Any day now, medical marijuana will legally start to grow in the state of Texas.

It will be planted, grown and processed on a 10-acre parcel of land in Schulenburg, a small community east of San Antonio, now that the company that owns the property -- Cansortium Texas -- has received the state's first license to do so.

The low-level cannabidiol will be sold, under a 2015 law, to help Texans with intractable epilepsy if federally approved medication hasn't helped.

[continues 1020 words]

Former Jackson County Sheriff Denny Peyman was involved in a marijuana-growing operation and possessed enough anabolic steroids to indicate he was trafficking in the drug, Kentucky State Police have charged.

A detective for the state police Drug Enforcement/Special Investigations unit for the eastern half of the state arrested Peyman at his farm south of McKee Wednesday at 4:44 p.m. after serving a search warrant, according to the citation.

The citation said the warrant was the culmination of an investigation in which 61 marijuana plants had been found earlier growing at Peyman's farm.

[continues 353 words]

As Tennessee lawmakers begin discussions about possibly allowing medical marijuana in Tennessee, the top-tier candidates seeking to replace Gov. Bill Haslam have vastly different opinions.

While legalizing medical marijuana in Tennessee has been brought up in the legislature several times in recent years, House Speaker Beth Harwell, who announced her run for governor in July, made headlines when she said she was open to the idea.

Last month, Harwell said a treatment using marijuana for her sister's back injury caused her to reconsider whether the Volunteer State should embrace medical cannabis, the Associated Press reported.

[continues 606 words]

A sleeper issue has emerged among DFL candidates in the 2018 governor's race: Marijuana.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, state Reps. Erin Murphy, Tina Liebling and Paul Thissen, and U.S. Rep. Tim Walz all support legalizing marijuana for recreational and not just medical use. Among the major DFL candidates, only State Auditor Rebecca Otto declined to do so.

"When you confront the reality of the cost of criminalization vs. the benefits of legalization, I think the benefits outweigh the costs," said Coleman, whose campaign approached the Star Tribune to discuss the issue.

[continues 675 words]

Opioid use by American men may account for one-fifth of the decline in their participation in the U.S. labor force, according to a study by Princeton University economist Alan Krueger.

"The opioid crisis and depressed labor-force participation are now intertwined in many parts of the U.S.," Krueger, who was chief economist at the Treasury Department in the Obama administration, wrote in the study released Thursday at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington.

Krueger's study linked county prescription rates to labor force data from the past 15 years, concluding that regional differences in prescription rates were due to variations in medical practices, not health conditions. In previous research, he found that nearly half of men in their prime worker ages not in the labor force take prescription painkillers daily.

[continues 189 words]

In 2016, rates of marijuana use among the nation's 12- to 17-year-oldsA dropped to their lowest level inA more than two decades, according to federal survey data released this week.

Last year, 6.5 percent of adolescents used marijuana on a monthly basis, according to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That represents a statistically significant drop from 2014,A when the nation's first recreational marijuana shops opened in Washington state and Colorado.

The last time monthly teen marijuana use was this low was 1994, according to the survey.

[continues 289 words]

Not long ago, a supporter of mine visiting from California dropped by my Capitol office. A retired military officer and staunch conservative, he and I spent much of our conversation discussing the Republican agenda.

Finally, I drew a breath and asked him about an issue I feared might divide us: the liberalization of our marijuana laws, specifically medical marijuana reform, on which for years I had been leading the charge. What did he think about that controversial position?

"Dana," he replied, "there are some things about me you don't know." He told me about his three sons, all of whom enlisted after 9/11.

[continues 730 words]

Educating lawmakers and the general public will be a key component of the recently formed legislative committee tasked with tackling medical marijuana, according to one of the legislators heading up the panel.

"I think one of the goals is to make sure that the people and the advocates and the patients are aware of what we're doing and make sure that they give feedback to their elected officials," said Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, who along with Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, are heading up a legislative committee to study the issue.

[continues 723 words]

Singer Olivia Newton-John has used medicinal marijuana during her battle with breast cancer and plans to promote the drug this week to raise money for her wellness and research center.

"I will do what I can to encourage it. It's an important part of treatment, and it should be available," Newton-John, who announced a second battle with breast cancer in May, told News Corp. Australia.

"I use medicinal cannabis, which is really important for pain and healing," she said. "It's a plant that has been maligned for so long, and has so many abilities to heal."

[continues 187 words]

Gov. Chris Christie is growing impatient with the Trump administration over its delay in declaring the opioid epidemic a national emergency.

Christie said during an interview with MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes on Tuesday night that too many lives are being lost to drug overdoses for a formal declaration to wait any longer.

"I think it's time for the president and White House staff to get on this and for the president to demand that they get the papers in front of him so he can sign it," Christie said.

[continues 454 words]

It looks like Attorney General Jeff Sessions has run into some problems in his crusade against the marijuana. While the new Department of Justice administration has long been mounting pressure against the marijuana industry, the latest suggestion from the Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety is to, well, do nothing.

The subcommittee was announced months ago and tasked with developing a legal avenue for Session's marijuana crackdown. However, the Associated Press reported the group "has come up with no new policy recommendations to advance the attorney general's aggressively anti-marijuana views."

[continues 521 words]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday called drug overdose deaths "the top lethal issue" in the U.S. and urged law enforcement and social workers to "create and foster a culture that's hostile to drug use."

Sessions spoke to the annual conference of the National Alliance For Drug Endangered Children. He said preliminary data show nearly 60,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2016, the highest ever.

"Our current drug epidemic is indeed the deadliest in American history. We've seen nothing like it," said Sessions.

[continues 143 words]

More state spending, legislation and debate on Ohio's drug crisis don't appear to have made a dent as the statewide death toll from accidental drug overdoses soared last year to 4,050, a 33-percent jump over 2015.

Fentanyl, the deadly opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin, is increasingly to blame for overdose deaths, with fentanyl and its derivatives accounting for 58.2 percent of the deaths, up from 37.9 percent in 2015. There were 3,050 overdose deaths in 2015.

[continues 171 words]

Attendees of the annual marijuana "Freedom Rally" on Boston Common laughed during last year's event.

For more stories on the marijuana industry, sign up for our newsletter, This Week in Weed.

The administration of Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh is expected to green-light the 28th annual marijuana "Freedom Rally" on Boston Common in September, a year after organizers of the smoky, weekend-long bash had to sue the city to get a permit.

This year's incarnation of the long-running celebration of cannabis culture, which draws thousands of marijuana enthusiasts, is scheduled to begin Sept. 15. It will be the first to take place since voters legalized recreational use of the drug last November.

[continues 453 words]

BOSTON -- Marijuana legalization opponents will outnumber supporters four to one on the new commission that will spearhead the state's efforts to get a legal marijuana industry up and running by next summer and then regulate the newly legal market.

Attorney General Maura Healey on Friday appointed Britte McBride, a lawyer with experience working for the attorney general's office, the state Senate and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, to the newly minted Cannabis Control Commission, and joined Gov. Charlie Baker and Treasurer Deborah Goldberg in agreeing on two picks to round out the five-person panel.

[continues 748 words]

The explosion that wounded me during a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan in 2010 left me with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. In 2012 I was medically retired from the Marine Corps because of debilitating migraines, vertigo and crippling depression. After a nine-year career, I sought care from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

At first, I didn't object to the pills that arrived by mail: antidepressants, sedatives, amphetamines and mood stabilizers. Stuff to wake me up. Stuff to put me down. Stuff to keep me calm. Stuff to rile me up. Stuff to numb me from the effects of my wars as an infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stuff to numb me from the world all around.

[continues 824 words]

In a decision that could change the way future medical marijuana permits are awarded in Pennsylvania, the state has ordered the Pa. Department of Health to reveal the identities of the panelists who determined the winners to grow and distribute cannabis products.

The Pa. Department of Health in June awarded 12 permits to grow and process marijuana and 27 permits to distribute the medicines in a process that many of the unsuccessful applicants criticized as unnecessarily opaque.

A secret panel, comprised of about a dozen Pennsylvania state employees, reviewed and scored hundreds of lengthy applications for the potentially lucrative business permits, following a model originally set by New Jersey. Other states have followed different selection processes. Ohio, for example, hired an Atlanta-based consultant to determine its winners, according to Cleveland.com.

[continues 163 words]

The Trump administration announced Friday that the president has tapped Rep. Tom Marino to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

In Congress, Marino has worked to expand access to treatment for people struggling with opioid addiction.

The 64-year-old Republican congressman lives outside Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and is a former county prosecutor who served as U.S. attorney in Pennsylvania's Middle District under President George W. Bush.

Marino was an early supporter of the president and the first Pennsylvania congressman to endorse Trump in the presidential primary contest. He had previously withdrawn his name from consideration in May, citing a family illness.

[end]

Ten bills aimed at regulating marijuana were shelved Friday by state lawmakers, giving California's new Bureau of Cannabis Control time to finish its own rules before lawmakers pile on with additional restrictions.

The bills held by the Senate Appropriations Committee without comment would have further regulated where pot can be used, how marijuana is marketed, the trademarking of products and would have required the state to produce a consumer guide.

The actions come as the state Bureau of Cannabis Control is preparing to begin issuing licenses and regulations for the growth, transport and sale of marijuana for medical and recreational use starting Jan. 2.

[continues 287 words]

Opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Florida naturally comes with a lot of red tape.

Marijuana is still considered an illegal substance at the federal level, despite the 29 states that have legalized it for recreational or medicinal use in recent years. That makes it nearly impossible for banks to fund marijuana distributing companies, which in turn makes it hard for those companies to sign a lease for a store or warehouse or even get insurance.

But one Orlando area community bank is willing to take on the risk.

[continues 695 words]