Month: May 2014

By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) – The Colorado state Senate passed a bill on Wednesday to create the nation's first state-run marijuana financial cooperative, with the ultimate aim of opening newly legalized cannabis retail outlets to key banking services through the Federal Reserve. The 24-11 vote approving the so-called "cannabis credit co-ops" came days after the state House of Representatives cleared its own version of the bill, which seeks to address problems marijuana retailers face in having to operate on a cash-only basis. If they meet the deadline, the legislation will then head to Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, who is expected to sign the bill into law. The proposal's chief sponsor, Representative Jonathan Singer, said the cooperatives are needed because traditional banks and credit unions have been hesitant to serve the burgeoning marijuana industry as long as the drug remains outlawed by the U.S. government.

By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Pediatricians and other primary care doctors should apply fluoride varnish to infants’ teeth soon after they erupt, according to new cavity-fighting guidelines. The recommendations come from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a government-backed panel. “Only one in four preschool children is seeing a dentist, but most see a primary care clinician,” Dr. Michael LeFevre told Reuters Health. “Primary care clinicians can play an important complementary role in helping dentists keep children’s teeth healthy.” A family physician from the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia, LeFevre chairs the USPSTF.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top health insurance companies told members of Congress Wednesday that more than 80 percent of people who’ve signed up under the president’s new health care law have gone on to pay their premiums — a necessary step for the enrollment figures touted by the Obama administration to hold up.

(Reuters) – General Electric Co has agreed to sell its Wayne fuel dispenser business to private investment firm Riverstone Holdings LLC, the U.S. conglomerate said on Wednesday. Reuters reported last week that a deal for Wayne would likely value the unit at between $500 million and $600 million, according to sources. Austin, Texas-based Wayne was part of Dresser Inc, the energy infrastructure company that GE bought in 2010 for $3 billion. Wayne manufactures fuel dispensers for petroleum retailers and commercial fleets as well as compressed natural gas fueling pumps.

Every once in a few years, a documentary about food captures the public's imagination and inspires people to make changes in their lives and in our food environment. The latest, and perhaps the most strategic, of these is Fed Up, the film about food industry's contribution to obesity.

By Barbara Liston TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) – Retired real estate agent Wanda Hurt, 58, is learning how to grow peppers and tomatoes, but when she graduates from Florida's own version of Pot U she'll be equipped to start her own medical marijuana business. Hurt is one of hundreds of would-be pot producers paying $500 to learn the business after Florida last week joined the march of 22 states permitting limited marijuana use. The school, officially called Medical Marijuana Tampa, is one of several dozen new Florida businesses hoping to cash in on the cannabis crop. The Florida legislature on Friday passed a bill to legalize Charlotte's Web, a noneuphoric strain of marijuana commonly believed to reduce epileptic seizures.

By Julia Edwards WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 150 synthetic drug makers and sellers have been arrested in a U.S. crackdown on designer drugs whose profits largely flow to the Middle East, the Drug Enforcement Administration said on Wednesday. Federal agents have issued nearly 200 search warrants and seized more than $20 million in cash and assets in an operation that has spanned over 29 states since its launch January, the DEA said in a statement. The targeted drugs include synthetic marijuana, which is usually a plant material treated with a psychoactive compound, and a stimulant commonly known as bath salts. Federal law enforcement agents found that much of the illicit drug profits go to countries in the Middle East, including Yemen, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, the DEA said.

By William Schomberg LONDON (Reuters) – Guatemala is considering the possibility of earning taxes from the sale of opium poppies to help fund drug prevention programmes and other social spending, the country's interior minister said on Wednesday. The Central American state is looking at ways to legalize poppy and marijuana production, part of a broader shift in attitudes across Latin America away from the huge financial and social costs of the U.S.-backed war on drugs. \"That is one idea that has been raised,\" said Mauricio Lopez Bonilla, a retired lieutenant colonel who served with Guatemala's special forces, when asked if the government would tax the sale of poppies if it opted to allow their cultivation for medical purposes. Almost all of Guatemala's poppy production is concentrated in three municipalities located close to the border with Mexico and has been funded traditionally by Mexican drug gangs.