Dear Stoner: I'm in the midst of a devastating family situation and am so blindsided by grief and stress that I need something to calm me down and help me fall asleep. I don't wish to smoke, but am open to other suggestions.

Elizabeth

Dear Elizabeth: If this situation is temporary, using cannabis to help you calm down and sleep is a great idea - but don't form a dependency. Marijuana isn't an addictive substance like cocaine or opiates, but the more you can avoid using it regularly for stress relief, the better. That said, sometimes exercise, hobbies and self-reflection aren't enough, and when you're wide awake at night trying to hold back tears, something as simple as a pot cookie can help you fall asleep, regroup and move forward.

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In November, voters in as many as 12 states will see a marijuana legalization initiative on their ballots.

Marijuana is already legal for recreational use in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Washington, D.C. Another 25 states have legalized medical marijuana, including Hawaii. The era of marijuana prohibition is rapidly coming to a close.

Unfortunately, lawmakers lack easy answers to tough questions facing the marijuana industry. Legalization presents challenges on a number of fronts, including distribution, taxation, consumption, security and public health.

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On Nov. 6, 2012 the people of Colorado decisively voted to legalize recreational marijuana. Amendment 64 passed with 55.3 percent of the vote.

In Boulder County Amendment 64 received 66.4 percent of the vote. The margin in the City of Boulder was even higher.

But you would never know it by the cavalier way County and City elected leaders have chosen to "regulate" marijuana growers in the ensuing four years.

Start with Boulder County. Shortly after the passage of Amendment 64 the Boulder County Commissioners voted to ban commercial marijuana production in the agricultural areas of Boulder County. The ban applied to both outdoor and indoor production.

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Dear Stoner: I've tried sativas and indicas, and they're all fine and dandy, but I'm looking for something more in the middle. What are some good hybrids that are actually hybrids?

Happy Jack

Dear Jack: All hybrids are actually hybrids. In fact, nearly all of the strains you'll find nowadays are hybrids, but it's easier for people to label something that's 80 to 90 percent indica as "indica" instead of "indica-dominant hybrid" and then have to explain what that means. But I'm guessing you mean something like a 50/50 hybrid, many of which you've probably seen or tried around town.

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The City Officials Voted 5-4 to Allow a Maximum of Four Retail Shops to Open.

Thornton - The state's largest city with an all-out ban on marijuana sales decided Tuesday to allow the nascent industry, but not before hearing an earful from members of the community.

The Thornton City Council voted 5-4 to allow retail marijuana shops - capped at four citywide - to open in this northern suburb of 135,000. The city, the sixth largest in Colorado, will start accepting applications from would-be dispensary owners Sept. 1.

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Colorado legalised marijuana sales two years ago. Ben Hoyle reports on the highs and lows of the decision.

The "bud tender" had shoulder-length black hair, a deep well of patience and a connoisseur's pride in his wares as he spread tray after tray of marijuana-based products on the glass counter top. There were fruit gums, chocolate caramels, granola packets, medicated sugar to drop in your coffee or tea in the morning, Rosemary Cheddar Crackers for a savoury taste, a bath soak and even sensual oil for the bedroom, Charles Watson explained.

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The 'Green Rush' Has Proven to Be a Mixed Blessing for Colorado and Its State Capital.

At Bruce Randolph School in a tough inner-city part of Denver, the staff and pupils used to breathe fumes from a nearby dog food factory. Now they get a regular whiff of something much more controversial.

"I smell weed, oh, all day long," says Darlicia Campbell, the school campus safety officer.

At first, teachers who kept smelling marijuana in their classrooms summoned her to sniff out the pupil who had brought it. "I was going crazy for a couple of weeks," she recalls. Eventually, the children explained to her that fumes from a nearby marijuana growing centre had entered the school ventilation system.

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A new Gallup poll released earlier this week finds that self-reported cannabis consumption nearly doubled in the last two years. Thirty-three million people, or 13 percent of U.S. adults, report currently using marijuana, up from 7 percent in 2013.

The number of adults that report having used marijuana at some point in their lives also rose slightly from 38 percent in 2013 to 43 percent in 2016.

Considering that cannabis is still federally illegal, this is remarkable growth, but it is hard to determine if it is a function of state level decriminalization and legalization efforts or of a decrease in stigma surrounding cannabis consumption.

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It's possible the result still could be a happy ending.

When the "first half of 2016" came and went without a marijuana rescheduling announcement, it became clear the Drug Enforcement Agency didn't feel overly obligated to meet its own self-imposed timeline.

But now the DEA has rejected two petitions - one from the governors of Rhode Island and Washington, one from a New Mexico resident - for the removal of cannabis from Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act. The federal government will continue to consider cannabis as dangerous as heroin, though it will end the monopoly on research-grade cannabis production.

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"What do you mean the state has budget troubles? What about all the tax money from marijuana? Wasn't that supposed to solve everything?"

As a nonprofit devoted to educating Coloradans on the state's unique fiscal challenges, we get that question almost every time now. It doesn't matter what group we're talking to about the state budget or which community in Colorado we're visiting.

Ever since recreational marijuana became legal, there has been a seemingly unstoppable urban myth going around that the state is positively swimming in tax revenue from pot sales.

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The Obama administration's decision to expand opportunities for scientific research of medical marijuana, while leaving cannabis classification under its longtime most-dangerous-drug status, strikes us as an important step, but hardly a solution.

The decision is hopeful in that it signals an attempt to end the bureaucratic hurdles that prevent scientific study of the drug that so many advocates claim has curative powers. But leaving in place the stigma and legal problems that a Schedule I designation creates makes the administration's attempt to find some middle ground difficult to truly appreciate.

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Dear Stoner: I saw your profile on Durban Poison and the pure effects of landrace strains. Are there any others to look out for? I like to know what to expect when I smoke.

Taylor

Dear Taylor: Landrace strains like Durban Poison come from pure genetics, but they don't have pure effects. That means that while Durban Poison is a pure sativa (if the genetics are legitimate), not everyone feels the same type of high after ingesting it - though the highs are generally similar. But that's how it works for all strains.

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Every week in the world of cannabis there are timely happenings - new legislation, new businesses, new dimensions of social justice implications - but there are also more lasting phenomenons, subtly evolving undercurrents to the headlines of the ongoing narrative.

One of which is the way social media spaces both accommodate and deny cannabis consumers and businesses. Currently Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all have bans on cannabis-related advertising.

This represents a change in policy that, as little as two years ago, took a much harder stance against cannabis in general and frequently blacked out accounts for merely associating with the plant.

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Allegations without due process are nothing but allegations. And at this point, that's all there is in the case of the four medical marijuana doctors whose licenses hang in legal limbo since the state medical board suspended them last month. But as those doctors wait for their day in court, former employees of MedEval in Colorado Springs - where one of them, Dr. William Stone, practices - are speaking out against their former boss.

Assistant operations manager Lisa Moss who was hired in December and quit June 30, says "it was a clinic for profit, not for patients." She describes a get-them-in-get-them-out kind of attitude toward consultations, with little regard for verification or follow-ups. "Half the time [patients] would only fill out half their intake form, then doc would just sign off on it and that's that," she tells the Indy. "And sometimes, they'd come just straight from the DMV with temporary licenses [to prove residency] and no medical history whatsoever."

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Colorado's now years-long experiment with legal medical and recreational cannabis markets has been mostly positive and fascinating, and yet the federal government has been slow to rethink its decades-long prohibitionist position.

We hope the Obama administration takes advantage of its historic opportunity to end or take steps toward dismantling the destructive war on pot. What an irony it would be if Obama, who has openly admitted to pot use in his early years, and who has shown great tolerance toward local legalization laws, left office without having moved the nation away from the antiquated reefer-madness enforcement of past presidencies.

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The latest marijuana legalization polls are out, and they contain bad news and good news.

First, the bad news.

Recent polls in both Massachusetts and Arizona - two of the five states that will be voting on legalizing recreational marijuana this November - show the initiatives losing.

In Massachusetts, a poll conducted by Gravis Marketing found that 51 percent of those surveyed planned to vote against the legalization initiative, while 41 percent planned to vote for it.

In Arizona, a poll conducted by OH Predictive Insights, found the initiative losing 52.5 percent to 39.1 percent.

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Dear Stoner: I bought a disposable hash pen, and it broke. I took it back to the dispensary (they were great about it and gave me a new one), but the budtender said I could keep my old one and use the liquid for topicals. What did he mean by that? J Money

Dear Money: Let's hope that one day these hash pens reach a true level of consistency; I occasionally get one that leaks, too.

You have several options with a leaky pen. If you want to vape the oil, you can buy a pen battery and refillable cartridge at a vape shop and try to siphon the oil from your disposable pen into the empty cartridge. If the budtender suggested using the liquid as a topical, he probably meant that you could mix it with something to rub on your aching joints or muscles for pain relief. The topicals you see at dispensaries are all infused with cannabis oil, which is pretty much the same stuff in your pen (without the vaping liquid), but they come in the form of balms and lotions for easy application, as rubbing hash oil on your body can get messy. However, topicals infused with cannabis oils are high in CBD, not THC. CBD doesn't get you stoned; it's used for sleep aid, pain relief and inflammation. So unless you bought a high-CBD pen, rubbing concentrated THC on your skin probably won't do much more than make it glisten and smell like hash. Perfect hippie bait.

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Where there's money, novelty and potential fame, people want in. For some, though, actually getting into Colorado's burgeoning cannabis industry is more difficult than for others.

Take the experience of Taneesha Melvin, a 28-year-old Colorado Springs native. This spring, she says, she left her job at Cheyenne Mountain Resort in search of new employment. As a medical marijuana patient herself, Melvin figured her knowledge of strains, experience volunteering at a local dab lounge and service background positioned her well to be a budtender at one of the city's 133 dispensaries. So she dropped $150 on a background check and other licensing fees and set out on the job hunt.

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Dear Stoner: I want to try my hand at making CBD-extracted products. Is it better to use hemp or real marijuana for it?

C-Mac

Dear Mac: It depends on your experience with marijuana and cannabinoid extraction. Most cannabidiol (CBD) users and product-makers use industrial hemp, because it's easier to grow legally and naturally higher in CBD cannabinoids than most flowering marijuana plants, which generally have more THC. If you want to start creating personal CBD products in Colorado, all you have to do is make sure your hemp plants or oils have less than 0.3 percent THC, and you can make all the CBD-infused balms, lotions and foods you like - as long as your home-extraction methods don't involve butane or any other explosive solvent.

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Medical Study Shows 34% Rise in Cases of Pediatric Marijuana Exposure

As more Colorado adults become comfortable with marijuana in their homes, more young children are ingesting the drug, a new study reports.

The JAMA Pediatrics report notes Colorado saw an increase of pediatric marijuana cases by 34% annually, compared with 19% for the rest of the USA.

Coloradans are baking marijuana into chocolate chip cookies, brownies and pies and adding it to candy fruit chews and chocolate bars - all sweets that toddlers find irresistible. And, the edibles market is still in its infancy.

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