The top moving destination in 2014 was Oregon, which voted to legalize marijuana last November.

When choosing retirement locales, a few factors pop to mind: climate, amenities, proximity to grandchildren, access to quality healthcare.

Chris Cooper had something else to consider – marijuana laws.

The investment adviser from Toledo had long struggled with back pain due to a fractured vertebra and crushed disc from a fall. He hated powerful prescription drugs like Vicodin, but one thing did help ease the pain and spasms: marijuana.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Andrew Collins no longer has a cocktail of 17 prescriptions coursing through his body.

The Army combat veteran stared death in the face while serving two tours of Iraq in the 2000s. He now battles post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his wartime experiences.

The Olympia veteran has tried medications, meditation and hypnosis while adapting to the stresses of life in the civilian world. But more than any other treatment, Collins says marijuana has helped him cope with the psychological trauma he carries around — trauma that at times has filled his head with aggression and suicidal thoughts.

“I smoke a joint and the thoughts are gone,” said Collins, 30.

In Washington state, where recreational marijuana use is legal, drivers will soon be required to remove roaches from their motor coaches.

A new state law, House Bill 1276, will update the state's open container laws for vehicles to include marijuana. The law stipulates that marijuana, like alcohol, must be kept in the trunk of a vehicle, in an unopened container, or in another part of the passenger cabin "not normally occupied or directly accessible by" the driver or passengers.

The law, signed by Governor Jay Inslee on June 30, will take effect September 26.

The law also restores the state's ability to automatically suspend a driver's license if a blood test reveals the driver to be under the influence of marijuana, The Associated Press reports.

Amy Zimmerman's left calf was covered in second-degree burns after a Memorial Day campfire accident. To help heal the burns, she applied a medicinal salve made with hash oil.

The results were better than she had expected.

"My doctor was impressed, saying, 'What did you use?'" She flashed her calf, its new skin pink and glistening. Just a little bit of oil goes a long way, she said, "but it's an extract from a plant. That's all it is."

Hash oil is an extract of the marijuana plant, and it's highly concentrated. Just like marijuana itself, hash oil can be smoked or ingested, or as Zimmerman's wound demonstrated, rubbed into the skin.

BELLINGHAM — A medical marijuana business is looking to plant seeds on Williams Way.

Beacon Compassion Center, one of the 50 new medical marijuana dispensary applicants that filed paperwork with the state in late June, will meet with the Board of Selectmen Monday on its plans to grow and process medical marijuana here.

President Rina Cametti and Executive Director Steve Angelo of Walpole hope to grow marijuana for three dispensaries, including one in Framingham, out of a 34,000-square-foot warehouse in the Williams Way industrial park.

Cametti and Angelo met with the Board of Health recently and will meet with selectmen seeking a letter of support.

Cannabis candies, concentrates, tinctures, e-cigs and top shelf grows: marijuana retail products are exploding and prices are coming down in pot shops. The customer base is broadening too.

“We’re getting lots of tourists, lots of locals, lots of medical marijuana patients,” said Kyle Regan a manager at Uncle Ike’s recreational pot shop in Seattle. “When we first opened, we had the older crowd, forty and up, coming in,” he said, but now that prices have gone down the store is seeing more twenty-somethings as well.

High-school stoner looking to score weed or undercover agent? 

As Heidi mentioned in Morning News, minors in Washington State seem about as likely to get away with buying legal weed as buying beer from a supermarket.

Yesterday, the Washington State Liquor Control Board announced that 19 of the state's 157 recreational marijuana stores had sold to underage, undercover buyers—an 87.9 percent compliance rate, which is roughly the same as the state's rate of underage alcohol sales. (Underage sales of illegal drugs, of course, have a zero percent compliance rate.)

It’s been five months since marijuana was legalized in D.C., and now there’s a public opportunity to show off, if you’ve been letting that liberty take root.

The Seattle City Council approved a plan to shut down medical marijuana businesses that have opened since January 2013.

Green cross signs will become more scarce in Seattle under a plan adopted by the City Council Monday.

The city will force medical-marijuana businesses that opened Jan. 1, 2013, or later to shut down by next July as part of a new licensing plan proposed by Mayor Ed Murrayand approved by the council in a unanimous vote.

A rash of new medical-marijuana shops have opened since the start of 2013, just after voters legalized adult possession of an ounce or less of pot through Initiative 502.

Many states are facing numerous deadlines for legislation, but the marijuana movement keeps progressing through it all. A major cannabis banking bill is making waves, Alaska’s recreational lawmakers just released regulations, and Chile is on the verge of decriminalization. To top it off, Crimean authorities just discovered an island covered for miles with cannabis, as far as the eye can see. We’ve got the latest in cannabis legalization updates – are you in the know?

U.S. Cannabis Updates

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