The final numbers for 2016 will soon be released by the Colorado Department of Revenue; in the meantime, we did a deep dive into stats from the Marijuana Enforcement Division for the first six months of last year, and they reflect what we already knew: Cannabis cultivation and sales are on the rise.

Between January and June of 2016, Colorado issued 9,098 more medical licenses and 6,935 more retail licenses. In all, 16,033 licenses were added; that total covers retail and medical stores, cultivation facilities, product-manufacturing facilities and testing facilities. Retail manufacturing facilities alone rose by 15 percent from 2015.

At the second meeting of Denver’s social consumption advisory council, members addressed multiple issues, including a few carried over from last month. Here’s a rundown of the top ten topics at the February 8 gathering:

Update below: The confirmation of Jeff Sessions as attorney general in the administration of President Donald Trump was touted by Senator Cory Gardner, who voted to confirm the former Alabama senator shortly after doing likewise for new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — a donor, along with her family, of nearly $50,000 to the Colorado Republican. But the news isn’t being cheered by Colorado’s other senator, Democrat Michael Bennet, or marijuana-industry representatives fearful that Sessions, a vocal pot hater, will soon order a crackdown on cannabis sales in Colorado and beyond.

After Sessions was confirmed by a 52-47 margin, Gardner released the following statement: “Mr. Sessions has an impressive legal career and a profound commitment to upholding the rule of law. I’ve had the opportunity to work with him in the Senate and witness firsthand his strong record of bipartisanship. I’m confident in his ability to serve as the chief law enforcement officer in the country.”

It took over a week for the city to count the votes, but on November 15,  Denver officials finally announced that voters had approved Initiative 300, which allows the social consumption of marijuana in the city. Three days later, however, Colorado’s Liquor Enforcement Division (LED) adopted a new rule that prohibits any business with a liquor license from also applying for a social-consumption license.

On February 3, five plaintiffs — including Emmett Reistroffer and Kayvan Khalatbari — filed suit against the state over that rule.

The February 1 press conference about the arrest of Joshua Cummings in the execution-style killing of RTD security officer Scott Von Lanken took place on an upper level of the Denver Police Department administration building. Afterward, I rode an elevator toward the ground floor with DPD public-information officer Doug Schepman and another man. As we descended, the man asked, “Do the elevators here always smell like weed?”

Schepman laughed. “Some days are worse than others,” he said.

District Attorney Kim Ogg and heads of local law enforcement announced Thursday that, starting March 1, all police agencies in Harris County will no longer arrest people caught with four ounces or less of marijuana, and the DA’s office will no longer be prosecuting those cases.

The remarkable move, which Ogg had championed throughout her 2016 campaign, pushes the third largest county in the nation to the forefront of marijuana reform in places where it is still illegal. Harris County will join only the Brooklyn County District Attorney’s Office in New York in choosing to divert misdemeanor marijuana defendants away from jail entirely, saving taxpayers millions of dollars and saving thousands of people the lifelong burden of a criminal record. Here are the details.

Banking issues have been a major stumbling block for the cannabis industry, with banks refusing to work with marijuana-related companies for fear of coming under scrutiny of federal regulators. So far, attempts to clear up that conflict have gone nowhere in Congress — but now a former federal government employee has come up with a partial solution: Tokken, an app for both customers and dispensaries that was recently named a finalist for the 2017 SXSW Interactive Innovation Award.

A former banker for Merrill Lynch, Lamine Zarrad came to Colorado in 2014 as a regulator with the U.S. Treasury. He soon became the department’s liaison between the cannabis industry and Washington, D.C., helping to address fiscal concerns of both the federal government and Colorado businesses. That led to his working with compliance experts in the financial sector to try to untangle the banking issue.

No pain, no gain: Sunday’s Super Bowl was a bruiser. No doubt plenty of the game’s players are in pain today — pain that might be alleviated with medical marijuana. Here are ten NFL players who have voiced their support for marijuana.

Richard Kirk has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his wife, Kristine Kirk, in 2014.

The case was among the biggest of that year in part because Kirk was said to have been under the influence of a marijuana edible at the time of the shooting and speculation suggested he would claim in court that the slaying resulted from a bad reaction to it. But his guilty plea means that pot edibles won’t be put on trial.

Leah Heise is sitting in a green room behind the stage of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, by a wide mirror that takes up the entire wall beneath a row of round-bulb makeup lights. Countless performers have prepared for the stage in this room, but now it’s Women Grow’s turn to shine.

Women Grow, founded in Denver in 2014, was created to connect entrepreneurs in cannabis with other thought leaders and empower the next generation of cannabis businesswomen.  The organization is hosting its annual Leadership Summit in Denver right now; women and men from all over the country came to share their stories, network and learn more about what it means to be an entrepreneur in cannabis.

We sat down with Women Grow CEO Heise to learn more about the organization and her plans for 2017.