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PORTLAND — Matt Price sells 100 different kinds of edibles, tinctures, buds and other marijuana offerings to the patients who frequent Cannabliss, the medical dispensary he opened up in a historic brick building that once served as a fire station. Unlike in Washington, Price’s medical-marijuana business is licensed by the state, and all the pot he sells is subject to mandatory testing and labeling. The 28-year-old entrepreneur says he’s now ready for his next step — an expansion into recreational marijuana if Oregon voters pass a measure this fall that would legalize pot sales to anyone 21 years of age...

Useful links that FReepers familiarface and ray76 found, and an embedded link from one of those articles. Thanks.

FINLEY, WA - Some medical marijuana growers in our area are not getting much sleep lately. Especially after another marijuana burglary early Thursday morning. The latest marijuana burglary happened just before 6 a.m. Thursday morning in the area of highway 397 and East Finley Road. Benton County Sheriff's Deputies said a medical marijuana grower shot at a suspect as he ran from the property. NBC Right Now found out this may happen more often this time of year because it is prime marijuana harvest season and medical growers are worried. "If you don't have sophisticated cameras, alarm systems, (are)friends with...

The American health-care system is befuddling in so many ways, but the variation in hospital prices is among the most confounding. The price for back surgery at Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center can cost $46,000 — three times as much as it costs at Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center. If you’re looking for knee or hip replacement, at $92,000 you could wind up paying four-times more at Multicare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup than the $23,000 price tag at Wenatchee Valley Hospital. Across the state and for services ranging from urinary tract infections to strokes, the prices for care...

GREAT FALLS, Mont. A Roman Catholic bishop says a central Montana parish is about evenly divided over a new priest's decision to prohibit a gay couple from receiving Communion unless they divorce, live separately and write a statement affirming that a marriage is between a man and a woman. Bishop Michael Warfel of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings met Saturday with about 300 parishioners of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Lewistown, where he also led a Mass. About half the parishioners supported the Rev. Samuel Spiering's decision, while the other half were very angry, the Great Falls Tribune...

With more people obtaining health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, places like Harborview Medical Center are providing much less “charity” (uncompensated) care. The Emergency Department there is as busy as ever, though. Nowhere illustrates the complexity of delivering medical care in the era of health-care reform better than Harborview Medical Center’s 47-bed Emergency Department. As King County’s largest safety-net hospital, Harborview’s specific mission is to care for patients who are most in need, giving it a disproportionate share of patients who are poor or homeless and uninsured. Last year alone, Harborview provided $219 million in so-called “charity” care, nearly...

Retail sales of state-licensed weed in Washington topped $12 million by Sept. 8 … and sales keep climbing. The improvement of sales in recreational marijuana here mirrors the steep growth in sales in Colorado, where the recreational market out-sold medical for the first time in July (the latest numbers from that state). The Cannabist reports: “In July 2014, customers purchased more than $29.7 million in recreational marijuana — up from $24.7 million in June. Medical marijuana patients spent more than $28.9 million on marijuana in July — comparable to June’s $28.6 million in sales.” In Washington, there are now 55...

Health clinics in Washington that largely serve low-income and minority residents will receive nearly $7.5 million in federal grants to increase access to primary care. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is awarding more than $295 million to community clinics nationwide, according to an announcement made Friday. In Washington, the money will go to 25 community health centers that treat medically underserved communities. The grants will help pay for an estimated 104 full-time health-care providers and benefit roughly 40,000 new patients (see full list of recipients below). The Affordable Care Act and its expansion of health-care coverage has...

The immediate burst of energy from the big flare yesterday had some effect on high frequency radio waves already (check out the first image in the gallery above), according to NOAA’s Space Weather prediction Center, but the hard-to-take CME particles are likely to go just above the Earth, singing us just a bit. The Associated Press reports: New calculations from satellite data show that the worst of the energetic particles streaming from the sun likely will go north or above Earth this time, , said Tom Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center late Wednesday. So while the power...

Pot-infused edibles are trickling onto shelves at marijuana stores, and more products are coming, despite a shortage of legal pot and new last-minute state regulations. Entrepreneurs have bemoaned the slow pace, but regulators are being cautious about public health. Statewide pot-supply shortages slowed edibles’ arrival, but manufacturers also were stifled, and frustrated, by emergency regulations from the state Liquor Control Board (LCB), which has taken a cautious approach to opening the marketplace. So far, the LCB has given its blessing to products — including chocolate bars, sodas and energy shots — from three new businesses. Nine more kitchens have been...

Extremely low levels of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active compound in marijuana, may offer a novel and viable treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD), preliminary research suggests. Investigators at the University of South Florida in Tampa found that THC both decreases the production of amyloid beta (Aβ) and inhibits its aggregation in cell cultures. In addition, it does so at extremely safe doses. These observations have implications for a potentially new therapeutic approach to the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), as researchers suggest. "Our group believes that amyloid aggregation is the initiator of AD, so we wanted to see if THC can...

In the shrub steppe of Grand Coulee on the banks of the Columbia River, the town’s two family doctors practice at an unrelenting pace, working on call every other night and every other weekend. In the coastal town of Port Angeles, the doctor shortage is so acute that a clinic is turning away 250 callers a week seeking a physician. George and Lynne Rudesill are two of those people. Since learning earlier this summer that their primary-care doctor in Sequim was retiring, the couple have scrambled to find a replacement. Their calls are being met with waiting lists hundreds of...

Ninety individual health plans sold by 10 insurers will likely make their way into Washington’s exchange marketplace for 2015, if the Washington Health Benefit Exchange board approves them Thursday, as expected. ... The reviewers appeared to have taken a tight approach to premium rates, lowering requested rates from all but one insurer. On a weighted average, the actuarial review squeezed an overall rate increase of 8.6 percent in the insurers’ original proposals down to 1.9 percent. ... Washington’s insurance exchange for small businesses got off to a slow start its first year when no one offered coverage statewide. For 2015,...

The WA Alliance for Gun Responsibility continues to pad its war chest. The independent spending group is leading the push to get voters to approve in November I-594, a measure that would require background checks for gun sales. Ex-Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer (and new LA Clippers owner) and his wife Connie were already big donors to the group, but they kicked in an additional $250,000 between them, according to public records. That brings the group’s total fundraising to about $3.2 million, records show. The group has spent about $2.2 million and still has about $1 million still on hand. Meanwhile,...

RICHLAND, WA - Swimming in certain public areas in the City of Richland could soon get you up to a year in jail. It sure is one way to get people's attention when enforcing restricted swimming areas in the city. Swimming is already banned in many areas around public docks used by boats, but this new law would make swimming in one of these areas a gross misdemeanor. That would include possibly serving one year behind bars or thousands of dollars in fines. Parks and Public Facilities director Joe Schiessl tells NBC Right Now there would be a community education...

A fresh cash infusion of $250,00 from ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and wife Connie has swelled the pro-Initiative 594 Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility warchest to $3.4 million. The Ballmers gave $125,000 apiece, swelling their total contributions to $600,000. The pro-594 campaign reports more than $1.1 million in cash on hand, according to its filings with the state Public Disclosure Commission. The alliance was formed, largely by faith leaders, after the December 2012, massacre of 20 first graders in Newtown, Connecticut. After the Washington Legislature failed to act, supporters collected signatures to put on the ballot a statewide initiative that...

The pistils, or white strands that mark the blooming of marijuana flowers, have turned amber, the color of money to the pot farmers inside a Sodo warehouse. It’s time for the first harvest of “West Seattle Kush” by AuricAG, one of the pioneering legal pot growers in Washington state. The team of local guys isn’t popping Champagne yet. Drying, curing and crucial lab tests are to come — and probably more of the unanticipated problems that have stressed the AuricAG team in their race to market. They’ve worked Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and close to 130 days straight. Finances...

An Amazon.com employee from out of town was the operator of a drone that buzzed the Seattle Space Needle this week, police said. Witnesses told police they saw the craft fly back into a fifth-floor room of a nearby hotel. Police contacted the man and he admitted operating the drone equipped with a camera Tuesday. He told authorities he wanted to try out the craft he recently purchased at a hobby shop. Police had received reports that the drone had crashed into the landmark of Seattle's 1962 World's Fair, but they saw no evidence of that.

While record-setting wildfires engulfed Central Washington, budding marijuana businesses in the area suffered from scorched plants unfit for production, pop-up fires on farms and road closures that slowed deliveries to retailers. A 15,000-acre wildfire encroached on the Columbia River Cannabis farm in Douglas County earlier this month and burned its 5-week-old medical-marijuana plants that were eventually to be used to start growing in the recreational market. Columbia River Cannabis in Douglas County was finally close to getting a marijuana-producer license after nine months. That is, until a 15,000-acre wildfire encroached on its farm July 10 and burned its 5-week-old medical-marijuana...

This is maybe somewhat misnamed, but does have an interesting collection of slideshows with commentary. Click the link above or Seattle-PI Pot Blog