In the fight to gain access to medical marijuana for her 4-year-old son, Logan, who suffers up to 10 seizures a day because of epilepsy, Gail Rand put herself at the heart of the debate, starting at the opening gavel of the 90-day session when she was on hand to lobby House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller.

Colorado expects to bring in an estimated $98 million in revenue this year, exceeding the state’s original expectations by 40 percent. Moody’s Investors Service, in a report released Friday, said legal sales in Colorado will reduce the size of the black market and revenue from legal sales will mean more tax payments flowing into state coffers.

The issue of legalizing medical marijuana will be debated at the next Village Square program of the Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions at St. Petersburg College. The program, “Medical Marijuana: Is Florida Going to Pot?” will be held from 6 to 8:15 p.m. Thursday in the Conference Center of the Seminole campus, at 9200 113th St. N.

With the question of legalizing medical marijuana heading to Florida voters on the Nov. 4 ballot, entrepreneurs are popping up in an effort to get in on the ground floor of the movement. Eighteen companies have registered with the state this year, positioning to take advantage of a boom.

After a year of requests, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday it is giving Washington state access to a FBI database, so it can conduct nationwide background checks on people who apply to run legal marijuana businesses.

Tax revenues from Colorado’s medical and recreational marijuana sales in February increased from the previous month. Colorado collected $3.2 million in February, below the state’s projection but slightly above the $2.9 million it gathered in January.

Weeks after a state senator introduced a bill that would make the sale and possession of marijuana legal in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie emphasized today that he is opposed to any effort to legalize pot in the state.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder faced tough questioning from the House Judiciary Committee this week about the federal government’s marijuana stance. The committee specifically pressed Holder on marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I controlled substance, a designation assigned to drugs with no medical value and prone to abuse.

Republican Rep. Pat Garofalo of Farmington was hoping to attach an amendment that would legalize medical marijuana to a separate health bill. But that bill has been pulled from the docket until after the Legislature’s break that begins the next day.

State lawmakers must decide how to spend tax revenue from recreational marijuana sales, however revenue estimates are now being revised. “The projection was $67 million, now there have been some questions about whether that projection is going to stay true or not,” said Rep. Chrisanta Duran, D-Denver.

Uruguay’s drug czar Julio Calzada told The Associated Press on Tuesday that any prisoner with doctors’ orders will be prescribed marijuana to improve their  physical or mental health.

Anyone who suffers from springtime allergies knows the misery of battling it out with pollen, grasses and ragweed, but there is one other culprit the sneezing and wheezing stoners of the world may have failed to consider: marijuana.

Medical marijuana supporters flocked to Capitol Hill to push for legislation prohibiting the federal government from restricting state medical marijuana laws. Has no one pointed out the 10th Amendment to these people? The federal government isn’t adhering to the part of the Constitution that already prohibits them, what good will legislation do?

A study published by the online journal PLOS One suggests that the substitution of marijuana for alcohol, assuming it happens, could affect crime rates as well as car crashes.

California lawmakers want to bust marijuana users for DUI, even when they are not stoned. A recent proposal introduced in the state legislature would make it illegal for an individual to operate a motor vehicle with even a small trace of a controlled substance in their bloodstream.

Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, the attorney general has the authority to “remove any drug or other substance from the schedules if he finds that the drug or other substance does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any schedule.” Holder indicated he would not be willing to do that unilaterally.

Ladybud raises serious concerns about how the marketing of Hemp-Derived CBD is being conducted. “The whole topic has caused a huge deal of conflict in the Medical Cannabis community, with many pertinent questions hotly debated and largely unanswered.”

Los Angeles’ finance office says 457 pot shops have filed renewals to pay taxes this year, three times as many as are allowed to stay open under Proposition D but more than 1,100 medical marijuana collectives are actively registered.

Marijuana is becoming increasingly more acceptable in the United States, with the majority of Americans willing to allow a legal pot commerce to operate in their hometown. However, the catch is — they are not sure about weed being sold in their backyard.

At the Leaf, Jeremy Daw makes a good point about the decision of Starbucks to choose to go with the more destructive choice of drug, alcohol. “There is an alternative. Instead of serving booze, Starbucks could consider making hash lattes.”