the first license for a West Seattle address – 5440 California SW.

The address belongs to an old Craftsman home converted to professional space, and now about to be transformed to retail space. (It’s almost right across the street from the spot where medical marijuana first came to local attention, at 5435 California SW, also the site of a recreational license application.)

Pesticides on your pot? Finally, some answers.

A little over a month ago, two of Washington’s largest cannabis producers were quietly barred from all sales, pending a Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) investigation into illegal use of prohibited pesticides. According to documents obtained by The Stranger, New Leaf Enterprises, makers of the popular Dama line of products, and BMF Washington LLC, whose cannabis is used by brands including Liberty Reach and JuJu Joints, received stop sale orders on December 29 and December 17 of last year, respectively.

OLYMPIA — The Washington State Department of Agriculture would license hemp farmers under a bill that’s ready for a vote by the full Senate.

After several years of frustration, hemp lobbyist Joy Beckerman said Wednesday that she thinks lawmakers and WSDA have found the right way to nurture the cannabis crop.

“This is the responsible route to take,” she said. “Our department of agriculture has gotten impressively sophisticated year by year.”

Last year, Meagan and Brandon Holt’s daughter Maddie, who suffers from a rare and debilitating disease called Zellweger Syndrome, was given only a short time to live, and her family was forced to do what no family can ever imagine – put a 2-year-old in hospice care.

Maddie is deaf and blind, and entirely dependent upon round-the-clock medical care. Prior to being placed in hospice care, Maddie developed life-threatening horrific seizures which sent her health into a downward spiral.

For months, the family administered several prescriptions that were intended to help Maddie. However, none of them seemed to work and, in fact, had a negative impact on her health.

In four states (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington State), retail sales of marijuana are both legal and taxable.  Of these states, Colorado was the first to implement sales and excise taxes on legal marijuana and now has over two years’ experience collecting those taxes.  The state is collecting roughly $90 million in marijuana excise taxes alone each year—an amount short of the $162 million it collects from cigarette taxes, but that far exceeds the $42 million it receives from taxes on alcohol.  When state-level sales taxes, license fees, and application fees are added to the picture, Colorado’s haul from marijuana taxes rises to roughly $130 million per year, with millions more flowing directly to local governments via their own sales taxes on marijuana.