DELTA COUNTY — On a sunny fall day at the tail end of harvest season, wagons piled high with what looks like bushy, green tumbleweeds are rolling in caravans past a dry, rattling cornfield, heading toward a new hemp-processing plant near Delta. These loads are piled high with hopes. Growers are banking on hemp to […]
cannabis
Posted inBusiness, News
Pueblo saw hemp as an economic opportunity, so it pounced with taxpayer dollars and hopes of growing big business
PUEBLO — In 2016, Steve Turetsky was looking to get into hemp, scouting around Colorado for the right place to build the farm he would use to feed the growing market for CBD. He needed cheap land, plenty of water and infrastructure for distribution. Pueblo had all of those things — and wanted his business. […]
Posted inBusiness, Crime and Courts, News
Congress is weighing whether to give marijuana businesses access to banks. In Colorado, that’s already happening.
Colorado’s cannabis industry has had a chief request since marijuana was legalized: Give us access to banks. But it turns out that hundreds of the state’s pot businesses are already working with financial institutions under the close watch of federal regulators, even though marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. As many as 35 banks […]
Posted inBusiness, Culture, Health
Colorado beer makers are expanding to cannabis beverages: “Down the road it could be as big as beer.”
DURANGO — The evening before its 24th anniversary party, Ska Brewing invited friends and brewers from across the country to celebrate with a toast as the sun set behind Perins Peak. The Durango brewery brought a special keg to the event held earlier this month: a pomegranate-flavored CBD seltzer set for release later this fall […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
A change to Colorado’s DUI testing system has stoked fears of dropped cases and could shutter a private business
Big questions are swirling around Colorado’s ability to carry out blood tests and prosecute offenders in driving under the influence cases after a policy switch that could jeopardize cases and put a private lab out of business. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation on July 1 began testing blood drawn during DUI investigations for free in […]
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Where does Colorado’s marijuana tax money go? The state made a flow chart to answer the $1 billion question
Marijuana sales tax collection since recreational sales began in 2014 in May surpassed $1 billion, Colorado officials said Wednesday. That’s a major milestone for a burgeoning industry, which has sold more than $6.5 billion in that time period. Colorado now has almost 3,000 licensed marijuana businesses and more than 40,000 people who are licensed to […]
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As states like Colorado legalize recreational marijuana, medical cannabis patients drop dramatically
By Gillian Flaccus and Angeliki Kastanis, The Associated Press When states legalize pot for all adults, long-standing medical marijuana programs take a big hit, in some cases losing more than half their registered patients in just a few years, according to a data analysis by The Associated Press. Much of the decline comes from consumers […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Polis signs into law bills on marijuana delivery, social use and investment that will change the pot industry
Laws signed by Colorado’s governor could bring big changes to the state’s marijuana industry, including the creation of businesses where people can consume cannabis and companies that deliver marijuana products. The changes don’t take effect immediately. Voters in a city or county must first approve of allowing both new varieties of marijuana businesses. State regulators […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
Authorities raid 247 Colorado homes, seize more than 80,000 marijuana plants in years-long operation targeting black market pot
By Dan Elliott, The Associated Press Authorities said Friday they raided hundreds of black market marijuana operations in Colorado that flouted the state’s cannabis law by growing tens of thousands of plants in Denver-area homes and selling the drugs out of state. The case is the largest involving black market marijuana in Colorado history, the […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
Did the Colorado Supreme Court just throw the state’s marijuana-legalization regime into question? The chief justice seems to think so.
Colorado’s Supreme Court on Monday sidelined state police dogs trained to sniff for marijuana — the necessary consequence of marijuana no longer being entirely illegal, a slim majority of the court reasoned. But, writing an unusually fiery dissent, the court’s chief justice said his colleagues may have also opened the door to deeper questions about […]