Economic development package from city of Pueblo for joint venture between O.penVape and Thar Process Inc. includes $4.89 million in help retrofitting long-vacant Boeing rocket plant for hemp oil extraction

A defunct Boeing rocket plant in Pueblo will be converted into a hemp oil production facility that will employ 163 people by 2018, Pueblo Economic Development Corp. said Friday.

The jobs are expected to pay an average of $41,590 plus benefits. This is the biggest jobs announcement by PEDCO since 2008, when Vestas said it would hire 450 people, the Pueblo Chieftain reported.

BOSTON/SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Two groups that had backed competing ballot initiatives to make recreational use of marijuana legal in Maine agreed on Monday to join forces on one measure to put before voters in 2016.

The state is one of six where competing pro-marijuana groups hope to hold referendums on marijuana legalization in 2016, following 2012 votes that legalized the drug in Colorado and Oregon. Attitudes about marijuana in the United States have changed markedly since then, as voters in Washington, Alaska and the District of Columbia have followed suit. Voters in Ohio will weigh in on legalization next month.

WASHINGTON (Oct. 26, 2015) -- A new study found strokes in young adults who use marijuana are more likely to be caused by stenosis, narrowing of the arteries, in the skull than strokes in non-users.

Previous studies have found an association between marijuana use and stroke, but the new study published today as a research letter in the Nov. 3 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology is the first to explore differences in stroke in marijuana users and non-users, an approach that can help researchers begin to identify possible mechanisms for stroke in users.

AUKEGAN, Ill. — A judge in Lake County has dismissed a lawsuit that claimed a Denver consultant was highly involved in too many Illinois medical marijuana growing facilities.

Judge Mitchell L. Hoffman last week ordered the complaint against Kayvan Khalatbari (KAY’-vohn Kahl-aht-BAR’-ee) dismissed “with prejudice,” a legal term that generally means the plaintiff can’t file the same complaint again.

Khalatbari is a co-founder of Denver Relief, which has retail and cultivation operations in Colorado and offers consulting services in other states.

Hemp based products are making breakthroughs in modern medicine – for humans and pets. Cities and states are beginning to legalize the sale of these products, and it’s only a matter of time before they are legalized in every part of the United States. Still, many people are finding it difficult to separate the illegal stigma of marijuana use from the healing benefits of hemp based products. One company is looking to change that.

Colorado’s marijuana businesses are having a hard time creating a bank. The Federal Reserve said that because the substance is federally banned they don’t want to work with the money involved with it. Now a hopeful Colorado credit union stands as a vacant building while the reefer industry shakes its head.  Andrew Freedman, director of marijuana coordination for Colorado was feeling very frustrated saying:   

“We tried to do the most with the building blocks of instructions they sent us, set up the most rigorous solution. And we still are left with confusion.”

With the marijuana business ballooning into a $3 billion powerhouse almost overnight, more politicians have begun to court the industry’s campaign contributions.

Four states and the District of Columbia have already legalized marijuana and 23 other states have eased restrictions signaling the nation is ready for a change. The question remains how powerful will the industry eventually become and what influence will they be able to muster?

Already, politicians have been forced to take public stances on marijuana, a drug still classified as Schedule 1 by the federal government and therefore of no redeeming value.

The marijuana entrepreneurs of Colorado will not have a special bank to call their own — unless a federal judge intervenes on their side.

The designated guardians of the U.S. banking system — the Federal Reserve — has declined to accept so much as a red cent that can be traced back to weed, because according to federal law, marijuana is a Schedule 1 narcotic.

Weirdly, the Treasury Department seems less concerned about that part. The Fourth Corner Credit Union (the bank that suffered a denial in Colorado) was designed using rules issued by the Treasury last year for how banks can accept drug money from states where those drugs are legal. Fourth Corner was chartered specifically to service the state’s $700 million a year industry and create a safe place to bank for it.

Among the decisions Colorado voters will make in voting that ends Nov. 3 is how to allocate $66 million collected from retail marijuana taxes.

If voters approve Proposition BB — the Colorado Marijuana TABOR Refund Measure — the state retains the money. If it is rejected, the revenue will be refunded to the marijuana industry and taxpayers.

The state estimates each taxpayer would receive about $8.

Under Article X of the Colorado Constitution — generally referred to as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights — voters must ratify any new taxes.

The song “Cat’s in the Cradle” plays softly in the background as a white-bearded Eric Zeid unscrews the lid of a glass jar filled with marijuana.

Zeid is sitting behind his desk at his medical dispensary Swinging Bridges in Alger. He’s giving a consultation to disabled Navy veteran Jamie Bussiere.

“How are you today, my friend?” Zeid asks Bussiere.

Bussiere suffers from neck pain and arthritis. He smokes marijuana to ease the pain and prefers it to prescription drugs.

Medical marijuana has been legal in the state since 1998. Unlike recreational marijuana, which was legalized in 2012, medical marijuana is unregulated.

That’s about to change.