A cloud of smoke hung over Cal Expo Friday afternoon as thousands gathered for the High Times Cannabis Cup, the first permitted event in California to allow recreational use of marijuana.

Organizers expected upwards of 15,000 people over the course of the two-day festival, which boasts musical performances from acclaimed artists, including Lauryn Hill, Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, Rich The Kid, Cypress Hill, Rick Ross and Ludacris.

The event was at risk of becoming a music-only festival until the Sacramento City Council approved a license for on-site consumption and sales in a 6-2 vote Tuesday. Weeks earlier, a similar High Times event had its permit denied by the San Bernardino City Council just before it was scheduled to take place.

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To deal with an explosion in the number of Kentucky newborns exposed to dangerous, addictive drugs by their pregnant mothers, lawmakers this year added a section to House Bill 1, a measure that otherwise streamlines the foster care system.

The section -- which becomes law in July, along with the rest of HB 1 - -- expands the definition of child abuse in Kentucky to include neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Babies born with NAS go through withdrawal while they are still in the hospital. They can experience trembling, excessive high-pitched crying, seizures, vomiting and diarrhea. Some have more serious problems, such as heart defects.

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"He was beautiful," said his mother, Bonnie. "He was perfect."

But when Micah turned 3, he began lining up his toy cars in a row and just staring at them. His limited vocabulary became more limited. He forgot how to go potty.

Jensen, 47, quit her job as an executive assistant to take care of and homeschool him.

Early one morning, she felt something shudder in her bed. Beside her, Micah trembled uncontrollably and she saw his skin turn a deep shade of blue and purple. He gasped for air.

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A group of Louisiana parents of children with severe autism had cause for celebration Wednesday (May 2) as a bill (HB 627) that expands medical marijuana as a treatment option for the condition cleared another hurdle through the legislature.

It was one of two medical marijuana medicals aimed at expanding the patient base in Louisiana that passed through the Senate Health and Welfare committee. The other bill (HB 579) authored by Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge, adds glaucoma, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain and Parkinson's Disease to the roster of conditions already approved for treatment with medical marijuana. Both bills will head to the Senate for a full vote.

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There's a problem with access to legal weed in California, and a Senate bill may help solve it.

A 2016 voter-approved measure to legalize marijuana in the state gave cities and counties the authority to pass regulations outlining the types of weed businesses that can operate within their borders. With limited time to craft rules before the law took effect at the start of the year, many towns approved outright bans of all marijuana businesses.

The patchwork of local laws have created vast "pot deserts" that will remain until cities and counties opt to reconsider rules. A Bee analysis in March found that 40 percent of the state is 60 miles or more from a legal dispensary.

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WASHINGTON - FPI Management, a property company in California, wants to hire dozens of people. Factories from New Hampshire to Michigan need workers. Hotels in Las Vegas are desperate to fill jobs.

Those employers and many others are quietly taking what once would have been a radical step: They're dropping marijuana from the drug tests they require of prospective employees. Marijuana testing - a fixture at large American employers for at least 30 years - excludes too many potential workers, experts say, at a time when filling jobs is more challenging than it's been in nearly two decades.

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Teachers at Northwest High School near Dalton, Ga. first became concerned when their colleague, 28-year-old cheer coach and English teacher Raquel Spencer, seemed to have trouble carrying on a coherent conversation, according to the Times Free Press.

Alarmed by her "unusual behavior," she was escorted to an office and consented to a search of her belongings, Whitfield County Schools spokesperson Eric Beavers told the Dalton Daily-Citizen.

That's when the school resource officer found heroin in her belongings, the paper reported.

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It's already used to treat epilepsy in some children -- and now researchers are examining whether a marijuana compound could also be helpful for those with autism.

The University of California San Diego announced in a news release that it will be conducting a test on children with "severe" autism to see if cannabidiol, commonly referred to as CBD, can help treat some of their symptoms.

The research, which will involve 30 children, was made possible thanks to a $4.7 million donation from the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation in Lindon, Utah, according to The San Diego Tribune. The goal is to see if CBD can lessen seizures, anxiety and self-harming.

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NEW YORK -- CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has taken the unusual step of publicly urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reconsider his opposition to medical marijuana, particularly as a way to fight the opioid epidemic.

Gupta wrote a public letter to Sessions, saying that he had changed his mind on the use of medical marijuana, and he's certain Sessions can, too. Research and talking to people who say marijuana has eased pain and weaned them off opioids convinced him.

It's an unusual step for a journalist to move into advocacy, by sending a letter to the attorney general. But Gupta says he believes this falls into the category of telling truth to power.

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WASHINGTON - The massive farm bill that helps determine what farmers grow and Americans eat is poised to get some major momentum thanks to a not-yet-legal crop: Hemp.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has pushed hard to make hemp a legal product in the United States, is asking for his hemp legalization bill to be included in the sweeping farm bill. That would help give the farm bill, whose prospects have been considered iffy, more support in the Senate.

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a longtime opponent of legalizing recreational marijuana, now says the federal government should not interfere in California's legal marijuana market.

In comments to McClatchy Tuesday -- in the middle of a 2018 campaign for her seat in a state that has settled into the legal pot market -- the California Democrat said she was open to considering federal protection for state-legalized marijuana.

Feinstein's office said her views changed after meetings with constituents, particularly those with young children who have benefited from medical marijuana use.

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Florida's 16-month-old medical marijuana business is growing fast, as dispensaries and growers rush to establish themselves. It's happening even as court battles over state regulations for the young industry rage on.

Florida's 16-month-old medical marijuana business is growing fast, as dispensaries and growers rush to establish themselves. It's happening even as court battles over state regulations for the young industry rage on.

Rosa Howard spent 30 minutes in line Tuesday at a Trulieve medical marijuana dispensary in Orlando, packed into a waiting room with mothers, babies and seniors as the distinct smell of cannabis hung in the air.

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Out-of-state marijuana patients visiting Hawaii soon may be allowed to buy their medicinal pot at local dispensaries, a potential boon to the fledgling cannabis industry.

A bill allowing so-called reciprocity has gained enough support to become law, passing out of a key legislative committee Friday and positioned for a full legislative vote. If the bill passes the Legislature, it would go to the governor for final approval.

The bill establishes a process that requires the state Health Department to register out-of-state patients and caregivers so tourists would be able to purchase and use the drug legally while in the islands. Currently, only local marijuana cardholders can legally use pakalolo.

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Louisiana's nine future medical marijuana dispensaries have been selected. The two grow sites, managed by LSU and Southern University, are preparing to start growing and processing the drug by next February at the latest.

Legislators have been focused on the issue, too. Two bills are making their way through the Legislature that would potentially expand the number of medical marijuana patients.

But after all these preparations are made, will there be doctors for medical marijuana patients to go to?

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The Senate's top Democrat announced Friday that he is introducing legislation to decriminalize marijuana, the first time that a leader of either party in Congress has endorsed a rollback of one of the country's oldest drug laws.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in a statement called the move "simply the right thing to do."

"The time has come to decriminalize marijuana," Schumer said. "My thinking - as well as the general population's views - on the issue has evolved, and so I believe there's no better time than the present to get this done. It's simply the right thing to do."

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Her son was supposed to die 13 years ago. She'll never stop fighting for him.

Doctors predicted Jackson Helms would die by the time he was 6.

Now 19, Jackson has lived longer than expected and gained relief from his severe epilepsy because of cannabidiol, or CBD, says his mom Kelly Helms.

CBD has essentially no THC, which is the psychoactive element in marijuana that causes a high.

The full legalization of medical marijuana could help Jackson, his mom says. Medical experts in North Carolina support more research on medical marijuana.

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Calling it "disruptive" and "unlawful," a group of Pennsylvania marijuana growers and retailers wants to snuff out the state's pioneering research program before it is launched.

The first of its kind in the nation, the research program would allow eight of the state's teaching hospitals to contract with a cannabis producer. Each contract is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. The agreements grant the producers a "super-permit" to operate an indoor grow facility and to open six retail dispensaries that can sell medical marijuana to any approved patient.

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For decades, it has embraced its gay and lesbian bars and the rock 'n' roll debauchery of the Sunset Strip. It runs a free nightlife trolley called The PickUp, with a jar of free condoms by the door.

Now, it's embracing a different type of social scene: pot lounges.

The city is poised to allow cannabis lounges where people can consume the once-taboo product in a social setting. West Hollywood will join San Francisco, Oakland and South Lake Tahoe, which earlier this year became some of the first cities in California to open the consumption lounges modeled after those in Amsterdam. Communities in the Coachella Valley are also joining the ranks.

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By the time Ann Marie Owen turned to marijuana to treat her pain, she was struggling to walk and talk. She also hallucinated.

For four years, her doctor prescribed the 61-year-old a wide range of opioids for her transverse myelitis, a debilitating disease that caused pain, muscle weakness and paralysis.

The drugs not only failed to ease her symptoms, they hooked her.

When her home state of New York legalized marijuana for the treatment of select medical ailments, Owens decided it was time to swap pills for pot. But her doctors refused to help.

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After a car crash Saturday in Manchester, Maine, police seized 48 grams of a white powdery substance found in the glove compartment.

It looked like heroin to them.

It was a dead man's ashes.

They were the cremated remains of Robert Clinton Curtis Sr., the father of Kevin Curtis, the owner of the car.

Robert Curtis, a native of Maine, was 75 when he died on March 12, 2013, at his home in Florida after a brief illness, according to his obituary. A fan of the outdoors, he had eight sons, three daughters, 29 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

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