SEATTLE -- Five years after Washington launched its pioneering legal marijuana market, officials are proposing an overhaul of the state's industry rules, with plans for boosting minority ownership of pot businesses, paving the way for home deliveries of medical cannabis and letting the smallest growers increase the size of their operations to become more competitive.

Liquor and Cannabis Board Director Rick Garza detailed the proposals -- part of what the board calls "Cannabis 2.0" -- in an interview with The Associated Press. It's an effort to picture what the legal marijuana market will look like over the next five years, after spending the past five years largely regulating by reaction as the difficulties of building an industry from infancy absorbed the agency's attention.

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SEATTLE - On gritty streets where heroin, fentanyl and meth stride like Death Eaters, where for decades both drugs and the war on drugs have wrecked lives, the city of Seattle is pioneering a bold approach to narcotics that should be a model for America.

Anyone caught here with a small amount of drugs - even heroin - isn't typically prosecuted. Instead, that person is steered toward social services to get help.

This model is becoming the consensus preference among public health experts in the U.S. and abroad. Still, it shocks many Americans to see no criminal penalty for using drugs illegally, so it takes courage and vision to adopt this approach: a partial retreat in the war on drugs coupled with a stepped-up campaign against addiction.

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A group of Colorado researchers recently studied how cannabis use affects athletes and found a possible role between the plant and pain management.

The study, "Cannabis use in active athletes: Behaviors related to subjective effects," looked at cannabis use patterns and its effects in a community-based sample of adult athletes. According to the study's authors, there had been no previous academic research done on cannabis use's subjective effects for adult athletes.

"There was not a lot of research on how weed helps," explains Dr. Joanna Zeiger, one of the researchers who conducted the study for Canna Research Group. "Athletes typically don't sleep well and are anxious, so we wanted to see what percentage of them use cannabis, their patterns of use, and what the effects are."

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A year after medical marijuana became legal in Oklahoma, state lawmakers and marijuana advocates seem to have found a balance in implementing State Question 788 and moving the industry forward into the near future.

Sweeping legislation -- the result of a major compromise between legislators and cannabis advocates -- to regulate the medical marijuana industry will go into effect later this month.

Meanwhile, there are whispers of an initiative petition to put the question of legalizing recreational marijuana to a statewide vote, which could shake up Oklahoma's fledgling marijuana industry and the new regulatory framework.

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Claire Alcindor's fourth pregnancy last year was the hardest. The only way she could keep food down was by smoking marijuana, which also helped with her depression.

She was living in Maryland, in a location where marijuana is legal, but still worried "people would think I'm a bad mom" - or worse. Friends warned Child Protective Services might start investigating her. But it seemed worth the risk, especially given the reported effects of some prescription nausea and depression drugs.

"I needed to eat, I needed to stay alive and survive this pregnancy," says Alcindor, who now lives in Las Vegas.

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New York has decriminalised the use of marijuana - becoming the 16th US state to do so.

The move, which would make possession of a small amount of the drug a violation rather than a felony, was signed into law by governor Andrew Cuomo.

The measure also demands that criminal records of offences linked to low-level marijuana cases either be marked as expunged, or destroyed - an apparent reflection that in the past communities of colour suffered unduly from different application of the law.

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Mark A. R. Kleiman, a prominent drug policy apostate who favored what he viewed as a sensible middle ground on marijuana - eliminate criminal sanctions for selling and using it but preclude full-blown commercial legalization - died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 68.

Kelly Kleiman, his sister and only immediate survivor, said the cause was lymphoma and complications of a kidney transplant he received from her in April.

Author, blogger, adviser to government and a teacher at New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, Professor Kleiman considered himself a "policy entrepreneur."

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No doubt there is such a thing as ideological drift in politics, especially in primaries. Candidates often become unmoored and move right or left in a search for their party's most ardent activists.

But sometimes this drift isn't ideological. It's generational.

Last week, Teresa Tomlinson rolled out a package of policies she would pursue if she succeeds in her quest to replace U.S. Sen. David Perdue next year. One of them was something of a surprise.

"It is time we address at the federal level the decriminalization, legalization, and regulation of marijuana as a medicinal and recreational substance," the Democrat posted on her website.

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Smoking pot cost Kimberly Cue her job.

Ms. Cue, a 44-year-old chemical engineer from Silicon Valley, received an offer this year from a medical device manufacturer only to have it rescinded when the company found out that she smoked prescription marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

"My email was set up with the company," she said. "My business cards were printed." But after a pre-employment drug test came back positive for marijuana, a human resources representative told her the job was no longer hers.

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Two major universities are creating the first career paths for young people interested in the business of marijuana.

The University of Maryland announced in June that its School of Pharmacy will offer a master's degree in medical cannabis, and a new course is also being added this fall at Cornell University's School of Integrative Plant Science called "Cannabis: Biology, Society and Industry."

"I advise a lot of students in a lot of majors and they're all like, this is going to be cool," said Antonio DiTommaso, program director for agricultural sciences at Cornell. "I think some of it is just a novelty, but it's really going to be based on the cropping, the agronomics, the medicinal aspect, the chemistry, consumer attitudes and policy."

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Southern California immigrant with DACA status travels to Mexico so he can become a legal permanent resident. But instead of getting the OK for a green card, he's prevented from re-entering U.S.

Jose Palomar packed only a small suitcase because he thought his trip to Mexico would be brief.

Seeking legal permanent residency, he had no choice but to go. But now, nearly two months later, he's still in Mexico and barred from returning to his home in the United States.

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Marijuana's role in the health care universe has grown exponentially over the past few years. Currently, 33 U.S. states have legalized the use of medical marijuana, and more and more states are considering making it legal for recreational purposes as well. As cannabis becomes more accessible, many people are turning to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) products to treat health issues like rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease (the aches and pains of arthritis).

Unfortunately, because cannabis remains illegal and classified as a Schedule 1 drug under federal law (defined as being of no medical use), there has been a troubling lack of scientific and medical research on the effectiveness of cannabis treatments. This dearth of evidence-based data has left many health care providers unable to counsel their patients on everything from whether a cannabis treatment could be effective for their condition, to what dosages are appropriate, to how cannabis might interact with their other medications or health conditions.

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Creation of a Cannabis Commission to regulate medical marijuana in the state was approved by the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Thursday night with no votes to spare.

House Bill 3468, by Rep. John Jordan, R-Yukon, sets up an independent commission that would be activated if voters approve State Question 788 on June 26. That question would legalize medical uses of medical marijuana, although opponents say its broad construction would essentially make policing recreational use impossible.

"If you're for full-on recreational marijuana, this is not your bill," Jordan said in explaining the bill.

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It's been about three years since one DeKalb County city made history with the most liberal marijuana enforcement policy in the state. Since then, several more municipalities have followed suit, eliminating the possibility of jail time and severely reducing the fine for possessing one ounce or less of weed.

Months after the state Legislature passed a bill legalizing medical marijuana sales, the push toward recreational decriminalization on the local level is continuing; the city of Chamblee is currently considering a measure that echoes the rules in Clarkston, which passed its marijuana ordinance in July 2016.

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Authorities from seven states, the District of Columbia and some major U.S. cities are backing a Philadelphia effort to open a supervised drug-injection site, which the federal government is trying to stop in court.

Safehouse, a nonprofit in Philadelphia, seeks to open a site where people can use drugs in a safe and sanitary environment with help to avoid overdose fatalities. Federal prosecutors sued the nonprofit in February, arguing it would violate federal law by creating a place for people to use illegal drugs such as heroin and bootleg fentanyl.

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A law that took effect July 1 legalized hemp and CBD products containing traces of THC, the compound in marijuana that gets you high. But field tests and crime labs haven't caught up.

Texas hemp enterpreneur Zachary Miller, interviewed here by a television reporter, was arrested in Okaloosa County after products found in his car tested positive for THC. THC is illegal in Florida unless prescribed by a doctor for medical use but trace amounts are allowed in now-legal hemp products. [Courtesy of Zachary Miller]

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The waiting room at NiaMedic Healthcare & Research Services looked just like every other doctor's office at the Saddleback Medical Center in California's Laguna Hills: unflattering overhead lighting, landscape paintings and a smiling person in scrubs behind the reception desk. It was the ideal location to attract NiaMedic's target demographic: seniors. Saddleback is nestled in the rolling hills of a region surrounded by at least 15 retirement communities, including the over 18,000-resident Laguna Woods Village. But the patients who come through NiaMedic's doors generally start with the same question: Can marijuana help?

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Humphrey Bogart had a way with life's little vices. When he bought you a drink, the critic Kenneth Tynan recalled, he wouldn't just pass it across - "he'd take me by the wrist and screw the glass into my hand as if it was a lamp socket." Bogart's manner with a cigarette was so vivid that his surname became an admonishing hippie-era verb: "Don't bogart that joint."

I've tried repeatedly, over the course of my life, to become a druggie. It's never taken. But even I know what it means to bogart something: to hoard it, to refuse to share. It wasn't until I read Lizzie Post's helpful and inquisitive new book, "Higher Etiquette: A Guide to the World of Cannabis, From Dispensaries to Dinner Parties," however, that I fully understood the term's provenance.

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Kush. Bud. Herb.

Who knows what to call marijuana these days?

Born of the need for secrecy, slang has long dominated pot culture. But as entrepreneurs seek to capitalize on new laws legalizing recreational and medical marijuana, they too are grappling with what to call it.

Heading to the dispensary to buy a few nugs or dabs? Marketers seeking to exploit the $10 billion market would prefer that you just called it cannabis.

Shirley Halperin, an author of 2007's "Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life," has seen the shift in recent years. Not long ago, she met with an executive to talk about his company's products. "He physically winced when I said the word 'pot,'" she recalled. "Businesses don't want to call it 'weed.'"

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Alex Berenson's allegation that public support for marijuana law reform is waning ("Marijuana Activists Pass Their High Point," op-ed, June 26) is nothing short of a pipe dream.

Nearly one in four Americans reside in a jurisdiction where the adult use of cannabis is legal, and 33 states regulate medical marijuana access by statute. No state has ever repealed a marijuana legalization law, and two-thirds of adults-including majorities of self-identified Democrats, Republicans and independents-endorse making the plant legal, according to the latest Gallup poll. As more states amend their cannabis laws, public support for legalization continues to rise.

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