Two lawmakers in Colorado are pushing for passage of a law that would protect employees in the state from being fired for their use of pot off the job. The measure, House Bill 20-1089, was introduced by Democratic Rep. Jevon Melton of Aurora.

If passed, the bill would prohibit employers “from terminating an employee for the employee’s lawful off-duty activities that are lawful under state law.” Similar legislation was enacted in California when that state legalized the recreational use of cannabis, but so far Colorado has yet to pass an equivalent measure.

Cannabis vape sales tumbled 26 per cent in the two months following the health crisis that has killed dozens and sickened thousands, according to new industry research.

Legal sales peaked at a combined US$160 million in August in the states of California, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, according to a report from BDS Analytics and Arcview Market Research.

As reports of vaping illnesses grew and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disclosed the first deaths related to the practice, sales slumped to US$126 million in September and US$119 million in October. This was significant for the legal cannabis market as a whole, where vapes accounted for approximately 25 per cent of total sales in the first three quarters of 2019.

The effort to get banking access for legal cannabis businesses seems to have lost the wind in its sails for a moment, and while we wait for a new breeze in Congress, a wave of crime is targeting the legal cannabis industry’s fat stacks of cash.

A Colorado county has launched a public service campaign to warn residents that there may be risks associated with using cannabis. The campaign, dubbed “Marijuana is Not Harmless,” was kicked off by the Weld County Health and Environment Department on Thursday.

Eric Aakko, a spokesman for the department, said that local officials want the public to realize that the legalization of marijuana does not imply that that cannabis use is risk-free. Colorado legalized the recreational use of cannabis for adults in 2014.

Recreational marijuana has had a slow rollout since Colorado first started legal sales in January 2014. With the exception of Nevada -- where legal adult-use sales came flying out of the gates just seven months after voters approved them -- other states have experienced issues.

For example, many blamed a sluggish bureaucracy in Massachusetts for a slow start to the state’s recreational weed program. California has had lower sales than expected. New York and New Jersey could not reach an agreement on how to legalize adult-use cannabis, and Illinois is still fighting over the one its lawmakers did approve.

Medical marijuana delivered to your door. Recycling of marijuana product packaging. A “hospitality” license.

These are some of the changes going into effect in Colorado’s marijuana industry on Jan. 1, the state’s Department of Revenue announced on Tuesday.

The rules are the product of a handful of General Assembly bills, as well as working groups and public comments.

“We encouraged an even more collaborative approach to rule development where work group participants utilized their experience and expertise within stakeholder teams to engage more directly in the drafting of rule language,” said Jim Burack, director of the Marijuana Enforcement Division.

A warning about possibly contaminated and moldy recreational and medical marijuana has been issued by Colorado officials.

The affected marijuana was mistakenly distributed due to a technical error, according to Colorado Department of Revenue news release. It said the error has been corrected, CNN reported.

The error occurred between Oct. 21 and Nov. 13, 2019 and the affected marijuana was sold between Oct. 21 and Nov. 14, 2019.

The state issued an advisory warning Friday, listing several strains of potentially contaminated medical and retail marijuana that, due to a screening error, made it to dispensary shelves between Oct. 21 and Nov. 14.

Although most of the vendors named in the advisory — jointly penned by the Colorado Department of Revenue and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment — operate along the Front Range, Green Dragon and Doctor’s Garden made the list. Green Dragon has locations in Aspen and Glenwood Springs and Doctor’s Garden is located in Carbondale.

Coloradans on probation can continue to use medical marijuana, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday, rebuking a district court judge’s decision from two years ago.

In a unanimous decision, Colorado’s highest court ruled that defendants with cannabis prescriptions are free to do so unless it could be proved that doing so would negatively affect their progress.

In the four states where recreational marijuana was legal by 2016, there was a small uptick in cannabis use disorder among adults and teens, and a general rise in use by adults, a new study suggests.

Researchers looking at data on cannabis use between 2008 and 2016 found that rates of problematic use among teens and adults over age 26 rose faster in states where recreational marijuana had been legalized than in other states, according to the report published in JAMA Psychiatry.