For nearly a century, the Italian army has produced medicine for the country.  This year, they’ve taken on the production of a new drug: marijuana.

An unmistakable aroma fills the air of an immaculate lab.  Dressed in a white lab coat, Antonio Medica carefully clips away at a leafy green plant with his garden scissors. It’s a big day for him. He’s finally harvesting his first marijuana crop. 

But Medica isn’t your next-door grower.  He’s a colonel in the Italian army. His lab is inside the army’s pharmaceutical facility — a highly guarded base in Florence. This year, they’ve taken on the production of a new drug.

“Our variety contains the two active principals, THC and Cannabidiol,” said Medica. 

The drugs are marketed as incense, herbal mixtures or potpourri to mask their actual purpose, the state says. They carry such street names as Spice, K2, Green Giant and Smacked.

ALBANY — The state is smoking out new variants of synthetic pot after a rash of hospitalizations statewide related to the dangerous product.

Gov. Cuomo’s Health Department is set to expand a 2012 regulation that banned a whole range of synthetic cannabis-like products and bath salts.

Manufacturers have found ways around the ban by using different chemical combinations not referenced in the 2012 regulation that created even stronger compounds, Cuomo says.

Five coveted spots up for grabs as medical marijuana gets off the ground.

The nine-acre greenhouse outside Rochester leased by the Compassionate Care Center of New York is fully operational: It has temperature control and irrigation, and produces flowers, vegetables and, soon, with any luck, marijuana.

It will be no trouble to produce carefully engineered strains of medical marijuana by January, said Lewis Goldberg, a spokesman for the company. That's when the state's Department of Health has pledged to have New York's cannabis program up and running.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - The names of state medical marijuana dispensaries and their employees will soon be made public, Gov. Susana Martinez announced.

The governor’s announcement came Wednesday, less than a week after a lawsuit was filed in an effort to strike down the regulation allowing the names of medical marijuana producers to be confidential.

The decision will only apply to producers and their employees, and not the nearly 16,000 patients certified in the state’s Medical Cannabis Program, the Albuquerque Journal reported (http://bit.ly/1f6NdHN ).

As our nation’s baby boomers age, they're facing a multitude of health-related ailments and costs. One of the most prominent concerns is the prevalence of chronic arthritis, an ailment that affects 52.5 million adults today, and that number is expected to increase to 67 million by 2030. There's no cure for arthritis, and limited treatment options exist for the painful and limiting disease.

Break a bone? Your doctor may soon provide you with an unexpected prescription – marijuana.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered that a component of marijuana “significantly helps heal bone fractures,” university officials announced Thursday.

The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, found that the non-psychotropic cannabidiol, or CBD, considerably sped up the healing process of rats’ broken leg bones. Those benefits were also present, even when the molecule was separated from THC, the major psychoactive component of cannabis.

DENVER (CBS4)– Many military veterans are upset after the Colorado Board of Health failed to approve Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, as a condition for medical marijuana.

“I’m angry, I’m upset and I’m confused,” said U.S. Army veteran Rusty Guenard who expressed his disbelief after Wednesday’s vote.

Board members voted 6-2 against adding PTSD to the medical conditions approved for medical marijuana treatment.

After two hours of often times emotional public testimony, the vote was announced and shouts of outrage filled a packed house at the Colorado Board of Health.

“You’re a bunch of liars and you all gotta sleep with yourselves!” said one medical marijuana supporter.

Shocking few while pleasing many, an April study published this year by NCBI (PubMed.gov) demonstrated scientifically what most new intuitively; marijuana’s cannabinoids significantly mitigate aggressive behavior – at least in the researchers test mice.

Scientists from the University of Valencia in Spain discovered that receptors in their animal models played a critical role in the management of social interactions and antagonistic conduct. Surmising that the CB2r cannabinoid receptors significantly reduced aggression in their animal models.

Medical marijuana for Czech patients to be grown by Elkoplast Slusovice.

"A local company won by offering lowest price per gram, which was set to 68 Czech Crowns (2.3 Euro)," said Lucie Sustkova, spokesperson for the National Agency for Drug Control.

The winner shall supply the market initially with 40kg of medical marijuana.

The availability and supply of medical marijuana will be responsibility of the National Agency for Medical Use of Marijuana, which is part of National Agency for Drug Control.

Patients will no longer be forced to obtain marijuana on black market or illegally grow it at their homes.