PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday preventing the town of Smithfield from enforcing a recent amendment to its zoning ordinance that restricted the cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana.

In his decision, Superior Court Associate Justice Richard A. Licht questioned whether local communities had the power to regulate "small-scale" medical marijuana cultivation under its zoning authority, which traditionally has been used to determine land use.

In April, the Smithfield Town Council passed an ordinance that limits licensed medical marijuana patients to two mature plants and two seedlings, and only at a patient's primary residence. Rhode Island law specifically allows for the cultivation of 12 mature plants and outlines where medical marijuana can be grown.

[continues 422 words]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A federal anti-drug program has asked Rhode Island - -- and more than two dozen other states where medical marijuana is legal -- to turn over data about patients in the program.

The move has alarmed some who question why the federal government, which has at times appeared to be antagonistic towards the drug, is interested in the information.

The National Marijuana Initiative, an arm of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which reports to the White House, contacted the Rhode Island Department of Health in August seeking data from 2012 to 2016 on the number of patients in the program, as well as patients' age, gender and a breakdown of the medical conditions under which they qualified.

[continues 583 words]

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - After three defendants fatally overdosed in a single week last year, it became clear that Buffalo's ordinary drug treatment court was no match for the heroin and painkiller crisis.

Now the city is experimenting with the nation's first opioid crisis intervention court, which can get users into treatment within hours of their arrest instead of days, requires them to check in with a judge every day for a month instead of once a week, and puts them on strict curfews. Administering justice takes a back seat to the overarching goal of simply keeping defendants alive.

[continues 796 words]