Medical Marijuana

ACC is a group of board-certified doctors who openly support medical marijuana for qualified patients. ACC's Dr. Edgar Suter stressed that not everybody who sends their information for an evaluation will qualify for medical marijuana, and he's only writing recommendations for patients that he believes, after a full examination, are truly qualified candidates. "We take, I think, great pains to care for the patient and honor the law," Suter says. "We're bending over backwards to make our process fair for everybody."

About 2 percent of Colorado residents now have cards to buy medical marijuana. The state health department said that it came up with the figure while clearing a backlog of medical marijuana applications. Officials said the number of approved medical marijuana users totals about 116,000.

Now that Centennial Seeds has established a presence in Colorado selling cannabis seeds to producers of medical marijuana, Ben Holmes wants to tackle supplying seeds to vendors in other states where medicinal use of the drug is legal.

Recreational users of marijuana are seeing price cuts on the street thanks to the growing number of states that have approved the drug for medicinal use. The price of cannabis, of course, varies wildly — depending on the strain purchased, its potency and the parts of the plant. Top quality pot in New York, for example, costs nearly $442 per ounce, while low quality is just $161, according to one website that tracks costs, PriceofWeed.com. On the whole, though, prices have been dropping nationwide over the past three to four years.

A large majority of Iowans favor legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, according to the results of the latest Hawkeye Poll conducted by the University of Iowa. Sixty-five percent of those sampled said they favored legalizing medical marijuana, and the support appears to be widespread. A majority of Democrats (69 percent), Republicans (57 percent) and Independents (77 percent) favor medical marijuana. A majority of people in each age group also supports this, with support increasing in the older age groups.

Last month's greater-than-anticipated electoral gains by the Republican Party of Texas could be interpreted as the death knell for any advance of medical marijuana laws in the 82nd legislative session. But advocates for an affirmative defense bill — including those who earlier this year named Democrats as the most likely sponsors — are holding fast to hopes that the specter of an ever-encroaching government will resonate with Tea Party and like-minded lawmakers when the session convenes in January.

Medical marijuana advocates and government representatives hammered out the final details of proposed new rules that would give Colorado the most comprehensive seed-to-sale cannabis business regulations in the nation. The rules would govern everything: how state officials regulate marijuana cultivation; how dispensary owners keep track of their sales; what makers of marijuana-infused pastries should put on their labels. Several of the rules would place Colorado in unprecedented territory — for instance, requiring marijuana growers to install security cameras through which state auditors could remotely monitor their crop.