Defiant medical marijuana supporters urged lawmakers Monday not to set new limits on their growing operations when recreational pot sales open next year. Patients and growers flocked to the Capitol for a meeting of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Implementing Measure 91, arguing that proposed restrictions would do little to stem the flow of pot to the black market, as lawmakers contend.

The emerging cannabis industry has not only created thousands of new jobs, it has also given birth to a new technology niche. Existing software companies are adapting and new ones are being born to address the specific needs of this new sector. Government agencies and business owners find that they are at ground zero for the creation of these new products.

In the past, I have had trouble talking about having Crohn’s Disease. It was just a reality I have lived with for over a decade but one I was loathe to discuss. It has been not just a major inconvenience in my life; it has altered its course significantly. The subject is emotionally difficult to explain because it is personal and unpleasant.

When New York State’s lawmakers were mulling legalizing the medical use of marijuana last summer, some proponents feared that the proposed law was so restrictive that it would prevent many patients from receiving the drug. Now, with the state’s Health Department close to issuing final regulations about the new program, the law’s supporters say their fears may soon be realized.

Edible marijuana sold in Colorado must look different from regular foods, lawmakers from both parties said Wednesday in rejecting a bill to loosen requirements. The rejection means that marijuana-infused cookies, candies and drinks must have a distinct look by 2016 – and that’s for the item itself, not just the packaging.

The marijuana world is about to get its first connoisseur brand, edging it farther from an illegal substance and closer to the realm of fine wines. During a recent interview at the entrance to his sprawling property just outside Austin, Texas, Willie Nelson lets slip that he has something in the works: a new brand of weed, called, naturally, Willie’s Reserve.

The District is about to witness a massive, public drug deal on Thursday — and for those involved, it will be quite a bargain. Over 800 people have confirmed attendance at a giveaway of marijuana seeds Thursday night at an Adams Morgan restaurant. The event appears unprecedented and likely to scatter the makings of more than 16,000 marijuana plants across the nation’s capital.

A two-year effort to legalize medical marijuana in Georgia may finally succeed, as the Senate passed a likely compromise that would OK a limited form of the drug for disorders including cancer, seizures and sickle cell disease. House Bill 1 still needs another nod from the House before it receives final passage.

The legalization of marijuana in Colorado hasn’t solved the racial disparities in enforcement that drug-policy reformers had hoped to end, with blacks still far more likely than whites to be charged with pot-related crimes, a new report says.

Last month, a new local magazine premiered in San Francisco filled with stories about pot-friendly politicians and a comic book starring a joint-smoking dinosaur named Budzilla. The free publication, SF Evergreen, is a bet by the parent company of The San Francisco Examiner newspaper that people will be eager to read about marijuana.

Judge Kimberly Mueller, the federal magistrate who made history by granting defense requests for a five-day hearing on the constitutionality of the continued inclusion of cannabis in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, was originally scheduled to meet with the parties of US v Schweder et al for a status hearing this week — but has delayed that meeting until April 15th.

Suspending children from school for drug use could actually encourage their classmates to smoke pot, rather than deter them. Suspensions have also been shown to increase disengagement from school, delinquency or anti-social behaviour such as smoking and alcohol use, but students who were at schools that were counselled and got abstinence messages about the drug were 50 per cent less likely to smoke pot.

A push to legalize medical marijuana at the federal level is gaining momentum in the Senate, drawing a growing roster of co-sponsors from both parties just over a week after it was unveiled. The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States (CARERS) Act would provide dispensaries with access to the banking system and potentially fueling greater medical research of the drug.

While there are still many marijuana-related ways a person can get sent to the slammer in the United States, smelling as if you reside in an eternal hotbox is not one of them. However, this did not prevent administrators at a Massachusetts high school from calling police earlier this week after receiving reports that one of their cafeteria employees reeked of weed.

A Nevada lawmaker proposed a bill in the state legislature on Tuesday that would grant ailing pets access to medical marijuana. The measure, put forward by Democrat Tick Segerblom, would let owners obtain the drug for their animals if a veterinarian confirmed it “may mitigate the symptoms or effects” of a chronic or debilitating medical condition.

What happens to the millions of Americans with existing marijuana convictions once it’s legal? This week, with a groundbreaking case in Connecticut, the U.S. may be one step closer to an answer. The ruling came 7-0 in favor of 31-year-old Nicholas Menditto, who argued that the two marijuana possession convictions on his record should be erased now that less than a half-ounce of the drug has been decriminalized.

Only recently, with no more elections to fight for his party, has Obama started to tell interviewers that he wants softer treatment of a popular drug that shares Schedule I status with far deadlier substances like heroin and LSD. In an interview with Vice, after a semi-apologetic question from Shane Smith, Obama expressed optimism that marijuana could be reclassified.

Scientists who study medical marijuana will soon have access to a wider variety of strains. The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) — the federal “dealer” that supplies the drug to scientists — has received numerous complaints from researchers that the drug they supply is too weak compared with what’s sold on the streets, legal or otherwise.

When someone asks me whether I’d rather my children use pot or alcohol, after sifting through all the studies and all the data, the immediate answer, of course, is “neither.” Usually, I say it more than once. But if I’m forced to make a choice, the answer is “marijuana.”

Patients in need of cannabis treatment from 13 different countries, including those represented by KOPAC from the Czech Republic, met at the “Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Policy, Research and Medical Practice” conference in Prague March 4-7, 2015 and established the International Medical Cannabis Patient Coalition (IMCPC).