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Welcome back to Weed Wednesday, your weekly dose of pot news. Wondering what this is about? Click. Looking for our previous marijuana coverage? Click. Got a question or tip? Email me at [email protected].

In July, pot stores opened up their doors as the retail portion of the state’s marijuana legalization initiative went into effect. Proponents of the initiative argued that legalizing marijuana would create new economic activity and provide money for state coffers. So how much money is there in the newly legitimate ganja business as the year comes to a close?

According to figures released just yesterday by the Washington State Liquor Control Board (the agency that oversees legal pot), there has been over $63 million in pot sales in the state, which generated nearly $16 million in taxes.

Those numbers have been trending upwards. In August, there was about $7 million in sales, which rose to $15 million by December.

In other news:

Now that President Barack Obama no longer has to worry about any upcoming elections, he’s taken bold actions on climate change and immigration. Surely he’ll do something similarly bold on marijuana legalization, like flying out to Washington or Colorado, firing up a doobie and calling for an all-out end to the drug war before dropping bales of pot out of Air Force One on this way home, right? At the very least he’ll call for marijuana legalization (in a very qualified and measured way), right?

No, he won’t. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Dan Pfeiffer, a White House senior adviser, said that Obama administration has “nothing” else planned on marijuana policy.

Remember Mike Gravel? He was a former U.S. senator from Alaska who read the top secret Pentagon Papers into the congressional record and ran a very cranky campaign for president in 2008. In a sign that marijuana culture is becoming increasingly mainstream, Gravel, an outspoken critic of the war on drugs, will now head up KUSH, a company that will develop and market cannabis products for the medicinal and recreational markets.

Washington D.C.’s new attorney general says that the district’s marijuana legalization law can go forward despite attempts by Congress to block it.

Colorado’s attorney general has issued an opinion finding that making hash oil at home is still illegal, reports The Cannabist. The opinion is based on the placement of a single comma in the amendment to Colorado’s Constitution that legalizes pot.

Pot food is about to get fancy, reports The New York Times.