Just in time for the legalization of medical marijuana to take effect in New York, one cannabis distributor has gotten Kosher status for its products.  

In New York, the Orthodox Union, an organization that checks and certifies edible products to see if religious standards are met in their preparation, announced it will certify products from Vireo Health. Based in Minneapolis, MN, the company has a facility in Upstate New York.  

Vireo is one of five providers of cannabis products certified to operate in New York’s programs.   Medical marijuana is now available in the state. The change was ushered with a simple ribbon cutting Thursday morning.  

People who want to buy marijuana in Maryland for medicinal purposes are probably going to have to wait until 2017, nearly four years after the state made it legal.

The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission announced Monday that it will not award licenses to grow and process the drug until sometime in the summer — and industry officials say it will take an additional four to six months after that for the product to be ready to sell.

The commission said it has no target date for allowing retail dispensaries to begin operating and cannot say when marijuana will be available to patients.

Maryland’s medical cannabis program was approved by lawmakers in 2013, but it had to be adjusted multiple times before applications could be sought and submitted.

A Knesset lobby for the use of medical cannabis has been established with Likud MK Sharren Haskel at its head, it was announced on Thursday. “It has become accepted that medical cannabis has significant health benefits and an important place in the development of the world of medicine,” Haskel said, “but there are many impediments to its use. The trend is to limit this development, even tough there are many seriously ill patients who need it.”

A cannabis-based drug has significantly reduced the number of seizures in children and young adults who are suffering from severe cases of epilepsies and are no longer responding to standard anti-epileptic drugs. The purified cannabinoid called Epidiolex reduced the monthly motor seizures of the patients by 36.5 percent on its initial trial.

The patients, who commonly experience 30 motor seizures a month before the trial, experienced only 15.8 motor seizures in 12 weeks when treated with Epidiolex. Researchers from UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco said the drug could lead to a new treatment for young patients with epilepsies that would be more safe and effective.

Richard Haines has suffered from Crohn’s disease since he was 15-years-old. In all he has been through 33 gastrointestinal surgeries. In just the last 3 months, he has spent 6 weeks in the hospital. Haines was on the cusp of running out of options to help with his Crohn’s.

Haines’ doctor had suggested that he try a cannabis suppository. Living in Denver, Colorado, you would think that would be an easy task. But Haines had a lot of trouble finding a dispensary or caregiver that made a medical grade suppository.

New York will roll out its medical marijuana program Thursday when dispensaries open, dispersed throughout the state from New York City to Albany. Eight dispensaries are slated to launch this week.

New York will roll out its medical marijuana program Thursday when dispensaries open, dispersed throughout the state from New York City to Albany. Eight dispensaries are slated to launch this week.

In some of the most significant international cannabis legislation of 2015, Germany approved the creation of a special government agency to oversee the production of medicinal cannabis in the European nation. This progressive move puts the German government in the business of producing and making available high-quality medicinal cannabis via safe access to thousands of its severely ill citizens.

“This paves the way for the first cultivation of medicinal cannabis in Germany,”