If there's one thing as surprising as the fact that outsider newcomers have outpaced establishment veterans in the Republican presidential race so far, it's that the contest is playing out in a state that has legalized marijuana.

After all the law enforcement expenditures and jail time meted out in America's war on drugs in recent decades, the political system has begun a turn — on overhauling the criminal justice system for nonviolent offenders, and on the legal status of marijuana. Colorado became the first state to legalize weed, but debate over the issue has spread across the country, and into the GOP race.

SEATTLE – Seattle city officials say 56 of 120 medical marijuana dispensaries have voluntarily closed since mid-September.

The city's Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) department handles the enforcement.

"We're trying to get you to be in compliance and if you can't get on the legal path, you just need to close," said William Edwards, who is the department's Director of Enforcement.

The FAS said it sent letter to all non-Initiative-502 marijuana businesses in August, informing them of the city's new ordinance.

Some of the city's criteria includes paying all applicable taxes, possessing a Seattle business license before 2013, and applying to the state cannabis board for a license.

TAMPA, Fla., Oct 22, 2015 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- In a historic week for the North American cannabis industry, Canada elected Justin Trudeau as prime minister after his repeated campaign promises to legalize adult-use cannabis in the country—good news for 

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Not in my neighborhood, that is what many central Phoenix residents are saying to a medical marijuana dispensary that wants to set up shop in Phoenix.

Some residents are opposed to a dispensary opening up in the heart of Phoenix near 32nd Street and Shea. There's a high school less than a mile away, homes, and a park about a 1/4 mile away. It meets the city's spacing requirements by a few hundred feet, but neighbors are still saying the business belongs somewhere else.

"I'm afraid for the kids because it's close to here, and they have access to those kinds of places, I don't agree with that," said Maria Haiele.

For example, Americans who are aged 65 through 79 today - born between 1936 and 1950 - are more supportive of making marijuana legal in 2015 than those born in the same years were 15, 30 and 46 years ago.

As the poll notes, support among young Americans, ages 18 to 34, has always been higher than others.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has asked a federal judge in Denver to dismiss a lawsuit by a credit union asking a judge to force its hand and charter a bank for marijuana businesses, saying that would be "criminal."

"Even transporting or transmitting funds known to have been derived from the distribution of marijuana is illegal," said a motion filed Wednesday by the Federal Reserve in U.S. District Court in Denver.

The motion came in a lawsuit filed by Fourth Corner Credit Union, which was set up last year to serve Colorado's $700-million-a-year marijuana industry. It can't open without clearance from the Federal Reserve.

The government's motion says it does not intend to accept a penny connected to the sale of pot because the drug remains illegal under federal law.

The number of US adults using marijuana doubled between 2001 and 2013, as have the number of adults who are victim to marijuana dependence and abuse, according to a study published Wednesday in the JAMA Psychiatry, an American Medical Association publication. 

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that he is open to the legalization of marijuana during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC.

The senator from Vermont, who is competing against Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, said he wants to learn from the experiences of Colorado and other states that have legalized recreational pot use.

But, Sanders said: “I am not unfavorably disposed to moving toward the legalization of marijuana.”

“We have more people in jail today than any other country on earth,” Sanders told Kimmel. “We have large numbers of lives that have been destroyed because of this war on drugs, and because people were caught smoking marijuana and so forth. I think we have got to end the war on drugs.”

CHARLESTON, West Virginia — With his eye on multiple conflicts across the globe, President Obama traveled to the capital of West Virginia on Wednesday afternoon (Oct. 21) to talk about a different kind of war: the battle against addiction.

“This crisis is taking lives,” said Obama at the beginning of an hour-long community conversation about the impact of prescription drug abuse in West Virginia and across the nation. “It’s destroying families, shattering lives across the country … white, black, Hispanic, young, old, rich, poor, urban, suburban … One of the problems is too many families suffer in silence.”