Portland, Oregon is home to one of the best marijuana scenes on the planet, and it’s getting better everyday. There are so many marijuana stores in Portland right now that you can almost drive down any busy street and see multiple marijuana stores. Oregon has always been home to amazing marijuana growers, and now many of those growers are taking their harvests to PDX stores to sell them to the masses. Portland’s City Commissioner Dan Saltzman wants to create a ‘green light district’ in Portland to concentrate marijuana outlets. Per Willamette Week:

Willie Nelson is hoping the “dark ages are finally behind us” in the mission to get marijuana legalised.

The 82-year-old country singing legend has been passionate about decriminalising the drug throughout the United States for years.

And after learning more about the medicinal benefits of marijuana, Willie feels even more enthusiastic about his quest.

“I’m more passionate than ever about this cause,” Willie told Billboard magazine. “I was recently encouraged to read about parents travelling to Colorado and Oregon where they could legally obtain marijuana so that, under a doctor’s care, their children’s seizures could be effectively treated. When it comes to pot, the dark ages may finally be behind us.

Anthony Rivera wants Indian tribes to serve the $3 billion trade.

Shaun Gindi brought a duffel bag stuffed with a thousand $20 bills to open a checking account at his local Chase branch. The bank closed his account after a week. As the owner of two marijuana shops and a weed warehouse in Colorado, where the drug is legal, Gindi is a pariah to banks, which face expensive compliance hurdles and uncertain legal consequences because the marijuana business still violates federal law. Of the more than 7,600 banks and credit unions in the U.S., only about 220 accept cannabis cash, according to the Department of the Treasury. “I’ve gone through at least eight banks,” Gindi says.

The low-profile statewide ballot measure that arrives in mailboxes this week is focused on a familiar political debate about what constitutes a tax hike — an argument that is causing friction among conservatives.

There are now 596 USA dollar billionaires in mainland China, Hurun said in a report released on Thursday, That number jumps to 715 if Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau are included and compares to 537 American billionaires, based on Hurun's calculations.

"The world used to look to American entrepreneurs... for inspiration".

According to Hurun, 16 of the 1,877 people on its rich list are in different degrees of trouble with the Chinese authorities, including seven under investigation, four awaiting sentencing and three who have disappeared altogether.

An addiction psychiatrist has said smoking marijuana does not necessarily cause addiction to other drugs later in life, contradicting the common theory it is a 'gateway drug'.

Dr Kevin Hill, a director at McLean psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard University was answering questions about marijuana on Reddit, when he shared his opinion.

A majority of tickets for driving under the influence in Colorado involved marijuana in 2014, according to new law enforcement statistics released in September.

The Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area is a collection of federal, state and local law enforcement in four states. Colorado is the only one with legal recreational marijuana, so a new report from the agencies focus on its impact on the state.

In Denver, impaired driving tickets involving marijuana doubled from 33 to 66 in one year. The Colorado State Patrol reported that 77 percent of its cases involved marijuana.

However, only 41 percent -- 354 out of 874 of all impaired drivers tested positive for marijuana alone.

Brennan Linsley/AP

In a national health survey, 10% of high schoolers reported smoking marijuana at least once in the last 30 days.

High schoolers now report using marijuana more than cigarettes or cigars, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Oct. 15. 

In 1997, 21% of high schoolers said they had smoked a cigarette or cigar on one or more days in the last 30 days. By 2013 (the newest data available), only 7% said they had, representing a remarkable 64% decrease.