Whether you love it or hate it, it's a fact that 29 states so far have some form of marijuana decriminalization or legalization, with more considering the possibility. People have strong opinions about the legalization of marijuana -- but how often are those opinions based on science and an understanding of evolving best practices?

It's high time we have a national conversation that is rational, science-based and open-minded around the many public health implications. Substance use disorders, youth prevention, drugged driving, health effects, pesticides -- the list is long, and these questions make it a complex process for states working to translate policy and legislation into reasonable regulation.

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ALBANY - New York will allow ointments, lozenges and chewable tablets as part of its medical marijuana program while the state's training program for doctors will be cut in half, the Department of Health announced Thursday.

Health regulators on Thursday proposed a new set of regulations that would further expand the state's medical marijuana program, which the state has tried to broaden as it faced criticism from patient advocates and marijuana companies for its restrictiveness.

The new rules, which can take effect as soon as late September, ease the state's restrictions on the type of marijuana products available to certified patients by allowing lotions, ointments, patches, certain chewables and lozenges.

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NEW YORK -- A safe haven where drug users inject themselves with heroin and other drugs has been quietly operating in the United States for the past three years, a report reveals.

None were known to exist in the US until the disclosure in a medical journal, although several states and cities are pushing to establish these so-called supervised injection sites, where users can shoot up under the care of trained staff who can treat an overdose if necessary.

In the report released Tuesday, two researchers said they've been evaluating an underground safe place that opened in 2014. As a condition of their research, they didn't disclose the location of the facility -- which is unsanctioned and potentially illegal -- or the social service agency running it.

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NEW YORK (AP) - AlphaBay, the now-shuttered online marketplace that authorities say traded in illegal drugs, firearms and counterfeit goods, wasn't all that different from any other e-commerce site, court documents show.

Not only did it work hard to match buyers and sellers and to stamp out fraud, it offered dispute-resolution services when things went awry and kept a public-relations manager to promote the site to new users.

This screen grab provided by the U.S. Department of Justice shows a hidden website that has been seized as part of a law enforcement operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and European law enforcement agencies acting through Europol. On Thursday, July 20, 2017, authorities announced that two of the world's most notorious "darknet" marketplaces, AlphaBay and Hansa, have been knocked out in a one-two punch that officials say yielded a trove of new intelligence about drugs and weapons merchants that operate from hidden corners of the internet. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP)

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A special legislative task force formed to examine the effect of the opioid addiction scourge on Long Island and elsewhere throughout the state is scheduled to meet Wednesday in Mineola.

The State Senate's Joint Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction meeting will be held at 4 p.m. at the NYU Winthrop Hospital Research and Academic Center in Mineola, a hospital spokesman said.

Similar meetings have been held around the state as the task force seeks to understand how the increase in overdoses and addiction connected to heroin and other opioids is impacting communities.

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions has compared cannabis to heroin.

NEW YORK - In a national vote widely viewed as a victory for conservatives, last year's elections also yielded a win for liberals in eight states that legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use.

But the growing industry is facing a federal crackdown under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has compared cannabis to heroin.

A task force Sessions appointed to, in part, review links between violent crimes and marijuana is scheduled to release its findings by the end of the month. But he has already asked Senate leaders to roll back rules that block the Justice Department from bypassing state laws to enforce a federal ban on medical marijuana.

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Now the state is taking steps to increase the crop.

"We want to be the nation's leader in hemp production,'' Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday shortly before signing legislation intended to boost the commercialization of industrial hemp, which is used in some 25,000 products from cosmetics and animal feed to clothing and biofuels.

The state is also pumping $10 million into research for the now-fledgling industry, State Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball said, after the federal government in 2014 relaxed rules governing the growing of the crop. Industrial hemp, unlike its marijuana cousin, contains no or minimal levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, the ingredient that gets users high.

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ALBANY - Veterans groups are pressing Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow those with post-traumatic stress disorder to use medical marijuana, urging him to sign a bill that will soon head to his desk.

The state Senate voted late last month to add PTSD to the list of illnesses and ailments eligible for the state's medical-marijuana program, about six weeks after the Assembly voted to do the same.

It remains unclear, however, whether Cuomo will sign the bill that could significantly expand the number of eligible patients in New York's medical-marijuana program, which is among the more restrictive in the nation.

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School districts on Long Island and statewide are stocking naloxone onsite in school buildings to have the opioid antidote at the ready because of the growing issue of abuse of the deadly drugs, educators and health officials said.

At least 340 schools across the state, including dozens on Long Island, have provided training for school nurses or other personnel about how to administer naloxone, according to the state Education Department.

The Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, based in Westbury, also has seen interest grow in instructing school personnel about the antidote, said Reisa Berg, director of education and prevention.

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A Wilson man said Friday that he was under the influence of marijuana when he caused a fatal crash last summer in Porter.

Michael A. Buchalski II, 22, of Randall Road, pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and driving while impaired by drugs, in exchange for a two-year sentence - one year on each count - in the Niagara County Jail.

State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr. scheduled sentencing for Aug. 11. The judge also revoked Buchalski's bail and sent him to jail immediately to begin serving his time for causing the death of Michael G. Willimott Jr., 38, of Niagara Falls.

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ALBANY - When the State of New York approved the use of medical marijuana in 2014, the applicants to dispense the drug were vetted and reviewed by a panel of experts said to have deep backgrounds in several fields.

The identities of the panel's members had been a mystery since. By July 2015, the panel had chosen five companies that would receive exclusive statewide medical marijuana licenses, a potentially lucrative award in a state with nearly 20 million residents and hundreds of thousands of potential patients.

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At every school in New Rochelle, just north of the Bronx, in Westchester, there is a locked medicine cabinet in the nurse's office, stocked with things like EpiPens for allergic reactions, inhalers for asthma, Tylenol for aches and pains.

Now, those cabinets also include naloxone, an antidote for people who are overdosing on opioids like heroin. Given as an injection or a nasal spray, naloxone can quickly revive someone who is not breathing. The city keeps it in every nurse's office, including in its elementary schools.

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[photo] Kate Hintz of North Salem, with her daughter, Morgan Jones, diagnosed with Dravet syndrome. Hintz, director of Compassionate Care New York, says the state must expand access with more dispensaries.(Photo: COURTESY/Jennifer Tonetti Spellman.)

The problems with New York's medical marijuana program are well documented.

From the day the Compassionate Care Act was signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, patient advocates knew that the law -- a compromise born of a nearly 20 year struggle -- was seriously flawed.

Those flaws are numerous, and they all work against patients: a very limited number of eligible conditions, restricting patient certification only to physicians, severely restricting the number of producers and dispensaries, limiting to five the number of products a company could sell, and prohibiting forms of the medicine that have proved popular and effective in other states.

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Mom guilt is here to stay. The stress of trying to be a calm, nurturing parent while also trying to keep our jobs, stay on top of school notices and remain married isn't going away. Not to mention the feeling that we're doing none of them particularly well.

But that won't stop some people from trying anything. Author Ayelet Waldman, for instance, tried LSD. In her new book, "A Really Good Day," she documents her experiment with "microdosing," taking very small quantities of LSD -- enough to make you calmer, more aware of your environment, more able to focus on your work, but without all those wacky hallucinations.

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[photo] The state senator wants more drug disposal sites and access to medication to treat addiction.

NEW CITY - Opioid deaths, including fatal heroin overdoses, are on the rise in Rockland County, where state Sen. David Carlucci is pushing a pair of proposals to help addicts.

There were 37 opioid deaths in Rockland last year, up from 25 in 2015, according to a report from the Rockland County Medical Examiner's Office.

That's compared to 36 opioid deaths in total between 2003 and 2009 in Rockland, according to Carlucci's office.

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Even as more and more states allow their residents to use marijuana, the federal government is continuing to obstruct scientists from studying whether the drug is good or bad for people's health.

A report published last week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine points out that scientists who want to study cannabis have to seek approvals from federal, state and local agencies and depend on just one lab, at the University of Mississippi, for samples. As a result, far too little is known about the health effects of a substance that 28 states have decided can be used as medicine and eight states and the District of Columbia have approved for recreational use.

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Nineteen suspected opiate deaths in the first 19 days of January have Erie County on pace for 365 deaths in 2017.

It could be worse. Last year started more deadly.

During the early weeks and months of 2016, the epidemic was claiming so many lives that county officials projected more than 500 people would die that year. The pace, however, slowed as the county took aggressive steps, including promotion of the widespread use of the opiate antidote Naloxone.

By year's end, 247 people had died in confirmed overdoses, with 77 more suspected deaths, officials said Thursday.

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Women can blame their cocaine addictions on their biology, according to a new study that claims that ladies are more susceptible to the drug's addictive qualities.

Hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle, specifically spikes in estrogen, intensify the drug's pleasurable effects, according to researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai on The Upper East Side.

"Our study will change the way we think about addiction research to emphasize the need to further understand female subjects, as most research on addiction has been conducted in male subjects," the study's lead author, Dr. Erin Calipari, said in a statement.

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Joseph Tigano III is spending 20 years in prison for growing marijuana.

He grew a lot of it. No one disputes that. And this was his second felony conviction. So no one, not even Tigano's lawyers, suggests the Cattaraugus County man should go unpunished.

But 20 years?

Even the federal judge who sentenced Tigano in 2015 thought it was too heavy a price to pay.

"It is much greater than necessary," U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford said at the time, "but I do not have a choice."

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ALBANY - Gov. Andrew Cuomo is making another pitch for the state to decriminalize possession of some marijuana.

Cuomo quietly included the proposal in a 380-page State of the State message that he provided late Wednesday to the state Legislature.

"The illegal sale of marijuana cannot and will not be tolerated in New York state, but data consistently show that recreational users of marijuana pose little to no threat to public safety," is on Page 191 of Cuomo's message.

The idea will again stoke a debate in Albany after the issue gained prominence in 2012 -- when the Democratic governor first made the push to decriminalize possession of marijuana.

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