The city of Seattle has issued the first violation notices to medical marijuana businesses since Mayor Ed Murray and council members announced an initiative to regulate the industry.

Already, there is some resistance.

City attorney Pete Holmes says of the first eight businesses to receive notices, three shop owners are taking the city to court. That may signal a long, tough fight ahead for the effort to close shops that don't comply with new city and state laws.

House Bill 5052, approved by state lawmakers, requires medical marijuana businesses to close if they opened after January 2013. These newer businesses must be issued notices of violation and close by July 2016.

Potlines is an app that will send users an alert as to differing state marijuana laws.

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2015 – Marijuana is already legal for medical and recreational use in the District of Columbia. Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Colorado also allow recreational use and possession of cannabis.

Twenty-three states from Maine to California allow medical marijuana use. But if you are taking a road trip from the NorthEastern shore to Southern California, there are a lot of states in between where marijuana is still illegal.

The laws are constantly changing and  the laws for use and possession in those states is not uniform.

And ignorance of the law is not a legal defense.

During their trial at the federal courthouse in Spokane last March, Rhonda Firestack-Harvey and her two fellow defendants—her son, Rolland Gregg, and his wife, Michelle Gregg—were not allowed to explain why they were openly growing marijuana on a plot in rural northeastern Washington marked by a big green cross that was visible from the air. According to a pretrial ruling, it was irrelevant that they were using marijuana for medical purposes, as permitted by state law, since federal law recognizes no legitimate use for the plant.

Almost 11 months into the legalization of marijuana, data is starting to roll in about Washington state’s progress with the new industry and now the laws that put the industry in play are starting to evolve. In addition to the state’s revenue estimate, the revised law includes proposed amendments to both the taxes of the recreational market and the entire structure of the medical marijuana industry.

As of now, there are essentially three marijuana markets in Washington state: the recreational market, the medical market and the illegal black market. While it is difficult to measure the cost and size of the black market due to its very nature, the prices for marijuana have consistently lowered throughout the past year.

Almost 11 months into the legalization of marijuana, data is starting to roll in about Washington state’s progress with the new industry and now the laws that put the industry in play are starting to evolve. In addition to the state’s revenue estimate, the revised law includes proposed amendments to both the taxes of the recreational market and the entire structure of the medical marijuana industry.

As of now, there are essentially three marijuana markets in Washington state: the recreational market, the medical market and the illegal black market. While it is difficult to measure the cost and size of the black market due to its very nature, the prices for marijuana have consistently lowered throughout the past year.

Almost 11 months into the legalization of marijuana, data is starting to roll in about Washington state’s progress with the new industry and now the laws that put the industry in play are starting to evolve. In addition to the state’s revenue estimate, the revised law includes proposed amendments to both the taxes of the recreational market and the entire structure of the medical marijuana industry.

As of now, there are essentially three marijuana markets in Washington state: the recreational market, the medical market and the illegal black market. While it is difficult to measure the cost and size of the black market due to its very nature, the prices for marijuana have consistently lowered throughout the past year.

A majority of doctors would approve the use of medical marijuana, according to a new survey.

"We were surprised by the outcome of polling and comments, with 76 percent of all votes in favor of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes -- even though marijuana use is illegal in most countries," the survey's authors wrote.

The results appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 30. It included responses from 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries and 56 different states and provinces in North America. In addition, 118 doctors posted comments about their decision on the survey.

SEATTLE -- Steve McNalley was in his usual spot last Tuesday, hunched over a stainless steel workbench as he used a pipette to carefully filter particulates such as waxes and plant membranes from pulverized marijuana across a row of test tubes and vials at Analytical 360 labs in Seattle. His samples had already succumbed to microscopic imaging and at least 24 hours of dehydration.

Next, the concentrated marijuana will undergo high-performance liquid chromatography to determine its potency for compounds including THC, the ingredient that causes the sensation of being high.

Overall revenue within the I-502 State-legal Cannabis market continues to steadily increase in a largely consistent (linear) fashion, driven largely by the ever-increasing number of Retail stores licensed by the LCB (154, as of May 18 … with approximately 140 actually open for business). Should the LCB continue to grant retail licenses at the current rate, all 334 allocated stores should be licensed by May 15, 2016.

UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. — The U.S. Open is coming to Chambers Bay in just three weeks, and it means a big boost to our local economy. Local pot shops see the opportunity as well.

With the U.S. Open set to begin on June 15, the greens on Chambers Bay aren`t the only ones getting ready — so are the ones ‘World of Weed’ will soon stock in its shelves.

“We were really pushing to get open for the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay,” said Alden Linn, general manger of World of Weed, a retail pot store expected to open next week.

Retail marijuana stores are one of the many industries expecting to cash in the week of the U.S. Open Championship, a topic Tacoma city leaders even mentioned in an April study session.