Colorado officials reported last week that the state had collected $44 million in tax revenues from cannabis sales in the the first five months of 2015. In the same period last year the state’s collections totaled a rather disappointing $25 million. The state is collecting so much, in fact, that legislators fear that the state’s taxpayer bill of rights (TABOR) will kick in and force the state to issue refund checks to taxpayers. A bill in the Colorado House would allow the state to keep the money, but has already caused lawmakers to cut the sales tax on marijuana from 10% to 8% starting in July of 2017.

Here’s a rundown on other stories related to marijuana that made news this week.

Some Illinois Health Systems Say No to Medical Marijuana
Patients must have a doctor’s signature to buy medical marijuana in Illinois, but some health systems are forbidding doctors from putting pen to paper because the drug is still illegal at the federal level.

Others are cautiously allowing doctors to participate in the pilot program, even conducting training sessions to make sure doctors know their legal responsibilities as gatekeepers.

Illinois is among 23 states that permit marijuana for medical use, but the program has been slow to start since the law was enacted two years ago. Seven cultivation centers have been green-lighted to start growing cannabis; sales will begin later this year.

Read more at the DeKalb Daily Chronicle.

Menominee Tribal Members Approve On-Reservation Marijuana Use
Now that Menominee tribal members have told their legislators to legalize marijuana, the difficult task begins of designing a profitable weed operation that does not result in the tribe or its customers getting busted.

“Tribes are treading on very dangerous grounds” when it comes to growing and selling marijuana, warned Dorothy Alther, director ofCalifornia Indian Legal Services. “If I was representing tribes out there (in Wisconsin) I would say it might not be such a good idea.”

Just last month two California tribes were raided by federal and state authorities who said they seized at least 12,000 marijuana plants and more than 100 pounds of processed marijuana.

Read more at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

California NAACP Files Road Rules for California Cannabis Legislation in 2016
Today, the California NAACP filed a ballot initiative with the Secretary of State to legalize cannabis for adult use in the state’s 2016 general election. The California Hawaii NAACP’s initiative entitled “Community Act to Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis of 2016” is signed by director Alice Huffman.

We’re getting reports that the NAACP isn’t actually going to run its own initiative, but has submitted model language as a show of support for the 2016 effort. Huffman and the NAACP are working with the main group, dubbed, ReformCA.

The NAACP initiative represents another watershed moment in the history of minority support for pot policy reform.

Read more at the East Bay Express.

ALSO READ: The Next 11 States to Legalize Marijuana

Advocates Say Marijuana Legalization in Arizona Could Generate $40 Million a Year for Schools
The backers of a proposed 2016 Arizona ballot initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana similarly to alcohol in the state estimate that if the measure makes it on the ballot and is passed, it could raise more than $40 million a year for schools.

“Marijuana should be sold by businesses that pay taxes and follow laws, not by cartels and criminals that evade them,” J.P. Holyoak, chairman of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, said in a press statement. Holyoak as well as other supporters of recreational legalization announced the possible tax boost for the state during a Wednesday press conference at the state capitol.

Advocates in the state are currently collecting signatures in order for the measure to qualify for the November 2016 state ballot. So far, the campaign says it has gathered roughly 60,000 signatures since its petition drive began in May.

Read more at The Huffington Post.

Palmer, Houston To Revisit Marijuana Issue
Voters in Houston[, Alaska] will join those in Palmer to decide whether or not marijuana will be commercially available in local stores this fall.

Voters in both communities voted to approve statewide Ballot Measure Two, which legalized the drug in 2014. Houston was the community that voted to approve marijuana by the widest margin of local municipalities: 14 percent. In Palmer, voters gave less full-throated support, approving legalization by a four-percent margin.

The resolutions voters in each town will face are identical, essentially banning marijuana cultivation facilities, manufacturing facilities, testing facilities and retail stores within city limits. The sponsor of the latest measure, Houston resident Scott Thompson, says his petition was provided by a political group formed after Ballot Measure Two passed last fall, and coordinated by borough mayor Larry DeVilbiss, who also faces re-election at the same time. DeVilbiss appears as a secondary sponsor.

Read more at the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

Women in Weed
It seems fitting that a plant called Mary Jane could smash the patriarchy. After all, only female marijuana flowers produce cannabinoids like the potent THC chemical that gets users buzzed. Pot farmers strive to keep all their crops female through flowering female clones of one plant, called the Mother. And women are moving into the pot business so quickly that they could make it the first billion-dollar industry that isn’t dominated by men.

In Washington, Greta Carter says she’s the mom with the most mother plants and the most lucrative female flowering crops of any legal pot farm in her state. A former Citibank vice president and mother of five, Carter is just a little bit country: She has a gap-toothed smile and a shaggy platinum bob the same hue as Dolly Parton’s. Of the 2,400 people who applied for the first recreational marijuana growing facility licenses in the Evergreen State in 2012, Carter was the 71st approved. Her first weed ranch, the 45,321-square-foot farm Life Gardens near Ellensburg, is now one of the biggest and oldest legal recreational marijuana farms in the world.

Read more at Newsweek.

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