Colorado's legal marijuana industry is blazing ahead with annual sales now in excess of $1 billion dollars. 

According to data from Colorado's Department of Revenue released last Friday, business at the state's recreational and medical marijuana dispensaries hit $1 billion for the first nine months of 2015, including a combined $100 million in September alone. That was the highest monthly total since sales began there in January 2014. 

With just 48 hours to go before CNBC's presidential debate in Boulder this Wednesday, the declared candidates remain strongly divided over the issue of marijuana use in the United States.

Authorities claim the plants were marijuana, not hemp – but evidence is lacking.

DENVER - Anyone who drives by Sports Authority Field at Mile High this week may notice a new billboard about marijuana.

A group called "Smart Colorado," known for opposing legal access to marijuana, debuted a billboard Monday on Federal Blvd.

The billboard reads, in part, "Mom, is today's pot a hard drug?" The group hopes the billboard leads to conversations that ultimately lead to research on THC potency.

"We feel like it's really important to have a national conversation about the increasing marijuana potencies and health effects," Diane Carlson, co-founder of Smart Colorado said. "It's long overdue. It's something that came up in the Democratic debate and we hope it gets asked at the GOP debate in Boulder this Wednesday."

It’s only 9 days until the 2015 election in Ohio. Marijuana legalization is on the ballot in Ohio, in a form that has not been seen before in marijuana politics. Parts of ResponsibleOhio’s marijuana initiative have created a lot of outcry from voters and specifically reformers. From what I have seen on social media and blogs, there is more support for the initiative than ever before. That’s certainly not to say that the initiative isn’t without it’s opposition from within the marijuana community, because there absolutely is. But it seems to be less prevalent than before, with many nationally known reformers expressing that they would ultimately vote for the initiative.

Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., opened up to a Gawker reporter about his marijuana use during an interview Monday. It took place ahead of the release of the Showtime documentary on Frank titled "Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank."

Frank was a member of the House of Representatives from 1983 to 2013, serving as the chairman of the Financial Services Committee. Frank has long been outspokenly liberal on a range of issues from gay marriage -- he came out as gay in the 1980s -- to marijuana use. 

The Ministry, said C420 director and co-founder Colin Stephenson, had failed to make it known that laws regarding the lawful possession of marijuana exist in Trinidad and Tobago, to make regulations governing the use of marijuana, and to explore uses of the plant other than smoking. 

With the marijuana business ballooning into a $3 billion powerhouse almost overnight, more politicians have begun to court the industry’s campaign contributions.

Four states and the District of Columbia have already legalized marijuana and 23 other states have eased restrictions signaling the nation is ready for a change. The question remains how powerful will the industry eventually become and what influence will they be able to muster?

Already, politicians have been forced to take public stances on marijuana, a drug still classified as Schedule 1 by the federal government and therefore of no redeeming value.

The marijuana entrepreneurs of Colorado will not have a special bank to call their own — unless a federal judge intervenes on their side.

The designated guardians of the U.S. banking system — the Federal Reserve — has declined to accept so much as a red cent that can be traced back to weed, because according to federal law, marijuana is a Schedule 1 narcotic.

Weirdly, the Treasury Department seems less concerned about that part. The Fourth Corner Credit Union (the bank that suffered a denial in Colorado) was designed using rules issued by the Treasury last year for how banks can accept drug money from states where those drugs are legal. Fourth Corner was chartered specifically to service the state’s $700 million a year industry and create a safe place to bank for it.

Among the decisions Colorado voters will make in voting that ends Nov. 3 is how to allocate $66 million collected from retail marijuana taxes.

If voters approve Proposition BB — the Colorado Marijuana TABOR Refund Measure — the state retains the money. If it is rejected, the revenue will be refunded to the marijuana industry and taxpayers.

The state estimates each taxpayer would receive about $8.

Under Article X of the Colorado Constitution — generally referred to as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights — voters must ratify any new taxes.

MORE than nine out of every 10 Australians (91%) believe the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes should be made legal, according to a special Roy Morgan telephone survey.

Only 7% of respondants to the survey - conducted last week with 644 Australians aged 14+ - are against legalisation and 2% can't say.

This is the first time Roy Morgan Research has asked specifically about the medicinal use of marijuana.

The landslide result comes from widespread support for the legalisation of medicinal marijuana among men and women, different age groups, states of residence and federal voting intention.

Analysis by age and gender