• Boom in Bitcoin Adoption by Marijuana Dispensaries

    Boom in Bitcoin Adoption by Marijuana Dispensaries

    The usage of Bitcoin ATMs and vending machines could increase among marijuana dispensaries, predicts Green Rush Review. In its recent promotional press release, the medical marijuana news website blamed the absence of proper banking infrastructure as one of the major reasons why cannabis businesses would move towards other bankable options such as Bitcoin. It said:
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  • Denver officials trying to shut down about 60 marijuana growing co-ops

    Denver officials trying to shut down about 60 marijuana growing co-ops

    DENVER – Denver officials may shut down dozens of pot-growing collectives scattered across the city. Officials say they’re trying to shut down about 60 collective growing operations. The collectives are advertised as places to grow pot for people who can’t or don’t want to grow them at home. Many are not permitted by landlords or
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  • Special report, ‘Clearing the Haze:’ Black market is thriving in Colorado

    Special report, ‘Clearing the Haze:’ Black market is thriving in Colorado

    A shrinking black market for marijuana was among the biggest benefits Colorado would realize from legalizing and regulating the drug, proponents of Amendment 64 promised in the months leading up to the state’s historic decision to sanction pot’s recreational use.  After the first year of recreational pot sales, The Gazette takes a comprehensive look at
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  • Seahawks fans abuzz over super strain of marijuana

    Seahawks fans abuzz over super strain of marijuana

    WHILE THE Seahawks play in the Super Bowl, fans who live in Washington State can smoke a super bowl. Washington, where weed in legal, already has a strain of pot named “Beast Mode 2.0” after Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch. Now, a company named Solstice is busy hand-rolling joints for its new “12th Pack” product,
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  • Pot spray promises women better sex

    Pot spray promises women better sex

    ASPEN, Colo. — Marijuana as an aphrodisiac? That’s the promise behind a new pot spray.  It’s called “Foria” as in “euphoria” and it’s sold in perfume-like spray bottles. It made its Colorado debut in Aspen during the Winter X-Games last week at Native Roots Apothecary. The first 100 customers were allowed to buy a ten
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  • Tax law quirk means pot may pay off for Coloradans literally

    Tax law quirk means pot may pay off for Coloradans literally

    DENVER Colorado’s marijuana experiment was designed to raise revenue for the state and its schools, but a state law may put some of the tax money directly into residents’ pockets, causing quite a headache for lawmakers. The state constitution limits how much tax money the state can take in before it has to give some
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  • Pitching Marijuana Startups Brings New Meaning to High Tech

    Pitching Marijuana Startups Brings New Meaning to High Tech

    Investing in a social network closely tied to a booming industry sounds great, until Apple kicks the thing you invested in out of the App Store because the platform is all about marijuana. It’s one of the many things that can happen when two of the fastest growing industries in America come together, as is
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  • These 7 weed startups are the toke of the town

    These 7 weed startups are the toke of the town

    When Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund dropped a fat bag of cash into cannabis private equity firm Privateer Holdings, the whole industry exhaled a puff of excitement and hope. Finally, venture capital was beginning to take the industry seriously. But of course, cannabis-loving entrepreneurs have been around since before that, and they’ve spawned plenty of startups.
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  • Marijuana a performance-enhancing drug?

    Marijuana a performance-enhancing drug?

    Perhaps. The Business Times this week rounds up some of the evidence in support of cannabis use by athletes. In November, Men’s Journal interviewed elite triathlete Clifford Drusinsky who said cannabis relaxes him and allows him to focus. Other athletes report it helps with the boredom of repetitive training. Outside Magazine correspondent Gordy Megroztested the
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  • California Tribe Building $10 Million Indoor Pot-Growing Facility

    California Tribe Building $10 Million Indoor Pot-Growing Facility

    A month after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said it did not have an objection, in principle, to Indian tribes growing marijuana on their trust-held land, Mendocino, California’s Pinoleville Pomo Nation (pdf) announced it was building a $10-million greenhouse facility on its 99-acre rancheria in Ukiah. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat said county officials
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  • Marijuana news: New report says legal pot could mean millions in revenue for Vermont

    Marijuana news: New report says legal pot could mean millions in revenue for Vermont

    Vermont could bring in millions in tax revenue if it legalizes marijuana but only if if the drug remained illegal in nearby states, a new study commissioned by the state concluded. The Rand Corporation’s 218-page report on what legalization might mean for the New England state was released Friday. The report, which does not make
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  • Investors Put More Than $100 Million Into the Marijuana Industry Over the Past Two Years

    Investors Put More Than $100 Million Into the Marijuana Industry Over the Past Two Years

    It looks like investors have gotten a serious case of the munchies. During the past two fiscal years, investors spent $104.5 million to gobble up stakes in cannabis and cannabis-related companies, according to research firm CB Insights. In 2014, funding in the industry grew a whopping 941.5 percent. The biggest news in the space hit last week, when Peter Thiel’s
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  • Pot Sellers Lobby Against Medical Marijuana in Washington State

    Pot Sellers Lobby Against Medical Marijuana in Washington State

    Washington state’s first recreational marijuana stores opened last July, the culmination of a broad-based and long effort to legalize the drug. In 1998 voters passed a ballot initiative offering pot smokers legal protection against prosecution if they had a doctor’s note saying they needed the drug for medical reasons. A legal loophole let marijuana dispensaries
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  • The cannabis queens of Beverly Hills: Mother and daughter who have built business empire from medicinal marijuana

    The cannabis queens of Beverly Hills: Mother and daughter who have built business empire from medicinal marijuana

    No you’re not high. These Ferrari-driving, diamond-wearing businesswomen are the so-called Queens of Cannabis. Cheryl Shuman, 54, entered the world of marijuana in a desperate attempt to treat ovarian, colon and bladder cancer. Seven years later, now in remission, she and her daughter Aimee have become the poster girls for spreading the drug’s acceptance across
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  • Marijuana CEOs Face Invalidation of Contracts Until Congress Acts

    Marijuana CEOs Face Invalidation of Contracts Until Congress Acts

    NEW YORK (MainStreet) — When Rent Rite Super Kegs West Limited filed for bankruptcy in Denver in 2012, the supplier of production materials and nutrients was denied protection by Federal Judge Howard Tallman because it was a marijuana-related business. “Federal law trumps state law,” said Bob Hoban, a cannabis attorney in Denver. “In any federal court,
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  • Happy 710 Meaning: Twitter Trends ‘Dab Day’ On ‘New Stoner Holiday’

    Happy 710 Meaning: Twitter Trends ‘Dab Day’ On ‘New Stoner Holiday’

    On July 10 — aka 7/10, 7:10, or 710 — “Happy 710” trended on Twitter when users began discussing the new, informal annual marijuana-related holiday en masse. The holiday was created to recognize the popularity of “dabs,” the slang term for high-THC concentrates and oils, according to High Times. So where does the name 710 come from?
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  • Berkeley Dispensaries Must Give Free Weed to Low-Income Patients

    Berkeley Dispensaries Must Give Free Weed to Low-Income Patients

    In a landmark decision to serve the underprivileged of the East Bay, the Berkeley City Council UNANIMOUSLY voted last week to provide small amounts of free medical marijuana to low-income and homeless patients. Whoa. According to the new ordinance, dispensaries in the area must give away weed equal to at least 2 percent of their
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  • Colorado law sets up world’s first marijuana banks

    Colorado law sets up world’s first marijuana banks

    DENVER — Seeking to move marijuana businesses away from cash-only operations, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed legislation Friday that tries to establish the world’s first financial system for the newly legal industry in Colorado. + caption The legislation seeks to form a network of uninsured cooperatives designed to give pot businesses a way to access basic
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  • No industrial hemp in Nebraska this year

    No industrial hemp in Nebraska this year

    Legislators earlier this year passed a bill allowing the cultivation of industrial hemp for research, but Nebraska’s nickname as the Cornhusker State is safe for the time being, as state officials work on regulations that will allow the fibrous plant to make the leap from weed to crop. The Nebraska Department of Agriculture — which
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  • Uruguay’s José Mujica: the ‘humble’ leader with grand ideas

    Uruguay’s José Mujica: the ‘humble’ leader with grand ideas

    For many years he would go to bed early listening to what ants whispered in his ear. Sometimes he would chat with a frog or two, maybe share a hunk of bread with some rats. José Mujica, aka Pépé, is a survivor from a world he himself wiped off the map. A former leader of the
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