Local officials - and more important state lawmakers - would be wise to study up on Harrisburg's new ordinance reducing penalties for marijuana possession within city limits.

After nearly a half-year of debate, which included council meetings and meetings with the public, Harrisburg's city council unanimously approved a measure last week which would essentially equate being busted with a small amount of marijuana to receiving a traffic ticket.

The argument for the move is that the punishment is more befitting the crime. A person now charged with possession of marijuana will face a $75 fine for a first and second offense with a third offense leading to a misdemeanor. Additionally, someone nabbed smoking the drug in public will face at $150 fine, an amendment officials said is to deter public use of the drug.

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Proposals for Sites Starting to Bubble Up in Delco

UPPER MERION - Passage of legislation that legalized medical marijuana in Pennsylvania marked the end of seven long, hard years of negotiation. Now that Gov. Tom Wolf has signed the measure into law, the push is on to explain the ramifications, including possible business opportunities tied to the medical marijuana field, including a couple that are being bandied about here in Delaware County.

Wolf, who had adamantly backed the bill through approval by both the House and Senate, swiftly added his signature, which made the bill law.

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When are we going to get past all these drug arrests and imprisonments, repeated year after year without stemming their use ("With Addiction Primed by Pain Pills, Heroin Dealers Move In," June 12)? Can't we stop treating drugs as a crime problem, rather than a health problem? We stopped treating alcohol usage and sale as a crime over 90 years ago. As Michael Botticelli, the White House's director of national drug control policy, admitted recently: "We can't arrest and incarcerate addiction out of people . ... It's really inhumane, ineffective, and costs us billions of dollars."

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Prohibited From Taking Drug Across State Lines

Parents hoping to treat seriously ill children with medical marijuana cheered when Pennsylvania's new law included a "safe harbor" provision allowing them to import the medicines right away, rather than waiting for the law to take full effect in two years.

Legal experts are now saying there may not be much to celebrate.

That's because the state can't protect residents from federal laws against moving pot across state borders.

In Pennsylvania, where it's not yet legal to sell marijuana products, the only way parents can get such drugs is to bring them in.

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It Can't Be Bought Here Legally, and Federal Law Bars Bringing It In.

Parents hoping to treat seriously ill children with medical marijuana cheered when Pennsylvania's new law included a "safe harbor" provision allowing them to import the medicines right away, rather than waiting for the law to take full effect in two years.

Legal experts are now saying there may not be much to celebrate.

The fact is, the state can't protect residents from federal laws against moving pot across state borders.

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The high costs of incarceration have prompted most states and the federal government to reduce their prison populations. Now, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, there is evidence that doing so does not increase crime.

Researchers analyzed prison and crime data from all 50 states between 2006, when the reform movement began, through 2014, the most recent year for which data are complete. They found that in 27 states that have decreased their prison populations, crime also has decreased.

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On May 17, Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Act (Act 16) went into effect, bringing me one step closer to the realization of a dream. I don't have a personal medical need for marijuana, nor am I looking forward to being able to legally smoke it; I've never been interested. No, as a "certifiable plant geek" my dream is to be able to try my hand at growing this intriguing, illicit plant with the distinctive leaves.

To me, it's paradoxical that marijuana is off-limits. Poison ivy is a threat to many people, responsible for countless collective hours of itching, oozing, blistered misery, trips to the doctor, steroid use, and days missed from work. Despite all this, it grows freely almost everywhere. You can have it on your property and no one will come arrest you.

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HARRISBURG - Children with serious medical conditions will have first access to legal medical marijuana in Pennsylvania, possibly as soon as next month, state Health Secretary Karen Murphy said Wednesday.

Murphy, R.N., Ph.D., a Scranton native, outlined the department's plans to write temporary regulations so those children under the age of 18 and their caregivers can obtain medical marijuana in other states where it's legal while Pennsylvania's new medical marijuana law is fully implemented.

The regulations to be issued in July will spell out how they can obtain ID cards so they can purchase marijuana from dispensaries in other states and not run afoul of current Pennsylvania law.

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Experts in Several Fields Are Getting Ready Years Ahead of Medical-Marijuana Sales.

Medical marijuana won't be available in Pennsylvania for at least two years, yet politicians, academics, and entrepreneurs are already scrambling to brand themselves as industry leaders and experts.

The state's medical-marijuana law eventually will make pharmaceutical cannabis products available to residents who suffer from serious medical conditions. Eligible ailments include autism, cancer, epilepsy, and chronic pain.

The details of the law still need to be hammered out. The stakes are high. The specifics, which remain unwritten, may determine how Pennsylvania's medical marijuana is grown, processed, and distributed and who will win the coveted licenses to do so.

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Can the legalization of one drug help decrease abuse of another drug? It's possible that medical marijuana could be used to fight the epidemic of opioid addiction that has resulted in numerous deaths from overdoses in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2014, 46 people die every day in the United States from an overdose of prescription opioid or narcotic painkillers, such as Vicodin (hydrocodone-acetaminophen), OxyContin (oxycodone), Opana (oxymorphone), and methadone. The CDC found that in 2012, health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers, which is enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.

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Role As Medicine Remains Controversial

Medical marijuana has been legalized in Pennsylvania, as well as 23 other states and the District of Columbia, but there are still many questions about how exactly the drug can be used as medicine.

Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Act (MMA), or Senate Bill 3, lists 17 "serious medical conditions" that qualify for treatment with medical marijuana. These conditions include cancer, HIV/AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathies, Huntington's disease, Crohn's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, intractable seizures, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia and autism.

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ANITA GUPTA first suspected that the Philadelphia heroin trade could be taking a deadlier turn months ago, when she saw overdose patients at Hahnemann University Hospital who didn't respond as they should have to the antidote drug emergency workers gave them.

"The symptoms were worse than we were used to seeing," said Gupta, an anesthesiologist, pharmacist and pain specialist at Drexel University College of Medicine. "We were getting patients with symptoms of near-death, and often required multiple doses of the antidote naloxone."

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Medical marijuana has been legalized in Pennsylvania, as well as 23 other states and the District of Columbia, but there are still many questions about how exactly the drug can be used as medicine.

Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Act (MMA), or Senate Bill 3, lists 17 "serious medical conditions" that qualify for treatment with medical marijuana. These conditions include cancer, HIV/AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathies, Huntington's disease, Crohn's disease, posttraumatic stress disorder, intractable seizures, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia and autism.

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Can the legalization of one drug help decrease abuse of another drug? It's possible that medical marijuana could be used to fight the epidemic of opioid addiction that has resulted in numerous deaths from overdoses in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2014, 46 people die every day in the United States from an overdose of prescription opioid or narcotic painkillers, such as Vicodin (hydrocodone-acetaminophen), OxyContin (oxycodone), Opana (oxymorphone), and methadone. The CDC found that in 2012, health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers, which is enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.

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Legalization Has Patients and Businesses Seeing Green

Pennsylvania joined the growing list of states to legalize medical marijuana when Gov. Tom Wolf signed Senate Bill 3, the Medical Marijuana Act, into law on April 17. To date, 23 other states and Washington D.C. have legalized either medical marijuana, recreational marijuana or both.

It's been about a month since the passage of the MMA, as the law is known, but it will be a while before marijuana growers and dispensaries are up and running.

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To the Times: "Today is a beautiful day in Darby."

I read these words from Mayor Helen Thomas and it brought back memories of all my favorite Darby traditions; the Memorial Day parade rich with culture, music, and a collective sense of Darby pride, the BVM carnival where I overstuffed myself on funnel cake and "wooder" ice, and the annual Community Day at the old Darby Police station in which I received my first license to ride a bike!

That is truly what a beautiful day in Darby means to me, but these memories came flooding back amongst a statement that was made on a very tragic day. A statement that brutally confirms that Darby has seen its best days. I write this in frustration and through tears because I am a young woman who was born and raised in Darby to two wonderful parents who were also born and raised here as well. The faces in those mug shots staring back at me are my family, my friends, my first crush, and my last connection to a small town I left many years ago in search of better opportunities.

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UPPER DARBY - The life of Bernadette Scarduzio wasn't always a struggle. As a young girl she was active, played sports, enjoyed freedoms that most neglect as liberating experiences - the ability to walk without support, the dexterity to open a can of soda, the strength to climb a set of stairs.

At only 36 years old, due to a rare neurological disorder, she relies on a motorized chair for mobility and requires caretakers day and night to assist with otherwise uncomplicated tasks. Strenuous physical therapy multiple times a week is simply to stave off the rapid effects of muscle degeneration.

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When the 1849 Gold Rush hit, it wasn't the miners who got rich. The businessmen who sold blue jeans and pickaxes amassed the real fortunes.

When Gov. Wolf signed a medical marijuana bill into law on April 17, Pennsylvania became the 24th state to legalize medical cannabis.

In Old City on Saturday, about 450 entrepreneurs and venture capitalists gathered at the Chemical Heritage Foundation for what was billed as the "Innovation in the Cannabis Industry" conference.

There were heady predictions - euphoric estimates of how large the marijuana industry could grow and the many opportunities for profits it might bring. "This eclipses the birth of the internet," said panelist Leslie Bocskor, an investment banker. "This is the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity we've seen in generations."

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Editor: Medical marijuana has now been legalized in 24 states, with about 51 percent of the U.S. population. Its use it well-known for treating patients suffering from a range of serious conditions, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other disorders.

In light of the effectiveness of medical marijuana, I urge our representatives in Washington, including U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright and Sens. Pat Toomey and Bob Casey, to take the initiative and sponsor a bill that would remove marijuana from its present classification as a Schedule I substance that has no medical use. That classification is outdated and clearly false.

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Well. finally. State lawmakers have passed and Gov. Tom Wolf said he will sign legislation allowing usage of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.

That only took . what, 20 years?

California became the first state to allow medical marijuana way back in 1996.

Sen Daylin Leach, D-Delaware County, has introduced medical marijuana legislation every session since 2009.

Sen. Mike Folmer, R-parts of northeastern York County, has pushed for this compassionate treatment - on behalf of his "Momma Bears," parents of kids suffering from epilepsy and other ailments - for many years.

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