Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a legal opinion in May 2015 saying elected officials can use their offices and resources to educate the public about why they think marijuana should not be legalized in 2016.(Photo: David Wallace/The Republic)

Educating or politicking? ...

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a legal opinion last week saying elected officials can use their offices and resources to educate the public about why they think marijuana should not be legalized in 2016.

State Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, sponsored the medical marijuana bill.(Photo: Leslie Westbrook, The Advertiser)

Vigorous debate in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and before the full upper chamber has sharpened the focus of a bill that would enable medical marijuana to be prescribed in Louisiana.

That’s how sponsor Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, sees things. Mills next will take Senate Bill 143 to the House Health and Welfare Committee, perhaps in a week. It’s a committee on which he served while a House member, and Mills expects to get a full and fair hearing for his legislation there.

DENVER — Money was pouring into Bruce Nassau’s five Colorado marijuana shops when his accountant called with the bad news: The 2014 tax season was approaching, and Nassau could not rely on the galaxy of deductions that other businesses use to reduce their tax bills. He was going to owe the Internal Revenue Service a small fortune.

“I had to write a check for $275,000,” Nassau said. “Unbelievable.”

The country’s rapidly growing marijuana industry has a tax problem. Even as more states embrace legal marijuana, shops say they are being forced to pay crippling federal income taxes because of a decades-old law aimed at preventing drug dealers from claiming their smuggling costs and couriers as business expenses on their tax returns.

Seated at a desk inside his downtown Seattle hotel room, Dr. Gil Mobley pulled out a sterile field surgery kit, snapped on latex gloves and pulled a mask over his face.

He carefully arranged his medical instruments, grabbed tweezers and went to work.

Mobley, 60, wasn’t performing hotel-room surgery. He and fellow medical-marijuana activist Brian Stone were carefully preparing two ounces of Blazin’s Grapefruit purchased that morning from Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop in Seattle’s Central District. The pot cost more than $700.

The room reeked when a hotel maid cracked the door and said, “housekeeping.” Mobley shooed her away.

Ohio could legalize marijuana if a proposed amendment collects enough signatures and is approved by voters.

But those who are looking to light up as soon as the law goes into effect may want to hold off.

According to an analysis of ResponsibleOhio’s proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana in Ohio, employers’ drug policies would still have control over whether or not employees could smoke marijuana.

So if your company has an anti-drug policy, a potential law legalizing marijuana would have little to no impact.

What 2 days worth of filled petition books look like. 250k+ signers and counting. pic.twitter.com/0JCPr1yfA1

HAMILTON -

Medical marijuana has been proven to help treat chronic illnesses.

Just this week, Montana Attorney General Tim Fox filed an appeal to reverse certain provisions in Montana's marijuana laws.

Reporter Keele Smith went On Special Assignment and talked with one veteran who uses it for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and why he wants others to be able to do the same.

"I saw two people shot to death right in front of me, in front of a store full of people," Marine Corps Veteran and cannabis activist Tayln Lang said.

Lang has a medical marijuana card for another condition but finds that using cannabis also relieves his symptoms of PTSD.

Oregon legalized medical marijuana in 1998 with Ballot Measure 67, and last year Oregon legalized the recreational use of marijuana with Measure 91, which will take effect July 1, 2015.

Even though marijuana use will be legal at the state level, it remains illegal at the federal level per the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.

Since last summer, enthusiasm surrounding marijuana's potential as a treatment for epilepsy has led to investors more than doubling their money in Insys Therapeutics (NASDAQ: INSY  ) .

Insys Therapeutics is one of the only publicly-traded companies pursuing the development of prescription drugs based on the chemical cannabinoids found in marijuana, but the reasons for owning shares in the company stretch far beyond its marijuana program.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's response in a recent radio interview to a question about legal marijuana was in keeping with his tough-on-crime persona.

A former prosecutor and potential presidential candidate, Christie has long been a staunch opponent of pot, at one time lambasting tax revenue generated from the sale of legal recreational marijuana as "blood money."

"I will crack down and not permit it," he told radio host Hugh Hewitt, who had asked whether legal marijuana sales in Colorado and Washington state should be allowed. "Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law. And the states should not be permitted to sell it and profit from it."

The former owner of a Breckenridge medical marijuana center is out on bond and awaiting a grand jury decision after attempting to sell 100 pounds of Colorado-grown marijuana to an undercover police officer in Tennessee.

Christopher Crumbliss, 39, was arrested on Nov. 20 last year in Nashville. He and two accomplices, including former Frisco resident Tasha Desmond, 21, were caught in a local sting operation that netted 425 pounds of marijuana worth roughly $1.7 million, according to Nashville police.