Congress voted on two amendments to a Department of Justice spending bill Wednesday that would protect marijuana businesses in states where they're legal, but only one of them passed.

Introduced by Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Democratic Congressman Sam Farr, both of California, the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment will prohibit federal funding for the Department of Justice's prevention of state-implemented medical marijuana programs. The bipartisan amendment also passed in 2014 but was set to expire in September and needed re-approval to prevail, which it gained by a 242-186 vote.

Colorado will repeal sales taxes on marijuana Sept. 16, thanks to a quirk in the state's constitution.

The one-time-only holiday from the 10 percent state sales tax on recreational pot is likely to generate buzz in the first state in the nation to legalize marijuana.

The little-noticed provision is part of a larger bill that Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law Thursday that includes a ballot initiative in November and a permanent tax cut on recreational pot sales in 2017.

"This fiscal glitch that we have with the constitution ... that's part of the magic of living in Colorado," the Democratic governor said.

Denver’s housing market is on fire. Home prices have shot up by double-digits, inventory has fallen dramatically and multiple offers with bidding wars have become common.

One factor driving the demand: pot. The budding industry has impacted home prices since the state legalized marijuana in 2012.

“There has been a huge bump in real estate prices due to the legalization of marijuana,” according to James Paine, managing partner at West Realty Advisors. “It’s massively pushed up raw land and industry prices.”

In March, Denver experienced the second-largest jump in annual home prices at 10%, just behind San Francisco, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

In 1996, California became the first state to allow the medical use of marijuana. Since then, 22 other states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar laws. Hundreds of thousands of patients nationwide now regularly use medical marijuana, and you can be sure that more and more will ask about it.

Are there legal risks to physicians? After contacting national and regional malpractice insurance carriers, along with several state medical societies, we couldn't find a single instance of a physician being sued for malpractice over the negligent recommendation for medical marijuana.

A radio format geared to pot enthusiasts bowed Monday in Denver as Smokin’ 94.1 FM. Picking up the format from Bubba the Love Sponge out of Tampa, Fla., the station is also on 1550 AM. The details:

Bubba the Love Sponge “loves weed, fast cars, hot girls and rock music” — and that’s why Colorado station owner Mark Paskin of Marco Broadcasting adds Tampa-based Bubba for mornings, starting today. Bubba is equally enthusiastic (and quotable) — “Rock music and smoking pot (as you can do legally in Colorado) have historically gone together like peanut butter and jelly.”

European Union countries are unlikely to legalize marijuana any time soon as some parts of the United States have done recently, EU drug monitoring agency chief Wolfgang Gotz said on Thursday.

He did not spell out why he expected no corresponding EU moves. But in a statement, his agency said a key finding in its latest annual report was a "marked rise in the potency and purity of Europe's most commonly used illicit drugs, fuelling concerns for the health of users who, wittingly or unwittingly, may be consuming stronger products".

It also pointed out an increase in the numbers of cannabis-related health emergencies in Europe between 2008 and 2012.

I recently was excited to report on the First Church Of Cannabis, which was approved by Indiana’s Secretary of State under its controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act. To me, the even bigger news was that this rather unconventional  church has even been granted tax-exempt status by the IRS. Tea Party conservatives evidently had a lot more trouble with their tax exemption applications.

Time was when most life insurers had no underwriting policy regarding an applicant’s use of marijuana. But that’s no longer the case.

According to a survey by Munich American Reassurance, 29 percent of life insurers with an underwriting policy in place classify marijuana users as non-smokers. The survey is based on on-site interviews of nearly 150 underwriters. They were attending the April annual meeting of the Association of Home Office Underwriters in Washington, D.C.

Of the life carriers represented in the survey, just one in five have no official underwriting policy in place for marijuana users, according to the Atlanta business unit of Munich Re.

Kingston, Jamaica: In April 2015, a member of Jamaica’s Rastafarian community, Miguel “Steppa” Williams, asked US President Barack Obama at a town hall meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, whether he would support the legalization of Marijuana. While it had seemed like an awkward question, President Obama appeared to have long anticipated the question, and had probably long choreographed an answer in order to ensure that it does not get his support or outright rejection.

• Editor’s note: The question comes at the 51-minute mark in the video below.

After all, it was Jamaica, the land of reggae and Rastafarian culture. And his advisers would have told him to expect the question anyhow.

During their trial at the federal courthouse in Spokane last March, Rhonda Firestack-Harvey and her two fellow defendants—her son, Rolland Gregg, and his wife, Michelle Gregg—were not allowed to explain why they were openly growing marijuana on a plot in rural northeastern Washington marked by a big green cross that was visible from the air. According to a pretrial ruling, it was irrelevant that they were using marijuana for medical purposes, as permitted by state law, since federal law recognizes no legitimate use for the plant.