The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday approved funding sources for increased law enforcement against illegal indoor pot grows, following a two-month pilot program that led to the closure of 614 pot houses.

The city expects to spend between $700,000 and $1.1 million on police efforts to stop the approximately 1,000 illegal grows in Sacramento houses in the fiscal year ending June 30.

The city will pay those costs with tax revenue collected from legal marijuana businesses, which are expected to start operating sometime after Jan. 1, when adults can purchase pot for recreational use statewide. The city plans to supplement that tax revenue with administrative fines collected from illegal pot growers.

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The owner of a pipe and bong store in the Philadelphia suburbs, caught up in a crackdown on head shops, was convicted Monday of selling drug paraphernalia.

Craig Hennesy, 49, whose Piper's Smoke Shop opened in 2016 in Limerick near Ursinus College, could get two years in jail and be fined $10,000 when he is sentenced on two misdemeanor counts.

Hennesy was convicted by a Montgomery County Court jury despite hearing testimony from a retired county chief of detectives who said the products sold were legitimate.

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ALBANY - New Yorkers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder will now be able to use medical marijuana as a form of treatment.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law Saturday that added PTSD to the list of conditions eligible for medical marijuana in New York.

"As of today, marijuana will be legalized if a doctor authorizes and finds the condition of PTSD for a veteran, and I think that can help thousands of veterans. It's something that we've been talking about for a long time, and I'm glad we're taking action," Cuomo said.

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Demonized for decades, marijuana remains controversial even on the brink of its statewide legalization - and even in pot-friendly strongholds such as San Francisco. The city is one of many still debating local regulations that will either embrace an overdue retreat from the drug war or effectively prolong the failed policy at the neighborhood level.

For vacillating municipal officials, some context is in order. This week alone, New Jersey and Virginia voters resoundingly elected gubernatorial candidates promising to liberalize marijuana policy; Constellation Brands, a Fortune 500 seller of many popular wine and beer brands, was reported to have bought a nearly $200 million stake in a Canadian cannabis company; and California's attorney general approved signature-gathering for a ballot measure to legalize psilocybin mushrooms.

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed legislation to add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of ailments that can legally be treated with medical marijuana.

The PTSD bill was part of a package of legislation that Cuomo signed Saturday to mark Veterans Day.

The Democratic governor said 19,000 New Yorkers with PTSD could be helped by medical marijuana.

He said the potential beneficiaries include veterans as well as police officers and survivors of domestic violence, crime and accidents.

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A citizens committee in Colton has launched an initiative to regulate and tax local cannabis cultivation, manufacturing and distribution in order to generate millions of dollars in revenue for law enforcement, schools and public safety programs.

The Committee for Safer Neighborhoods and Schools recently filed its proposed marijuana ordinance with the city and will soon begin gathering signatures for placement on the 2018 ballot.

Meanwhile, the Colton City Council awaits a drafted ordinance of potential regulations recommended by a committee of city leaders and other representatives.

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When 74 percent of San Francisco voters last year backed legalizing the adult recreational use of marijuana statewide, the idea was to make it easier to buy and smoke pot - a substance that has never been that hard to buy or smoke in San Francisco anyway.

Tell that to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The Keystone Cops of Cannabis have spent countless hours over endless committee meetings in recent weeks, devising ways to dramatically limit where people can buy and sell marijuana once the substance becomes legal for recreational use statewide on Jan. 1.

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A global credit rating agency says taxes on recreational marijuana in California could reach 45 percent in some places, high enough to keep the thriving black market in business despite legalization.

The report by Fitch Ratings, "Local Taxes May Challenge Cannabis Legalization in California," warns that state and local taxes may combine to threaten the government revenue expected from the sale of legalized cannabis and cannabis products. The recreational use of the drug will be legal in California starting Jan. 1 under Proposition 64, the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, passed by voters last November.

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Can you be fired in Michigan for using medical marijuana?

Joseph Casias injured his knee at the Battle Creek Wal-Mart where he worked in 2009.

Per company policy, he took a drug test. It came back positive.

Casias had been using marijuana at home to treat pain from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued on his behalf for wrongful discharge in violation of the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act.

A U.S. District Judge sided with the company. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the ruling.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Supervisors in famously pot-friendly San Francisco are under pressure from cannabis advocates to pass regulations that would allow the industry to flourish once recreational sales become legal throughout California in January.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is scheduled to take up proposed regulations Tuesday, when they may vote on a stop-gap measure to allow the sale of recreational cannabis through existing medical marijuana outlets on Jan. 1. That would give them time to figure out where to allow new stores.

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(HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday issued an advisory about harms tied to kratom -- an imported herbal supplement with opioid-like effects that is increasing in popularity.

People are taking the unapproved supplement to treat conditions like pain, anxiety and depression -- without medical supervision, FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. Others use kratom for its euphoric effects, or to wean addicts off opioids such as prescription painkillers or heroin, also without medical say-so.

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San Francisco is having a surprisingly difficult time establishing regulations for the broad legal pot market, thanks in part to criticism from older Chinese immigrants who oppose marijuana use.

Divided San Francisco supervisors are scheduled to take up the issue at a board meeting Tuesday, where they may vote on a stop-gap measure to allow the sale of recreational cannabis through existing medical marijuana outlets on Jan. 1 as they continue to figure out where to allow new stores.

The possibility of overly strict regulations has businesses fretting over access and some San Franciscans wondering what happened to the counter-culture, anti-Prohibition city they know and love. The smell of cannabis being smoked is not uncommon in certain neighborhoods and parks.

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WASHINGTON -- Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine joined 43 other state attorneys general to ask Congress to repeal a law they argue has damaged the Drug Enforcement Agency's ability to crack down on drug manufacturers and distributors that have contributed to the nation's sweeping opioid epidemic.

In a letter Tuesday to House and Senate leadership, the attorneys general argue that a bill passed by voice vote in 2016 made it more difficult for the DEA to take action against drug companies that were flooding communities with prescription painkillers.

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Palm Beach County's first medical marijuana dispensary is now open for business.

At noon Tuesday, Knox Medical opened the center at 1 South Dixie Highway in Lake Worth, across the street from Lake Worth City Hall.

The dispensary occupies a former bank building in downtown Lake Worth, and the interior resembles a dentist or doctor's office. Patients check in at the foyer and then can proceed to a room with glass display cases showcasing Knox Medical's products.

Knox Medical CEO Jose Javier Hidalgo said the new dispensary will improve access to medical cannabis for everyone in South Florida.

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In just three years, the number of marijuana arrests in Buffalo dropped by more than half.

At the same time, the overwhelming majority of people arrested continued to be people of color.

A new study, released Tuesday, found 86 percent of the people arrested for marijuana possession in Buffalo during the five year-period ending last year were black or Hispanic.

In Erie County, people of color accounted for 77 percent of all marijuana possession arrests over the same five-year period, according to the study.

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A proposed deal to cut through San Francisco's cannabis debate and allow existing medical dispensaries to sell recreational pot on Jan. 1 could put a choke hold on the industry, two former supervisors said Tuesday.

Scott Wiener and David Campos, who formed an unlikely partnership to intervene in the city's cannabis legislation, blasted the proposal by Supervisor Aaron Peskin hours before it went to the full board.

Peskin's idea of granting recreational permits to the city's 46 existing pot businesses, when coupled with zoning rules that other supervisors have introduced to keep the pot trade out of their neighborhoods, would create a monopoly for those already in business, Wiener and Campos said.

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Federal agents arrested a Philadelphia police officer Tuesday, accusing him of conspiring with officers in Baltimore to sell cocaine and heroin seized from that city's streets.

Prosecutors say that Eric Troy Snell, 33, earned thousands of dollars serving as a conduit between corrupt members of a Baltimore police task force who stole the drugs and his brother, who sold them in Philadelphia.

Investigators also have accused Snell of threatening the children of a Baltimore officer who pleaded guilty in the case.

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Regarding your editorial "High on Incentives" (Nov. 2): After the 21st Amendment lifting prohibition in 1933, the excise tax rate on alcohol was adjusted down to around 5% to undercut moonshiners and to eliminate any continuing profit for the mob. Later, the excise tax rate was adjusted up to approximately 15%. Mentor Capital's elasticity analysis of the cannabis tax load in various locales versus illegal marijuana-market activity shows a roughly inverse linear relationship. That is if the tax rate is 45%, the illegal market will be 45% of the whole cannabis market.

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In July, the Food and Drug Administration took the important step of approving two final-phase clinical trials to determine whether a party drug that has long been on the Drug Enforcement Administration's Schedule I list of banned substances could be used to treat a psychiatric condition that afflicts millions. The drug is MDMA, a psychedelic commonly known as Ecstasy, previously deemed to have "no currently accepted medical use." The trials aim to determine whether the drug is, as earlier trials have suggested, a safe and effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, when combined with psychotherapy.

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Buyer beware. Nearly 75 percent of CBD marijuana extracts sold online are mislabeled, with many of the products containing little to none of the active ingredient, according to a study led by a University of Pennsylvania researcher.

CBD, or cannabidiol, is a molecule found in cannabis believed to have therapeutic properties. Preliminary studies have found it to be effective in treating some forms of intractable seizures, pain and anxiety. It does not deliver the high associated with the better known psychoactive molecule, THC. CBD products are widely available despite a federal prohibition on their use. The DEA, and the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, consider CBD a Schedule 1 substance without a valid medical use.

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