knocked out by the Nevada State Athletic Commission on Monday, when he was given a five-year suspension for a positive marijuana test following his January bout with Anderson Silva.

Diaz, 32, was flagged for marijuana for the third time in his career. In addition to the five-year ban, he was ordered to pay a fine equal to 33 percent of his $500,000 purse for the UFC 183 headliner, a penalty that amounted to $165,000.

She says smoking doesn't violate her probation because of her “sincerely held” religious beliefs. 

A Golden Valley woman is asking the courts to allow her to smoke marijuana for religious reasons — because she belongs to the First Church of Cannabis.

Through her lawyer, 31-year-old Ashley Firnschild is arguing to the Hennepin County District Court that the weed’s illegality places an “undue burden” on her “sincerely held” religious beliefs as a member of the Indiana-based church established earlier this year. The case is coming before the court because Firnschild is alleged to have smoked the weed in violation of a condition of her probation for a drug charge.

Firm eyes taking apparel brand national

General Cannabis Corp., a Denver-based provider of services and real estate to cannabis businesses, is stepping into the apparel industry by acquiring local marijuana T-shirt market Chiefton Supply, the companies announced Tuesday.

General Cannabis (OTCQB: CANN) inked a letter of intent to buy the privately held Chiefton Supply Co. in a deal expected to close this month, officials said. Financial terms were not immediately disclosed.

Cannabis activist Dana Beal is working to make medical marijuana more accessible to New York City patients.

A group of patients disappointed with New York State's much criticized and heavily regulated medical marijuana program has drafted a bill that aims to make medicinal weed more accessible in New York City. 

In response to the state's Compassionate Care Act, the group's proposed legislation establishes a “medical marihuana users’ bill of rights” and asks the City Council to support the creation of a “users cooperative.” (The bill uses the state's preferred spelling of "marijuana," which replaces the J with an H.)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio's Issue 3 received its first endorsement from a national marijuana advocacy group, but the group says the proposed constitutional amendment is not the best way to legalize marijuana.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, has a simple mission: legalize marijuana use among adults and establish a regulated legal marijuana market. To that point, NORML supports Issue 3, which would legalize recreational and medical marijuana for adults over age 21 and establish a legal marijuana industry.

(NaturalNews) A great misunderstanding regarding the therapeutic value of the cannabis plant persists, even within some reform circles. Marijuana is often lumped into the same category as cigarettes, hard drugs, and even alcohol, with the latest trend being to designate cannabis as "less harmful" than these other substances. In reality, cannabis isn't actually harmful at all, and it can help improve the way people think, process and understand information, and even function physically.

In January 2015, Christine Ianuzzi joined three of her siblings as a managing partner of H.A. Bruno, LLC, an event planning firm that has operated all over the world since its inception back in 1923. H.A. Bruno (HAB) currently produces eight events in four countries, covering six industries, with offices in Paramus, NJ, Mexico City, and London. Founded as a public relations firm, HAB grew through the 1970s into a leader in the global tradeshow industry. With the introduction of the microcomputer for business in the early 1980s, HAB, then under the management of the Ianuzzi family, had the foresight to launch PC EXPO in New York, as the first “business to business” event for volume buyers of PCs and technology providers.

The organizers of the New York City Cannabis Film Festival want you to know that theirs is not an event designed for stoners looking to watch videos and get high. Instead, they're hoping to “elevate the cannabis culture” by connecting filmmakers with a budding class of leaders and entrepreneurs.

On September 26, Brooklyn will host the first New York City Cannabis Film Festival, holding screenings at 4:20 and 7:10 at Williamsburg’s Wythe Hotel. “[The film festival] basically says, ‘hey, we’re here and we’re here in New York, we’re pushing for this and you can too, and be part of this great cultural movement,’” says Tim Mattson, the festival's director and media coordinator of the cannabis meetup group High NY.

Some states love the green stuff more than others.

The era of legal pot is upon us. And the proof lies in all the green that green will yield. Fortune asked marijuana research firm New Frontier to crunch the numbers (modeled by Mee Inc.) to find the projected market size of the states most likely to legalize marijuana next. By 2020 those states are projected to host a multibillion-dollar market around the plant—a potentially compel­ ling argument for the rest to follow suit.

A lot of things can date an old movie or TV show: clothes, furniture, cars. And another thing: cigarettes. They’re all over the place in many films, markers of an era when smoking was far more common.

It took a while—the surgeon general’s report came out five decades ago—but the percentage of smokers has declined, and rather drastically. Growing awareness of the health risks of tobacco helped bring a sharp drop in public acceptance.

So why are we witnessing the total opposite when it comes to marijuana?