For the past four years, any time local police seized cannabis in a criminal investigation, they’ve been required to care for it, either by keeping the plants alive or by returning the marijuana in a usable form to the owner. That’s no longer the case.

On January 23, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that requiring police to store marijuana in evidence is in violation of federal law. The court issued its opinion in the case of the People v. Robert Crouse.

Crouse, a medical marijuana patient, was arrested on May 5, 2011, on charges of cultivation and possession of marijuana after police seized 55 marijuana plants and about 2.9 kilograms of marijuana product from his home. He was charged with a felony count of cultivating more than thirty marijuana plants. Crouse asserted that he was in lawful possession of the cannabis for medical purposes, and a jury acquitted him of marijuana-related drug crimes.

Thirty percent of marijuana businesses are audited each year by the IRS; adding to that pressure is the threat of new regulations the industry may have to adopt. To ease the load, Keegan Peterson founded Wurk, which helps marijuana companies keep track of all their business records — from payroll to scheduling — so that when the IRS or other agencies comes knocking, everything is in one convenient place.

Peterson started the company last year after a friend who owns a dispensary in town was talking with him about the problems that business owners face in the cannabis industry. “They want to be compliant; they just don’t have the tools to do so,” Peterson says. “We do our best to help facilitate that. The government gives you a Rubik’s Cube and says, ‘Hey, figure it out.’ Then they change it, and you have to figure it out again.”

Three years ago, the first of three marijuana amnesty boxes was installed at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport. The idea behind the boxes was to give flyers a way to dispose of legal cannabis before they boarded a plane bound for a destination where the substance might be against the law, and Pitkin County Undersheriff Ron Ryan considers the containers to be a success, even though weed isn’t the only aromatic thing sometimes left in them.

Other examples? “Dirty diapers,” Ryan says. “Garbage. And leftover Starbucks. That’s one of the worst, because a lot of the drinks from there are milk-based. If they’re left inside for a week, the smell becomes pretty horrendous.”

After four states legalized recreational marijuana last year and twice that many approved new medical marijuana laws, at least eleven more are considering changing their laws in 2017. Here are the states and the legislation they’re proposing:

On January 19, over 1,000 people attended the Vangst Cannabis Career Fair, where they got some face time with some of the largest cannabis companies in Colorado. Vangst, a job-placement company, aims to make it easier for new-to-cannabis job seekers to explore opportunities, and this third fair provided more opportunities than ever to look at the legal cannabis industry, At the same time, vendors got a chance to size up the candidates.

Big-name brands such as Native Roots and Leafly lined the walls of the fair. Native Roots is one of the major employers of Colorado’s cannabis space, with close to 700 employees. Now it’s trying to fill corporate positions in its marketing and IT departments.  “We are looking for talented individuals to work sales in two future stores,” said one Native Roots rep. “I’ve also seen some good corporate candidates here, too.”

It’s a sign of the times.

The world hasn’t come to an end. U.S. Representative Ed Perlmutter was told it would when Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana use in November 2012 and he started introducing legislation in Congress that would aid the industry as businesses began to struggle with banking problems, among other issues.

Now, as President Donald Trump takes the oath of office, Perlmutter says he’s not finished fighting for marijuana legalization at the federal level. Perlmutter’s Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act was struck down last summer. Had it passed, it would have banned federal regulators from penalizing financial institutions for providing banking services to legal marijuana businesses; Perlmutter is planning to try again this session.

Denver’s South Pearl Street neighborhood is a reflection of its artsy, upscale residents, and now it’s getting a cannabis dispensary designed with those people in mind: High Rollers, a high-end cannabis shop that will open on Saturday, January 21.

“The eclectic mix of culture, community and convenience in the area lends itself nicely to High Rollers’ classic Victorian style,” says Luke Ramirez, co-owner.

On Thursday, January 19, GMC LLC, or Green Man Cannabis, issued a voluntary recall of its bud and other marijuana products, “due to the presence of potentially unsafe pesticide residues.”

There have been no reports of illnesses, and only products at two Green Man Cannabis stores were affected: at 1355 Santa Fe Drive and 7289 East Hampden Avenue, both in Denver.

Check your purchases for the label listing any of these OPC License numbers: 403-00738, 403-00361 or 403R-00201, which are subject to the recall and should be disposed of or returned to the store at which they were purchased.

When Toby Ripson’s dad developed colon cancer and then fought the disease for fourteen years, nothing helped ease his pain better than cannabis — certainly not any pharmaceutical drug. After his dad died, his mother supported Ripson’s using his father’s life-insurance money to build a company that could supply high-quality marijuana to others.

Ripson moved from Idaho to Denver and partnered with Mike Leibowitz to start Veritas Cannabis, the first licensed stand-alone grow operation in Colorado. The team has handcrafted each part of the grow process. It takes longer and is more expensive, but by controlling the environment and paying close attention to each part of the production process, Veritas growers can assure customers that they’ll get the same experience each time they smoke the bud, no matter where they buy it.

On Wednesday, January 18, twenty people gathered on the fourth floor of the Wellington Webb Municipal Building to begin a conversation that no other municipality in the United States has had — about regulating the social use of recreational cannabis.

For two and a half hours at this first meeting of Denver’s Social Use Advisory Committee, the members — all appointed by the city to represent different constituencies — discussed proximity restrictions for social-use establishments. The first hour was spent discussing restrictions on locations that would be allowed to apply for a social-use permit; much of the rest of the conversation focused on ensuring that children would not be exposed.