Nevada’s recreational marijuana market is blooming ahead of expectations with retailers there selling close to $200M of cannabis between July and December of 2017. That’s significantly quicker growth than Washington state and Colorado, which sold $67M and $114M respectively in their first six months of legal adult use cannabis sales.

The state of Nevada has collected more than $30M in taxes from the market in its first six months.

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Canopy Growth Corp. says it has picked the location of its cannabis production facility in Newfoundland — but isn't yet ready to reveal where.

"We're very excited to be making progress in the province and I'm happy to report Canopy has indeed secured the site of our future production facility," company spokesman Jordan Sinclair said in an email to CBC News.

"We will share more details in the weeks ahead on the exact location and path forward. There's a lot of work to do and we're right on track to date."

In December, the Newfoundland and Labrador government signed a deal with Canopy Growth to ensure the province has a "safe and secure supply" of cannabis when it is legalized this coming summer.

In the past week, workers were accused of forging signatures on Utah petitions for medical marijuana, new legislative proposals were introduced for legal marijuana in New Jersey, legal “sanctuary” status was considered in several states for licensed businesses to protect the nascent industry from a federal crackdown and more.

• A man and woman working for a Utah-based company to collect signatures for statewide ballot initiatives have been accused of forging names on the documents. Charges have been filed after a Weber County election clerk discovered the apparent forgeries when comparing signatures on petitions for the Utah Medical Cannabis and Count My Vote Ballot initiatives to the voter roll, finding a combined 472 forged signatures in the 16 packets the pair submitted. Read more

• New Jersey Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Union) will propose three bills aimed at social justice and economic opportunities should the state legalize adult-use cannabis. The bills will focus on the expungement of cannabis possession convictions, creating a tax credit program for cannabis businesses in urban enterprise zones and establishing an advisory board focused on recommendations for drug-sniffing dogs in the event of cannabis legalization. Read more

• Some states that have legalized marijuana are considering providing “sanctuary” status for licensed cannabis businesses, hoping to protect the fledgling industry from a shift in federal enforcement policy. Berkeley, Calif., was already the first city in the nation to formally declare itself a sanctuary city on immigration, barring city officials from cooperating with federal authorities, and last month, it did the same with marijuana. Read more

• A hearing on Florida banning smokable forms of medical marijuana will be heard by a circuit court judge on May 16. Leon County, Fla., Judge Karen Gievers will hold a non-jury trial to determine if the ban violates the 2016 state constitutional amendment that legalized medical cannabis. Read more

• An Idaho Senate Committee Chairman, Sen. Lee Heider (R-Twin Falls), apologized March 6 for violating Senate rules a day earlier by convening an impromptu—and likely illegal—closed meeting of his committee over a move to force a hearing on House-passed legislation to legalize the medical use of CBD oil in the state. Sen. Heider also informed his committee that a vote taken March 5 to kill the bill wasn’t valid because the bill wasn’t on the committee’s agenda. Read more

• Massachusetts’ Cannabis Control Commission voted unanimously to accept the rules that will govern the new legal industry, with four key changes made to the regulations since they were initially approved last December, including no social consumption or home delivery. The commission will begin accepting applications for licenses to operate cannabis businesses on April 1. Read more

• The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) has temporarily suspended its policy that marijuana licensees must observe a 24-hour quarantine before transferring their product to other licensees in order to alleviate difficulties in transferring product as the WSLCB works to implement its new state traceability system. The WSLCB will assess the need for the quarantine period in the coming months as it adjusts to the new system. Read more

• West Virginia’s Senate Judiciary Committee made major changes to a medical marijuana bill that came out of the House of Delegates. Most notable is a section allowing the state medical marijuana advisory board to create rules to allow smoking of cannabis as a means of treatment, as the original medical marijuana bill did not allow smoking when it was approved by the legislature last year. Read more

• Indiana lawmakers appear poised to allow Hoosiers to buy and sell CBD oil, but it is uncertain whether local companies will actually be able to manufacture the cannabis extract. House Bill 1214 and Senate Bill 52 passed out of both chambers legalizing the sale, possession and manufacturing of CBD oil if it contains less than .3 percent THC and is labeled correctly, but lawmakers are now backtracking after Gov. Eric Holcomb told legislative leaders that he didn’t want manufacturing to be legalized. Read more

• A bill to legalize medical marijuana in Kentucky was shelved March 7 after it ran into strong opposition from law enforcement officials during a round of testimony before a legislative panel. Comments from the law enforcement officials and a Warren County prosecutor warned that legalization could exacerbate Kentucky’s drug addiction woes. Read more

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Shares of Maricann, a licensed Canadian medical marijuana producer, dropped to a low of CA$1.70 on Feb. 28 and closed at CA$1.97, down by 21 percentage points on the day, after the company announced that a $70 million financing deal has been scratched as it faces a probe from the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), CBC News reports.

Underwriters for a group of investment banks verbally told Maricann they will no longer move forward on a share sale or bought deal that would have raised the money for the company, and several executives are being investigated by the OSC for the “timing and reporting” of certain trades of shares that were owned or controlled by directors Neil Tabatznik, Raymond Stone and Eric Silver, according to CBC News. Both Tabatznik and Stone have resigned, and Maricann has appointed director Paul Pathak as interim chairman of its board.

CBT SPECIAL REPORT: Canadian Cannabis Producers Receive Millions From Offshore Tax Havens

The company has also indicated that the OSC started investigating Maricann’s CEO, Ben Ward, for activities that occurred while he was head of another marijuana firm, Canadian Cannabis Corp., CBC News reports. Ward was the head of Canadian Cannabis from 2013 to 2016, and is cooperating with the investigation, CBC News says.

Maricann has created a special committee, which includes an independent law firm, to review the trades in order to address the concerns raised by the OSC investigation, and its shares were temporarily halted from trading Feb. 27, although they resumed Feb. 28, according to the CBC News report.

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